The Southern Soldier Boy: A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy

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.’”

Uncle Abe Wallis Visits Washington

A few years ago a story was current of an old darkey from Salisbury, N. C., visiting Washington, D. C., to see the President and obtain social recognition. We name him. Uncle Abe Wallis was an industrious, well-behaved matter-of-fact old darkey who had accumulated the snug sum of forty dollars, and concluded to spend it in the advancement of his social position, and he reasoned that the shortest way to get to the top quick would be to call on the President for recognition. So he paid $15.00 for a ticket and boarded a flyer, and was on his way to the mecca of Afro-American hopes, rights and social privileges, looking disdainfully upon the common blacks as he sped by them along the way, he was soon in the city of equal rights for all with special privileges for none. After being relieved of two dollars for a night’s lodging at a colored hotel, bright and early he inquired the way and set out for the White House, where he expected to take dinner and wanted his name in the pot in time. When he had had an insight of the coveted goal and turned in that direction, he was accosted by a harsh voice, “Whar ye goin’?” “Well, sar; I’se on my way to visit the President.” “This is not the day to see the President.” “Well, I don’t care anything about your arrangements; but this is my day to see him.” “I guess not.” “Captain, call the wagon and give this man a ride.” “Den, befo’ I could parley any mo’ about it, dey chucked me in de wagin and went down one of dem wide roads as hard as dey could tare and soon turned up at a ’spectable enough looking buildin’. Den dey tell me to git out, and when I go in dey feel in my pockets and take my money and say, ‘Guess we better save dis, de bums will clean you up.’ Den dar I was with a passel of no count looking Niggers and some po’ drunken white trash – about de worst company I ever got into. Next mornin’ de Jedge call me out and ax what my name and where I live. I say my name am Abraham Wallis and my home are Salisbury, N. C. Den he say, “What is your business,” and I tell him I am a deacon in our Baptist church. Den he say, “And what is your business here?” an’ I tell him I come specially to visit the President and let him know that there was as good an’ ’spectable colored people in North Carolina as dere was in Alabama. Den he say, “Old man, I’ll discharge you on condition that you take the first train South; you can’t afford to circulate around here; some one will pull your “wad” and you will be stranded along way from home. Go home while you can”; and soon I was comin’ back just as fast as I went. I tell ye I’se seen ’nough of Washington; de colored man haint got no showin’ at all. At Raleigh I can jest walk right into the Governor’s office and nobody’ll say, Where you gwine? and de Governor would say he felt pleased to see me, and he’d give me my dinner too; but he wouldn’t eat with me. I’se hearn about dis yaller Nigger, Booker Washington, who goes up North to eat wid white folks. He runs a big school and a big farm down in Alabama and gits all de young colored boys he can to go to school some and to work on his farm lots; and he tells ’em dey ought to be powerful glad to get to work on de farm, while he sends his own children off to Wesley University, in school wid white children. Take it all round, the honest colored person is respected about as much in North Carolina as anywhere, and I ’spect to stay at home after dis and keep on good terms wid our white folks, for dey is the best after all.”

An Irish Socialist

Patrick Finnegan had been studying socialism and told his friend, Barney O’Brien, that socialism was a good thing, both charitable and Christian, and if the people would adopt it all would be prosperous and happy. Barney says, “Pat, if ye had two homes, would ye give me one?” “To be sure I would,” says Pat. “Then if ye had two horses, would ye give me one?” “Then certainly I would,” says Pat. “Then if ye had two hogs would ye give me one?” “No. To hell with ye, Barney; ye know I’ve got thim.” “Well, that was what I was thinking, that ye would hold to your pigs with all the tenacity that a Vanderbilt would grip his railroads. It is aisy enough to give away what ye ain’t got; but if ye can’t practice what ye preach ye had as well shut up.” “Now that’s just like ye, Barney; ye would never make a good socialist. Ye would rob me entirely. You know I need me hogs; but I would not need but one home, and one horse would be all I could work and feed.” “Yes, Pat, and I guess if ye wait until ye get a home and a horse you’ll be a socialist a good while yet.” “To be sure I will, and if you ever have a home at all it will be when I have one to give you.” Barney: “Then I guess I had better hold my job and not depend on ye.” Pat: “Along with ye, Barney; it may be well that ye can always find a boss.”

Seven Days’ Fight Around Richmond

Reminiscences of Dr. Alexander, of Charlotte, N. C., recall to me the scenes of those battle-fields of the Seven Days’ battles of McClellan, 1862, when we passed over the ground in June, 1864, on our way to the Chickahominy River. Many of the Federal dead had scarcely been buried at all, as the rank weeds over the naked bones and blue rotten uniforms showed, where groups of a score or more had been bunched in shallow graves and lightly covered.

