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RECOLLECTIONS OF AN OLD MAN 
 SEVENTY TEARS IN DIXIE 
 
 1827-1897 
 
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RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 OF AN OLD MAN 
 
 Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 1827-1897 
 
 BY 
 
 D. SULLINS 
 
 v 
 
 CLEVELAND 
 
 TENN. 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 1910 
 
 THE KING PRINTING COMPANY 
 
 LXKOI PREIS 
 
 BRISTOL, TENNESSEE 
 
B >C 6 
 
 S * 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 HOUGH not an old man, my 
 memory goes back for somewhat 
 more than half a century. The 
 things that happened then are 
 as clear in my mind as if they 
 took place only yesterday. 
 
 In 1854-55, or thereabouts, Brother Sullins 
 — they did not call any preacher Doctor, 
 except Sam'l Patton, those days — was station 
 preacher in my native town of Jonesboro. 
 How distinctly he stands out before me as he 
 then was: six feet and over tall, with a great 
 shock of coal black hair on his head, blue-grey 
 eyes that kindled when he talked to you, and a 
 voice that could be as caressing as a mother's 
 and as martial as a general's on the field of 
 battle. 
 
 My mother was a Methodist of the old 
 pattern, and Brother Sullins was often in the 
 home. Two of my sisters went to school to 
 him and loved him dearly. In social life he 
 was a charmer, often breaking out into 
 
 * 
 
 42527' 
 
Introduction 
 
 mirthful stories. Now and then he did not 
 hesitate to play the boy. But for the scruples 
 of his flock, I am sure he would have been 
 glad on the frosty October mornings to 
 follow the hounds after a fox; for the breath 
 of the country was in his nostrils. 
 
 He was even then a wonderful preacher; 
 at least there was one little boy in his con- 
 gregation that thought so. But I loved best 
 to hear him exhort and sing. Once in the 
 midst of a great revival, he came down out of 
 the pulpit, his arms outstretched, the tears 
 streaming from his eyes, and walked up and 
 down the aisles, beseeching his hearers to 
 accept Christ. There was nothing studied 
 in it, and the spontaneity of it thrilled me. 
 I wonder if he dreamed how much he was 
 stirring my childish heart. And how he 
 could sing! There were no choirs in those 
 days, and he did not need one, as he was 
 entirely competent to "set and carry" any 
 tune. Now and then he would sing a solo 
 before the morning service, usually one of the 
 great old Methodist hymns; but occasionally 
 something new. 
 
 When he went away, everybody was sorry; 
 
Introduction 
 
 the whole town was devoted to him. It was 
 a long, long time ago! One whole generation 
 has since passed into eternity, and a large part 
 of another. But in the providence of God, 
 Brother Sullins — now and for many years 
 Doctor Sullins — still lingers with us; the 
 old man eloquent of the Holston Conference, 
 every man's friend and the friend of every 
 man. More than four score years have 
 passed over his head. He has been preacher, 
 teacher, soldier. 
 
 A few years ago, at the urgent request of 
 many friends, he began to write some remi- 
 niscences of his early life for publication in 
 The Midland Methcdtst. He will not be 
 offended when I say that even those who 
 knew him best were surprised at the facility 
 with which he used his pen. They had 
 recognized him as an almost incomparable 
 orator, but that very fact had perhaps blinded 
 them to his other gifts. Anyhow the reminis- 
 cences were eagerly read, with a constant 
 demand for more. Ever since the series 
 ended there has been a succession of inquiries 
 as to whether they would not be put into a 
 book. 
 
Introduction 
 
 And here they are! From New River to 
 Lookout Mountain, they will be read again 
 and again, often with tears and sometimes 
 with laughter. I take great pleasure in 
 introducing them to the general public. The 
 man who wrote these papers ought to have 
 written more. 
 
 itju^?, 
 
 Nashville, Tenn., 
 
 February 14th, 1910. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 FTER what Bishop Hoss has 
 said in the introduction to these 
 Recollections, and Dr. Burrow, 
 who was editor of The Midland 
 Methodist while they were pass- 
 ing through its columns, said, it is not necessary 
 to explain further, the why, and the how, 
 of this little book. It will be seen also that 
 the first chapter is largely prefatory. Only 
 this I will say, that but for the repeated re- 
 quests of Dr. Burrow and other friends, 
 for some reminiscences, they would never 
 have been begun, and but for encouragement, 
 after the first few chapters had appeared, they 
 would never have been continued. Their 
 appearance in this book form, is in compliance 
 with a request of the Holston Conference in 
 annual session. So I say Brethren, I am 
 not so much publishing a book as that I am 
 publishing my obedience to your wish. 
 
 Dr. Burrow and the Conference are 
 responsible for the gathering up and preserving 
 of this "basket of fragments. " 
 
 Cleveland, Tenn., 
 
 February, 1910. 
 
 JJ.0laJ^U^^' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Biographical . 
 
 II. Early History 
 
 III. Our Family Altar . 
 
 IV. Camp Meetings 
 
 V. Camp Meetings — Cont'd 
 
 VI. The Simple Life . 
 
 VII. Our Country Life 
 
 VIII. Love Feasts and Class 
 Meetings 
 
 IX. Early School Days 
 
 X. Early Days at Emory 
 
 XL When and Where 
 
 Licensed 
 
 XII. A Memorable Day . 
 
 XIII. Interesting Incidents 
 
 XIV. Cherokee Preachers 
 XV. Death of James H. Card- 
 well .... 
 
 XVI. My Third Appointment 
 
 XVII. Revival in School 
 
 XVIII. Marriage . 
 
 XIX. Year at Chattanooga 
 
 XX. Great Revival 
 
 XXL Chattanooga Revival 
 — Continued 
 
 X2ll. Year 1858-59 . 
 
 XXIII. Days of Secession . 
 
 18 
 
 25 
 
 3i 
 40 
 
 56 
 
 65 
 
 I 3 
 82 
 
 92 
 100 
 108 
 119 
 
 127 
 
 134 
 142 
 149 
 
 I5 fJ 
 107 
 
 J 74 
 183 
 192 
 
 11 
 
Contents 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 XXXV. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 XXXVII. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 XXXIX. 
 
 XL. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Nineteenth Tennessee 
 Regiment 
 
 Commissioned Quarter- 
 master 
 
 Still at Shiloh 
 
 Shooting a Deserter 
 
 Camp at Tangipahoa 
 
 At Knoxville 
 
 Refugees . 
 
 Wytheville Raid . 
 
 Refugees on Cripple 
 Creek 
 
 Camp Meeting at Old 
 Asbury 
 
 Camp Meeting Incident 303 
 
 Dr. Kennedy's Expe- 
 rience 
 
 War Over . 
 
 To Wytheville After 
 The War 
 
 Pioneers of Bristol 
 
 At Emory and Henry 
 College . 
 
 At Emory and Henry 
 College — Cont'd . 
 
 History of Centenary 
 
 Still at Centenary 
 
 Money and Money- 
 Making 404 
 
 Final Words . . • . 414 
 
 200 
 
 212 
 221 
 231 
 
 242 
 252 
 
 262 
 273 
 
 284 
 294 
 
 312 
 322 
 
 332 
 343 
 
 355 
 
 367 
 377 
 39 1 
 
 12 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 \mwm 
 
 OD willing, I will furnish some 
 brief chapters for our Midland, 
 made up of the recollections 
 of a lifetime. This I do at 
 the request of the Editor, and 
 of friends. To go back along the way I 
 have come will be for the most part pleasant 
 enough; for only now and then we shall 
 pass places where I cried when first there, 
 and, thank God! these are few and far be- 
 tween ; while long stretches of sunshine, 
 barely flecked with shadows, make up the rest 
 of the way. My purpose is to write recollec- 
 tions of the times in which I have lived, and of 
 some of the men and women I have known 
 personally, and preach a little as I go along. 
 I can hardly suppose that my individual 
 career by itself would interest the reading 
 public; but interwoven with the men and 
 times of the last eighty years, it may become 
 worth reading. I always want to know who 
 is talking, as well as what he is talking about. 
 
 13 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 So I hope it will not be set down to my vanity 
 if in this opening chapter I introduce myself 
 by a little autobiography and some family 
 traditions and ancestral history. 
 
 I was born two miles west of Athens, 
 McMinn County, Tenn., in July, 1827. And 
 I was well born. That is, I was born of well 
 developed, healthy, sensible, religious parents, 
 and on a, farm. All of which is much in my 
 favor, but nothing to my credit. And here I 
 begin thus early to thank God. First, that 
 I was born at all, and then that I was not 
 born cross-eyed nor club-footed nor deaf nor 
 blind nor of cranky, irreligious parents. That 
 last clause is a climax. I fear that we stalwart 
 men and graceful women, each with five good 
 senses, a sound body, and lithe limbs, do not 
 sufficiently appreciate the parental care. 
 
 My ancestors were Scotch-Irish. I re- 
 member while yet a boy to have heard my 
 father tell that somewhere about 1750 his 
 father and two brothers, came from "the 
 old country" to America. These brothers 
 were Scotch-Irish, and all unmarried. They 
 separated after they arrived in this country. 
 One stopped in Pennsylvania, and married 
 there; one went to North Carolina, married, 
 
 14 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 and located near Guilford Courthouse; the 
 third came to Virginia, married a Miss Mays 
 in Halifax County, and settled on Dan River. 
 This was my grandfather. Here my father 
 was born. When he was twelve years old, 
 his father came, among the first pioneers, 
 to Tennessee, and settled on Poplar Creek, 
 in Knox (now Roane) County, near Oliver 
 Springs, in 1795. Here my father grew up to 
 manhood in the wilderness of the new country. 
 He had one brother (Joseph) and three 
 sisters. These sisters married Dr. William 
 Farmer, Joseph Stubblefield and William 
 Gent. Some of the descendants of these 
 families are still here in East Tennessee. 
 Rev. Joseph A. Stubblefield, D. D., who for 
 many years was President of Centenary 
 Female College, is the grandson of the Stubble- 
 field who married my paternal aunt. 
 
 There were no schools in those days, 
 save an occasional "subscription school/ ' 
 kept in the winter. Father told us that he 
 attended one of these and learned to spell a 
 little. This, he said, was all the schooling he 
 ever got. When he was twenty-one he married 
 my mother, Miss Rebecca Mitchell, daughter 
 of Rev. Morris Mitchell, a pioneer local 
 
 IS 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 preacher of the Methodist Church. I think 
 he was of Irish descent. His wife was proba- 
 bly German. They lived on the south side 
 of the Holston River, two miles above Lenoir's 
 Ferry, now Lenoir City. The river was 
 called Holston then as far down as the mouth 
 of the Little Tennessee River. There it 
 took the name of Tennessee. The Little 
 Tennessee was the northern boundary of 
 what was known as the Cherokee Hunting 
 Ground. When father married, he rented 
 the ferry and the island at the mouth of the 
 Little Tennessee, built a cabin close by, 
 and brought mother there. So there was only 
 the small river between them and the Indians. 
 Along on their side of the river the Indians 
 had many little towns — Coyalee, Tomotlee, 
 Choitee, Tellico, and some others — and close 
 by was the ill-fated Fort Loudon, of sad 
 history. Here in father's cabin were born 
 seven of my brothers and sisters; there were 
 thirteen of us, all told — a good, honest 
 family, you see. 
 
 My mother was the youngest of a large 
 family of brothers and sisters. My father 
 married her when she was sixteen years old. 
 He was not religious then, but mother was. 
 
 16 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 In those days the preachers used to call on the 
 women sometimes to lead in prayer. My 
 mother was known as the "praying young 
 woman on the south side of the river/' O, 
 how I have heard her pray a whole camp 
 meeting onto its feet! "And there was the 
 sound of going in the mulberry trees." It 
 was said at her funeral that "her father, four 
 brothers, two sons, and eleven nephews were 
 Methodist preachers." It was in the blood 
 of that old pioneer local preacher and his 
 blessed old wife, and it had come down through 
 their children and children's children for four 
 generations; and if there has ever been a pauper 
 or a "jail bird" among them, I have never 
 heard of it. This is our family testimony 
 for the truth of God's promise of "mercy 
 unto children and children's children to such 
 as fear him." Who hath ears to hear, let him 
 hear. 
 
 l 7 
 
II 
 
 EARLY HISTORY 
 
 N the other side of the river 
 from Grandfather Mitchell's, 
 and a little above, lived John 
 Winton, the father of a large 
 and influential family often men- 
 tioned in the journal of Bishop Asbury. Two 
 of his sons, William and James, married sisters 
 of my mother, and John McClure married 
 another. Soon after this, grandfather, together 
 with most of his family, moved to Missouri and 
 located near Springfield. Here and hereabouts 
 the Mitchells and Wintons and McClures 
 gathered somewhere in the thirties. Missouri 
 was called the "Far West" then. I recollect that 
 my father paid fifty cents postage on letters 
 sent them, and this recalls a remark in one of 
 grandfather's letters to mother. He was a 
 very fat man — so fat that he could not tic 
 his own shoes — and, wanting mother to know 
 that he was doing well in the Far West, 
 said: "Rebecca, I am as fat as a buck, but 
 cannot jump quite so high." This made us 
 
 18 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 children laugh. Missouri Methodism owes 
 much to these Mitchells and Wintons and 
 McClures. Their names are found on almost 
 every page of her wonderful history from that 
 day to this, on districts and circuits and mis- 
 sions, home and foreign, and in schools and 
 colleges, on down to the present editor of the 
 Christian Advocate. (Cousin George, I did 
 not mean anything but a smile by tailing out 
 that last sentence with an anticlimax. But 
 don't let your wife see it. She and I are good 
 friends now, and I want us to continue so 
 until we meet over the river.) 
 
 I was at the funeral of John Winton. His 
 death occurred during a camp meeting at 
 old Muddy Creek, near his home. My 
 brother, Timothy, was presiding elder, and 
 had charge of the meeting. Mr. Winton's 
 remains were brought to the camp ground, 
 and brother conducted the services in the 
 presence of a very large assembly of his devout 
 neighbors. He was the father of the two 
 Wintons who married my aunts, Mary and 
 Rhoda. William Winton, who married my 
 Aunt Mary, went to Missouri about 1837. 
 He was the father of Rev. George Mitchell 
 Winton, who for more than forty years stood 
 
 19 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 on the firing line of our Methodism in the 
 Middle West, and who in turn was the father 
 of Rev. George B. Winton, D. D., present 
 editor of the Nashville Christian Advocate. 
 James Winton, who married my Aunt Rhoda, 
 did not go West when the other members of 
 his family did. He lived at Winton's Island, 
 twelve miles below Kingston, on the Tennessee 
 River. Here he brought up a large family 
 of sons and daughters. The oldest son was 
 Rev. Wiley B. Winton, who for many years 
 was a member of the Holston Conference, 
 and one of the very best preachers ever among 
 us — a gentle, sweet-spirited, and lovable man. 
 His eyes failing, he took the superannuated 
 relation, and went with his family to Missouri, 
 but kept his membership with us till he died. 
 His wife was an honored claimant on our 
 Conference fund till her death, a few years ago. 
 William M. Winton, of Missouri, Wiley B. 
 Winton and Timothy Sullins, of Holston, were 
 cousins. The first two were double cousins. 
 And no general ever had a trio of marshals 
 truer or braver than were these captains. 
 "One blast of their bugle horn was worth a 
 thousand men." There were giants in those 
 days. Preach ? Ah, how they did preach 
 
 20 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 and exhort and pray and sing! Sons of 
 thunder and consolation, they were all good 
 singers. O, to hear them again! And I 
 expect to, "some sweet day/' in the swelling 
 chorus of celestial singers. Amen. 
 
 When my father married, he rented Lenoir's 
 Ferry and the big island at the mouth of the 
 Little Tennessee, built a cabin, and brought 
 mother to it. Here they began their life work. 
 They used to tell us what they had to begin 
 with. Father had a cow and mother a set 
 of pewter tableware, a wedding portion from 
 her father. I remember that some of the 
 plates were in the family when I was "getting 
 a big boy," and particularly a basin which 
 was used in the yard for watering the chickens 
 — a good thing. It did not rust, and was so 
 heavy that a hen could not turn it over and 
 'not deep enough to drown the little ones. 
 Here they lived until the Hiwassee land sales, 
 in 1819. These lands included the Indian 
 hunting ground between the Hiwassee and the 
 Little Tennessee. Father bought of the State 
 one hundred and sixty acres two miles west of 
 Athens, in McMinn County, and brought his 
 family to it. 
 
 The country was then an unbroken wilder- 
 
 21 
 
 y 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 ness. Father said there was "not a stick 
 amiss" where Athens now is. Here another 
 cabin was built with unhewn logs, clapboard 
 roof, puncheon floor, and wooden chimney. 
 I remember this cabin, though I was not born 
 in it. It was moved to another part of the 
 farm, and a renter lived in it when I was a 
 child. When father got to his new possessions 
 with his stock, it was all woods. So they cut 
 some saplings and made a sort of enclosure for 
 the cattle for the night, and then in the 
 morning salted them and let them go to the 
 "range." After a few years, a large two- 
 story house was built of hewn logs, with a 
 brick chimney. On the back of the chimney, 
 some ten feet up, is the date of its erection, 
 1825. This house still stands. Here I was 
 born and brought up. There were but few 
 preaching places in those days, so father left 
 the lower room of his house without a parti- 
 tion, which made a good place for the neigh- 
 bors to meet for preaching and prayer and 
 class meetings. Father kept some benches 
 packed away for use on such occasions. 
 I helped to bring them in and arrange them 
 when the people came to preaching. 
 
 I remember to have heard Bishop Morris 
 
 22 
 
Seventy Years in T)ixie 
 
 preach at our house once. It was the day 
 after the Conference closed at Madisonville, 
 Tenn., 1837. He came in the evening seven- 
 teen miles, and preached at night. He was 
 the first Bishop I ever saw. I remember well 
 how he looked as he stood up by the old family 
 clock, which was "taller by half" than the 
 Bishop himself. Here in this house I was 
 born, and here cluster all the sweet associations 
 of childhood and youth — father and mother, 
 brothers and sisters, the fields and the orchard, 
 the big forest oaks in the yard, the well with 
 its wooden pump, and the spring house by it, 
 the horses and my own pretty colt which 
 father gave me for my own — aye, and my pack 
 of dogs, whose leader and chief was True 
 Boy. He was a wise old dog, and merited his 
 name. I learned many things from him, of 
 which I may tell you later, maybe. 
 
 But of all the recollections of my childhood, 
 the dearest and most sacred was the gathering 
 of the large family for the morning and 
 evening prayers. I can see them now, all 
 quietly seated while the lesson was being read, 
 and then all stood up to sing. This was 
 father's rule. And oftener, perhaps, than 
 anything else we sang "Father, I Stretch My 
 
 23 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Hands to Thee," to the tune of "Mean" But 
 I told you above that father was not religious 
 when he married mother. That was true. 
 And indeed I think that what religious bent 
 there was in our family was largely due to 
 the Mitchell blood and training in mother. 
 The Sullins stock in my father was strongly 
 marked by the blood of his Virginia mother, 
 Mary Mays. The Mayses were more noted 
 for their love of fine horses, fox dogs, and 
 handsome women, than for their piety. Yes, 
 and I know one living grandson of Mary Mays 
 in whom have always been some troublesome 
 streaks of fondness for these things. Then 
 how did my unconverted father come to be 
 holding family prayers? Well, mother told 
 me, in substance, this: 
 
 24 
 
Ill 
 
 OUR FAMILY ALTAR 
 
 W0i 
 
 WWS^ 
 
 
 I 
 
 p3j 
 
 H ftl.A 
 
 
 
 T was not long after marriage 
 till father, through the exhorta- 
 tions of grandfather and the 
 prayers of mother, was deeply 
 convicted and was induced to 
 join the Church as a "seeker on probation." 
 Matters stood thus for some time. But 
 the children were growing up, and mother 
 was much concerned about them. So in the 
 middle of a sleepless night of prayer she said 
 to father: "Nathan, we can never bring 
 up the children right without family prayers." 
 "Well," said father, "what are we to do, 
 Becky ? I can't pray." But mother insisted 
 that he could and ought to, and then added: 
 "If you will try, I will take it time about with 
 you holding prayers." That brought the 
 question to an issue, and so finally father, 
 almost with a groan, said: "Fll try." The 
 die was cast. So next morning mother held 
 prayers. Father went to his work. He plowed 
 and prayed all that day, he said. After 
 
 25 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 supper mother got the children all quiet, and 
 said: "Nathan, we are ready for prayers/' 
 Father dropped on his knees and, stammering 
 and choking, began. Soon, under a crushing 
 sense of sin and helplessness, he began to 
 confess and cry for pardoning mercy. Mother 
 prayed and cried, and the Comforter came 
 and light broke in and father was converted at 
 family prayers. Amen and amen! And that 
 forever settled the question of family prayers 
 at our house. No wonder! It settled many 
 other things in the family, too, as it always will 
 in any family. Of the thirteen children born 
 in the home, eleven have already "fought the 
 good fight" and gone to join father and mother 
 in glory. Today there is a family altar in the 
 home of every living child and every grand- 
 child, and every great-grandchild old enough 
 to know and love Jesus is a Christian and in 
 the Church, as far as I know. Here I want to 
 bear testimony to the honor of my brothers — 
 they are all dead now. I never heard a pro- 
 fane oath from the lips of one of them. So 
 much for a faithful family altar. And still 
 more. There are but two of us living. One 
 is my youngest sister, Mrs. Rebecca Dodson, 
 of Knoxville, Tenn., the mother of a religious 
 
 26 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 family. We are old, but we are still singing: 
 "Father, I Stretch My Hands to Thee." The 
 day is far spent ; but our faces are turned toward 
 home, and we expect to get there by sundown. 
 If these reminiscences are to be continued, 
 I must leave the field of tradition and write 
 from memory. And here let me beg the 
 reader of these crude sentences to bear in 
 mind that I am not writing history or tabulated 
 statistics for books; but am writing of men and 
 things carried in memory through this turbu- 
 lent world, many of them for seventy years and 
 more. My very earliest recollections of per- 
 sons and things, outside of the family, are of 
 the preachers who came to our house and of 
 the meetings they held — "circuit preaching/' 
 quarterly meetings, and especially camp meet- 
 ings. We lived in the Athens Circuit, which 
 had some twenty preaching places. Athens 
 was in the circuit then. Indeed, there were 
 perhaps not a half dozen stations in the bounds 
 of the Conference, including the two districts 
 in North Carolina. We generally had two 
 preachers, a senior and a junior. I recall 
 very vividly the first preachers I ever saw at 
 our house. It was just after an Annual Con- 
 ference. The coming of an Annual Conference 
 
 27 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 in those days was a memorable event; for, 
 as a rule, the preachers were changed every 
 year, and we looked for a new man, except the 
 presiding elders. The Conference had been 
 in session several days, somewhere up the 
 country, and it was time the new preachers 
 were putting in their appearance. Father had 
 taken me, a boy eight or ten years old, out on 
 the farm to help him lay a fence worm. I 
 could put a rock or a chunk under the end of 
 the rail to level it where the ground was uneven. 
 The house was in full view on the hill, among 
 the big oaks a quarter of a mile away. It 
 was nearly dinner time when we saw two men 
 ride up to the house, hitch, and go in. This 
 was not strange; for we lived on the main road 
 leading to the Indian Territory, just across the 
 Hiwassee River, twelve miles away, and 
 travelers often stopped with us. But the fact 
 that mother did not blow the horn for some one 
 to take care of the horses was significant. 
 Very soon the men came out and started 
 toward the barn with their horses. Father 
 said : "I expect they are preachers going from 
 the Conference." The preachers put up their 
 own horses in those days when the hands were 
 in the fields. 
 
 28 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 Not long after we saw them coming out to us. 
 I was curious to see them. One of them was 
 a long, loose-jointed, careless-looking man 
 with a very sallow, sole-leather colored face, 
 and no beard, and was evidently the older 
 man. The other was a smaller man, closely 
 built, had a vigorous, nervous step, and was 
 looking everywhere; and as he came down the 
 hill he picked up a rock and threw at a bird, 
 like a boy. As they came up to us, the older 
 man held out a long, bony hand that looked 
 like it, might have been disjointed at the wrist 
 and bunglingly reset, and in a kind, frank tone 
 of voice said: "And this is Brother Sullins ? 
 Glad to see you. My name is Haskew. Let 
 me introduce Brother Brownlow." And 
 Brownlow shook hands with father and turned 
 and pinched my ear. 
 
 Of course, the transaction made a lasting 
 impression on me, and I recollect Joseph 
 Haskew and William G. Brownlow as the 
 first preachers seen at our house. They were 
 our circuit riders for that year, and for the next 
 fifty years I knew them well. Joseph Haskew 
 was for many years one of the most popular 
 and efficient preachers in the Holston Con- 
 ference. A good man, full of faith and the 
 
 29 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Holy Ghost, he was a good preacher, but a 
 better exhorter. He was by nature both a 
 wag and a wit. I always loved him; for he 
 waited on himself, put up and caught his own 
 horse; and if he wanted a fire, he got the wood 
 and made it. I liked that. Many pleasing 
 stories are told of his kind ways and witty 
 words. You can find them in the "History of 
 Holston Methodism/' by Dr. R. N. Price. 
 (Smith & Lamar, #1.25.) Rev. W. G. Brown- 
 low was altogether one of the most remarkable 
 men our Holston country ever produced. But 
 for me to write of him is to unkindly assume 
 that the reader is ignorant of the common 
 history of the country. He was a mighty man 
 with both tongue and pen, as many had 
 occasion to know. He was not so lovable a 
 man as Haskew. I loved Haskew all the 
 time, but Brownlow part of the time only. 
 I shall try to tell you of their camp meetings 
 next. 
 
 30 
 
IV 
 
 CAMP MEETINGS 
 
 EVENTY years ago camp meet- 
 ings were very common here 
 in these Holston hills between 
 the Great Smokies on the east 
 and the Cumberland Moun- 
 tains on the west. The Methodists took the 
 lead, but were closely followed by the Presby- 
 terians and Baptists. Taking our circuit 
 for example, there were three Methodist camp 
 grounds, two Presbyterian, and one Baptist. 
 And it was about the same on other charges 
 in the district. So it was not uncommon to 
 find twelve or fifteen in one presiding elder's 
 district, to be held along from the middle of 
 August to the last of September. These 
 meetings have almost disappeared in the last 
 few years. A brief account of them may not 
 be uninteresting. Our old people who know all 
 about them, why theyjwere established and how 
 conducted, need not take time to read this 
 chapter of recollections. It is written more for 
 the young people, who know little or nothing 
 
 3i 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 about their origin, the why and the what and 
 the how of those great religious gatherings. 
 
