Copyright 2000 by James Hayes

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced without

permission of the copyright owner.

Dedicated to S.D. Clegg and Mark Hayes

I did not know if I would write another novel. Writing turns into painful self-analysis that might be labeled growth, and I thought I had matured enough.

But here I go again. Only this time trying to balance between my ancestors and myself while realizing my brother and I are the only humans to whom these genes have passed. Also understanding these genes stop with us.

Here I focus on ancestors during the time frame of their lives. I did not begin this project intending to be judgmental or critical. I leave judgment to God and criticism to you. Deeds of mere mortals are seldom comprehended by those of a different time and are often misinterpreted even when occurring in the present tense, twisted by different perspectives and agendas. I have learned through experience that no person can really know what is in the heart or mind of another, regardless of what we think or hope we may know.

Regarding those long dead, my effort to write about the lives of Civil War era ancestors is not intended to be anything more than my own ramblings on the subject. Most of the information here is factual with names and dates and such. I am who I am because of these people, genetically at least, so I write as I choose to write and what I choose to write because I am not worried about the dead or the living haunting me. I have few recollections of either helping me, though angels from somewhere have rescued me on several occasions. The writer tries to remain in a state of objectivity, with my fault being human.

Holding on to the past is perhaps the most mortal trait, and to do so without learning from experiences repeatedly causes devastation. I believe most of us can relate to Dan's song:

Like a dream that's fadin', you can't catch when it's gone.

"Days Gone By" by Dan Baird

In The Land of Salvation and Sin by The Georgia Satellites

CHAPTER FIVE

I have dug up a lot of bones, but detailed information of my Hayes lineage has been lost to the last four generations and may remain lost forever.

My great-great-grandfather Isaac Simpson Hayes was born December 14, 1812. The Bible record in my possession does not name a birth location, but two other Hayes family Bible records place his birth in the heart of the Cherokee lands of North Carolina. At this point in my search, Isaac is not a verified descendant of any Hayes family of the Americas or Europe.

For months I obsessively searched through records of every Hayes family I could find, until I uncovered the family story from Isaac's wife. Varner folklore says Isaac left home at age 16 and had no other contact with his family. If my great-great-grandfather cut ties that have remained severed for almost two centuries, I assume he had his own good reasons for doing so.

There is something very cold and calculating about a genealogy search. It creates immunity to the fact that names were once living, breathing people who enjoyed the simple pleasure and endured the catastrophic hardship just as you and I do today. As one who has contemplated how life might have turned out if I had run away when I was 16 and if I had managed to cut all ties with my family, I admire the Patriarch of my Hayes family. Part of me hopes his parents are never found by the genealogists.

My personal hypotheses: Isaac's mother was Cherokee; his father was white and had more than one family (i.e. wife and kids); Hayes may not have been the surname of Isaac's father; and, the Hayes name may have simply been acquired for use by Isaac's mother or by Isaac himself.

My secondary hypotheses if Isaac's parent(s) were of European origin: Isaac may have had a dispute with his parents that caused them to omit his name from their Bible records, or said Bible records do not exist; and/or Hayes was not his father's surname; and/or Isaac picked the Hayes surname out of the blue to call himself (for those were very different times).

These two hypotheses cover all the major possibilities I can imagine, but let me discuss the trails of research I traveled before arriving at my conclusions. I lend my efforts if you dare to follow the leads, for I wonder if Isaac's wish to cut family ties is perhaps best left as he desired.

Traditional sources may fail you. I never found a public record from any county, state, or country of an Isaac S. Hayes with a birth date of December 14, 1812. I even paid researchers to locate him, but they could not. At least two of his descendants possess Bible records that pinpoint Isaac's birth date and location somewhere in North Carolina.

According to the Bible records of Mose Hayes, my grandfather, in the handwriting of Mose's daughter Johnny Hayes, these are the earliest known members of my Hayes lineage.

Other descendants of Isaac Simpson Hayes have records that indicate Isaac and Judea had two children who died in infancy, thus explaining why they are not on my Mose Hayes Bible records.

The next information I can find about Isaac comes only from family records. On June 17, 1840, in North Carolina according to the only family record that even names a location, Isaac married Judea Varner. No official marriage certificate or public record of their marriage has ever been located, and I am convinced it does not exist.

