Sidney Dwight Root, 1824-1894: A Yankee by Birth, A Rebel at Heart by Sharon Gayle Conner Whitney Copyright 2007 Sharon Gayle Conner Whitney All rights reserved. This book is dedicated to the Root family. Sidney Dwight Root, 1824-1894: A Yankee by Birth, A Rebel at Heart Acknowledgements I want to thank my first cousin, once removed, Carol Root Smeltzer, and my second cousin, once removed, Mary Lett Root Robertson, for their prior works compiling and editing materials relevant to the Root Family stories. Carol lives in El Paso de Robles, San Luis Obispo County, CA. Mary Lett now lives in Knoxville, TN. Carol I see in CA on occasion. Mary Lett I've just recently connected via telephone. Carol published recently Hannah: A Woman of Spirit and Heart (2006), which is inspired by the 1880s California homesteader life of Hannah Josephine Fosgate, on Estrella Plains, CA, east of Paso Robles. Hannah married John Edgar, an Irish adventurer. They were the parents of Florence Edna Edgar, who married George Francis Root. Mary Lett is listed in Who's Who of Librarians and Information Services (1987). When I spoke to her on the telephone, Mary Lett seemed to think the life of SDR after the Civil War became a matter of concern to his brother, Moses Root. She said this branch of the family has become "lost" to the rest of us. She seemed happy to learn that the Atlanta Historical Society has some archived materials, and surprised that they included letters written to SDR by Mrs. Jefferson Davis, which thanked him for his help in getting the legislature to provide her with a pension. 3 Table of Contents Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................................5 Text Item ...............................................................................................................................................................8 Descendant Fan Tree of Salmon Root .................................................................................................................36 Descendant Fan Tree of Sidney Dwight Root......................................................................................................37 Outline Descendant Tree of Sidney Dwight Root................................................................................................38 Family Group Sheet.............................................................................................................................................39 Register Report of Sidney Dwight Root ..............................................................................................................47 Kinship Report of Sidney Dwight Root...............................................................................................................54 Index....................................................................................................................................................................58 4 Sidney Dwight Root, 1824-1894: A Yankee by Birth, A Rebel at Heart Introduction This book was inspired by the following passage in the memoir of a distant relative: "In 1860 I had been an intense Union man and welcomed the Compromise Bill of Henry Clay with satisfaction,* but after ten years' experience of constant intimidation and aggression from the North, I concluded the two sections could not live in harmony and had better separate. So, after much thought and prayer, I became a Secessionist in the Spring of 1861, to the great surprise of my friends and family, except my wife. The whole country was aflame, but I am glad to say that I know of no personal outrage" [Memorandum of My Life: Sidney Root, March 14, 1824-1894, typed by Mary Lett Root Robertson - hereinafter MLR- and found contained on page 32 of Our Family Story--Part I: the Roots and the Edgars, compiled and edited by Carol Root Smeltzer, hereinafter CRS] My book weaves together a synopsis of information found in the Memorandum with information found in the public domain, especially Wikipedia. With "poetic license" this Memorandum could well serve as the raw material for an historical novel. Sidney Dwight Root [SDR] was a "Yankee by birth" and a "Rebel at heart." The Rebel part, insofar as it applies strictly to his symapthies and business activities during the Civil War, make him unusual in my family, but - as I have discovered by doing the research for this book - this was not in his time. Moreover, most of us are rebellious in some form or another at some time in our life. SDR's Yankee ancestry was deep, and he knew it, going back to Puritans who settled in Salem, MA in 1637. In the broadest sense of being a rebel, there is evidence of it long before the Civil War, while he was still in Vermont as a young man. For example, at 10 years old he decided he wanted to be not a farmer, like his dad, or a preacher, as his mother wished, but an "architect," which his family did not understand. He moved to Georgia in the 1840s, and apprenticed to the husband of his elder sister Julia, William A. Rawson, another Vermont transplant to Georgia who owned a dry goods store. Soon