Chickasaw Education Under the White Man

      

                           Chilocco Indian Agricultural School
                                            1882 - 1980

Ever since before the Removal, there were many white people who abhorred the mistreatment of the Indians: the invasion of their territory by land hungry settlers, the violation of their treaties, the failure of the government to provide education. The list was long. Many religious groups, philanthropists, and other well meaning white citizens sympathized with the Indian.  

Before the Removal, Thomas McKenney, a deeply religious man, served as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He advocated for the Indians education and integration into white society, but faced with the onslaught of settlers and the hostility of state governments, he eventually recommended the Indians' Removal. After the threats of the treaty commissioners had failed, McKenney approached the Chickasaw with respect and words of persuasion:  

Brothers - Whilst then you cherish a sacred remembrance for the bones of your Fathers, forget not to provide for your children, and never stop a moment, but hasten with all speed to place them in a situation that will secure them against the evils that your Fathers endured … This Brothers is Wisdom. The past I know has been cloudy and dark enough, but, brothers, be not discouraged. The Great Spirit will yet open your way. 

Footnote: The Chickasaws, Arrell Gibson, P 166 - 167

McKenney purported to understand the Chickasaw and to know what was best for them, but to me his words still sound like a threat, and they sound patronizing. But he didn't really understand. He wasn't evicted from a homeland where his people had lived for hundreds of years. And he wasn't part of a culture of which the land was an integral part. His words didn't move the Chickasaws either. They waited another 12 years before signing the Treaty of Doaksville with the Choctaws agreeing to remove to Indian Territory as a last resort.  

From the end of the Civil War in 1866 until the passage of the Curtis Act in 1898, a period of about 30 years, the Chickasaws and the other Five Civilized Tribes governed themselves, and they developed an education system for their children equal or superior to that of any state in the west. The Chickasaw Nation operated neighborhood elementary schools, several "academies," which were the equivalent of high schools, and each year they sent 60 to 100 students away to college. By 1880 the literacy rate among the Chickasaw was 60%.

Footnote: The Chickasaws, Arrell Gibson, P 281

Meanwhile, the other tribes were at the mercy of the federal and state governments. President Grant, who appointed Quaker missionaries as his Indian agents, also formed three cavalry regiments to subdue the remaining plains Indian tribes. General George Custer was one of the Civil War officers who volunteered to help accomplish this mission. The government had decided that the land in the west, once considered useless for settlement, was still too good for the Indian. So the soldiers rounded up the tribes, confined them to reservations, and turned their education over to the Quakers. 

During the time after the Civil War there was a resurgence of interest in the welfare of the Indians. Groups such as the Womens' National Indian Association, The Indian Rights Association, and The Friends of the Indian met, discussed the Indians' problems, sent out teams of investigators, and made recommendations. President Grant appointed many of these leaders to a Board of Indian Commissioners which advised him on how to deal with the Indian "problem." His Commission decided that Indians should be taught English, religion, farming and trades to make them self sufficient. Then they were to be given allotments of land and their annuities ended. This would end the expense of the reservations, and make available huge tracts of land for white settlement. There would be no more need for conflicts and treaties with Indian tribes. The Indians would be successfully integrated into "white" society.

For all their good intentions, all that these benevolent groups did was provide the government with a rationale for what they intended to do already: destroy the Indians' tribal bonds, their age old cultures, and their basic beliefs, in order to give their land to white settlers. The various groups, the Friends of the Indians, and others, continued to meet, blaming the Indians' troubles on mishandling by the government, but they all ended by endorsing the government's programs.

The irony of all this discussion about what was in the best interest of the Indian was that never was an Indian included in the discussion. Really. It wasn't until the 1970's that President Richard Nixon, recognizing that the Native American culture still survived, and that the government still had an obligation under the old treaties, proposed a new Indian policy under which the Indian tribes themselves could be authorized to administer federal
programs for their own benefit, but back to the 1800's.

Footnote: The Great Father, Paul Prucha, P 364. 

