Unveiling a Civil War Spy Story | Rachel Prewitt Richardson's Secret
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In this episode of Talk With History, hosts Scott and Jen reveal a little-known Civil War story about Confederate spy Rachel Pruitt Richardson. The story, told through a combination of historical research, family accounts, and a metal detecting adventure, explores the dramatic events on the Pruitt Farm in 1862 near Memphis, Tennessee. The podcast dives deep into Rachel's motivations, her family's struggles, and an incredible discovery that connects the past with the present. Join Scott and Jenn as they expand their YouTube channel journey by uncovering hidden stories of American history and sharing them with history lovers around the globe.
00:00 Introduction to an Untold Civil War Story
01:35 The Prewitt Farm and Its Historical Significance
04:02 The Metal Detecting Adventure Begins
06:34 Rachel Prewitt's Espionage and Family Legacy
11:03 Discovering Artifacts and Uncovering History
27:02 Reflections on History
📍 Google Maps to Hickory Valley, TN
🎥 Video version of this podcast
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Transcript
You won't find this Civil War story in a history book.
Speaker:Ken Burns Never heard of the Confederate spy Rachel Pruitt Richardson.
Speaker:Until recently, there was no video on YouTube or post on a blog that
Speaker:documented what happened with Rogue Union soldiers on the Pruitt Farm in
Speaker:1862, not far from Memphis, Tennessee.
Speaker:As new facts are learned, historians verify and document these stories
Speaker:and share them with the world.
Speaker:This is the story of an attempted murder.
Speaker:An unsuspecting spy and a modern day metal detector who uncovered an artifact
Speaker:tied to that fateful 1862 event.
Speaker:At a farm in Grand Junction, Tennessee,
Speaker:welcome to Talk With History.
Speaker:I'm your host Scott here with my wife and historian Jen.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels YouTube
Speaker:channel journey, and examine history.
Speaker:Through deeper conversations with the curious, the explorers and
Speaker:the history lovers out there.
Speaker:All right, Jen, so this was a very kind of, I, I, I don't wanna say special,
Speaker:but it's kind of just different.
Speaker:We're kind of, we're trying to expand what we do and we, I
Speaker:called it a short documentary.
Speaker:About a truly unknown civil war story, a piece of history that has literally
Speaker:just been passed down from family to family in, you know, generation to
Speaker:generation, I guess two generations down.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Maybe three.
Speaker:And it was so unique and so interesting and so fun that will kind of get
Speaker:into the details of what happened on the Pruitt Farm in Grand Junction,
Speaker:Tennessee, which is about an hour.
Speaker:East of Memphis.
Speaker:Now, this was a farm meant for folks who remember Memphis had recently
Speaker:been taken by the Union, so it's kind of controlled in that area, right?
Speaker:Grand Junction is a little bit.
Speaker:East of La Grange.
Speaker:We've done La Grange, we've done Woodlawn, gruesome Raiders.
Speaker:This is a little bit East Grand Junction.
Speaker:Think of it, it's the perfect title.
Speaker:It's the junction of two railroads.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:It's the North South Railroad and the East, west railroad.
Speaker:It's the junction where they meet.
Speaker:So it's a very, very important logistical line, especially
Speaker:during the Civil War at this time.
Speaker:Yeah, and and if you think about it, they took Memphis because
Speaker:it was important being on there, right there on the Mississippi.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:It was an important river spot.
Speaker:And then.
Speaker:I imagine I, I believe not shortly thereafter, they're, they're
Speaker:hauling butt over to Grand Junction.
Speaker:'cause it's the junction of these two railroads.
Speaker:So logistics, if you know anything about the Civil War, that's what they're
Speaker:doing is they're, they're, they're taking these key logistical points.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you, the Battle of Shiloh is happening in April of 1862.
Speaker:Battle Memphis happens in June of 1862 and.
Speaker:Those are both union victories, right?
Speaker:So Memphis is gonna be union held then for the rest of the war.
Speaker:And then after Shiloh you're gonna get, uh, the Battle of
Speaker:Middleburg in August of 1862.
Speaker:And there is a, a Battle of Davis Bridge, and I think a American battle
Speaker:for trust has saved a lot of those acres.
