War on the Homefront:
The Stahl Family and the Civil War
Written by Justin D. Lamb
David and Elizabeth Stahl
“I have lost my two youngest boys. They went off into the Rebel Army against my advice,” David Stahl despairingly wrote in a letter to his brother Jacob shortly after the conclusion of the War Between the States. “I wanted them to stay at home and let them that brought it on fight it out. Daniel, my babe, as we used to call him fell in Tennessee. Winchester at the Guntown fight in Mississippi.”
The War brought about a great deal of heartache and pain to David Stahl and his family. “I have had considerable trouble since I saw you last,” Stahl penned in his letter. “My wife was taken sick the last of January and died in August and in that time….A servant and her family stold my wagon and horses one night and run them into Paducah…”
A native of Pennsylvania and of Dutch ancestry, David Ewing Stahl was born February 15, 1789 in Bedford County, Pennsylvania. According to The History of Marshall County, Kentucky published in 1984, Stahl’s parents, John and Magdalene Stahl, were grain farmers and distillers and were involved in the famed Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s.
It was after the Whiskey Rebellion that a six-year old David Stahl came to Kentucky with his parents and two younger brothers, settling in the Greensburg area in 1795 before moving to Warren County. When Stahl turned 30, he married Elizabeth Turner and the couple moved to Marshall County. Stahl purchased an 810 acre farm located at present day Draffenville where he became a prominent farmer.
Arcadelphia was Marshall County’s first school and was located at Wilson Cemetery near Palma. The school was later moved in the 1850s by the Stahl family to their farm and the school was renamed Stahl School until its closure in 1937. The school was located at present-day U.S. HWY 68 near the entrance of Mike Miller Park.
Stahl family members in front of the old Stahl School located near the present day entrance of Mike Miller Park in Draffenville.
Living on the main road from Paducah to Benton, made the Stahl farm an easy target during the Civil War for passing soldiers looking for food and supplies. “I was very much put on while the war was going on. My living on the state road, both sides would come and feed on me and carry out and destroy my truck at a shameful rate. I dreaded to see night come as that was the time they did the most devilment.”
Stahl also described the time his home was shot into and he was beaten and robbed at the hands of Union soldiers. “There were about fifty in the worst company that ever passed through. They came one night and shot through the front door. They came in, two of them, got ahold of me and one stood behind me and struck me twice on the head with his gun which made the blood run down one side of me like a stuck hog. They took about 75 dollars in Kentucky paper from me, my wash, and over one hundred dollars’ worth clothing.”
Following the passing of his wife, Stahl married a second time to Agnes Lackey. Stahl passed away on October 16, 1878 at age 89. He was buried in the Wilson Cemetery. Of David and Elizabeth Stahl’s eight children, only one son, John Wesley Stahl, continued to live in Marshall County until his death.