Susan Brownlow Boynton

Susan Brownlow Sawyers Boynton (July 23, 1837 – March 12, 1913) was a folk heroine of the American Civil War. The story, popularized by her father's book tour in 1862–63, was that Confederate soldiers had come to their family home demanding she pull down the Stars and Stripes, the flag of the United States. At great personal risk to herself she defended the family's and the nation's flag by running off the Rebels with a loaded pistol.

Biography Brownlow was from a Southern Unionist family of East Tennesseeans. Her father was the Whig, and later Radical Republican, politician and newspaper editor Parson Brownlow, and her two brothers were notable Union cavalry officers: John Bell Brownlow, who commanded the 9th Tennessee during the war, and James Patton Brownlow, a colonel of the 1st Tennessee. Susan was married in October 1856 to James Houston Sawyers, a 24-year-old doctor. She moved back into her parents' Knoxville home, the one she became famous for defending. Susan's four little sisters would likely have also been present in the home: 12-year-old Mary, nine-year-old Fanny, and the six-year-old twins Caledonia and Ann.

She accompanied her father on his 1862 book tour and was presented with a silk flag in Philadelphia and a Colt revolver in Connecticut. Her story was retold in quasi-fictionalized form in the 1864 book Miss Martha Brownlow, or the Heroine of Tennessee.

She was remarried in 1865 to Dr. Daniel Boynton, a Knoxville physician with whom she had three daughters, Lucile, Ednee, and Ilia, and a son, who also became a doctor. At some point Susan had a sixth child who died young. Boynton died January 7, 1888. Susan's chief characteristics were said to be "unfailing cheerfulness and generosity."

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