Levi Porter

Son of Andrew Porter

Death and burial unknown. Probably Ky

NOTES
The Civil War and the Andrew Porter Family of Grayson County, VA
by J.C. Porter

Preparing for battle
An uneasy excitement filled the air leading up to that morning.
Families brought picnic lunches to watch the standoff; some politicians even ventured out to Mannassas from Washington, anticipating a brief duel between the North and South.

The Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Manassas, was the first major clash of the Civil War, one
that many expected to bring a quick resolution to the conflict.
But by dayʼs end, picnickers and politicians witnessed firsthand the brutal beginning of what would become a very long and costly war.

Captain Peyton Hale led the battle charge for the Grayson Daredevils that day.
He likely had little difficulty convincing men from Elk Creek Va to join his unit, as some sources say Hale
mustered so many volunteers from Grayson County, Virginia, that he had to hold a shooting competition and weed out the ill-prepared.

Those who passed the test joined Haleʼs regiment
and traveled 300 miles to Manassas, where they faced off with Union soldiers July 21, 1861.

The Grayson Daredevils, alongside fellow secessionists, proved that Confederate fighters were a force to be reckoned with.
But making that stand was costly: Captain Hale was killed in action.

Just one week later, back in Grayson County, 16-year-old Levi Porter decided to take up arms in the fight that had claimed the life of Captain Hale, the husband of Leviʼs cousin Amanda Cornett.

Levi, the oldest son of Andrew Porter, joined the newly formed Company C of the 8th Virginia Cavalry, a Confederate force consisting of Grayson County men.

To join the cavalry, Levi needed a horse, so his father bought one.
“Andrew Porter gave $200 for a horse,” recalled Nona Dwelly, the wife of Leviʼs nephew, in a
1981 interview.

“They said it was such a pretty thing. They thought it would be something fine, but it was no account at all.
They had to get rid of it and get another one.
It had been raised as a pet, and it couldnʼt stand anything, it couldnʼt run.”

So Andrew bought a second horse for his son.
Andrew paid $110 to the Grayson Cavalry for a horse (which is believed to be the second horse he bought for Levi), according to a Grayson County Court record dated Oct. 28, 1861, making him one of many locals who supported the
war effort by donating horses and saddles to the men who were headed to battle.

Andrew was no stranger to the militias of the South.
At just 21, he was appointed Lieutenant of the 78th Virginia Militia, also known as the Grayson County home guard.
He was elected Captain four years later and appointed Lieutenant Colonel the next year at 26 years of age.
But he decided not to take up arms in 1861 at the start of the Civil War.
Now 39 years old, Andrew remained on the familyʼs 262-acre farm to look after his wife and Leviʼs eight or nine younger siblings.

The familyʼs house still stands at 4040 Carsonville Road in Elk Creek, Virginia, where Andrew purchased the property in the 1840s, some 20 years after Nathan Thomas built it, the first frame house in the county.
The original structure had two rooms downstairs and two rooms up, with a spring house on the north side and a log out building that was used as a grainery.
Burt Rhudy added a basement and stone exterior after he purchased the house in 1927.

During his one-year tour of duty, Levi served under Albert Gallatin Jenkins, the leader of Virginiaʼs 8th Cavalry, who owned a plantation on the banks of the Ohio River near Huntington, West Virginia.
(Jenkinsʼ slaves could literally look right across the Ohio into the free North, while working for a man who was at war to keep their freedom just a few feet beyond their
grasp.)
Under Jenkinsʼ command, Levi likely moved with his regiment through parts of Kentucky.
According to an article in The History of Elliott County, Kentucky, a Union cavalry detachment engaged “Major Jenkins” rebels in an area known as “Crackers Neck” on July 7, 1862.

This event lines up with stories passed down orally in the Porter family, perhaps explaining why Levi decided to move to Kentucky after the war.
“There was a bear down there below where he later built his barn,” said Viola Bego, Leviʼs granddaughter, in 1980.
“Levi was setting there on a stump and killed that bear there.
He said when he got out of the army, he was going to build his house there.
And, sure enough, he did.

Levi was discharged July 27, 1862, according to his 1912 pension application, having completed his one-year service commitment.
Not two months later, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, sending the Civil War into a new phase.
In August 1862, the Confederacy needed more soldiers, so it enacted a conscription law that required all men up to 40 years old to go to war.
On Dec. 1, 1862 Andrew Porter enlisted in Russell County, Virginia, as a private in Company E of the 22nd Virginia Cavalry.
He either joined unwillingly or was forcibly conscripted. This came just six weeks after Andrewʼs wife Lucy
Cornett Porter gave birth to their youngest son John C. Porter and five months after Lucyʼs father William Cornett passed away widowing his wife Jennie Sutherland Cornett.

