Mexico weekly ledger., 1876-11-16
[From the Memphis Ayalanche.l

- - &AS
ond Century of His Ex~istence-Hfs
Recollection of the Revolutionary
War.
[From the Memphis Avalanche.l
There died near Rossville, Tenn, a
few days age, a venerable and remark
able old negro-perhaps n OF the old
est in the land-a man who has seen
generation after generation come upon
the stage of life, act its part, and pass
off into oblivion. He has seer his friends
born, ripened into manhood, and gone
down in old age to the grave. Children
of three generations have clustered
around his knees and heard his recital
of the legends of a past century, and
have, N after the other, been laid to
rest in a grave over which his tears
have fallen. Yet, like the Wandering
Jew" of Sues great fiction, he had
been forced to ago On" until the Crea-
tor that gave him life should see fit to
take back the gift. "Uncle Jake"
Pulliam has for many years been living
in the county where he died, having be-
fore the war been aslave of the Pulliam
family. "Uncle Jake" claimed to be
1876 years old, and was probably, judg-
ing from his age at the time various
SSSASS "SASS AAkbSSSNs l. 1000 bAtAA1 A~O
years old.
To men of this generation there is
something weird and almost inconpre-
hensible in the existence, but a few
weeks ago, of one who was a man
grown at the time of the birth of the
republic. The old mans stories of the
stormy events of the Revolution were
~singularly fresh and accurate, and
showed that he had acted his part in
those great and perilous scenes which
attended the ushering into existence of
the best government the world has ever
seen. The history of this old patriarch's
life, as he has told it over and over
again beside the pine-knot fire before
his cabin door. contains SO much that is
marvellous that it should not be with
held from the public.
Uncle Jake's earliest memories take
him back to a confused mingling of a
savage crowd-a sea voyage, and the
croWding of new sensations of a strange
people and a strange land. From all
Of which Uncle Jake thought that he
was brought to this country when he
was about ten years old. He never
knew a mother Or Il father. His first
home was among the rice fields of the
Carolinas, where he was for several
years the don't know how many en-
ployed Ground de house." When
about II years old he was sold
to the Du Pont family, OF HUI
guenot extraction, and was the
body servant of the "young mass'r,"
Henry Du Pont. When the Revolution
began, in 1875, his young master en-
listed as an ensign under Moultrie in
the Continental army, and he accom-
panied him. The old man a Y he was
then 'jes about grone and didn't had
no har on my chin" He remembers
clearly his first engagement with the
red coats it was when Col. Moultrie
sent his young master with their Cap
tain Marion, to take Fort johnson.
When the fort was taken, he himself
rammed the ball in one of the old can
non that were turned against the British
fleet. Uncle Jake tells some marvellous
tales of his W personal daring upon
that and similar occasions. One ludi-
crous incident of how "de soiers laffed'
when, a ball striking the sand bags of
the fort, he was covered up to the chin
and lay yelling for help, thinking that
the rest of his anatomy had been carried
off by the shot.
At the assault on Savannah by the
combined forces of the French and
Americans, his young master fell by the
side Of the gallant Pole, Count
Pulaski. The old mans voice would
grow husky Il he spoke of the burial
ny torchlight or the margin of the
marsh, and how Captain Marion kindly
patted his shoulder as he lay sobbing
on the ground, and said: Never mind,
Jake. He fell like Il brave man. and
you can tell his father 500
After that he attached himselfto Ma
rion, and was, after the return of the
command to Carolina, presented to Mia
rion by his old master for his use until
the close of the war. Uncle Jake could
tell many incidents of the siege of
Charleston; how Marion's leg was
broken there, and how he helped to
bandage up the shattered limb. He
was with the "SWamp Fox: in all his
battles and brushes with Tarleton and
his tories, being once captured by that
bold rider, but afterwards escaped, car
rymg Oft Iarleton's own pack mule with
his private baggage. He followed Ma
rlon through the swamps of the Pedee
and Santee Rivers, was present when
three ''Britishers" were swung up to
n limb, by way of retaliation for the
hanging of three of Marion's men. He
describes Marion as q small man, whom
he feared, and yet loved devotedly. But
strangest of all is the narrative Uncle
Jake gives of an incident which is
familiar to every school boy-the in
stance OF the visit of the English officer
to Marion at Snow Island, and how
Marion gave him a dining on potatoes.
Uncle Jake affirms that his hands put
"dem taters in de ashes, and took dem
out on a sharp stick, and put dem on de
log between de General and de officer.n
After the war, Jake returned to the old
homestead. The sole mass'r" had
gone down in sorrow to the grave, to
be followed soon by cole missis." The
plantation was sold and the slaves scat
tered 1NOOr VariDuS owporc Tol~, en-