Supplemental to History of Company F.
The names of Joseph Hasten and Ephraim Wilson, who died early in the service, and Jesse Willis, a senior recruit who served faithfully to the end, were omitted. These are all I can get up. My comrades at this time can give me but little information. People ask how I can recollect so well after so many years. I kept a diary of all important events. Then my mother, who is still living, has all the letters I wrote home during my service in the army. I had nine first cousins in the regular army, and only two survived the war, and they were both severely wounded twice, and I am the only survivor, though I have an uncle living, my mother’s brother, Dr. Thos. L. Carson, who was at General Lee’s surrender.
Confederate Monument at Shelby.
The Soldier’s Monument at Shelby seems to be all that could be desired from anyone’s standpoint. There’s nothing boastful, nothing flattering or inconsistent. It simply expresses a patriotic duty performed in the greatest crisis in the history of our country. That generation passed through an ordeal second to none in the annals of modern history. Their descendants by whom it is erected have no apologies to make. The massive granite column, to last for ages, will tell the simple story of pride in the heroic fortitude of such ancestry—and will ever be an inspiration to the rising manhood of coming generations. It is most fitting that it is erected now after more than forty years of candid deliberation. If it had been erected thirty years ago it would only have represented our fallen heroes. Ten years ago, when it was first suggested to rear a monument for all Confederate soldiers, living and deceased, the living generally protested, thinking it egotistical or boastful to erect a monument to themselves. But the Daughters were too enthusiastic to wait for all the old soldiers to die, and now all old soldiers approve their course and are most grateful for the monument to their comrades, which by and by will stand for all.
The statue on the monument is a good specimen of the stalwart private soldier, and would well represent Private Charles Blanton, of the Fifty-fifth N. C. Regiment, who once captured fourteen prisoners on the skirmish line. Having heard his comrades tell of this heroic deed a few years ago, I asked Mr. Blanton how he did it. He said: “We were ordered to drive the Yankee skirmishers back and locate their battle line. As we advanced on them we saw several taking shelter in a rifle pit, when six or eight of us made a rush to take the pit, and when I got there they ducked down and looked scared, and I ordered them to thrown down their guns and get out of there quick, and they obeyed promptly. As I stepped behind them I saw that I was alone—the others having all been shot down—and seeing their battle line laying flat close by, ordered my prisoners to double-quick to the rear, and I trotted them out all right. When I commanded them to surrender, I thought my comrades were close by, and I had them under good control before I knew any better.”
Mrs. Stonewall Jackson refusing a $1,200 pension, while indigent widows and veterans only get a pittance, may cause them to get $150,000 more than heretofore. It is the happiest thought that our countrymen still appreciate most highly the principle that money can not buy. Mrs. Jackson belongs to history, linked to a name that will live through the ages, an inspiration to the highest ideals of patriotic devotion, that bring most desirable achievements that untold generations will be proud to honor.
A Patriotic Recruit.
The soldiers life, even in the most strenuous and dangerous campaigns, finds some relief in jest and laughter, like flowers strewn along the thorny paths of hardships. When you hear an old soldier boast of his exploits and miraculous escapes, you can credit him for having been both a good forager and a good dodger. The best soldiers are ambitious, patriotic, jovial, patient and uncomplaining.
When our Company F, Fifty-sixth Regiment, had been in the Camp of Instruction a few weeks, a young, enthusiastic recruit came in. He showed all the marks of a good soldier, even to a very fine opinion of himself. He was eager to take a stand in the front rank from the start; and he was speedily supplied with the regulation equipment. Then he called on some of the boys at a game of marbles, who interrogated him about his outfit, and inquired if he had got his marbles. He: “Do I get marbles?” They: “Of course every soldier is allowed a set of marbles.” He: “And where do I get my marbles?” “You will find your marbles at the Colonel’s tent, but when you go after them you must salute the Colonel.” He: “Salute how?” “This way: Catch your hat with this hand, raise the other hand, fingers extended, and strike out this way.” After practicing him for awhile, they told him that would do—he had it right. Then he bolted for the Colonel’s tent with all the assurance with which he would accost a township constable. The Colonel was a West Pointer and as dignified and austere as the Czar of all the Russias. After saluting the Colonel, he said, “Colonel, I have just come in and drawed my outfit and have called in to get my marbles.” The Colonel: “The h—ll you say! Report to your quarters at once or I’ll have you put in the guard-house.” When he came back, he looked like a bucket of cold water had been thrown on his patriotic enthusiasm. They inquired, “Did you get your marbles?” He: “No!” “What did the Colonel say?” “He cussed me and threatened to put me in the guard-house.”
The reader can imagine what a laugh they had at the breaking in of a real good soldier, who proved faithful to the end. But ever afterwards, whenever he got on a “high hoss,” some one would ask him what the Colonel said when he went after his marbles.
A Bad Case of Itch.
In the fall of 1863, while my regiment, the Fifty-sixth North Carolina, was on detail service arresting conscripts and deserters in the middle and western counties, our company headquarters then being at Hannah’s Cross Roads in Davidson County, a stout, strapping boy of 18 came from Catawba County to join the army with us. He had two uncles in our company who were off with a detachment; and he, being a stranger to all present, and noticing that he had a bad case of itch, all stood aloof from him. After he had been in camp a few days Iley Gantt got a short furlough to visit his sick wife. He, noticing Gantt’s arrangements for going home, inquired what he was going home for. Ike Powell said, “We are sending Gantt home because he has got the each.” He: “Well, I’ve got the each.” P.: “Yes, I see you have, and what did you come here with the each for. We’ve got trouble enough here without the each.” He: “Well, if you say so I’ll go home too, for I am getting mighty tired of this place anyhow.” P.: “Well, that would be the best thing you could do.” He: “But I’ve eat up all the rations I brought from home, and I ’haint got nothing cooked to eat, and I can’t cook—never cooked any in my life.” P.: “Then I’ll tell you what you do; you go to Capt. Grigg and tell him you want a man detailed to cook some rations to do you home; tell him you are going with Gantt, and that you will stay away from here until you are plumb well of the each.” The young recruit bolted to the Captain, who soon set him straight on army rules and regulations.
Longstreet’s Corps Was on the Way to Chickamauga.
The same fall I was at High Point, N. C., and saw Longstreet’s Corps pass. The trains all stopped there and I mingled and talked much with them. I never saw soldiers in higher spirits. As they had come through Raleigh, they had destroyed the late ex-Governor W. W. Holden’s Raleigh Standard printing press. They exhibited papers fastened to sticks like flags, with handfuls of type. Holden had been advocating peace and they considered him a traitor to the South. They said those western Yankees had been having things their own way out there, but Lee’s men were going to give them something that they would not forget soon. “We will put them in a trot like we have been chasing them out of Virginia.” They were traveling on freight and flat-cars, with as many on top of freight boxes as inside.