Isaac's whereabouts are unknown from birth in late 1812 in North Carolina to his marriage in 1840, and considering that we may not know exactly where Isaac and Judea married, actually his whereabouts are unknown for a couple more years. I suspect Isaac may have had a wife and/or children prior to marrying Judea, but this thought is only based on his age (he was 27 when he married Judea, who was 17) and the common practices of the era in which he lived. I find no documentation of any previous marriage or children.

I first searched Hayes records in North Carolina, the supposed state of Isaac's birth. There is absolutely nothing there! Then I moved on to Tennessee, which was part of North Carolina until 1796, but even among the numerous Hayes families of Tennessee there is no connection to my great-great-grandfather.

I scrutinized the "McGavock-Hayes Family Papers" from the Tennessee State Library and Archives, but all I really discovered was that as early as the 1830's that particular Hayes family was seeking to document relatives and even they did not know who all their Hayes' were. There are definitely no Isaac S. Hayes' among these documents.

Through Isaac's wife we have one more clue about my great-great-grandfather. Varner family stories say Isaac possibly lived in Kentucky after he left home at age 16. To this I add that Isaac and Judea's second child, John Mathew Hayes, is recorded by the Varners to have been born in Mayfield, Graves County, Kentucky.

I conclude it is possible Isaac might have been back in Kentucky for some reason if he had actually spent some time there earlier, but I was unable to locate any Kentucky records regarding a Hayes family link to my great-great-grandfather. The court house records of Graves County Kentucky were destroyed by fires. Nobody knows where their first child was born, so North Carolina might have been where Isaac and Judea married and had their first child, but this is just my guess.

Isaac and Judea's third child, Penelope Ann Hayes, was definitely born in Marengo County Alabama in November 1846, where it is assumed my great-great-grandparents lived two or three years. The story of how Isaac and Judea got to Alabama is pretty easy to figure out by tracing the Varner family, and I will get to that shortly.

For several months before I learned the Varner story about Isaac leaving home and cutting all family ties, I contemplated scenarios regarding why Isaac's parents are unknown. My initial reaction to the Varner story was one of hope to clarify some of the scenarios I had already established. However, after more consideration, the Varner story really does not strengthen either hypothesis or shed light into other possibilities.

Available circumstantial evidence and concurring stories from descendants point to the probability that at least one of Isaac's parents was full-blooded Cherokee. I cannot say with complete certainty and I do not wish to open a casino, but at least this theory does make sense and offers an explanation of why there are no public records to indicate Isaac's parents.

The Cherokee trail appeared to be the path Isaac wanted me to follow. There seemed no other possible course of action in order to try to find his parents or siblings. Perhaps Isaac pointed me in this direction because of what happened to the land of his birth and the Native Americans of his mother's ancestry, or perhaps because Isaac's identity is lost forever among the ruins of his people and thus safe from the intruding genealogists and Isaac is having a good laugh at us all because he knows he covered his tracks very well as an Indian should do.

My efforts to discover Isaac's parents and siblings in order to track my Hayes Civil War soldiers also led me to the Native American trail, for I knew Cherokees served in both Armies during the Civil War and I was curious how my Indian ancestors sided with the nation of their choice during the conflict. Stories of Cherokee blood came from several Hayes relatives I had never even heard of before I began my search.

All the tales matched as though an attorney had prepared them for the witness stand: at least one of Isaac's parents was full-blooded Cherokee.

Isaac's son John Matthew Hayes fought for the Confederacy, and family stories concur that John Matthew and my great-grandfather Franklin Pierce Hayes were one-quarter Cherokee.

Isaac's roots appear to be North Carolina, where the Ani-Yunwiya ancestral homeland of the Southern Appalachian Highland was the major arena for the Civil War. By today's standards we measure these lands in terms of 135,000 square miles or eight distinctive States, but to the Cherokee it was hallowed ground long before the Blue and Gray.

Most Native Americans had been forced west of the Mississippi River two decades before the Civil War, and this forced migration could explain some of Isaac's moves. The white man killed or uprooted Native Americans and lumped them into one group we now call Indians, and as a result many of us are unable to verify our ancestors. Millions of Americans are of Native American descent though most are not aware of the fact. Even without verifying Hayes ancestors by name, the story remains.

