The army was getting ready to start on the march for East Tennessee.
I had bought my officer’s uniform, with my straps on my shoulders
and a sword hanging by my side. I do not think that General Grant
or General Sherman ever felt as big as I did. Of course we had been
lying in the mountains of East Tennessee for nearly two years, and
had been chased by rebels and in danger of our lives every minute
of our time, and had to leave our families to be treated like
thieves—why not feel good as we were going back to relieve them? I
have known rebels to take women and whip them to make them tell where
their husbands were.
About the first of August we were ordered to be ready to march at a
minute’s notice, and in a few days the orders came for us to fall
in line. The band struck up the tune, “Going back to Dixie;” the
men cheered, and some shed tears of joy. The army concentrated at
Danville, Ky., and General Burnside took command of the 23d Army
Corps. We remained there a few days, and then took up our march in
fact for East Tennessee. We had a pretty hard time getting across the
mountains, as the roads were very bad, and the horses and mules were
not used to traveling; a great many of them gave out, and a large
number died.
We reached East Tennessee, below Knoxville, about the last of August,
1863, and marched in the direction of that city, passing between it
and Bean Station. We skirmished with the rebels on our way, and then
camped at Bull’s Gap for a few days.
While at Bull’s Gap, I asked Col. Reeve for a detail of six men to
go across the country about eighteen miles, to visit my home and
find out if any rebels were lurking around in the neighborhood. When
we got within a mile of Parrottsville, Cocke County, near where I
lived, we sent a Union woman to the town, requesting her to see an
old colored man by the name of Dave Rodman, who we knew had been
living there all his life, and to tell him to come out to a piece of
woodland just above the town.
About ten o’clock in the night we heard the old man coming in our
direction. We met him and he informed us that Henry Kilgore (the man
who conscripted me), Tillman Faubion and Cass Turner were in the
town; that Kilgore was at his home, and the other two men were across
the street at Faubion’s house. We went into the town, and George
Freshour, who was a Sergeant in my company, and one other man and
myself surrounded the Kilgore house, while the other three men went
across the street to the Faubion house and captured Faubion and Cass
Turner. Their horses were hitched to the fence, ready to mount and
make their way to North Carolina. It was raining, and the night was
very dark.
Freshour went to the front door and knocked; some one came to the
door, and he asked if Kilgore was at home. They said that he had
gone. As I was at the back kitchen door and the other man at the
south door, we knew he had not passed out. Freshour insisted that
Kilgore was in the house, and demanded that the door be opened.
Finally they let him in.
There was no light in the house. Freshour searched under the beds and
every place that he thought a man could hide in, but failed to find
his man. He then went into the kitchen and found Kilgore crouched
behind some old barrels. We brought him out and took him across the
street where the other two prisoners were. We then started down Clear
Creek, which ran through the Knobs, and we had to cross it ten or
fifteen times on foot logs that were narrow, smooth and slippery.
At the beginning of the Rebellion this man Henry Kilgore was a
conscript officer, and gave Leadbeater’s Command, which was stationed
at Parrottsville for the purpose of hunting Union men, all the
information he could obtain as to where the Union men kept their
corn, wheat, bacon and bee gum. He was a terror to the country.
Tillman Faubion was a nice man, and I never heard of him giving any
information, but he was a strong rebel sympathizer.
Cass Turner lived between Sevierville and Newport, Cocke County,
Tenn. He was a conscript officer, and one of the worst men in that
section. While hunting Union men who were lying out in the hills,
trying to get to Kentucky, he found that two or three men were hid in
a cave in his neighborhood. He and two others went to the cave and
found the men, and it was said he shot them and left their bodies in
the cave.
I remember when we started with these three men, Sergt. Freshour
walked behind Kilgore, and he insisted upon my giving him permission
to kill Kilgore, but I would not let him do any harm to any of the
men.
Cass Turner was a short man, weighing about two hundred pounds. He
could not walk the foot-logs, and had to get down and slide across on
his stomach. He and Kilgore pleaded with the boys to let them ride,
but they refused.
About ten miles below where we captured these men we came to the home
of a Mrs. Bible, whose husband had been captured by the rebels, taken
to Tuscaloosa and died. Freshour asked her if she had any honey, and
she replied that there was a bee hive in the barn that the rebels
had not found. Freshour went to the bee hive, took out a pound of
soft honey, put it in Kilgore’s tall white “plug” hat, and made him
wear it. The honey ran down his face, eyes and ears. The cause of the
Sergeant’s little act of “pleasantry” was the fact that Kilgore had
sent the rebels to Freshour’s father’s house, and they took all of
his bee hives, wheat, corn and bacon—in fact all he had. The rebel
now had an opportunity to taste the “sweets of adversity.”
We took these men to Knoxville and turned them over to the
authorities, and then returned to our command, at Bull’s Gap.