Preston Pruitt was born in Wilkes County in 1843, one of nine children in the household of Isaac Pruitt & Charlotte Richardson. He was also the grandson of Joel Pruitt & Polly, the brother of Joel Pruitt, Jr., and a first cousin of Hampton Pruitt, my great grandfather.
According to Wilkes County Sketches, by J. Jay Anderson, "Traphill was a haven for Union sympathizers led by John Quincy Adams Bryan. Known as the 'Red Fox', Bryan led almost 1,000 men from Wilkes County to Tennessee to join the Union Army."
In Wilkes County Bits and Pieces, by Fay Byrd, Wilkes Community College, she relates the story of an event in the Civil War that has been called The Limestone Cove Massacre.
On November 21, 1863, Bryan was leading a company of 57 men from Wilkes County, through the mountains of western North Carolina, planning to cross Tennessee and merge with the Union Army in Kentucky. They stopped at the farm of Dr. David Bell, a Union sympathizer, located in Limestone Cove, Unicoi County, Tennessee.
Just before the men were to eat breakfast on that day, they were attacked by Col. W. P. Witcher and his Confederate calvary from Virginia. Bryan and his men scattered and fought, and most of the men were able to escape the battle with their lives, including Billie Gambill and Lewis Hanks of Traphill.
Bryan survived the attack, and, after the war, returned to Wilkes County, where he lived until 1905.
Matt Pruitt of Traphill was shot in the stomach; he survived the wound, however, and lived after the war.
But nine other men in Bryan's company did not survive. They were buried in a mass grave in Bell Cemetery in Limestone Cove, Unicoi County, Tennessee.
In addition to Preston Pruitt, the names of the others from Traphill that died include: Calvin Cantrel, John Sparks, Wiley Royal, Elijah Gentry, Jacob Lyons, James B. Blackburn, and two unnamed.
John Sparks was the son of Reuben Sparks and Phoebe Blackburn.
James B. Blackburn was the son of Columbus Franklin Blackburn and Sarah Jane Crouse.
Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate the names of families of the other victims.
Preston Pruitt was twenty years old when he and the other men from Traphill died in a war less than eighty miles from their homes and families.
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