About a week after that we were at High Point again, conveying some arrested conscripts to Raleigh, when train load after train load of Federal prisoners passed going from Chickamauga to Richmond. The trains stopped and we talked with those western prisoners and found them very sassy and determined about the Union. One big, red-whiskered fellow said to me: “What you fellers doing back here so far in the rear?” We replied: “We have plenty of men at the front to attend to you fellows. We are just resting and having a good time.” He replied, “Yes, d—n you; I guess you are back here hunting for conscripts and trying to force good Union men into your d—d army.” His train pulled out and we let him go at that, but thinking from the grit he displayed that he must be a Tennessean or Kentuckian.
Shooting an Outlaw.
While operating in Randolph County, N. C., in September, 1864, we wounded in the foot and captured a man who had not been in the army but was said to head a band of outlaws. His name was Northcut. He was tried by a little drumhead court marshal and shot on short notice one mile north of Ashboro as we were leaving that section for Wilkes County, where there was a strong Union sentiment hard to hold down. After operating in the mountains several months, where much apple brandy, fat beef, milk and honey abounded, we returned to Randolph and the adjoining counties of Davidson, Moore, Montgomery and Chatham, where there was much work to do. Here we began pressing property, especially horses and feed, from the disloyal to force them to bring in their conscript sons, and soon a number of our company was mounted, only intending to use the horses while operating in that vicinity; but Governor Vance, being advised of it, complained to the Confederate War Department and threatened to turn his militia loose on us and drive us from the State if such conduct was not stopped and all property pressed promptly turned over to the original owners—and we had to come down off our high horses and take it afoot again. Up to that time I had not developed quite courage enough to steal a horse, but was caught red-handed with a good mount in this temporary “critter company.”—a furloughed man having given me his horse. So my dignity was shocked when I had to come down from my self-promoted position to a flatfooted infantryman again.
Removing Federal Prisoners From Richmond, Va., to Andersonville, Ga., February and March, 1864.
I was on a detail and made three trips via Raleigh, Charlotte, Columbia to Branchville, S. C. These prisoners had been confined on Belle’s Island, in James River, and were in a most pitiable condition—half starved, half naked. Most of them had been in prison for months and very few had a change of garments. They were ragged, lousy, filthy and infested with smallpox, and most of them had diarrhœa and scurvy and were so weak that when they would swing down out of box-cars their legs would give away when their feet struck the ground, and they would fall in a heap on the ground. I don’t think they got anything to eat except a little bread and meat, mostly cornbread. They were transferred in box-cars, forty packed into a car. We sometimes stopped at Raleigh to change cars, and always stopped at Charlotte twelve to twenty-four hours. We ran up the Seaboard to where it crossed the Statesville Railroad, then in the woods. A small branch ran under both roads east and north of crossing, with embankments on south and west, and we put them out there, where they had free access to the branch. One night several crawled up a drain ditch from branch along railroad and got out between the guard; others were caught in the act and stopped.
Old man Tyree, of Company K detail, whose home was not far away, said he could get some bloodhounds that would run them down. He was sent after the dogs and they were put on their tracks after they had been gone four or five hours, and followed them about thirty miles and caught them. The next time we stopped there, at 2 a. m., they, the prisoners, seemed restless, a number being up and moving around near the guard lines. Two or three made a break through the guard lines and escaped in the darkness. Several shots were fired at them, which awoke and roused up the whole camp. They were ordered to lay down, but would not obey, even when the officers ordered us to fire into them. But instead of firing into them, as we were ordered, tried firing a few shots over them, which had the effect to make them lay down. The officers then went among them and told them if anyone got up before day he would be shot down. But still, occasionally, one would get up and a guard would fire over him. At last one of the guards shot and killed one. That might have been omitted, though we had orders to do so. All the guards deplored that rash action. An old, sick Irishman fell in the branch and died that night. I noticed after the war six or eight graves at that wayside camp. Those who escaped that night probably got through, as we never heard of them again.
While on guard in the car with them some of them twitted us about being afraid of our officers. I told them our officers were kind and treated us well; that I had been in the army seven months and had never seen a man bucked and gagged; and, turning to a serious-looking Irishman, who was listening with interest, but had said nothing, I asked him if he had ever seen anything of that kind in their army. He answered, “Yes, my friend; I’ve been bucked and gagged meself many a time.” That was a clincher for me that ended the discussion. The bad treatment of prisoners on both sides makes one of the darkest pictures of that war. We understand statistics show the mortality to be 13 per cent on the Federal side to 9 per cent on the Confederate. My own experience in a Federal prison at the close of the war, while very disagreeable, was much better than those poor fellows were getting with us. But when we take into consideration the superior resources of the United States, they were, to say the least, equally negligent and resentful to their helpless enemies. Point Lookout Federal prison will be treated on in another chapter.
Navigating the Appomattox River.
It has been mentioned in a former chapter that I was on a detail in winter, commencing the 15th day of January, 1865, to boat wood for the men in the trenches. The detail for Ransom’s brigade, composed of six men from each of the five regiments, commanded by Lieut. A. C. Sharpe, of Forty-ninth Regiment. Those from my regiment, Fifty-sixth North Carolina, were Company B, .... McMillan; Company D, .... Parker; Company F, J. C. Elliott (this writer); Company G, Wm. A. Condrey; Company I, Thomas Robbins; Company K, Calvin Deweese. We went back to the canal, which ran seven miles up the river, then two miles in the river up into another two-mile canal, and then into the river again. One mile above the basin or boat landing at Petersburg there were several locks through which boats were raised and lowered, and just below the locks there was a small creek, which ran through a stone culvert under the canal. General Lee had built a high dirt dam across that creek and backed the water on the Yankees and drowned out a part of their lines and forced them back. Besides, this big pond protected our position in that quarter. While we were waiting a few days to get our boats ready, this big dam broke loose and the water came in a solid wall about forty feet high, and striking the canal culvert swept it away, and also cleaned out the south side railroad bridge just below. Then the canal had to cross this creek on a wooden trestle, and while it was being built we had to haul wood at night on railroad from towards Richmond. The enemy had a battery on the Chesterfield side that shelled any trains that moved on that road in daylight. When we first went back to work it was several days before we were furnished with cloth tents, and during that time we had to look out for such quarters as we could find. So our fifty-six contingent prospected an old wood wagon shop, near by our brigade wagon yard. We found this old shop occupied by an old, dilapidated darkey—Uncle Tom—who was supporting himself by cobbling cooperage. After a survey of these premises we informed Uncle Tom that we had decided there was plenty of room for him and us, and we proposed to move in with him at once. While Uncle Tom did not seem at all flattered with our company, he did not openly protest, probably thinking it useless to do so. He said he could make out with one side if we could with the other side, with a common fire between on the ground, while there was a raised floor on each side. We also learned Uncle Tom had another lodger in the person of a young Georgia cracker who professed to belong to a pontoon corps. Uncle Tom had the appearance of