The ethnic cleansing of North America began long before the first shots at Fort Sumter in 1861. Perhaps only now can we view the destruction of the Native American and the institution of slavery as the same issue, for it was far more complex at the time. Slavery in America included more than whites who owned blacks: there were whites enslaved or indentured, Negroes who were free, Native Americans who owned African slaves, and Native Americans who were slaves.

From a 21st Century perspective, the common bond between the desolation of the Native American and the institution of slavery can be simplified by claiming two main influences: white supremacy and greed. But when we consider Indians owned slaves and were slaves themselves, we barely begin to comprehend human nature.

The probable 1/32 degree of Cherokee blood from my paternal surname lineage prevents my portraying the story accurately because of my 31/32 degree of white blood through this line (although I naively point out all blood is the same color). Still, I will do my best to describe what I believe happened. I am not certain any person in the 21st Century can or wants to grasp the story of our Native American ancestors.

Cherokee legends indicate the tribe originated north of their Appalachian homeland, perhaps as far north as present day Canada. Their society had an elaborate social, political, and ceremonial structure organized by townships and seven major clans. Unlike my European ancestors, Cherokee clans were matrilineal and marriage within a clan was prohibited.

How long the Cherokees have lived on the continent of North America is anybody's guess. Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto wrote of finding them in 1540 as if they were lost, and from there it was all downhill for the Indians.

By the late 1600's the Cherokees were labeled one of the Five Civilized Tribes because of their ability to adapt some European culture into their own. The Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Seminoles were also given this noticeably Anglo label. Each of the five tribes had a flourishing culture and a unique history prior to the European invasion.

The white man, by combining Indians into one category and eventually into one locale, devastated cultures and destroyed many of the people. Because Isaac's roots appear to be in one of the Cherokee clans, I focus primarily on the Cherokees though I recognize the importance of the other tribes. I intend no disrespect if I too appear to lump the Native Americans into one category. It is possible my Hayes lineage includes Choctaw blood through Isaac's wife, but when the Indians were "removed" many of us lost our means of tracing Native American ancestors to a specific tribe. To keep things in perspective, the Indians of the time lost much more.

By the 1700's, constant wars and epidemics resulted in a declining Native American population and a shrinking territory for the Cherokees. By the end of the American Revolution half the Cherokee land had been lost to the white man. The US government, prior to formal establishment by military victory, had used all the land east of the Mississippi as collateral for the debt the beginning country had acquired during the Revolution. By the time of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 ending the American Revolution, lenders wanted their money back. The new country had to rid the land of Indians and turn it into profitable areas for settlers, and that was that.

Between 1790 and 1820 many Cherokees and other Native Americans voluntarily, if one can use the word in the context of what was really going on, began immigrating west of the Mississippi. It is estimated as many as one-third of the entire Cherokee population moved west during these years. Many of these Cherokees moved into what would become known as Missouri, Arkansas, northern Louisiana, and a few even came into the area of Texas.

By the time the United States was formed the government had little use for the Indians and just wanted their land, but some US citizens did not view the Cherokees as such a nuisance and thus inter-marriages were frequent. Confirmation of these marriages is another story because prior to the European invasion Native Americans had no use for a surname, and when the inter-marriages started the Indians began using surnames in a manner very different from the white man's rules.

It was common for a white man to have two Cherokee wives simultaneously and both wives and/or their offspring might have taken any surname they desired. Who knows how the white man's family, if they were aware of his marriage(s), felt about the situation? Or what surname the white man might have informed his spouse or offspring about anyway?

If a Cherokee man married a white woman he may have acquired her maiden name. This practice was especially common if the Cherokee man was trying to adapt as a matter of survival into the white man's world. Native Americans had no legal rights, and even as late as the 1900's any person claiming to be one-half Cherokee was not legally able to conduct any business transaction without a white guardian appointed by a court.

One obvious conclusion is a Cherokee man with a European surname and white wife might more easily pass himself as white in order to have some legal protection. Still another point to consider is how the white woman's family felt about her marriage to an Indian and the use of their family name. It is possible many white family genealogy records were destroyed because the parents did not approve of their daughter's marriage to an Indian.

