A Civil War soldier, farmer, store keeper, and lay preacher of the conservative Union Lutheran Church in Lois, Tennessee, Daniel Houston Call, shown here, might have fallen into the obscurity that history accords most of us, except for one decision. Faced with the question of hiring and harboring a 16-year-old orphan boy of uncommonly small stature, Dan Call said yes and the rest is history. The boy was Jack Daniel.
Dan Call himself was an orphan, adopted by relatives as a young boy. The 1850 U.S. Census found him at age 14 living in Lincoln City, Tennessee, with siblings William, 16; Sarah, 9; and Joseph, 6. The household was headed by Rebecca Call, 53, likely an aunt. By the 1860 census, Call had reached maturity, was married with children, farming and running a general store.
Those obligations were not enough to keep Call from hearing the clarion call to arms when the Civil War began. Tennessee was a divided state, with the Eastern counties harboring pro-Union sentiment throughout the conflict and was the last state officially to secede from the Union. Although Tennessee provided a large a number of troops for the Confederacy, it also provided more soldiers for the Union Army than any other Southern state. Call, who owned slaves, chose the Confederate side.
Described as a “sinewy, long-legged fellow with a scarecrow figure who walked with a hint of a strut,” Call was adept on horseback and knew how to shoot. That made him eligible to join an elite marauder unit of the rebel army called Forrest’s Escorts, numbering about 100 men over the course of the war. Their leader was the charismatic and bold Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Prof. Michael R.Bradley has commented: “The Escort…was made up mostly of yeomen [farmers], led by wealthier and better educated men.” And devoted to Gen. Forrest.
Although Call was not among the original members of Forrest’s Escort, most of them recruited in Tennessee, he joined early in the conflict. He bid good-bye to his wife, Mary Jane (nee Nelson), whom he had married when she was 16 years old, and rode off to the fighting. Like his companions in Gen. Forrest’s special cohort, Call would have provided his own horse and arms, likely a shotgun that had proved valuable in close quarter fighting.
The Escort would see considerable hot combat throughout the war. Coll’s first engagement was in December 1862 at Lexington, Tennessee, followed a few days later by a skirmish at Parker’s Crossroads against Union forces led by General Grant. Among the most costly battles was at Chicamauga, Georgia, in September 1863. Although it was a Confederate victory, the cost in men killed, wounded and captured was devastating. It may be at this battle that Call was among the 1,400 Confederates captured. His service record indicates he either escaped or was exchanged, returned to the Escort, and is recorded serving with the unit at the time of Forrest’s surrender in Gainesville, Alabama, at the end of the war.
Arriving back in Tennessee, Call found that Mary, shown here, had added a new face to the dinner table. His name was Jasper but he preferred to be called “Jack” Daniel. The five foot, two inch, local boy had been recommended to Mary as someone to help her in Call’s absence with the general store and other chores. Although small, Jack was of sturdy build and energetic. With three youngsters to look after, Mary jumped at the chance for help and brought the boy into the Call home. But what would her husband say when he returned?
Mary and Jack need not have worried. Although conservative in his views, Dan Call was a strong Christian and believed in helping his neighbor. Moreover, he was cognizant of having been an orphan himself. He accepted Jack into their home and became his mentor. The fighting across Tennessee that devastated numerous farmsteads luckily had left Call’s property relatively unscathed. Located off the main road and tucked among the hills it had escaped the notice of pillagers. So too, apparently had the general store under the watchful eyes of Mary and Jack.
Moreover, as a result of Call’s prior good treatment of his several slaves, they agreed to stay as hired hands. With their future income assured, Dan and Mary set about enlarging their family, eventually producing 18 children, most of whom lived to maturity. No longer would the simple frame farm house suffice that Call had built for Mary. Over time Call would expand the structure into a multi-roomed Greek Revival structure. It can be seen in the photo here.
To feed and clothe the many offspring Call also could rely on profits from a distillery he had built behind his general store before riding off to war. It had apparently had been left idle during the conflict but the machinery was still intact. The distillery was conveniently located on Louse (aka Stillwater) Creek, an odd name for a pristine stream that gushed from springs in a nearby glade. It kept an ideal temperature and flowed in a stream a few yards from the Call homestead. With the abundance of corn grown on the family farm and some expertise at distilling, the prospects for a “cash cow” were evident.
The problem was some diffidence on the part of Dan Call. Whether he received his religious “calling” before or after his Civil War experience is not clear. He had become a lay preacher in a rural Lutheran Church not far from his home, a rustic house of worship that likely resembled the picture here. If he had done any preaching during his time with the Escort, it was informal. Although prayers were offered in the unit, Forrest was not favorable to an officially appointed chaplain. Back home, Call’s congregation would have been small. With its roots in Germany and Scandinavia, Lutheranism had only a small foothold in Central Tennessee compared to Baptists and Methodists.
Lutherans were known to be ambivalent about alcohol. The typical German was fond of his beer and, perhaps “schnapps” liquor. Yet many fellow Protestants (unlike Catholics and Jews) were avid prohibitionists. This same uncertainty seems to have infected Dan Call. Although his distillery was making whiskey and he was selling it, he forbade drinking on his farm or in his general store. As Lutherans increasingly went “dry” Call obviously knew that someday soon he would have to give up making whiskey or lose his ministry.
Shown here in maturity, Jasper/Jack Daniels, although raised a Baptist, had no such compunctions. He was drawn to the distillery. In his biography of Daniel, Author Peter Krass observes: “As young Jack mulled over the contraption, he quickly grasped that whiskey was a means to escaping poverty. He determined to learn the noble art of distilling.” Faced with the importuning of the young Daniel, Call instructed his African-American former slave and master distiller, “Uncle” Nearis Green, to teach the boy all he knew about making whiskey. [See my post on Nearis Green, August 21, 2018.]
Uncle Nearis only recently has been released from the obscurity imposed by racial bias to recognition of his training of Jack Daniel and the origin of famed Tennessee whiskey. Although there are no known photographs of Green, a recent image depicts him, face turned away, inspecting the product of a still. The rest is history as Jack Daniels took the recipe to heights previously unknown.
Meanwhile in the Call household, a new birth was occurring on the average of every other year. Dan found his congregation dwindling as the highly conservative Union Synod of Lutherans to which he belonged splintered on issues of prohibition and the validity of the Southern cause. To keep his flock he gave up distilling and selling liquor to Daniels but managed sufficient prosperity to increase his land holdings and see his children, four of whom died in infancy, find places in post-bellum Tennessee society. The photo below shows the aging Dan and Mary seated in front of their home, surrounded by family members and family dogs. Call’s ample beard has turned white.
The man responsible for launching Jack Daniel, Dan Call died at the age of 67 in August 1904. He was buried in Mulberry Cemetery in Lincoln County, Tennessee, not far from where he had spent much of his life. Mary would join him in an adjacent grave 18 years later. Despite bearing 18 children in a locale where medical facilities were virtually non-existent, she lived to be 91.
Note: This post is drawn from a variety of sources. Important among them are“Blood & Whiskey: The Life and Times of Jack Daniel,” by Peter Krass, Castle Books, 2004. Krass gives Call considerable attention. Supplementing Krass’s treatment of Call’s Civil War experience was “Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Escort and Staff,” by Michael R. Bradley, Pelican Publishing, 2006. Many have claimed credit for Jack Daniels learning how to make whiskey. To Dan Call and Nearis Green go the laurels.
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