The government's plan involved separating the Indian children from their families in order to immerse them in white culture. In 1840 the government, in partnership with the Methodist Church, established a boarding school in Kansas for Indian children called a manual labor academy. It was modeled after similar schools in Europe which were designed to teach poor children to accept their station in life. Children from many tribes including Shawnee, Delaware, Kansas, Peoria, Potawatomie, Wyandot, and Ottawa were taken from their homes and sent to this and other boarding schools. This type of school was to became a model for Indian education for almost a century.
Listening to Our Grandmothers' Stories, Amanda Cobb-Greetham.

The idea was to separate the children from their parents and from their cultures, to teach them to speak English, and to accept white cultural values. The boys were taught farming and trades and the girls were taught domestic skills. Ezra Hayt, Commissioner of Indian affairs in 1877 summarized the so called benefits of these schools:

the exposure of children who attend only day schools to the demoralization and degradation of an Indian home neutralized the efforts of the schoolteacher, especially those efforts which are directed to the advancement of in morality and civilization.

The Great Father, Paul Prucha, P 233.

By 1890 there were 7000 Indian children in boarding schools, often far away from their homes. By 1900 it was clear that the boarding schools were a failure. Many were run like reform schools, using the Indian children as free labor, without teaching them anything useful. As soon as they were able, the children returned to their homes. It wasn't until 1928 that a study was done condemning Indian boarding schools. It showed that the schools were providing poor diets, and inadequate medical care. They were overcrowded, underfunded, and they provided poor education with too much emphasis on labor. The study, the Meriam report, led to some reforms, but not to the end of the schools.

The study's recommendation was that Indian children be integrated into public schools.  This practice, which had actually been going on for some time, started receiving government support, but it was a failure before it started. The Indian children faced prejudice and social isolation, and became underachievers and dropouts.

My grandfather, William H. Paul, and his brother, Smith W. "Buck" Paul, were educated mainly in white schools even though they completed their schooling before the Curtis Act abolished the Chickasaw government in 1898. An early
history of Oklahoma described my grandfather's education:

Receiving the rudiments of his education in the schools of White Bead, Wm H Paul subsequently continued his studies at the Tishomingo Academy, under the instructions of Judge Benjamin Carter, at Savoy Texas, at Austin College, and at Sherman Texas.

From what my mother told me, Uncle Buck went to the same schools as my grandfather.

Footnote: The History of the State of Oklahoma, Luther B  Hill, 1910.

These schools were run by white men. My grandfather's father, Sam Paul, was very progressive in his thinking, and he believed that the Chickasaws' future lay in integration into the white culture. That's the reason my grandparents met. They both attended a subscription school together in Pauls Valley. My grandmother's father had come west from Georgia after the Civil War and settled in Indian Territory, possibly at the invitation of my great grandfather Sam Paul, who actively recruited white settlers to come into the area.

My grandfather and his brother were sent to boarding schools for much of their education. My mother said that her father told her that he and Buck ran away several times, only to be taken back to the school by their father, Sam Paul. They must have attended one of the Chickasaw boarding schools, because the boys were all Indian, and my grandfather described how difficult it was for those who couldn't speak English, which was forbidden, even then. He liked to tell the story of a young Chickasaw boy who wrote a letter home to his parents. The boys' were required to write only in English. The boy was trying to tell his parents about one of his classmates who got a fatal case of diarrhea from eating green apples. His letter came out: "Little boy, green apple, shoot the shoot, dead."

The other story my grandfather told about his boarding school education concerned a teacher, who was a white man and apparently treated his Indian pupils with contempt, calling them "little Indian pups." When my great grandfather Sam Paul found out about this he caught the teacher on his way home from school, pulled him from his horse and whipped him with his buggy whip. As my grandmother used to say: "If you don't like Indians you shouldn't be living in Indian country," but this was before the Curtis Act.  

Even though my grandfather and his brothers faced prejudice, they were educated during the time of Chickasaw sovereignty, and they each got the equivalent of a college education. As long as the governments of the Five Civilized Tribes were able to control their own education system, they provided their young people with the opportunity to become educated and to compete with the white settlers who were coming to the Territory in increasing numbers.