 Let us make it very clear in the outset to 
 our young friends that they were not great 
 annual assemblies for social enjoyment and 
 pleasure. True, there was a measure of social 
 pleasure when old friends and neighbors who 
 rarely met elsewhere came with their families 
 and tented side by side for days together. But 
 these meetings had their origin in a profound 
 concern for the souls of men, to build up the 
 faith of believers and call sinners to repentance. 
 The particular form of service as seen in the 
 camp meetings was not an accident, but the 
 deliberate adoption of the best methods under 
 existing conditions to compass the end in 
 view — the salvation of men. And they did it 
 gloriously. Some argue that their discontin- 
 uance is an evidence that the Church is less 
 concerned now than then, but this is perhaps 
 not true. Conditions have changed. Then 
 churches were few and small; pastors were 
 overworked on large circuits sparsely settled; 
 religious workers in any given neighborhood, 
 were few and timid. Camp meetings met 
 these conditions. First, by providing com- 
 fortable places large enough for whole com- 
 
 32 
 
Seventy Years in *Dixie 
 
 munities to worship together, and thus giving 
 the pastors an opportunity to see and serve 
 their people, gathered from far and near. 
 Then they called Christian workers from 
 different neighborhoods to sustain the song and 
 prayer services and instruct penitents. They 
 created interest enough to bring the scattered 
 people from the fields and flocks to the place of 
 worship. In a word, they were great religious 
 rallies. |H 
 
 The recollections of my boyhood are full of 
 these camp meeting occasions. Our camp 
 ground was at Cedar Springs. There was a 
 small log church here, and here my father and 
 Jacob Hoss, a kinsman of the Bishop, built 
 a shed one hundred and twenty-five feet long and 
 seventy-five feet wide, with wings on hinges. 
 When these wings were down, it was a great 
 house; and when up, would seat two thousand. 
 The tents were rude shacks made of logs, 
 many of them with bark on. There were no 
 fireplaces. Beds were scaffolds along the 
 sides of the tents. All floors were dirt, covered 
 with straw. Some used sawdust, but I liked 
 the straw better. It had associated with it 
 the smell of the fields and the bantering ring 
 of the reapers' blades and the metheglin that 
 
 33 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 mother made for the three-o'clock lunch for 
 the harvesters and the cheery whistle of Bob 
 White from his rail perch, piping to his old 
 mate on the nest hard by. So I liked the straw 
 better. We and our neighbors usually moved 
 to the camp ground on Friday, which was fast 
 day. At night, after things were arranged in 
 the tents, we had short introductory services 
 under the shed. Shed; pavilion, and auditor- 
 ium belonged to a later period. At this 
 service the leader, who was usually the pre- 
 siding elder, announced the regulations for the 
 government of the meeting. "The ground and 
 groves on the south are reserved for the 
 women, and those on the north for the men," 
 was generally the first rule. The second rule 
 was: "The women will occupy the seats on 
 the right of the center aisle in the congrega- 
 tion; the men, those on the left." And this 
 rule was strictly observed. If a man should 
 take a seat on the side assigned to the women, 
 some officer would quietly call his attention 
 to the rule in a general way. If this modest 
 hint did not move him, he was waited on and 
 told plainly that he must take his seat on the 
 other side of the aisle. I saw this done again 
 and again. These were queer old ways our 
 
 34 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 fathers had. But they were wise, and broke 
 up much of the whispering and giggling which 
 disturb public worship often in promiscuous 
 assemblies. 
 
 We were next told that at the first sound of 
 the horn all must get up and prepare for the 
 day. (Mother took her dinner horn and hung 
 it in the preacher's tent.) This first horn was 
 blown about sunup if one of the young 
 preachers had to blow it; but if Uncle Haskew 
 had it in charge, it sounded out about the peep 
 of day. All subsequent soundings of the horn 
 were to call the people to worship. At this 
 time all persons must leave the tent, save one, 
 and the tent be closed. The hours for service 
 were 9:30, n, 3, and "candle-lighting." At 
 night the whole encampment was lighted up 
 with candles under the shed, and around it 
 with blazing pine knots. These candles were 
 fastened to the posts and set on the pulpit 
 board. It was the special duty of some one to 
 keep the pine knots going. At the close of the 
 three-o'clock service the people were exhorted 
 and urged to go to the grove and form praying- 
 circles, women and men to their separate 
 groves. And here was done much hand-to- 
 hand and heart-to-heart work. Neighbor with 
 
 35 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 neighbor and neighbor's children, with songs 
 and prayers and exhortations and personal 
 pleadings, out in the woods with God at the 
 holy, quiet hour of sunset. O, what scenes I 
 have witnessed and what thrills of pious joy 
 have I felt on these occasions, boy as I was! 
 And now, old man as I am, as I walk back 
 in memory over those holy hours, my soul 
 "doth magnify the Lord." 
 
 Often when there was a little lull in our 
 grove we would hear the women over in theirs, 
 led on by some modern Miriam, singing and 
 shouting. And we knew and felt that God 
 was among them and that his hosts were press- 
 ing the enemy and the cry of victory was in the 
 air. Listen! I can hear them now over the 
 seventy intervening years, singing: 
 
 "Our bondage here will end by and by, 
 
 by and by ; 
 From Egypt's yoke set free, 
 
 hail the glorious jubilee, 
 And to Canaan we'll return by and by, 
 
 by and by." 
 
 These praying groups would sometimes 
 return to the encampment about dusk singing, 
 bringing a half dozen penitents, and when they 
 
 36 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 met at the altar, there was the shout of a king 
 in the camp. Usually under these conditions 
 we had no preaching that night. The leader 
 would throw his voice over the great, surging 
 mass of people and invite sinners to come to 
 Jesus. No preaching and no supper that 
 night. The tenters would keep a pot of coffee 
 hot out at the back of their tents for the work- 
 ers. The altar service would last all night. 
 I have seen more than one man converted at 
 daybreak, as Jacob was at the Jabbok, after 
 an all-night's wrestle with the angel. 
 
 Here is a custom which was wise but queer, 
 the benediction was never pronounced until 
 the close of the last service of the meeting. 
 Why? Well, this was then a new country. 
 There were many rude, bad men in it, and 
 whisky made them worse. We needed the 
 protection of the State as a worshipping 
 assembly. So we never closed the services, 
 but were a worshipping people all the while 
 we were there. 
 
 There are very many other interesting 
 features left out of this report of camp meetings 
 of seventy years ago. It is long enough. Let 
 us have the benediction and close and go home 
 to do better and be better, having been to 
 
 37 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 another camp meeting. One smile before we 
 go. As I run back in thought to those days 
 there is one incident recalled which still pro- 
 vokes a smile. The old church was used for 
 the preacher's tent. Mother was a sort of 
 self-appointed superintendent there to see that 
 these men of God had at least moderate com- 
 forts: straw for their beds; a bucket and a 
 dipper; a good big lump of home-made soap, 
 which was hardened by putting salt in it as we 
 stirred it off; some home-made flax towels, 
 which sometimes scratched a little if you 
 rubbed hard; and a wash pan for those who 
 did not want to walk down to the spring with 
 Uncle Haskew to wash. As the clans gathered 
 on Saturday, mother slipped off to reconnoiter, 
 to count noses and beds. When she came 
 back, she said to father: "Nathan, we must 
 take another bed up to the preacher's tent." 
 "Well," said father, "we'll attend to it after 
 supper." Now Mr. Workman, clerk of the 
 court in town, two miles away, was in the 
 habit of riding out to attend night services. 
 He was a very fleshy man — full, very full in the 
 chest and body, too — and being very fat, he en- 
 joyed a white vest, which he wore cut long and 
 pulled well down in the front, with his coat 
 
 38 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 thrown back. He had just arrived and hitch- 
 ed his horse at the rear of our tent and was walk- 
 ing up slowly toward the preacher's tent, 
 when father came to the door and, peering into 
 the twilight, stood a moment, and then, turn- 
 ing to mother, said: "Becky, we need not take 
 another bed to the preacher's. I see some 
 one going up with one now." This brought 
 mother to the door to see who might be med- 
 dling with her business. In a moment she began 
 to laugh, and father said: "What are you 
 laughing at ?" "Why," she said, "that is not 
 a man carrying a bed ; it is Mr. Sam. Workman 
 and his long white vest." Father could not 
 see well in the twilight. But we children 
 laughed with mother. 
 
 39 
 
V 
 
 CAMP MEETINGS—CONTINUED 
 
 IND reader of these recollec- 
 tions, I thought that when we 
 parted at the close of the camp 
 meeting which we attended in 
 the last chapter that I had said 
 what I had to say on the subject; but camp 
 meetings were a great thing with me when I 
 was a boy, and very many scenes and occur- 
 rences come up for notice. So if I tell the whole 
 truth they must come in. Among the well- 
 remembered things that interested me was 
 the gathering of people from far and near, 
 and then the taking care of them when they 
 came. Besides the tenters, many came in 
 covered wagons, bringing their provisions and 
 a few cooking vessels with them. These did 
 their own cooking by a fire built by a stump or 
 log, slept in their wagons, and so took care of 
 themselves. I have seen as many as twenty 
 or thirty of such groups scattered around in the 
 groves at the same time. Many others came 
 on horseback, the women with big satchels 
 
 40 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 hanging on the horns of their saddles. These 
 were received as visitors and taken care of by 
 the tent holders. I have known my father to 
 set apart a good piece of pasture where there 
 were water and a strong fence, where we turned 
 the horses, fifteen or twenty sometimes. It 
 will appear to the thoughtful that these meet- 
 ings made large demands on the liberality and 
 generosity of the tent holders and the neighbors 
 near by. It was no child's play to take care 
 of the hundreds of men and women and horses 
 who gathered on these occasions for days 
 together — ten to fifteen days sometimes. They 
 generally began on Friday, and closed Tuesday 
 or Wednesday following. But when the Lord 
 was graciously present, killing and making 
 alive, they were carried over two Sundays. 
 In such cases the preachers and tenters were 
 called together to consult as to what should be 
 done. 
 
 I recall several such instances. But one 
 especially impressed itself upon me. It was 
 at Cane Creek, in my own county, about 1842 
 or 1843. The meeting had been one of great 
 power. One Monday night the atmosphere 
 seemed charged, as it were, with the awful 
 presence and power of God. Sinners walked 
 
 4i 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 about softly and with solemn faces, and the 
 service lasted nearly all night. Tuesday 
 morning the preachers and the tent holders 
 came together for consultation, and after 
 serious counsel agreed to go on through the 
 week. This necessitated additional prepara- 
 tions to care for the many then present and 
 others likely to come. And so the tenters got 
 together just inside the inclosure by the shed 
 for a conference. They formed a ring facing 
 to the center, twenty or twenty-five of them — 
 all serious, thoughtful men. A large crowd 
 gathered around them, I, with others, but no 
 one joined them. After the situation had been 
 talked over, it was agreed that certain of them 
 should go home, some to kill a beef, others a 
 hog or two, others to go to the mill for meal and 
 flour, etc. — all to be brought and divided 
 among them as each might need. This 
 settled, there was a minute or two of solemn 
 silence. Then some one suggested a "word 
 of prayer/' Uriah Payne, a local preacher, 
 led the prayer, as I recollect, and we all felt 
 that the Lord heard those men talking to him. 
 The prayer ended, they all stood for a moment, 
 still facing each other in the ring; and then one 
 of them began to laugh, and in a moment the 
 
 42 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 laugh flew around that ring as quick as a flash 
 of light, peal after peal. This lasted a minute 
 or two, and then all was as solemn and silent as 
 death. Then one began a half-smothered 
 laugh, like he was trying to keep it down, and 
 with that away went the laugh around the 
 group in absolute convulsions. They would 
 lean forward until their heads almost touched 
 each other, and then backward, while peals 
 of laughter burst in concert from each until 
 they almost lost their breath. This strange 
 proceeding lasted ten or fifteen minutes. 
 Now what was most strange was that this 
 laughter did not produce levity in any beholder. 
 It was a very solemn scene. Somehow it was 
 pleasant to be there, but no one saw anything 
 ludicrous. I had seen what they called the 
 "trance" several times when the person lay as 
 dead for hours and then sprang up shouting the 
 praise of God. But this was a purely laugh- 
 ing exercise. I had never seen it before. 
 But I have seen modifications of it a time or 
 two since. This was twenty or thirty years 
 after the days of the "jerks" or "falling 
 exercise." 
 
 What was this ? Well, I know; for once in a 
 while on my way I have been enabled by grace 
 
 43 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 to so far forget time and self as to just lay all — 
 verily, all — on the altar of service for God and 
 humanity, and then I felt the laugh start in my 
 heart. And I can see away ahead of me where 
 the laugh struck those good men. What was 
 it ? Why, this: Those good men had left their 
 farms and shops, canceled all business arrange- 
 ments, shut up their homes, and taken their 
 families, with their substance, bread and meat, 
 and for ten days had given their entire time 
 and labor to the cause of Christ. And all this 
 with no desire or expectation of ever receiving 
 one dollar in return — all purely for God and 
 their fellow-men. Our God never was, and 
 never will be, behindhand with such men for 
 such unselfish devotion. And so "he filled 
 their mouth with laughter, and their lips with 
 rejoicing." Sometimes, but not always, the 
 Lord rewards his servants "in kind" for their 
 unselfish devotion to his cause. When Jesse 
 Cunnyngham, father of the late Dr. W. G. E. 
 Cunnyngham, fed a hundred men and horses 
 at a great meeting, some of his neighbors said : 
 "The Methodists will eat Cunnyngham out 
 of house and home yet." But they did not 
 consider that they would have to bankrupt 
 Cunnyngham's God before they could do that. 
 
 44 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 I knew that good man. He was our neighbor. 
 I heard him preach seventy years ago. He 
 died at a good old age, "full-handed. " And 
 the influence of his unselfish light shed a sweet 
 light on all around, like the lingering rays of a 
 setting sun that makes a half hemisphere 
 luminous after its ball is far behind the hills. 
 
 Among the wonderful manifestations of the 
 power and work of the Spirit in saving 
 sinners, I recall a scene which I witnessed at 
 a camp meeting at Cedar Springs, where 
 father camped. There was great solemnity 
 felt everywhere, a conscious presence that 
 awed the vast assembly. (A no uncommon 
 thing, be it remembered, when God's people 
 are waiting for him.) Sinners were subdued. 
 There was in the audience a large man — 
 thirty years old, perhaps — a strong, resolute 
 man with a set, determined look, yet much 
 agitated. I saw him get up suddenly and 
 start out of the congregation. He walked 
 eight or ten steps, and then broke into a run, 
 but stopped abruptly, as if seized by a giant, 
 and fell to the ground, crying out at the top of 
 his voice as one stricken with terror. He had 
 not gotten outside of the inclosure. Some of 
 the brethren went to him at once, and got down 
 
 45 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 on their knees by him. Those old soldiers 
 did not seem much troubled, but looked rather 
 like they were glad of it. And I believe they 
 were. They knew he was wounded, and 
 where, and they knew the tree that bleeds the 
 balm he needed. So they told him of the cross 
 and the Jesus who died on it for sinners. And 
 Uncle Joe Gaston, the old class leader, began 
 to sing, "Show Pity, Lord; O Lord, Forgive," 
 and to clap his hands, as he was wont to do 
 when things went his way. And we knew 
 the case was hopeful. This was Alexander 
 Robeson. He became a local preacher and was 
 the father of the late Rev. William Robeson, 
 who for fifty years was a member of the 
 Holston Conference. 
 
 Thank God for camp meetings in their 
 season! More than half of the preachers in 
 the Holston Conference fifty years ago had 
 been converted at camp meetings. And in 
 most instances they were the sons of the 
 fathers and mothers who had tented at these 
 meetings. Somehow the head of the Church 
 seems to have found the men he wanted for 
 pioneer and field work among the sons of 
 these old tent holders. 
 
 4 6 
 
VI 
 THE SIMPLE LIFE 
 
 HESE recollections will be very 
 incomplete if, having spent the 
 ever-to-be-remembered days of 
 my childhood and youth on the 
 farm, I do not give a chapter 
 to that period and tell how a farmer and 
 his family lived in those days in this East 
 Tennessee country. I was born in the 
 "Cherokee Hunting Grounds/' seven years 
 after the Indians gave it up, with all its bears 
 and wolves and deer and turkeys still roaming 
 over the mountains and valleys. During 
 those seven years the country had been settled 
 up by young families, most of whom had 
 been renters, as father had been. These had, 
 by industry and economy, made and saved 
 enough money to buy a few acres of govern- 
 ment land in the woods. Here they built a 
 cabin and began their life work. When I was 
 a boy, they had cleared a few acres around the 
 cabin and about the pens where they stacked 
 the fodder and kept the horses. It will occur 
 
 47 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 to the reader that such a citizenship was 
 very homogeneous, and likely to be harmon- 
 ious. They all worked, knew how to work 
 and how to take care of what they made. 
 They were a sort of brotherhood, and under- 
 stood and sympathized with each other. 
 If I tell you how we lived, you will know how 
 our neighbors lived. Every man had to get 
 his victuals and clothes off the farm, for 
 there was no other way to get them. We had 
 no market and little use for any, for we con- 
 sumed what we made. We had almost no 
 money, and but little use for any, as there 
 was nothing to sell or buy. If one had a little 
 more meat or corn or fodder than he needed, 
 and his neighbor was needing it, they barter- 
 ed some way — gave a colt or a calf for what 
 was necessary to tide them over. I saw much 
 of this done after I was ten years old. 
 
 Our home life was the "simple life" long 
 before Mr. Wagner ever wrote it up. The 
 farm, under the management of father, pro- 
 duced what was needed for comfort. He 
 added to his original one hundred and sixty 
 acres till he had a thousand, and almost all 
 of it still in the woods when I was a boy. 
 Father had his own notions about slavery. He 
 
 4 8 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 never would own a negro. But whether these 
 notions grew out of any convictions that 
 slavery as it existed among us was in itself 
 wrong, or out of other and very different 
 considerations, is not quite clear. I think the 
 latter is true. Somehow he never seemed 
 to think that negroes in the family were to be 
 desired. They had to be Hectored to make 
 them worth their keep, and he did not like 
 to boss. I have heard him and mother laugh 
 and tell that Grandfather Mitchell (mother's 
 father) had a negro boy he sometimes took to 
 church with him; but instead of the boy 
 hitching grandfather's horse, it worked the 
 other way, for grandfather would hunt up a 
 swinging limb and hitch the boy's horse to it. 
 They said that grandfather had two or three 
 negroes to wait on, and father could never see 
 much in that to be desired. Then father con- 
 sidered another important fact: he had four 
 boys, ranging in age from sixteen down to ten 
 years, and he had the now almost obsolete 
 idea that it was well for a boy to have some- 
 thing to do and be required to do it. So we 
 boys did the work; and if we failed, then he 
 generally did something memorable, but not 
 put in this chapter. 
 
 49 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 There was plenty for us all to do on that 
 thousand acres of forest — grubbing and brush 
 burning and rail-splitting and fence-making. 
 Yes, and then came the plowing. My, my! 
 Were not those young hickory roots tough ? 
 And did not that old plow punch my ribs 
 black and blue ? And I had a stone bruise, too; 
 but father never thought that a stone bruise 
 ought to excuse a boy from work, and so I 
 went on my "tippies." Mother was good on a 
 stone bruise with a big, warm flax seed or 
 mush poultice, or a piece of fat meat at night. 
 In fact, mother knew a heap of things to 
 help a boy when he got hurt — a stumped toe, 
 a splinter under his nail, or a bee sting — but a 
 stone bruise had to run its course. I am by 
 stone bruises like Josh Billings was by boils: 
 "They are not fit to be anywhere but on a 
 stick. " But I never did like them. They 
 say we ought not to talk about folks we do 
 not like, and I think it a good rule. 
 
 To meet the numerous wants of his family 
 for food and clothes, almost every farmer had, 
 in addition to his main crops of corn and 
 wheat and oats, vegetables of all kinds, 
 patches of cotton and flax, a flock of sheep, 
 a drove of geese, some hogs, a good milch cow 
 
 5° 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 or two, a young bullock for beef and his hide 
 for shoes, a few bee-gums, and a little tobacco 
 around by the pigpens. We did not have to 
 fence that, for nothing would eat it but man 
 — and that other big, nasty tobacco worm! 
 Look at this list, and you will see that he had 
 his eye on the coming wants of his family. 
 And well he might, for it all had to come out 
 of the farm. And mother, blessed helpmeet! 
 was just as thoughtful and wise as he to utilize 
 the material furnished by the flocks and farm 
 to feed and clothe us all — cotton and flax 
 from the fields and wool and hides from the 
 flocks. I never had an article of "store 
 clothes" until I was half grown. As for hats, 
 and shoes, we furnished the wool and hides, 
 and old Mr. Blankenship made our wool hats 
 and Uncle Sam. Hogue made the shoes. 
 These were for winter. Our summer hats 
 mother and sisters made of plaited straw. 
 For summer shoes we wore our calf skins, 
 as we used to say when we turned barefoot in 
 the spring. Corn was our main crop — corn 
 and hogs, "hog and hominy." They say now 
 that cotton is king, but not so then. Corn was 
 king. 
 
 When the country had to be redeemed from 
 
 5i 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 the Indians and the forests, corn was king. 
 The farmer who had plenty of corn had both 
 bread and meat for himself and family. Suppose 
 our fathers had had to depend on wheat for 
 their bread ? It would have taken them a 
 hundred years longer to reach the Rockies. 
 Only think of a pioneer in the woods depend- 
 ing on wheat for bread. Corn will produce 
 four times as much as wheat per acre, and 
 requires only one-tenth of the seed to seed 
 it down and only one-third of the time from 
 planting till it can be used for food. Wheat 
 must have a well-prepared soil, and be sown 
 in the fall and watched and guarded for nine 
 months before it is even ready to harvest; 
 whereas a woman can take a "sang hoe" in 
 April and with a quart of seed plant a patch 
 around the cabin, and in six weeks she and the 
 children can begin to eat "roastin' ears;" 
 and when it gets too hard for that, she can 
 begin to parch it. She needed to gather only 
 what she used for the day; for it will stand all 
 winter, well protected by its waterproof shucks. 
 Not so with wheat. It must be all gathered at 
 once when ripe, and thrashed, cleaned, and 
 garnered. And even then it is hard to get 
 bread out of it without a mill. But a small 
 
 52 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 sack of parched corn with a bit of salt was 
 an ample supply for a ten days' hunt or a dash 
 with Jack Sevier after thieving Indians. Corn 
 was king when I was a boy. 
 
 Mother and sisters, with Polly Shook to help 
 them, worked the cotton and wool and flax 
 into clothes and other needful articles for the 
 family. I have helped mother put many a 
 web into the loom that stood in the back part 
 of the kitchen. Speaking of Polly Shook 
 brings up some more boyhood scenes. Her 
 name was Mary, but we always called her 
 Polly when we did not call her Pop. It fell to 
 me to mind off the calves when Polly went to 
 milk — a duty I did not take to kindly, for 
 sometimes when I took the young sucker 
 by the ears to pull him away he would set 
 his sharp little hoof down on my bare foot, 
 and the harder I pulled the harder he bored 
 his hoof into my foot. That made me mad, 
 and I would bang him over the head with a 
 stick. Then Polly would shame me "for 
 striking the poor dumb brute that way." I 
 could not see that it was any of her special 
 business, and I would say things to that effect 
 to her. She was not tongue-tied, so she would 
 say things back. One day I said to mother : 
 
 53 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 "I don't like to mind the calves off for Pop" — 
 that is what I called her when I was mad — 
 "for she quarrels with me." Now mother 
 knew Polly, and she knew me, too. So she 
 said she could tell how to manage so that 
 Polly would not quarrel with me. That 
 interested me very much, for I wanted to get 
 the upper hand of Polly and make her hold 
 her tongue. I said: "How, mamma?" With 
 a touch of whisper in her voice, mother said: 
 "The next time you go to milk just go by the 
 water bucket and get your mouth full of cold 
 water and keep it there till the milking is over, 
 and Polly can't quarrel with you one bit." 
 "Good," thought I. And I could hardly 
 wait for milking time to come, so anxious was 
 I to try my witchery on Polly. When the 
 time came and she started with her milk pail, 
 I ran to the water bucket and got my mouth 
 chock full of water and started for the bars. 
 I minded off the calves, watching Polly all the 
 while to see if she was going to quarrel with 
 me. As soon as she was done milking and the 
 bars were put up, I spurted the water out and 
 ran to mother. "Mamma, mamma! She 
 never quarreled one bit." Mother smiled and 
 said: "I told you so." And there is where 
 
 54 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 the laugh comes in; but I, little goose, did not 
 know it. However, there is something in it. 
 I have seen many a quarrel that never 
 would have occurred if one of the parties 
 had had cold water in his mouth. Try it with 
 little brother next time he is Sir Touch-me-not, 
 and see if little sister can quarrel with him. 
 
 I think likely that if our young people should 
 read this brief and imperfect outline of life 
 as we lived it seventy years ago they would say: 
 "Well, that was all work and no play, and I 
 I don't see how any one could be happy with 
 that sort of dry, tread-mill kind of life." Well, 
 we did have to work, and had but little time 
 or opportunity for what men call amusements 
 nowadays. And yet, believe me, we were a 
 happy family, both young and old. How was 
 it ? Well, maybe I can give some satisfactory 
 explanation of it, its how and why, the next 
 time we have a talk. 
 
 55 
 
VII 
 OUR COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 REMEMBER that at the close 
 of the last chapter of "Recollec- 
 tions" I half-way promised to 
 explain for our young people 
 how and why the simple life, 
 as we lived it on the farm seventy years ago, 
 was a happy life; but now I almost wish I had 
 not done so, for it takes me off from my 
 original purpose to write recollections. How- 
 ever, we can make short work of this and go 
 on to our regular line. \ •••* 
 
 Mr. Editor, begging your pardon, I thought 
 I put enough in the last "turn" I sent to your 
 mill to make two grists, but you poured it all 
 into the hopper at once. Well, Mr. Editor, 
 you are the miller and know what you want; 
 but you do not know how much raking and 
 winnowing it takes to get even a little grain 
 out of the straw and chaff which have accumu- 
 lated on the thrashing floor of an old man's 
 recollections. Friends, I know how it comes 
 about that he thinks I am wiser than I am: 
 I was president of a college, with a hundred 
 
 56 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 and seventy-five young ladies in attendance, 
 in his town when he yet had his milk teeth 
 and wore his bib; and he got the childish im- 
 pression that a man must be very wise to hold 
 such a position, and these early impressions, 
 as usual, seem to be lasting. But he is old 
 enough now to know that not every man who 
 is president of a college knows it all. Yes, 
 he is old enough to know better than that, and 
 to get married. 
 
 Well, we all had some profitable work to 
 do, we were never idle, and, therefore, never 
 restlessly looking about for something with 
 which to fill up the dull hours, thinking of 
 what to do or where to go to find entertain- 
 ment. Thus occupied, we were contented; 
 and more, we were safe at home with father 
 and mother. Take this for explanation No. i. 
 
 Next, our tastes were simple and our needs 
 few. As for the substantial comforts of life — 
 food and raiment — we had them sufficient to 
 meet our real needs and gratify our simple 
 tastes, and so were satisfied. For our plain 
 food, a few hours' work on the farm gave us 
 an appetite that was better than a French 
 cook. Thank God for the luxury or a healthy 
 appetite — the appetite of a plowboy — that 
 
 57 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 wakes up with him in the morning to munch 
 that big, yellow Hoss apple that he stuffed 
 into his pocket yesterday when he was down 
 in the orchard! No going to the breakfast 
 table with a sort of loathing and half disgust 
 of everything there, and the need of a little 
 coffee to tease it to work; no indigestion — 
 moping mother of the twins, Melancholy and 
 Moroseness, firstborn in the family of Dis- 
 content, whose children are Petulance and 
 Peevishness, prone to talk too much, and 
 whose ungracious words hiss and sting like a 
 mad bee, leaving a smart, if not a scar, for 
 days to come. 
 
