“I scarcely felt I was in exile from home when I stayed in Abingdon, for I love the place far better than Nashville and almost as much as I did Kentucky.” (The Private War of Lizzie Hardin, p.208)
“Despite its small size, many powerful southern political figures resided in Abingdon in the antebellum period. Originally a settlement at the junction of two Indian trails near the Cumberland Gap, Abingdon by 1835 consisted of only about 150 homes. However opulent brick mansions were rapidly supplanting many older wooden houses as the center became the trade center for the entire region.” (Pinnegar. p.4)
“Abingdon, the county seat [of Washington County] is 304 miles from Richmond… . The town stands on an elevation; it is substantially built, with many brick buildings; the principal street is macamadized and the town is surrounded by fertile, flourishing and thickly settled agricultural country. It contains several large mercantile stores, 2 newspaper printing offices, 1 Presbyterian, 2 Methodist, and a Swedenborgian church, a variety of mechanical and manufacturing establishments, and a population of over 1,000.” (House Divided: the Civil War Search Engine at Dickinson College)
Writing sometime around 1910, Lewis Thomson Cosby, whose father “was a prominent minister” in the Methodist Protestant Church, wrote a manuscript detailing in painstaking detail the residences and inhabitants of Abingdon “just prior to the War Between the States.” Rev. Cosby was alive when Abingdon was embroiled in the Civil War, but he makes no mention of the conflict or any pro- or anti-succession sentiment at the time. Still, it is clear that Abingdon was central to the conduct of the war, at least in the beginning. And while slavery was certainly a factor in the initial impetus to succeed from the Union, it was not a deciding factor in Abingdon in particular—or Southwest Virginia as a whole, embracing the decision to join the Confederacy.
Abingdon’s antipathy to the Northern cause was exacerbated when cavalry under the leadership of Gen. George Stoneman swept through the area in late 1864 on a mission “to destroy iron-, lead-, and saltworks that were essential to the Confederate war effort.”
“En route to Saltville…General Stoneman fought a series of engagements as he and his force rode north from Bristol. Stoneman arrived in Abingdon in the early hours of December 15. His men left a wake of destruction behind them, destroying military supplies, tearing up railroad track, burning rolling stock, and damaging the printing press of the Abingdon-Virginian newspaper.”
Stoneman’s contingent continued their progress northward, leaving behind a disaffected soldier. Captain James Wyatt, a former resident of Abingdon, had a grievance against “a prominent citizen and a member of the County Court.” To avenge himself he set fire to the Courthouse, destroying it along with a number of other structures on Courthouse Hill. He was discovered in flagrante delicto, so to speak, and was killed trying to escape. [see: Stoneman’s Raid/Wyatt’s Revenge in the list below].
Amidst the burning and looting, there was one chivalrous Yankee, who likely spared the Preston house, just east of the Courthouse from being burned. After the initial raid “a drunken soldier came to the house looking for money. He was told there was none, but he demanded to see Mr. Preston who was then ill in bed. The soldier butted down the locked bedroom door with his rifle and stood over Mr. Preston, threatening to kill him. Mr. Preston’s youngest daughter, then seventeen, ran downstairs into the street, where she stopped a Yankee officer who was riding by, by swinging on his bridle. The officer, who was a gentleman in spite of his political affiliations, went upstairs and forced the retreat of the drunken soldier. He placed a guard around the house, which subsequently prevented its being burned while much of Abingdon was destroyed… .”
- The Private War of Lizzie Hardin: a Kentucky Confederate, Eliz. P. Hardin(1839-1895), p. 208
- Brand of Infamy: A Biography of JohnBuchanan Floyd, , Charles Pinnegar, p.4
- Historical Collections, 1852: Headnote. House Divided: the Civil War Search Engine at Dickinson College
- “Abingdon in the Civil War/ Wyatt’s Revenge, Stoneman’s Raid.” Virginia Civil War Trails Marker, located near Fields-Penn House. Historical Markers Database: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=67298
- “The Bank/Preston House,” Historical Houses of Washington County, Virginia, p. 18