being well raised—one of the old-time colored gem-en, who had but little patience for po’ white folks and especially soldiers of uncertain reputations. It was a cold, mid-January night when Uncle Tom got down his heavy comforts and made his bed. He had more cover than all of us, and a couple of us insisted that we sleep with him. But Uncle Tom drew the color line on us and objected most emphatically to any such close relations. He said he was used to sleeping by himself and could rest better, besides, he was afraid of dem ar buggers. He was very careful about letting his bedding come in contact with our blankets. We were kind to Uncle Tom, and he soon became reconciled and quite sociable. While here one day our Georgia cracker shouldered his gun and made a foray several miles up the south side of railroad in quest of pork or anything else to eat. He returned that evening with about a bushel of corn. He said he found some cars loaded with corn on a side-track and had broken in and helped himself. He said, “As I come along up yonder I met General Lee. I saluted him as politely as I could, but he looked at me powerful hard, and I thought he was going to ask me where I got that corn, but he didn’t. He was going out to where his big dam had broken loose, and was near where the canal was washed out. I stopped and watched him pass there, and he never looked out that way at all. I don’t believe General Lee cares a damn about his big dam breaking and washing out the canal and railroad.” There were a few fat hens that ranged in our wagon yard. The next evening our cracker took a handful of his corn and passed innocent-like near a large, gentle hen, and dropping a few grains on into our shop quarters, the hen, following, was soon inside and the door was closed; and that hen failed to return home to roost. Uncle Tom was out at the time and never knew where that chicken came from. The next morning, when Uncle Tom was shown how thick the grease was on the pot, he said, “That sho’ is a fat chicken.” Then we told him if he had joined our mess and let us sleep with him he would have had a share in the chicken pot. He said he never did care a great deal about chicken any way. A few days later we got a good, new cloth tent and moved out and left Uncle Tom and his Georgia cracker alone. After the canal was mended, and we were running our boats, our cracker friend proposed to go up the river with us to forage for turnips; said if we would give him transportation he would divide the “catch” with us. After reaching the woodpile and while we were loading he reconnoitered the neighborhood and said he had located a healthy looking turnip patch; it was pretty close to the house, but thought he could raid it all right after dark. After supper the old man Baldwin, of the Twenty-fifth North Carolina, a rough-looking old mountaineer, who looked like he might have had experience in such raids in time of peace, said he would go with him, and they cheerfully set off. After they had been gone about an hour old man Baldwin came pulling in, puffing and blowing, and said “they put the dogs after us and shot at us. I didn’t git but a handful and I dropped them as I got over the fence.” Soon our cracker came in, looking like he was suffering a great bereavement, and when we laughed, he said, “I didn’t think they would be so d—d particular about a few turnips this far out in the country.” So we were all disappointed about our turnip soup. It would have been so nice with a few peppers. The navigation of the river was dangerous during high water. One night, while we were up in the second canal, the river rose several feet and was booming as we came out into it, and the strong current carried our boat against a drift on a small overflowed island, and came near sinking or capsizing it. Then the only way we could get off was down over a rough, shoaly slough, where she went like a bucking broncho. The next boat after us was manned by Alabamians, and they went over the lower rock dam that turned the water into the canal; being good swimmers, they got out, but lost their boat.
The 15th of March our Brigade was relieved from its position between the Appomattox River and the Norfolk railroad, where it had stayed continuously for nearly nine months, and moved about ten miles to the right on Hatch’s Run. We came back to Petersburg and were in battle of Fort Steadman, in front of our old position, a sketch of which has been given.
Incidents on the Lines.
The Yankees always showed a disposition to be friendly and wanted to talk to us, but our officers would not allow us to talk much, but had us to keep up a sharpshooters’ fire on them all the while. However, we would occasionally exchange a few compliments. We used to inquire if they had any more Negroes they wanted buried; if they did, to blow out another hole and send them over and we would cover them up. One night, in front of the Twenty-fifth North Carolina Regiment, they changed their line, moving a section back a little. We inquired what they meant, and if they had an idea of leaving us. They replied, no, they expected to be neighbors for some time yet, but that the Twenty-fifth North Carolina was a little too close and was stealing their rations. The Twenty-fifth was a mountain regiment, every company west of the Blue Ridge, and was known in the brigade as the old roguish Twenty-fifth. It had a good fighting record.
One morning a large hawk came flying along between the lines. Both sides opened fire on it, and it became bewildered and lit on top of a tall poplar on City Point road, midway between the lines, and was soon shot out, both sides cheering and claiming it.
On March 25, after repelling a number of courageous assaults, our right falling back and being near a fort on our left, and assaulting columns pressing our front, we ceased firing to surrender. Our captors came up with flashing eyes and the loveliest smiles on their countenances and shook hands with us in the most enthusiastic manner. I could comprehend how good they felt when we ceased firing on them and they saw that they had gained a great victory. But as I passed through that fort, in and around where the dead of both sides lay thick, and saw a lot of freckle-faced Michigan boys vigorously firing on our men who were running back trying to get out, I felt like I wanted my gun again. Then, as we were carried to the rear, the bullets from our side came singing over us and knocking up dust in the road, our guard said, “Run, Johnnie, run! Run, Johnnie, run!” Our interest being the same, we were soon out of range.
Reminiscences of Point Lookout Prison.
When we got there, the 27th of March, 1865, Negro troops guarded the outside walls and white men patrolled inside after night, and I saw nothing to criticise in the prison management; but those who had spent the winter there told some horrible and ludicrous stories of outrageous treatment by the Negro guard which, for awhile, guarded both outside and inside. A Negro guard would hear some one say, “Lay over or let me have some more cover.” If the Negro guard heard it he would say, “Who dat talking in dar. Send him out here quick or I’ll make you all come out.” Then, after double-quicking him around and making him mark time with his bare feet on the snow for a while, he would say, “Now pray for Abraham Lincoln. Now cuss Jeff. Davis. Now pray that some colored gemmen may marry your sister—den I let you go back.” Some of these men said they could never die satisfied after they got out until they killed some Negroes on general principles.
A Negro Sergeant Who Claimed He Carried White Ladies’ Hair.
When I went out one day on a work detail I carried out to sell a watch chain made of the hair from a horse’s tail or mane, and showed it to a Negro sergeant, who seemed to greatly admire its artistic beauty and inquired if the man who made it could make one of a lady’s hair—that he wished to have one made from a lock of his sweetheart’s hair that he possessed. I said I did not know; probably it would be too fine—when he answered, “It’s no nigger wool; it’s white lady har; my girl am a white lady.” I answered, I don’t know whether he can work it or not.
Begging Crumbs From a Negro’s Table.
One morning as I went out with the stable detail, as we were passing a Negro house, a six-year-old boy came to the door with a plate full of crumbs and crusts to throw out, when we asked him to give it to us. He gleefully held it out, while we rushed for it like hungry hogs. I got a handful. Then I thought; then I hesitated—subjugated, humiliated and degraded to begging the crumbs from a Negro’s table. Then all the proud English, Irish and German blood in my veins rose up in protest, and I dashed it to the ground, though I was hungry enough to have licked all the plates in a whole Negro quarter.
