Phebe Cunningham: A Courageous Frontier Woman

I am going to take the liberty of wandering off topic today and make an entry unrelated to the Civil War. The story I am going to tell today comes from America’s colonial period, and it is the true story of a brave, courageous young woman, my 5th Great Grandmother, Phebe Tucker Cunningham. Phebe was born in England in 1761 and her family moved into the western counties of Virginia when she was a teenager. In 1780, Phebe, who is described as having been 5 feet 2 inches tall, with long auburn hair, beautiful green eyes, and a lovely fair complexion, met a young man named Thomas Cunningham. Within weeks, she fell in love with the frontier farmer and they were married that spring at Prickett’s Fort, near what is now Fairmont, West Virginia. At that time of their wedding, the area was still a rough, untamed land, subject to sudden Indian raids, primarily by the Wyandot and Shawnee, and the stockade was built as a refuge for local homesteaders. William Haymond, leader of the Pricketts Fort Militia, performed the ceremony. Stories passed down form the time say that the wedding was “well attended” and a good time was had by all.

The newlyweds initially settled on Thomas’ farm near Ten Mile Creek, where their first child, Henry, was born in 1781. Soon, however, they moved further southwest to land owned by Thomas’ brother, Edward, near Bingamon Creek, somewhere between the current towns of Peora and Shinnston, West Virginia. There, Thomas and Edward built cabins for their respective families and began to farm the land together. Over the next four years, Thomas and Phebe would have three more children, Lydia, born in 1782; Walter, born in 1784; and Thomas, Jr., born in 1785.

During the summer of 1785, some six months after little Tommy’s birth, Thomas left Phebe, now a young woman of 24, and their four children to travel to Pittsburgh to purchase supplies for the farm. One soft, warm evening, Phebe finished washing a red and white coverlet, placing it on the fence to dry, and made a dinner of bear meat, new potatoes, fresh peas, applesauce, a fresh baked vinegar pie, and sweet milk for her children. Her husband was expected home at any time, so she set his place at the table. Twenty yards away, Phebe’s sister-in-law, Sarah, also cooked dinner for her family and, soon, both families were seated for dinner in their respective cabins, not knowing that danger was hovering nearby.

That danger came from a raiding party of Wyandot Indians, who were at that moment crouched in the woods, watching and waiting for the right moment to move from their hiding place and attack the farm. As the Cunningham families ate dinner, the Indians crept out from the woods and hid behind the coverlet drying on the fence. Then, one of the Wyandot, a tall, heavy man painted for war in red, yellow, and black, crossed the yard and crept toward Phebe’s cabin. As she was eating her dinner, Phebe turned her head and saw the shadow of a tomahawk crossing the threshold of the cabin door. The Wyandot warrior, who was carrying a musket in addition to his tomahawk, quickly entered the room and closed the door behind him. Apparently, he knew Edward was in the other cabin and likely was armed. Knowing that this cabin was occupied by a woman and her young children, it seems he decided to seek a safe place from which to observe and fire upon the other cabin.

As Phebe and her children sat frozen in their chairs, the Wyandot helped himself to their food, eating a potato, all the pie, and drinking down much of the milk. He then turned to the small window and firing port in the cabin wall that faced Edward and Sarah’s cabin, and peered across the yard. Edward, who had seen the Indian enter Phebe’s cabin, had quickly grabbed his loaded musket and watched as the warrior came to the window. Seeing that Edward was watching him and was even now taking aim with his rifle, the Wyandot quickly raised his musket and fired at Edward. Phebe’s brother-in-law saw the Indian’s rifle being raised just in time to avoid the shot, as the bark from the log close to his head was knocked off by the ball and flew into his face. He quickly returned fire and the warrior ducked below the window.

As Edward rushed to reload, another of the raiding party jumped from hiding and ran across the yard toward Edward and Sarah’s cabin. Hearing his war cry, Edward turned the now reloaded musket and took aim on his new target. As soon as the warrior saw the weapon pointed in his direction, he turned and tried to get out of range. However, just as he was about to spring over the fence, Edward fired and the Wyandot fell forward. The ball hit him in the leg, fracturing his thigh bone, and he hobble over the fence, taking shelter behind the coverlet before Edward could reload.