Speaker:That's also right after Shiloh.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So this is a 1862 kind of early civil war time period and what you have north of.
Speaker:Grand Junction is a little area called Hickory Valley.
Speaker:And Hickory Valley, of course, has plantations on it, farmers
Speaker:on it, and this is where we find ourselves at the Pruitt home.
Speaker:Now, it'll become the Richardson Home, but in this time period
Speaker:in 1862, it's the Pruitt home.
Speaker:It's the Pruitt Plantation.
Speaker:And the Pruitts are enslavers.
Speaker:They have slaves there.
Speaker:And Rachel Pruitt is the daughter of the family.
Speaker:There.
Speaker:And so this, this whole story kind of.
Speaker:Comes about.
Speaker:Again, it's passed down through family history, but it does have
Speaker:some artifacts along with it.
Speaker:And somebody got in touch with me saying, I know somebody who likes to metal detect.
Speaker:He likes to metal detect in the area.
Speaker:He's always looking up cool things and I think it would
Speaker:be really great to do a story.
Speaker:So I was like, that's fine.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:It took a couple months for us to get in touch.
Speaker:We got in touch, and then his name is Mark.
Speaker:And Mark said, I have a friend.
Speaker:Who owns this area of land.
Speaker:His name is Thad Richardson and he has this old house and he's allowed
Speaker:me to metal detect around his house.
Speaker:And he has a story that goes along with what we're metal detecting.
Speaker:It was like, okay.
Speaker:And he goes, so why don't I set it up where we can go out and metal
Speaker:detect and you can get the story and then we can put this all together.
Speaker:So that's kind of what we walked into.
Speaker:Yeah, and and it's one of those things that.
Speaker:This was kind of, you were connected via a friend, via someone you met.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So it's not something we were actively seeking out, but it
Speaker:was just kind of a cool concept.
Speaker:And it was local, right?
Speaker:It's local.
Speaker:It was local.
Speaker:And so that was kind of part of the neat part of this process was you
Speaker:knew a little bit through kind of talking and texting with Mark, right?
Speaker:Mark who's the gentleman that we met there, if you watched our most
Speaker:recent video, um, he's the one who does the metal detecting with us.
Speaker:And you had learned a little bit, so you kind of knew a little bit of the story.
Speaker:So we had, as we were going out, we were kind of talking about the story
Speaker:and I was trying to kind of, you know, get, get it all in my head.
Speaker:And, and then we knew we were gonna talk to Thad on the phone mm-hmm.
Speaker:While we were there.
Speaker:So we, we put it on speaker phone whenever you, mark called him up and
Speaker:Thad started telling you the story.
Speaker:I kind of recorded it like a little mini documentary, which was really
Speaker:fun for me to kind of expand what we're doing here on the channel,
Speaker:something we wanna do more of.
Speaker:So I recorded that speakerphone interview that you had with Thad
Speaker:as kind of the interview for, you know, this, this short documentary.
Speaker:And then we would cut that in as we were talking about the
Speaker:home, which is still there.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And did we have a picture of Rachel and, um, you know, her, her family
Speaker:there, which was really neat.
Speaker:And then we would cut that in later on.
Speaker:We started, you know, metal detecting, kind of like how
Speaker:they did during a documentary.
Speaker:So as I'm kind of trying to learn and flex my early documentary making muscles,
Speaker:this was a really fun one for me as well.
Speaker:Because it was just a, a cool story, a cool spot.
Speaker:It was local and we got to try something ever so slightly different.
Speaker:Again, this is a family story that was passed down through the generations.
Speaker:We didn't really know it going in.
Speaker:Mark kind of knew a little bit of it, but that was why it was
Speaker:so important for us to call.
Speaker:Uh, Mr. Richardson while we were there, Mr. Richardson is
Speaker:the grandson of Rachel Pruitt.
Speaker:His father was Rachel Pew Pruitt Richardson's youngest child,
Speaker:and then that was his father.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Youngest of 10.
Speaker:Youngest of 10.
