MOLLIE GRIFFITH STEPHENSON

By Martha Ann Stegar

My great-grandmother, Mollie Griffith Stephenson, appears to have been quite a woman, and the stories I have heard about her have made her a romantic figure for me. To begin with, she was six feet tall, a most unusual height for a woman of the 19th century. Adding to her commanding appearance was an air of quiet strength and calm assurance, as seen in a photograph taken in her mature years. The photo shows a woman with a strong jaw and chin and a determined mouth. Her intelligent eyes gaze steadily without guile. Her posture is proudly erect.

Mollie was born in May 1846, the daughter of William Griffith, who named her Mary Ann. She grew up on a farm in the Blandford Community, just outside Petersburg, Virginia. When she was 18 years old, one of the most amazing and decisive events of the Civil War took place on her family farm.

When General Ulysses Grant found himself unable to take Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, he decided to come at it through Petersburg, some 25 miles southeast. Petersburg was the transportation and supply hub of the Confederacy; if the North could sever its supply lines, Richmond and the Southern troops would be squeezed dry, and surrender would be inevitable. After a stunning defeat at Cold Harbor just outside Richmond, where 7,000 Union troops were killed in the first 30 minutes of battle, Grant ordered General Ambrose Burnside to assault Petersburg, which he did on June 9, 1864. Only about 125 old men and young boys were left to defend the city, but they did such a zealous job of it that the Northern forces drew back, thinking they were reinforced by Confederate soldiers. This mistake in judgment gave General Robert E. Lee time to rush his troops to defend the city. They set up an elaborate set of small forts and breastworks in a crescent along the eastern and southern sides of Petersburg. A big battle between the opposing forces took place on June 15-18.

According to a statement made on September 13, 1892, by Mollie's brother, Timothy R. Griffith, his father's house stood in the angle between the Baxter Road and the Jerusalem Plank Road. This was a strategic location in the direct line of defense of Cemetery Hill, the site of historic Old Blandford Church and Cemetery (where Mollie Griffith is buried, incidentally), dating from the early 1700s. If the Feds could take the hill, Petersburg would lie defenseless. "From the night of the 15th of June to the night of the 17th," Tim said, "this house and yard were occupied by (Confederate) General Beauregard and staff as headquarters." Several days later, the Griffith residence was burned.

The family refugeed to Petersburg, where it is assumed they remained during the l0-month siege of the city. Actor Joseph Cotten, a native of Petersburg, summed up the terrible conditions by commenting that first the pigeon population dwindled, then the dogs and cats disappeared, and it was even rumored that some caught and ate rats. Shelling went on almost daily, and people were killed in their own yards. But the people kept up their spirits, giving Starvation Balls at Christmas and tearing up their best clothes to make bandages for the wounded. Finally, on April 1, 1865, Union troops severed the last remaining line of the five railroads that supplied the city, and on April 2, Petersburg surrendered. With Petersburg lost, Lee knew there was no hope, and exactly one week later, on April 9, 1865, he surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, ending the war.

This siege would have been unnecessary, and the war conceivably would have ended in the summer of 1864, if an ingenious and stupendous engineering feat of a Northern regiment had not been negated by subsequent Union troop confusion and disorganization. This muffed opportunity is called the Battle of the Crater, and it took place on William Griffith's farm. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SOUTHERN HISTORY describes it as follows:

"Hoping to break the strong Confederate line outside Petersburg, Virginia, Federal Army officers approved a plan developed by former coal miners serving in the 48th Pennsylvania to explode a mine under the Confederate fortifications. The miners dug (June 25-July 23) a tunnel 510 feet long to a point 20 feet under the Confederate line, with 75 feet of branches paralleling the Confederate fortifications. At 4:44 a.m. July 30, an explosion of some 8000 pounds of black powder killed 278 Confederates and created a crater about 170 feet long, 60-80 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. Both armies were initially stunned by the magnitude of the explosion. Eventually some 15,000 U.S. troops of Ambrose Burnside advanced into and around the crater, but poor leadership kept them from a decisive breakthrough. Confederate artillery soon found the range of the closely packed troops. Shortly after 8:00 a.m., a brigade under William Mahone drove the federal advance back to the crater, and in the early afternoon, with two additional brigades, Mahone captured the crater. Federal losses were 2864 killed and wounded, 929 captured; Confederate losses appear to have been about 1500. Ulysses S. Grant convened a court of inquiry, which established that Burnside had been lackadaisical in preparing for the assault and disobedient in failing to withdraw troops during the morning."

