A Civil War Story

Submitted by Rose Diamond

A True Civil War Story, A Night Drive in Calhoun
Written by “Memorist” 
(Printed in the Calhoun Monitor July 1, 1909)
Recopied in The Monitor-Herald July 26, 1984.

For something like three years, the eventful Civil War had been waging.

The great South, whose daring sons were still fighting for principle and whose mothers and daughters were heroically suffering from want of clothes and food lay a practical waste. The great armies of Sherman, Grant and others had ceaselessly torn the South to pieces and everywhere in her broad domain, desolation, privation, destitution and dreary waste prevailed in abundance.
In the month of March, 1864, a column of Yankee soldiers out on a plundering expedition had left the main body of Federal troops near Holly Springs and headed South. It was reported that they were making their way to our county.

The little town of Pittsboro looked like a forsaken thing in an endless stretch of desert. The March wind whistled sharply around the corners of the forsaken buildings, which had been left in many instances to the mercy of goats, and now and then, a creaking shutter on the courthouse banged to with a snap.

In the afternoon on this particular day, I was standing on the street corner looking away toward Coffeeville, from whence a distant dull boom of cannon was wafted on the air for the report was true and a battle was being fought a little North of Coffeeville.

I was approached by Judge J. S. Ryan who wanted to know if I could drive an ox wagon on a particular errand. “I have already made arrangements for W. A. Sumners team”, said he, “And I want you to load all the records of our county into the wagon and take them to a point in Yalobusha bottom which ‘old Sam’ (a trusty servant of the Rev. ‘Uncle Tommy’ Goar) will show you.”

I told him I could take them and he said, “Then, let us get ready at once. The Yankees are now at Coffeeville and may come here at any time, and if they do they will certainly destroy all our records etc.”

So I promptly hitched the team designated, which consisted of three yoke of big oxen. I drove up to the fence that then surrounded the courthouse at the East side, and with the help of several men, piled everything that looked like County records, deed books, etc. into the great bed of the wagon.

When I left the streets it was late in the afternoon and the air was becoming chilly. I felt very lonely, for there was no one with me.

I shall never forget the way I felt when I reached a point in the road between Pittsboro and where Calhoun City now stands, some two miles south of Pittsboro. I remember perfectly well how the slanting rays of the setting sun threw mine and my teams shadows on the objects along the roadside; from off to the left the love-cry of a shy quail tremblingly echoed over the bleak hills; I knew perfectly well that dark would overtake me before I could reach the creek which was overflowing on account of continual rains; so I traveled slowly along the muddy road and wondered how I was going to cross that stream.

As fortune would have it, I reached the stream a little before dark and immediately put my team in the water. They went slowly in and all but the “wheelers” made it to the bank on the opposite side. They could get no footing on account of the slippery banks and my wagon was mired down. I tried every way I knew to get it out and finally sat down to consider what I had best do next, when from down the bottom came a cherry “Hello!”, and you may rest assured that I was glad to hear this. The man was Abe Crutchfield and we set to work to get the wagon out, in which we were finally successful, and after thanking my helper, I again started out.

I reached the hospitable home of ‘Uncle Tommy’ Goar near where Prof. Beasley now lives soon after dark. The ground on which the thriving little town of Calhoun City now stands, was then in open cultivation.

Here I got ‘Old Sam’ and with a big torch made of cypress boards, we started on, for I was determined to end my mission that night.

He led me down into the bottom near where the depot (at Calhoun City) now stands. [Editor’s note: Where the Calhoun county Co-op is located in 1984], and after a long time spent in urging the jaded team on, and winding around in the bottom, the negro said, “We’s here, Boss.” I looked up and by the aid of the torch, made out a very rough building known as a ‘boat house’.
“Wait a minute, boss, and I’ll start a fire,” which he did in a remarkably short while, and the tiny blaze soon grew until it shifted everything in the bare room to light.

He then removed a portion of the “puncheon” floor and we set to work to piling in the books under the house. We finished, put out the fire and started back. At promptly 12 midnight, the creaking wagon was stopped at the door of my host, and we put the oxen into the stables, where feed had already been placed in their trough.

After the war was ended, when a body of half-naked, tough noble men who had gone joyfully forward to fight for an outraged country, had retuned to the arms of suffering wives and mothers and hungry children to face a tottering civilization; after a year of so of hopeless misery and despair under the carpet-bag rule, the County of Calhoun began to stand on a slight footing, and after another year or so of steady gaining, the books, records, deeds, etc. that I had hidden were brought back, but they were so hopelessly mixed up that the County employed Judge Duberry to straighten them up, which took him something like a year.