enough, SDR was so productive he was able to buy a share of the business, and eventually owned all of it. In the meantime, he had married young Mary H. Clark, who inherited three slaves from her family, which became part of the Root household. As a businessman, SDR was very successful in making money, and eventually he entered into a co-parntership in buying and selling household goods in Atlanta, to where he moved his family. As war loomed, Sidney had to make a difficult political choice, to side with the Union, or Secessionists. This point is evidenced in the quote I cited above. Moreover, this passage is the only apology SDR gives for his political partisan switch, although he acknowledges at other points that his wife and family suffered during the Siege of Atlanta, as did his business houses, and he sometimes lost capital on his adventures. 5 Sidney Dwight Root, 1824-1894: A Yankee by Birth, A Rebel at Heart Most of his memoir details his role as a cotton financier and blockade runner for the cause of the Southern Confederacy, in lieu of being a soldier, which was prevented by a railroad accident that had broken his hand and arm in five places. For this he was arrested, but eventually pardoned by the U.S. Government. Another interesting role SDR played during the war was as an unofficial secret envoy to public officials and the aristrocracy in Europe, to try to persuade them that the Confederacy would gradually emancipate the slaves, in return for Europe's increased support of the Confederacy. Most of this came to nothing. During Reconstruction, SDR moved to New York City, where he fell into doing some philanthropy work with southern negroes living there, in starting a church. Philanthopy work continued when he finally moved back to Atlanta, including for the education of negro women. Almost as an after-thought, he details some of what his wife had to live through during the Siege of Atlanta, and the losses of his capital are detailed. Another tragic moment was in the early death of his son John Wellborn Root, well-known in his own right as an innovative architect in Chicago. At the end, he is survived by his daughter, and he counts his brother, Moses Root, from which my own family descended as among the living he can count as a friend. My interest in SDR is increased by my occupation as a professor of political science, and myself being transplanted from California to Tennessee. From first-hand experience, I know how the political - an ideological social movement, a cause - may intertwine with the personal to create a dramatic narrative - new opportunites and losses. I've also seen up close an intersection between individual and social-cultural values, such that regional variations in the history of a democratic political culture do help to shape an individual's ideological perspective. A work such as this also opens a door to how one person lives in a historical moment, and it brings alive the dead past of facts into something with personal significance. For example, I am 99.9% certain my other ancestors of this era either escaped the ravages of war by moving to California, or supported the Union side. Nonetheless, by reading this memoir I have been made to realize the impact of the War on those who were secessionists. Now a word on my relationship to SDR and how I came to possess his memoir. I trace my connection through my late father, his mother, Mary Grace Root (deceased), and her father - George Francis Root - who was a son of Moses Root, SDR's beloved brother. Our Family Story: The Roots and the Edgars was gifted to me by Dad, to whom it was gifted by CRS, my dad's first cousin. In turn, it was gifted to her by their second cousin, MLR, whose grandfather - Charles Harvey Root - was another nephew of SDR. MLR typed the manuscript from a hand-written copy possessed by her Aunt Mary Catherine Root, sister to Charles Harvey. By-the-way, this family was the "last of the Vermont connection." 6 Sidney Dwight Root, 1824-1894: A Yankee by Birth, A Rebel at Heart *The Compromise of 1850 refers to a plan that allowed slavery in the New Mexico and Utah territories while admitting California to the Union as a free state. It included a new Fugitive Slave Act, which banned the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in the District of Columbia. Henry Clay, elected in 1849 to the U.S. Senate from Kentucky helped to work out this compromise. This compromise may have helped to delay the Civil War for an additional eleven years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Clay) 7 Sidney Dwight Root, 1824-1894: A Yankee by Birth, A Rebel at Heart Synopsis of Memorandum of My Life: Sidney Root, March 14, 1824-1894, as contained in Our Family Story--Part I: the Roots and the Edgars, compiled and edited by Carol Root Smeltzer (1991-1992), and as supplemented by Wikipedia article references, etc. SDR wrote his memoirs originally for the Atlanta Pioneer Society, then thought his descendants might also benefit from a copy. He believed in the importance of heredity and desired to have an honorable ancestry.