Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1889-06-03
Rebellion War Record.

fifteen miles, to the home of a unior
man named Murphy, remained with
us over night and then went back
Murphy was a small man, but he hao
heart as big as an OK. / kept uE
correspondence with these men sew
eral years after my return. We re-
mained at Murphy's three days,
think. His family consisted of wife.
daughter and two sons, lone of whom
was hiding in a cave in the mountains
to escape being forced into the rebel
army. The father took Adams and
myself to the hiding place of his son,
who was a young married man, and
had his wife with him in the woods.
We had a pleasant visit with them,
Young Murphy proposed to accom-
pany us over the mountains into
Tennessee said his wife would be
glad to get out of the woods, and he
would lead us through to the Union
lines. / will state that large num-
Der of men in this part of No. Caro-
lima were hiding in the woods to es-
cape the officers who were securing
the country to raise recruits for the
rebel armies. Some of these, six,
think, we saw, and they proposed to
90 with us. One of them had been
through the route several times and
knew the country. We started and
our route was a wild and desolate
way, avoiding all places where we
might expect to run into rebel troops,
or bush-whackers, we made slow but
safe progress.
On Sunday night we stopped at q
house where there were three women,
one of whom had a husband who had
been conscripted into the rebel army,
the other two had husbands in the
Union army. This was near the
Black Mountains or Black Knob, as
a prominent mountain was called.
The women were very kind and
manifested great anxiety in us and
in the war. They wanted to "talk, -
and we got little sleep at that house
that night. We visited no commun-
ity where the war feeling ran as high
as here, where the people were about
equally divided in sentiment, some
union and others rebel. The suffer-
mos endured by the Union people dur
ing these four years were terrlDle.
These women were ready to give us
| the last crumb of bread they had in
the house. One of them started off
before daylight, went to farmers
| house, got bushel of apples, and
loaded us up with them. We gave the
woman a fifty-dollar confederate bill
when we started, and she returned
| S25 of it,but we insisted on her keep
| ing it. Confederate money was of
little value there, and we hoped soon
| to get into country where it would
| be worthless. Soon after we left the
home of our lady friends we struck
| in at the base of the mountain and
climbed to its top, a distance proba-
bly, of eight miles. We made the
long, steep ascent and reached the
summit about noon. Here we found
a good spring of water where we rest
ed and ate dinner which was heart
lily relshed. In ascending the noun
tain stream which had its source in
the spring before mentioned, L saw
more trout than ever | saw elsewhere
in my life. Our descent down the
mountain was very steep and rough,
but we reached an opening at the
base of the mountain a little after
sunset. We saw a small house in
the distance and / ventured to go
and see what sort of people inhabited
it. [ found it's sole occupant to be
woman; told her my mission and that
there was party of eleven of US
who wanted chance to stay at her
house, if possible, over night. She
thought she had no conveniences for
so large party, but consented to
let rs stay there, if we could sleep on
+ho
naples in this section and this woman
was carrying Oh small sugar place
alone. We got little taste of maple
sugar. We learned that this woman
was the wife of Capt. Ray of the
Federal army. He had been home
recently on recruiting mission, and
had only a few days before gone to
the front with company of recruits.
We crossed the valley some miles and
came to Point Mountain, which lay
in the way of our course. On our
way we fell in with a party of five
women who were loaded with varie-
ty of stuff they had purchased at
far away store, with bags of meal
from the mill. They thought we
were rebels and were shy of us, but
we told them we were "Feds," and
they were more ready to converse. 1t
seemed they were making journey
of thirty miles to obtain the necessa-
ries of life. AS they were to cross
Piont Mountain, we volunteered to
carry some of their goods for them,
and had quite an interesting journey
with them One of them saw me
biting a chew of tobacco from long
plug | had with me, and said, "Oh
my Won't you give me chew?"
| said, ''you don't use tobacco"
"You bet | do she replied. | pass
ed the plug, when she cut off a piece
an inch long, and when about to re-
turn my knife said, "Which part
shall | take?" | said, sWhich you