Two Patriotic Soldiers and One Who Was Out for the Bounty.
One day while working at the quarters of a German artillery company, located on the isthmus next the Potomac side, an American Yankee soldier came around and raised a friendly conversation about the war issues and boasted about how he had fought for the Union and how much longer he would fight. A Louisianian made issue with him and showed all the enthusiastic patriotism for the South. When they had exhausted their patriotic vocabularies the Yankee passed on, our German guard, a young, good-natured fellow, remarked to me, “I bees no war man; I does not want to fight.” Then I inquired how he came to be in the army, and he replied, “Oh, I bees a poor man; I has no money; they gives me three hundred dollars bounty, and I bees soldier.” Then he remarked, “Our company all voted for McClellan; Lincoln loves the Nigger too much.”
On the Wharf Detail and Wanting to Steal Something from Uncle Sam’s Plentiful Stores.
Several of us were in the big commissary prying around to get into the bean and potato barrels, when a wagon drove up and a Negro commanded us, saying, “Four you men go upstairs and bring down some cracker boxes and load dis wagon.” I got in the push and, as soon as we reached the cracker boxes we give a box a fling from the top of the pack and bursted it, when we all began eating like hogs. In a minute here came the Negro. “What you-ens doin’ dar? Dems our rations youse eatin’.” “A box fell and bursted, and we are gathering them up as fast as we can.” “Well, dat’s all right, but don’t you-ens eat no mo’.” “Can’t we have these scraps.” “Yes, you may; you may have dem scraps.” We already had our pockets stuffed.
At another time, working around the commissary, I filled my pockets with beans and potatoes. These were the only full messes I got while in prison. The largest detail was known as the Fort detail, building and sodding a fort on the Potomac side. About three hundred men were worked on it. They got about three square inches or five cents worth of plug tobacco and a little drink of whiskey per day. The other details only give one pound of salt pork and a pint of vinegar for ten days’ work. Working ten days for a pound of pork was rather low wages, but most of us were glad to get such an opportunity to get out. If we could pick up as much as the staves of a flour barrel we could sell it for ten or fifteen cents inside of prison, and a little money went a long way. Mackerel sold at five cents per pound, and a pound and a half loaf of bread for ten cents. The cheapest tobacco sold at one dollar per pound, and the men suffered as much for tobacco as for bread. The most of the users of tobacco would swap a piece of bread for a chew of tobacco. Tobacco retailed mostly by the chew. Tobacco was the most common medium of exchange. All of the smaller gambling concerns used pieces of tobacco cut up in chews, the larger cuts passing for five or ten chews. Rev. Morgan, the Confederate agent, conducted a school, which I attended some. Several preachers came in and preached to us, and the Catholic priests visited us occasionally, besides our local preachers held open air exercises frequently. The death of President Lincoln probably delayed our release. After the Confederacy went down we were aliens without government or protection in our native land. The proposition to take the oath of allegiance with full rights of citizenship under the old flag of our fathers seemed as good as we could expect, and we were soon anxious to do so and return home. About the 6th of June they began to discharge us. On the 11th of June the following was posted on the bulletin board: “All men whose homes are in Virginia and North Carolina who wish to return via Richmond, whose names begin with D and E, will be discharged upon taking the oath of allegiance to the United States on to-morrow—12th June.” So, before sunrise, I was on the front line of the penitents and on my knees awaiting for the blessing of being transformed from a rebel of the deepest dye into the marvelous light and liberty of a free, full-fledged, loyal American citizen—with all the privileges of a free “Nigger.” As one of the colored soldiers had told me a few days before. He said, “De’l turn you out some dese days—den you’ll be just as free as we is—and we is just as free as the birds.” The stars and stripes were stretched under the overhead ceiling of the school house; thirty-two of us stood under the flag that I had fired a thousand shots at, and, without mental reservation, took the oath and subscribed to the same in the records. I was marked, Occupation, Planter (that sounded bigger than farmer); age, 19; eyes, blue; hair, auburn; complexion, fair; height, 6 feet 3¾ inches. I weighed 170 pounds when I went there, and got away with 145 pounds. We missed that day’s ration and they gave us six hardtacks and a half pound of cod fish, which I eat at once. We (three hundred of us) arrived at Richmond after dark on the 13th of June. It was raining and we all held together and were instructed to report to the Provost office at capitol. As we marched the streets the ladies would remark, “Oh! look, there is our men; I am so glad to see them. Poor fellows, they are just out of prison.” The officer of the guard at the capitol informed us that no provision had been made for us, and advised us to go to the New Market for shelter and to report back at 9 a. m. Here we were furnished transportation—“free cars.” This we took to the commissary and got rations. When we got to Richmond I had not eaten anything for more than thirty hours. A store keeper that night gave me two loaves of bread and some small fishes, dried herring, which was divided with my comrades, Virgil Elliott and Felix Dobbins. When Richmond was evacuated the people were destitute and most of them on the verge of starvation. So now the United States Government had nearly all of them to feed, white and black. When we went to get our rations two men drew together. I told my comrade to get our meat and I would get our bread. Avery, a consequential mulatto gentleman, waited on me, and when he weighed up my crackers, I said, “Meat for two men, please,” and he throwed it up quick and pushed it to me. So I got a double ration of meat.
We crossed the James River on a pontoon bridge over to Manchester—all the bridges having been burned. Here we found many new freight cars marked U. S. M. R. R. We took up quarters in them to wait until 8 a. m. next day. That night a big rain broke down the road and we had to lay over another day. So I told Felix that I guessed more prisoners came in last night; let us go over and draw rations with them again, and he said all right. And we went over and drew another supply. I had now drawn eighteen pounds of salt pork to do me home. We sold the last draw to an Irish woman who kept a little shop, and we indulged in a quart of molasses. The people of Richmond were as clever and sympathetic with us as during the war. One storekeeper invited us to come in and help ourselves on sweet crackers (ginger snaps). The good lady that cooked our meat in Manchester sent with it a plate of nice, hot biscuits. We left Richmond June 16th, but our train could not cross the Appomattox River. The high water had careened the new trestle bridge. We walked over and on to another station, and a train from Burkville came after us. We stayed at Burkville until dark, and when we were ordered to board some box-cars, I found the door full, and they said not another could get in. I fought my way in and found those in the door all there were in it. So I hunted up my comrades, Elliott and Dobbins, and brought them in, as a thunder storm was coming up. These men who tried to keep us out were hospital rats. They were clean and did not want to mix with us lousy, dirty prisoners. After we got in they let no others in, while many had to ride on top in an all-night rain storm. Thousands of Federal troops occupied Greensboro and Charlotte. They were all quite friendly and congratulated us on the close of the war. I said, “Well, you’ve freed the Negroes; now what are you going to do with them.” They said, “Oh d—n the Niggers. I say kill ’em; they have been the cause of all this trouble.” We had to walk home from Charlotte, sixty miles, and got home June 20th, very thankful that I was so fortunate to come back sound and well, while so many of my comrades had fallen by the wayside or were broken and maimed for life.
