Below is a headline and article by the late Henry Scalf from the February 14, 1952 Floyd County Times. The Jackson- Blackburn Feud was largely forgotten during the years following the Civil War.
PEACE OVERTURE SPURNED, OLD ENMITY BURST INTO FEUD ENDING IN CLAN LEADER’S DEATH
“Dr. Robert Jackson, scion of an old pioneer Johns Creek family, graduate of the Cincinnati Eclectic School of Medicine, and relative of Stonewall Jackson, sat down one day in the strife-torn year of 1863 and wrote his arch enemy, Peyton Blackburn, a letter. It was a difficult letter to write, for in it he would have to ask his enemy for peace.
His request for peace could be construed as fear– only his family and friends would know that it was an honest effort to avoid the strife and bloodshed attendant upon the clash of men whose sympathies were Union and Southern. Blackburn was an ardent Unionist and Dr. Bob, as he was called, was just as earnestly Confederate. The two men had been enemies for a long time, the time and circumstances of their enmity lost in the years. Now that the Civil War was upon the land and civil law was nonexisting in the valley, these two strong advocates of their beliefs held in their hands the issue of local strife or peace.
“In the letter Dr. Bob discounted the original cause of their enmity, mentioning the obligations they owed the community in preserving a semblance of order in the social chaos of the time. He pointed out to his enemy that they had no great personal interest in the war, and said: “This is a rich man’s war and the poor man will fight it. Let us be friends.”
“Having so written, he called to his side young Dow Elkins and made him a messenger. A few hours later the messenger on his foam-flecked horse returned and handed his leader back the letter. Turning it over he read the answer: “Nothing but your heart’s blood will satisfy me.” There was no signature; it needed none. The doctor knew it was the reply of his mortal foe, for who else could claim, for vengeance, his heart’s blood?
“Some men when faced with a great crisis draw back from the stark circumstances as if recoil would brush it away. Others act with courage and all discretion possible. Dr. Bob had sought to evade a crisis with an appeal for peace, in which he was thinking of his people. Now that his offer was rejected, he must think of himself, for self-preservation, the primitive law, is ever with us.
“There was no gathering of the clansmen or riding through the highlands, but there were the renewals of fealty from his friends and the setting of the watch. It was to be a long watch and when not on watch there was the deadly stalk of men for each other from the south of Brushy to the upper area of the creek, over on to the Buffalo Fork and along the many roads.
“At other times they gathered on the porch of their leader in Jackson Branch and discussed the war while the watch scrutinized the roads and hills. There was John McGiure, Dow Elkins, Tom Collins, Tom ‘Slunge’ Collinsworth, Barney Scott, and another whose name is known only to be of the Scott family.
“We are assured of none other, and of those on the Blackburn side we know of Hiram, and “Monkey” Will Blackburn, brothers of Peyton, and Matt Robinson. Of the neutrals there was Riley Blankenship, a large landowner who lived between the two contending factions. Riley’s son, Alex, who lived to be a revered minister and who was the last remaining witness of the feud, recounted eyewitness accounts of two skirmishes. In all accounts of the bitter personal feud of Jackson and Blackburn there is the overtone of the deadly stalk of men for each other. “Nothing but your heart’s blood” must have been ever in Dr. Bob’s mind and a fierce hatred must have motivated Peyton.
“There was the first encounter at the home of Riley Blankenship. Peyton and Matt Robinson had come to stay the night. We gather that this was a matter of discretion. Blackburn’s home was not far away. The next morning the two men, accompanied by their host, went out onto the back porch to wash. The three were close together and Matt [Riley?] stepped aside for some reason and Matt and Peyton were left alone. The crack of a rifle on the point just above the low gap going over to Missouri Creek was heard and a bullet struck the ground close to Peyton. They started running around the house, but, thinking there would be no attack while they were in the home of the mutually respected neutral, they returned to the house.
“The stalk continued around the mouth of Missouri Creek, for Peyton was often seen there. But one day he and Matt let down the bars of discretion. They procured a drink at the well, but Riley was close and they had no fear of a rifle in the gap. Matt climbed an apple tree and went out on a limb. Resting there and munching an apple, he thought only of the exertion when the sun was hot. A rifle barked and a bullet struck a close limb of the tree. Matt fell out of the tree of his own volition and grabbed his gun, seeking to overtake the fleeing Peyton. Bullets continued from the hill and were replied to by them [sic]. Dark came and the antagonists drifted away.
