Truckin' on the Western Branch

In March 1865, Wise had a very hard time finding workers for his farms. The Streeter Creek and Hatton Point farms had fallen into disrepair and were making no money. He was forced to take two of his boys out of school to help plant potatoes.

“Jimmy Wise and Sandy are very sick and no doctor is to be had. Dr. Jordan, the only one in this neighborhood, was arrested and sent to prison a few days ago.”

March 26th . “Warm and clear. Plowing in oats and cleaning out watermelon hills.”

The Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, and Lincoln was shot on the evening of April 14 and died the next morning. Wise was distraught that such a noble person as Lincoln was murdered, and he feared what kind of leader would take his place. His son Billy made it back to Poplar Hill. He and his brothers carried on the tradition of farming. They, like many farmers that stayed on their farms for those long four years, struggled to survive. Those who did slowly rebuilt their lives and businesses. The land along the Western Branch and around Craney Island continued to be some of the best “truck farming” land on the East Coast. The large slave population was gone, and landowners hired many of them as “hands” to work the fields or rented out portions of their holdings to tenant farmers. Civil War Letters from Craney Island At the outbreak of the Civil War, Jonathan R. Smith, a young man employed as a tutor by the Riddick family in Suffolk, volunteered on April 19, 1861, to become a member of Company F of Norfolk. By May 14 he was stationed at Craney Island and began a letter-writing campaign to Nathaniel Riddick’s oldest daughter, Annie.

Craney Island would be a very pleasant place if there were any shade trees on it—it is a most dreary abode . . . There are on the island about two hundred and fifty of three hundred soldiers. We have 18 guns…64’s and 32’s besides some four, five and six pounders.

Image by Sheally

April 10, 1862 (One month after the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack )

The Merrimac will be down tomorrow, at half past four or five in the morning . . . If she does get out tomorrow morning you will expect to hear of a tremendous naval engagement in Hampton Roads to which that of the 8th or 9th of March can no more be compared.

The second battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack did not occur, and the Confederates only managed to capture three merchant vessels.

Jonny was ordered off Craney Island with his unit when Norfolk fell to the Union in May 1862. His next letter came from Chafins’ Farm southeast of Richmond on the north side of the James. He saw action in the Seven Days Battles and then skirmishes between Richmond and Williamsburg. Jonathan R. Smith was struck and killed by a Union bullet on July 1, 1862. Annie Riddick never married but it was said that she always wore a ring, perhaps from Jonny.

Source: Brian S. Wills “The Letters of Three Soldiers” 1981 History Department, University of Richmond. Wills is the Director of the Center for the Study of the Civil War Era and Professor of History at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia after a long tenure at The University of Virginia, Wise.

Men and Boys Who Fought in the Civil War Landowners and their sons joined local units after secession. Many served with the Craney Island Artillery, Company I, Ninth Virginia Infantry and transferred to other units in April 1862 as the area fell into Union occupation. Descendants of many of these men still live in the area.

47