Speaker:So large families through, through big periods of time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And Thad is now in his early nineties.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So he is like, it's literally, it's not like his great grandmother was
Speaker:the one who witnessed this event.
Speaker:It was his grandmother.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Which was.
Speaker:You don't come across that too often now, like that's not gonna
Speaker:happen for too many more years.
Speaker:Yes, and so we got this, we we're listening to the story from him and
Speaker:he's telling it, and I'm sure he's told it a couple times, but you have
Speaker:to understand that because this is a family story and people don't know.
Speaker:What you wanna do with their story that they're kind of
Speaker:apprehensive about telling it.
Speaker:And bear in mind, this is a Confederate story.
Speaker:This is about a Confederate woman who becomes a Confederate spy.
Speaker:So we've had people ask us, are you Confederate sympathizers
Speaker:because you do this.
Speaker:We're not, we're historians, right?
Speaker:I've told Rose Greenhouse story.
Speaker:Rose Greenhouse was a famous Confederate female spy.
Speaker:Uh, this is just a true.
Speaker:Story of American history, and we wanna make sure that it's accurate
Speaker:and it has, uh, documentation behind it and make sure that those stories
Speaker:pass on Grand Junction, Tennessee, again, one hour east of Memphis.
Speaker:I want you to think during the Civil War era, it's a, it's, it's a big area.
Speaker:It's a, it's well populated nowadays.
Speaker:There's only about 330 people that live there, but this was founded in 1854.
Speaker:Again, the Memphis, Charleston, Mississippi Railroad lines are all there.
Speaker:And it has a three year occupation of the Union Army during the Civil War, and
Speaker:they strategically use this, uh, area.
Speaker:It becomes a contraband camp.
Speaker:So again, when all the enslaved runaway, uh, they set up a camp here
Speaker:for them, and you have some of the most decorated generals will come through
Speaker:Grand Junction, including Grant.
Speaker:So it's just a very famous area.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:What you have happening in the 1862 to the Pruitt Farm here is
Speaker:you have rogue union soldiers.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Who are basically, they're looking for, uh, any kind of
Speaker:the kind of pillaging, the countryside.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They're looking for provisions.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Provisions.
Speaker:They were looking for valuables.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And these are, these are union soldiers and, and I think somebody
Speaker:had asked us in one of the comments.
Speaker:Uh, on the video was they said, Hey, I thought that Tennessee
Speaker:was, was a union state.
Speaker:Well, Tennessee, and you've talked about this before, was very much a
Speaker:mixed across union and confederacy.
Speaker:So I want people to know that Tennessee's officially a Confederate state.
Speaker:It's the last state to leave the union.
Speaker:It's the last day to join the Confederacy and after the Civil
Speaker:War, it's the first state.
Speaker:Welcome back into the union.
Speaker:Uh, but.
Speaker:Like every state, and I make this very clear, it had people
Speaker:who fought for both sides.
Speaker:This is true of every state.
Speaker:Every state in the South had people who fought for the north and the south.
Speaker:And a lot of times in the north you will have people who come
Speaker:down and fight for the south.
Speaker:Uh, just like.
Speaker:Lee, for instance.
Speaker:So you have people who have these strong, uh, loyalties to their different families.
Speaker:That's why this is very much a brother versus brother war, and
Speaker:everybody is American fighting.
Speaker:So it's American versus American.
Speaker:But what you have happening here in Tennessee, and this area is the union
Speaker:is holding this area, but there are confederates that live out in the area.
Speaker:So the union soldiers come scavenging for.
Speaker:Provisions and money and valuable.
Speaker:So they come to the Pruitt Family Farm.
Speaker:Now it becomes the Richardson Family Farm.
Speaker:And when we tell the story, that tells it as it's the Richardson family farm.
Speaker:And though we found out after the fact, we told you there
Speaker:would be more accuracy coming.
Speaker:Rachel doesn't marry.
Speaker:Uh, Mr. Richardson, his father, Thomas Jefferson Richardson, until 1866.
Speaker:Yeah, so after, after the war.
Speaker:After the war.
Speaker:So she's a pruit this whole time.
Speaker:This homestead is the Pruit homestead.
Speaker:When she marries Thomas Jefferson Richardson, he will move into.