 Yes, thank God for the farmer boy's appe- 
 tite and sound digestion, for they send his rich 
 life-giving blood to put roses on his cheeks and 
 iron in his muscles, and make his hoecake a 
 luxury! I defy any caterer for any club to 
 furnish at any cost a banquet that will be 
 enjoyed as much as we children enjoyed 
 mother's mush suppers. The truth is, mother 
 could make the best mush mortal man or boy 
 ever ate. She did not put in much meal at a 
 time, added it slowly, stirring it all the while, 
 so as not to have lumps in it nor have it raw in 
 the center, then cooked it half an hour. 
 
 58 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 "Hasty pudding" is a misnomer when 
 applied to mush. Mother always said it took 
 a full half hour to cook mush well; but it 
 seemed longer than that to me as I watched the 
 operation, my mouth watering all the while. 
 Then each one with a bowl of milk and a big 
 spoon — a pewter spoon, at that. Now Miss 
 Angelina Cherubina Seraphina, please don't 
 turn up your nose at that pewter spoon. I 
 don't hone after pewter spoons myself these 
 latter days, but that was mother's spoon, 
 given to her as a part of her wedding portion 
 from her father, and as good as the country 
 then afforded. And I hold myself ready at 
 the sword's point to resent any insult a pert 
 miss may offer by snubbing it. There now; 
 you understand that Miss A. C. S., once for all. 
 
 I should fail in much if I did not mention 
 the glorious sleep of the farmer boy as one of 
 the good things that belonged to his life. 
 Yes, thank God for that sound and restful 
 sleep of a fellow when he was a plowboy tired! 
 It came uncourted about the time the whip- 
 poor-will began his song in the copse at the 
 back of the field — a luxury unknown to night 
 revelers, and never followed by a bursting 
 headache in the morning. The question, 
 
 59 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 " Wherewithal shall we be clothed ?" when 
 we went to church or to visit our neighbors 
 was a very simple one. 
 
 Neither the weather nor the hour of the day 
 cut any figure in that grave problem; whether 
 it was a bright or a dull day, noon or night, no 
 matching of colors or puzzling as to the par- 
 ticular suit we should wear for that special 
 occasion. I knew a week before the wedding 
 came off just what suit I would wear — my 
 mixed jeans, the same I had been wearing to 
 all the big quiltings and singing schools for 
 weeks past — "Hobson's choice," The oneness 
 in the case simplified the question very much, 
 you see. I said "case," but they were not in a 
 case — they hung on a peg with my flax shirt 
 behind the door. No bother as to what or 
 where. The fact is, friends, young and old, 
 the question of physical comfort is in itself 
 a simple one, and its demands are few and 
 easily met. It is only when the clamorous 
 desire for show and shine comes in, with its 
 complex demands, that the everlasting worry 
 of life begins. Pride and Vanity are the 
 prolific parents of the peevish brood that is 
 hounding good Comfort and sweet Content- 
 ment out of the land. And mark my words, 
 
 60 
 
Seventy Years in T)ixie 
 
 they are of little use in the formation of happi- 
 ness of the noblest men and women. 
 
 As to amusements (better called pleasant 
 occasions), we were not wholly without them. 
 We knew the happy art of combining work 
 and pleasure. Our log-rollings, house-raisings, 
 corn-shuckings, quiltings, singing schools, and 
 an occasional dash with the dogs after a deer 
 or fox were seasons of real enjoyment. The 
 quiltings we were careful to bracket with the 
 others wherever we could; thus, a house- 
 raising and quilting, at such and such a home, 
 day and date, or a log-rolling and quilting. 
 The quilting brought out the girls, who were, 
 and always have been, essential to a good social 
 time, I reckon. "Well/' you say, "if you 
 could find pleasure in tugging your arms off 
 rolling logs and wearing your finger tips sore 
 at a corn-shucking, you must have been easily 
 pleased." Even so, even so — happy faculty, 
 secret of a contented life, easily pleased ; sweet 
 bud from the plant, heart's-ease, that flowers 
 and fruits in the life of our best friends and 
 companions. Grow it in your garden, child. 
 
 Well, talking about old house-raising and 
 quilting days of my boyhood brings to mind 
 many cherished recollections of the long ago — 
 
 61 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 pleasing scenes and youthful friends — brave, 
 frank, generous young fellows, country born 
 and bred, who would scorn to do an unmanly 
 or ignoble thing; and, as they pass before my 
 eyes, half filled with tears at this moment, I 
 recall with unfeigned pleasure the fact that 
 they were nearly everyone religious. As 
 for the girls (that is what we called them in 
 those days), a whole bevy of them comes 
 trooping by this minute. Not mincing in 
 patent leather slippers and crepitating silks, 
 but walking with an elastic step that tells of 
 healthy muscles, arrayed in gowns woven and 
 fashioned by their own industrious fingers, 
 with now and then a burst of hearty laughter 
 and a snatch of song — all merry as a flock of 
 bobolinks in springtime. And there among 
 them is my first old sweetheart, Phoebe Steed. 
 See, her modesty has half hidden her in the 
 group (as the daisy peeps from behind a leaf 
 in the grass). Her willowy grace of move- 
 ment was the rhythm of motion, her voice 
 gentle and musical as the harp of the wind 
 god, and a heart and life as pure as snow twice 
 washed. Did I love her ? Don't talk of love 
 till you know something of the swellings of 
 the heart in a sixteen-year-old country boy who 
 
 62 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 has just begun to stand before the looking 
 glass and roach his hair and paste it down 
 with bear's grease. Did I marry her? No; 
 we were never engaged. She married a better 
 man, Wm. Horton, as she deserved to do, while 
 I was away at college. 
 
 That singing school! We met on Saturdays 
 and sang all day. Our book was the "Knox- 
 ville Harmony/' by John B. Jackson, pub- 
 lished at Knoxville. It was written in four 
 syllables — fa, sol, la, mi. It was several years 
 later when the seven syllables were introduced. 
 Andrew Hutsell was our teacher. We sang 
 four parts — bass, tenor, alto, and treble. My! 
 my! How Will Cassady and Urb Rudd and 
 Wash Peck, in his new suit of jeans, did roar 
 on the bass! Boys and girls both sang on the 
 tenor (air), Phoebe Steed and Myra Gaston 
 led the treble, and the Misses Howard, two 
 beautiful sisters, "carried" the alto. Usually 
 we had two recesses, when a walk to the spring 
 or a stroll in the grove gave us the coveted 
 opportunity for social enjoyment. Then the 
 noonday lunch, when the girls took all our 
 baskets and spread a common meal on the 
 homemade table cloth under the long-armed 
 elm by the spring. The day done, we took the 
 
 63 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 girls home — all on horseback. How we boys 
 did curry and comb the mane and tails of our 
 colts to have them ready to prance at the 
 Saturday's singing! And with what marvel- 
 ous art and ease those girls would spring from 
 the top of that old chestnut stump into their 
 saddles, and adjust their riding skirts for 
 grace and safety in managing their horses, now 
 grown restless from having been hitched up all 
 day! And the horsemanlike skill with which 
 Lizzie Noel did curb that mettlesome bay 
 would shame the best jockey of to-day. 
 Country lasses, happy lasses, good-by. I 
 never expect to see your equals any more on 
 earth. And now if the young people of to-day 
 are happier and safer than we were on the 
 farm seventy years ago — why, I am glad of it. 
 That is all. 
 
 6 4 
 
VIII 
 
 LOVE FEASTS AND CLASS 
 MEETINGS 
 
 HESE chapters have run in a 
 somewhat similar strain long 
 enough. Let us vary the exer- 
 cises, as the preacher would say, 
 and hold an "experience meet- 
 ing/' I like experience meetings, especially 
 when I feel religious, and I believe most 
 people do under similar circumstances. As 
 a Church we have used this kind of ser- 
 vice with great spiritual profit. The love 
 feast and the class meeting were of this char- 
 acter. The love feast is still known among 
 us, often in a very modified form. But many 
 of our young people, even members of the 
 Church, who have never attended a class meet- 
 ing, know nothing of them, how they are con- 
 ducted, or why established. The love feast 
 was more a testimony meeting, while the class 
 meeting was designed as a special opportunity 
 for helpful oversight, counsel, and exhortation 
 by one called the leader. The old preachers 
 used to set great store by these meetings. 
 A few sentences giving an account of them, 
 
 65 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 I think, may meet the approval of the reader, 
 and at least preserve some knowledge of a 
 religious exercise so much esteemed in the 
 early history of the Church. 
 
 They were peculiar to us as people, and 
 subjected us to criticism, and sometimes to 
 ridicule. They were primarily and almost 
 exclusively designed for members of the 
 Church. Strangers and outsiders were allowed 
 to be present as a special privilege. The 
 exercises consisted in an inquiry by the leader 
 into the spiritual condition of the members, 
 particularly the younger members of the class, 
 and giving such admonition and exhortation 
 and encouragement as might be needed and 
 helpful. And many young Christians had 
 occasion to bless God for such help. The 
 preacher in charge usually held class meeting 
 immediately after services. I think I never 
 knew Uncle George Ekin to fail. They called 
 it "meeting the class" and the preacher was 
 leader. 
 
 The class book was an interesting and 
 important volume. It contained the names of 
 the leaders and the members, usually in 
 families. It was ruled in columns running 
 perpendicularly and marked so as to show 
 
 66 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 at a glance the following facts: The first 
 column was to show whether the member was 
 married or single, and was marked M or S; 
 the second column was to indicate the spiritual 
 condition of the member, whether a believer 
 or seeker, and was marked B or S; the third 
 column recorded the amount of quarterage 
 paid by that member; the other columns were 
 marked P or A or D, for present or absent or 
 distant (from home). The roll was called at 
 every meeting, unless the leader knew who 
 were there and so marked the book. This 
 book was inspected by the pastor at every 
 round, if he desired it, and furnished him 
 particular information concerning every mem- 
 ber of that class. If a member were absent 
 twice consecutively, the leader called to see if 
 he were sick. The preacher would sometimes 
 say to me, with kindly concern, after looking 
 over our class book: "David, I see you were 
 not at class the last time." Ah, those frequent 
 reckonings with self and one another wrought 
 careful living and much prayer in a boy, as I 
 well remember. / know no adequate substi- 
 tute. But I rejoice in all our young people's 
 meetings, and pray God to make and keep 
 them spiritual. But I proposed to have an 
 
 6 7 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 experience meeting, and here I am writing 
 about an experience meeting. Did you ever 
 notice how much easier it is to talk about a 
 thing than it is to do or be that thing — to talk 
 about religion than it is to be religious, to talk 
 about charity than to be charitable ? There 
 is a man staying here in my room and sleeping 
 in my bed who has made observations and had 
 experience on that very subject, and he some- 
 times gives me a dig in the ribs about it. 
 Have you ever had such a fellow about your 
 house ? 
 
 And now, kind reader, let me explain a little 
 about the next few chapters of these recollec- 
 tions. Two years ago my children asked me 
 to write out for their use my early life — that 
 part with which they were not acquainted. I 
 copy in part from that sketch, which will ex- 
 plain why certain family affairs are made 
 prominent. It was for the children to read at 
 their leisure. Thus : 
 
 I was converted, as I verily believe, on a 
 cold Sunday in the old log church in the town 
 of Athens, Tenn., when I was in my twelfth 
 year. Our place of worship was two miles in 
 the country, at Cedar Springs; but occasionally 
 when there were no services at our church, we 
 
 68 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 went to town to preaching. It was a cold day; 
 but my parents were going to church, and 
 father asked me if I did not want to go. 
 So I got my colt, and was looking about for a 
 saddle when my father said: "Son, I don't 
 think I would get a saddle; just spread your 
 blanket on the colt, and he will keep you 
 warmer than if you had a saddle. " So I did, 
 and we went to church. Rev. Frank Fanning 
 was the preacher. There were not twenty 
 persons present, perhaps — just a few old 
 people hovering around the stove. I sat with 
 my hands between my knees to keep them 
 warm, and listened to the preacher. He 
 preached about Jesus, but what he said I do 
 not know. But there came into my childish 
 heart a feeling unknown before — a strange 
 sense of the nearness and love of Jesus, of 
 whom mother had so often spoken to me. I 
 felt that I loved him. A simple, childlike 
 tenderness filled my heart and I felt that he 
 loved me. It was a most delightful sensation. 
 I think I wept for very joy, but said nothing. 
 It was all so new and strange and sweet that I 
 knew nothing to say. I looked over to the 
 seat where father and mother were seated, and 
 such a flood of love for them swept through 
 
 6 9 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 me that I could hardly repress the desire to 
 run and hug them. I did actually love every- 
 body and everything. And that sweet feeling 
 stayed with me after the benediction, and went 
 home with me and made the colt ride better. 
 His coltish ways, worming in and out of the 
 road, did not fret me. It stayed with me all 
 about the house and barn, singing in my heart 
 when alone in the woods; and I wanted to 
 pray, and did not want my dog to catch that 
 little rabbit and kill it. Do you ask, "What 
 was it ?" I never once thought what it was. 
 I was happy and peaceful, and everybody 
 was good, and that was enough. Sometimes I 
 would stay around mother and wish she would 
 tell me to do something, that I might have 
 the pleasure of showing her how quickly and 
 well I could do it. It did not occur to me that 
 I had religion. Indeed, I hardly thought a 
 boy could get religion except at Cedar Springs 
 Camp Meeting. But that sweet, love-every- 
 body feeling staid with me till camp meeting. 
 I was glad when that came. At the first call 
 I went to the mourners' bench, and down in 
 the straw father and mother and brother 
 and sister came, and we prayed together, 
 and I began to laugh and hug them. It 
 
 70 
 
Seventy Years in T)ixie 
 
 was the same old feeling of love and tender- 
 ness which I felt on the cold Sunday six 
 months before. I said: "I've got religion. 
 Hallelujah!" It was true, and I have never 
 had any better, and all I want now is more of 
 it. So I sometimes tell my friends that I was 
 converted six months before I got religion. 
 Maybe somebody will look religiously wise 
 and shake his theological head at this. But 
 if you will be careful to use these terms in the 
 sense here employed, I do not believe they will 
 hurt your good creed, and perhaps maybe 
 help somebody who does not know what 
 religion is. 
 
 Our good Dr. Tillett, who wrote that wise 
 and helpful book, "Personal Salvation/' can 
 make this clear to the young theologues if he 
 has a mind to; and when he has done so, I will 
 be for once in my life like General Jackson. 
 When Calhoun was firing the heart of South 
 Carolina with the spirit of nullification, the 
 General sent word, "Tell Calhoun that if he 
 don't behave himself I'll hang him as high as 
 Haman," but did not tell him why. Sometime 
 afterwards, when Daniel Webster, in an argu- 
 ment, showed that logical nullification could 
 not exist under the Constitution, Jackson said: 
 
 7 1 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 "There, I knew I was right all the time/' It is 
 said that he put in some words to give emphasis 
 to his utterance. Here is the law on this 
 subject: "He that loveth is born of God." 
 Now let us sing with Mrs. Prentiss No. 367. 
 And as the disciplinary "one hour" for love 
 feast is now out, we will for the next chapter 
 have the experience meeting continued. 
 
 72 
 
IX 
 EARLY SCHOOL DATS 
 
 Y place was on the farm till I 
 was about eight years old, 
 with father and mother, 
 happy brothers and sisters; 
 often in the field with play- 
 ful colts, skipping lambs, singing birds, 
 and my ever-present dog — a happy boy. I 
 went to school two or three months during 
 the winter till I was fifteen. These were sub- 
 scription schools, made up and supported by 
 the neighbors. We had no public schools 
 then. The first school I attended was at 
 Rocky Mountain, on the back of my father's 
 farm. The little house was made of logs 
 with the bark on, a weight-pole roof (I have 
 not time to explain that term to the ignorance 
 of to-day) and puncheon floor. The only 
 window was made by cutting out a log ten or 
 twelve feet long. Under this opening was a 
 slab, resting on pegs, which made a sort of 
 shelf upon which the larger boys and girls 
 wrote. The ink was made of ink balls — 
 
 73 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 a sort of vegetable excrescence, sometimes 
 formed on the twigs or leaves of oak trees, 
 containing a substance which turned black 
 on exposure to the air — or of polk-berry juice 
 or elder berries. This was kept in a small 
 vial with a string around the neck to hang it 
 up by when not held in the hand for use. The 
 benches were slabs with peg legs. Here I 
 learned to spell. When I learned my A B C's 
 I do not know. After I was fifteen, I had two 
 years at Forest Hill Academy, under Charles 
 Patrick Samuel, a tall, scholarly Kentuckian — 
 "Old Pat," of blessed memory. After this I 
 went to Emory and Henry College. 
 
 I mention a sad providence which led to 
 my going when I did. My brother, Timothy, 
 who was fifteen years my senior and had been 
 a member of the Holston Conference thirteen 
 or fourteen years, was stricken with paralysis 
 while on his way to the Annual Conference, 
 which met that year at Wytheville, Va. 
 He was at Abingdon when stricken. The 
 report of this affliction saddened all hearts at 
 home. In a very few days father decided to 
 send me to Virginia. First, to nurse my 
 brother if he needed me; and if not, then I was 
 to sell my horse and go on to college, ten miles 
 
 74 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 farther east. How this conclusion stirred the 
 household, and especially the boyish heart of 
 the writer and that of his mother, will never 
 be forgotten. I was soon fitted out for the 
 trip, and the morning for my departure had 
 come. Family prayers that morning were 
 perhaps a little longer and tenderer than usual, 
 and breakfast was almost in silence. Mother 
 cried, and I said: "Don't cry, mother. I will 
 soon be back." She replied: "No my son, 
 not back with us at home. When you have 
 finished your college course you will go to $our 
 life work, and only be a visitor at home here- 
 after." Two older brothers had gone off to 
 college, and mother knew. "A visitor only 
 hereafter." I could not realize it, and yet so 
 it was. My outfit was not elaborate. A pair 
 of saddlebags contained all, save a suit of 
 mixed jeans, which had been taken from the 
 back of our sheep and fitted to mine. A small 
 muskrat-colored Indian pony, fourteen hands 
 high and badly sway-backed, had to carry me 
 and all I had two hundred miles. I left home, 
 mother standing nearest the gate to say good- 
 by last, and brother going two miles on the way 
 to see me get a good start. We rode side by 
 side those two miles, almost in silence. A 
 
 75 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 word or two about my pony and a passing 
 remark about the weather and a last injunction 
 about my dogs. He ventured to say: "We will 
 miss you at home and at the coming Christ- 
 mas." And then there came a choking sensa- 
 tion, and maybe a tear, but no audible answer. 
 Finally he said: "Well, I must go back. 
 Take care of yourself. Write often, for we will 
 all want to know about you and brother 
 Timothy. Good-by." And his horse's head 
 was turned toward home — the dear old home; 
 how dear, I never knew before. My pony 
 and I faced for the first time the great unknown 
 outside world. Day and hour never to be 
 forgotten. Brother — dear fellow — he was as 
 tender as a woman, lived a long bachelor 
 life, fought through the Civil War with Lee, 
 and now sleeps the Christian's hopeful sleep 
 near Wolf City, in Texas. 
 
 By a previous agreement, Ben Hale, a boy 
 about my age living in the upper end of the 
 county, was to join me a few miles farther on. 
 In the meantime thoughts crowded each 
 other in rapid succession — now back home with 
 loved ones a moment, and then back to myself 
 and surroundings. Of what was in my 
 saddlebags I knew but little. Father and 
 
 7 6 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 mother and sister had furnished and packed 
 them, and whatever belonged to me I knew 
 was there, be it little or much. But here is 
 Ben waiting by the roadside, and I am glad to 
 see him — a hearty country boy on a good horse, 
 going to visit his army of kinsfolk — the Hales 
 and Canutts and Wards, etc., in Grayson 
 County, Va. A jolly fellow on a visit to spend 
 Christmas with his kindred. And now I shall 
 have the pleasure of leaving off in my narrative 
 the oft-recurring "I," and say "we" without 
 affectation of being an editor. We (Ben and 
 I) moved on, and about noon passed in sight 
 of Daniel HeiskelPs home, the road running 
 through the woods, where Sweetwater now 
 stands. We pressed on, making good use of 
 the short December day, and ate our lunch 
 as we rode along. When I opened mine and 
 found a ham sandwich and some buttered 
 biscuits with jam between, a hard-boiled 
 egg, and an apple, it all looked so much like 
 mother and sister that, had it been practicable, 
 I think I would have preferred to keep it as a 
 souvenir, rather than eat it. 
 
 Soon we passed the old town of Philadelphia, 
 and came to Blair's Ferry, on the Tennessee 
 River, where Loudon has since been built. 
 
 77 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 We crossed the river and urged our tired 
 horses four miles more to Mr. John Browder's, 
 an old friend of my father, two miles west of 
 what is now Lenoir City. Here we spent the 
 night — our first night from home. But we 
 slept like tired boys, and were up early and 
 ready for our second day. This day we passed 
 by the home of William Lenoir, where Lenoir 
 City now stands, and the home of Rev. John 
 Winton, great-grandfather of Dr. G. B. Win- 
 ton, editor of the Christian Advocate. We 
 finally reached Knoxville, where I had a 
 brother-in-law (Dr. A. Woodward), and sister. 
 Sister made us feel at home. The next day, 
 in the evening, we rode out ten miles on the 
 Rutledge Road, and spent the night with Mr. 
 R. L. Blair, the uncle of a young lady whose 
 acquaintance I made seven years later and who 
 will come into these reminiscences after a 
 while if they are not cut short in some way. 
 The next day we passed the town of Rutledge 
 and the celebrated Bean's Station, often 
 mentioned in the journal of Bishop Asbury. 
 Here the Kentucky escorts used to come over 
 the mountains to meet him and conduct and 
 guard him over the Clinch Mountain, through 
 Cumberland Gap, to the "dark and bloody 
 
 78 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 ground" of Kentucky. Two miles east we 
 came to what is now the very noted Tate 
 Springs, but we saw only the rounded hills 
 there. By night we reached the village of 
 Mooresburg, and spent the night at the Red 
 Bridge, a little farther on. 
 
 The fifth day we passed the good town of 
 Rogersville, and on up the beautiful valley 
 to Mr. Phipps\ This was a home of wealth, 
 and gave us a royal entertainment; and here we 
 got a glimpse of the very beautiful daughter 
 of the household, who seemed a bit interested 
 in a couple of tired boys who had stopped for 
 a night's rest. I had the opportunity in after 
 years to thank her for it, which I did with all 
 the grace I could muster. It was apparent 
 from some talk next day that Ben had an eye 
 for a beautiful girl, elegantly dressed. Indeed, 
 the Hales of Virginia are built that way, as I 
 found out later. This day brought us to the 
 boat yard, where two branches of the Holston 
 River come together, now Kingsport — so 
 named perhaps because William King, who 
 owned the salt works in Virginia, boated his 
 salt down the north fork of the Holston River 
 to that point. It was now growing colder, and 
 we pressed on to Mr. David Shaver's — 
 
 79 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 twenty-seven miles yet to Abingdon. Here we 
 spent the night. 
 
 Next morning the snow was two or three 
 inches deep, and increased in depth until we 
 reached Abingdon, where it was eight or ten 
 inches deep. This I had good reason to 
 remember: for if my pony got out of the 
 beaten way, I had to hold up my feet to keep 
 them from dragging in the snow. As we 
 entered the town I asked the first man we met 
 for information as to my brother. He told me 
 he was at John Campbell's on the next street. 
 Ben and I said good-bye, and I turned to find 
 brother. In a few minutes I was in his room, 
 to his great surprise, and to my delight found 
 him much improved. I had a brother-in-law 
 (H. Card well), and sister living in the town. 
 Soon they called; and as brother had a nurse 
 and did not need me, I went home with them, 
 a tired, but happy boy. 
 
 It was Christmas Eve, and my brother, 
 Nathan Asbury, who was a student in the 
 college, only ten miles away, came to spend the 
 holidays with us. After consultation, it was 
 decided that I was not needed with Timothy 
 and that I should enter the spring term of 
 college, as father had directed. So I sold my 
 
 80 
 
Seventy Years in T)ixie 
 
 pony to Major Davis, who kept the boarding 
 house, for a credit of forty-five dollars on my 
 bill, took a room with my brother, entered the 
 freshman class half advanced, joined the 
 Calliopean Society, and settled down to work. 
 Here I remained till June, 1850, when I 
 graduated with the degree of A.B. 
 
 81 
 
X 
 
 amum 
 
 EARLY DAYS AT EMORY 
 
 OW that I am back again to my 
 college days, a thousand mem- 
 ories come trooping up, and I 
 hesitate to attempt to make a 
 selection where each is so dear. 
 It was in the early years of old Emory and 
 Henry history. There were only three houses 
 there then: the old college building on the 
 hill, the brick house at the west end of the 
 campus (both still standing), and the farm 
 house in which Mr. Crawford lived when the 
 Church bought the property (long since burn- 
 ed). The faculty consisted of Charles Col- 
 lins, D.D., President and Professor of Mental 
 and Moral Science; E. E. Wiley, D. D., Pro- 
 fessor of Latin and Greek; Rev. Edmond 
 Longley, A.M., Professor of Mathematics 
 and Modern Languages; and Rev. J. A. 
 Davis, tutor. Dr. Collins lived in the house 
 on the west end of the campus. Dr. Wiley 
 lived in two or three lower rooms in the 
 west end of the college. Professor Longley 
 lived over on the stage road, a mile away. 
 
 82 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 Tutor Davis, unmarried, took his meals at 
 the common boarding house (the Crawford 
 home), of which his father, Major Joseph 
 Davis, was proprietor. Professor Longley 
 ("Old Brit'') was postmaster and delivered 
 our letters to our rooms. Our literary halls 
 were in the garrets — the Calliopean in the 
 west end and the Hermesian in the east. We 
 paid six dollars per month for rooms, board, 
 and fuel, furnished ( ?) our own rooms, made 
 up ( ?) our beds, cut the wood and made our 
 fires, and carried water from the spring. Roll 
 call and prayers came morning and evening — 
 morning prayers at 5:30 (which was before 
 daylight in the winter) and no fire in the 
 chapel. I jumped out of bed many times, 
 hurriedly dressed ( ?), ran into the chapel to 
 answer "Present" and shiver while the Pro- 
 fessor read — by the light of a tallow candle 
 which he brought in with him — a few lines 
 from the morning lesson and repeated the 
 Lord's Prayer, the snow a foot deep and the 
 north wind howling through the hills and 
 whistling at the keyhole. Dr. Collins held 
 evening prayer, and Drs. Wiley and Longley 
 morning prayers. From morning prayers we 
 went immediately to recitation. There were 
 
 83 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 two recitations before breakfast, at six and six- 
 thirty, of thirty minutes each. That is the 
 way Emory and Henry professors and pupils 
 began the day sixty years ago, and we kept 
 it up at about that rate till nine at night. 
 Schoolmen and students of to-day would 
 perhaps rebel against such a schedule of 
 work — that it would grind the life out of 
 teachers and pupils. Well, it did grind, 
 but it ground out men all the same. 
 
