Thomas
C. Dula was the son of Thomas P. Dula and Mary Keaton.
He had two brothers, both of whom died in the war, and
a sister, Eliza. When he was 17, he enlisted at Elkville
in Wilkes County on March 15, 1862, as a private in Company
K, 42nd Regiment, North Carolina Infantry, for three years
or the duration of the war. According to legend, he was
a good-looking fiddle-player who was quite popular with
women. In fact, Tom had a reputation for having affairs
with several women at one time. Three of the most notable
were Laura Foster, Ann Melton, and Pauline Foster. He
and Ann had an intimate relationship from the time of
their early teens.
When
Tom was 14 or 15, Ann Melton's mother caught Ann and
Tom together in bed naked after Ann had already married
James Melton. When he was discovered, he crawled under
the bed. A New York Herald article speculated that Tom
had murdered the husband of a woman in Wilmington, NC,
during the war. In her testimony, Pauline said Tom told
her Laura had given him "the pock," to which
Pauline told him, "We all have it."
Tom
borrowed a mattock (a digging tool that looks like an
adz and an axe or pick) to supposedly dig a road on
Thursday morning, May 24. He also usually carried a
Bowie knife with a six-inch blade in the pocket of his
coat.
However,
Tom apparently had both a comical and a tender side.
Before his death, he penned a note exonerating anyone
else of the crime. Pauline Foster testified that he
and Ann embraced and wept as he planned to flee and
promised to return at Christmas. Onlookers said he was
fiddling songs on his way to his death, and when he
saw the noose, he joked, "I'd a washed my neck,
if I'd known you were going to use such a nice clean
rope." Then, as the noose was placed over his head
and before his feet swung off the platform, he declared,
"I never hurt a hair on the girl's head."
The New York Herald reporter said that Tom "fought
gallantly in the Confederate service" and when
he faced his death he did not struggle, even though
the fall did not break his neck and he was strangled
to death. He was executed May 1, 1868.
Sources:
West, John Foster. The Ballad of Tom Dula: The Documented
Story Behind the Murder of Laura Foster and the Trials
and Execution of Tom Dula. Durham, NC: Moore Publishing,
1970.
West, John Foster. Lift Up Your Head, Tom Dooley: The
True Story of the Appalachian Murder That Inspired One
of America's Most Popular Ballads. Asheboro, NC: Down
Home Press, 1993.
Tom
Dula - Ann
Melton - Pauline Foster
- James Melton
Dr. George N. Carter
Laura
Foster - Colonel James
M. Isbell - Zebulon
B. Vance
The
Story - Players - The
Murder - Who Done It?
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