Meanwhile, the Wyandot who had fired from Phebe’s cabin saw his comrade’s misfortune and apparently decided to make an escape. He turned from the window and moved to the back wall of the cabin, where he began to cut a hole large enough to crawl through. While he hacked at the wall with his tomahawk, Phebe made no attempt to get out. She feared any escape attempt would be easily seen and draw the warrior’s anger. Plus, even if she managed to escape, she would likely be killed by others from the raiding party before she could make it to Edward and Sarah’s cabin. Worst of all, however, she knew that it was impossible for her to take the children with her, and she could not simply leave them alone with the Wyandot warrior. As she watched him chop a hole in the cabin wall, Phebe held the forlorn hope that he would simply withdraw as soon as he could, without molesting any of them. Tragically, that would not be the case.

Once the hole was complete, the Wyandot grabbed another potato and shoved it in his mouth, then proceeded to set fire to blankets from the nearby beds. Thick smoke began to fill the room and pour out the doors and windows, masking the view from Edward and Sarah’s cabin. Once he was sure he would not be seen escaping, the Wyandot grabbed Phebe’s two-year old son, Walter and smashed his skull with the tomahawk before his mother’s horrified eyes. He jerked Phebe up from her chair, put the infant, Tommy, in her arms and ordered her and the other two children to climb out through the hole in the wall. The Wyandot, who continued to drag Walter’s lifeless body with him, then led her away from the house with the baby in her arms and Henry and Lydia hanging onto her skirts. She and the children were hidden from Edward's view because of all of the smoke as they were taken into the woods where the remainder of the raiding party waited. The warrior promptly took Walter’s scalp, tossed his body aside, and the raiding party watched as the flames from Phebe’s cabin jumped to the roof of her in-law’s home.

Their hope was that the flames would drive the family from the house, but, soon, they could see that Edward and his oldest son had ascended to the loft, threw off the loose boards which covered it, and were attempting to extinguish the fire. The raiding party opened fire on them in an attempt to stop them from putting out the blaze, but this effort failed. The two men soon had the fire out and began to return the warriors’ shots. Seeing this was target was going to be too hard to take, they elected to withdraw, taking their wounded comrade and captives with them. But, before they traveled more than a few yards, the raiding party decided to lighten their load. Whether out of anger for their lack of success or merely because they saw little value in Phebe’s two oldest children, the Wyandot murdered Henry, age four, with a tomahawk blow and then did the same to little Lydia, age three. Phebe watched motionless in horror, and expected to receive the same fate, along with Tommy. But, for some reason, the raiding party decided to spare them for now. We can only guess what their reasons may have been for allowing Phebe to live, but one theory is that they were fascinated by her auburn hair and believed she would make a good trade with another tribe. With their wounded comrade carried on a rough litter, the Wyandots and their two surviving captives crossed the nearby ridge to Bingamon Creek, where they took shelter for the night in a cave. After nightfall, the raiding party returned to the farm, and seeing that the rest of the Cunningham family had fled, they plundered the cabin before setting it ablaze.

Edward Cunningham and his family had actually been hiding in the woods nearby and watched helpless as their home burned to the ground. In the morning, they made their way to the nearest house and gave the alarm. A company of men was soon raised to go in pursuit of the raiding party. When they came to Cunningham's farm, they found both houses now in ashes, and soon discovered the bodies of Phebe’s three children. After a quick burial, they set off in an attempt to find the Wyandot's trail. Unfortunately, the raiders had covered their tracks well and, initially, no traces of them could be discovered.

However, within a few days, evidence of their trail was eventually found. The search party was able to follow their path to within a short distance of the cave in which the Wyandot were hiding, but could track them no further. Inside the cave, a warrior stood over Phebe with an upraised tomahawk to prevent her from crying for help. Phebe held her infant son close to her breast fearing he might cry and the warriors would kill them both. At times, she could hear the search party walking on the rocks over their heads, but there was no way she could call to them. Hearing the whites so come close, the raiding party elected to leave that night. The wounded Wyandot had died during their stay in the cave, and they hid his body in a deep pool of water near the cave.

