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Julia F Claggett 1876
Of New Baltimore, Virginia
Julia Francis (Sanford) Claggett (1807-1876) married Samuel Claggett on on May 8, 1827. When her husband died in 1846, Julia was left with six children, four to 16 years old. She likely relied on other family members in New Baltimore for help. She also likely used the assets in her indenture, received when her father died, to support herself and the children.
Eleven years later, she learned that her cousin Luther M. Sanford of Carroll Parish, Louisiana had died and left her his plantation, worth about $30,000, or about $854,000 as of 2021.
She sold the plantation in 1857 and received $8,000 in cash plus bonds. She bought a 271 acre farm at 33 dollars an acre from her husband's second cousin Joseph Horner for $9,000. The farm was in New Baltimore, Virginia, 4 ½ miles north of Culpepper. She paid $3,000 up front. She also bought a second farm named Dodd's Mill for her sister Ann and her husband Craven King 2 ½ miles north of Haymarket, nine miles to the north. She secured possession of the farm in January 1860. She used the remainder of the $8,000 to purchase stock and supplies for her farm.
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| Julia bought the 271 acre farm from Joseph Horner, her deceased husband's second cousin. When she was forced to sell it only seven years later, Joseph's brother Dr. Gustavus Richard Brown Horner bought it. |
In the 1860 census, Julia's personal property was valued at $19,635 (about $558,725 in 2021) and real property at $8,190 ($233,051 in 2021). New Baltimore lay astride the Warrenton - Alexandria Turnpike, the major road connecting northern Virginia to Alexandria and Washington D.C.
When the war broke out, Julia was beside herself and suffered a stroke. "At the beginning of secession she took the side of the Union and, according to her own statement, the paralysis that came upon her in 1861 and has lasted ever since, was caused by the trouble that secession caused her mentally."
Her son's Randolph Claggett's obituary reported, "Their house was near the scene of the first battle of Bull Run, and many times the armies of both the north and the south were encamped on their farm."
Following the Battle of Antietam, Gen. William Buel Franklin's VII Corps occupied her farm.
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| President Abraham Lincoln visiting McClellan in his tent after the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. It was the single bloodiest day in American military history. Despite being a tactical draw, Antietam is considered a turning point of the war and a victory for the Union because it ended Lee's strategic campaign (his first invasion of the North) and it allowed President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22. |
After the Battle of Antietam, Gen. George B. McClellan and his troops camped on the farm in the fall of 1862, "cutting and hauling the timber away from day to day as long as they remained there; which was for a week or longer." Lincoln ordered McClellan's removal from command on November 5, 1862. Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside assumed command of the Army of the Potomac in a change of command ceremony on the Claggett farm in New Baltimore, Virginia on November 9, 1862.
The 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, of Army of the Potomac’s VI Corps commanded by Gen. Joseph Jackson Bartlett camped on her farm from July 31 until September 15, 1863. Bartlett used Julia's home as his headquarters, and one afternoon "a party of rebels came there and tried to capture Gen. Bartlett."
The entire farm—hay, corn, oats, wheat, cows, horses, pigs, even the barn and fencing—were requisitoned without compensation by Union and Confederate forces during the Civil War. The barn planks were used to construct tent platforms. Julia had a "very costly", six-rail wooden and stone fence built around the entire farm and separating various fields. The posts and rails were used for firewood; the stone fence for chimneys and repairing roads. Troops cut down an old growth forest as fuel for their fires, "40 acres were timbered, chiefly with white oak and chestnut." "The timbered land was valued at $100. per acre before the war. It was large and standing thick on the ground."
After the Civil War ended, unable to pay the remaining debt on the farm, she sold it to her husband's second cousin, and brother of the original owner, Dr. Gustavus Richard Brown Horner for $8,063.57 on January 1867.
Congress established the Commissioners of Claims on March 31, 1871 that allowed Southern Loyalists who had often involuntarily "furnished stores and supplies for the use of the U.S. Army" during the Civil War to seek compensation. Julia Clagget initially filed a claim on December 24, 1871 totaling $7,322.50. Four years later, by an act of Congress, she was awarded $3091.00. (For details, read the full transcript.)
Julia died in 1876. Her will was probated in Prince William County. It left everything to her son Thomas Johnson Claggett (1841-1901), who moved to Illinois after she died.
# 10523
Claim of Julia F Claggett of Prince William County State of Virginia
Submitted December 20, 1871.