Even if a Cherokee man took his wife's maiden name as his own, that does not necessarily mean their children would keep the mother's surname as their surname: they might have preferred and used something else altogether.

Basically, the manner in which Native Americans used names, and their entire structure of home and family life was more idealistic, shall I say, than most Europeans of the time. Certainly surnames played a role only because of the European invasion.

In 1921 Emmet Starr, a Cherokee Native American, published the only officially recognized genealogy of the Cherokee people. One needs only to briefly study his lineage information to realize how European surnames were used. There are six Hayes' in Starr's book, but unfortunately all six are listed only as spouses and thus there is no genealogy material on the Hayes name.

The next source utilized in hopes of finding Isaac Simpson Hayes' parents or siblings is the first known roll of individual Native Americans, the Reservation Rolls of 1817. Since the exact location of Isaac's birth has never been established and we have no clue as to the whereabouts of his family during Isaac's entire lifetime, my examination of the Reservation Rolls of 1817 was bound to be a dead end.

This roll was compiled a couple of years after Isaac's birth, but it lists only those desiring a 640 acre tract of land in the East instead of removing to Arkansas. The Arkansas Territory was not even created until 1819, but at least 1000 Cherokees had already settled in the area of Arkansas by 1817. So this 1817 Reservation Roll, as all the rolls taken by the white man, is certainly not representative of the total number of Native Americans at the time. Many names on the 1817 Reservation Roll are in the Native American language, but none of them translate to Hayes and even among the Anglo surnames there are no Hayes'.

At this point I began studying more of Cherokee customs, and trying to place myself in their position. By Isaac's birth in late 1812 many Cherokees had already immigrated west and others were doing so daily without pausing to sign a US government roll. Many Native Americans would not have remained anywhere or have signed any list. These were very dignified people who had lived on this land for hundreds of years before the white man showed up with diseases and a strong militia.

The country to the West was still wide open and sparsely populated, and though the Native Americans did not want to leave their homeland they had little choice and it was just a matter of time. Even those who accepted the 640 acre tract of land in the East in 1817 were told that upon their death or abandonment of the property the land would revert to the state.

At the time of Isaac's childhood there were a few Cherokees who refused to move west and who legally fought the US government and somehow managed to remain in the mountains of North Carolina. Through generations of legal battles these Cherokees maintain a 56,000 acre tract of land near the Great Smokey Mountains State Park, and are known as the Eastern Band of Cherokees. Perhaps one of Isaac's parents or siblings was a member of this group. Today their descendants number around 10,000.

Following the Varner story of Isaac leaving home at age 16, I began contemplating some scenarios. Even before Isaac was 16 his parents may have moved west and left him with another family and this family could be the origin of the Hayes name. Perhaps Isaac moved west with his parent(s). The possibilities are endless. Even the Varner story about Isaac leaving home and cutting all ties may have been a camouflage story Isaac invented simply to downplay his Native American roots. I conclude however, if indeed Isaac was of Cherokee blood, it is more likely his parent(s), siblings and/or cousins migrated west of the European invaders.

From 1817 to 1835 the US government offered small concessions to those who would abandon their native southeastern homeland. If they would remove west, each head of the family would receive "a good rifle, a blanket, a kettle, and 5 pounds of tobacco." Also each head of household removing at least four persons was to receive $50.

By 1835 at least one-third of the Cherokee population had removed to the West, including Sequoyah, creator of the Cherokee written language. The whereabouts of all of these people is certainly unknown for we must consider the point was simply to get them out of the land the white man wanted (that is, the land east of the Mississippi River). Those who filed to relocate to Arkansas and on to Oklahoma in 1828 are on the Emigration Rolls of 1817-1835, but again there are no Hayes names and the rolls are certainly an inadequate source to represent everyone who left their homeland during this timeframe.

The US Indian Removal Policy was initiated in 1830, but it was most productive in 1838 and 1839 when 16,000 to 18,000 Cherokees were forcibly marched from their native southeastern homeland to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. An estimated 4,000 Cherokees perished on this march known as the Trail of Tears, and except for the small group who managed to stay behind in North Carolina the Trail of Tears marked the end of the Cherokees in their native homeland.