“The days lengthened into weeks, but the watch and the stalk increased. The watch was sometimes to scout, for, by search, enemies could be flushed from where they had crept to kill. It was on one of these scouting trips that the doctor, Collinsworth, and Elkins went to the farm of Barney Scott. It was to see young Barney on the part of Dr. Bob, and young Dow wanted to see Mary Jane, Scott’s daughter. Collinsworth and the doctor went to the barn, for Scott was working there. Young Dow stood talking to Mary Jane from the Scott doorstep. She stood in the doorway and Dow steadied his rifle butt on the doorstep. Thinking only of the girl, of whom he was enamored, he failed to notice the creep of the rifle butt towards the edge of the plank. There was a fall of the loaded gun; the trigger was pulled back by the edge of the step. The shot struck Elkins in the head and he died ere the screams of the girl had ceased. The three at the barn rushed to the house, thinking that Blackburn’s men had descended upon it. An examination of the steps and the story of the hysterical girl pieced together the tragic story. The bullet had passed from Elkins’ head and embedded itself in the top frame of the door. Here, the hole from which it was cut remained for decades as a reminder of a feud, of sudden death, and a tragic love.
“Skirmishes turn into battles and men having fought or taunted each other will gather their adherents to resolve a struggle. That was what Blackburn now did. The first pitched battle was at the mouth of the River Branch, or Clark Branch it is today. Blackburn and his friends were gathered on the side where the small stream empties into Johns Creek. Here trees sheltered them from the eyes of the Jackson men over on the opposite hills. Dr. Bob had six men and there were four, some say five, with Blackburn.
“A point comes out from the mountainside and here under the protective trees were the doctor and his men. Back of him, for the land was his, lay the beginnings of a cemetery where his father, Isaac, the pioneer, was buried, close to the hand-hewn coffin-shaped grave coverings of the early Cecils. The trees extended down towards the base of the suddenly descending slope and as they moved from tree to tree to view the Blackburn force, they exposed themselves to view. But there were no shots from the other side, for Blackburn was resorting to strategy to win a battle. He sent one of his men over the creek, with orders to creep upward around the forested hillside and attack from the rear. When the scout fired it would be the signal for battle. For some time, perhaps an hour or more, there was silence while the advance man of Blackburn’s crept over the creek and started up the hillside, losing himself to view in the woods.
“Dr. Bob, unaware of the projected infiltration of his rear, was watching the evidence of movement across the valley. Seeing a man exposing himself, he fired but missed. Peyton took this shot for his cue to attack and the battle was on. At the firing of the first fusillade, John McGuire jumped for the better protection of another tree but a bullet struck him in the head and he died instantly. The firing continued for a few moments, but Blackburn’s men, creeping around the hillsides, began to fire. Dr. Bob thought a larger force was on his flank, and he and his men fled.
“James B. Scalf lived at this time on the Miles Hunt Branch nearby and was out at work on the farm. He said the first shot of Peyton’s whistled by him but the second shot coming from the Blackburn side evidently killed McGuire. These two shots, he said, came in quick succession.
“Long after, when the trees were cut away and grass grew on the point, the old folks would point out a bare place where they said John McGuire had fallen. Grass will not grow where blood flowed, they said. Of such is mountain lore.
“This drawing of first blood increased the bitterness of the Jackson faction, and none but felt that the end must be the death of Dr. Bob or Peyton. To say that the watch, the stalk, and the scouting was increased on both sides is to repeat what oldsters say and what we must infer as true, for the warring factions lived in a close community, none of the participants separated more than a few miles.
“There is a branch coming into Johns Creek from the east side with its headwaters gap leading into Brushy Creek. That Peyton used this pass in his countryside travels the Jackson side knew. On Brushy Creek Peyton had his enemies, too. He had killed Eldon Adams, it was said, and when he went to that creek he took a friend or two along. One day, a Blackburn adherent or two disappeared from their homes and Dr. Bob deduced that Peyton had gone to Brushy Creek and had taken them along. And if he went to Brushy he would go through the Petit Gap of the creek now known as the Columbus Scott Branch.