Speaker:Uh, her family's homestead and I think her parents live there until they die.
Speaker:So it's basically, it was like her dowry to have this land.
Speaker:He marries into this land.
Speaker:He's a farmer,
Speaker:and it, it's the Richardson farm.
Speaker:From there, there on, after it's the Richardson
Speaker:farm from there on out, but at the time it's Pruitt.
Speaker:So when he tells the story that his grandfather got hanged three
Speaker:times we tell the story like it's Thomas Jefferson Richardson.
Speaker:Yeah, but it's not his grandfather.
Speaker:It's his great grandfather.
Speaker:And, and, and that's one of the things too.
Speaker:There was a couple people who actually kind of caught
Speaker:that mistake in the comments.
Speaker:I was actually pretty impressed that somebody had looked it up and
Speaker:they must have had a, you know, access to genealogy.com mm-hmm.
Speaker:Or something like that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And they said, Hey, red Sheet.
Speaker:Rachel didn't get married until 1866 later.
Speaker:And, and we actually replied.
Speaker:We were like, oh yeah, no, you're totally right.
Speaker:'cause we had sent.
Speaker:The early draft of the video to Thad and to Mark for them to watch it.
Speaker:And they watched it and Thad actually reached back out to us.
Speaker:Now, we were on Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving break, driving down to Florida.
Speaker:But he said, Hey, you know, it was, it actually, it wasn't the, um,
Speaker:it wasn't my grandfather.
Speaker:It wasn't my
Speaker:grandfather was my great grandfather.
Speaker:Grandfather.
Speaker:And so when he, and you'll see if you watch the video, he actually says it.
Speaker:You know, to us, he's like, no, it was my grandfather.
Speaker:He says that to us on the phone.
Speaker:So that's how we tell the, tell the story.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:But it was good.
Speaker:I think that he, he kind of, oh, nope, I made a mistake.
Speaker:He called us and we said, okay, great.
Speaker:We'll make sure we do a follow-up video.
Speaker:And that's part of history and being a historian and, and correcting.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, we'll, we'll.
Speaker:Jump right in there, and I think I put in the top pin comment,
Speaker:Hey, we learned some more.
Speaker:Stay tuned to the podcast because we have some follow up to this.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So Rachel Pruitt is living on this homestead with her parents, James
Speaker:and Elizabeth Pruitt, and it's, and there are other children there.
Speaker:Her brother Joseph, the oldest, he dies young.
Speaker:Nathan becomes a doctor during the Civil War.
Speaker:So he's gone.
Speaker:There is a. Another, uh, Thaddeus Pruitt.
Speaker:He also joins the military.
Speaker:He's gone.
Speaker:And so really Rachel is there.
Speaker:Yeah, she's like with her parents.
Speaker:She's like 19.
Speaker:She's 19.
Speaker:She's the, the oldest sibling home.
Speaker:There's some boys, but they've gone and joined the war effort.
Speaker:And so when the union soldiers come looking for the silverware,
Speaker:which they did, bury the enslaved, did bury the silverware, we were
Speaker:able to see that silverware.
Speaker:Uh, we'll show a picture of it.
Speaker:Uh, Thad actually sent us pictures of that silverware.
Speaker:It's very basic silverware.
Speaker:It's not like what the ornate spoon we found with the ornate detailing.
Speaker:This was basic silver, just cut and has a little bit of a design, but
Speaker:there's nothing, uh, embroidered or, or not fancy, not fancy.
Speaker:And it looks like later in life this was probably part of her dowry.
Speaker:It was engraved with her initials, but, but the Richardson initial, so
Speaker:probably at the time it was probably not engraved and just silver.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so the enslaved probably hid that silver in the ground around the house.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:so they heard that these burg, union soldiers were coming
Speaker:out, pillaging the countryside.
Speaker:So they in, before the soldiers got there, they buried their valuables.
Speaker:And I think they even said like, they buried the hams.
Speaker:Yeah, something like that.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So the hams and, and the silver.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, union soldiers got out there
Speaker:and so Rachel is there at 19 years old with her mother and her father.
Speaker:Her father's born in 1797.