“Out of the 2,700 soldiers furnished the Southern army by Mecklenburg, how few remain to tell of that fearful seven-days’ struggle. The weather had been intensely hot before the fighting began for several days. Many of our men were on the sick list. On the 25th inst. the long roll was sounded; our troops, the Thirty-seventh Regiment, was hastily formed in line. Confederate battle-flags were here first displayed; stretchers for bearing off the wounded were here first put in charge of the ambulance corps. Everything wore a death-like hue. John Bell, a member of my company, said he was not able for the march, was sick; I spoke to the surgeon, and told him I would take Bell’s word for anything. He said, “Leave him behind.” In a week he was dead. Another fellow asked me to intercede for him, that he was sick. I told him I knew Bell, but I could not vouch for him; when night came he deserted, and is living yet. This was as we were leaving camp at Brock Church, six miles north of Richmond. We camped near Meadow Bridge. On the 28th we moved slowly down the Chickahominy; got on the edge of the road to let a body of Yankee prisoners pass; one of our men asked them where they were going; an Irishman answered, ‘In faith, I am going to Richmond, where me wife has been telling me to go for the last two months, and how far is it yit?’

“Late in the afternoon we heard heavy cannonading in our front, and we pushed forward rapidly, bearing to the left, as we thought, to charge a battery. Shells were passing through our line, killing seven men in one company; when we got in thirty steps of the battery we were ordered to lay down, to support the battery. The artillery duel ceased about 8 o’clock, and remained quiet until 9 o’clock next morning, when it broke loose with a vengeance and was quickly over. General Jackson had got in McClellan’s rear. Here the sun was terribly hot as we lay on the southern slope of the hillside, with nothing to protect us from the vertical rays of the sun. We went from here to Mechanicsville, where the heavy fighting was done the evening before. Here the Yankee dead had not been moved, and the swarms of horse-flies that arose from the dead carcasses rendered it necessary for each man to hold one hand over his mouth and nose. It is impossible to describe the scene as it was. In the afternoon of the 27th we reached Gains’ Mill; this battle opened about 3 p. m. It was terrific. North Carolina’s loss was very great. It was here that Colonel Campbell was killed. Capt. Billy Kerr was desperately wounded. Many private soldiers and company officers from Mecklenburg were killed and wounded. A rare sight I witnessed. Some man, I never knew who he was, was riding back and forth in front of our firing line, talking to the men, telling them to aim low, don’t shoot too high; he was bareheaded, wounded in the neck; no coat on, and was riding a gray horse; the blood had run down from his neck to his gray horse; he appeared cool and determined. A large and spotted hound appeared at the same time, running and barking as heavy limbs were cut off by shells, licking the blood from the dead and wounded. I don’t know what became of the dog or the man on horseback.

“When the battle was over, I was appointed to the medical department and assigned to the Thirty-seventh Regiment. We went next to the bloody field of Frazier’s farm. Here our Colonel, Charles C. Lee, was killed; he was as gallant an officer as ever trod the battle-fields of Virginia; he was as brave as a lion and gentle as a lamb, and thought it not inconsistent with his profession as a soldier, to acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Captain of his salvation.

“The next move was to overtake McClelland’s army, which was halted at Malvern Hill. Here General McGruder was in front, and his orders were to feel what position the enemy occupied. It was said at the time that McGruder was so pleased with the position of his artillery that he at once ‘let slip the dogs of war.’ This proved the bloodiest battle of the war for the time it lasted. From personal observation I can testify that there was no break in the roar of musketry for five hours. The gunboats on the James River threw large shells at random, most of which burst over their own troops. The battle closed at 10 o’clock at night. Immediately the Yankee army sought the shelter of their gunboats. It took us two days to get the wounded all off to Richmond. One peculiar case of gun-shot wound I will mention. A soldier by the name of Rankin, Company H, Thirty-seventh Regiment, shot in the base of the skull of the medulla oblongatta, did not prevent him from walking about; was examined by a dozen surgeons, but were unable to trace or locate the bullet, when Dr. Campbell, of the Seventh Regiment, called me as the youngest surgeon to try my hand. In a jest I placed my hand on his forehead and told him to open his mouth; at once I saw a swelling in the roof of his mouth; it was hard and smooth. I made a slit with a scalpel, and showed a minnie ball to the astonished surgeons. How the ball got there without killing him has always been a mystery.