The story of Sam Davis
Sam Davis was born on Oct. 6, 1842. His family was middle class
farmers in Middle Tennessee who did pretty well for themselves.
The Davis moved to a new ante bellum home in Smyrna and there
Sam grew up to become one of the most promising young men in
Rutherford County. His mother and father saw to his education
and, at age 18, Sam left the family farm to attend the Western
Military Institute in Nashville.
Sam Davis excelled in college and was remembered by his classmates
as responsible and trustworthy. Two of his favorite teachers
at the Institute were Bushrod Johnson and E. Kirby Smith–both
would go on to achieve recognition as Generals in the Confederate
Army. As Sam Davis’ first year of college began to come
to an end. Word spread about the incident at Fort Sumter, S.C.
The students and teachers at the Nashville college knew that
the War Between the States had begun and that their services
would soon be required if Tennessee was going to protect itself
against an invading force.
President Lincoln’s handling of the situation in the border
state of Kentucky did not look promising to Tennessee. Kentucky’s
leadership was divided over the conflict and naively declared
itself neutral. It was immediately invaded by Union Marshals,
who suspended the authority of local governments and established
quasi-military rule. For many people, that action showed there
was no negotiating room to resolve the issue.
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Sam Davis, his teachers, and fellow students knew what was coming.
The Union Army would soon invade the state and, as with any
such action, homes would be seized, schools burned, and people
killed. The school was dismissed and the students returned to
their homes. Sam Davis now 19-years-old returned to his home
and enlisted in the Rutherford Rifles, which was given the designation
of the Tennessee Infantry’s Company I, CSA. With Tennessee
now in the fight, Davis and his company were shipped to Virginia
to serve in the opening campaigns of the war.
While fighting under Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall"
Jackson, word came to the First Tennessee that Fort Donelson
had fallen and the Union Army was invading West Tennessee. Davis’
company was dismissed from Virginia and returned to Corinth,
Miss. where they were assembled for action in the coming Battle
of Shiloh. Sam Davis proved himself an able soldier under fire
and earned the respect of those who served with him. By the
time the Battle of Shiloh was over, Davis had built an impressive
resume. He had served under four of the Confederacy’s greatest
Generals – Lee, Jackson, Johnston, and Beauregard. After
General Braxton Bragg assumed command of the Army of Tennessee,
Davis’ record of service was brought to his attention for
a special project the controversial general was devising.
Sam Davis was chosen to become a member of an elite group of
men known as Coleman’s Scouts. There assignment was to
operate behind enemy lines and gather intelligence on Union
troop movements and other vital information for General Bragg.
They were carefully chosen and only the best were culled from
the ranks of the Confederate Army.
Coleman’s Scouts were led by Captain Shaw. In order to
protect his identity, Shaw was given the alias and codename
E. Coleman. The alias was the only name ever used to identify
Shaw by Confederate leaders and his own scouts. The captain
often wandered between the battle lines posing as a herb doctor.
Even the Union soldiers who knew of the disheveled "doctor"
never figured him to be one of the most wanted men in the south.
His men were just as effective.
For over a year, they worked dutifully and became a first class
operation. What was even more dangerous was the fact that the
scouts often wore their Confederate uniforms. A single Confederate
soldier on horseback could often maneuver near military installations
and their presence not be seen as unusual, as many local Confederates
often slipped back to visit their families. In any case, Coleman’s
Scouts always regarded themselves as a military unit and functioned
as one. Davis’ work in the group was exemplary and earned
the silent praise of his superiors. During a trip to Union-held
Nashville, Davis dined in the St. Cloud Hotel at the same table
with General Rosecrans listening to the Union commander as he
unveiled plans of military movements in Tennessee. When the
information gathered by E. Coleman and his scouts on Union troop
movements led to the surprising Confederate victory at Chickamauga,
Union officials were furious and put a price on the heads of
the scouts and their leader E. Coleman.
On a cold November night in 1863, Davis returned to Smyrna,
well behind enemy lines, to visit his family. When he arrived,
Davis tapped on the dining room window to get his mother’s
attention and slipped into the house. His father repaired his
son’s boots and his mother gave him a hand-dyed Confederate
overcoat to help keep him warm in the oncoming winter. After
a brief emotional visit, Davis left his family home and made
a rendezvous with E. Coleman and some of the Scouts. The men
agreed they needed to regroup in northern Alabama and start
making their way towards Confederate-held Chattanooga where
they would make a report to General Bragg. Coleman also gave
a report to Davis to take with him in case the men came to trouble.
One by one they slipped out of the territory and began working
their way south to the prearranged meeting place.