Speaker:So you can imagine at this time he's already almost 70 years old
Speaker:and so they take him into the barn and try to hang him three times to
Speaker:find the whereabouts of the silver.
Speaker:So, and he will die in 1875.
Speaker:So you can imagine.
Speaker:Probably never really recovers from this.
Speaker:And that's when Rachel Richardson is very motivated now to help the
Speaker:Confederates because she's seen what the union has done to her father.
Speaker:Now we wanna also stress these union soldiers were probably rogue.
Speaker:This was probably not sanctioned by any military to do this.
Speaker:You've seen evidence of this in the movie Gone With the Wind when
Speaker:the union comes to terror and remember Scarlet will shoot him.
Speaker:So this is just, both sides do this during the war.
Speaker:It's like all is fair and love and war.
Speaker:People pillage People have to scavenge for food.
Speaker:They, and they.
Speaker:They steal and they take what they can get during the time this
Speaker:would happen on the Pruitt farm.
Speaker:Now, when you say tried to hang him, what does, what does that mean?
Speaker:What made it unsuccessful?
Speaker:So remember in the story, you can see they tried to hang him three times.
Speaker:They use a sack, like a, like a potato sack?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And because they use the sack, it is probably has threads and it's not strong.
Speaker:It breaks three times and they're trying to hang him.
Speaker:To find the whereabouts of the valuables.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Uh, and he doesn't know it.
Speaker:And Rachel and her mother are probably the only women there with
Speaker:the enslaved, so they can't stop this.
Speaker:And so because they can't do it, they get him, they probably get
Speaker:him up, and then it breaks and they probably do it again and it breaks.
Speaker:And you can imagine the 70-year-old man, they're doing this too.
Speaker:And so she's so motivated at this time.
Speaker:Then she's a writer.
Speaker:Uh, on a horse.
Speaker:She starts to carry secrets from this area of Hickory Valley right by Grand
Speaker:Junction all the way to Chattanooga.
Speaker:This is across the state of Tennessee,
Speaker:which drive time nowadays is like a good four to five hours, at least.
Speaker:Back then it was probably a couple day ride.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And there is evidence of her doing this.
Speaker:There's actually documentation, uh, there was an excerpt.
Speaker:From a letter written from Chattanooga, miss Rachel's gonna start back
Speaker:to West Tennessee this evening.
Speaker:I expect to be sent by her and have a hurry.
Speaker:Have not seen her yet.
Speaker:Her company has been crowded with officers.
Speaker:Uh, she was there at a private officer party and we'll be on equal footing.
Speaker:And we are kempt about two miles east of Chattanooga now that came in a letter.
Speaker:Documenting what she did.
Speaker:I was also able to go to the Bird Dog Museum, which is there
Speaker:in Grand Junction, Tennessee.
Speaker:So this area is known for their bird dogs.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like they breed these champion bird dogs
Speaker:and there's like a, there's like a national gathering
Speaker:every year in Grand Junction.
Speaker:Just for bird dogging.
Speaker:Yeah, it's, it's a very interesting thing, and I'm very curious to
Speaker:try and go out sometime next year.
Speaker:They do trial runs.
Speaker:They have these very famous bird dogs, and so this museum is dedicated to that
Speaker:story, that competition, those dogs.
Speaker:But in the Bird Dog Museum, they have Rachel.
Speaker:Pruitt Richardson's side saddle, and it says that this saddle
Speaker:belonged to Mr. Richardson's grandmother 'cause he donated it.
Speaker:Rachel Ann Hill Pruitt Richardson Hill is her mother's maiden name.
Speaker:During the War for Southern Independence, she played the piano in her home to
Speaker:entertain the federal soldiers while the servants hid the ham and silver.
Speaker:It is said she rode her horse from Grand Junction to Chattanooga to warn family
Speaker:members there about the conditions in West Tennessee after federal occupation began.
Speaker:Yeah, so it was just so interesting because like I said in the intro,
Speaker:this isn't, you're not gonna find this in a history book.
Speaker:You're not gonna find this on the internet probably anywhere other than our video.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And some news excerpts that you've found, and you've done your research since then.