 Let me think a moment and name a few of 
 my school fellows who were fitted for noble 
 service among men and have attained to great 
 honor and usefulness in their generation: 
 Dr. James S. Kennedy, of the Holston Con- 
 ference, a prince in Israel, every inch a Chris- 
 tian gentleman and scholar, wise in counsel 
 and safe in action, always loyal to God and 
 truth; Dr. W. M. Leftwich ("Little Left- 
 wich"), who for many years held posts of honor 
 among his brethren in the Tennessee Con- 
 ference and elsewhere; Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, 
 glorious "Jeb," that flower of cavaliers to 
 whose memory his fellow citizens are to- 
 day building a monument in the capital of 
 his native state; William E. Peters, LL.D., a 
 gallant colonel in the Confederate army, and 
 
 8 4 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 afterwards Professor of Latin in the great 
 University of Virginia till his death ; Hon. 
 H. D. Clayton, general in the army of the 
 Confederacy, and afterwards Governor of 
 Alabama and head of the Alabama University; 
 James L. Jones, LL.D., President of Columbia 
 College, S. C; Hon. J. J. Yeates, Congress- 
 man from North Carolina; Judge Monroe, 
 Supreme Judge of the State of South Carolina; 
 and others. 
 
 Among the living of my school fellows who 
 have wrought well and are still bringing forth 
 fruit in old age, I mention two who for fifty 
 and more years have been acknowledged 
 leaders in our Holston Conference — one a little 
 eccentric, the other a bit positive; both great 
 and good men, worthily wearing the well- 
 earned honors which the ministry and laity of 
 the church and their fellow-citizens at large 
 are gladly awarding them. Of these dear 
 men I have more to say later, but for the 
 present will leave the reader to guess at their 
 names. J. Preston White, my classmate, a 
 judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Tex- 
 as, and Hon. John Goode, of Virginia, states- 
 man, soldier, and author — a man who has served 
 his State and nation in public office for more 
 
 85 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 than half a century with such ability as has 
 won for him continually increasing respect 
 and admiration — were also in this list. Others 
 no doubt, belong to the list whose names do 
 not occur to me at this moment. Let it be 
 remembered that this list is taken from the 
 students who were in Emory and Henry 
 College from 1847 to 1850, and does not in- 
 clude the many who were there in other years. 
 The college plant, all told, was not worth 
 fifty thousand dollars, perhaps, at that time. 
 The above facts furnish food for thought in 
 these days when the hearts of our people are 
 turned to the subject of education. We are 
 told that it takes millions of dollars for the 
 financial basis of a first-class college. That is 
 true when applied to the university, where 
 specialists are educated and a large numoer 
 of schools must be conducted. But, thank 
 God ! it is not true when applied to the schools 
 most needed for the education of the people. 
 My observation is that largely endowed schools 
 with splendid buildings and professors on fat 
 salaries, are not turning out a proportionately 
 large number of men who are blessing their 
 generation. Such schools usually grow to be 
 costly schools very soon, where only the rich 
 
 86 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 can pay the bills, and so they fail to get the 
 best material out of which to make men. 
 The boys, whom necessity has taught to work 
 and economize, to be content with few luxuries 
 and a little self-indulgence, with sound minds 
 in healthy bodies, are the boys who make men. 
 Emory and Henry, with an inferior outfit in 
 buildings, a small faculty of industrious, 
 Christian scholars who gave their personal 
 attention to the minds, manners, and morals 
 of the hundred and thirty or forty country boys 
 present, gave to the world such men as are 
 mentioned above, at a cost to pupil of about 
 one hundred dollars per year, or a little more. 
 Now that we have the subject before us, 
 let us mention another college here in our 
 hills — Hiwassee. Here Dr. John H. Brunner, 
 now the senior college man among us, with a 
 few coworkers, for the forty years last past 
 has educated the poor boys of the country. 
 As an outfit they had a mere crow's nest, 
 but they hatched out eagles. They had a 
 gimlet, but they bored auger holes with it. 
 They had the material out of which to make 
 men — boys who had not been spoiled by 
 indulgence in their childhood. Bent twigs 
 produce crooked trees. 
 
 87 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Now, Mr. Editor, if you and the reader will 
 pardon me for this digression, I will hereafter 
 write recollections and let others make infer- 
 ences and comments. But I wanted to go on 
 record as favoring a multiplication of such 
 schools as Emory and Henry and Hiwassee 
 were fifty years ago. I am not to be counted 
 as opposing well-endowed universities, and a 
 few first-class colleges as they are now defined, 
 but I want to see the country sowed down in 
 such schools as are mentioned above. Amen. 
 
 My school days ended, I began to look to 
 my life work. Thank God, I did not have 
 the trouble of determining what that work 
 should be. That had been settled for me and 
 by me while I was yet a little boy. When I 
 was converted in my twelfth year, if indeed 
 not before, I felt that I must and would be a 
 preacher some day. I read my Bible, went to 
 prayer meeting and to Sunday-school, and 
 prayed in the haymow when I went to feed 
 my colt, and finally went to college with that 
 fact ever present. I am not conscious of ever 
 having been tempted to give it up, thank God! 
 While in college we enjoyed several gracious 
 revivals, in which I gladly took part. One I 
 will tell you of. It was brought about in this 
 
 88 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 way: Four of we boys seemed to be moved 
 simultaneously to go to the woods and pray 
 for a larger measure of faith and deeper con- 
 secration of life. After a little talk together, 
 we agreed to slip off to the forest next evening 
 when school closed — Richard Childers, James 
 S. Kennedy, James Bailey, and I. We walked 
 down by Dr. Collin's and out toward the old 
 stage road. It was all woods then from the col- 
 lege southeast for a mile. Soon we left the road 
 and struck into a hollow where we thought 
 no one would see or hear us. There we found 
 the fallen trunk of a forked tree, and sat down 
 on its limbs, facing each other two and two. 
 Here we sang several songs and prayed — 
 all prayed with snatches of songs between 
 prayers — sang softly, fearing some one might 
 hear us. The Father of the woods did 
 hear us and gave delightful evidence of his 
 presence as we waited for Him in that great 
 forest temple. We got back to college just 
 at supper time. Some of our special friends 
 looked at us with a sort of inquiring gaze, 
 as much as to say, "Where have you been ?" 
 We told a few of the more religious boys. 
 So it got noised abroad. Next evening, 
 when we started, there came a dozen and 
 
 8 9 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 more following after us. We were glad 
 and felt less afraid of being heard, so we 
 did not go more than half as far till we found 
 a good place to pray. The other boys came 
 up close about us and sat at the roots of the 
 trees and joined in the singing and prayers. 
 We sang louder that evening. The supper 
 horn called us before we got back. The next 
 evening we began to sing by the time we struck 
 the woods, and scores of boys were with us. 
 After a few songs and prayers, it was evident 
 that a great solemnity was resting on many 
 hearts. Kennedy, I think it was, made a short 
 talk and invited any who desired to be saved 
 and wished the counsel and prayers of their 
 fellow-students to come and kneel down about 
 a big stump in our midst. Ten or a dozen 
 came, weeping, and fell down on the leaves. 
 Now all hands had work, instructing, en- 
 couraging, and praying. Two or three were 
 converted, and we made the woods ring with 
 our praises. 
 
 We went to supper two and two with locked 
 arms. As we passed by the gate at Dr. Collin's, 
 I ran in and reported, and asked him if we 
 might not have a service in Dr. Wiley's recita- 
 tion room that night (that was the largest room 
 
 90 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 except the chapel). He was delighted and 
 said that he would come and worship with us. 
 The announcement was made at the supper 
 table. We arranged the room and carried our 
 tallow candles to light it. Soon we were sing- 
 ing at the top of our voices. The Doctor 
 joined us — not in the songs, for he could not 
 sing a bit, but with much emotion and great 
 earnestness he preached and called for peni- 
 tents. What an hour that was! As the boys 
 came he stood, his handsome face all aglow, 
 while he invited the "young gentlemen" (that 
 is what he always called us) to come to Jesus. 
 The appointment was made for the next night 
 for the chapel. The meeting had right of way 
 now, and for many nights we rallied, and many 
 boys were converted, who made leaders in 
 Israel's host for many years to come. Some 
 of the neighbors came in, and occasionally a 
 motherly hand was laid on a boy's head whose 
 mother was far away. It made me think and 
 sigh for home. Thank God for Christian 
 colleges! 
 
 9 1 
 
XI 
 
 WHEN AND WHERE LICENSED 
 
 HEN'my college work was done, 
 I knew what came next. Ipiad 
 not asked for a license to preach. 
 Starting home I j; stopped at 
 Abingdon to visit my sister, 
 Hazy— Mrs.* J.* 1 H. Cardwell. |W.i G. E. 
 Cunnyngham| was f preacher \ in charge and 
 T. K. Catlett presiding elder, jj It was quar- 
 terly! meeting. f;| Cunny ngham knewj JI £ ex- 
 pected to be a preacher, so he said to me: 
 "You have no license, and you may not find a 
 Quarterly Conference when you get home. 
 Deposit your Church letter with us, and I will 
 ask the Quarterly Conference to give you a 
 license to preach and recommend you to the 
 Annual Conference." It was done — June, 
 1850. I went home a young Methodist 
 preacher, but it was all new. I tried my first 
 service and sermon at old Cedar Springs, where 
 my father and mother worshipped. The sing- 
 ing, reading, and praying went along well 
 enough, and the first few sentences of the talk, 
 
 92 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 but the rest was made up of blundering and 
 crying. % I was ashamed. 
 P Conference is coming, and I must get ready. 
 Now I must go back to a little talk my father 
 and I had before he sent me to college. We 
 were on the way to town (Athens), I going to 
 mill, he to get a Dutch mowing blade — the 
 clover was about ready to cut. (This was 
 before my brother was stricken with paralysis.) 
 He said: "Your brother, Timothy, wants me 
 to send you to college, and I am willing to do 
 so if you want to go. But," he added, "if you 
 go to college, I will pay your bills, and that will 
 be all I can do for you. Your brothers and 
 sisters will have to have what will be left." 
 I told him I understood him and would go to 
 college with that understanding. So when 
 brother was taken sick at Abingdon, Va., 
 ten miles only from college, my parents fitted 
 me up to go first to wait on him, as said 
 above, and then go on to school. 
 
 Now my college days were over and my bills 
 paid, and both my father and I remembered 
 the understanding we had before I started for 
 college, though neither of us had mentioned it 
 since. He called it up one day, and said: 
 "As you have decided to be a preacher, I must 
 
 93 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 fit you out with a horse, etc." Then he added: 
 "Go to the barn and take your choice of all 
 the horses there." This I did, selecting a fine 
 chestnut-sorrel mare, Fannie, four years old. 
 He furnished me a good saddle, bridle, 
 blanket, and saddlebags, and mother added 
 a fine solid blue blanket, thick as felt. In the 
 middle of it she made a slit large enough for my 
 head to go through, and bound the slit with 
 ribbon. This was to go on my saddle in dry 
 and warm weather and over my shoulders in 
 wet and cold weather — my head through the 
 hole in the middle. I had no overcoat. This 
 blanket I kept and took into the army with me 
 in 1 86 1. While we were encamped at Mill 
 Springs, in Kentucky, I left it outside the door 
 one evening and some soldier appropriated it. 
 The snow was three or four inches deep, and I 
 did not blame him much, though I sorely 
 missed my old stand-by — mother's good 
 blanket. I never saw a better. 
 
 So equipped, I was ready to start off for 
 Conference, save that I did not have a cent of 
 money. The day before I was to start, my 
 father asked: "Have you any money to meet 
 expenses ?" He knew that I had none. He 
 was a born quiz, and, smiling, he handed me 
 
 fej 
 
 94 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 twelve dollars. He supposed that I would 
 travel as preachers traveled in those days — 
 without being charged, and that twelve dollars 
 would last a good while for "pin money." And 
 so it would; but I traveled alone and neither 
 looked nor felt like a preacher. I asked for 
 my bill each morning, and paid it — usually 
 one dollar for myself and horse. Confer- 
 ence met that year (1850) in Abingdon, 
 and it required six days to make the trip. 
 That took six of my dollars and left me six. 
 At the missionary collection during Conference 
 James Atkins, Sr. (father of Dr. James Atkins, 
 now bishop), said: "I will be one of twenty 
 to give five dollars." There were nineteen 
 responses, and then it "hung fire." Finally 
 I said, "I'll take the other five," and handed 
 him the money. That left me with one 
 dollar. 
 
 Well, I was admitted into the Conference 
 on trial, with nine others — among them R. N. 
 Price, who alone survives to this day. He and 
 I were Emory students together, and side by 
 side we have stood for these fifty-five years 
 members of the Holston Conference, M. E. 
 Church, South. May my God keep his hand 
 on this dear man and bring him and his safely 
 
 95 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 home from the field when the sun goes down! 
 Was I concerned about my appointment ? 
 No. I knew nothing of the fields of work and 
 never once thought where I might be sent. 
 "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be 
 wise." Bishop Capers read me out to Burns- 
 ville, N. C. (Holston then included Western 
 North Carolina.) William Hicks was pre- 
 siding elder; and, to my delight, James A. 
 Reagan and R. N. Price were appointed to the 
 adjoining work — Ream's Creek Circuit — and 
 George Alexander to Asheville Station. We 
 four (Alexander, Reagan, Price, and I) left 
 Abingdon Wednesday, took dinner at Wor- 
 ley's one mile east of Bristol, and then went 
 to Blountville and spent the night with J. J. 
 James. I tried to preach that night. Next 
 day we went to Jonesboro. Reagan and 
 Price stopped with Dr. Cossen; and Alexander 
 and I with J. H. Dosser. That night Alexan- 
 der told me that he and Miss Lizzie Smith 
 (daughter of Pleasant Smith, near Emory and 
 Henry College) were going to be married after 
 a few months and he wanted me to be his 
 "best man." Of course, I agreed to do so. 
 Miss Smith was his second wife. Next day 
 we took dinner at Brother Wilhoit's, and 
 
 96 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 went on to Garrett's, near Warm Springs, N. 
 C, for the night. This day we passed the 
 celebrated Paint Rock, on the French Broad 
 River, and our road and the river ran side by 
 side. Leaving Garrett's Saturday morning, 
 we went up this river road, one of the most 
 picturesque and interesting mountain roads 
 I ever saw — every foot of it bringing into view 
 a beautiful picture as we followed the tortuous, 
 headlong little stream hunting its way out of 
 the mountains into the great Tennessee 
 Valley. 
 
 Saturday night we got to the celebrated 
 stand, Alexander's, ten miles this side of Ashe- 
 ville. Here Brother Alexander left us and 
 went on to town to meet his first appointment. 
 Reagan and Price were now in their own work. 
 And here we found a charming Christian 
 family — the Alexanders — mostly daughters, 
 who were educated at the celebrated Mora- 
 vian School at Salem, N. C. Rev. J. S. Burnett, 
 of Holston, married one of them, and he and his 
 wife were here at her father's. Judge John 
 Baxter married two of them — a first and 
 second wife. During the lifetime of the 
 second wife he came from North Carolina to 
 Knoxville, Tenn. I was on the Knoxville 
 
 97 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Station at that time, and she was a member of 
 my Church. An acquaintance begun ten 
 years before was gladly renewed on my part, 
 and the renewal only increased my admiration 
 for her superior Christian character. The 
 Judge, a man of great intellect and strength 
 of character, was a doubter as to the reality 
 of the Christian religion — an honest doubter, I 
 think. His wife took sick and was sick unto 
 death. Wife and I were with her much of the 
 time, and when the end came it was such a 
 deathbed scene as shook the Judge, both 
 mind and body. She talked as quietly of 
 dying and going home as if she were going to 
 make a visit to her father's house in the hills of 
 old Buncombe, the home of her childhood. 
 The Judge would stand at her head and listen 
 as one amazed, and then walk the floor — 
 wrestling not only with a great sorrow, but 
 struggling with a fact for which he could not 
 account without admitting the deepest truths 
 of religion. We sang softly "Jesus, Lover of 
 My Soul." She joined us in the song and 
 smiled while she sang. I asked: "Are you 
 afraid to die?" She answered with a clear, 
 calm voice: "No sir; I am not afraid of any- 
 thing." Finally she fell on sleep. A more 
 
 9 8 
 
Seventy Years in T)ixie 
 
 triumphant death I never witnessed. The 
 Judge came and looked for a moment on her 
 sweet, quiet face, and then walked the room 
 again. We buried her next day, and the day 
 following I met the Judge at his home. He 
 took me by the hand, and with the lines of his 
 face drawn tight as cords, he said : "There is 
 something in the triumphant death of my wife 
 inexplicable on any other ground than that 
 religion is true. ,, "Why," he added, "she 
 was always timid as a frightened bird; but 
 when the grim monster came, she knew no 
 fear." Thank God for consistent Christian 
 living and triumphant Christian dying! 
 
 99 
 
XII 
 A MEMORABLE DAY 
 
 UNDAY morning we all left the 
 river and went over to Ream's 
 Creek (now Weaverville). Here 
 was the district parsonage, and 
 Brother Hicks was at home, 
 as he had come through the near way. 
 Brother Reagan preached, and I concluded 
 for him. Bishop Janes once held our Con- 
 ference at this place. This was the home of 
 the large and influential family of Weavers; 
 hence the name, Weaverville. The Western 
 North Carolina Conference now has a school 
 there, Weaverville College. I was now some 
 twenty-five or thirty miles southeast of my 
 work, having gone around and passed it. 
 I might have reached it directly from Jones- 
 boro in half the distance by going a bridle 
 pathway through the mountains. Monday 
 morning I told the brethren good-bye and 
 started alone for Burnsville, and this Monday 
 was one of the most memorable days of my 
 life. This is true to this day — fifty-five years 
 
 ioo 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 later. Up to this point, since leaving Con- 
 ference, I had most congenial companions, 
 and two of them knew the road and the people 
 on the way. So I was easy as to the where 
 and when and how of our traveling. But now 
 I was to go alone. A strange feeling crept 
 upon me as I began to fully take in the 
 situation. But I was in the path of duty, 
 as I honestly believed. The validity of my 
 call to the ministry was never questioned, 
 and it had never occurred to me that I could 
 answer that call in any way but by being a 
 traveling preacher. I found solid comfort 
 here, and so I pulled up Fannie's bridle a 
 little and said: "All right, gal, move on; 
 this is the way for us." I am sorry for the 
 Methodist preacher who never talked to his 
 horse, or shared his apple or biscuit with him 
 at lunch time. 
 
 I was late starting that morning; somehow 
 did not want to say good-bye, and so had not 
 gone more than ten miles before I had an in- 
 ward admonition that it was nearing dinner 
 time; and with that I began to consider my 
 chances for something to eat for myself and 
 Fannie. Then for the first time I thought of 
 my money; but without feeling in my pocket 
 
 101 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 for it, I began to count back where I had 
 spent a fourpence here and another there. 
 It was in the days of slavery, and I made it a 
 rule to give something to the boy who cared for 
 my horse and blacked my boots. We all wore 
 boots in those days. Then we had to pay at 
 two or three tollgates along the river. When I 
 counted it up as well as I could, I concluded 
 that I had spent seventy-five cents of the 
 dollar I had left at Conference, and so thought 
 there was still twenty-five cents in my pocket. 
 But when the pocket was searched, I found 
 only an old Spanish piece, worn perfectly 
 smooth and very thin, worth twenty cents. 
 This was my stock in trade among strangers, 
 hungry, and two hundred miles from mother. 
 Maybe a cloud passed over the sun just then, 
 for things looked a little blue, I thought. 
 However, Fannie and I were headed for the 
 Burnsville Circuit, and, looking ahead, I saw 
 a good-looking white house, apparently right 
 in the road. On approaching it I found the 
 road turned square to the right immediately in 
 front of the house. I made the turn, and had 
 gone a few yards past the gate when I heard a 
 lady's voice calling: "Mr. Sullins." I heard 
 only that, but that was enough. I stopped, 
 
 102 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 turned back, and made my best bow to a lady 
 standing in the door. How this came about, 
 I could not guess. In a moment she said: 
 "Stop and take dinner with us." Here was a 
 delightful surprise. No tired plowboy ever 
 heard the dinner horn in the long days in June 
 with more pleasure than that invitation gave 
 me. She called a servant from the wood 
 yard and said : "Take care of the gentleman's 
 horse." As I approached she extended her 
 hand, and explained thus: "I was at Ream's 
 Creek yesterday. You concluded the services, 
 and I learned your name and that you go to 
 the Burnsville Circuit this year. We are 
 Methodists, and are always glad to have the 
 preachers stop with us. My name is Black- 
 stock." This made all plain. I had an ex- 
 cellent dinner, and made the acquaintance of 
 a family whose friendship I appreciated. 
 When I was ready to leave, the family came 
 together for prayers. That was the custom in 
 those days. My friend, Miss Blackstock, 
 said as I was starting: "There is no house on 
 the road for many miles through the mountain 
 at which you can get lodging. You will have 
 to turn off the road some ten miles from here 
 and stay with Mr. Carter." She then said 
 
 103 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 casually: "He's a Baptist, and may charge 
 you for staying all night." That last remark 
 impressed me seriously, and the reader can tell 
 why. 
 
 But Fannie and I were headed for the 
 Burnsville Circuit, and this was the road. So 
 after many thanks and "good-bye," I started, 
 grateful for such good providence as gave me 
 my dinner. The road ran along the foothills 
 of the big mountains that towered high above 
 me. The sand was deep, with loose rocks 
 among it. Soon I began to think thoughts. 
 Fannie clipped off the miles well. The 
 shadows of the tall pines began to stretch far 
 along the road. I must be near the bridle 
 way that turns off to Carter's. And what will 
 you do if when you ask for your bill in the 
 morning the old gentleman should say, "One 
 dollar ?" Ah, there was the trouble. I do not 
 think I was foolishly sensitive, but the thought 
 of having to tell my Baptist host that I was a 
 Methodist preacher and had but twenty cents 
 in the world made the pine shadows look 
 longer still. True, I could tell him, "My 
 circuit comes near you, and I will surely pay 
 you the other eighty cents soon," and maybe 
 he would believe me. Still I did not feel good 
 
 104 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 over it. In the mountains, among strangers, 
 with only twenty cents in my pocket, night 
 coming on, and mother two hundred miles 
 away! Well, if I cried a little there was no one 
 to see me. Just then I looked up, and coming 
 around a turn in the road I saw a large, well- 
 dressed man on a fine pacing bay horse, some 
 two hundred yards before me. This broke 
 the train of thought. As the gentleman ap- 
 proached I lifted my eyes and bowed, and, to 
 my surprise, he reined his horse up and stopped 
 suddenly. Then turning, he said: "Excuse 
 me, sir, but are you not the preacher going to 
 Burnsville Circuit?" I answered: "I am." 
 "Well," he said, "I am glad to see you, Brother 
 Sullins. My name is McElroy. You will see 
 on the plan of your work that I am the 
 secretary of the board of stewards." Without 
 giving me time to gather my thoughts together 
 and tell him how glad I was to see him, he 
 talked right on, saying: "I am glad to see 
 you. I live in Burnsville; am on my way to 
 Charleston, S. C, to lay in my winter stock of 
 goods. Go right to my house and feel at 
 home. I must hurry on, for I have to go to 
 Blackstock's to stay all night." And he 
 moved forward a step, perhaps, when suddenly 
 
 105 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 the turned back and said: "Wait. Your 
 first quarterly meeting will be held on Jack's 
 Creek before I get back. Here, take this five 
 dollar bill and report it for me to the Quarterly 
 Conference. " Then, starting again, he looked 
 back and said : "A half mile up there you will 
 find a path to the right, which leads out to old 
 Mr. Carter's, where you can spend the night." 
 There now! Surely a cloud had gone off the 
 sun, it was so light on the hills. It was day- 
 break everywhere, all the birds were singing 
 at once. 
 
 Two minutes later you might have heard a 
 young preacher whistling along up the road, 
 keeping time as he patted Fannie's neck, or 
 now and then chuckling a little to himself 
 as he anticipated saying to Mr. Carter next 
 morning, if he charged for the night's lodg- 
 ing: "I will have to trouble you to break this 
 five, as I have not enough loose change by me 
 to pay my bill." 
 
 But here is the little byway, and soon I am 
 at Carter's, Fannie gone to the barn, and I 
 seated on the porch with a fine basket of 
 apples by my side. The sun is just going 
 down, and a bracing breeze comes down from 
 the Big Black Mountain, promising frost by 
 
 1 06 l'^ 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 morning. So closed one of the most memor- 
 able days of my life. Its lessons on faith in 
 Him who said to me in my childhood, "Go/' 
 have lingered with me ever since. Awful first 
 day ! Blessed first day i Never to be forgot- 
 ten. 
 
 107 
 
XIII 
 INTERESTING INCIDENTS 
 
 EATED on the porch of Mr. 
 Carter, as the eventful first day 
 of my ministry closed, I had a 
 favorable opportunity for a lit- 
 tle quiet. The evening breezes 
 from the Big Black came crisp and cold 
 out of the deep, dark forests of balsam, 
 which gave color and name to this great 
 monarch of the Alleghanies; and as they 
 fanned my brow, I caught the rich aromatic 
 odors they had gathered in their leafy dells, 
 where they had spent the day, and was re- 
 freshed. The coming of the lowing cows 
 from the field and the milkmaid, with pail in 
 hand, going out to the pen where the restless 
 calves were bleating, recalled Polly Shook 
 and the days of childhood. Such had been 
 the pleasing evidence of my Heavenly Father's 
 timely care in the experiences of the day that I 
 was really happy. I had learned as never before 
 how to "commit my way unto the Lord and 
 to trust also in Him." My meditations were 
 soon interrupted. A gentleman rode up to the 
 
 108 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 gate, hitched his horse, and came directly to 
 the house. A son of Mr. Carter, I guessed. 
 But I was wrong, for as soon as he came on the 
 porch he looked straight at me for a moment, 
 then, bowing, said: "Aren't you the preacher 
 going to the Burnsville Circuit ?" I had often 
 wondered how those "Tar Heels" could tell a 
 preacher at a glance. I answered: "Yes." 
 "Well," said he, "I thought so." Then he 
 added: "My name is Young. I live with Mr. 
 McElroy, in Burnsville. I am a Methodist 
 and glad to see you." He was a young man 
 about my age, and I was delighted to meet him. 
 We occupied the same room that night, and I 
 noticed that he bowed by his bed in prayer 
 before he lay down. He was a young man of 
 fine business sense, good character, and fair 
 culture. He told me that his business there 
 at that time was to buy cattle for the Southern 
 market. The neighbors thereabouts were 
 to bring their marketable cattle to that place 
 in the morning. The announcement had 
 been spread abroad. So when morning came, 
 bringing a white frost, Mr. Young was up 
 early to look after business, and very soon 
 heard the big cow bells coming in on the 
 different mountain roads and trails, ten, 
 
 109 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 fifteen, or twenty in a squad, the leader of each 
 herd usually wearing a large bell and an- 
 nouncing his approach by such bellowings 
 as almost shook the hills. I was up right 
 away, determined to see what was going on 
 and to show the neighbors that I was not 
 a "sleepy-head," but a wide-awake young 
 preacher, ready for anything honorable, work 
 or fun. 
 