“It has been said that Peyton Blackburn had a small camp near the gap and that the Doctor and his men came onto it and disturbed some of the camp paraphernalia. When Peyton came back to the small camp site, he quickly noticed a displaced object or two and said to his friends, “I smell Rebel!” At that moment Dr. Bob and others fired. Peyton was struck in the shoulder and other places. Mortally wounded, he fled down the hill on the Johns Creek side while his brothers Hiram and “Monkey” Will escaped to Brushy. Will’s thumb and cartridge bag had been shot away. The bag was recovered by a Jackson lieutenant, who kept it for years.
“One of the doctor’s men pursued and overtook the wounded man, who in flight had turned an ankle under the turned-up stump of a walnut tree where he had sought refuge. This member of the Doctor’s party who found him there administered the coup-de-grace with the butt of his rifle. Just who pursued the wounded man it cannot be said, for accusations and denials persisted for years. That Peyton’s brains were beaten out, to be later gathered up in a silk handkerchief and interred with him, is also denied. It may be just one of the many stories that come out of a great human tragedy.
“With Blackburn’s death the feud ceased. It was one of a personal struggle between Dr. Robert and Peyton in the first place, and the return of peace brought calm to distracted Johns Creek. For years the participants watched each other, but no overt act was committed.
Dr. Robert Jackson, son of Isaac and Elizabeth Leslie Jackson, was born Sept. 7, 1838, and married Lorena Shelton (1847-1913) of West Hamlin, W. Va. When his wife died he went to live with his son, Robert L. Jackson, a teacher. His other son, Dr. John Jackson, inherited the home place and died there. Death claimed the old Doctor on August 10, 1916, at the home of his teacher-son.
“It has been said of him that he was a kind man, and very benevolent in his old age. For long years he was a patriarchal figure astride his horse, sitting upon a great sheepskin saddle, visiting the neighborhood sick.
“He is buried in the Jackson cemetery, within a distance of 100 yards of where John McGuire fell.”
The story Scalf presented in the Floyd County Times article above gives only a skeleton outline of the facts surrounding the Jackson-Blackburn affair.
Peyton Blackburn and Lenna (Malinda) Whitt were married on March 22, 1844, by R. Clevinger, Minister of the Gospel. On March 4, 1851, he finalized a land grant for 100 acres located on Crooked Fork in Pike County. By 1860, Peyton and Lenna had seven children, the oldest being three boys: Thomas, 19; John W., 13; and George W., 12. His farm was valued at $500. His personal property was worth $400.
Civil War records go a long way toward helping to understand the hard feelings between Blackburn and Robert Jackson. There is a record of one Peyton Blackburn joining Company E of the Fifty-fourth Virginia Infantry on November 18, 1861, at Liberty Hill, Tazewell County, Virginia. [See Above]
Peyton Blackburn’s residence was listed as Roanoke County, Virginia, but therein lies a problem: there was no Peyton Blackburn in any Virginia census in 1860 and the only P. Blackburn in the state lived in Richmond. Considering the state of affairs in Pike County at the time, it makes sense that Peyton Blackburn and some of his neighbors would have joined the Fifty-fourth. A Union force under command of Col. Jonathan Sill had marched up Johns Creek several days before November 18. It was part of the army under Gen. William “Bull” Nelson which had fought Capt. Andrew Jackson May’s force at Ivy Mountain on November 8. On their way up Johns Creek, Sill’s men had confiscated whatever forage they could find and soldiers’ letters told of stealing hogs from local farmers on the way toward Pikeville. Such thievery could well have driven men like Peyton Blackburn to join the Confederacy. Whether this was or was not the Peyton Blackburn who would later feud with Dr. Robert Jackson, his Confederate service records leads one to believe it indeed was. If that soldier was dissatisfied with life in the Rebel Army, why wait until his regiment reached Pikeville before he deserted?
Possible Confederate service aside, Peyton Blackburn found his way into the Union army. Pikeville and the surrounding area was looted by Col. Nathaniel Menefee’s Virginia State Line troops and Col. Benjamin Caudill’s company of the Fifth Kentucky Infantry, C.S.A during the first weekend of August 1862. The primary victim of that raid was John Dils of Pikeville, who immediately began to work toward organizing what came to be known as the Thirty-ninth Kentucky Mounted Infantry, U.S.