The Invasion of Home Land After Lee’s Surrender.
Our section was never visited by an hostile army until some regiments of General Stoneman’s cavalry passed from Rutherfordton to Lincolnton and back. They marauded the country in quest of horses and provisions. They scattered away from the main road and two came to my father’s home. One held the horses and the other came in the house and said he wanted to search the house for arms, and soon went through bureaus, chests, etc. My mother’s big, red chest had a double till in it with $10,000 of Confederate bonds and money in the lower till. The chest was full of bed clothes, and he felt under them, but did not find the Confederate money. Finding no valuables, the only thing he took from the house was the flint out of an old squirrel rifle.
A Faithful Negro Servant.
All our good Negroes were true and faithful in helping to hide horses and other valuable property, but some mean Negroes would tell them where things were hidden, etc. My aunt, Mrs. Cabaniss, lived on the public road, and as Stoneman’s men passed down they took a good mare out of the plow and carried it away. She only had two horses—the other was a blind mare. A week later they returned, going back towards Rutherfordton, followed by a drove of Negroes on foot. As they were passing Mrs. Cabaniss’ a Negro saw her blind mare in the lot, bridled and rode it away. Her faithful old colored servant, Edmond, saw the Negro riding the blind mare away, ran after them, appealing to the officers that they had taken the last horse and we will all perish. The officer told him to get his mare. He then procured a heavy stick and ran up beside the Negro and knocked him off, the troopers laughing and cheering him. He rode the blind mare back, and saved one horse to plow. Edmond remained faithful and stayed with his old miss as long as she lived, and he retained the confidence and good will of all the white people as long as he lived.
While Stoneman’s troopers were raiding our section some of them called on Richard Smith, of Rutherford County, a good farmer and a good liver. He had a lot of nice bacon hams, and, expecting the raiders, he buried his hams in the house yard, fixed it up like a fresh grave and put up a headboard, marked Daniel. The troopers came, ransacked the premises and inquired about that grave in the yard. Smith told them that a faithful old servant had died a few days before, and his last request was to be buried in the yard, and, loving him so well, had complied. This explanation seemed to satisfy them, and they were about to leave, when one became skeptical and said, “Hold on boys, I think I would like to see Daniel before we go;” and, procuring a shovel, set in to raise him. Soon the dirt was cleaned off the box, then a plank was raised. He remarked, “Daniel looks natural; seems like I’ve seen him before somewhere. Well, boys, I guess we will take Daniel with us. Come out of here, Daniel, your country needs your services,” and so they lifted him out.
Would Not Let Them Take All the Meat the Man Had.
Amos Harrell, a good liver of the same county, tells how he saved his bacon. He hid it all out but three pieces. When the troopers came and raided his smoke-house an officer, looking in, ordered them out, saying, “You shall not take all the man’s meat; leave him one piece.” He locked the door and put the key in his pocket and carried it away.
Confederate Troopers Commit Outrages, Plunder and Murder.
Joseph Biggerstaff, of Rutherford County, a farmer and country merchant, was visited by six Confederate troopers, who claimed to be Wheeler’s men, on their way home. They demanded his money and, searching his house, found about $600 in specie. Four of them in the house put the money on a table to count it, while two men held the horses. Biggerstaff said he would die before they should take his money, but they paid no attention to him, when he attacked them with an axe, killing two and had the third one down when the fourth one at the table shot and killed him. There was present a man by the name of Waters, a neighbor, who had stood by and took no part. One of the robbers then upbraided Waters as a coward who ought to be killed, shot and killed Waters. Gathering up all the money, they left the four dead men where they had fallen, and rode away. This was the climax of the four years’ bloody drama for our section. This last tragedy occurred near where a number of Tories were executed at Biggerstaff’s old field, who had been taken at the battle of King’s Mountain during the Revolutionary War. (See “Draper’s History of King’s Mountain and its Heroes.”)
A Hearty Conscript.
John Buncombe Crowder entered the army in 1863 as a 38-year-old conscript, and as a good family man had proved successful; but it was hardly expected that a man of his age should enter enthusiastically into the strenuous life of a soldier in times of great stress. However, John was inclined to hold up his end and made a faithful record. But the long, cold winter of 1865 in the trenches in front of Petersburg tired out his patience and he got powerful hungry. He stood six feet three inches and his fighting weight was 205 pounds. When we surrendered together, on the 25th of March, 1865, in front of Petersburg, Buncombe thought it good policy to make friends with his captors, in the hope of getting more and better rations; so he said, “Yes, I’ve quit fighting you. I’ve been wanting to quit for some time, and I shore am glad you’ve got me, for I am nearly starved to death.” Loss Bridges, the little man with the hot-gun, said, “He’s lying to you, and at the same time showing a chunk of cornbread.” The Yankees said, “All right, Johnnie, you’ve got where there’s plenty now, and you shall have plenty to eat.” B.: “Now I believe that I just know you’ll treat me right.” Y.: “Ah, Johnnie, bet your life we will.” B.: “I’ve always thought you were clever fellows, and now I know it. I never did want to fight you nohow.” Y.: “Bully for you, Johnnie; you shall be taken good care of.” The men on the firing line who captured him would have done what they said; but prisoners are soon turned over to the bomb-proof brigade—coffee coolers and grafters—the kind of men who would get rich keeping the county poor-house. John Buncombe made a hard effort to get to the flesh pots and coffee cans of Yankeedom, but failed. He went up to Washington with the deserter volunteers, and was sent back to Point Lookout to starve with the rest of us. After he had been in a few days we asked him how he liked the fare, and he replied, “Very well; I don’t have anything to do, and it don’t take much to do me.” A few days more and he got so hungry he could hold his peace no longer and began to abuse the Yankees as the greatest liars and the meanest people in all the world, and he just wished he had held on to his gun and killed a few more of them anyhow. He had offered to go North and work for something to eat, and they would not let him, and were just holding to starve him to death for pure meanness. He said when he was at home it took a good-sized hen to make him a meal, and now we get nothing scarcely but bread, and he could eat four days’ rations—two loaves or three pounds at one meal. So he raged and lectured as a champion eater until two men who had a little money got up a fifty-cent bet on him. He was to eat two loaves, or three pounds of bread, in thirty minutes. A crowd gathered and much interest was manifested in the contest, and the eating began. In the excitement he took too much water. In ten minutes the first loaf disappeared and three canteens, or nine pints of water, with it. Then he said he did not have quite enough, but did not feel like he could eat all of the other loaf, so they need not cut it; that his stomach had shrunk up until he could not eat as much as he thought he could. After that he could no longer command a hearing, as his record as a champion eater was all he had to stand on. He is now—1907—living happily with his third wife and has plenty to eat, but says his appetite is not quite as good as it used to be.
Scenes at Appomattox—stragglers in the Union Army.