 Mr. Young bought some forty or fifty out 
 of the different herds, and among them three 
 leaders, monster fellows, whose furious bel- 
 lowings were enough to satisfy any Spaniard 
 at a bullfight. The question of who is 
 master must be settled before they are started 
 on the road; otherwise, they will give trouble. 
 So it was agreed to turn them two at a time 
 into the little meadow nearby. First, the 
 largest and smallest were turned in, and, after 
 some pawing and bellowing, they locked horns 
 — not figuratively. But the smaller one soon 
 found that he was overmatched, and gave it 
 up. Next the second in size was turned in. 
 He was but a little less than the largest, and, 
 after much bellowing and swelling and maneu- 
 vering for positions, they set to with force 
 enough, it would seem, to burst their skulls. 
 
 no 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 And now the frost flew and the meadow sod 
 was torn up as by a plow. Round and round 
 they turned, trying for vantage ground, until 
 finally the larger one threw his horn under the 
 jaw or neck of his antagonist, and the fight was 
 over; and nobody hurt, no blood spilled. 
 
 Thus began my first day on the Burnsville 
 Circuit. Breakfast over, soon the cattle were 
 on their way to Burnsville. I must not forget 
 to tell you that Mr. Carter did not charge me 
 for my night's lodging, but gave me a hearty 
 invitation to return again. I joined Mr. 
 Young and made some reputation as a cattle 
 driver, and lost nothing by it. 
 
 We got to Burnsville that evening. My 
 appointments began there the next Sunday. 
 I spent the rest of the week there, visiting the 
 families of my people and getting acquainted 
 with the town. I found that there were 
 twenty-two preaching places on the circuit, 
 all to be filled every four weeks, with an 
 average travel of about ten miles per day. 
 I had no books but my Bible, hymn book, 
 Discipline, and Watson's Dictionary. There 
 were but few books in the homes I visited. 
 Occasionally I would borrow a good book from 
 a good brother and read it on horseback and 
 
 in 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 return it on my next round. I was strong and 
 in fine health; had been brought up on a farm, 
 and knew how to mix with people. I could 
 sing, and would say to the young people: 
 "Next round I will stop with So-and-So. 
 Bring all your notebooks, and let us have a 
 'singing.' ' Thus I made their acquaintance 
 and got close to them. 
 
 The pay of a preacher was one hundred 
 dollars per year. This they paid in full. 
 We reported one hundred conversions and 
 additions that year. I left the work with 
 about forty dollars in my pocket. They paid 
 but little, but never allowed the preacher to 
 pay for anything he needed. A suit or two 
 of clothes, boots, hats, etc., were presents com- 
 mon in those days. I visited all I could; 
 organized Sunday-schools in the spring; 
 had two camp meetings on the work; was 
 called to but one funeral during the year. 
 
 A thousand things connected with this first 
 year of my ministry I must leave unwritten 
 here. The country was wild and mountain- 
 ous. The Big Black, the Roane, the Bald, 
 the Yellow and the Lynnville Mountains 
 were all in the circuit, the people simple and 
 hospitable in their manners. 
 
 112 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 Conference met that fall (1851) at my old 
 home Athens, Tenn. Thus an opportunity 
 was afforded me of meeting father and 
 mother and other home folks. What a delight! 
 Bishop Andrew was in the chair, and D. R. 
 McAnally was secretary. I was read out to 
 Asheville Station, N. C. This made me 
 tremble, and I went with much humility to 
 undertake the unequal task. On my way 
 I spent a night with John Harle, near the 
 mouth of "Chucky," one of the best men I 
 ever knew. He went with me next morning 
 some two or three miles to show me how to ford 
 "Chucky River" safely at its mouth. He 
 stood on the bank and directed, "Up a little 
 now;" and then, "To the right carefully;" 
 now, "Down to the going out place." Safely 
 over, I waved him a good-bye and moved on. 
 
 Asheville was but a flourishing village then 
 (1851). I found a membership of about three 
 hundred in the town, and among them the 
 celebrated Vance family, Robert Vance, after- 
 wards a general in the Confederate army and 
 a member of Congress, was Sunday-school 
 superintendent and class leader. His wife was 
 Mary McElroy, of Burnsville. I had the 
 pleasure of being at their wedding a year 
 
 113 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 before, while I was on the Burnsville circuit. 
 His mother, the widow of David Vance, 
 resided here; and his brother, Zebulon, then 
 just grown up to manhood, afterwards the 
 world-renowned "Zeb Vance, of North Caro- 
 lina/' Congressman, General, Governor, Sen- 
 ator, etc. His sister, Ann (now the beloved 
 wife of Dr. R. N. Price), was then the bright, 
 attractive young leader of the social and 
 religious circles of the village. Here, with 
 their charming families, were Messrs. Nick 
 and John Woodfin, the head of a law firm; 
 and here "Old Uncle John Regnold, ,, a super- 
 annuated member of the Holston Conference, 
 with his dear old motherly wife and some 
 hearty young sons. I boarded with them that 
 year in the Carolina House. Here, too, was the 
 Asheville Female College, then a Conference 
 school, Rev. E. Rowley, president. The 
 boarding pupils and faculty filled one-fourth 
 of the church on Sunday mornings, and often 
 embarrassed me by their presence. The 
 Robertses, Smiths, Beards, Rankins, Edneys, 
 etc., were there. 
 
 The year was in many respects a pleasant 
 and successful one. We had a gracious 
 revival during the year. Those were the 
 
 114 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 days of camp meetings everywhere. I at- 
 tended three. One was out in Haywood 
 County, I think — at least out near the Indian 
 Reservation, at Shook's Camp Ground. Here 
 on Monday night occurred a singular incident. 
 Brother Hicks, presiding elder, had preached 
 a strong sermon, and many penitents came to 
 the front for prayer. After a lengthy altar 
 service, such of the congregation as desired to 
 do so were permitted to retire. I went to the 
 preacher's tent and to bed. But sleep did not 
 come — no pain, no trouble of any kind. All 
 was quiet, save two or three voices out under 
 the shed — sometimes a stanza of some old song 
 in a low tone, then again a prayer, then words 
 of exhortation. One of the voices was evi- 
 dently that of a woman. I listened, trying 
 to sleep, but sleep had fled. I conceived the 
 little group lingering there at the altar to be a 
 wife who had prayed long for a wicked hus- 
 band, and, finding that husband penitent, 
 she had enlisted the sympathy and help of a 
 local preacher or class leader to remain with 
 her to pray and encourage the poor sinner. 
 This exercise had lasted, it seemed to me, 
 till midnight. Somehow I felt like I ought to 
 go out there; and, getting up, I dressed and 
 
 115 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 went out, I knew not why. There, near to 
 the stand, under the dim light of a single tallow 
 candle, which was burning low in the wooden 
 sconce, I saw the three, much as I conceived 
 of before I came out. I did not go to them, 
 but took my seat twenty or twenty-five feet 
 away. Why, I did not know. Then there 
 came into mind an old song I used sometimes 
 to sing. It was a sort of dialogue between a 
 Christian and a sinner. Immediately I began 
 to sing it. It ran thus: 
 
 "Come, think on death and judgment, 
 
 Your time is almost spent; 
 You've been a wretched sinner, 
 
 'Tis time that you'd repent." 
 
 Here the sinner puts in some excuses. Finally 
 the Christian ends his pleadings with this: 
 
 "But what if you lie down to-night, 
 
 Supposing all is well, 
 And should your eyes be closed in death, 
 
 Your soul awake in hell?" 
 
 Sinner says: 
 
 "My case would then be awful, 
 
 I now begin to see ; 
 I pray the Lord have mercy ! 
 
 Have mercy, Lord, on me!" 
 
 I sang these simple words, and, without 
 speaking to any one, went back to bed and to 
 
 116 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 sleep. Often I wondered at the whole thing, 
 but could never understand it. 
 
 Seven years after this I was stationed in 
 Chattanooga, E. F. Sevier, presiding elder. 
 In midsummer he was in feeble health. My 
 wife had gone to her father's at Jonesboro, 
 with our first child, then about one year old. 
 Brother Sevier said: "I have three quarterly 
 meetings which I wish you would hold for me. 
 I will fill your pulpit here while you are gone. 
 He lived in Chattanooga then. Of course, I 
 consented. The meetings were to be at 
 Ducktown, Tenn., Murphy, N. C, and Coker's 
 Creek, Tenn. I held the meeting at Duck- 
 town, and spent most of the week there, inter- 
 ested in the copper works. Saturday I went 
 to the Murphy meeting. It was on the Mur- 
 phy Circuit, but not in the town of Murphy. 
 At the close of the morning services I assisted 
 the pastor in Quarterly Conference. When we 
 were through, a brother came and spoke to 
 me, and said: "You don't know me, but I 
 know you." When I inquired where I had 
 met him, he said: "Do you remember the 
 Monday night at Shook's Camp Ground, 
 when you came out of the preacher's tent about 
 midnight and sang a song about death and 
 
 117 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 judgment ?" "Yes," I said, "and I've never 
 known why." "Well," he replied, "I was 
 there and was restless that night, had walked 
 about till just before you came out, and then 
 took my seat against a post at the upper end of 
 the shed, in the dark, and was listening to the 
 three who lingered under the dim light near the 
 pulpit, when you came out and sang that song. 
 The last lines filled me with trembling, and as 
 you went back I resolved to be a better man 
 from that moment. I sought and found par- 
 don, joined the Church. To-day I am a local 
 preacher and on my way to glory, thankful 
 to God for that Monday night at Shook's 
 Camp Ground." "Well, well," I said, "here, 
 after seven years, I see in part the meaning 
 of that strange night." And so I conclude 
 that no man knows just when he is doing his 
 best work. Only to follow the promptings 
 of the Holy Spirit and leave results to him 
 is always safe. Strange things will often 
 occur. The explanation will come by and by. 
 
 118 
 

 XIV 
 CHEROKEE PREACHERS 
 
 HERE were five or six Cherokee 
 Indians at the meeting of which 
 I wrote in the last chapter at 
 Shook's Camp Ground. Among 
 them were two local preachers 
 
 of our Church, Old Charley and Black Fox. 
 I was very much interested in the company, 
 and often sought opportunity to talk with 
 them. They had an interpreter along, a 
 "half-breed. " Their grave and devout 
 manners in time of worship were very marked. 
 Indeed, they were at all times very serious, 
 not to say grum. They rarely ever smiled, 
 and never laughed a hearty, open laugh. When 
 they talked among themselves, I noticed they 
 did not move their lips, like other folks; 
 and on inquiry I found they had but few, if any, 
 labial sounds in their language. So I began to 
 try all the Indian names of rivers, mountains, 
 towns, etc., known to me, and found that I 
 could pronounce or sound them without putting 
 my lips together, thus: Chattanooga, Ocoee, 
 
 119 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Tennessee, Coosa, Unaka, and so on for fifty or 
 more names. The accent was always on the 
 last syllable, and was a sort of grunt. I 
 wondered if their language had not been con- 
 structed, or grown, out of their characteristic 
 fondness for secrecy. Two of them ten feet 
 away from you might be talking, but you could 
 not see their mouths move. As Conference 
 was to be in Asheville that fall, I asked Old 
 Charley and Black Fox to come and see their 
 "big brothers. " They did. At an evening 
 service for preaching I told Old Charley 
 that I would call on him to pray after the 
 sermon. He prayed in his own language; 
 and while we could not understand what he 
 said, we felt sure that our common Father 
 understood him. His voice was very soft, 
 and even musical at the first, but grew loud 
 and almost vehement before he closed. We all 
 said "Amen," and were glad that our God 
 understood Cherokee. 
 
 This Asheville Conference was the first I 
 had to entertain, and I found plenty of work 
 locating and taking care of the preachers. 
 The Conference was not so large then, as there 
 were no lay delegates. Bishop Capers came 
 on a few days beforehand, and I had the 
 
 120 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 pleasure of entertaining him. This year I 
 received deacon's orders. The sessions were 
 held in the college chapel. My appointment 
 this year was to the Jonesboro Station. I 
 took public conveyance (had no horse), and 
 got to Jonesboro Saturday evening, October 
 2, 1852. I stopped at the hotel. Next day 
 I preached twice, and had the pleasure of 
 meeting many of my people. Here I found a 
 good membership in a good, new church. 
 The colored membership was large, and I 
 usually preached for them at three in the after- 
 noon in the Sunday-school room, which was 
 the basement. Jonesbore was then the best 
 town between Knoxville and the State line, 
 Bristol. There was no Bristol then; it was 
 known as James King's big meadows, post 
 office, Sapling Grove. The legal profession 
 was very strong at Jonesboro: James W. Dead- 
 erick, T. A. R. Nelson, S. J. W. Luckey, John 
 Blair, Landon Haynes, William Maxwell, 
 T. D. Arnold, John Aiken, and others. A 
 historic old town was Jonesboro, once the 
 capital of the State of Franklin. 
 
 Here and hereabouts the Seviers and Tiptons 
 had their long and bitter struggle for political 
 supremacy. At this time Odd Fellowship 
 
 121 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 was very popular in East Tennessee. Many 
 of the best citizens were members of the order, 
 and they turned their attention to the cause 
 of education — very wisely, as I think — and 
 used their organization to establish and 
 maintain schools. The lodge at Rogersville 
 established the Odd Fellows' Female College 
 there, and conducted it for years. It is now 
 the synodical College of the Presbyterian 
 Church. 
 
 The lodge at Abingdon, Va., undertook a 
 very extensive school enterprise, and spent a 
 good deal of money on it; but a little later it 
 was turned over to our Church, and is now our 
 Martha Washington, the oldest of our Holston 
 female colleges. The lodge at Jonesboro, 
 made up of the best citizens of the town and 
 county, projected a similar enterprise and 
 established an Odd Fellows' Female College 
 there in 1853. Rufus P. Wells, pastor of the 
 Presbyterian Church, and I were elected 
 associate principals. I consented to the ar- 
 rangement as a temporary "supply," not 
 dreaming that I should ever become a school- 
 man. And yet four-fifths of the time since 
 that have I been a teacher. How little one 
 knows what his life shall be! I fully expected 
 
 122 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 to be a regular field hand, but Providence put 
 me in the shop. I am sure it did not once 
 occur to me to be anything but a traveling 
 Methodist preacher. Nor did my accept- 
 ance of the position in this school involve a 
 change of purpose. The school prospered. 
 Our music teacher was Miss Chisom, from 
 Fort Smith, Ark. She was a Cherokee quad- 
 roon, and carried strong marks of her Indian 
 blood and was a good musician and a sensible, 
 practical woman. This was at a time when 
 the E. T. & V. R. R. was being graded. Mr* 
 R. L. Owen was chief engineer, and after- 
 wards became President of the road. He and 
 Miss Chisom and I boarded at the same hotel. 
 To make the story short, he courted and 
 married her. I had the pleasure of officiating 
 at the wedding, and Miss A. R. Blair, men- 
 tioned elsewhere, was bridesmaid. He took 
 his bride to Lynchburg, his native town. 
 To them were born two sons — Otway and 
 Robert L., manly young fellows who used to 
 visit us with their mother when they were but 
 lads. Otway, I think, died young. After the 
 death of Mr. Owen, she took her son, now 
 grown and educated in a Virginia college, 
 back to the Territory. I see stated in the papers 
 
 123 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 of this week that "Robert L. Owen, who is 
 one-eighth Cherokee, has been nominated by 
 the Democrats for a seat in the United States 
 Senate, at Muskogee, Ind. T." Bravo! Bravo! 
 Well, Robert is no milksop, I'll warrant you, 
 and his good tomahawk will be a match for Mr. 
 Tillman's pitchfork. 
 
 This year I attended a camp meeting at the 
 celebrated Brush Creek Camp Ground site, 
 now within the corporate limits of Johnson 
 City. Here, some years before, occurred a 
 fearful tragedy at a night service during a 
 thunderstorm, which resulted in the death 
 of two very popular young people by a stroke 
 of lightning. Rev. N. G. Taylor gave me an 
 account of it. The young people killed were 
 
 Mn Gillespie and his betrothed, Miss 
 
 Mary Taylor, sister of N. G. Taylor, then a 
 young man, and aunt of Hon. Robert L. 
 Taylor, of the United States Senate. Mr. 
 Gillespie and Miss Taylor were standing in 
 the door of a tent only a few feet back of the 
 preacher's stand, and Taylor said he was sitting 
 in the tent, near by, listening to William Mil- 
 burn preach on the judgment, and that a feel- 
 ing of awful solemnity seemed to burden the 
 air. This I can well believe; for when William 
 
 124 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 Milburn preached on the judgment it was 
 awful preaching, and I doubt not the sermon 
 and the lightning and thunder were in unison. 
 Taylor said there were three strokes of light- 
 ning in quick succession, the first some little 
 distance up the valley, the second much nearer. 
 The third did the fearful work, killing the two 
 and prostrating many others. Brother Taylor 
 said he was unconscious for a few minutes, 
 and when restored found that "the red-winged 
 messenger had taken my beautiful sister 
 almost right out of my arms." Then he gave a 
 graphic description of the awful scene. How 
 I wish I could produce the word-painted 
 picture which he drew of that midnight of 
 horrors — its blackness of darkness, the rain 
 coming down in floods, the bellowing thunder 
 literally shaking the earth as the vivid lightning 
 threatened to set the whole encampment on fire ; 
 the awe-struck assembly in the greatest terror 
 and confusion, some praying, some screaming, 
 and all rushing here and there in blind dis- 
 traction. The bodies of the two young lovers 
 were placed side by side on the straw under the 
 shed. 
 
 N. G. Taylor was perhaps a more eloquent 
 and graphic delineator of tragic scenes than 
 
 1*5 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 either his honored sons, Robert L. or Alf A. 
 I stood with him on the very spot in the very 
 tent door where young Gillespie and Mary 
 Taylor stood when the bolt struck them, and 
 heard him tell .the gruesome story, his lips 
 quivering and his eyes half filled with tears. 
 I had the pleasure of preaching to him and his 
 wife and "Old Black Mammy" at three o'clock 
 Sunday evening at that meeting, Bob and Alf 
 being little chaps then. That Taylor family 
 is now on my list of long-time friends, and 
 my recollections of many tokens of love from 
 them is very pleasant. Mrs. Taylor was a 
 queenly person, a very brilliant woman, a fine 
 conversationalist, and a charming musician, 
 and, mark you, mother of "The Fiddle and 
 the Bow." She was a sister of Landon C. 
 Haynes, perhaps the most captivating orator 
 these East Tennessee hills ever gave to the 
 country. I seem to see her now, like Cornelia, 
 daughter of Scipio Africanus and mother of 
 the immortal Gracchi, standing between her 
 two sons, saying, "Haec ornamenta mea sunt" 
 ("These are my jewels") — honored sons of a 
 noble ancestry, as worthy of immortality as 
 Tiberius and Caius of classic story! 
 
 126 
 
XV 
 DEATH OF JAMES H. CARDWELL- 
 
 N the last chapter we were 
 at Jonesboro, Tenn. (1853), 
 and I was closing my third 
 year in the ministry at old Brush 
 I Creek Camp Meeting. The 
 most memorable occurrence of this year was 
 the death of my brother-in-law, James H. 
 Cardwell, of Abingdon, Va. My sister wrote 
 me of his sickness, and requested me to 
 come to them. She was in delicate health, 
 with a babe only a few weeks old in her 
 arms. I went at once, and found him very 
 low in the last stages of typhoid fever; 
 but his mind was clear and his faith tri- 
 umphant. He was a dear, good man. 
 I perhaps had not known a better — a class 
 leader and a Sunday-school superintendent, a 
 fine singer and mighty in prayer, a man of fine 
 social qualities, who loved and enjoyed life. 
 He had an interesting young family, a wife and 
 five children; and now the end was nigh, when 
 he must surrender all his cherished plans for 
 
 127 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 life and leave his wife a widow and his children 
 fatherless. He had been an elder brother to 
 me when I was at Emory and Henry College, 
 ten miles away. I was almost crushed as I 
 stood by his bed, with his little family stunned 
 by the unutterable sorrow that fell like a bolt 
 upon their heads and hearts. That night I 
 persuaded sister to take the children to her 
 room and let me watch. We were alone — 
 Cardwell and I. A little fire flickered on the 
 hearth, and in the stillness the clock seemed to 
 tick unusually loud. We talked some of days 
 gone by, and some of his wife and children, 
 but most of the future. He did not believe 
 that he could get well, and then he spoke of 
 God's love in Christ Jesus and his promise to 
 be a husband to the widow and a father to his 
 children. His eyes filled with tears; and then, 
 restraining himself a moment, he said: "Broth- 
 er, they will not let me shout and praise my 
 God; and I wanted you to come, for I knew 
 you would." I said: "Brother, we are hop- 
 ing that you may get well, and we want you 
 to husband your strength." He was silent. 
 After a few moments, I took my seat before the 
 fire with my back toward him; and soon I 
 heard a whisper — a deep whisper — coming 
 
 128 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 from his bed. I stole a look back, and there 
 he was, with his face turned right up toward 
 heaven, and he was putting his hands together 
 and then separating them and bringing them 
 together again while in the act of clapping 
 them; and then he said, "Glory to God! glory 
 to God!" in a whisper. That midnight hour I 
 have never forgotten. I have never felt nearer 
 to God and heaven, perhaps, than at that 
 silent hour. The memory of it comes into 
 the recollections of an old man as he looks 
 back, like a traveler, to the high places he has 
 passed and sees the tops of the distant moun- 
 tains still bathed in the mellow sunlight of a 
 peaceful sunset. 
 
 Next morning it was apparent that he was 
 growing more and more feeble, and we felt that 
 the end was nigh. Sister said to me: "Watch, 
 and don't let him get away without speaking 
 to me and the children. Call us in time/' 
 The doctor came, and other friends; and soon 
 I went and told sister to come in. She brought 
 the children and the nurse with the baby. 
 As soon as they entered the room, he seemed 
 to understand what it meant and held out his 
 hands and took the babe first and then each 
 child in his arms and blessed it. And then. 
 
 129 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 looking at his wife, he waited with outstretched 
 arms for her to come; and with a short prayer 
 he released her with a good-bye kiss, the last 
 of earth. And from that moment he never 
 seemed to know that he had a wife or a child — 
 never spoke of them again. They had passed 
 out of his earthly life. The nurse took the 
 children into an adjoining room, where a 
 number of weeping women had assembled. 
 I took sister up in my arms, and half carried 
 her, limp, from the room. A heartbroken 
 sigh and a deep groan told how surely she felt 
 the stroke that left her a widow with a group 
 of orphan children. I could scarcely move 
 her along, she seemed so reluctant to go. 
 But to our astonishment, just as we passed 
 through the door into the next room, she 
 sprang from my arms and said: "Glory to 
 God! No, this is not all — heaven and eternity 
 are yet left!" And so she continued to walk 
 up and down the room shouting, while we 
 all wondered at the strange woman. The 
 neighbor v/omen looked at me with tear-filled 
 eyes and said plainly enough: "What does 
 all this mean ?" I guessed at some things, but 
 said nothing; for I could see only the outside. 
 Then I caught her in my arms and laid her 
 
 130 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 on the bed, where she became quiet, with a 
 smile on her face, as with upturned gaze, she 
 seemed to be looking far away at beautiful 
 things. Next morning she said: "Brother, 
 you were all surprised at my conduct yesterday 
 when we came out of Henry's room. Well, 
 when we left his bedside, I could think of 
 nothing but good-bye forever. All was shut 
 up — black as midnight. This is the last save 
 sad memory and buried hope. But just as 
 we passed out of the room, there came back to 
 me all in a moment, like a burst of light, the 
 great truths he and I had so often talked of 
 and loved so much — that death was not the 
 end, that heaven and eternity were just on the 
 other side. And I believed it all and blessed 
 God for it." And she was ready to go to 
 shouting again. It was all plain enough now, 
 and we felt the joy of it. We buried the good 
 man there in the good old town of Abingdon, 
 among his friends, to await the trumpet that 
 shall call the sleepers in Jesus. His wife 
 joined him many years ago, going up with a 
 shout. Mother died that way too — O so long 
 ago! Dr. Daniel Trigg, the family physician, 
 went out on the street, and to inquiring friends 
 said that Cardwell was dead. And when he 
 
 131 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 had told them of the deathbed scene, he added: 
 "Friends, when I die I want to die Cardwell's 
 way." And I have been saying, "Amen; me 
 too," ever since. 
 
 And now, Mr. Editor and kind reader, this 
 short chapter is to comply in part with the 
 promise made sometime ago to continue the 
 "Recollections of An Old Man." So I will, 
 as the good Lord shall give me strength and 
 guide my unskilled hand. I have written too 
 little and talked too much in my time. Indeed, 
 I think people talk too much; most men do, and 
 some women. 
 
 I am charmed as we follow Dr. Richardson 
 toward "sunset" with his war experience and 
 things that happened this side of it — aye, this 
 side of it! He and Price had a good time, I'll 
 warrant, in that Mills River country among 
 the Tarheels. There are no better people 
 known to me. Richardson got a good deal out 
 of that country in the love and friendship of 
 the people; but Price got more; he got his wife 
 there at Asheville, the sister of Genl. Bob and 
 Hon. Zeb Vance. That makes me think of 
 something. It was when he and I were 
 associated in the faculty of Emory and Henry 
 College. We had been drumming around the 
 
 132 
 
■»■>■) S3 --,-,- 
 
 F. RICHARDSON D. SULLINS R N. PRICE 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 land for, say, two weeks together, when we 
 stopped for dinner one day; and while the 
 dinner was being prepared, Price said: "I 
 must write to my wife." When he had fin- 
 ished his letter and was ready to back it, he 
 had forgotten his wife's given name, and 
 turned to me with: "What is my wife's 
 given name?" I answered: "You married 
 Ann Vance." "Yes— pshaw — Ann," he said, 
 and so finished the letter. He was perhaps 
 thinking about an editorial for the Holston 
 Methodist (afterwards the Midland), of which 
 he was then editor. Well, I was to see them 
 the other day; and the old people are as cozy 
 as cats in the corner, having light at evening 
 time. And Richardson is their beloved pastor. 
 Think of that! Dick and Frank together at 
 Morristown, and Dave here at Cleveland, 
 thinking and writing about them. Well, 
 boys, we have worked in this field together 
 nearly sixty years. It must be getting late, 
 and nearly all our fellows have quit and gone 
 home. Only another row or two at most to 
 hoe. The whip-poor-will has begun his even- 
 ing song up in the shaded hollow; and mother 
 is coming down the hill to the well for milk and 
 butter for supper, singing: "O heaven, sweet 
 heaven, I long for thee!" Let's hurry up a little. 
 