The Wyandotwarriors traveled west for over 10 days, and, during the long journey on foot, the only food Phebe was given consisted of the head of a wild turkey and three papaws. Oppressed by fatigue and hunger, she walked with the raiding party, carrying her infant in her arms. Little Tommy nursed at her breast for milk in vain for, without nourishment or water, Phebe’s breasts soon could not provide it and only blood came instead. Seeing this, the Wyandots must have decided the infant was no longer worth keeping and, as Phebe held Tommy, they killed him with the tomahawk, ripped him from her arms, and cast his body into the brush.

The group then continued the journey, dragging Phebe with them. The pain, grief, and utter despair she must have felt can only be imagined. In addition, she also suffered physically, as one might guess. Her feet soon became so badly torn that she could barely walk and the Wyandots refused her requests to remove her stockings so she could attend to her wounds. Soon, however, they arrived at a Delaware village, where they permitted her to rest. While she rested, one of the Delaware women took pity on her, applying an herb mixture to her swollen, bleeding feet, which finally relieved the pain.

At last, the raiding party arrived at their home village, located in an area that is now Madison County, Ohio, having journeyed over 200 miles on foot. The Wyandot who had captured Phebe turned her over to the family of the warrior who had died. Her clothes were not changed, and she was compelled to wear them, dirty as they were. Phebe feared this was a bad omen but the chief of the village, a kindly man named "Darby,” ordered that she not be molested or treated unkindly in any way. In addition, the women of the village, having heard what the warriors had done to her children, could not help but sympathize with her plight and also became her allies. Phebe would spend the next three years living among the Wyandot, acting as a servant to the dead warrior’s family. She became well acquainted with all the inhabitants of the village during this time, as well as other white captives, some of whom became lifelong friends. But, while she was not mistreated, she longed to go home and to see her husband again.

In January 1786, while Phebe was a captive of the Wyandot, a treaty was concluded at the mouth of the Great Miami River between the United States government and both the Shawnee and Wyandot tribes. Article 1 of that treaty provided that three Indian hostages would be taken by the Americans until “all the prisoners, white and black, taken in the late war from among the citizens of the United States, by the Shawanoe nation, or by any other Indian or Indians residing in their towns, shall be restored.” As a result, a series of conferences began between the Wyandots and American treaty commissioners. One evening in what was probably late 1787 or early 1788, she noticed an uncommon excitement in the village and learned that the notorious American traitor and renegade, Simon Girty, had arrived in the village in preparation for acting as a translator at a conference to be held in a few days at the foot of the Maumee Rapids near Lake Erie.

Girty was born in Pennsylvania, but was captured and adopted by the Senecas as a child. After seven years in captivity, he returned to his family, but soon decided that he preferred the Native American way of life. During the American Revolution, he initially sided with the colonial revolutionaries, but later elected to change sides, serving with the Loyalists and the British army. During the war, he became infamous among Americans for commanding a group of Delawares that ambushed and massacred American forces near Dayton, Kentucky, opposite Cincinnati. Girty was also present during the torture and execution of Continental Army Colonel William Crawford by the Delawares. Two witnesses of this torture and execution survived and were later interviewed regarding these events. While one suggested that Girty was a pitiless instigator and complacent in Crawford;s death, the other claimed that Girty pleaded with the Delawares on Crawford's behalf until threatened with death himself. Of course, the former account was popularized and later served to vilify Girty during and after his lifetime. Further, Girty is also credited with saving the lives of many American prisoners of the Native Americans, often by buying their freedom at his own expense, and Phebe would be one of this fortunate group.

She determined to ask Girty to intercede for her liberation, and, the next day, as he passed nearby on horseback, she ran to him and grabbed his stirrup, begging for his help. For a while he seemed to make light of her request, telling her that she seemed to be well treated, and that, if “he were disposed to do her a kindness he could not as his saddle bags were too small to conceal her.” But soon he was overwhelmed by her pleas and decided to act on her behalf. He paid her ransom to the Wyandot, and had her conveyed to the commissioners for negotiating with the Indians. There, another ransom was paid and she was taken by the commissioners to Kentucky.