Dr. Thomas L. Carson, my mother’s youngest brother, who was in the Thirty-fourth North Carolina Regiment, Scale’s Brigade, tells the following:
“We had stacked our muskets in surrender in the open beside the road, awaiting our paroles, when a large column of Federal troops passed us in steady, quiet tramp, followed by the rear guard bringing up about 2,000 stragglers. These stragglers wore a conglomeration of every trashy type to be found in the Yankee army. Foreigners of every tongue, mixed with every American type—old gray-headed men, beardless boys, big, greasy Negroes, etc., etc., all with battered and tattered clothing, some bareheaded and barefooted, and many without coats; some only had one pant leg on—all under a strong guard of peart-proud soldiers marching beside them with fixed bayonets. As they came along one big, stout fellow exclaimed, “Oh, yes, Johnnies; we’ve got you at last.” A proud, peart-looking guard said, “Shut your mouth, you cowardly devil, or I’ll pop my bayonet in you. You want to crow over these men. If many of our men had been like you, General Lee might now have had his headquarters in Boston instead of this surrender.”
Dr. Carson says, as they started home, a young officer from Ohio walked along with him for half a mile and, talking of the situation, said: “It looks very hard to start you men home without rations, but we are on short allowance ourselves, on account of your General Hampton, who cut down and destroyed eleven miles of our supply train a few days ago, or we would have had plenty to feed you on.”
Once upon a time when the mulatto, Fred. Douglass, was orating, two Irishmen passing by stopped and listened a few minutes, then started on. One remarked, “He spaiks right well for a Nagur.” The other, “Oh, he’s no Nagur; he is only a half Nagur.” “Oh, well then, if a half Nagur can talk that way, then I guess a whole Nagur could beat the prophit Jeremiah.”
Once upon a time when North Carolina’s last Afro-American Congressman—George White—was State Solicitor, a young Negro was on trial for some misdemeanor, and a white man was called upon to prove the defendant’s character.
Solicitor: “Do you know this man?” Witness: “Yes, sir.” “How long have you known him?” “Oh, ever since he was a small boy.” “Well, sir; what is his character?” “His character is good; good as any Niggers.” “Maybe you don’t think a Negro has any character.” “Oh, I didn’t say that.” “Now, sir; I ask you a direct question: Do you believe a Negro has got a character?” “Oh, yes; he has a Nigger’s character.”
The Solicitor gritted his teeth and told the witness he could retire.
A Patriotic Darkey.
While working outside on a detail at Point Lookout, a young colored soldier, filled with patriotic enthusiasm, called on us and remarked: “Hadn’t been for us colored troops I don’t spec dese here Yankees ever would whipped you-uns.” “Did the colored troops fight much?” “Well, not ’zactly fitin’; but we do de gard duty so all de white soldiers could fight you, and den it seems like dey had all they could do.”
An Aggrieved Union Soldier Seeks Sympathy From His Southern People.
About the same time and place a young mulatto called on us and began to berate his comrades. He said, “Dese old, black Pennsylvania Niggers ain’t got no sense nohow. Dey jest as mean as dey can be.” I said, “Ain’t you a Pennsylvanian?” “No, sir; I’se a Southerner, I is. I is a Virginian and I’se no kin to dem old, black Pennsylvania Niggers; but I’se some kin to you Southerners.” We told him we were sorry he had got into such bad company. He said, “Yes, Southern folks heap the best.”
A Southern railroad conductor said, “My Afro-American friend, you are in the wrong car; you must get in with your own color.” “Well, Cap’n, if you say so, reckon I’ll have to move; but what you goin’ to do when we all gits to heaven?” “Well, if I am conductor, you will move. Get along now.”
A man traveling to West Virginia, where they have free cars, said as soon as they got out of Virginia, at the first stop, it was amusing to see the darkies vacate their cars and come piling into the white’s coaches, thus showing how aggressive they are for social equality.
Field Officers of Fifty-sixth Regiment North Carolina Troops.
The field officers were all young, fine-looking men. Col. Paul F. Faison was tall, dark eyes, of the finest type of soldier, and we understood a West Point cadet. Lieut.-Col. Luke was about thirty years old, stout, medium size, sanguine temperament. Maj. John W. Graham, the son of an illustrious father, who served his State as Governor and United States Senator, William A. Graham. Major Graham, promoted from Captain of Company D, was quite young, stout and hardy, always at his post except when disabled by wounds—full of youth and enthusiasm, he always proved himself the bravest of the brave. He is a prominent lawyer in his native town, Hillsboro. He has served as Secretary of State and as State Senator, and is one of the most prominent members of that body at session 1907. Maj. H. F. Schenck, who preceded Maj. Graham by one year’s service, resigned on account of failure of health, and was assigned to service in the commissary department. Major Schenck is an affable gentleman of the highest type of citizen, a most useful and successful business man of his county, Cleveland. He is the promoter and manager of several cotton mills and a branch railroad. His chief partner is a Mr. Reynolds, of Philadelphia, Pa. Colonel Faison served in the Interior Department of the United States as Indian Agent under President Cleveland’s last administration. He died while in that service in Oklahoma Territory. Capt. Losson Harrell, M.D., of Company I, from Rutherford County, was Senior Captain and commanded the Fifty-sixth Regiment a part of the time during the siege of Petersburg. He has been for several years a member of the State Board of Health. Both Harrell and Schenck have also served as State legislators, and both are fine types of physical manhood.
All the captains were fine looking men, but we mention especially Captain Mills, of Company G, Henderson County, and Captain Alexander, Company K, Mecklenburg County—young, tall, and bravest of the brave. During the last week in May, 1864, in the breastworks at Bermuda Hundreds, on the morning that we took Gen. B. F. Butler’s picket line and our dead and wounded were brought back, Capt. Alexander was standing in the midst of our company talking to our Captain Grigg, one of our young men, Thomas Nowlin, a gallant soldier and a cousin of mine, was seized with an epileptic fit, when Captain Alexander was the first to his assistance, and, kneeling over him, did everything he could for him. If he had been one of his own men or even a brother he could not have shown more sympathetic interest. This greatly impressed me as to the real character of the man, and verified the adage, “the bravest are the tenderest.” I was greatly hurt a few weeks later when this noble young officer fell in battle. I think about the 20th of August, on the Weldon railroad. He was of the sanguine temperament of the Scotch-Irish type.
Our Captain, B. F. Grigg, had a wife and baby that he thought more of than of the Confederacy after hope of success was on the wane. He held out faithful to the end, but was so glad when the cruel war was over that he turned Republican and was for many years postmaster at Lincolnton and a successful merchant. He went in early—joined First Regiment of six months’ volunteers—and was in first battle at Bethel, Va.; but he got enough by and by, and wanted to quit.
Brigadier-General Matt. W. Ransom, our Brigade Commander, is too well known to the people of this country to require an extended introduction by me, he having served twenty-four years in the United States Senate and four years as Minister to Mexico. All who have known him recognize in him the highest type of the old-time Southern Christian gentleman. As an officer he held the deserved love and highest respect of all his men. He was scholarly, gentle, sympathetic, and a most pleasant and entertaining orator. He would go anywhere in the State to address his old soldiers, always giving them the most patriotic advice. He was an enthusiastic optimist on the great resources and possibilities of our great united country. The last time he addressed the Confederate Veterans of Shelby, N. C., about two years before he died, money was raised and tendered him to pay his expenses, when he said, “No! no! I can not take the boys’ money; I don’t need it, and if I did I could not take it.”