 133 
 
XVI 
 
 MY THIRD APPOINTMENT 
 
 ONFERENCE met this year 
 (1853) at Wytheville, Va., 
 Bishop Paine in the chair and 
 W. C. Graves, secretary. When 
 my name was called in the ex- 
 amination of character, my presiding elder, 
 T. K. Catlett, rose and said in substance: 
 "There is a report abroad that he has 
 broken a marriage engagement, to his dis- 
 credit." That put a stop to the passage of 
 my character, and almost frightened me out 
 of breath. But my friends asked for a com- 
 mittee of investigation. And I learned that a 
 brother-in-law of the young lady went before 
 the committee in her name and exonerated me. 
 The committee so reported. I was never 
 called before the committee. My character 
 passed. And immediately the committee of 
 public worship announced that I would preach 
 at 3 p. m. This I did to a full house, 
 many of whom, no doubt, were curious 
 to see the young preacher who had a reputa- 
 
 134 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 tion for fondness for the ladies. Well, I was 
 humble and grateful and "had liberty;" and! 
 the dear old mothers helped the boy preach* 
 with many an "Amen" and "Glory to God." 
 We had a good time, and the congregation 
 took me fully into their confidence by an all- 
 round hand-shaking. And the Bishop and 
 the cabinet seemed to agree with the people, 
 for I was appointed to the presidency of 
 Strawberry Plains College, 1853-54. Another 
 clap of thunder in a clear sky! A word 
 about this school for the information of the 
 young people and to preserve historical fact 
 concerning our educational work in Holston. 
 Emory and Henry had been founded some 
 fifteen years before in the Virginia part of 
 our territory; and the old school at New 
 Market, under the presidency of Rev. Allen 
 H. Matthews, had gone down. So we had 
 no school in the southern part of our field, 
 where one was much needed. Rev. Thomas 
 Stringfield, one of our oldest and wisest 
 leaders, lived at the Plains and owned a. 
 fine farm on the banks of the Holston River 
 where the town of Straw Plains now stands. 
 Mr. Stringfield donated some sixteen acres, 
 on which was a grove of trees, for school 
 
 135 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 purposes. Here were built some fairly good 
 houses on the hill just east of where the town 
 is situated, and for several years a school was 
 conducted there under the name of Strawberry 
 Plains College. Our now sainted James S. 
 Kennedy, who had just graduated from Emory 
 and Henry, was head master here for several 
 years. And it was during these years that he 
 courted and married Miss Stringfield, who 
 became the mother of a large family of superior 
 sons and daughters. Among them our hon- 
 ored missionary J. L. Kennedy, of Brazil. 
 Brother Kennedy had left the school at the 
 Plains, having accepted a professorship in the 
 faculty of Randolph and Macon in Virginia. 
 Mr. Stringfield was now an old man and no 
 longer able to give the school much attention, 
 and his family, which had been the strength of 
 the enterprise, were grown up and gone, save 
 Miss Mary (now Mrs. Ray, of Asheville, N. 
 C.) and James, then away at college, who 
 afterwards became a member of our Con- 
 ference and much beloved by his brethren, a 
 young man of great promise, but died young. 
 Mrs. Butler, editor of the Woman s Advocate, 
 another daughter, was then in Knoxville with 
 her husband, a merchant. And Maj. William, 
 
 136 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 another son, was, perhaps at Waynesville, N. 
 C. The friends of the college were scattered, 
 the school run down, the buildings out of 
 repair and grounds neglected; so Mr. String- 
 field asked and secured my appointment to it, 
 hoping that something could be done to revive 
 its fortunes. I went there after Conference, 
 and finding matters as stated above, concluded 
 that it was a hopeless job without money to 
 make repairs, etc. I went back to Jonesboro. 
 The buildings at Strawberry Plains were all 
 burned during the war, I believe. And there 
 is no trace of them left. Let me add another 
 word about our Holston schools. Soon after 
 the founding of Emory and Henry College, Rev 
 John H. Brunner (now Dr.) began his wonder- 
 working at Hiwassee College, which has 
 weathered the storm of half a century and still 
 flourishes. Success to Rev. Dr. Eugene Blake, 
 who now has charge of it. It has a worthy his- 
 tory and is now, as I believe, one of the best 
 schools for our young people in all our Holston 
 country; is better equipped for thorough work 
 to-day than ever before, in buildings and 
 outfit. It is co-educational. Write to Rev. 
 Dr. Eugene Blake for information, Hiwassee 
 College, Tenn. 
 
 137 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 I still held the position of associate principal 
 in the college with Rev. R. P. Wells, of the Pres- 
 byterian Church. He and I found the double 
 work of pastor and teacher very heavy. 
 And so, by way of a little relief, we agreed that 
 he should bring his congregation to my church 
 on alternate Sunday nights and preach to both 
 congregations, and I go alternate Sunday 
 nights to his church with my people and 
 preach. In this way we had an off night 
 every other Sunday night. But his health 
 soon failed, and he gave up the work. 
 This greatly increased my work and responsi- 
 bility. But I was young and strong physically, 
 having developed bone and muscle on the 
 farm until I was eighteen years old. And I 
 have reason to this day, in my eighty-first year, 
 to thank God for a strong and healthy body. 
 So I shouldered the labors and cares of church 
 and school. And I am glad I did, for as I now 
 look back over the fifty-four intervening years 
 to those days and note results, I gravely doubt 
 if I have done five years of better work in 
 all my life. True, the board of management 
 of the school gave me superior assistants as 
 teachers, and the whole town was in sympathy 
 with the school. But that which now strikes 
 
 ij8 
 
Seventy Years in T)ixie 
 
 me as most noteworthy during those years 
 was the superior character of the girls and 
 young women who attended school. No faculty 
 ever had better material out of which to 
 develop charming womanhood. Bear with 
 me and note I am not bragging on myself, 
 but on my pupils. The very best men of the 
 land sought them for wives. Let me mention 
 a few of them and the sensible men who 
 married them: Virginia Blair, wife of Rev. 
 Dr. W. E. Munsey; Eva Dulaney, wife of Rev. 
 Dr. John Bachman, Chattanooga, Tenn. ; Sallie 
 Cunningham, wife of Rev. Nathan Bachman, 
 Sweetwater, Tenn.; Jodie Burts, wife of Rev. 
 W. H. Bates, of Holston Conference for 
 twenty-nine years; Nannie Ripley, wife of Rev. 
 J. N. S. Huffaker, twenty years a member of 
 Holston; Eva Snapp, wife of Rev. A. A. Blair, 
 sometime professor in Tennessee University; 
 Sopha Hoss, wife of Rev. Dr. J. D. French, 
 of Holston Conference, and Dora Hoss, wife of 
 Judge S. J. Kirkpatrick, Johnson City, Tenn. 
 (sisters of the Bishop); Irene Blair, wife of 
 John E. Naff, of Holston; Ann Mary Deade- 
 rick, wife of the late W. T. Van Dyke, Esq., 
 of Chattanooga; Laura Mitchell, wife of 
 Judge J. F. J. Lewis, of Knoxville; Kitty 
 
 139 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Wilds, wife of the late Judge A. J. Brown, 
 Greeneville, Tenn. ; Ella Luckey, wife of the 
 late Judge Jesse Gaut, of Cleveland, Tenn.; 
 Issadore Deaderick, wife of Hon. J. A. Moon, 
 Chattanooga, Tenn. (M. C); Sallie Luckey, 
 wife of the late Colonel Moore, of Dalton, 
 Ga.; Sallie Foster, wife of Rev. Samuel Rhea, 
 missionary to India; Eva Burts, wife of the late 
 Hon. Felix Ernest, Johnson City, Tenn.; 
 Mollie Dulaney, wife of M. M. Butler, M. D., 
 
 Bristol, Tenn.; Dulaney, wife of Judge 
 
 C. J. St. John, Bristol, Tenn.; Ann Rebecca 
 Blair, wife of D. Sullins, of Holston Conference 
 for fifty-seven years; and others whose names 
 do not occur to me at this writing, now after the 
 lapse of fifty-four years. In addition to these, 
 there are half a score and more wives of the 
 most influential and successful merchants and 
 farmers in the State. These men and their 
 wives have had much to do in the shaping of 
 public sentiment in the State; and especially 
 in the religious life of this land for the last 
 fifty years. Look over the list and say if I may 
 not be a little proud of having had some humble 
 part in the education of such a class of wives 
 and mothers. This was my first four years as 
 a teacher. Am I become a fool for boasting ? 
 
 140 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 Well, Paul says he was once. But there is a 
 difference between Paul and me in this case, 
 as in many others. He was provoked to it — 
 I tempted. I hope the good women whose 
 names I have used above will pardon the 
 liberty I have taken. 
 
 141 
 
XVII 
 
 REVIVAL IN SCHOOL 
 
 URING this year (1854) we had 
 a rather peculiar revival of 
 religion, which was largely con- 
 fined to the school. I say 
 peculiar, and so it was in its 
 origin and progress and otherwise. Read on 
 and see. After school closed one Indian 
 summer evening, we all came down from 
 the hill on which the school buildings 
 stood, the young ladies and smaller children 
 (say a hundred and fifty) chatting and laugh- 
 ing as usual, a happy group, I bringing up the 
 rear. I remember, as I looked over the long 
 line moving down the sidewalk, there came 
 suddenly and strangely a most tender solici- 
 tude for the salvation of the playful rompers. 
 Some of them were Christians, I knew; but 
 many were not. But why there should come 
 just at that moment such a sense — a burdening 
 sense — of responsibility and obligation upon 
 me touching those young souls, I could not tell. 
 I have always felt a strong desire for the salva- 
 
 142 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 tion of my pupils, and prayed and planned for 
 it; but here was something deeper and more 
 solemn, authoritative, and seemed to say: 
 "Now is the time." And with this there came 
 what amounted to an assurance that if I 
 would go right forward and hold a meeting 
 the Lord would graciously sanction and bless 
 the services. There was no special religious 
 interest in the town, and I had not thought of 
 such a meeting at that time; and yet this 
 impression was so definite and strong that, 
 without once thinking of what might be 
 necessary for the success of such a meeting, 
 or of the numerous difficulties in the way, 
 I determined to make the appointment. 
 
 Now, this all took place while I was walking 
 a hundred yards, perhaps. And so, going on 
 down the street, I met two or three of my most 
 active and helpful members; but I did not con- 
 sult them as to whether we would have the meet- 
 ing; that was settled. I simply told them there 
 would be services in our church to-morrow 
 night — come praying and trusting. I made the 
 announcement to the school next day, after a 
 few words of exhortation to the children, 
 and invited them and the teachers to be present. 
 The fight was now on, the responsibility as- 
 
 H3 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 sumed. Mr. Wells, pastor of the Presby- 
 terian Church, was away from home. I had 
 no ministerial help, and not much lay help. 
 True, there was Uncle Jimmy Dillworth 
 (about first cousin to Dillworth's spelling 
 book, that was), the superintendent of the 
 Sunday-school and the class leader, and a 
 good right arm for any preacher. We had no 
 organ, large or small (an organ would have 
 frightened my people then), no choir and no 
 leader of singing, no song book but our 
 regular hymn book, and no preacher but me; 
 and I (a poor three-year-old) had been pastor 
 for a year, and had preached about all I knew 
 and perhaps a little more, and had the school 
 on my hands. A poor prospect, humanly 
 speaking; and from the standpoint of to-day, 
 should a pastor call his stewards to consider 
 the question of a protracted meeting under 
 such conditions, I think some would say: 
 "Brethren, I don't think this the time; let us 
 postpone till better weather and moonlight 
 nights." In those days we did not have so 
 many helpful external things to look to, so 
 we looked almost entirely to the great promise, 
 "Not by might, but by my Spirit," and God 
 did the work. Brothers, our God has not 
 
 144 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 yet lost the fine art of doing great things with 
 little instruments. One might preach a word 
 just here; but I am writing recollections, and 
 so I go on. Well, the appointment got abroad 
 in town, and when the time came for services 
 I found the church well filled. This did not 
 surprise me, for I thought it would be — why, I 
 don't know. The official and working mem- 
 bers of both congregations were present, and 
 the young people were there, thoughtful and 
 reverent. I did the little preaching; and by 
 way of giving the keynote to the meeting, 
 I sang a solo just before taking my text — 
 a not uncommon thing for a preacher then, 
 but much out of vogue jiow. The song was 
 not in the book, so the people had only ta 
 listen; and I sang: 
 
 "Brethren, we have met to worship 
 
 And adore the Lord our God. 
 Will you pray with all your power 
 
 While we try to preach the word ? 
 Brethren, see poor sinners round you 
 
 Trembling on the brink of woe, 
 Far from God and unconverted ; 
 
 Can you bear to let them go ? 
 Sisters, will you join and help us ? 
 
 Moses' sister aided him ; 
 Will you seek the trembling mourners 
 
 Who are laboring hard with sin ? 
 Tell them all about the Saviour, 
 
 145 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Tell them that he will be found; 
 Sisters, go exhort the mourners, 
 Speak the word to all around." 
 
 This I sang, and more. And I did not 
 mouth the words, nor sacrifice the sense and 
 sentiment of the song for the sake of a half 
 tone or crescendo in the melody. The people 
 knew what was said. And when I sang, 
 "Sisters, will you join and help us ?" I could 
 almost see the "Yes, we will" in their up- 
 turned faces, and it helped me. The meeting 
 moved right off at a good gait. Conversions 
 occurred in the church, in the homes, in the 
 school, at recess, and under the trees on the 
 campus. I preached at night, and taught 
 during the day. We did not suspend the 
 school. A word here: I am persuaded from 
 experience that it is a mistake to suspend a 
 school when the Lord sends a revival into it. 
 Two duties can never conflict. Let the pupils 
 know that it is religious to do their daily work; 
 religion and duty are one. It may be well 
 to modify the daily requirements some, but 
 don't pull the bridle off the colts; they may 
 caper beyond the fence, and "Satan will find 
 mischief for idle hands to do." Let him that 
 hath ears to hear listen. 
 
 146 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 I gave myself no concern as to when the 
 meeting should close. It was the Lord's 
 meeting. He had begun it; and I, with cheer- 
 ful submission, left it with Him to close it. 
 It continued for some ten days; and when the 
 time came to close it, I did so, satisfied that it 
 was according to His will. The closing night 
 was full of interest. After a genuine song 
 service and some few words of exhortation, I 
 opened the door of the Church (the first time 
 during the services), and in doing so said in 
 substance: "Those who want to join the 
 Methodist Church, come and take your places 
 here on these front seats to my left.^ Sixteen 
 came, nearly all grown young ladies. Then 
 I said: "I know that many of you who have 
 started the new life are members of Presby- 
 terian families and ought to go into the church 
 with your parents. But Brother Wells is not 
 here, and I want such of you as will go into 
 the Presbyterian Church at the first opportu- 
 nity to come to these seats at my right. I will 
 take your names and report them to him 
 when he gets home." And eight came. And 
 so it was done. That was the first time I 
 ever opened the door of the Presbyterian 
 
 147 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Church. The next time was when I broke 
 into it and got my wife out a year later. 
 
 Now, that was my peculiar revival. Does 
 some reader say: "I don't understand that 
 sort of a meeting. Can you explain it ?" I 
 don't have to, thank God! It is like prophecy 
 — interpreted by results. Let any man who 
 has known East Tennessee for the last fifty 
 years take the list of names of wives given in 
 the last chapter, most of whom were converted 
 in this revival, and note how much of the best 
 found in the Church and State is justly as- 
 cribed to them and their families, and he will 
 have an explanation that ought to be satis- 
 factory. Here's my guess: The Head of the 
 Church knew (yes, I believe in the fore- 
 knowledge of God) that these preachers and 
 judges and lawyers and doctors and merchants 
 and farmers would marry these women and 
 largely direct the affairs of Church and State; 
 and that it T was very necessary that these 
 girls should be converted, seeing that, like 
 their royal sister of Shushan, they had "come 
 to the kingdom for such a time" — aye, such 
 a time. And so he used this strange revival 
 to that end. And I thank Him for using me 
 in an humble way for such a service. 
 
 148 
 

 XVIII 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 FTER a pastorate of two years 
 at Jonesboro (1852-53 and 
 1853-54), the Conference con- 
 tinued to return me to the 
 school till the year 1857. Dur- 
 ing these years we had for our pastors T. J. 
 Pope, Coleman Campbell, and J. N. S. 
 Huffaker. Brother Pope did not fill out his 
 time, and so I supplied the work in part. 
 Coleman Campbell was a superior preach- 
 er, but had suffered with some paralysis 
 of the muscles of the face. He was a sweet- 
 spirited and charming companion. I used 
 to sit behind him in the pulpit and listen and 
 wonder at the grace and force of his utterances. 
 He used a large red bandanna handkerchief, 
 and occasionally flourished it about while 
 preaching. Well, I was sitting behind him 
 one day, and Campbell had put his red ban- 
 danna in his pocket, leaving one corner of it 
 hanging out. Just then a piece of mischief 
 crept into my head, and I had as well tell it, 
 
 149 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 or Bishop Hoss will tell it on me. My hand- 
 kerchiefs were linen. I had not been married 
 long, and my wife kept mine with hers; so 
 when she gave me one, it filled the air with a 
 delightful perfume. All right. I slipped 
 Coleman's out of his pocket, and put mine in 
 its place. Soon he had occasion to use his, 
 and, as he thought, got it out and flourished 
 it before his face. He hesitated a moment, 
 looked at it, and passed it under his nose; 
 and it would have "made a dog laugh" 
 to see his face. Of course I was looking out 
 of the window just then. Campbell turned 
 half around to see me, and then rallied and 
 went on. Hoss was a wide-awake boy in the 
 congregation, and a piece of that sort of 
 mischief by a preacher in church was not al- 
 lowed to pass unnoticed or be forgotten. 
 
 In 1855 (May 3) I was married to Ann 
 Rebecca Blair, youngest daughter of Hon. 
 John Blair, who for some twelve years repre- 
 sented his district (the First) in Congress. 
 My brother, Timothy, officiated. The Blair 
 family was a large one. There were three 
 brothers of the old stock — William K., John, 
 and Robert. All came from Pennsylvania, 
 were Presbyterians, and had large families. 
 
 1 5° 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 So I was in a nest of bluestockings and akin 
 to nearly everybody in the community. Wife 
 and I had a home with her father for two 
 years after marriage. The Conference had so 
 readily consented to my appointment to the 
 school for so many years that all seemed to 
 think of nothing else but my return for another 
 year. We began to think of having a home of 
 our own in Jonesboro, maybe, for years. 
 Mr. Blair gave my wife a nice house and lot 
 adjoining his. We went to work, busy as a 
 pair of birds preparing a nest. We repainted 
 and papered, got carpets, furnished kitchen, 
 dining room, parlor, and bedrooms, bought a 
 cow, and filled the pantry. This was in the 
 fall of 1857, just before Conference at Marion. 
 Mr. Blair suggested that we should not make 
 a fire in the cooking stove, but leave all clean 
 and new for our use when we should return 
 from Conference. And so we did. The 
 school was flourishing. It had about one 
 hundred and seventy-five pupils, and the 
 Board had made the usual application to the 
 Conference for my return. Everything was 
 lovely. Our firstborn was six months old. 
 So we went to Conference in fine spirits, and 
 could hardly wait to go into our new home 
 
 IS 1 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 and go to keeping house by ourselves, like 
 other folks. Well, to get over a boggy place 
 as quickly as possible, let me take a running 
 start and jump and tell you at once: We 
 did not get back to live in our house, and 
 it was sixteen years before we ever had 
 another. We were read out to go to Chat- 
 tanooga, and our appointment almost came 
 last in the list. Wife and I sat together, 
 and she took my arm and we moved right 
 out of the house and started to our home; 
 neither spoke, as far as I know. We had 
 not walked perhaps twenty steps from the 
 church door when I felt some one touch 
 me on the back, and, turning, to my sur- 
 prise found it was Bishop Early, who said 
 hurriedly: "Brother Sullins, you will go?" 
 I answered without a moment's hesitation and 
 emphatically: "Certainly, Bishop, I will go." 
 He said no more, but "God bless you." Ten 
 thousand things rushed through my mind and 
 heart — thoughts flying to all points of the 
 compass. A cyclone and tornado and an 
 earthquake had all struck us at the same time. 
 My answer to the Bishop made all clear to 
 my wife. We were going to Chattanooga; 
 that at least was fixed, and it was well. Nothing 
 
 152 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 debatable, we had only to shape all our plans 
 to that end. Fortunately, she and I had talked 
 over the fact of my relations to the Conference 
 before we were married, and it was definitely 
 understood that I should always hold myself 
 ready to do any work as a Methodist preacher 
 the Church might require. I also had the 
 same understanding with the trustees of the 
 school; my staying with them depended on 
 the approval of my Conference. These facts 
 made matters much easier than they otherwise 
 would have been. But what a destruction of 
 plans and cherished hopes, especially for my 
 wife! As far as I now recollect, neither of us 
 ever went into that house or got anything out 
 of it. I told Mr. Blair to take the whole 
 thing, cow and all, and do as he liked with it; 
 we were going to Chattanooga. O, it was so 
 hard on wife! But I owe it to the devotion 
 and fidelity of the true, wifely woman (now in 
 heaven for six years) to say that she never said 
 a word to hinder or delay our movements, 
 nor did she allow others to do so. 
 
 Everything was put on the run to get us off, 
 and in less than ten days we were ready to 
 say good-bye. Conference met that year on 
 October 22. It was now the middle of 
 
 153 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 November. We took the train, and ran to 
 Limestone, eleven miles. Limestone was then 
 the terminus of the road going west. There 
 was no railroad from there to Bull's Gap, 
 the terminus going east. This left a gap of 
 some forty miles. Fortunately for us, my 
 wife's oldest brother, William P. Blair, was 
 running a hack line over this gap. So, 
 when we got to Limestone, we took a hack 
 and went a mile or two to Mr. Miller's, where 
 we spent the night. Next morning, to our 
 surprise and great regret, the snow was five 
 or six inches deep. Nothing daunted us; 
 we bundled up and struck out. By supper, at 
 dark, we got to Blue Springs (now Mosheim). 
 This left us about fourteen or fifteen miles 
 of mud and slush to Bull's Gap. The night 
 was dark and cold. We got to the Gap at one 
 that night. There was no hotel, just a little 
 shack by the roadside. We ran in, but found 
 no room empty. So we got some mattresses 
 and made beds on the floor before the fire. 
 The train was to leave next morning a little 
 before daylight. This was Friday night; 
 and we must get to Chattanooga next day 
 to meet my first appointment on Sunday, and 
 we could not afford to miss that morning train. 
 
 154 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 A little uneasy sleep, fearing croup in the 
 baby, and then up and off at daylight for 
 Chattanooga. It was a new road, and the 
 train went at a dog trot and stopped every- 
 where. We got to Chattanooga at night, and 
 found the snow all gone. The train stopped 
 in the woods at the Crutchfield (now Read) 
 House. There were then, perhaps, not a dozen 
 houses from the Read to the foot of Missionary 
 Ridge. We had neither of us ever been to 
 Chattanooga. It was a rambling little town 
 of possibly less than two thousand inhabitants. 
 Indeed, it had but lately donned its big Indian 
 name, Chattanooga (Potato House), and begun 
 to put on town ways. It had been known as 
 "Ross' Landing." Here Jack Ross, the Cher- 
 okee chief, lived, where Rossville is; and here 
 supplies of all sorts came down the river to 
 this landing. Salt from King's Salt Works, 
 Saltville, Va., on the head of Clinch River, 
 found a good market here. We called it 
 King's salt to distinguish it from a coarser 
 salt we called Goose Creek, which came from 
 Goose Creek, Ky. Here the good Indians and 
 the mean white men, who were always poking 
 themselves in among them, got their supplies 
 in the thirties and before. 
 
 155 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Well, it was Saturday night when we arrived. 
 We knew but two families in the town. Mrs. 
 John W. White was a cousin of Mrs. Sullins; 
 Tom Crutchfield, proprietor of the hotel, and 
 his wife, Amanda King, were old friends of 
 mine. We were all brought up in McMinn 
 County. Tom and I read Caesar together 
 under Pat. Samuel at Forrest Hill Academy, 
 and hunted rabbits at recess. We went im- 
 mediately to his hotel, and here we were cor- 
 dially received and comfortably quartered. 
 Very tired and almost sick, wife and the baby 
 were soon asleep, while I tried to get myself 
 together and think of what I should say to 
 the people to-morrow. This was almost the 
 first really quiet hour I had had since we re- 
 ceived our appointment. Those three weeks 
 had been filled with turmoil for head, heart, 
 and hand. The appointment had distressed 
 me. There was little prospect of success in 
 the new railroad town. But I had promised 
 the Lord when I was but fifteen years old that 
 if He would give me peace of mind and grace 
 to do so, I would be a preacher. And that 
 meant be a traveling Methodist preacher; 
 I never thought of anything else. I now felt 
 like I was in the line and no mistake. I had a 
 good case of it well developed. So I said, 
 "Lord, help me;" and He did. More anon. 
 
 i 5 6 
 
XIX 
 TEAR AT CHATTANOOGA. 
 
 HE last chapter brought us to 
 Chattanooga Saturday night. 
 Sunday morning found us in 
 the Crutchfield House, strang- 
 ers, looking about and inquir- 
 ing for the location of the Methodist church 
 and time for Sunday-school, etc. We found 
 the church up on what is called High 
 Street, I believe — where the colored folks 
 now have a large brick church. I went to 
 Sunday-school and found the house to be a 
 small wooden structure, with a pepper-box 
 looking affair on the top. The bell was a 
 spice mortar which was kept in the wood- 
 house. This the sexton pounded with his pestle 
 to call us to worship. Mr. P. McMillin was 
 superintendent and class leader. He gave 
 us a cordial welcome, and answered my many 
 questions concerning the work, which he seem- 
 ed to have both on his head and heart. A 
 genuine right-hand man for the new preacher; 
 knew how to be helpful with wise counsel and 
 
 157 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 sympathy. His earnest Christian wife was 
 the daughter of Robert Cravens and niece of 
 the late Dr. G. E. Cunnyngham. This ex- 
 cellent family came right up to us and put 
 sunshine into that first Sunday and became 
 our stand-bys throughout the year. What 
 a treasure such a family is for the preacher! 
 Lord, send us such laymen in all our Churches! 
 At the eleven o'clock hour there was a fair 
 congregation present. Among them were the 
 Cravens, the Ragsdales (William and Baxter), 
 the McMillins (P. and D. C), the Hodges, 
 the Van Epps, the Parhams, the Crutchfields, 
 the Lyles, and others, who came at the close 
 of the services and gave us a welcoming hand- 
 shake, which made us feel like we had a peo- 
 ple. The stewards had a meeting Monday, 
 and secured board for us with John W. 
 White, Esq., at forty dollars per month. Mrs. 
 White was cousin to Mrs. Sullins. They 
 had grown up together at Jonesboro. Never 
 mind about our salary; I really do not remem- 
 ber. In fact, I do not believe the question of 
 our support was discussed or mentioned. 
 We had no assessment plan in those days. 
 The old Methodist rule was about this: The 
 people needed a preacher; the Church sent 
 
 158 
 
Seventy Years in T)ixie 
 
 them one: they were expected to take care of 
 him, and he was expected to take what the 
 people furnished him. If this fell short of 
 meeting his needs, he was to look for the 
 deficit when he got to heaven; it was never 
 made up here. The disciplinary rule of one 
 hundred dollars for a single man and two 
 hundred dollars for a married one was about 
 obsolete. With this sort of tacit under- 
 standing — of get what you can and live on it — 
 we went to work. 
 