Speaker:You've gone through newspapers, local newspaper to the Grand Junction area.
Speaker:I think it's a bolivar, uh, something or other newspaper.
Speaker:Um, so it's, it's been very interesting to kind of.
Speaker:Look further into this and kind of do the work that historians do in
Speaker:researching an an event like this.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And so when you watch our video, I'm standing on the same front porch.
Speaker:When Rachel will marry Thomas Jefferson Richardson in 1866, he
Speaker:will move into that home, uh, and they will raise their family there.
Speaker:She's standing on that front porch it looks like probably at his.
Speaker:Funeral at Thomas Jefferson, uh, Richardson's funeral in the, the late 18.
Speaker:Yeah, they're all in black.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:In the late 1890s.
Speaker:And she's standing right on the front porch.
Speaker:I take a picture of standing in the same location, and then you
Speaker:can see Thad's father is the youngest child in that picture.
Speaker:And that picture was taken in 1896.
Speaker:1896. Yeah.
Speaker:And so.
Speaker:We decide to metal detect where the barn was.
Speaker:We take Mark and like he's never metal detected where the barn went.
Speaker:He's done the back field where he found a ton of civil war bullets.
Speaker:That's how we knew the union definitely occupied the area he'd done around the
Speaker:house, but he never did what the barn was.
Speaker:So we're like, well, let's go out what the barn is, and if we watch our video.
Speaker:We find a spoon.
Speaker:We find a spoon.
Speaker:A silver spoon.
Speaker:A silver spoon.
Speaker:A nice ornate silver spoon.
Speaker:Engraved Mama Richardson.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, from 1891.
Speaker:So not part of this story, but.
Speaker:Part of her story
Speaker:and, and, and it was so fun.
Speaker:Again, a little bit of behind the scenes here on the podcast is we had
Speaker:done kind of all the initial filming.
Speaker:We had already recorded the, the interview with Thad.
Speaker:So we'd been there for a couple hours.
Speaker:Mark had gone out and just started.
Speaker:He had just started and we were recording some bits around the house.
Speaker:'cause the house is getting run down and starting to fall, starting to fall down.
Speaker:And so we go out there, we're gonna say, okay, let's go see what Mark's doing.
Speaker:And so we walk out there, we do a couple more kind of video clips out
Speaker:there just to show, because it's a, they had bulldoze the old barn and so
Speaker:there's lots of like broken tin, 'cause it was a tin roof and stuff like that.
Speaker:And we show that.
Speaker:And then I see Mark kind of off in the distance.
Speaker:He's not talking to us, but I have him micd up.
Speaker:So I see him off in the distance starting to dig.
Speaker:And so I just kind of turn the camera on and through my, my hear my headphones.
Speaker:'cause I can hear, I hear his metal detector going off, right?
Speaker:It's, it's giving a, a, a audible beep.
Speaker:So I start walking over there and he's digging, he's, he's digging
Speaker:around and I got the whole clip.
Speaker:So like.
Speaker:If people think that it was staged, it absolutely was not.
Speaker:'cause you can see me record the whole thing.
Speaker:I don't stop at all.
Speaker:And we walk right up.
Speaker:I was like, what'd you find?
Speaker:And he's digging around.
Speaker:He's like, I don't know.
Speaker:And he's digging, digging, digging.
Speaker:He's got this little trou and all of a sudden he pulls
Speaker:out, he's like, it's a spoon.
Speaker:He's like, it's a silver spoon.
Speaker:I was like, no way.
Speaker:I was like, is this from the story?
Speaker:So I like whistle at Jen.
Speaker:You can hear if you, if you pay attention in the video, I whistle to
Speaker:get Jen to come over 'cause she's kind of just poking around off to the side.
Speaker:So she comes over and then we see and we start cleaning the spoon off
Speaker:and I could see that it said Richardson.
Speaker:I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker:So Cool.
Speaker:Was like, it was
Speaker:so much fun.
Speaker:It seemed so crazy and it was one of those moments, I tell
Speaker:Scott I really felt like Rachel.
Speaker:Wanted her story, told she she wants her agency.
