Wilcox County grist, flouring mill was the largest in Alabama during the War Between the States

General James H. Wilson

For most of the War Between the States, Wilcox County was a relatively quiet and peaceful place as most of its able-bodied men were off fighting in places like Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia. However, that changed in the final days of the war as Union soldiers passed through the county as part of raids across Alabama. Few details remain about exactly what happened in the county during these raids, but new information continues to come to light.

Thanks to researchers like Ouida Starr Woodson and others, it’s widely known that Union troops passed through Camden in April 1865 and ransacked the Wilcox County Courthouse. They destroyed many books and official papers and scattered everything else into the streets. It’s also said that Union soldiers spent the night on the grounds of the Masonic lodge in Camden.

Not much else is known about this raid, but I did run across a couple of old newspaper stories this week that give more details about what this incident was actually like for county residents. In the March 12, 1914 edition of The Progressive Era, editor Solomon D. Bloch wrote a series of interesting sketches called “Trips in the County.” It was in these sketches that he made mention of an incident that occurred in the county during “Wilson’s Raid,” a large operation led by Union general James H. Wilson. This operation, which was the largest cavalry operation of the entire war, aimed to destroy the region’s ability to support Confederate forces with supplies like food and ammunition.

“At the forks of the Camden and Clifton Road and the Canton Bend Road in antebellum days was located the Wm. T. Matthews large saw mill and planing establishment, but during the War Between the States, it was converted into a grist and flouring mill, which furnished food for the Confederate soldiers,” Bloch wrote. “When the Yankees came through our county in the spring of 1865, and who are known as Wilson’s Raiders, I have been told, they came to this mill, and in a spirit of brutality, ordered the white man in charge of the mill to set fire to it. He refused to do that, and they killed him and threw his body in the office house across the road and set fire to the office and the mill and burned both.”

A short article in the March 2, 1933 edition of The Progressive Era sheds even more light on the incident. It noted that Matthews’ large saw mill was located about two miles west of Camden “at what is now known as the Old Burnt Mill as (Matthews’) mill was burned by the Yankee troops as they raided this part of the country about the close of the Civil War. This mill was considered the largest in the state at that time, and it had a tram road that ran from the mill to the Alabama River about eight miles off and the dump and bed of his old road are still visible.”

In the end, I’d like to hear from anyone in the reading audience with more information about Wilson’s Raid through Wilcox County. Also, if you know where the W.T. Matthews mill was located, please let me know. No doubt there is much more to be learned about this historic April 1865 raid through Wilcox County.