Tracking Slatten

Written By: Jane Gibson Nardy - Cashiers Historical Society | Issue: 2016/01 - Winter

On a Civil War battlefield, Confederate Cpl. Jeptha P. Slatten lay on the ground, wounded but still alive.  Despite the pain of his wounds he was mentally disassociated from the violence and chaos around him and laid there pretending to be dead.  Many hours later a doctor at the nearest medical-aid station, amputated Jeptha’s wounded arm and threw it on top of a large pile of bloody body limbs.

May 30 1861 – brothers Jeptha P. Slatten and Warren D. Slatten joined the Confederate “Jackson Guards,” 25th Regiment, Company B at the Jackson County, North Carolina, county seat of Webster.  Another brother, James E. S. Slatten, served the Confederacy in another Regiment.  Neither Warren nor James survived the war. These young soldiers were three of the seven children of John Edward Jackson “Jackie” Slatten (1801-1897) and Nancy Sauls Slatten (1805-1886), former residents of Surry County, North Carolina.

By 1866, Jeptha Slatten had returned from war to the greater Cashiers area, and married Parthena Alice Zachary (1849-1886) daughter of Alexander Zachary and Sarah Isabelle Wilson Zachary.  The first of Jeptha’s and Parthena’s eight children was born in 1866 with the other seven children following along every couple years or so.  Jeptha was listed on the census as a farmer and on the 1880 census enumeration he checked “yes” in a column headed “maimed or crippled.”

Thirty years ago, Lora B. Coates, the mayor of the town of Yelm, Washington, and a descendant of Jeptha and Parthena Slatten visited Cashiers in an ancestor search.  Distant cousin Howard Zachary showed her around town and she explained why there were no Slattens left in Cashiers.  Due to the untimely deaths of Jeptha and Parthena, their eight orphans were separated and placed in different homes in and around Cashiers. 

Fifteen years ago another of the descendants of Jeptha and Parthena made contact with me.  He was tracing his genealogy and was hoping I could help him.  All I really knew for sure was that the couple was buried at the Upper Zachary Cemetery in Cashiers. The tombstone showed that Jeptha died in 1883 at the age of 45 and Parthena died in 1886 at age 37 years.  The descendant, Bill Cochran from Texas, knew much more than I did – dramatic family stories although undocumented.  Here are a few of them: “Three of the sisters married a man named Davis, the same man but not all at the same time.  His last known whereabouts was in Texas where he was being chased by a posse,” “The father was a Civil War veteran who lived to be over 100 years old.  He reportedly lost an arm in the war.”  (This is obviously Jeptha who died at age 45, nowhere near 100.) “One brother went to Alaska during the Gold Rush.  The ship he was on sank and his survival unknown,”; “Another brother died as a child when heading cattle to the barn he struck his foot on a stone and later died of blood poisoning.” 

The cause of the early deaths of Jeptha and his wife Parthena remains unknown and the fate of most of their children is yet to be learned.

(Many thanks to Historian Carol Bryson, who allowed me to use some of her Slatten research for this article.)