Speaker:So whether or not, you know, again, she's a confederate, what she's
Speaker:doing is against like, you know, ethics really, you know, because we
Speaker:really want the union to win here.
Speaker:Uh.
Speaker:She is taking her agency upon herself to spy.
Speaker:It's not common for a woman to do in 1862.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I feel like she wanted her story told, and her motivations we can understand is
Speaker:because of what they did to her father.
Speaker:And so we found this spoon is from 1891.
Speaker:It is the only we, we've already given it back to Thad.
Speaker:It's the only one that he has in that set.
Speaker:He actually looked up the, uh.
Speaker:The, the kind of engraving, and I found that it was made in Memphis.
Speaker:Oh, really?
Speaker:And it was, uh, super popular.
Speaker:Uh.
Speaker:Spoon style.
Speaker:And we were able to tell.
Speaker:'cause when we first saw the Richardson we're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker:it's, it's a Richardson spoon.
Speaker:And then on there it said, mama Richardson.
Speaker:We're like, oh my gosh, it's probably Rachel Richardson spoon.
Speaker:So we were just getting more and more excited.
Speaker:And then we saw there was like a, um, there was a stamp.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Um, it was, so it was like Sterling and then it said 1891.
Speaker:So that's how we knew it was from 1891.
Speaker:'cause it set it right on there.
Speaker:So in the video we realized.
Speaker:Okay, this probably isn't from the story, but it was Rachel
Speaker:Richardson's Silver Silverware.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So this one of her kids, we, and we joke about it like how did it end up out here?
Speaker:It's like probably one of her kids snagged it to go digging
Speaker:around out near the little pond.
Speaker:'cause there's, there was a pond right where we were just out digging
Speaker:around or ate lunch out there and just left the spoon there like
Speaker:130 plus years later we dig it up.
Speaker:It was crazy.
Speaker:It was crazy.
Speaker:It was, it was so much fun.
Speaker:It was, it was.
Speaker:It was one of those things that I just kind of didn't know what to expect.
Speaker:And it just blew my expectations away because it was a cool story.
Speaker:It's tied to the character from the Civil War.
Speaker:We caught it all on film.
Speaker:We put it all together in this little short documentary.
Speaker:It was just an absolute blast to make this,
Speaker:and we found that some stuff after the fact as well.
Speaker:I want, um, Thad Richon sent us a photograph of Rachel.
Speaker:She subsequently, later in life looks like.
Speaker:Maybe the, after that photograph of, uh, 1896 was taken, maybe even a little
Speaker:later, she was given a medal from the, either the daughters of the Confederacy
Speaker:or the Sons of the Confederacy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We, we don't quite know, we haven't found documentation on the medal itself,
Speaker:but that he has a picture of her.
Speaker:With the medal.
Speaker:With the medal.
Speaker:She's wearing the medal on the horse and she looks very proud.
Speaker:So, uh, he says she was buried with that medal, so we don't know quite when she
Speaker:got the medal or what, but we know it was probably for her make doing that ride.
Speaker:Uh, back and forth from, uh.
Speaker:Hickory Valley to Chattanooga with the information.
Speaker:Uh, we also found these, uh, orders, these general orders that came from the
Speaker:union in the area in 1863 in April, where it said, um, un undeserved privileges
Speaker:awarded to traitors within the lines.
Speaker:Uh, the bans of robbers in the area you need to watch out for, include.
Speaker:Richardson.
Speaker:So you can tell she probably was already working with Thomas, uh, Jefferson
Speaker:Richardson and their family, uh, to, to run, uh, secrets between the lines
Speaker:and to be helping the Confederacy.
Speaker:So this general order came out to the union in 1863 about.
Speaker:Boulevard, Tennessee, which is the town north of Hickory Valley, uh,
Speaker:that you have to watch for, uh, the undeserved privileges awarded to
Speaker:traitors and Richardson is one of them.
Speaker:Now, what I like about that is, of course they recognize the men, but
Speaker:the women never get recognition.
Speaker:And Pruitt Rachel Pruitt, she probably went undetected this whole time.
Speaker:They probably never even thought she was running any secrets because a woman.
Speaker:Uh, that's why Rose Greenhouse was so effective.