Among the younger officers none excelled General Hoke, of Lincolnton, N. C. He entered the army as a company officer at less than twenty-four years of age. He was soon Colonel of the Twenty-first North Carolina Regiment, then Brigadier-General. He had not handled a brigade long until General Lee witnessed one of his gallant and most successful assaults and rode out of his way to compliment him personally, and there is no doubt, as the sequel will show, but that General Lee ever after held him in his highest confidence. He was with Stonewall Jackson in all his most brilliant campaigns. After his gallant brigade had been worn to a frazzle following Gettysburg, he was sent back to North Carolina to rest and recruit. After a few months of comparative rest, he boarded a train at Weldon, N. C., and went to Richmond to President Davis and presented a campaign for Eastern North Carolina, upon the completion of the gun-boat, Albemarle, nearing completion at Halifax, N. C., stating that he thought with two brigades beside his own that he could take Plymouth, Washington and New Bern, N. C., and thus clear his State of all its invaders. President Davis heard him patiently and then said he was glad to hear some one who still thought something could be done, and said he would transfer some ranking officers and give him the forces suggested. This writer got these facts from his uncle, Gen. John F. Hoke. General Pickett had made an expedition against New Bern February 1, 1864, with six brigades, and could easily have taken it had not some of his plans miscarried. An account of General Hoke’s taking Plymouth and Washington and his service at Drury’s Bluff and at Cold Harbor are given in a former chapter. General Hoke was sent back to North Carolina and commanded at Wilmington, N. C., finally surrendering with General Johnson. General Hoke is very modest about exploiting his brilliant military career; but we have it on the authority of the Charlotte Observer that during the last months of the war General Lee became apprehensive that his health might give way at any time, and looking over the whole field, selected General Hoke to take his place as his successor, and had such an understanding with President Davis and General Hoke. At the beginning of the Spanish-American War, we heard that President McKinley offered General Hoke a Brigadiership, and he modestly declined it. The writer met General Hoke twenty-five years after the war, and upon complimenting his brilliant campaigns, as an actor and eye-witness, he said, “Yes, when I had to fight them I tried to go at it so as to make them think I was not afraid of them.” He said he was not quite twenty-eight years old when the war closed. General Hoke is an uncle to Governor Hoke Smith, of Georgia. Besides being with General Hoke in his Eastern North Carolina and Drury’s Bluff campaigns, I got most of my information from Capt. L. E. Powers, now of Rutherfordton, N. C., who served with General Hoke first in the Twenty-first North Carolina Regiment and then in his brigade, and under him through four years. Captain Powers has represented his county three terms in the Legislature. He says he has been under fire with General Hoke in about forty engagements and was wounded several times.
A True Virginia Boy and a Bit of Romance.
While this writer was located on the canal, boating wood for the men in the trenches at Petersburg, winter of 1865, he became acquainted with a widow lady, Mrs. Dean, and family of three children; a grown daughter, Miss Jennie, and a younger daughter, Miss Lucy, aged about twelve, and a little son, aged about ten years. They occupied a neat cottage near his quarters. They were a nice, intelligent family, then in deep mourning for a son and brother, the hope and mainstay of the family, who had fallen in battle a few months before. Young Dean had proved so good a soldier and had so distinguished himself for personal bravery from all the battles through the Wilderness on down to Petersburg, that his officers had given him a sixty day furlough to stay with his mother. When he had been at home a few weeks, keeping in touch with his regiment, which was on the lines of defense near by, in August, when the Federals seized the Weldon Railroad and a desperate battle was expected, he kissed his mother and sisters and hastened to join his regiment, and went into battle that day and shed his life’s blood that day in defense of his native city, his home and loved ones, proving himself one of the greatest heroes in Lee’s invincible army of battle-scarred veterans. What nobler deed! What greater sacrifice can any people show? Our relations with this good family became reciprocal. They would do some cooking for us, and we would bring them some wood. I guessed Miss Jennie was about my age, nineteen, medium in size, blue eyes, dark hair, most lovely form and features, of an honest, sincere expression. For all that is good and lovely in woman, she filled my ideal; but pleasant associations are soon broken in war, and I was ordered to report to my regiment. I had a supply of rations from home and Miss Jennie made me some cakes of sorghum molasses, and we parted, hoping to meet again soon and to correspond sure. My command moved ten miles to the right on Hatches’ Run for ten days; then back past Miss Jennie’s home in the night, and on into the battle in front of Petersburg on the 25th of March. Here I threw up the “sponge” and went to Point Lookout and stayed there until the 12th June; then came back by Richmond, and on home. We had no mails for a year after the war, before I wrote Miss Jennie that I had got through in good shape. Then she wrote me a nice letter, informing me that she had married a young Confederate soldier—a Mr. Jones—and giving a cordial invitation to visit them if I ever came to Petersburg. Well, as time pulled on, I, too, was married in 1872, and was as happy as any one could be. Forty years after parting with Miss Jennie I concluded to visit Petersburg and the old battlefields. I was now a grandpap and a widower, and I thought of my old friend, Mrs. Jones, and I wondered what had become of them. If she and her husband were living, I would certainly give them a call. Then, if I should find her a widow, there might be a little bit of new romance started in the Old Dominion. I could think of her only as the lovely girl of nineteen; but I had to reflect that she, too, might now be a withered grandmother. I went on the Seaboard Road and landed right in our old wagon yard. The beautiful oak grove was all gone, streets and hundreds of houses covered our old stamping ground. I soon located the old canal, like unto a sunken road, and could recognize only the old brick mill house at the lower end of the canal basin or boat landing. Seeing some old veterans around I inquired if they knew Mrs. Dean, and they said they did, and Jennie too. That she married Ned Jones; that Jones had been dead a couple of years. Then I enquired, “How is Mrs. Jones?” “She is an invalid—not able to get out. A son and a daughter live with her.” “What sort of a man was Jones?” “He was a good man, a local preacher. She lives second block—third house on the right.” Starting out to see my poor invalid lady friend, I stepped in where beer was sold and got a glass. I then interrogated the proprietor, Mr. Quarles. He said he was raised there, was about sixteen at close of the war; had served with the old men and boys; had stood in the breastworks and helped repel several attacks upon Petersburg. Yes, he knew Mrs. Dean and her family well. Then he told the pathetic story of the death of young Dean, and said he came very near going with him into that battle. That Miss Jennie married Lewellyn Jones, a brother of Ned Jones; that they moved to Crews, Va. Then I learned from him and others that Miss Jennie had been dead thirty years, leaving no children, and her husband had remarried and had a family of grown children; and that Miss Jennie’s little brother lived in the city, the last of the family living. Then I took a street car for the Crater, where I had labored and fought forty years before, and after taking in the museum of war relics, went out where I had thrown some lead, and in an oat stubble picked up some battered bullets. A pine tree large enough for a saw log is growing in the bottom of the Crater, since the 1,500 skeletons had been removed to national cemeteries.