Timothy Griffith says, "On the day of the Crater fight I was a boy 12 years of age. . . . On the morning of July 30th, I was in Petersburg when the explosion occurred--my father's family had refugeed there--but before seven o'clock I was out on the lines and went to the mortars that were stationed on the plank road, behind the embankment to the north of the site of my outer gate. When the charge of Mahone's brigade was made, I was standing in the road just in front of the Gee house, there being a mortar just at this place, and from this point I witnessed the charge. I could not see the left of the brigade, but I saw its right as it ascended the slope and made for the works. I heard the shouts of the men and the clashing of the guns when the troops reached the works."

Cousin Virtley Freeman (who died in July 1996) quotes a Petersburg newspaper as saying William Griffith was wounded in both thighs at the Battle of the Crater. After the war, the Griffiths went back to live on the farm, and Tim lived there constantly from 1865 until his death in 1925/26(?). His widow sold the property to the Federal government in 1926, and it has been a part of the Petersburg National Battlefield Park ever since. While the farm was still in family hands, they charged visitors 25 cents to see the crater and a "museum of relics displayed inside their house. Cousin Mary Winston Stephenson Spears remembers seeing a cannonball immured in the side of the house. Currently, the National Park Service displays several items from the Griffith Collection (such as bent rifle barrels, minie balls, and shovels) as part of its battlefield exhibit. (Other items are stored in the archives, but could be brought out for the family to see if sufficient advance notice were given.)

Now to get back to Mollie. She married J. Winston Smith, who died in February 1868 of tuberculosis at the age of 22. Their daughter, Nora, was born later that year (November 4, 1868?). She was said to be the prettiest of all Mollie's children. (Nora later married James L. Morris and had a daughter, Whitley, whom I visited at Chippenham Manor Nursing Home in Richmond in May 1985 when she was 90 years old.) Sometime later, Mollie met my great-grandfather, James Edwin Stephenson, Sr., while visiting in southeastern Virginia, and married him about 1870/71. She had seven children by him, two of whom died in infancy, but the sweetheart of her girlhood must have been the love of her life. After naming her oldest son William Griffith Stephenson for her father, she named her next son John Winston after her deceased first husband, and she personally named his daughter Mary Winston. (James Edwin must have been an extraordinarily kind and understanding man to have allowed his son to be named for his predecessor!)

Mollie lived 17 years after James Edwin died. He was buried in the side yard on their farm in Southampton County, Virginia. (There is no marker; you can tell where his grave is by a slight rectangular depression in the soil.) But she lies buried in Old Blandford Cemetery at Petersburg, beside J. Winston Smith. Her tombstone reads: "Mollie A. Griffith, born May 1846, died April 1915." Not "Smith," not "Stephenson," but her maiden name, Griffith!

This is all I know about Grandma Mollie except that after Grandpa Stephenson died, she divided her time making the rounds among her children, staying with each in turn. Because my grandfather, Robert Timothy, lived so far away--in Alabama and Southwest Virginia--she saw him and his family the least. She generally stayed longest with her youngest child, Sallie, who married Mr. Atkins and settled in Windsor, Virginia. (Sallie's son, Eugene Atkins, and his wife, Mary, continued to live there until shortly before his death in October 1996.)

She must have been a fine mother, for her sons were very devoted to her. Mary Winston tells of finding old letters they had written her as young men; they were so affectionate, they read almost like love letters. My grandfather looked a lot like her. If his character was any indication of her character and influence, then she must have been a woman of the utmost honesty, integrity, intelligence, responsibility, and Christian charity--for he exemplified all these virtues.

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