Davis rode quietly southward and into Giles County. As he approached
a Union outpost on Nov. 20, he was spotted by a group of Kansas
Cavalrymen and captured. Because of his Confederate uniform,
Davis was taken as a Prisoner of War and routed eleven miles
to the County seat of Pulaski. A search of his person found
maps and information he had gathered as well as the papers given
him by E. Coleman. He was jailed and put under the direct charge
of Union General Dodge for interrogation and disposition. The
Union General observed how young Davis was and seized upon the
opportunity to try and frighten him into confessing who his
superior was and where he could be found. In spite of Sam Davis’
uniform, he quickly accused the young Tennessean of being a
spy – threatening him with a Federal court marital and
death by hanging for his crimes if he did not tell him who had
given him the information. Davis held fast and refused to sell
out his men. The general quickly assembled a "federal court"
that found Davis guilty of spying and sentenced him to hang
on Nov. 27. With the decision to execute Davis now official
and with a date affixed, General Dodge assigned Union Army Chief
of Scouts Levi Naron to interrogate Davis and get the answers,
offering him his life and freedom from the cell he was occupying.
When Davis returned to his cell, three captured prisoners sat
in the one adjacent to his. Sam glanced at the men and marched
on as if he had no interest in them or knew who they were. The
men in the cell were, in fact, E. Coleman and fellow scouts
Joshua Brown and W.L. Moore. The very men the General was seeking
sat right under his nose in his own cells and he didn’t
even know it, nor would he. The three men sat silently while
Union officials constantly interrogated Davis and offered him
his freedom for just the names of Coleman’s Scouts.
Sam Davis continuously told Naron that he would never betray
the trust placed in him and, if Tennessee could not be restored
to the southern Confederacy, he would rather die anyway. His
refusal to be an informant earned the admiration of Pulaski
citizens and even his captors. The Union soldiers were so taken
with Davis’s resolve to remain silent that they often visited
the Tennessean and begged him to save his own life and name
the scouts. During one of the visits, Davis remarked:
"I do not fear for death, but it makes me mad to think
I am to die as a spy."
On Nov. 26, 81st Ohio Infantry Chaplain James Young went to
the cell where Davis was to comfort him. He was touched by the
ongoing story of Davis and quickly made friends with the young
man. Davis and the Chaplain spent the entire day and night together.
On the night before his execution, Davis requested that the
Chaplain join him in singing "On Jordan’s Stormy Banks
I Stand" and the two stayed in prayer throughout the night.
The coffin for Davis had been brought into his cell and the
Tennessean sat on its lid as he listened to Naron’s final
offer of freedom for the information. Davis looked hard at the
Union Scout Chief and replied:
"Do you suppose were I your friend that I would betray
you?" Sam asked. "Sir, if you think I am that kind
of man, you have missed your mark. You may hang me a thousand
times and I would not betray my friends."
Before the night had ended, Davis penned a final letter to his
family.
"O how painful it is to write you!" Davis wrote. "I
have got to die tomorrow– to be hanged by the Federals.
Mother, do not grieve for me. I must bid you good-bye for evermore."
Davis went on to tell his parents where they could collect his
personal belongings and where his father could collect his remains
after the execution. He then wrapped his belongings and gave
them to the Chaplain who had befriended him. He gave the chaplain
the coat his mother had made for him as a gift for the final
moments of friendship he had given the young Confederate.
On the gallows, the offer for freedom was again made of Davis.
Sam Davis refused and uttered the words to the Provost Marshal.
"I am ready."
At 10:20 a.m. Nov. 27, 1863, Coleman Scout Sam Davis was dropped
from the gallows and hanged. Union soldier John Randal, who
had helped capture Davis, watched with tears streaming down
his face as the young Tennessean was executed. He later stated
that he had never witnessed such a pathetic and heroic scene
and noted other Federal soldiers in tears.
Many of the Union soldiers stationed at the post were in disbelief
that the General had gone through with the execution and silent
resentment towards him began to grow among his men. The story
of Sam Davis began to spread in Tennessee and even in the Union
ranks where nothing but respect was offered for his actions
and sacrifice.
Following the execution, the prisoners in the cell next to Davis
were put on trains and sent north to Union prisons. Somewhere
along the tracks in Kentucky, E. Coleman jumped from the train
and escaped into Confederate territory where he continued his
work.
Although Pulaski is about 70 miles south of Smyrna, word got
to Davis’ parents that their son had been killed. They
didn’t know for sure it was their son and asked family
friend John C. Kennedy to travel to Pulaski and, if it was true,
to locate their son’s remains and bring them home.
After a federal run-around, Kennedy managed to get a note from
Union General Rosseau allowing safe passage as far as Columbia.
From there until he reached Pulaski, Kennedy relied on the illiteracy
of Union pickets and reached the city before the Provost Marshal
found him out. He handed the Marshal the note, who immediately
declared it invalid. After Kennedy told him he was there to
collect the body of Sam Davis, the Marshal’s attitude changed
and he offered help and the statement to Davis’ parents:
"Tell them for me that he died the bravest of the brave,"
the Marshal said, " an honor to them, and with the respect
of every man in this command."