Col. Billy Miller’s Upright Farm in the Upright Regions of Cleveland County, and How He Came to Own it, with Sketches of the County and Some of its People.
This famous county, the place of my nativity as well as that of many others of more or less national and local prominence, such as Thomas Dixon, Jr., of the Clansman fame; Hon. E. Yates Webb, Congressman Ninth District; Col. A. M. Lattimore, of Lattimore; Capt. O. D. Price, the old-time singer; Capt. Pink Petty, the famous fox-hunter with the silver-mounted horn; Capt. Nim Champion, the standing candidate for the Legislature on the one-plank platform—the restoration of the whipping-post. Then we have Frank Barrett, the old soldier candidate, who always runs on just any platform the people want, and who distinguished himself during the Civil War by going up in a balloon over the enemy for a pint of whiskey, with many others too tedious to mention, such as bankers, cotton mill men and shop keepers, etc. This goodly heritage lies east of the Blue Ridge and is flanked by the South Mountains on the north, Cherry Mountains encircling the west, with the famous little King’s Mountain on the south. One large township embraces the South Mountains.
Little First Broad River with numerous tributaries, flows from these mountains south, making a diversified, rolling country, interspersed with hills and sandy flats. There was a man in our company, F, in the Confederate army from the mountain section of our good county by the name of John Wesley Richards, a stalwart fellow of thirty, who for three years was a brave and courageous soldier; but after lying in the bloody trenches of Petersburg eight and one-half months, during which time he was wounded, he became disheartened and, forsaking all rights and interest in the Confederacy, shouldered his musket and, taking a dozen of his comrades with him, set out to fight his way home, and were successful in reaching home about the time General Lee surrendered, so they were not molested. Besides the right to hold Negro slaves, there was another right dearer to the people of upper Cleveland, viz, the right to convert their sour apples into brandy and their corn into whiskey, infringed upon by the Yankee government. After the surviving remnants of the Confederate army came home, and the shirkers came in from the bushes, all of the little copper stills started up for a joyful time, and public sentiment was so strongly against Federal interference that they were not molested much for two or three years. Our hero, John Wesley Richards, after his long, arduous campaigns in the war, felt that he was entitled to a season of rest and recreation, with plenty of refreshments thrown in to boot. So he got on a long and continuous spree, and went to the bad, until his wife had to divorce him and turn him out to “root hog or die.” Then, after a while, he began to rally and reform; and a grand, speculative idea striking him, he traded his faithful squirrel dog and his old shot gun for a warrantee deed for one hundred acres of land in the upright region of Cleveland County. Then, as Wesley began to prosper, he found himself in need of a one-horse wagon, called in these parts a “carryall”; and learning that J. S. Groves, a big merchant at Shelby, kept wagons to sell for cash and on time, Wesley wended his way to Shelby and, looking over Mr. Groves’ wagons, said he would like to have the running works of a one-horse wagon, but did not have the cash to pay down. Mr. Groves said that was all right; if he could give him a good paper he could have the wagon. John Wesley said he could give him a mortgage on one hundred acres of land. Mr. Groves said that would do. The papers were fixed up, the wagon delivered and John Wesley went on his way home rejoicing. The next fall Mr. Groves notified him that his note was due and they would expect him down soon to settle. A few weeks later he wrote Wesley that if he did not come soon and make some arrangements that he would have to advertise that land. John Wesley heeded not these warnings, and the land was advertised; and here is where Col. Billy Miller butted in and bought a cheap farm. Col. Billy had served in the cavalry during the war and managed to pull through in good shape. After engaging in several enterprises he founded a weekly newspaper called The Shelby Aurora, and made a great success. So this was the paper the land was advertised in. When the land was sold, lying twenty-five miles from town, none of the town people knew anything of it. Colonel Billy started it at forty cents per acre, which covered the cost of the wagon and advertisement, and no one bettered it, and he thought he had picked up a great bargain. Now this writer used to be somewhat connected with the Aurora. When his crops were short and prices low he could always get a job with Colonel Miller during the winter months to help out making ends meet, collecting and drumming up new subscribers. The Aurora was very popular—good coarse print so everybody could read it—and most everybody took it whether they could read or not. Its chief policy was to flatter all its patrons—those who paid for it because they paid and those who did not pay in hopes they would pay. When a man re-covered his house, built a new stable or cleared a fresh field we called him one of our most industrious and enterprising citizens, and when a fellow came to town to buy a side of bacon or a sack of flour on time he was alluded to as being on a business trip; and when nothing else good could be said of a fellow, we would puff him on his enthusiastic and steadfast Democracy. The way to run a county paper is to brag on all the people all the time and keep a good list of subscribers, and the patent medicine fellows will pay the running expense. So one winter, as I was ranging around the mountains near Colonel Miller’s farm, I met up with Blacksmith George Towry, a jovial, good-natured man, who said, “Tell Miller to send me his paper six months for showing those fellows his farm and trying so hard to sell it to them. He sent two young men up here and referred them to me and I went over there and showed it to them and bragged on it all I could. When we got to the house I said, “You see that large white-oak on the lower side of the yard, that is the place to have your hog pen; it will always produce acorns enough to fatten a hog; then see that large hickory in front of the house; it is full of squirrels every day in the fall, and while your hog is fattening you can sit in the door and shoot a mess as you need them. Then, if you get tired eating squirrels, just look out yonder in that old field at the ’simmon trees. They are full of ’possoms every night, and you can gather a mess as you need them. Then when you kill your hog and get tired of so much greasy doings, just go up on the side of the mountain and cut some gum logs and you can catch all the rabbits you want. Don’t you see its the easiest place to live you ever saw? Then look down there at that spring, as pure water as ever come out of the ground; it would be worth a thousand dollars anywhere in Texas; and the climate can’t be beat anywhere in the world—malaria, microbes and such things never bother us. These high mountains on the north and east break off the cold winds. In winter you can set out on a log in the sunshine all day and enjoy the scenery; then, if you are ambitious and enterprising, you could start up a turkey ranch right here; you have sixty thousand acres of free range, enough to raise 10,000 turkeys, with at least fifty cents per head net profit; that gives you $5,000 per year income on turkeys alone. I tell you that would beat raising cotton on the sandy flats all hollow. All the expense raising turkeys would just be to throw them a little corn to keep them gentle. The young men looked puzzled and one said, ‘And where would we get the corn?’ ‘Oh,’ said I, ‘you could find some corn down at Jack Morrison’s mill or at Ped Price’s store.’ Then one says, ‘And how could we get the turkeys to market?’ and I says, ‘Oh, drive them out; they can fly across these deep hollows.’ He then added, ‘The young men turned away looking sorrowful, and I don’t know whether they will buy or not.’”