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.'"