There is no evidence that Peyton Blackburn suffered at the hands of Rebels, but, with Levisa Fork controlled by the Union, Johns Creek became an alternate back-roads route for any Confederates. Blackburn enlisted in Company E of the Thirty-ninth Kentucky Infantry on November 6, 1862. His company captain was Lewis Sowards, whose home opposite the mouth of Shelby Creek had also been victimized by Menefee’s and Caudill’s troops in early August.
Blackburn was listed as a deserter on February 20, 1863, but had returned and was again present on the May-June roll. Such absences were common and generally corresponded with the season for plowing, planting, and first hoeing. His Civil War service was summarized in the Inventory of Effects [below] which would have been completed shortly after news of his death.
Blackburn’s date of death as given in his war records ranges from September 1, 1864, as in the document above, while others indicate he was killed on either September 15 or 16 of that year.
Peyton Blackburn was buried in the Pinson Cemetery at Gulnare, Kentucky.
ROBERT LESLIE JACKSON was not a doctor at the time of the trouble with Peyton Blackburn. That title was gained in 1896 at the age of 58. He was, however, the great-great-grandson of William Robert Leslie, one of the first white settlers within modern Pike County. His great-uncle, Pharmer Leslie, was said to have been the first white child born within modern Pike County. As such, he was born into a position of respect and relative prosperity for the times. His father, Isaac Jackson, was a Virginian from Russell County. His mother Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Leslie, was born in what is now Tazewell County, Virginia, in 1791. Her marriage to Jackson was her first and his second. Robert was their only child. The newlywed Jacksons settled a few miles downstream from Elizabeth’s family, but the land on which she settled was, at least in part, a portion of her inheritance. Isaac Jackson offered little more than himself and two children by a former marriage, but when he married Elizabeth Leslie he did well for himself and his two orphan sons; Hawkins Jackson became a stone mason and James Madison Jackson became a surveyor. Isaac Jackson died in 1849 and young Robert lived with his mother through the Civil War.
Once hostilities erupted in 1861, the Leslie clan on Johns Creek almost invariably sided with the Confederacy. Elizabeth Leslie Jackson’s household was no different. Robert’s half brother, James Madison Jackson, made a name for himself during newly-commissioned Gen. James A. Garfield’s occupation of Pikeville during early 1862. He had been a states’ rights supporter since the beginning of the war. His respect in the Southern leaning community was reflected by the fact that he received 50 votes for second lieutenant in the voting for officers of the State Guard unit formed in Pikeville in late May 1861. Following the Union successes at Middle Creek and Pound Gap, some Confederates along the upper valley were having doubts about the stand they had taken. On March 20, Garfield responded to a feeler from James Madison Jackson, a Virginia-born surveyor from Johns Creek.
Jackson inquired through an intermediary, John Francis, as to Garfield’s policy should he turn himself in on unspecified charges. The new general’s response fell within the guidelines he had developed for dealing with such cases. Jackson was told that all peace-loving citizens should enjoy government protection and those who had been in arms against the government should deliver up their arms and give assurances and vouchers for their future loyalty in order to merit such protection and be allowed to remain at home. There is no evidence that James Madison Jackson posted what amounted to a peace bond, but neither is there documentation that he continued to bear arms against the Union. It took Robert Jackson over a year to commit himself to the Confederacy. Family history makes no mention of that fact, but simply states that he became a scout for the Rebel army. On October 5, 1862, he joined Capt. George Diamond’s Company of May’s Battalion Kentucky Mounted Rifles, which later came to be designated the Tenth (Diamond’s) Kentucky Cavalry, C.S.A. [see above page] Interestingly, this was during the time of the Confederate invasion of Kentucky, which complemented Gen. Robert E. Lee’s early fall invasion of Maryland. The Big Sandy Valley was prime recruiting territory at this time with no Union force closer than Louisa. Jackson was promoted to corporal in March 1863. The last existing Confederate muster roll on which Robert L. Jackson was listed as present runs from the end of June 1863 through the end of February 1864. The next record in his file is a Report of Rebel Deserters for the Department of West Virginia dated April 1865. That document states that he took the oath of allegiance to the Union on April 28. [see following page]
Jackson’s activities between March 1, 1864, which would have been the beginning of a new, but missing, muster roll, and the date of Peyton Blackburn’s death in mid-September are unclear. At what point did Robert Leslie desert the Confederate army? Another Rebel soldier who had become part of the Leslie settlement through marriage was Thomas Mayo, father of John C.C. Mayo. Thomas had joined the Tenth Kentucky Cavalry during John Hunt Morgan’s retreat into Virginia after his defeat at Cynthiana in June 1864. The Tenth was camped in Tazewell County, Virginia, in September 1864 when Mayo was listed as missing without leave. How long he had been absent is not known. Lower Johns Creek had by that time become a haven for stragglers from both armies. Stories of the execution of soldiers and the robbing of farmsteads were common. Mayo had probably gone home in anticipation of the birth of his son a few weeks later. It is possible that Jackson, also without permission, came along with Mayo to be with his widowed mother. In the alternative, Jackson could have remained loyal to the Southern cause, and he could have been serving as a scout during September 1864, finally deserting with news of the surrender at Appomattox. At the time of Lee’s final defeat, Diamond’s Tenth Kentucky Cavalry was at Christiansburg, Virginia, on its way to join the Army of Northern Virginia. Given the time of Peyton Blackburn’s death, Jackson had probably already deserted.
