Roundtable hears unique presentation
Some presenters to the Civil War Roundtable, Bella Vista’s new group for people with an interest in the Civil War, come from a distance to speak. On Thursday, the presenter came from only a few miles away with a unique presentation on his own family. Greg Mayfield spoke about his great, great grandfather, Stanwich Mayfield.
Greg Mayfield grew up in Pea Ridge. He is a graduate of Pea Ridge High School and played football for the Black Hawks. Although he had always known his family had ties to the nearby Pea Ridge Military Park, he had never given it much thought, he said.
It was on his return from a stint with the National Guard in Iraq that Mayfield started wondering about genealogy. He asked his family if there were records and was given two boxes full of scrapbooks, clippings, letters and a business ledger.
“I jumped down the rabbit hole feet first,” he said.
The first thing Mayfield had to do was reteach himself cursive handwriting. The writing is beautiful, he said, but difficult for a modern writer to understand.
The business ledger started just before the Battle of Pea Ridge in 1862, was full of information, some which had been used when Stanwich Mayfield tried to recover the property he lost during the war. The property included six horses and 2,000 pounds of bacon.
Mayfield was surprised to learn that his great great grandfather was a union supporter, but he was also a slave owner. His grandmother, the family storyteller, had defended the family name by explaining that they were “good” to their slaves. In fact, years after the war, a former slave returned to work as a free man for the family.
During the war, the family home near Leetown was used as a hospital. Stanwich Mayfield helped out at the hospital and hunted quail to feed the union army, but after the battle, he moved his family to a farm near Fayetteville, probably because it was safer.
Stanwich Mayfield never got his claim recognized, in spite of the help of a congressman in the 1890s and depositions from neighbors — some of which survived. Greg Mayfield suspects the government didn’t believe he was actually a union supporter. They may have suspected he was fighting for the Confederacy during the year he was in Fayetteville. Also, he said, the fact that he was a slave owner made his union loyalty suspect.
While Greg Mayfield explored his family documents, archaeologists from the University of Arkansas and volunteers from the Arkansas Archaeological Society were working in the military park. Among other things, they were looking for more information about the home of John Lee, in Leetown.
The home was later sold to the Mayfield family and Greg Mayfield’s father grew up there. The house was leveled in 1963, possibly because the park superintendent didn’t believe it dated back to the Civil War years. By then, the home had been renovated and expanded, and most of the structure was much newer. Mayfield also reported that historical documents said the Lee home was two stories and the house that was torn down was only one story. The Mayfield family had the answer. The second story — the part used as a hospital — was removed. Greg said his father told him they removed the roof, tore off the second story and then replaced the same roof.
As Greg Mayfield got to know the archaeologists, the story of the Lee/Mayfield house began to fit together.
He still has a lot of questions and some documents that he hasn’t researched yet, but he’s not finished. Mayfield plans to continue researching his family and their connection to local history.
The Bella Vista Civil War Roundtable meets at 7 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month at the Bella Vista History Museum.