On Jan. 4, 1863, Levi eloped with Elizabeth Lundy.
They ran off to nearby Sparta, North Carolina, just a week or so before Leviʼs 18th birthday.
Don Porter, Leviʼs grandson, told a story that could
explain why Bettyʼs parents didnʼt like Levi.

“He said he went to see his girlfriend, I reckon, is the way I understood it. Back then they had a big long toe suit, like a big gown or something. They slept upstairs right over the breakfast table. They said, instead of having the boards nailed down, they just had them laying loose. They hollered for breakfast, and he got up the next morning. He was walking around, and those boards gave way, and he fell right down through the floor, right onto the breakfast table. His foot went right in the gravy bowl,” said Don Porter with a chuckle during a 1980 interview.2
“He got ashamed not having no clothes on, you know. He started out, he opened the door, and the dogs got after him. They were barking, and he was running through briar patches and everything.
Yeah, that was actually the truth.”

Andrew Porterʼs regiment the 22nd Virginia Cavalry, returned from Kentucky and enjoyed about a month of relative inactivity.
It is unclear whether Baldwinʼs Squadron trained during this time, but we do know one thing: Andrew was required to muster on Oct. 31, 1863, but records indicate he was “Absent without leave.”
“He had slipped off from the army, you know, and started home,” recalled Don Porter, Andrewʼs great-grandson, in 1980.
“He got within about five miles of home and met an officer. [The officer] asked if he had a furlough.
He told him, ʻYeah.ʼ He reached down into his grip and pulled out a pistol.
[The officer] said, ʻYou are going to have to go back.ʼ
He said, ʻNo, Iʼm not going.
Iʼve started home, and Iʼm going, if I donʼt die before I get there.ʼ
The officer saw it was kill or be killed, so he let him go on.”

Levi takes his fatherʼs place
Andrewʼs youngest daughter Emma was born March 1, 1864 in Grayson County.
Not long after that, Confederate officials caught up with Andrew and reminded him that he was supposed to be serving in the Southʼs cavalry.
Perhaps they went easy on him, since he had been the Lieutenant Colonel of the local militia.
They could have court-marshaled him as a deserter, though we have no record of his reason for going AWOL.
(During the war, some men were known to leave their units to go home and plant or harvest their crops, before returning to the army.)

Records also indicate that Andrew became an ordained minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church South sometime in 1863, a fact that may or may not be related to his departure.

Regardless of why Andrew left, the Confederacy needed someone to take his place; Levi reenlisted in Wytheville, VA on May 1, 1864, this time for a three-year commitment with the 22nd Virginia Cavalry.

“I donʼt know if he was going to be forced to go or if he felt duty-bound to go.
Anyhow, Uncle Levi went in his place because his father had family, you see,” said Nona Dwelly, Leviʼs
nephewʼs wife.
Florence Williams said he re-enlisted because he didnʼt want his father to have to leave his mother again.
Two of Leviʼs nephews said he was forced to re-enlist.

Everett Porter said in a 1979 interview that Levi had planned to take his fatherʼs place all along, once he got old enough.
Jim Porter said Andrew was “kind of sickly” and unable to re-enlist when the Confederates came for him.
“[Levi] was just 18. They wouldnʼt take you if you was too young. He told them, Iʼll go in Dadʼs place, if youʼll take me that way, and they did,” said Jim Porter in 1979.

Harlan Porter, son of Leviʼs brother Alex Porter, recalled how this substitution affected Andrewʼs relationship with his son: “My dad said that Grandpa Porter always favored Uncle Levi above them all because he took his place.”

The winter between Andrewʼs departure and Leviʼs re-enlistment brought no combat to Virginiaʼs 22nd Cavalry, which was placed under Albert Gallatin Jenkinsʼ command one day before Levi joined up.

As of April 20, 1864, the 22nd had 25 officers and 308 enlisted men present for duty – out of 798 men assigned.

In early May 1864, Levi was likely involved in the battle of Cloydʼs Mountain, where his brigade commander Jenkins was mortally wounded.
Regardless, the 22nd went on and took part in numerous battles during the summer of 1864.

“I never heard [Levi] talk about it,” said Viola Bego, Leviʼs granddaughter, in 1980.
“I just had his picture, and he said he was in the war.
He talked about people going to peopleʼs houses and
taking what they had to eat, you know, bread.
Said there was one man that killed another man
over a loaf of bread.”
“One of the buddies that was with them there,” continued Viola Bego, “said they went in and was about to starve.
A woman had a pan of bread baked, and he killed a man over that bread, that man did, his buddy with him.
They had terrible times there.”