In either situation, whether he was an earlier 1864 deserter or gave himself up only when he saw light at the end of the war’s tunnel, Robert L. Jackson was on Lower Johns Creek during the late summer of 1864. He was still an official part of the Confederate army. On the other hand, Peyton Blackburn was a member of the Union army. Had the war not intervened, Jackson and Blackburn would have probably settled their differences in a court of law. As it turned out, however, they were sworn belligerents, each obligated to protect their chosen government against the other and each legally entitled to kill the other.
Peyton Blackburn was on the fatal end of a wartime conflict between opposing soldiers, nothing more, nothing less.
The story of Dow Elkins, Jackson’s comrade during the Blackburn affair, offers no help and serves only to muddy the water. Local tradition has held for over 150 years that young Elkins was killed in September 1864, shortly before or on the same day as Peyton Blackburn. Elkins’ service record, however, conflicts with that story.
Dow Elkins officially joined Company D of Diamond’s Tenth Kentucky Cavalry on August 1, 1863, in Pikeville. His name appears on two muster rolls. On the roll ending February 29, 1864, he was listed as “Absent sick in Hawkins Co. E. Tenn.” The length of his illness is not stated, although, considering the information on the second existing roll for February 29 through August 1, 1864, it was prolonged. That roll contains two revealing notations, the first of which literally proves that Elkins did not return to service following his Hawkins County illness when it states “Never Paid.” The second states that Elkins was “Killed in Eastern Ky. Dec. 15, 1863.” This puts his death nine months before that of Peyton Blackburn and throws Scalf’s timeline, as well as that inherent in local legend, into total disarray. The veracity of this note cannot be disputed, so one is left to wonder just how long Jackson and Blackburn spied upon each other before that fatal day in mid-September 1864.
Years ago, during the early 1990s, David Deskins and I were on a summer day’s trip down Lower Johns Creek. We stopped at a country store for a bologna sandwich and soft drink. Striking up a conversation with the storekeeper, who was an acquaintance of David, we announced that we were looking for Civil War history. A small voice from a table in the back of the store almost whispered, “I can help. What do you want to see?” We told him we would be interested in anything he had to share, whereupon he replied, “Well, follow me and let me take my truck home and I’ll ride with you.”
That turned out to be a most enjoyable and memorable afternoon. We were shown the Jackson family cemetery and the grave of John McGuire, supposedly killed the day prior to Peyton Blackburn’s death. The gentleman pointed across the valley to the spot where the Blackburn clique was camped and rehashed the story of the Jackson-Blackburn troubles set out in Scalf’s article above, albeit with a few variations.
Our guide that afternoon was Cero Blackburn. He was so full of information and stories that David and I later talked at length about questions we should have asked. Unfortunately, we never got to revisit Cero before his death. For all the history he shared with us that day, David and I agreed that he probably knew much more than he was willing to tell. On the other hand, having talked with several people who were well acquainted with Henry Scalf, they all agree that the same could be said of him. Both Henry Scalf and Cero Blackburn probably went to their graves with stories which would have changed local history but which would have also altered both individual and family histories.
Randall Osborne, August 14, 2021
BIBLIOGRAPHY
fold3.com, U.S. and C.S.A. records
Garfield Papers, N.A.R.A.
Leslie, Lesley Leslie, 200 Years in America 1755-1955
Scalf Collection, University of Pikeville
Wells and Prichard, Diamond’s 10th Kentucky Cavalry,
C.S.A.
