Those Tough Mountaineers

 The Story of the Raccoon Roughs

So many of the letters and diary accounts from Civil War soldiers—tucked between requests for letters, socks, or complaints about unpaid wages and bad weather—contain hidden gems of forgotten history. Tiny details, barely noticed at the time, now offer glimpses into moments and people long lost in history’s dusty corners.

One such forgotten tale belongs to a company of tough, rugged mountaineers—a group whose unshakable determination led to a nickname as wild as the men themselves.

In May 1861, a newly enlisted soldier, John E. Hall, wrote his father a very detailed letter about his company’s taxing, roundabout train journey from West Point, Georgia, to Montgomery, Alabama.[**] But in the middle of one paragraph, Hall casually mentioned another group of volunteers with a memorable nickname that joined them for the trip. 

"On account of the length of our train which had on 28 boxes, we run off the track twice and broke the engine once so that it was disabled . . . we were delayed several hours and consequently got to Huntsville about 10 o'clock where we got the supper prepared for us. There we were overtaken by the raccoon roughs & another company . . . [On the trip to Huntsville] We saw the places where the raccoons came from. It was from among those beautiful green but rough & rugged mountains." [1]

One of the men Hall mentioned to his dad was John B. Gordon, the company’s first officer—later known as one of the South’s most aggressive combat generals during the rebellion.

Before becoming a soldier, Gordon was a lawyer and coal mine developer, working in the rugged Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama mountains—the same terrain Hall referenced in his letter. When war erupted, he recruited a band of stalwart mountaineers to fight for the Confederacy. Though not a single man among them had any military training, Gordon immediately recognized their unyielding determination - a trait that would come to define them on the battlefield.

After the war, Gordon reflected in his memoirs on how his unit came together, describing their unyielding spirit and the moment that cemented their legendary nickname.

"We Ain’t No Mountain Rifles!"

When Gordon and his men arrived in Atlanta for formal assignment to a regiment, a telegram from Georgia Governor Joseph Brown ordered Gordon and his men to turn back home until they were needed. This message did not sit well with his mountaineers.

"There broke out at once in my ranks a new rebellion. These rugged mountaineers resolved that they would not go home; that they had a right to go to the war, had started to the war, and were not going to be trifled with by the governor or anyone else." [2]

Gordon eventually convinced them to board the train home—but just as the engine whistle blew, the men changed their minds and staged a second rebellion.

"The men rushed to the front of the train, uncoupled the cars from the engine, and gravely informed me that they had reconsidered and were not going back; that they intended to go to the war, and that if Governor Brown would not accept them, some other governor would." [2]

Gordon surrendered to their resolve. As they left the uncoupled train cars, however, Gordon realized the nearest camp was on the other side of the city. He had no choice but to march them straight through Atlanta’s streets.

Atlanta - even then - was a big town. Its streets bustled with commerce, politicians, and soldiers—but nothing prepared the townspeople for the sight of Gordon’s men tromping through their streets. Their mismatched coats, ragged trousers, and lack of marching discipline made them look more like frontiersmen than trained soldiers. But nothing stood out more than their rough fur caps, each one made of raccoon skin with long, streaked tails hanging from the back.

The city stopped to watch. Bystanders stared in equal parts amusement and amazement, whispering among themselves—until someone finally shouted, "What company is that?"

Until this moment, the unit had no official name, so Gordon shouted out the name he had personally chosen: "The Mountain Rifles." Almost instantly, one of his towering mountaineers corrected him - and loudly:

"Mountain hell! We ain't no 'Mountain Rifles'; we is the Raccoon Roughs!" [2]

With that single shout, the name was set in stone. From that moment forward, they were never called anything else.

The Raccoon Roughs Go to War

Eventually, the Roughs’ offer to serve was accepted by the Governor of Alabama, and they boarded their train without incident this time. Upon arrival, they were officially designated as Company I, 6th Alabama Volunteer Infantry Regiment—and issued uniforms.

Yet those mountaineers refused to surrender their identity.

"The company clung tenaciously to the 'coonskin' head-dress, which made a striking contrast to the gray caps worn by the other companies." [2]

The 6th Alabama entered the war with 1,400 men. They fought with the Army of Northern Virginia at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, and Petersburg. By war’s end, four officers and 80 men remained of the 6th Alabama to surrender with Lee at Appomattox. Only 25 of those were Racoon Roughs.

Gordon’s first impression of his mountaineers proved prophetic.

"Through all the stages of my subsequent promotions, in all the battles in which I was engaged . . . these heroic men became fewer and fewer at the end of each bloody day’s work; and when the last hour of the war came, in the last desperate charge at Appomattox, the few and broken remnants of the 'Raccoon Roughs' were still near their first captain’s side." [2]

This was one of the millions of forgotten stories from the Irrepressible Conflict.

Mac

═══ ⚔ 𝑻𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒔 ⚑ ═══

As an FYI: The sketch used in this post and the post-war photo both came from Gordon’s book, identified in Works Cited. The coon-skin cap in the sketch was based on one drawn by a survivor of the Roughs. Several styles were worn by the company during the war.

Works Cited

[**] Hall’s roundabout train movement began in West Point, GA (on the Georgia/Alabame state line) and finished in Cornith, Mississippi – via Atlanta, GA, Chattanooga, TN, Huntsville AL, and Tuscumbia AL. According to Hall, there were numerous delays enroute for train changes and train breakdowns. This inadvertent description underlines one of the South’s major weaknesses from the outset of the war – a series of disjointed railroads and engines in poor repair that severely hampered the Confederates’ ability to move men and material quickly – especially once the river routes were compromised.

[1] “Letter from John E. Hall in Corinth, Mississippi, to his father in Alabama – May 26, 1861.” Alabama Department of Archives and History. pp. 3-6.

[2] Gordon, John Brown. (1904). Reminiscences of the Civil War. Atlanta, GA: Martin & Hoyt Co. “Raccoon Roughs”: pp. 9, 13, 26, 27.