Since the beginning of the 1864 Valley Campaign, Virginiaʼs 22nd Cavalry had lost at least 81 men.
On the morning of Sept. 19, numbering no more than 200 men, Leviʼs brigade faced off with the 5th U.S. Cavalry and 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry in the Third Battle of Winchester
Virginia.

Union troops outnumbered the Confederates five-to-one.
At some point during the battle, the 22nd withdrew to positions in the wood-line across a creek.
It was likely before this relocation that most of the dozen prisoners from the 22nd Cavalry were captured by Union forces
– Levi Porter was among the 2,500 Confederate soldiers captured at the Third Battle of Winchester.

Life as a prisoner of war
Levi was then taken about 30 miles to Harperʼs Ferry, West Virginia.
Along with other prisoners of war, Levi was placed on a steamship and transported down the Potomac to the POW camp at Point Lookout, Maryland.

The ship had to pass right by Washington, D.C., meaning prisoners might have seen the Capitol Dome near completion some two miles away.
And up on a hill to their right, Levi would have had
a good view of Confederate General Robert E. Leeʼs house and 1,100-acre plantation.
(Leeʼs property would later become Arlington National Cemetery, after the U.S. government confiscated it as remuneration for $90 in back taxes.)

A few miles down-river, the ship had to pass Mount Vernon, the historic home of George Washington.
Even during the war, soldiers from both sides were allowed to tour the estate, but they had to lay down their arms before entering.
Levi arrived at Point Lookout on Sept 27, 1864.
The morning report for that day says, “Received from Harperʼs Ferry, VA 576 enlisted men and 1 citizen.”
One day prior, the report says, “Received from Harperʼs Ferry 729 enlisted men and 1 citizen.”
With the arrival of this group of prisoners, the camp population increased to nearly 8,000

Levi was loaded onto a steamship March 15, 1865 and sent to Richmond, Virginia, for exchange along with 1,046 Confederate soldiers who arrived on March 18 at Boulwareʼs Wharf.
After the exchange process was complete, each soldier made his way home on his own.
Most returning soldiers traveled in groups for protection. It is not known how Levi made the nearly 300-mile trip from Richmond, Virginia, to Grayson County, but he was weak and sickly when he arrived at home, according to his sisterʼs daughter-in-law Nona Dwelly.

“[Mary Dwelly] said that when [Levi] came back, he was all starved, and she said that her mother [Lucy] was afraid to feed him all he wanted at a time,” said Nona in a 1981 interview.

“She just gave him a little bit at a time until she got him so that he could eat.”
“He hadnʼt been back long. Some of the neighborʼs hogs had been getting out,” recalled Leviʼs nephew Jim Porter in 1979.
“They were getting out in his cornfield, so [Levi] didnʼt know his fatherʼs hogs from anyone elseʼs hogs.
He goes out and shoots three of his fatherʼs hogs, first
thing.
He thought he had killed his neighbors hogs.
Just killed three of them.”

On April 9, 1865, five months after Levi was released from Point Lookout, the Confederate States of America surrendered, ushering in a wave of rapid changes throughout the South.
No major battles had been fought in Grayson County, but Reconstruction in Virginia was not an easy time for anyone.

The Union Party was organized to help reestablish order, and Andrew Porterʼs brother-in-law Abraham Elliott, a Methodist minister, was a leading member of this
group.

On August 31, 1865, as the North and South were once again forming an uneasy union, Andrew Porterʼs 17-year-old daughter Elizabeth joined 18-year-old Isaac Newton Hunt in marriage though the marriage license said he was 21
Rev. Elliott officiated the wedding at the Porter
house on Elk Creek, and shortly thereafter the newlyweds moved to Isaacʼs home in Gainsville Allen County, Kentucky.

Oddly enough, itʼs possible that the young romance would not have happened if Levi had not been captured at the Third Battle of Winchester and held prisoner at Point Lookout.


The information in this article was compiled by J.C. Porter and edited by Steven Porter for the 2012
Porter family reunion in Olive Hill, Kentucky, and for Our Grayson Heritage, the annual publication by the
Grayson County, Virginia Heritage Foundation.
Steven J. Porter (1989- ), son of
James C. Porter (1959- ), son of
Donald R. Porter (1930-2008), son of
Everett D. Porter (1904-1987), son of
Jasper H. Porter (1879-1944), son of
Alexander F. Porter (1855-1928), son of
Andrew J. Porter (1822-1888)
www.myfamily.com/group/AndrewJacksonPorterFamily