The Girl and the General: Emma Sansom Johnson

Subject: The Girl and the General: Emma Sansom Johnson Thu 08 Nov 2007, 12:47 am

Many a mother can relate to the apprehension felt by Mrs. Parmelia Sansom, as she watched her daughter being boosted up onto the back of a fleet but wearied warhorse .... set to gallop away, while pressed snugly behind a man garbed in gray, yet quite unknown.

"Sir," Mrs. Sansom maintained firmly, her eyes squinting through the dust stirred up by the group of mounted soldiers' sudden arrival at her doorstep, "my daughter cannot thus accompany a stranger."

Moments were at a premium. The uniformed gentleman turned his face squarely toward the woman, whose concern for the welfare of her daughter -- now draped sideways behind him -- had wider consequences than she could know. "Madam," he responded leaving no mystery about his identity, "my name is Forrest, and I will be responsible for this young lady's safety."

The mother's gaze relaxed, as recognition passed across her features. "Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Sansom. "If you are General Forrest, she may go with you!" And in that instant, she watched as her daughter, Emma, took off in a flash, her arms clasped around the straight back of General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Emma Sansom was a tender sixteen years of age on May 2, 1863. When Union forces burned the only bridge linking the steep banks of Black Creek -- near her northern Alabama home -- General Forrest's Confederate Cavalry seemed helpless from preventing these intruders from cutting off the essential rail lines extending outward from Rome, Georgia. That is, his hands had appeared to be tied, until a local girl named Emma came bounding toward his mounted men, exclaiming that she knew of a low-water crossing which was favored by the family's cows. Rather than being thwarted by the recalcitrant creek and beleaguered by the rough, hilly terrain, then, Forrest's men were successful in making their crossing in minutes .... and in forcing the surrender of some two thousand Northern men on the following day.

It is said that "Nathan Bedford Forrest seldom bothered to write anything, not even battle orders, but this occasion was special. He tore a stained page from a memorandum book and on it wrote a note of thanks to Emma Sansom. Then he rode off on his fine horse, carrying a lock of her hair with him." *

Just eighteen months following her daring ride with the General, Emma married a Confederate soldier by the name of Christopher B. Johnson. And though Alabama and Georgia rightly cherish her memory, Emma Sansom Johnson lived out the majority of her days as a Texas girl. She and Christopher moved to Upshur County about 1870 -- to a community some twelve miles west of Gilmer -- and there they raised their five sons and two daughters. Emma rests along with her husband and other family members in the old section of Little Mound Cemetery, located north of the Baptist church which she faithfully attended.

Worthy of note: Emma's mother was born Parmelia (or, Lemelia) Vann, and is believed by family historians to have been a niece of Cherokee Chief James Vann, who was a brother of Parmelia's father, Joseph David Vann.

* Quoted from, 'A Treasury of Georgia Tales,' by Webb Garrison (Rutledge Hill Press, 1987), page 65

http://www.scvcamp469-nbf.com/emmasansom.htm

http://txgenes.com/TxUpshur/Bios_Histories/BioJs.html

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest.htm

http://ngeorgia.com/ang/James_Vann
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The woman of the frontier made the best of her situation, for she had developed a respect for the land that gave her freedom as well as the courage to live in it.
~~~ from the perspective of Anne Seagraves