All Five Civilized Tribes were included in the Trail of Tears, which actually was not one trail but several trails because each tribe began the march from a different location in the southeastern US. I suggest all readers learn of the Trail of Tears, and there are many sources on the subject but I recommend one written by someone of Native American descent.

Undoubtedly some of my maternal Native American ancestors who were possibly of Choctaw origin were forcibly marched on the Trail of Tears. The Choctaw Nation traces its ancestry to Mississippi and portions of Alabama. The Choctaws had played a crucial role in aiding the US put down some of the "rebellious" Indians as well as helping Andrew Jackson defeat the British at the Battle of New Orleans, but this did not matter when the whites decided they wanted the Choctaw lands.

By the treaty of Treaty Ground, Mississippi in 1820, the US government ceded land in southwestern Arkansas and the southern half of Oklahoma to the Choctaws in early efforts to remove them. This treaty also offered land in what is now known as Texas and New Mexico, although at the time all this land belonged to Spain. (Now there's a forked-tongue treaty for you!)

The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek forcibly removed perhaps as many as 20,000 Choctaws, and only 7,000 are said to have survived the Trail of Tears. Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis, later president of the Confederacy, played a crucial role in the complete and final removal of the Choctaws from Mississippi. General Winfield Scott was in charge of the entire Trail of Tears migration. Scott would go on to glory in the Mexican-American War, and eventually was Lincoln's first commander of the Union Army though he was too fat to get on his horse by 1861 and was soon replaced by Irvin McDowell.

The Henderson Roll of 1835 contains about 16,000 Native Americans then residing in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina who were to be removed by the Trail of Tears under the treaty of New Echota. Again, no Hayes' but by now I am convinced Hayes is not even a reliable lead though the only lead I have. Isaac would have been in his 20's by this time, and I suspect he was staying away from anything Indian, but might have easily been married and raising a family among one of the migrating Indian bands.

From total estimates of Cherokees and Choctaws (not to mention the three other tribes) documented to have made the Trail of Tears march, we can see the Henderson Roll's 16,000 is quite low and obviously the white man's propaganda.

The famous 1851 Old Settler Roll may someday lead to the discovery of Isaac's parents or siblings, although my efforts to decipher the clues have been unsuccessful because the only lead I have is the surname Hayes with no first names to help me. In 1851, the government finally took a list of living Native Americans who were already residing in Oklahoma when the Trail of Tears group arrived during the winter of 1839. Those on this list may also have lived in Arkansas prior to their supposed removal to Oklahoma around 1828.

A five member Hayes family is on the 1851 Old Settler Roll, but I can not link them to Isaac. Considering track records of rolls, I believe if there was one Hayes family who signed there were probably many more who did not sign and who managed to wander away from the white man and live in an unwanted area.

The Drennen Roll of 1852 is the first census of those who arrived with the Trail of Tears groups during the winter of 1839. Again no recognizable names, which indicates perhaps my ancestors were fortunate enough to have avoided the Trail of Tears, or they split off from the main body during the march as documented a few did accomplish, or they perished during the march, or they were dead by the time of the roll in 1851, or they had wandered off after the Trail of Tears and were not around to sign the Drennen Roll. Numerous possibilities exist and none are verifiable.

There are other rolls taken after 1851 that do contain many Hayes names. Most notable of these are the Dawes and Miller Rolls taken between 1891 and 1914. Even at the time of these rolls, many Native Americans refused to participate citing that the US government had no authority to again take away lands that had been deeded to them "for as long as the grass should grow."

The Dawes Roll was supposed to be the final roll for allotting land and terminating the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Upon reorganization of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma in the 1970's, the Dawes Roll became the only means of certifying membership. The original Dawes Roll contains 22 Hayes names, none of which leads to Isaac's parents or siblings.

The Guion Miller Roll of 1909 contains a listing of Eastern Cherokee residing both east and west of the Mississippi (not Old Settlers) who were entitled to receive monetary awards by the US Court of Claims. Keep in mind that during the long process of stealing land from the Cherokees the Federal government executed 40 treaties and then broke each and every one.

The Guion Miller Roll of 1909 contains 19 Hayes names, but this is almost a century after Isaac's birth and none of these names takes me to discover his parents or siblings. These 19 Hayes' were "accepted" by the US government as providing definite links to ancestors of Native American origin.