Once south of the Ohio River, she met two men named Long and Denton who had been at the treaty conference in an attempt to obtain information about their children taken captive years before. They had been unsuccessful and, as they were about to journey home into the interior of Kentucky, they offered Phebe use of a horse. She soon found a group headed for Virginia and joined them. Within a few weeks, she proceeded by the way of Shenandoah to Harrison County and, finally, to her home. When she arrived, she learned that Thomas, having heard she was free and in Kentucky, had set out to find her. Luckily, while he was enroute, he received word that Phebe was headed home, and he galloped back to Virginia. In May 1788, after over three years of separation, Thomas and Phebe were reunited. During that time, many would tell Thomas that Phebe was likely dead, but he never gave up hope and never stopped searching for her.

Thomas and Phebe Cunningham would have seven more children in the years that followed and, in 1807, they would move to a new homestead in what is today Ritchie County, West Virginia. Thomas would become a Methodist minister and, in 1810, he established one of the first Methodist churches in western Virginia. He died in 1826 and Phebe moved to live with her daughter, Rachel (my 3rd Great Grandmother), and her husband, Isaac Collins, in the village of Freed in Calhoun County. There, she would live to the age of 84 and become the respected and beloved family matriarch. After her death, she was buried in the Snider-Gainer cemetery in Freed. Years later, the courage and fortitude of this frontier woman would be formally recognized with a monument erected at her grave by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Lessons Learned

When I was pursuing my graduate degree on the Civil War and was nearing its completion, one professor posed a most interesting question to my class. He asked us if our studies had changed our views on warfare and, if so, to describe those changes. What lessons, he asked, had we learned that were still applicable today. At the time, I found this a very intriguing exercise and I still do. I was looking over my notes on the subject today and discovered that, despite all I have gone on to learn since those academic studies, my conclusion are the same and, if possible, I feel even stronger about them. My course of study changed the way in which I viewed warfare both by reinforcing some long held opinions while opening my eyes to other possibilities. Among those, there were, however, a few particular areas in which my study of the Civil War was especially influential.

First, there is the influential role that a few key individuals can play in the outcome of a war. While it is generally accepted that wars are the undertakings of entire societies, entire cultures, and entire nations, it is still remarkable how much influence certain individuals can have in shaping its course and outcome. In doing so, it is not just a matter of their position; it is a matter of individual personalities and character. In looking at the Civil War, we can readily see the role played by Lincoln, Davis, Grant, and Lee simply by the positions they held. But, it is only by studying these men and their experiences that we see how they, as individuals, made a difference, for good or bad, in the war’s eventual outcome.

Abraham Lincoln is the most unlikely of men to have been an effective Commander-in-Chief. While he had no military training or background, he had everything else one could want in a wartime political leader. He had a single-minded sense of determination and a dedication to the nation’s cause that was unequaled. More than that, he possessed a marvelously multidimensional mind that gave him vision and the ability to learn. By painful trial and error, he would come to see not only how to achieve his goal of restoring the Union, but also how to operate with his senior military commander as an effective Commander-in-Chief. He also would articulate his nation’s war aims clearly and, thereby, enable his military leadership to eventually fight the war to achieve those aims. Finally, he would see war as a hard and terrible thing, but one necessary to save the world’s best, last hope for freedom.

Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, had all the training and experience one could possibly want in a Commander-in-Chief. A graduate of West Point, a veteran of the Mexican War, and a former Secretary of War, Davis seems the ideal candidate to be a highly effective wartime Commander-in-Chief. Further, he was a man of intense dedication to his cause and it can be truthfully stated that no man worked harder to see that cause through. But, at the same time, Davis was stiff and unbending in his opinions. He had little vision, either political or strategic. Where Lincoln ably developed and articulated his nation’s war aims, Davis is virtually mute on that point. Worse, Davis was man who seemed unable or unwilling to learn from his mistakes. As a result, Southern strategy was stagnant and untenable, and Davis was a most ineffective Commander-in-Chief.