 Rev. E. F. Sevier was presiding elder and 
 lived in the town. Perhaps Holston never 
 had a more cultured, charming, scholarly 
 preacher. His clearness in statements of 
 doctrine and lawyer-like probing into and 
 treatment of his text were more intellectual 
 than emotional, but always instructive and 
 pleasing. His rhetoric was almost faultless, 
 and his delivery captivating. He was princely 
 in person — straight and dignified, with traces 
 of his ancestral Huguenot blood, and as polite 
 as a Frenchman. He was akin to Nollichucky 
 Jack, the gallant leader of many an Indian 
 fight, and no whit his inferior. Our good 
 Bishop Hoss is a younger member of that old 
 game stock. 
 
 159 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 The health of Mrs. White failed, and we 
 had to look for new quarters. About this 
 time Tom Crutchfield sent me word (no 
 telephones then) to come and go squirrel 
 hunting with him. This I gladly did. It 
 seemed like old times, when we were boys 
 together. When we were ready to start, 
 he suggested that we go to Missionary Ridge 
 for fox squirrels, and we did so. That day 
 I killed on the top of the Ridge, a little 
 west of the tunnel, at Sherman Heights, 
 the last fox squirrel I ever saw in the woods. 
 On our way home, the hunt over, five or six 
 nice, fat fellows bagged and in the bottom of 
 the buggy, I began to think of home and work. 
 And by way of getting his help to find a board- 
 ing house, I told him that Mrs. White was in 
 feeble health and we had to move, and asked 
 him if he could tell us where we could find 
 a suitable home. He thought a moment, 
 and then said: "Come to the hotel. We will 
 let you have a nice suite of rooms, and you 
 can use the parlor to meet your friends." 
 I answered: "That would be delightful, 
 but the stewards will not pay but forty dollars 
 per month for our board — wife, nurse, baby, 
 and myself — and that is far below the price 
 
 1 60 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 you get for such board." He simply replied: 
 "I will take you at forty per month; come on." 
 That was Tom's big-hearted way of doing 
 generous things. When we got to the hotel, 
 we told his wife about it. She was pleased 
 and said: "Tell Mrs. Sullins to come at 
 once; her rooms will be ready." This we did, 
 and occupied a suite of delightful rooms. 
 The two ladies were much together, and Mrs. 
 Crutchfield often drove wife to return calls 
 and make special visits to the poor and sick. 
 This helped them both religiously, as well 
 as socially and physically. We were very 
 comfortable; but the year was getting away, 
 and there had been no revival, though there 
 were many sinners around. This troubled us. 
 I have always felt that something is wrong 
 when any people with a pastor and an organ- 
 ized church at his back can spend a whole year 
 and no revival, no souls saved. I think so 
 now. Well, there were three regular pastors 
 in town — Mr. Bradshaw (Presbyterian), Mr. 
 Templeton (Cumberland), and myself. There 
 were some good Baptists and a few Episco- 
 palians, but they had no pastors. So we three 
 got together and agreed to conduct a union ser- 
 vice. We were to spend a week in each of our 
 
 161 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 churches, beginning with Bradshaw's. This 
 we thought would end the meeting; but it 
 was a glorious mistake; for the "Lord was in 
 that place" and had large things for us. We 
 began in Bradshaw's church, which stood on 
 the east side of Market Street, between Seventh 
 and Eighth — the site long since occupied by 
 large commercial houses. We took it time 
 about in preaching, but had no choir or 
 organ. I had to start the tunes mostly and 
 carry on the singing till the spirit moved the 
 people to sing. By Friday night the people 
 filled the house, and many were at the "mourn- 
 er's bench" and several converted. Satur- 
 day we moved to my church. It was the time 
 of my third quarterly meeting. Brother Sevier, 
 the presiding elder, preached in the morning, 
 and Brother Templeton at night — a great day. 
 We were all to have regular services Sunday 
 in our own churches in the morning and come 
 together for the night services, and so we did. 
 And now for another week the Lord shook the 
 town, and sinners cried for mercy and found 
 it. When Saturday came, we moved to 
 Brother Templeton's church. The meeting 
 did not chill going from one church to another. 
 In fact, the whole town was getting religiously 
 
 162 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 hot, and you could carry a revival meeting 
 anywhere about in it. Well, we stayed that 
 week, with glorious results, in Templeton's 
 church. We had now made the round of the 
 churches, as we agreed to do at the beginning; 
 but such was the state of religious sentiment 
 that no one thought of closing the meeting. 
 So we went back to Brother Bradshaw's 
 church, starting on the second round. This, 
 the fourth Sunday night, was marked by 
 wonderful spiritual power. There was an 
 awe-inspiring sense of the divine presence 
 pervading the vast assembly. The church 
 was rallying everywhere with song and prayers 
 and exhortation, and sinners — old, hardened 
 sinners, trembled and fell down before God 
 and cried for mercy. 
 
 The meeting could now "stand alone," 
 as we say — could run without a preacher. 
 The people gathered before the hour of service, 
 not to gossip, but to worship. Brother preach- 
 er, you have been along there. How delight- 
 ful it was as you hurried on to the church to 
 meet a great burst of song a hundred yards 
 before you got there! No one had been re- 
 quested to open or lead the services, and yet 
 the congregation was worshipping, and the 
 
 163 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 great volume of music told you that all were 
 singing; and strong, jubilant voices, unheard 
 before, told you that new converts were among 
 the singers— Saul was among the prophets. 
 We had no collection of songs suited to revival 
 work then as we have now, nor were our 
 churches supplied with hymn books. This 
 was not perhaps wholly evil; for while it was a 
 drawback in one direction, it worked well 
 in another. It will be found true — as I have 
 had occasion again and again to note — that 
 the Spirit uses ten or a dozen out of the great 
 multitude of songs to do service through a 
 revival of weeks, repeating them at every 
 hour. Sometimes just one song takes the 
 lead through a great meeting; it may be an old 
 one fallen out of use for a time. I remember 
 having been called from Emory, Va., twenty- 
 five years ago to assist good Brother B. 
 W. S. Bishop in a revival at Kelley's Chapel. 
 At night the meeting was moving at a fair 
 gait when some one started the old hymn, 
 "When I Can Read my Title Clear/' etc.; 
 and instantly the atmosphere seemed charged 
 with spiritual power, everybody sang, and 
 many wept for joy. I couldn't understand 
 it, and asked later what it meant. "Why, 
 
 164 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 the revival started when we were singing that 
 old song, and we have repeated it at every 
 service since." A great variety of new songs 
 tends to divide the mind of the worshipper 
 rather than promote devotion. Fancy singing 
 is fatal to any revival. Familiarity with the 
 words and tunes is favorable to devout sing- 
 ing; the mind of the singer can then be given 
 to the one thing of "making melody in the 
 heart." Well, by repeating, the people became 
 familiar with some of our best old hymns — ■ 
 words and tunes — and they all sang them again 
 and again with full hearts. I am not quite 
 sure but that this may in a measure account for 
 the fact that we Methodists were called a 
 singing people. (Note the tense of that verb 
 "were.") Our experimental religion filled our 
 hearts with joy and gladness, and our good 
 old hymns gave delightful expression to those 
 happy feelings; and so we sang them lustily 
 and often, book or no book. 
 
 In this way the children and most illiterate, 
 even the negroes, learned these oft-repeated 
 songs and made the welkin ring again in their 
 great meetings. O to hear and feel them as 
 I have heard and felt them in many a revival, 
 and not a book in the assembly! Let's all 
 
 165 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 sing, without the book, to the old tune of 
 Greenfield (now Nettleton) : 
 
 "Come thou Fount of every blessing, 
 Tune my heart to sing thy grace ; 
 
 Streams of mercy, never ceasing, 
 Call for songs of loudest praise." 
 
 1 66 
 
XX 
 GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 E had now reached the fourth 
 Monday in our great meeting. 
 The church was crowded at the 
 morning hour, and souls con- 
 verted. We felt that God had 
 victory; the town was ready 
 the revival had the right of 
 After a little consultation 
 to move up and sweep 
 
 given us the 
 to surrender; 
 way everywhere, 
 we determined 
 the field and demand an unconditional 
 surrender to God's cause. So we requested 
 that every house of business of every kind 
 be closed for the next day, and that the people 
 spend the day worshipping God. This met 
 universal approval. All houses closed, not 
 simply for the usual hour of worship, but shut 
 up, like Sunday, all day long. Many of the 
 business men fasted, did not go to their places 
 of business at all, and spent the day in church 
 mostly. 
 
 An incident will show how sacredly the 
 people observed that day: Uncle Antipas 
 
 167 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Moore, who lived on Missionary Ridge, was 
 in the habit of furnishing beef to the town on 
 Tuesdays. So this morning, as usual, he 
 came in with his beef; but finding no house 
 open and no one on the streets, he drove on 
 down Market Street nearly to the river and 
 turned back, not knowing what it all meant 
 till a friend told him. Then he left for home. 
 A neighbor met him, and inquired: "What is 
 up, Uncle Antipas? ,, "Well/' said the old 
 man, in no very pleasant mood in view of 
 losing his meat, "that town has gone crazy; 
 there is not a house open; nobody will talk 
 to you about business; it's just like Sunday 
 clean down to the river — I drove all the way 
 down. Just as well take your taters back; 
 you can't sell anything to-day." Antipas 
 Moore was the father of the brave Colonel B. 
 F. Moore, of the Nineteenth Tennessee Regi- 
 ment, who fell in the battle of Missionary 
 Ridge fighting around his old home. Well, 
 that Tuesday was a red-letter day in the 
 revival, and has been such in the religious 
 life of Chattanooga for fifty years now. It is 
 marked on some of the old business books 
 of that day in the town: "The Tuesday- 
 Sunday." There were thirty-four conversions 
 
 168 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 that day — many in the church, some in the 
 homes, and some on the streets. Among 
 them was the now sainted Rev. J. L. M. 
 French, who for thirty-two years cultivated 
 many fields in Holston, and then laid down 
 his tools and went home, fifteen years ago. 
 I was by his side with my hand on his head 
 when the Glory broke in. He was a superior 
 preacher, and a sweeter, better pastor no 
 people ever had. He was the father of the 
 Rev. Dr. J. Stewart French, of Atlanta, 
 Ga.— "a chip off the old block." 
 
 We had taken high ground now in the re- 
 vival, and were aggressive. Just at this stage 
 of the meeting there occurred what will be 
 found to be almost universally true; that when- 
 ever any great religious or moral movement 
 comes aggressively into any community, then 
 the devil bestirs himself and rallies all his forces 
 and uses all means and methods to oppose it. 
 And mark you, he always covers his real 
 design under the semblance of some good; 
 never attacks openly or at a strong point. 
 Just as it was when "Jesus was led up into 
 the wilderness/' After his forty days' fast, 
 he was hungry; then to the hungry Man the 
 tempter came, and in the most simple man- 
 
 169 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 ner possible innocently suggested bread, na- 
 ture's remedy for hunger, to which all hungry 
 men have an unquestioned right; you need 
 bread and ought to have bread; it is the di- 
 vinely appointed duty of all men to provide 
 bread for themselves against the days of hunger 
 and so you should, if need be, even "command 
 those stones to be bread. " It was bread, 
 you see, good bread, innocent bread, that 
 never hurts any man, that the tempter kept 
 before the hungry eyes of the hungry Man, 
 purposely concealing all the while the devilish 
 design of leading the Master into a great sin. 
 And, again, as was the case of the adulter- 
 ous woman whom they brought to Jesus, 
 ostensibly desiring him to condemn a great 
 sin, the which he was forward to do; whereas 
 their real object was to get him to pronounce 
 sentence, as a civil officer, against an individual 
 sinner, "that they might have whereof to accuse 
 him." And to encourage him to walk into 
 their net, they quote Scripture: "Now Moses 
 commanded us to stone such. What sayest 
 thou ? Of course you will say so too." One 
 can hardly say, as he reads the story, which 
 moves him most, the calmness of the Man under 
 the cross-fire as he quietly writes in the sand, 
 
 170 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 "as though he did not hear them/' or the 
 villainous craft and hypocrisy of his enemies. 
 The trap was well set, calculated to "deceive 
 the very elect." But Jesus had met the de- 
 ceiver before in their bout in the wilderness, and 
 knew his wily ways. His answer was a bomb- 
 shell among them, "He that is without sin 
 among you, let him first cast a stone at her;" 
 as much as to say: "You want sin con- 
 demned; look at home, and you may find 
 something to do there." This turned their 
 thoughts from their evil purpose of entrapping 
 him to their personal sins. "And being con- 
 victed by their own conscience, they went out 
 one by one." Amen. He who reads his 
 Bible will not fail to see that this designing of 
 evil under the appearance of good is a favorite 
 device of Satan. There is nothing hardly so 
 utterly bad but that something commendable 
 may be found in it. To cry up that good 
 and thereby conceal the evil in any action 
 has the very essence of the enemy's trick in 
 it. See how this works in the great temper- 
 ance movement of to-day, February 14, 1908. 
 Distillers and saloonists, and indeed every- 
 body knows there is great money in the 
 whisky business. The Federal government 
 
 171 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 (Congress) has found that out. And the 
 revenue from the dirty business is the only 
 thing they talk about — money for public 
 schools, corporation expenses, taxes, etc. And, 
 O, the sweet speeches they make for the dear 
 children in Dixie and the dear people who 
 have to pay the taxes, etc.! But never a word 
 about the wretchedness unutterable that does 
 and must follow. To ask for a license is to 
 ask for the privilege to make drunkards in 
 all our homes. But this is kept in the back- 
 ground, never mentioned. There is revenue 
 in it. Old Cloven Foot still at his old tricks. 
 From all such may the good Lord deliver us! 
 It is safe to say that there is not an honest, 
 thoughtful man in any corporation or state 
 who does not know that the cost of crime legiti- 
 mately traceable to alcohol far surpasses the 
 revenue derived from the license system. 
 And this is true, to say nothing of the unutter- 
 able ruin to the individual drinker, soul and 
 body, and to the family in all that makes the 
 home happy, and also to the peace and good 
 order of society. To make drunkards is es- 
 sential to the whisky business. If men do not 
 drink, then the saloon and distillery are out of 
 business. This was announced by one of the 
 
 172 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 speakers in a sort of love feast held by the 
 "State Liquor Dealers" in Ohio. He was 
 speaking on the question, "How to Build Up 
 the Saloon Business/' and said: "The success 
 of our business is dependent largely upon the 
 
 creation of appetite for drink The 
 
 open field for the creation of appetite is among 
 boys. It will be needful, therefore, that we do 
 missionary work among the boys; and I make 
 the suggestion gentlemen, that nickels spent in 
 treating boys now will return in dollars to 
 your tills after the appetite has been formed. 
 Above all things, create appetite." There is 
 the big toe of Cloven Foot. Such a fiendish 
 speech as that ought to drive every saloon and 
 distillery out of the land. May a merciful 
 God save our boys! 
 
 But these are reflections and not recollec- 
 tions. And so I dismiss them to return to our 
 revival, which was sorely threatened by this 
 Satanic trick. See next chapter. 
 
 l 73 
 
XXI 
 
 CHATTANOOGA REVIVAL 
 CONTINUED 
 
 UST at this time, when the meet- 
 ing was moving gloriously, the 
 enemy rallied his forces to 
 break us down. And if you 
 read on, you will see how devil- 
 ish and dangerous was the attack — dangerous 
 because it had all the appearance of being 
 innocent under the well-concealed design of 
 evil, the old Satanic trick. Here is the case: 
 Several judicious friends came to us (the 
 preachers), saying that the meeting was being 
 greatly crippled, and they feared for the re- 
 sults. Two lewd women of the town, had 
 been coming, in the "after services," for two 
 or three nights, and had crowded into the 
 seats designated for penitents, and by their 
 coarse and immodest conduct had disturbed 
 all about them. They, we were told, were 
 notoriously vile, and it was believed that they 
 were the cat's-paw of some bad men of the 
 town to disgrace the meeting by their brazen 
 deviltry. Here was a serious trouble, and to 
 
 174 
 
Seventy Years in T)ixie 
 
 deal effectively with it a delicate matter — 
 it might prove a boomerang. These women 
 were sinners, no doubt of that, and we were 
 telling the people that Jesus died for sin- 
 ners and would save them if they would 
 repent and accept Christ; and these two had, 
 upon our general invitation, come to the seats 
 for instruction and prayer. This was all 
 regular and ostensibly very innocent and 
 right. But there was evidently a "cat in the 
 meal." Their conduct did not comport with 
 the character they assumed; they were not 
 humble and contrite before God, but brazen 
 and impudent. Our best women and men 
 believed they were emissaries of Satan to 
 disgrace our services and ruin the meeting if 
 possible. Well, the foul thing was on our 
 hands and must be dealt with, and the dis- 
 agreeable task fell to me. We all knew that 
 the moment we took hold to correct it the 
 enemies would raise the cry of hypocrisy 
 and say: "Yes, you have a salvation for the 
 rich and well-dressed, but a poor, ruined 
 woman you have nothing but a kick and a 
 curse." Deplorable as this issue would be, 
 it must be met, or the meeting ruined. So 
 that night before we called for mourners I 
 
 175 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 told the audience just what we had heard, 
 and deplored the necessity forced upon us 
 to deal with such a delicate question. These 
 women knew that they had made a great 
 breach between themselves and good society, 
 and that their brazen conduct was hurtful 
 here. And then I said to them: "If you are 
 really penitent, you will not force yourselves in 
 here to the hurt of others, but will humbly go to 
 our good women, who will gladly sympathize 
 with you and instruct you and pray for you." 
 We therefore begged them to take this better 
 way; but assured them that if they persisted 
 in disturbing the exercises as they had been 
 doing we would be compelled to take further 
 steps to correct the evil. 
 
 Well, they did not come that night; but 
 two nights later they were right in the midst of 
 perhaps fifty penitents, with their bold, inso- 
 lent deportment, attracting attention, and in 
 other ways creating confusion. The much 
 dreaded crisis had come — a defiant challenge — 
 and by the grace of God I determined to meet 
 it, let come what might. So I worked my way 
 in among the mourners and took the two 
 women, who were side by side, each by the 
 arm(maybe a little rudely, I don't know), and 
 
 176 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 said: "Come with me." I brought them 
 out into the aisle and took them to the last seat 
 in the house and deposited them. A pretty 
 high-handed move, you say. True, it was 
 drastic treatment; but the case was acute, and 
 required it. And, it worked like a charm — 
 ended the trouble — while the religious senti- 
 ment of the public heartily approved the act, 
 and God carried on his work gloriously. 
 Amen. A word more here. Lest some young 
 preacher, who has no more sense than I had 
 then, may erroneously conclude that this is the 
 right way to manage such a trouble, let me say: 
 If such a thing should come up in a meeting of 
 mine to-day, I would take a different course. 
 I would try this: Get some good, sensible, 
 pious women to take the case off my hands, 
 and go in a body to the poor wretches, and talk 
 and pray with them and beg them to a better 
 course. In nine cases out of ten that will 
 succeed. 
 
 We had not opened the church for members 
 during the five weeks; our work was to get 
 men saved. So when we closed, the announce- 
 ment was made that each of our churches 
 would be opened next Sunday and an oppor- 
 tunity given to join the church. This was 
 
 177 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 done, and I had the pleasure of receiving 
 forty-seven members, seven of them heads of 
 families. Others came later. The other 
 churches shared liberally in the increase of 
 members. A most glorious revival; and, as is 
 always the case, it settled all questions, reared 
 family altars, boomed the Sunday-school, 
 filled the church at every service with devout 
 worshippers, and even made finances easy. 
 A revival is the king cure-all. 
 
 Soon after the close of the meeting wife and I 
 were requested to meet some friends at the 
 home of Col. J. L. M. French, who lived 
 right where the courthouse now stands. This 
 we did, and found the object was, in the name 
 of many friends, to present us a purse con- 
 taining one hundred and eighty dollars. And 
 good Tom Crutchfield almost embarrassed 
 us by bringing the one hundred and twenty 
 dollars which the stewards paid him quarterly 
 for our board and giving it to my wife. I re- 
 fused to take it. Yes I did; you need not 
 shake your head! Conference was coming to 
 Chattanooga that fall (1858), and we were 
 ready for it. 
 
 And now I thought I could begin to see why 
 the Lord had broken up our cherished plans 
 
 178 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 at Jonesboro, and thrust us out, painfully, 
 from home and friends into a hard, unpromis- 
 ing field. It seemed all wrong and "for evil" 
 to us then; but He meant it "for good." 
 And so it turned out. This lesson I learned: 
 That the appointment which demands the 
 greatest amount of self-denial and hard work 
 is often the best in the end. This is Methodist- 
 preacher experience. 
 
 Among the other well remembered things 
 that took place during the year was the com- 
 pletion of the railroad between Limestone and 
 Bull's Gap. The East Tennessee and Georgia 
 road going east and the Virginia and Tennessee 
 going west met at Midway. The last spike 
 was to be driven by the President, Dr. 
 Cunningham, of Jonesboro, on a given day. 
 It was to be a great day; everybody was to 
 be there. The roads made liberal provisions 
 for passengers. This gave a through line to 
 Jonesboro. Mr. Blair, wife's father, who 
 was one of the directors, wrote her to come up 
 on that day and see her old Jonesboro friends 
 and go on home with him. This she did, taking 
 nurse and the baby, who was "getting a big 
 boy then." A great day for her and home 
 folks! This left me alone, but only a day or 
 
 179 
 
, 
 
 Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 two, for my old friend, Robert Cravens, 
 mentioned elsewhere, who lived right under 
 the bluff on the point of Lookout, came down 
 and invited me up to spend the heated season 
 with him. There was no other house on the 
 mountain then. Of course, I went. We 
 walked the near way, and, passing the mouth 
 of Chattanooga Creek, which he owned and 
 where he had a net set for fish, we stopped to 
 get fish for dinner. He raised the net, in 
 which there were perhaps a dozen good fish, 
 and I began to grab for them. He said: "Hold 
 on; get that salmon there; he will be enough for 
 us to carry up the mountain." I managed to 
 capture him, a fine fellow sixteen or eighteen 
 inches long. Then he let the net down again. 
 The fish kept better there than up at the house. 
 I sometimes took my book and climbed up the 
 bluff in the morning to read and make sermons. 
 And you who know the place almost envy me 
 the privilege. Well, it was delightful; but it 
 was the poorest place I ever tried for reading 
 or making sermons. Too many things to look 
 at. That long sweep of river around "Mocca- 
 sin Bend;" the numerous railroads, with their 
 snaky looking trains running in and out around 
 the foot of the mountain; the town huddled up 
 
 180 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 about the foot of Cameron Hill; the mountain 
 stretching for many miles on all sides; the old 
 Cumberland on the north and west, heaved like 
 a troubled sea, stretching far away to the Ken- 
 tucky line; on the south and east the Great 
 Smokies piled up all the way back to the Blue 
 Ridge, with its many spurs, with pretty Indian 
 names, Chilhowie, Unaka, etc., and far in the 
 distance big Nantahalah, in North Carolina, 
 lifting his crest of hemlocks, like Saul, a head 
 and shoulders higher than the rest; just at your 
 feet the noisy crows and lazy buzzard floating 
 slowly as if smelling out some prey, and whip- 
 ping right over your head a cruel hawk, "with 
 his butcher's white apron stained with blood;" 
 the landscape all around covered with farms, 
 and from yonder cottage the blue smoke 
 curling upward, which says, "Dinner is getting 
 here for husband, who is plowing in that field 
 over there ;" and away off yonder a cloud 
 carrying a ship's load of water to the farmer's 
 fields — all this and a thousand other grand 
 and beautiful things invite and feast your eyes, 
 until you look down to the cottage, and Sister 
 Cravens has hung the towel on the railing of 
 the back porch. Dinner is ready, and nothing 
 done on the bluff. But enough of this. 
 
 181 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Now, Mr. Editor, this is a long account of 
 our year at Chattanooga. It reminds me of 
 my boyhood. Mother used to give me a lump 
 of sugar when I was a good boy, which some- 
 times happened. I could have taken it all 
 at one mouthful, but I didn't. I would lick 
 it a little while, and then put it in my pocket a 
 bit, and then take it out and nibble some more; 
 by repeating this process a half dozen times 
 I made it last longer, because it was sweet and 
 I liked the taste of it. And so our good 
 Heavenly Father gave us this delightful year, 
 and I love to linger on the recollections of it; 
 they are a joy forever. And more : that revival 
 in the three churches had much to do in laying 
 the foundation of the greater Chattanooga of 
 to-day. But a sad thought comes up here. 
 Nearly all who took part in that meeting are 
 gone; some of their children and grand- 
 children are still there. My two associates, 
 Brothers Bradshaw and Templeton, have 
 been in heaven many years. I do not know 
 that Bradshaw had any children; but Temple- 
 ton had some little boys, one of whom at least 
 remains — Hon. Jerome Templeton, of Knox- 
 ville, a worthy son of a noble sire. God bless 
 him! 
 
 182 
 
XXII 
 
 TEAR 1858-59 
 
 ONFERENCE met this year 
 (1858) at|Chattanooga. Bishop 
 Andrew presided and J. N. S. 
 Huffaker was secretary. I was 
 Conference host, and do not 
 recollect much about the session save that I 
 was very busy looking after outside matters 
 pertaining to the comfort of the preachers 
 and their wives. Our appointment was to 
 Knoxville. I did not say Church Street; 
 that was not necessary, as we had no other 
 church in the town, except a little mission 
 over about old Methodist Hill. We spent only 
 a part of the year here ; for Martha Washington 
 College wanted an agent to raise money for her, 
 and wanted the Knoxville preacher to do 
 that work. E. C. Wexler was stationed at 
 Abingdon that year. The friends of the 
 college got the presiding elders to exchange 
 the preachers, as they thought I would make 
 a better agent than Wexler. And so it was 
 done. I did some work as agent, raised 
 
 183 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 a few hundred dollars, and preached some in 
 the station. The year's work was so broken 
 up that not much was done at Abingdon. 
 But Knoxville did well. Wexler, who was my 
 Conference classmate, was one of the best men 
 and the very best preacher of his age and 
 opportunities that I have ever heard. Physi- 
 cally he was a rough Dutchman, with a rather 
 robust body which had been developed in his 
 father's blacksmith shop in Sullivan County. 
 He had large hands and feet, which semed to 
 be in his way, and a large head and heart, 
 both baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire. 
 He was a systematic, close student, much given 
 to prayer. A text became luminous as he 
 opened it up and held it before the audience. 
 He was very modest and even timid, which 
 made him awkward often, especially in the 
 society of ladies; but after his first five minutes 
 in the pulpit he was absolutely graceful, 
 and soon glowed like a furnace. Altogether 
 he was more like Bishop Kavanaugh than 
 any other preacher I have known. Dear 
 fellow! When the war drove us out of Ten- 
 nessee, he drifted south into Georgia and I east 
 into Virginia. I never met him again, but I 
 hope to later. 
 