I was not convinced that a mere 19 Hayes' enrolled on the Guion Miller list, so in one last ditch effort to discover Isaac Simpson Hayes' parents I purchased several original applications and accompanying documentation from the Eastern Cherokee Applications of the US Court of Claims, 1906-1909 (National Archives).

The "distribution of funds" refers to:

Even before I received the additional application material from the National Archives, I realized the earlier, original rolls (from 1817 on) were used by the Guion Miller Commission as the basis for determining which applicants could prove their Native American roots circa 1906. In other words, if someone circa 1906 claimed to be a descendant of a Native American who was not listed on an earlier roll, there would be no proof of the 1906 applicant having Indian blood. Since very few Native Americans signed any roll at any time, the whole thing was a scam from the very beginning.

Everyone who enrolled with the Miller Commission was supposed to list their ancestors, including their parents and grandparents, so I figured I had a shot at discovering someone who might include Isaac Simpson Hayes.

Now to the actual application documents.

Over and over I read the Guion Miller enroller's remark "was rejected because none of his ancestors were listed on the earlier Cherokee rolls."

Hayes after Hayes applicant I studied, straining to read their scribbled handwriting circa 1906.

"Does not appear that they ever lived with the tribe," is one enroller's notation. "Ancestors not enrolled, does not have any genuine connection with Cherokee tribe," is another common theme.

"No ancestor enrolled. Was not party to the treaties of 1835-6 and 1846. Father was a slave."

On and on I searched, until it became clear Isaac Simpson Hayes is not named as an ancestor of any Hayes applicant. I became entranced by one particular application of a John M. Hayes, who was rejected simply because "not on rolls." I find his Guion Miller application and correspondence a remarkable insight into the entire situation.

On his application, John M. Hayes states his English name as John M. Hayes, his age 44 and his birth date February 1863. He says he was born in Dickson County Tennessee. He lists his Indian name as John M. Hayes Morris. He lists his father as Washington Morris, born in North Carolina, and his mother as Ruthey A. Hayes, born in Dickson County Tennessee. He lists his father's father as John Morris, but does not know where he was born nor does he know who his paternal grandmother was. He lists his mother's parents as William Hays and Eurline Hays, but does not know where they were born.

Beneath the area for "REMARKS" on the Guion Miller application is an area labeled: Under this head the applicant may give any additional facts which will assist in proving his claim.

This is how I decipher John M. Hayes' handwriting from the above mentioned space of four lines on the page.

Unlike many of the other applications I studied, John M. Hayes' file also contains this typed, sworn deposition dated June 1908, which is witnessed by an Assistant to Special Commissioner of the Court of Claims.

There is other documentation in John M. Hayes' file including two sworn depositions from people claiming to have knowledge of his Indian blood. But the final words written on the cover page of his file are from the enroller, and they state "ancestor not enrolled, does not have any genuine connection with Cherokee tribe."

At this point, I halted my search for Isaac's parents along Native American trails. I believe if my great-great-grandfather wanted to cut ties with his family when he was 16, so be it. Isaac's wish appears to have withstood the test of time.

Let me move to my great-great-grandmother, Judea Varner, and her family.

Judea's family is one of common European immigration, and according to oral tradition the Varners come from French-German roots. Samuel Varner received a land grant from North Carolina in 1797 for his services as a surveyor in the Continental Army, and his "640-acre-grant was on the waters of White's Creek, in Davidson County, Tennessee."

Varners show up all over North America, including a Samuel Varner (AKA Verner, Vernon, Warner) who supposedly died in 1786 in the area now known as Texas. The Spanish Archives in Austin Texas may hold some interesting information on this Samuel Varner.

Other Varner Texas connections include Martin Varner, one of the original "Old Three Hundred" settlers who received a land grant in Stephen F. Austin's colony before the Texas War of Independence from Mexico. I also located three Confederate Pension applications of Varner men in the Texas State Library Archives, and all three applied from the East Texas counties of Angelina and Nacogdoches.

Several sources suggest John Varner, Judea's father, was married three times. Two wives, including one that must have been Judea's mother, are said to have moved on to Texas and both supposedly died there in the mid 1800's. I leave my contemporaries to debate Judea's mother: Elizabeth McKnight or Elizabeth Cooper, for both make sense to me and I wonder if they were perhaps the same woman under Native American guidelines for the use of a European surname.

