Dewitt Smith Jobe

Dewitt Smith Jobe. Confederate Scout. Rutherford County native DeWitt Smith Jobe was a member of Capt. Henry B. Shaw’s Coleman’s Scouts, a Confederate cavalry unit and spy network that served the Army of Tennessee. The men operated behind Union lines, remaining out of sight in the daytime and traveling at night. After obtaining intelligence about Federal plans and movement, the Scouts forwarded their reports to army headquarters by courier., Jobe first served in the 20th Tennessee Infantry and was wounded and captured at the Battle of Mill Springs on January 19, 1862. He returned home after a prisoner exchange and joined Coleman’s Scouts in 1863. The following year, he spent much of his time gathering information in the area around Triune and Nolensville. On August 29, 1864, Jobe hid in a cornfield to rest, but a mounted patrol of the 115th Ohio Infantry had spotted his tracks and surrounded his hiding place. When he realized that escape was impossible, Jobe ripped up the dispatches he was carrying and chewed them up enough to destroy them. Furious because Jobe would not divulge the contents of the papers, the Union soldiers reportedly tortured him to get him to talk, but he refused, Finally after gouging out Jobe’s eyes and cutting off his tongue, the Federals tied a leather strap around his neck and dragged him to death behind a galloping horse. Despite the horrific ordeal, Jobe kept his secret to the end., “That while we regret, with the sorrow of our inmost souls, D.S. Jobe’s cruel fate, we can but recollect with pride how nobly he died, strangled, beaten and abused; yet he defied his persecutors to the end.” , Resolution of the Coleman Scouts, 1866, (captions) , DeWitt Smith Jobe (left) - Courtesy Confederate Veteran Magazine , Coleman Scouts (below) - Courtesy Confederate Veteran Magazine