January 19, 2023

Oscar Pile in the Civil War

When pursuing the lives of my ancestors, I frequently find myself “down the rabbit hole.” Like Alice, I’m chasing a proverbial white rabbit. Today, this particular genealogical digging adventure led me to Oscar Pile.

Karrie Blees – yet another Rabbit Hole¹

Last week, I wrote about snow in Readout, Oklahoma – 1903. My rabbit hole journey progressed like this:

What should I write about next? Rectors? Garnetts?
Dollie Pile Garnett? Where did I get her middle initial/middle name?
(Dig through hardcopy and digital files for two days. Not enough to write about …. yet.)
Do I need to explain the Pile/Pyle spelling? (not today)
Wait, Dollie’s father was an interesting man.
Wasn’t he alive during the Civil War?
I need to blog that story.
Where did I get that account?

Oscar Pile

Born on Christmas Day 1819, Oscar Pile lived his entire life in Adair County, Kentucky.² Oscar’s mother died young, his father re-married and eventually moved to Missouri. However, Oscar stayed in Kentucky.

The three wives of Oscar Pile were:

Martha Susan Craig, m. 1847;³ mother of one daughter.
Margaret E. Craig, m. 1853;⁴ it is possible that Martha and Margaret were sisters.
Elizabeth “Lizzie” Flowers, m. 1858;⁵ mother of seven.

Oscar was widowed twice and yet he lived a very full life. He was a farmer, a tanner and a zealous member of the M.E. Church. In his obituary, he was remembered as “a man who looked after his own interests, but he was ever ready to help those in distress and what he did was done willingly; his acts of kindness were never followed by vain boasting.”

Rollin Hurt’s Notebook

About 10 years ago, I was down a “rabbit hole,” looking for clues to Oscar Pile’s life. When doing an internet search, I found Oscar mentioned in Rollin Hurt’s Notebook.⁶

Judge Rollin Hurt (1860-1949) was a resident of Columbia, Adair County, Kentucky. He practiced law throughout his life and for several years was the President of the Bank of Columbia. In 1914 he was appointed to the Third District Kentucky Court of Appeals.⁷

Oscar was a neighbor of Rollin and of Rollin’s father, Young E. Hurt. Young Hurt was Adair County Sheriff during the Civil War.

There is an even closer family tie: Young Hurt’s oldest son (Rollin’s half-brother), James Hurt, married Oscar’s eldest daughter, Margaret Ann, in 1870. ⁸ Because of Rollin Hurt’s attention to detail, Young Hurt’s position as Sheriff and their close familial relationship, I believe that we can trust these accounts from the Notebook:

On another occasion Gen. Lyon was in Columbia with a considerable body of Confederate infantry and Cavalry.

On one night he sent out two hundred infantry to effect the capture of my father [Young E. Hurt] and others of his neighbors. They came first to our house but before they were able to surround the house, my father escaped into the orchard and stood there concealed by the darkness, until they had made a search of the house.

Then they took their way to the house of Mr. Oscar Pile, who lived on the hill on the opposite side of the road from Tabor Church, and from there to the house of Judge Richard Garnett, who lived where his son H. B. Garnett now lives (Horton’s) and captured him. He was a Home Guard Captain.

My father followed them over this course endeavoring to approach sufficiently close to find out who it was that was acting as their guide.

Finally in the darkness, he mingled with them and in this, way was able to approach near the front and at great hazard to himself discovered that it was a man by the name of Stephenson, and who was a neighbor, that was acting as the guide.

Within a few nights thereafter a crowd of men visited Stephenson and taking him from his home, severely whipped him and ordered him out of the country. Stephenson did not wait for a second warning but left immediately and never returned. My father never imparted any information to me, as to what he knew about how Stephenson came to be whipped or who did it.

On one occasion during the Civil War, a large force of Confederate infantry and Cavalry under the command of [blot] came and camped at Columbia Kentucky. At once, parties were sent into the country, who captured Judge Richard Garnett, Simon P. Taylor, and John Blair, who were Captains of Companies of Home Guards.

These men were brought [as] prisoners into Columbia, when the Confederate Commander made a proclamation for all of the Home Guards to bring and stack their muskets at the Long View on the Columbia and Jamestown road, about 3 miles, from Columbia on a certain night and that if they failed to do so, that he would at once hang Garnett, Taylor and Blair.

My father [Young E. Hurt] believed that this proclamation was a mere bluff for the purpose of working upon the fears of the friends of the prisoners and in that to procure the arms of the Home Guards.

On the night appointed, my father went to the place designated and hid himself in the woods. Pretty soon the members of the Home Guards began to gather in, in twos and threes and to deposit their muskets and then to go hurriedly away.

At a late hour in the night and after all, who intended to, had come and left their muskets, my father came out from his hiding place and taking the muskets one by one, he placed each in the fork of a convenient dogwood tree and bent the barrel of each of the guns, not sufficiently to be noticed, but enough to destroy its usefulness as a firearm.

On the next morning a party of the Confederates were sent out for the guns and the prisoners were then released.

On the same night a Confederate officer of the rank of Major spent the night at the house of Mr. Oscar Pile.

