During the Civil War, Cocke County did not see major battles like Shiloh or Gettysburg, but it did endure minor fighting, killings, and especially widespread lawlessness, which became severe in late ’63 and most of ’64. With many able-bodied men away in the war, deserters, outlaws, and gangs such as the “White Hats,” who concealed themselves with white sacks over their heads, robbed and murdered citizens and spread fear through the county. Mountain homesteads were raided by marauders from both Confederate and Federal sympathizers, and families hid food and valuables to keep them from being stolen. In the Bogard community, Polly Ann Murrell Huff Hicks, a widow who had first married James Huff and later Perry Hicks, hid a hand-dyed quilt along with other precious household goods in a hollow chestnut stump near her home by the old Butler Schoolhouse. After the war, she retrieved the quilt and used it again as a Sunday bed coverlet. The quilt remained in the family, passing to her grandson Thurman Williams, and survived as a rare heirloom linked to the hardships endured by Cocke County families during the war.