 184 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 In 1859 the Conference met at Abingdon, 
 Bishop Early in the chair and J. N. S. Huff- 
 aker, secretary. Our second son was born 
 just before this Conference, and wife "went 
 not up; for she said unto her husband, I will 
 not go up until the child be weaned, and then I 
 will bring him." This year fell two of our 
 brethren, Thomas Stringfield and Charles 
 Mitchell. Brother Mitchell had been with us 
 only seven years; but Mr. Stringfield belonged 
 to our Methodist history before the organiza- 
 tion of the Holston Conference, in 1824. 
 He belonged to the pioneer days, and while 
 we were yet a part of the Western Confer- 
 ence (1823) ne was tne presiding elder of the 
 Knoxville district. He was the editor of our 
 first Methodist paper, and the promoter of many 
 enterprises for the betterment of the social and 
 religious life of the people. He "commanded 
 his household after him," so that for seventy- 
 five years his children and grandchildren have 
 been prominent in all that builds and betters 
 human life. 
 
 From this Conference we were returned to 
 Knoxville. Here we had a delightful year. 
 The old church stood where our present 
 commodious house now stands. It was old- 
 
 185 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 style in architecture, with a gallery in the back 
 end. Here a few leading singers sat, and 
 George Jackson led them, sometimes using 
 his flute to get the proper pitch. Here was a 
 fine type of substantial Methodists, the ances- 
 tors and exemplars of the present beloved 
 Church Street congregation. Brethren of old 
 Church Street, your fathers were a little more 
 religiously demonstrative than you are. I 
 commend you not for the difference, the loss of 
 that feature of family likeness. 
 
 Among this people were three local preachers? 
 all of whom had been traveling preachers in 
 the Holston Conference — Isaac Lewis, W. G. 
 Brownlow, and C. W. Charlton. Isaac Lewis 
 was feeble from age, but still full of the sweet 
 spirit of the Master and a wise, ready counselor 
 for a young man. Some of his^ children and 
 grandchildren are still there. William G. 
 Brownlow was the editor of Brownlow' s 
 Whig, wide-awake, a great reader of current 
 literature, familiar with the live topics of the 
 day, a Whig in politics, neutral in nothing, 
 a positive man with well-defined ideas, a 
 ready speaker and popular preacher. His 
 widow, well up in years — about ninety, I 
 guess — is still living in the city and in the old 
 
 186 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 home. She is perhaps the only living member 
 who was old enough to take an active part in 
 church work then — a much-honored relic of the 
 sunny days of the fifties. May the peace of 
 God that passes all understanding keep the 
 mind and heart of this dear child of His, 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. C. W. 
 Charlton was much the younger of the three, 
 strong and fearless, always thoughtful, a 
 good preacher and one of the best friends a 
 pastor ever had. 
 
 We had some very gracious meetings during 
 the year, but the most memorable occasion 
 was the camp meeting at old Fountain Head 
 (now Fountain City). This meeting was 
 largely supported and carried on by my people 
 from Knoxville. Here we rallied with some 
 of our country neighbors, and had a glorious 
 season of refreshing from the presence of the 
 Lord. The shed stood inside of the present 
 inclosure, about half way from the car plat- 
 form to the spring at the foot of the hill; 
 the tents occupied the level plat around the 
 shed. Here for many years the people from 
 the town and country around were accustomed 
 annually to gather for their religious feast. 
 How delightful and profitable with all were 
 
 i8 7 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 those weeks of religious and social enjoyment! 
 This was in the fall of 1859, and was the last 
 camp meeting held there; and of those present 
 then many never attended another. The war 
 came, and our camp meetings went with the 
 loss of well nigh all else of material good. 
 As I try to recall the scenes and occurences of 
 that year in Knoxville, my heart grows sad; 
 for the dear men and women who constituted 
 my congregation, only one or two remain. 
 Of the young men just grown up then, I meet 
 some on the streets, gray-haired ; among them 
 are William A. Henderson, John B. Boyd, 
 William Rule, N. S. Woodward, the elder 
 Parham, etc. Of the boys, there are S. B. 
 and J. C. Luttrell, John Brownlow, Sam. 
 Boyd, Sam. Crawford, C. B. Atkins, Leon 
 Jeroulman, James and William Lyons, Henry 
 Ault, and some others, no doubt, not recalled 
 at this writing after the lapse of fifty years. 
 I write only of those who were connected with 
 my Sunday-school and congregation. What 
 a host of well-remembered faces have passed 
 before me as I have written these recollections 
 and have gone up and down the streets as 
 they were then! Knoxville then was on Main 
 and Cumberland Streets. The East Ten- 
 
 188 „ a j 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 nessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad had a 
 little shack of a depot out at the end of Gay. 
 All north Knoxville was good hunting ground 
 for birds and rabbits. I know, for I tried it. 
 
 In i860 the Conference met at Asheville, 
 N. C. Two of our Holston districts were in 
 North Carolina then. Bishop Paine presided, 
 and I was secretary — a business to which I 
 was little suited and for which I had no taste. 
 I had been stationed there nine years before, 
 in the second year of my ministry. How 
 the town had grown in those years! Wife 
 and I had a home with my old friend, Ed 
 Aston, and his good wife, Delia Gilliland. 
 I met Ed some ten years before this as I was on 
 my way, a schoolboy, to Emory and Henry 
 College. I did not travel on Sunday, and 
 stopped off at Rogersville, Tenn., his home, 
 to spend the day. I went to the Methodist 
 Sunday-school; and Ed, seeing a stranger 
 present, came and ferreted me out and asked 
 me to dinner with him. His sister, Mary, 
 presented me a laundry pincushion with a 
 nice little note, which I still have here in a 
 drawer of souvenirs. She afterwards became 
 the wife of our Daniel Carter, of Holston for 
 many years. 
 
 189 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 Well, big-souled Ed Aston was long 
 a controlling factor in affairs of the growing 
 city, and his wife was a jewel worthy to grace 
 the crown of any king. After an absence of 
 eight years, I still found many familiar faces 
 and had many a hearty handshake. The 
 Woodfins, the Rankins, the Reynoldses, the 
 McDowells, the Smiths, the Beards, the 
 Atkinses, the Hilliards, the Sluders, the 
 Robertses, the Johnsons, and the Vances 
 were still here. It was a delightful sojourn 
 among old friends, never to be forgotten. 
 
 Our appointment from this Conference 
 was to the Blountville Circuit. This gave us 
 a pleasing variety and a fine field for work. 
 Here we had a parsonage and for the first 
 time tried our hand at housekeeping. What 
 a satisfaction it was to have our own things, 
 arrange them as we liked, to cook what we 
 wanted and as we wanted it and when ! 
 I shall never forget the first time we tried to 
 make light bread. I brought all the chemistry 
 I knew to the work, and wife what she had learn- 
 ed from Aunt Tildy, the cook at home; and we 
 made the bread. Well, we ate it; but to be 
 frank about it, I had eaten better bread. 
 However, wife never gave it up till she could 
 
 190 
 
Seventy Years in T)ixie 
 
 beat the best Virginia cook making light 
 bread. Mr. James H. Dosser, a friend from 
 Jonesboro, gave me a good horse, saddle, 
 and bridle, which he said I could have for 
 the horse's keep. This set me up for circuit 
 riding. All moved well for a while, but if 
 you will look at the date you will see that we 
 were in the fall of i860 and spring of 1861. 
 By far the greater part of those who may care 
 to read these recollections have no personal 
 knowledge of the stirring times we were in. 
 But, stirring times they were. The dark 
 cloud of war which had been gathering for 
 a quarter of a century now filled all the 
 horizon; and its thunder, which jarred 
 the nation for five dreadful years, could be 
 heard muttering at no great distance. I am 
 writing recollections, and shall say nothing 
 here of the long line of political and social 
 conditions which led up to the painful necessity 
 on the part of the Southern people to either 
 forfeit their own self-respect and the respeet 
 of all true men, or go to war. Those polit- 
 ical and social questions are dead, and so let 
 the dead bury the dead. 
 War recollections next. 
 
 191 
 
XXIII 
 
 DAYS OF SECESSION 
 
 HEN the state voted on seces- 
 sion, I did not vote; but when 
 the majority elected to go out 
 of the Union, I accepted the 
 situation and went with them. 
 There were many strong, good men in East 
 Tennessee who opposed secession and did what 
 they could to prevent it by canvassing the 
 State. Sullivan County, which included the 
 Blountville Circuit, was for J secession by a 
 large majority, and at the first call of the 
 State began to enlist volunteers. These State 
 troops were later transferred to the Con- 
 federacy. Fort Sumter fell about this time. 
 The fight was on, and Southern blood was 
 getting hot. Messrs. Andrew Johnson and 
 T. A. R. Nelson, men of national reputation 
 and very popular — one an old Whig and the 
 other a Democrat — were canvassing the State 
 for "neutrality" — i. e., for Tennessee to take 
 no part in the strife. They had an appoint- 
 ment to speak at Blountville on a certain 
 
 192 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 day. The citizens of the town and country 
 around did not want them to come; so they 
 called a citizens' meeting in the courthouse 
 two days before the speaking was to be, and 
 decided to write the gentlemen not to come, 
 fearing trouble might grow out of it. This 
 was done, and the letter was sent to Union 
 (Bluff City), supposing the speakers would 
 come by rail from Jonesboro and get it. 
 Early on the morning of the day for the speak- 
 ing men began to come in from all around, 
 some with squirrel guns and some with shot 
 guns and a good deal of whisky. It was a 
 crowd that promised trouble. By about nine 
 it was reported that the speakers were not 
 coming by Union, but directly through from 
 Jonesboro by private conveyance, and would 
 not, therefore, get the letter. Here I became 
 connected with the affair. It was apparent 
 that there would be trouble, if the men came on 
 to speak, and that our town would be perhaps 
 disgraced and the speakers, who were my 
 friends, probably abused. All this must be 
 prevented if possible. So I went to Mr. 
 Samuel Rhea, who had been the chairman 
 of the town meeting, and told him my fears. 
 He was with me, and said: "How can we 
 
 193 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 prevent it ?" I asked: "Have you a copy of 
 the letter sent?" "Yes," he replied. Then 
 said I: "Get a copy of it ready while I get 
 my horse, and I will meet the gentlemen with 
 it." And so it was done. The crowd saw 
 me start and knew for what I went, and some 
 of them were impatient with me for going. I 
 met the men some two miles out from the 
 town, both in the same buggy. They read the 
 letter and after a moment said, "We do not 
 want to speak if the people do not want us to," 
 and then added, "But if a majority want us to 
 speak, we think we ought to be allowed to 
 do so without interruption. Can you guaran- 
 tee that ?" I then' told them frankly just how 
 I became connected with the unpleasant affair 
 and of the state of public feeling in town and 
 why I had come to meet them. Mr. Nelson's 
 son, David, and son-in-law, Mr. Samuel 
 Cunningham, both young friends of mine, 
 were with them. After a few words of con- 
 sultation they said: "Take the boys and go 
 on before us and get the wishes of the people 
 and bring us word. We will stop at Sturn's 
 Hotel, at this end of the town; and if the people 
 do not want us to speak, we will go on to Kings- 
 port." The young men and I hurried on; 
 
 194 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 and from the steps of the courthouse I told 
 the crowd, which came running, what the 
 gentlemen said. We took the vote, and only 
 four wanted them to speak. We reported, 
 and the speakers went on to Kingsport. Now, 
 if this matter had ended there, it never would 
 have been written here. But when the war 
 closed, five years after this, and the days of 
 reconstruction came, I was a refugee in 
 Virginia. But I was indicted in the court at 
 Blountville for treason, for heading a mob 
 who kept Andrew Johnson and Thomas 
 Nelson from speaking — the day and date 
 given. And I was kept out of my native 
 State for two years before the hateful thing 
 was dropped from the docket. This is a 
 part of an old man's recollections hard to 
 forget. It shows the condition of society 
 in East Tennessee in those days of reconstruc- 
 tion, so-called — days of relentless hate and 
 bitter cruelty and revenge and robbery, rapine 
 and murder. There were many good men who 
 were Union men in the country, but they were 
 almost powerless to prevent this state of 
 things. They might have done a little better 
 than they did, maybe, if they had tried hard. 
 But let it be written as history that it was not 
 
 195 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 i 
 
 the men who wore the blue and the gray 
 and stood on the firing line in the day of 
 battle who did those dastardly things. No; 
 it was whelps from another kennel, who 
 cowardly came out after the killing was over, 
 with the instincts of a hyena to get what they 
 could out of the offal. I will not particularize 
 the numerous fiendish acts that characterized 
 and disgraced the times. Let them go un- 
 named and be forgotten. 
 
 I must mention an incident that made us 
 all smile when it was related to us. Aunt 
 Betsey Charlton, a dear, good old soul, came 
 to town the morning for the speaking, and was 
 at the parsonage. She was much troubled 
 over the situation, fearing somebody might do 
 wrong or get hurt and mischief befall us all. 
 So she watched the streets; and when the young 
 men and I came into town and went upon the 
 courthouse steps and all the crowd came 
 running, she was greatly excited. She kept 
 her eyes upon us, but could not hear what we 
 said. In taking the vote of the people I re- 
 quested all to squat down and vote by rising. 
 Well, when Aunt Betsey saw them all get down 
 in the street she almost shouted, saying: 
 "It is all right now; Brother Sullins has got 
 
 196 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 them all down at prayers." Prayer was Aunt 
 Betsey's cure for everything. 
 
 After the fall of Fort Sumter the enlisting 
 of volunteers went on more lively. I kept up 
 my appointments, and the enthusiastic enlist- 
 ers would sometimes make their appointments 
 to meet the people at the same time. After 
 preaching they would invite all out into the 
 churchyard, make brief talks, sing patriotic 
 songs, beat an old drum used at the militia 
 musters years before, and call for volunteers. 
 I heard "Dixie" now for the first time. Of 
 course, I caught the spirit and helped to rally. 
 Soon two companies were enrolled and organ- 
 ized. Of one A. L. Gammon was captain 
 and James A. Rhea, Robert L. Blair, and 
 James Charlton, lieutenants. Of the other, 
 James P. Snapp was qaptain; and Charles 
 St. John, George Hull, and John M. Jones, 
 lieutenants. These companies were soon 
 called to Knoxville. And now came the try- 
 ing time. I was asked to go along and preach 
 for and look after the boys. My stewards 
 said they would get the local preachers to take 
 care of the circuit; and wife, having a brother 
 and many friends going, said she would stay 
 with her father if I wanted to go. In fact, 
 
 197 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 she was about the worst rebel among us, 
 and never got over it entirely. The companies 
 marched out of town about noon, wife and I, 
 with the two little boys, following in a buggy. 
 Many friends accompanied us a few miles, 
 then said good-bye and went back. O, 
 the heartache, the tears, the anxiety and 
 prayers of that hour! and how all this would 
 have been intensified many times could we 
 have known the fact, as it turned out, that 
 many of us would never come back! That 
 hour will always be a part of an old man's 
 recollections. We spent that night in Bluff 
 City (Union then). Having no tents, we slept 
 about in the houses and at the depot. Of 
 course our lunch baskets were well filled by 
 loved ones left behind; we had plenty to eat. 
 Next morning all took train for Knoxville. 
 Wife and I stopped with her parents at Jones- 
 boro. Here I remained a few days, and 
 then went on to Knoxville to join the boys. 
 I found them out on the old Fair Grounds, 
 east of the city, with eight other companies, 
 ready to be organized into a regiment. These 
 companies were all from East Tennessee — two 
 from Sullivan County, two from Hamilton, one 
 from Knox, one from Rhea, one from Wash- 
 
 198 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 ington, one from Polk, one from Hawkins, 
 one from McMinn. The regiment was organ- 
 ized in a few days and numbered Nineteenth 
 Tennessee. The following were the officers 
 elected: David H. Cummings, colonel; Frank 
 M. Walker, lieutenant-colonel; Abe Fulkerson, 
 major; V. Q. Johnson, adjutant; H. Mell 
 Doak, sergeant-major; Dr. Joe E. Dulany, 
 surgeon; A. D. Taylor, quartermaster; and 
 Rev. D. Sullins, chaplain. The number, 
 all told, in the regiment was one thousand and 
 sixty. Now we began camp-life in earnest. 
 The companies were formed into messes of 
 from four to six. Each mess had one tent, tin 
 plates, cups, and cooking utensils; each man 
 had a blanket, canteen, knapsack and haver- 
 sack. 
 
 199 
 
XXIV 
 
 NINETEENTH TENNESSEE 
 REGIMENT 
 
 N the last chapter I was perhaps 
 tiresome in giving so minutely 
 the organization and outfit of 
 the regiment; but I thought that 
 jjgglj young readers might be inter- 
 ested in knowing how their fathers and grand- 
 fathers went to war. The regiment organized, 
 the business now was to drill day in and day 
 out. It was now the middle of June, and the 
 authorities thought there ought to be some 
 soldiers at Cumberland Gap to hold that 
 point and keep an eye on Kentucky and 
 see what was going on over there. Soon 
 two companies, one from Chattanooga and 
 the other from Knoxville, were ordered to the 
 Gap under the command of their captains, 
 Powell and Paxton. I went with them, as 
 there were plenty of preachers at Knoxville, 
 and none at the Gap. We went by rail to 
 Morristown, and by the old historic pioneer 
 road to Bean's Station, where Bishop Asbury 
 used to meet his guards and pilots from 
 
 200 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 Kentucky to accompany him over the Clinch 
 and through the Gap into the "dark and 
 bloody ground.'' At the station the boys had 
 quite an ovation. The neighbors had pre- 
 pared a barbecue, and gave them a hearty 
 reception. Of course the boys gave them 
 specimens of their soldierly marching, while 
 our little band gave them music. We spent 
 the night at the big sulphur spring at the foot 
 of the Clinch. Next day we went on to 
 the Gap. The boys stopped at the spring 
 at the foot; but I rode on into the Gap, 
 the first soldier there. Now we were put 
 under strict military regulations. My tent 
 was near the summit, where the pickets were 
 stationed. Many a sleepless night I listened 
 to the slow tread of the sentinel as he walked 
 his beat, and heard him call, "Post Number 
 One, twelve o'clock, all's well." Here we 
 began soldier life in earnest. The boys had 
 to go down to the level ground on the Ten- 
 nessee side to drill. 
 
 Soon after we left Knoxville, the other 
 companies belonging to the regiment were 
 sent, some to guard the bridge at Loudon, 
 others to Jamestown, and four to Big Creek 
 Gap (Lafollette). It v as not long before all 
 
 201 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 these companies were ordered to join us 
 at the Gap. Now we had preaching every 
 Sunday morning, Sunday-school in the after- 
 noon, and prayer meeting at night. The 
 restless boys soon had a Confederate flag 
 flying from the highest point on the Virginia 
 side. Something stirring was occurring almost 
 daily now — the coming in of other regiments 
 from Tennessee and Mississippi and Rut- 
 ledge's Artillery and McClung's Battery and 
 others. I remember the first capture our 
 cavalry made. Union men from Tennessee 
 were constantly trying to cross the mountain 
 into Kentucky. A little squad of cavalry 
 brought into camp one day some fifteen or 
 twenty of these Union men, and among them 
 Mr. T. A. R. Nelson, mentioned elsewhere, 
 all trying to cross the mountain. Mr. Nelson 
 was our neighbor at Jonesboro; so I went to 
 the commander and asked the privilege of 
 having him as my guest. This was readily 
 granted. And then I remembered that his 
 son, Sandy, was a member of our regiment; 
 so I invited Sandy to spend the day and take 
 dinner with his father in the tent. I was pleas- 
 ed to see that there was no reserve or em- 
 barrassment when they met. Sandy was very 
 
 202 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 respectful, and Mr. Nelson very fatherly. 
 We talked of home and old friends there with 
 great frankness. Mr. Nelson was a strong, 
 honest, high-toned gentleman, and a superior 
 lawyer. It may be remembered that he was 
 called to Washington to defend President 
 Johnson in his impeachment trial. I am 
 sure he had nothing to do with indictment 
 against me for treason, mentioned elsewhere. 
 I was glad to have the opportunity to enter- 
 tain him at a plain soldier's dinner. 
 
 The other prisoners were put in the guard- 
 house, a rough log house with straw all over 
 the dirt floor. I went to see them. Of 
 course they were a little shy at first; but when 
 I told them who I was and that I had come 
 to serve them in any way I could, they were 
 more free and frank. After talking a little, 
 I suggested that as it was uncertain when 
 they might get home, I would gladly write 
 home for any of them if they wished me to do 
 so. This interested them, and we all sat down 
 in the straw, they close about me, and I wrote 
 as they dictated letters to several of their 
 wives and friends. These letters I mailed at 
 once. I wish now that I had kept a list of 
 their names, for I might find some member 
 
 203 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 of some families who would have knowledge 
 of the fact. I was glad to serve them. They 
 were plain countrymen, and no doubt believed 
 they were doing right. They were sent to 
 Knoxville and I never knew what became of 
 them. Mr. Nelson got through our lines 
 later, and went to Washington. 
 
 General Zollicoff er came and took command, 
 and on the next day moved the little army of 
 about six thousand out into Kentucky, to the 
 ford of the Cumberland River, some twenty 
 miles distant. Soon the report came that 
 Federals were establishing a camp at Bar- 
 boursville, and Zollicoffer sent out a detach- 
 ment under Colonel Battles to break it up. 
 The enemy was found in a cornfield near the 
 town. Company K, from Rogersville, was 
 thrown out as a skirmish line and engaged 
 them. It was a mere skirmish, but made 
 memorable by the fact that here we lost the 
 first man out of the regiment, Robert Powell, 
 first lieutenant of his company. He was our 
 first soldier killed in battle. We sent his 
 remains home — a sad business! 
 
 The next little expedition was to Goose 
 Creek Salt Works. Our Nineteenth Regi- 
 ment, accompanied by Colonel Carter's 
 
 204 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 Cavalry, was sent with wagons for salt. 
 I did not go. The boys reported a rough, 
 hard trip of forty miles right through the 
 mountains, with no fighting. They brought 
 back some two hundred bushels of salt, after 
 five days' absence. 
 
 Next we had a little spat with General 
 Schoeff, at Wild Cat, or Rock Castle, which 
 amounted to nothing but a drill in warlike 
 movements for the boys. We returned to the 
 camp at the ford of the Cumberland, and 
 that night there was a sad accident. General 
 A. E. Jackson was quartermaster; but, being 
 absent, his son, Alfred, had charge. Just 
 after we had all gone to bed a pistol shot 
 was heard, and soon one of the boys came to 
 my tent and said: "Alfred Jackson has 
 accidentally shot himself, and is dead in his 
 tent." Here was trouble. "What shall we do 
 with his remains ?" was the question. Gen- 
 eral Jackson, the father of the deceased, 
 was our near neighbor and close friend at 
 Jonesboro. So I said: "I must take him 
 home to his mother. Prepare the body as 
 well as you can, and be ready as soon as pos- 
 sible to start; I will get my horse and follow 
 the wagon." This was done, and we started 
 
 205 
 
Recollections of An Old Man 
 
 about eleven o'clock, I guess. My horse fol- 
 lowed close along behind the wagon. The 
 road, like all mountain roads, was full of 
 rocks; the night was dark, so dark that at 
 times in the deep gorges through which we 
 passed I could not see my horse's head. 
 Both horse and rider were tired; we had been 
 at it all day. I was exhausted, sometimes 
 nodding as I rode along, and would have 
 nodded more, I expect, if we had not been in 
 a bush-whacking country, which fact served 
 to keep me awake in a measure. I thought 
 the wagon made a great deal of noise, and 
 might wake up some folks we did not want 
 disturbed. We pulled into Cumberland just 
 after daylight. I was glad to see the day and 
 get on the Tennessee side of the mountain 
 again. That night trip will always be a part 
 of an old man's recollections of the war. 
 We plodded on, and sometime up in the day 
 stopped at the foot of Clinch for something 
 to eat — call it breakfast. Then we toiled 
 on to Morristown, much in the night. Here I 
 left my horse, the wagon went back, and I 
 took a train with the corpse, for Jonesboro, 
 where his broken hearted mother and sisters 
 met us. Of course, his mother wanted to 
 
 206 
 
Seventy Years in T)ixie 
 
 look on the dear face of her soldier boy. 
 But after a good deal of pleading, I got her 
 consent for me to open the box, and, if I 
 thought best, either let her see it or close it up. 
 We had hauled the body in a wagon over 
 rough roads for nearly seventy miles, and I 
 did not think it could be in condition for her 
 to see it. And so I found it, and she allowed 
 us to put him away without seeing him. There 
 on the high eastern hill, with his ancestors, 
 we laid him to rest. Alfred Jackson, the 
 deceased, was the father of our Brother 
 Alfred N. Jackson, the presiding elder of 
 the Radford district, and a "soldier of the 
 cross." 
 
 The command was called out of Kentucky 
 in a few days, and I joined it at Big Creek Gap. 
 This was now in November, and there was 
 snow all along the Cumberland. We block- 
 aded the gap, and moved on to Jacksboro. 
 Here I called on General Jackson, the quarter- 
 master, and found him overworked and very 
 nervous. The death of his son was a great 
 shock to him. An order had been issued to 
 buy horses for the army, and a great many 
 were in the yard for sale. After a little talk, 
 the General asked me to come and help him. 
 
 207 
 
Recollections of An Old Man . 
 
 I agreed to do so, and went out and bought 
 several horses, and took charge of much of 
 the outside business of the office. Soon we 
 moved down to Ross, near Clinton. Sunday 
 morning found us camped at the foot of the 
 mountain. I found a big rock, and used it 
 as a pulpit. The boys around took part 
 heartily in the services. We had a good day, 
 well remembered. Generals Zollicoffer and 
 Jackson went on to Knoxville, while we rested 
 here. Two days later General Zollicoffer 
 returned, and issued orders to "Capt. D. 
 Sullins" to move the army by Oliver Springs 
 to Wartburg and on to Montgomery. I 
 smiled when I got the order to "Capt. D. 
 Sullins ;" it was evident that the General did 
 not know some things. However, we put 
 things in motion, while I looked hourly for 
 the coming of General Jackson. But as he 
 did not come, I did the best I could. 
 
 We camped at Wartburg, where the boys 
 got a sort of sour Dutch wine, which tasted 
 like stump water with vinegar in it. Some of 
 the boys got drunk on it. Soon after we left 
 Wartburg we started up Cumberland Moun- 
 tain; and as General Jackson had not yet 
 come, I decided to have a conference with 
 
 208 
 
Seventy Years in Dixie 
 
 General Zollicoffer, who had gone on before 
 us. I pushed on and overtook him at the 
 old Indian Tavern. I had not met him be- 
 fore; but as soon as I gave him my name > 
 he seemed to know me, and was very cordial, 
 and began to inquire how the wagons were 
 getting up the mountain. When I asked him 
 about General Jackson, he said: "Jackson 
 is in Knoxville, and will not be with us any 
 more; he is post quartermaster there." I 
 expressed surprise at this, and said: "What 
 are we to do ? We have no quartermaster." 
 He replied: "You are quartermaster, and 
 Jackson said you could do the work as well 
 as he." Then I began to talk. "General, 
 I am a Methodist preacher, and chaplain of 
 the Nineteenth Tennessee Regiment. Jack- 
 son is my neighbor at Jonesboro; and finding 
 him overworked and very nervous at Jacks- 
 boro, I agreed to help him. That is how I 
 became connected with this office. I am 
 willing to do all I can; but from our move- 
 ments the last two days, I take it we are going 
 to Kentucky, and we have no money to pay 
 for supplies." To this he replied with earnest- 
 ness: "Make a requisition and send to 
 Knoxville for money." "But, General, I 
 
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