The Provost Marshal then gave Kennedy return passes and offered
a company if necessary to retrieve the body. The Marshal then
gave an account of Davis’ saga and Kennedy went to the
graveyard where he exhumed the Tennesseans body. As he lifted
the coffin lid and began his work of identifying Davis, a group
of Union soldiers gathered with their hats in hand and watched
the solemn proceedings. When the body was loaded in the new
coffin and Kennedy returned to Pulaski, the Provost Marshal
gave him the personal effects of Sam Davis the Ohio Chaplain
had entrusted him with following his departure from the city.
The body was returned to Nashville where it was properly shrouded
and taken to Smyrna. Sam Davis’ mother passed out at the
sight of the coffin and it took Kennedy a while to convince
Charles Davis that he should remember his son as he last saw
him. Acting as only a family friend could, Kennedy walked the
horses across the creek from the home and buried Davis in the
family graveyard. As the Tennessean was committed to his final
resting place, little did anyone know that he would soon become
a legend throughout America. From Pulaski throughout Middle
and West Tennessee, monuments commemorating Sam Davis started
going up. The phrase he repeated over and over to his Union
captors: "If I had a thousand lives, I would lose them
all before I would betray my friends or the confidence of my
informer." would forever enshrine him as the "Nathan
Hale of the South" and earn him the respect of soldiers
on both sides of the war.
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The coat that Sam Davis gave to the Ohio Chaplain remained in
the clergyman’s possessions until he was 73-years-old.
The former chaplain returned the coat to the editor of Confederate
Veteran magazine, where it was returned to Tennessee. The search
for artifacts of the young Tennessean continues to this day.
In 1994, Tennessee Historical Commission Executive Director
Herb Harper located a boot knife belonging to Davis in a Knife
Shop in Boston. Harper purchased it and donated it to the Tennessee
State Museum where it is included in a display on the Tennessean.
In addition, a photograph has been recently found that is being
studied and authenticated as that of Sam Davis.
The Davis’ hid their family pictures in the hay of their
barn – fearing the Union Army would burn their home. When
Union soldiers raided them, however, they set fire to the barn
rather than the house and all photographs of Sam Davis were
thought lost.
Around the turn of the century, the Tennessee legislature commissioned
an official monument of the Tennessean and contracted world-renowned
sculptor George Julian Zolney to do it. He worked from descriptions
and used Sam Davis’ younger brother as a model. In 1909,
Governor Malcolm Rice Patterson dedicated the new monument.
The governor had attended the ceremony dedicating Andrew Jackson’s
monument as a child and recalled the event during his speech.
"Little did I think then, even in the day dreams of my
youth, that one day as Governor I would be called upon to accept
in the name of the state another figure in bronze erected on
this side of the grounds," said Governor Patterson, "
not of a man on horseback, but of a young man scarcely more
than a boy, who belonged to another and later age of our history,
who stands without the marks and accouterments of rank without
any other sign save that of a soldier ready to fight and ready
to die. The name and fame of Andrew Jackson filled the mind
with wonder and admiration; the memory of Sam Davis, with infinite
love and tenderness."
With the dedication, the monument became the only one on the
capitol grounds not commemorating a U.S. President.
In 1865, as the War Between the States came to a close, the
Confederate States of America commissioned their own National
Medal of Honor. Before it could strike the first one, however,
the government was defeated. Post-war politics didn’t recognize
former Confederates and the duty of bestowing this highest military
award was eventually handed over to the Sons of Confederate
Veterans. In 1976 in Memphis, the Sons of Confederate Veterans
held their National Convention and assembled for a very special
meeting. In Memphis 111 years later, the SCV first awarded their
highest military honor posthumously to Sam Davis of Smyrna,
Tennessee. Davis would be one of four Tennesseans to receive
the Confederate Medal of Honor. The second recipient was also
a Coleman Scout from Tennessee named Pvt. Dewitt Smith Job,
Lt. General N.B. Forrest was the eighteenth, and East Tennessean
James Keelan was the fortieth to receive the award. The best
book on the subject is "Valor in Gray" by Greg S.
Clemmer and should be available from local bookstores.
Sam Davis’ boyhood home in Smyrna is located 20 minutes
away from Nashville and is a state historic site featuring numerous
artifacts of the family’s life in the middle Tennessee
town. It is open from 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
Admission is $4 for adults, $3.50 for seniors, and $2.50 for
children under 12. Special discounts are available for groups.
The home is considered one of the best examples of an antebellum
middle class farm home in North America. There are many events
held at the home throughout the year. Its Christmas program
is considered one of the most popular Holiday events in Middle
Tennessee.