Judea's father John Varner was born circa 1780-1790 in Tennessee, and he married Elizabeth McKnight on December 31, 1809, in Mason County Kentucky. Since Judea does have an older brother named Cooper Varner, who was born in 1817, Elizabeth Cooper obviously came into John Varner's life not too long after his marriage to Elizabeth McKnight assuming they were different women.

Records indicate John and Elizabeth "Cooper" Varner moved from Tennessee to Marengo County Alabama in the early 1830's. Since Judea's birth date is confirmed as April 16, 1823, she must have been born in Tennessee although I find no record to prove this location and it just makes sense when you put it together.

On August 10, 1832, John Varner received Alabama land from the Old Cabaha Land Office, and turned it into a cotton plantation with the help of at least six slaves. Judea's father died in 1836, but Judea's mother continued to run the farm until the land was sold in November 1842.

If indeed my great-great-grandfather Isaac was of Cherokee descent, I believe he may have succeeded in staying west of harm's way. His move to Marengo County, in southwestern Alabama bordering Mississippi, may have provided some security in the piney woods of Choctaw Territory and perhaps was a haven for a few years.

Then sometime around 1849 Isaac, Judea and their children moved near Athens, Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, where their other children were born. I wonder if Isaac was again trying to move away from the white man's pressures, and if this move across the Mississippi brought some peace and happiness.

Claiborne Parish is on the northern Louisiana border of Arkansas, and an area known to have been populated by Native Americans in the early 1800's. The Northern Cherokee Nation of the Old Louisiana Territory is composed of descendants of the Cherokees who moved west of the Mississippi before removal and also those Native Americans who broke away from the Trail of Tears during removal. It is possible my ancestors were among these groups, and even an influence on Isaac and Judea's move to Claiborne Parish.

According to Land Patent Records, Isaac purchased a 36.48 acre plot in Claiborne Parish Louisiana on September 15, 1854. This record does not indicate Isaac was of Native American descent (there's actually a section on the records that might have listed this fact), and thus leads me to conclude Isaac was successfully attempting to blend in with the white man's world. Claiborne Parish gave many sizable land grants of 320 or 640 acre plots to veterans of the American Revolution and/or the Indian Wars, so Isaac's purchase of only 36.48 acres appears to be an indication he had not participated in the Indian Wars. It also appears to indicate Isaac did not have a great deal of money.

Isaac and Judea may have enjoyed a couple of good years there in Claiborne Parish, but from the few documents available I can imagine the family started to fall apart just before the Civil War. Perhaps the family's downfall began when Judea gave birth to the last child, George Henry Hayes on May 3, 1859, near Athens in Claiborne Parish. Judea died that day, apparently from childbirth complications. George Henry Hayes lived only a month.

The eldest son, John Matthew Hayes, my great-granduncle, was only 16 years old when he joined the Louisiana Militia after Judea died in 1859. His unit soon turned into the Confederate Army. He is the only Hayes I can absolutely verify as an ancestor who participated in the Civil War. Isaac Simpson Hayes was too old and John's brothers were too young.

I find J.M. Hayes, (Pvt) on the roster of the 3rd Louisiana Cavalry, C.S.A. The 3rd Louisiana was also known as the 1st Louisiana Cavalry Regiment, Partisan Rangers; and the 9th Louisiana Cavalry Battalion, Partisan Rangers or Wingfield's Cavalry. Their history is well documented. John Matthew Hayes was wounded at the Battle of Mansfield Louisiana, but survived the War and afterwards married Melinda Ann Green on December 5, 1867 in Ringgold, Bienville Parish Louisiana.

Matthew's older sister, Mary Lucretia Hayes, had married only a month after their mother Judea died in 1859. Mary died in 1862.

Penelope Ann Hayes married John W. Peery in 1864, and the couple may have already been in Texas by that time.

William Peyton Hayes, my earliest known Hayes ancestor born in Louisiana, ended up marrying a Claiborne Parish girl in 1871, but I believe they may have married in Columbia County Arkansas where they are both buried.