Speaker:That's why Confederate and Union female spies during this war were
Speaker:so effective is because no one feels like these women have any agency or
Speaker:know anything or can be of any use.
Speaker:And so she probably was using that to her advantage, so much so that it's not
Speaker:even detected in this general order.
Speaker:But the Richardson name is, uh, she'll marry Thomas Jefferson Richardson
Speaker:in 1866, and then subsequently have all these children, including fads.
Speaker:Grandfather or Thad's father.
Speaker:And, um, and then this story gets passed down.
Speaker:Thad still owns that land if you wanna see this video.
Speaker:And we're still, I'm still trying to uncover this metal and maybe some
Speaker:documentation around the metal, but we have a picture of her with the metal.
Speaker:Uh, we have some of more of this information.
Speaker:It's just been really neat to try to piece this all together and tell the story.
Speaker:We went out to the cemetery after this, and Rachel is in the Grand
Speaker:Junction Cemetery, along with her husband, some of her children.
Speaker:This is where a Thad will eventually be buried, so we
Speaker:show you his gravestone as well.
Speaker:Her father, James Pruitt is also there, so the man who actually was hanged
Speaker:three times is actually there as well.
Speaker:So if this is a family story.
Speaker:That has not been told anywhere else.
Speaker:And we were able to uncover an artifact kind of connected to the family.
Speaker:So it was just really neat to try to put this all together.
Speaker:And again, there's some stuff in the Bird Dog Museum, so it's kind of
Speaker:neat to be telling this entire story and piecing it all back together.
Speaker:Yeah, it was just such a blast.
Speaker:'cause it was, it was so different.
Speaker:But it's tied to a topic that we're, you know, most, a lot of folks are
Speaker:interested, including us, the Civil War.
Speaker:And it's local and it's got a neat story and we got to metal
Speaker:detect and dig some stuff up.
Speaker:When we actually found something, it was just such an absolute blast.
Speaker:If you guys are listening to this and you haven't watched the video, go ahead and
Speaker:look in the show notes and I'll, I'll link the video there because it's a fun video.
Speaker:I'm actually pretty proud of it.
Speaker:It did much better than than our average video.
Speaker:Just a ton of fun, and I encourage you guys to check it out.
Speaker:It's astonishing to think that such a dramatic event, an attempted murder, a
Speaker:desperate act of espionage, and a direct encounter with rogue union forces.
Speaker:Could remain an undocumented whisper passed down through
Speaker:family for over a century.
Speaker:Yet that's the nature of history.
Speaker:It's often hidden, waiting for an artifact to family diary, or in this
Speaker:case a metal detector and a dedicated researcher to bring it back into light.
Speaker:We owe a debt to people like Mark who dug up the artifact with us, and of
Speaker:course, Thad Richardson who told us a story of his grandmother, Rachel.
Speaker:Jen and I work hard to discover stories like that and try to ensure
Speaker:that the untold stories of individuals like Rachel Pruitt Richardson
Speaker:aren't lost to the dust of time.
Speaker:We often say to others, there is no right side of history.
Speaker:There's just history.
Speaker:It happened or it didn't.
Speaker:What we learn from it may be different for all of us, thank you
Speaker:for joining us on this deep dive into an absolutely unique Civil War story.
Speaker:And don't forget to hit that free follow button.
Speaker:We'll talk to you next time.
Speaker:And until then.
Speaker:Keep digging into history.
Speaker:This has been a Walk with History, production Talk with History is
Speaker:created, hosted by me, Scott Bennie, episode Researched by Jennifer Bennie.
Speaker:Check out the show notes for links and references mentioned in this episode.
Speaker:Talk With History is supported by our community at the history road trip.com.
Speaker:Our eternal thanks.
Speaker:Go out to our lifetime members to help keep us going.
Speaker:Thank you to Doug McLiverty Larry Myers.
Speaker:Patrick Bennie.
Speaker:Gail Cooper, Christie Kohtz, Calvin Gifford, Courtney Senini, Jean Noah,
Speaker:Larry Mitchell, Tommy Anderson, Susan Soulas, Bruce Lynch and William Garner.
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