ABOUT THE WRITER
Dr. David McCallie, a retired physician, is the grandson of Thomas Hooke McCallie.• For more on this article, call Chattanooga Area Historical Association editor L.C. Jolley at 423-886-2030.
Editor’s Note: The following is excerpted from “THM – A Memoir,” WestBow Press, 2011. Thomas Hooke McCallie was pastor of the Chattanooga Presbyterian Church from 1862 to 1873, during Confederate control of the city and later under Union occupation. The episode describes the chaos resulting from a Federal incursion into East Tennessee at Knoxville to destroy communications between Richmond and the Deep South – all while Thomas McCallie was trying to retrieve his niece from her stay at boarding school.
In June 1863, I went with my wife, Mary, then 6 months old, and servant woman as nurse to attend the closing exercises of Rogersville Female Seminary and bring home Penelope Hooke, who had been in attendance on the sessions of the school during the past year.
On Saturday morning we started home on the [rail] cars, expecting soon to be at home and in my pulpit the next day. When we reached Bull’s Gap is was our surprise to learn that Knoxville was attacked by a column of Federals, the bridges burned and the union forces probably marching directly toward us. We were in a strait. We knew not what to do. My wife remembered that Cousin Robert Barton lived about 12 miles down the R.R. so we sent him at once a note detailing our condition and situation.
He promptly sent a carriage for us and a two-horse wagon for our baggage, and took us directly to his own house. We reached there Sunday before noon.