After bending the muskets my father repaired to the house of Pile, where he captured the officer and carried him to the Harvey’s Ridge with the purpose that in the event Garnett, Taylor, and Blair were hanged, to take revenge by hanging the Major.

Learning, however, on the next day of the release of Garnett and his associates, my father released the Major and allowed him to rejoin his command.

A third time, Rollin Hurt mentions Oscar Pile:

Near the end of the Civil War, two young men, whose names were Porter Allen and Jim Turk, and who were neighbors of ours, and who were soldiers in the Confederate army were taken prisoners on Crocus Creek and were imprisoned by the Federal authorities on Johnson’s island in Lake [not legible] and then both died.

The horses they were riding at the time of their capture fell into take hands of the Federal forces at Columbia, who were under the command of General Wood.

He desired to send a spy to Bowling Green, Kentucky to learn the number and disposition of the Confederate forces in that country. He thereupon, sent for my father [Young E. Hurt] and requested him to undertake the mission. Mr. Oscar Pile accompanied my father to see General Wood and when my father consented to make the journey, he asked for Pile to go with him.

General Wood furnished them horses to ride and without their knowledge furnished them the horses which had been taken from Allen and Turk.

Either as they went to Bowling Green or as they returned, someone saw them, who recognized the horses, and gave the families of Allen and Turk information of it, thereby causing a feeling toward my father and Pile of great bitterness.

My father and Pile did not learn until long afterwards, that they had ridden the horses which had formerly been owned by Allen and Turk.

Shortly after this incident, and at night, a body of Confederate Guerrillas numbering more than one hundred came into my father’s farm at the upper end of the Cedar Cliff, and before he had any warning, the house was surrounded. Some of the Negro slaves came to notify him of his danger but it was too late.

About that time, a loud banging commenced at the door accompanied by a demand to open the door and a rattling of sabers. My mother importuned my father not to open the door, as she knew they were guerrillas, but my father recognizing the futility of trying to prevent their entrance, opened the door, when the house was immediately filled with men armed with swords, guns and pistols.

Although various forces of Confederates had sought to capture my father at various times during the Civil War and had uniformly failed and now for the first time had him in their power, it was at once evident that he was not the game for which they were seeking.

They at once demanded to know where my oldest brother, Leslie Hurt, was. My father answered that he supposed that he was in the Federal Army before Atlanta.

They denounced this as a falsehood and said that they knew he was in the house and that unless he was immediately produced, they would burn the house.

My father answered that it was a very good house but that it was of no benefit to him, as he was not permitted to remain in it and that if they desired they could burn it at once, that the fear of causing the burning of houses was all that had kept him from killing many of them during the years of the war just past and that his friends were actuated by the same motives and that if they burned his house and killed him, he was ready for it, as he full well knew that his friends would be revenged upon them.

Leslie Hurt had written a letter from the front that he would be at home upon that night and this had become known in the neighborhood and it was now evident that the foray had been planned for that night for the purpose of seizing and killing him but for some reason that I do not know, he failed to be discharged at the end of his enlistment and served for several months afterwards, to which circumstance, he certainly owed his life.

The cavalry, however, made a diligent search of the house and premises and carried away everything that they considered valuable, including twenty-one head of horses and mules.

They went from there to the house of Mr. Oscar Pile and took all of his livestock and then departed from the community, without molesting anyone else.

My father believed that Mr. Robert Allen, the father of Porter Allen, was the person who had induced and caused this foray to be made upon him and died, in this belief, as he and Allen were never friendly afterwards.

Since the death of both, my father and Allen, I have learned that my father’s suspicions were not just and that a young man whose name was Stone and who was a relative of ours was the individual who acted as guide for the Confederate upon this occasion.

The white rabbit⁹

What’s next?

What about the spelling of Pile/Pyle? See this post.
Do you want to know more about Oscar?

SOURCES

1
Self Portrait. Karrie Blees, Chicago, Illinois, May 25, 2018.
2
“Dead at Eighty-Two.” Adair County (KY) News. May 7, 1902, page 3. “So far as we know his whole life was spent in Adair county…”
3
Adair Co KY Marriage Book 2-6, page 133.
4
Adair Co KY Marriage Book 3, page 16.
5
Adair Co KY Marriage Book 4, page 327.
6
Originally accessed and transcribed by Karrie Blees in 2013. As of January 13, 2023, the web address has been updated to http://www.karenfurst.com/blog/genealogy/surnames/hurt/the-hurt-family-history-by-rollin-hurt/ Karen Furst notes that the information was copied from Rollin Hurt’s Notebook which was written by him in 1907. The Notebook was loaned to Ruby Taylor in 1962 by Mrs. Ralph Hurt.
7
Rollin Hurt Obituary. Adair County (KY) News. December 21, 1949.
8
Samuel Willis Miller and Susanna Morrison Hurt Bible. Bible Records collected by the Adair County Genealogical Society, 1996, Columbia KY, page 91-93.
9
Public domain. Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914) illustration (1865) for Alice in Wonderland (Carroll).

Author: Karrie Blees

Filed Under: Flowers, Garnett, Pile/Pyle

Oscar Pile in the Civil War

Oscar Pile

Rollin Hurt’s Notebook

What’s next?

SOURCES

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