The claimant is a widow, 69 years old, whose husband a soldier of the war of 1812, died in 1846. At the beginning of succession she took the side of the Union and, according to her statement, the paralysis that came upon her in 1861 and has lasted ever since, was caused by the trouble that succession caused her mentally. One son and two step-sons were resident in Illinois and were unionist, the other son resided with the claimant and was conscriptable, but evaded service by dodging the officers and parties who sought to take him.
The claimant herself aided in these escapes, sometimes by locking him up in a wardrobe and at others by supplying him while laying out in the woods. Considerable property was taken by the Confederates from the claimant and no pay tendered which was not the usual treatment according to Confederate sympathizers. The claimant's reputation and the neighborhood was that of a sympathizer with the Union cause, and when her house had been fired into and somewhat improved by the Confederates in an attempt to capture a Union general quartered in the house, one of her neighbors, spoken with on the subject, said that it made no difference how much damage was done to claimant, and she was not in sympathy with them.
Two officers of the Union army have testified very explicitly as to the cordial relations existing between the officers and men of the army and the claimant’s family, that the family was reported and treated as Union family that the army was differently treated by this family than by most of the residents of that County and that guards and protection were footed the family in consequence of their loyal behavior and reputation. They claimant has declared upon oath her devotion to the union cause throughout. She is bedridden, exceedingly feeble, and talks with great difficulty, so that her testimony is not as full as it might be, but there is plenty of evidence to support the finding now made, that she was a loyal adherent of the Union cause during the war.
Previous to 1860, the claimant was very poor, but in that year she came into a legacy of some $30,000 [or about $854,000 as of 2021] from a relative [her cousin L. M. Sanford] in Louisiana. She got $8,000 cash, and out of it bought and stocked and put in fine order a farm of 273 acres, on which the present claim arises. The farm was in Fauquier County; 40 acres were timbered, chiefly with white oak and Chestnut of original growth, the former proprietor having carefully preserved the woodland from cutting and trespassing. Claimant's testimony as to the account in general is very satisfactory, with the usual discrepancies as to quantities and other details usual in such cases where witnesses are not drilled before testifying.
| No | Description | Amount Claimed |
Amount Allowed |
Amount Disallowed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1700 cords wood at $2 | $3,400.00 | $1,200.00 | $2,200.00 |
| 2 | 1 Barn, $500.00 | $75.00 | $425.00 | - |
| 3 | 60 bushels wheat, $2 | $120.00 | $60.00 | $60.00 |
| 4 | 25 tons hay, $15 | $345.00 | $250.00 | $125.00 |
| 5 | Six harnesses, $50 | $50.00 | - | - |
| 6 | 150 bushels oats, 50 cents | $50.00 | $50.00 | - |
| 7 | Six horses, $150 | $900.00 | $600.00 | $300.00 |
| 8 | 40 hogs, $5 | $200.00 | $50.00 | $150.00 |
| 9 | 26 fat cattle, $25 | $650.00 | $250.00 | $400.00 |
| 10 | 3 tons hay, $10 | $30.00 | $30.00 | - |
| 11 | 1000 lb bacon, 18 3/4 cents | $120.00 | $67.50 | $184.50 |
| 12 | 500 bushels corn, $1 | $500.00 | $100.00 | $400.00 |
| 13 | 2000 panels fencing, 120 cents | $306.00 | $54.00 | $360.00 |
| $7,322.50 | $3,091.00 | $4,231.50 |
Item 1, we allow for 40 acres timber.
Item 2, we allow for planking and flooring of barn taken to build quarters.
Item three and four we allow for quantities charged.
Item 5 we disallow, no army use being shown.
Item 6 and 10, we allow as charged, respecting quantity.
Item 7, Two horses taken for artillery and the other four by Kilpatrick's Calvary on two different occasions in 1864.
Items 8 and 9, hogs and cattle; evidently some taken necessarily and properly but rest were depredation, and we make the best discrimination possible in allowing for a smaller part and if any change were made it would be to disallow entirely.
Item 11, bacon, taking an 1864, consider the amount somewhat overestimated.
Item 12, corn we allow for corn in stock, but the roasting ear crop evidently plundered by the troops.
Item 13, fencing; testimony somewhat obscure and conflicting, but we settle on 1700 panels has the best estimate made from the most reliable evidence. The farm cost $9,000, besides the stock.
We allow in all the sum of Thirty hundred and ninety-one dollars.
A O Aldis.
Drange Ferrichs
I B Honell
Commissioner of Claims