Franklin Pierce Hayes, my great-grandfather, was only 6 years old when his mother Judea died in Claiborne Parish in 1859. I can only speculate where and how Franklin spent his childhood years. He eventually married Nannie Sumrall (see Chapter Six), and they later lived and died in Tyler County Texas.

I am not certain of the lives or fates of the other children of Isaac and Judea. I find no deed of sale for Isaac's land in Claiborne Parish, but the Civil War left many records and families in disorder. The next official record of Isaac Simpson Hayes turns up in 1865 just across the state line from his Claiborne Parish Louisiana home. On September 17, 1865, Isaac married Cynthia Ann Isler in Columbia County Arkansas. The couple had a child born in 1866 and another in 1869.

I can only guess that Judea's young children, including my great-grandfather Franklin, may have lived with their father and step-mother in Columbia County Arkansas circa 1865. There are no documents to prove this, and to my knowledge we have never been able to verify just who all the Hayes' are on Arkansas censuses and how they may be related to Isaac Simpson Hayes.

The fact that Isaac moved into Arkansas after Judea's death leads me back to the Native American roots. I believe it is very possible and even probable Isaac had blood relatives who had lived in Arkansas for many years, perhaps since the 1790's. I also note that the southern path of the Trail of Tears came right through Columbia County Arkansas.

The Five Civilized Tribes of the Oklahoma Indian Nation officially tried desperately to stay out of the Civil War. As early as January 1861 the Governor of Arkansas began pressuring Chief John Ross to side the Cherokees with the Confederacy, but Ross maintained his vow of neutrality.

Then in July 1861 Stand Watie, a political opponent of Chief John Ross, organized a regiment to fight for the Rebel Cause. Waite was a prosperous attorney and speaker of the Nation's National Council. He also owned a plantation and mill at Honey Creek in the Illinois District of the Cherokee Nation, and was himself a slave owner. This regiment has a documented Confederate history, and Stand Waite was promoted to Brigadier General in May of 1864.

Chief John Ross eventually agreed to the formal alliance with the Confederacy, and at Tahlequah Oklahoma on August 21, 1861, he signed the official declaration of War. (See Chapter Two for this amazing document). Ross then began forming Home Guard units to protect against Union invaders. Somehow, perhaps by Chief John Ross' efforts, the Confederate Conscription (Draft) did not take effect in the Indian Nation until July 1864.

Still some Native Americans remained true to the Union, and a few left the Indian Nation and joined the Yankee Army. Once again, the Cherokees and other Native Americans were torn apart. From today's perspective it is easy to recognize that in 1861 the enemy of the Indian, as the previous two hundred years or so had verified, was the white man, regardless if the white man was Yankee or Rebel.

Hundreds and perhaps thousands of Native Americans served and died in the Civil War, and most were with the Confederacy. Many appear on muster rolls in the form of their traditional Indian name:

A po to tubbe of the 1st Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles 2nd Co. C.

Ha ke of the 1'st Creek Mounted Volunteers Co. E.

Kas Knu ne Man Killer of the 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles Co. E.

In the Indian Nation of the West the actions of the Cherokee Mounted Rifles, later known as the 1'st Cherokee Mounted Rifles and also called Drew's Regiment, perhaps present the best example of how Native Americans felt regarding what was occurring.

Drew's regiment, composed mostly of full-blooded Cherokees (Pins) hostile to Stand Waite and his followers, never identified with the Southern cause. At Fort Gibson, on November 5, 1861 the regiment was officially mustered in (to Confederate service) for a period of twelve months, with 1214 men on the rolls.

During the pursuit of the Creek dissident Opothleyahola in December 1861, officers and men refused to fight, deserted in large numbers, and many even joined the enemy (the Union Army). A reorganization of the regiment was attempted, and about 500 of its men fought at Pea Ridge the first day (March 7, 1862), where they scalped some Federal soldiers.

A Union invasion of the Cherokee Nation in July 1862 resulted in the mass surrender of most of Drew's men, and their subsequent enlistment in the Federal (that's the Union Army) 2nd and 3rd Indian Home Guard Regiments.

Later in 1862, Drew along with some of his officers and a few of his men changed uniforms again and joined Stand Waite in whole-hearted support of the Rebel cause.

I wonder whose ancestors did the scalping.