Ulysses Grant, meanwhile, was a man whose life seemed marked by failure. But, in war, he would prove himself. Not an intellectual or a learned strategist, Grant was a simple man who possessed remarkable common sense and an extraordinary ability to both recognize and execute a calculated risk. Like Lincoln, he had a profound ability to learn from both success and error, and, more importantly, to apply what he learned in an effective manner. He also had a strong sense of professionalism that allowed him to overlook matters of personal ego and, instead, dedicate himself to the task of his nation. He understood the role of a military commander, its responsibilities, and, most importantly, his place in relationship to his Commander-in-Chief. As such, he was a partner with Lincoln in winning the war and creating the military command structure which serves as the basis for the one employed to this day.

Finally, there is Robert E. Lee, the soldierly gentleman from Virginia. He too was man of great character, determination, and dedication. At times, it was his strength of will alone that seems to have held the Army of Northern Virginia together. He was a masterful tactician at times and, like Grant, he could seize the initiative with a gifted sense of the calculated risk. But, at the same time, he hated personal conflict and, as a result, could not bring himself to discipline his key commanders when it was necessary to do so. He also had less ability to analyze and learn from his mistakes, especially in the strategic sense. While he seems to have understood the South’s tenuous overall strategic and political position, he apparently did not possess the strategic vision to see beyond his own theater and his army. As a result, when Lee’s Commander-in-Chief needed strategic advice, he received the narrow views of a man who could see no farther than the Eastern Theater and the Army of Northern Virginia.

These four men are pronounced studies in how personality can influence events. Had any one of them been different, the future of an entire nation might have changed. But, my studies also showed me how important events in a war can also turn on individuals of lesser position, men on the line in tactical situations. Typically, they are facing what, in terms of the entire war, is only a single, isolated moment. The situation is often fluid, crisis is imminent, and only their action will make a difference. In this category of individual, there are numerous examples. There is Thomas “Stone wall” Jackson at First Manassas, standing for all to see, holding the line when others were running. Then, there is John Buford, deciding to hold and fight a defense in depth on the ridges west of Gettysburg, and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, stubbornly refusing to abandon his position on Little Round Top. There are hundreds more examples and this war, as well as any war, is full of these kinds of moments and the men who find themselves facing fate head-on. Some of them are up to the task, possessing that special brand of moral courage that comes to the forefront in a crisis, while many more are found wanting. In either case, entire battles turn upon them and, with them, can go the fates of nations.

The other thing I learned in studying the Civil War is to never doubt the determination of the average soldier. No matter how good or bad a general’s plan might be, they have the ability make a difference. So many engagements in the Civil War were part of an elegant tactical plan, but, once the shooting started, they rapidly turned into a “solder’s fight” where men simply fought tenaciously because they were there, with no rhyme or reason nor an understanding of why they were there. How well they fought would often determine the outcome, not the plan that they were a part of that day. This war also teaches us that men do, indeed, fight for the comrades around them, but they also will fight for a cause. A study of Civil War’s soldiers shows them to have been men with well-developed personal views on the war and the particular cause they were fighting for. Armed with a dual motivation of comrade and cause, a soldier will overcome great odds, and prevail over the harshness of their daily existence, separation from home and family, and the despair of ever-present death and disease. In the end, they will sacrifice everything if needed. But, these men still have their limits. To overcome such odds, they must believe in the men who lead them as much as the men around them and the cause they are defending. They must believe that the man who leads them, who holds ultimate command, will not sacrifice them needlessly and, above all, can bring them victory. In essence, they require and demand nothing less than what they are offering themselves.

These few lessons are excellent examples of why, even after 145 years, the Civil War continues to function as an excellent classroom for those who study the art and science of warfare. It is worthy of our study and our understanding for so many reasons. So, whenever you pick up a book on the subject, open your mind, look beyond just the words on the page in front of you, and you will see all that there is to learn.