More connections between the Holsclaws and Stidgers

Ancestry. Kentucky Wills & Probate Records.

Last week I wrote about the administration of the estate of Harmon A. Stidger, husband of Narcissa Holsclaw. Narcissa was a sister of my 4th-great-grandfather Enoch Holsclaw. In looking at the Kentucky Wills and Probates files on Ancestry and FamilySearch, I find another connection between the Holsclaw and Stidger families. In September 1837, Harmon Stidger joined with Benjamin Holsclaw to put up a bond in the estate of Samuel K. Holslcaw. Benjamin was my 5th-great-grandfather.

According to Findagrave, Samuel K. Holsclaw was born on 17 November 1814, a son of Benjamin Holsclaw Sr and Sarah Kemper Holsclaw. He died on 22 July 1834 in Spencer County, Kentucky. The inventory of Samuel's small estate shows he had a horse, saddle bag, carpenter's tools, lot of tobacco, books and shaving tools. His father Benjamin served as administrator of the estate.

FamilySearch, Image 357 of 652. Will Book B, p. 40.

Benjamin left a will in Spencer County, listing his children and grandchildren. I will have more on that document and estate in the next post.

Civil War Hero

Indianapolis News, 15 May 1908.

Indianapolis News, 15 May 1908.

Felix Grundy Stidger died on 12 May 1908 in Chicago. His death was reported in newspapers around the country. Stidger's autobiography recalls in fascinating detail how he quickly made the acquaintance of the leaders in the Sons of Liberty and exposed their plots against the US Government as part of the Secret Service in 1864. It looks like he spent years trying to get a pension from the government, and still did not have it in 1904. There is probably a large file on him at the US National Archives.

Ancestry. Civil War pension card for Felix Stidger.

I could spend quite a long time going through Stidger's book and sharing news clippings of testimony in the case that brought down the Sons of Liberty, but I am going to return to the Holsclaw family soon, leaving behind Stidger's fascinating story for another researcher to pick up.

Into the Circle

I am continuing with the story of how Felix Grundy Stidger became an unlikely spy in Kentucky and Indiana during the Civil War. In his autobiography, Stidger begins by writing how only seven people knew what he was doing while in the Secret Service. First, Josephine McGill, "a young lady whom I had known for eight years, and to whom I was engaged to be married, and although every one of her family were the bitterest enemies of the Government I fully advised her of every move I made, and everything I did, having full confidence in her - which confidence she proved herself worthy of - and at the end of my work for the Government she became my wife."

The next person who knew of Stidger's work was his brother, John Harmon Stidger, who acted as his confidential assistant in making reports in Louisville. Third was Captain Stephen E. Jones, Provost Marshall General of the Military District of Kentucky, who engaged Stidger in the assignment. Fourth was Colonel Thomas B. Fairleigh, 26th Kentucky Veteran Volunteer Infantry, who was in command of Louisville and who received Stidger's reports. Fifth was James Prentice, Sergeant in Company H, 25th Michigan Infantry, who had been assigned as a confidential assistant to Stidger. Sixth and seventh were Brigadier General Henry B. Carrington and Indiana Governor Oliver P. Morton.

On 5 May 1864, Stidger met Captain Jones in Louisville, and provided him with a report of some information he had learned. Jones needed a reliable Kentuckian for a special, hazardous mission to infiltrate an organization called the Sons of Liberty. Stidger's old friend from Bloomfield, the Deputy Provost Marshal, had connected him with Captain Jones. On this day Jones told him General Carrington had learned that Doctor William A. Bowles, owner of French Lick Springs in Indiana, was one of the leaders of the Sons of Liberty and he would be coming to Kentucky soon to organize lodges of the Sons of Liberty in the state. Jones wanted a reliable Kentuckian to watch Bowles, observe his movements and report.

They gave Stidger a crash course in the rituals of the Sons of Liberty, a new name, J. J. Grundy, a cover story about him being a neophyte in the order, and sent him on with a new suit, glasses and an introduction letter to Bowles. Two days later he was riding a train from Louisville north into Indiana. Not knowing the way to French Lick Springs, he got off the train one stop too early, but this proved to be a good coincidence as he managed to meet a lawyer the town who was the Deputy Grand Commander of the Sons of Liberty who was expecting a messenger from Kentucky and assumed Stidger was the messenger. The lawyer, Horace Heffern, told him about plans to rally 1000-1500 armed men on behalf of the Sons of Liberty in Indiana.

Stidger arrived at French Lick Springs on 8 May and was introduced to Bowles, who told him of plans to arm 100,000 men to invade Missouri and use forces in Indiana and Ohio for a battleground in Kentucky. Stidger spent the next four days at French Lick Springs learning plans from Bowles, and then he returned to Louisville on 12 May 1864.

Richmond Palladium-Item, 29 Mar 1955

The Unlikely Spy

Felix Grundy Stidger, 1903

Like others in my family history, Felix Stidger's story is one that should be made into a tv series or movie. Stidger's autobiography, published in 1903, describes how he joined the Secret Service and spied on the Sons of Liberty in 1864. The book, Treason History of the Order of Sons of Liberty, 1864, can be viewed on the Internet Archive and Google Books.

He begins his story looking back at his childhood growing up in Spencer County, Kentucky, son of a carpenter and farmer's daughter. His father died when he was two years old, and his mother raised him and his brother John with the help of her siblings nearby. Stidger wrote that his mother "had no means of support for herself and babes except as she might earn with her needle." We know from the 1860 US Census that Narcissa's youngest brother Isaac Newton Holsclaw, a tailor, and his family lived in the house. They likely helped her make ends meet.

