EXCERPT FROM BOOK
William Franklin Conner
William Franklin Conner, born January 7, 1845, was the ninth child and fourth son of the sixteen children of Maxirnilian Haney and Martha Palmer Conner. His three older brothers were M. C. (Mack), Thomas, and James Madison and the five older sisters were Mary Elizabeth, Phoebe Caroline, Sarah, Mariah, and Martha Jane. William Franklin, or Bill as he was known by both family and friends, was raised in the family home on the Birchwood Pike in the Salem Community of Hamilton County. At the time of Bill’s birth, his parents had lived within the Ocoee District just less than ten years and were farming a total of 160 acres. As soon as he was old enough to do so, Bill became actively involved in the farming operation of his father and by 1860 – when he was fifteen – he was helping his father farm what had grown to be 390 acres. In the late summer of 1861 as the Civil War was just beginning, Bill saw his brother, James Madison, enlist in the Confederate First Tennessee Cavalry, Company B, and move with the unit when it was assigned to Knoxville for training. Bill remained at home and continued to farm with his father.
By the third year of the war, Bill faced conscription into the Confederate army. Confederate draft laws then permitted enlistees to choose to be assigned to the unit originally assembled from the local community whereas draftees were assigned to the Confederate infantry where manpower shortages were most severe. Bill chose to volunteer for his brother’s unit and was enlisted in nearby Cleveland, Tennessee, in August 1863. After very limited training, he joined his brother in Company B, First Tennessee Cavalry, then located in Loudon, Tennessee, and shortly was moved to the Army of Tennessee under General Braxton Bragg. Bragg had recently evacuated Chattanooga on September 6, 1863, and had retreated into Georgia. Following Bragg’s retreat through Chattanooga, Union General William Rosecrans moved the Federal army further south into Georgia where it was attacked by the Confederate army. Here Bill Conner saw his first action in the retreat of the Union army as it escaped back to Chattanooga following the Confederate victory in the Battle of Chickamauga. In October, Bill Conner was with his unit as part of Wheeler’s cavalry when Wheeler crossed the Tennessee River and attacked Union wagon trains supplying the army in Chattanooga. For eight anxious days, Wheeler’s cavalry was pursued by Union cavalry and other units as Wheeler destroyed wagon trains and caused much disarray among the rear units of the Union army. At midnight, October 9, Bill Conner and Wheeler’s cavalry escaped by crossing the Tennessee River near Florence, Alabama.
Following the Union breakout from Chattanooga November 1863, the First Tennessee Cavalry attacked the Federal Second Cavalry Brigade at Calhoun, Tennessee, on December 28th during which battle several members of Bill’s unit were captured. In April, the First Tennessee Cavalry was assigned to Vaughn’s Brigade under Brig. Gen. John C. Vaughn and moved north to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia as part of a small army under Brig. Gen. William “Grumble” Jones. Jones was ordered by General Robert E. Lee to halt the movement of a Union army moving south up the Shenandoah Valley. The two armies met on Sunday morning, June 5, 1864, at the small village of Piedmont, six miles northeast of Staunton. At Piedmont the First Tennessee Cavalry, fighting as infantry, encountered some of the heaviest fighting of the entire war. The regiment lost one-half of its members killed, wounded, or captured as the Confederate lines were overrun. General Jones was killed and one of the key officers of the First Tennessee Cavalry – Major John B. King of Hamilton County – was left dead on the field. Bill Conner was one of the many of his unit who were captured and, as the Confederate army retreated south, the captives were moved to Staunton and imprisoned there in a temporary stockade. Wounded Confederate soldiers were paroled and released. The other 940 captives – those without battle wounds – were destined for a Federal prison.
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