Given Narcissa's limited means, Stidger could only attend during winter months and sometimes not at all. After a total of three years of school in Taylorsville, Stidger started working in the County Clerk's office at the age of 15. A month before he turned 17 he started a three-year apprenticeship with a carpenter and builder, Martin Aud. During this time he managed the books for Aud, and later went to work in his general store. After working various jobs in Boyle County, Kentucky, Jacksonville, Illinois, St. Joseph, Missouri, he returned in the Summer of 1860 to Bloomfield, Kentucky (just south of Taylorsville) to work as a clerk at a general store. Stidger describes Bloomfield as "a very pretty little place, with an intelligent population, a well to do surrounding country" and an "infernally disloyal sentiment against the United States Government."

Bloomfield, Kentucky was a hotbed of Confederate feelings at the outbreak of the Civil War. Stidger was one of only four Union sympathizers in the town, and even "the notorious John Morgan came all the way from Lexington to organize the nucleus of his command at Bloomfield." As the negative feelings grew in Bloomfield, Stidger returned to Taylorsville in August 1862. The next month, Confederate troops invaded the town on the way to Louisville. The Union Army pushed back into Taylorsville, and when they did, Stidger joined the 15th Kentucky Infantry. He was assigned to be a clerk in the Assistant Adjutant General's Office at Division Headquarters. He saw battle on his very first night in General Rousseau's duty, at Perryville and later Stone River and Chickamauga.

The main field officers of the 15th Infantry were killed at the Battle of Perryville. Among the new field officers was Captain Henry Kalfus, a physician from Louisville who would later play a role in connecting Stidger with the Order of the Sons of Liberty in 1864. Stidger recalls how the newly elected Field Officers were without horses, "and I having a good fine horse of my own that I had bought from home and had not yet returned, Major Kalfus came to me when he received his appointment, knowing I had no use for a horse in camp, and asked the use of my horse until he could procure one of his own, which request I readily complied with."

Stidger became responsible for keeping the records of the Division, and came to know every discharge, leave of absence, resignation or furlough that came through the command. After a string of battlefield losses in 1862 & 1863, the 15th Kentucky Infantry had a wave of requests for discharge. Among them were Major Kalfus. Most of these were rejected, but after Kalfus' third tender of resignation, he was put under arrest and dishonorably discharged. Anger over his dismissal from the Army pushed Kalfus into the Sons of Liberty in 1864.

During the winter of 1863-1864, Stidger learned that his mother was deathly ill and confined to bed. He asked for a furlough to return home to attend to her. When that was not approved, Stidger asked for a medical discharge. He was approved for discharge on 14 February 1864.

Source: Fold3.

Source: Fold3. Service record of Felix Stidger.

Stidger's discharge papers give some additional context to his physical appearance. He was 5'8", with dark complexion, black hair and dark eyes.

Stidger arrived back in Taylorsville on 17 February 1864. The area was still full of Rebel sympathsizers and guerrilla bands. In his autobiography, Stidger recalls how he was followed home from the pharmacy after buying medicine for his mother, and the family was robbed at gunpoint.

Stidger. Page 28-29.

After his mother's death, Stidger went into hiding and eventually made his way to Louisville. A band of guerrillas returned to his home with the intention of killing him and his brother. Felix and John were determined to even up with score with the guerrillas, Confederate abettors. Once in Louisville, he sought out the Deputy Provost Marshall for the District, who happened to be the son of the owner of the general store where Stidger had worked in Bloomfield before the war.

The next post will dive into how Stidger went undercover against the Sons of Liberty.

The Family House

Source: National Park Service. Felix G. Stidger House.

The dilapidated shack of a home pictured above recently received protection on the National Register of Historic Places. The home was purchased by my 4th-great-grandfather Enoch Holsclaw for the benefit of his sister Narcissa Holsclaw Stidger and her two sons, following the death of her husband Harmon Stidger in 1838.

The Spencer County Historical and Genealogical Society created a preservation trust to save the home, based on its historic significance related to Felix Grundy Stidger. Felix was a spy during the Civil War who uncovered a vast conspiracy aimed at overthrowing the government in several Union states during the last two years of the war. Stidger thwarted a plan that would have released and armed 75,000 Confederate prisoners in Indiana and Illinois, and resulted in the arrest of over a 100 prominent leaders in these states for treason against the US government. Based on the submission of the preservation trust, the home was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in February 2016, enabling the trust to receive funds for rehabilitation of the property and plan a museum about Stidger in Taylorsville.

Source: National Park Service. Submission by Felix Stidger House Preservation Trust.

The document filed with the National Park Service is a fascinating read. According to the entry, Stidger is the only individual known from Spencer County involved in the Secret Service. During the war, Stidger's espionage activity took place in Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. This made him unique among known spies, as most Union spies went to the Deep South or Confederates came North.

The home's "lack of modernizing gives us a rather honest view into the life of a man who rose from humble beginnings to serve his country in a distinctive way. Felix Stidger's story fits a familiar trope: military service provides opportunities to each service man to draw upon his native strength to make similar contributions to the American war effort, regardless of how rugged his early years might have been. The Stidger House's simple design shows Stidger was a member of the common folk. The unassuming nature of the house surely paralleled Stidger's own demeanor."

According to Stidger's autobiography, his mother Narcissa died in the home on 2 April 1864 after battling sickness for several months. One week before her death, Rebel sympathizers robbed Stidger and his brother while they were in the home caring for their sick mother. Stidger believed the traumatic experience led to her death, and this was the incident that pushed him to join the Secret Service.

Source: National Park Service. Felix G. Stidger House.