          

Bloomfield Academy, 1900

Many Indian boarding schools survived well into the 20th century and my mother attended one of them, the Bloomfield Academy for girls in Ardmore, Oklahoma. I'll share some of her experiences there in my next post.

Aunt Sippia, Part One

Mississipia Paul Hull

          I have a document written by my great aunt Sippia when she was about eighty years old. I have already quoted from it, but it's better to read it as she wrote it. I'll put in a few notes in parenthesis where I think clarification is essential:

Reminiscences of Mrs Sippia Hull 

July 2nd, 1929

          I was born February 1, 1843, about four of five miles from Fort Arbuckle. I was named for the Chickasaw Chief Juzan's wife. My family lived there until the Civil War broke out. My mother was born in Mississippi, her name was Ah-la-tack Brown, she was a full-blood Chickasaw. She was among one of the first groups to come out here (to Indian Territory) with the Chickasaws between 1834 and 1836 (In the Removal). My father was born in North Carolina, his name was Smith Paul and he was a white man.  

          My mother was a widow with three children in Mississippi when my father married her (I only know of two children: Kathrine and Tecumseh). As a great many others did they settled near Boggy Depot (One of the government supply depots for migrating Indians). Then they moved from Boggy Depot to Fort Arbuckle. Our family consisted of my two brothers, Sam and Jessie Paul, one half sister, Kathrine McClure who married Tom Waite and raised a large family, and one half brother Tecumseh McClure. 

          My father was interested in farming, it was always his desire to go into the farming business on a large scale. 

          Just before the war broke out he had made a trip to this locality (the future Pauls Valley, Oklahoma) and realized that it was a wonderful place for farming. Very soon he had a house built for us, it was of hewed logs. The house was built of single rooms but close together, and then some cabins in the back for the slaves (Some of the Chickasaws had slaves, most had none). These houses while they were crude were comfortable. This first home built in Pauls Valley, was built near to the elm trees, now at the residence of Roy Burks, a great grandson of Smith Paul's first wife, widow McClure, a Chickasaw woman (Sippia is referring here to her mother. Smith Paul married again after Ah-la-tack Brown Paul died in 1870. She was about 74 and he was 61 at the time). When the home was completed he came back to fort Arbuckle and brought his family up.  

          This valley was smooth just a little bit rolling, with grass and thousands of acres without a weed on it. One had only to plow the soil and plant corn. They had such wonderful seasons at that time, the corn just left alone would grow to maturity and yield from thirty to forty bushels to the acre, untouched by cultivation. Before the war my father had about 100 acres in cultivation and he sold corn to the United States Government at Fort Arbuckle and Fort Cobb.  

          When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the friendly Plains Indians came around the locality where my father had his farm. They were the Comanches, Caddos, Apaches, Cheyennes, Osages and I think some Delaware (She names some tribes who raided the Chickasaws. Perhaps some were friendly and some were not). One mixed band located at Cherokee Town, another on my father's farm, a band of Osage across the river, and a band of Caddo Indians under old Lady White Bead, five miles up the river (The leader of the Caddo  was a woman named Salvania. She always wore white beads and traders were told that all trades with the Caddo had to be approved by the woman wearing the white beads), and the government realized that they must do something with and for these Indians, so they appointed my father as an agent, to issue them rations. This was one reason that my father did not have to go to war.  

          During the time that my father was agent over the friendly plains Indians, there were wild Indians from Texas and what is now western Oklahoma, that came into this section of the country killing and robbing people. We were always afraid they were coming to molest us, but they never did. However, they did come near enough at one time to scalp one of the Courtney boys, whose father had a farm on "Courtney Flat." There were times when we would hear they were coming and would hide out in the corn fields and in the woods during the day and night. Although I was just a child, I remember among the officers of Fort Arbuckle was Captain Custer, who was killed in what is called the "Custer Massacre," on Little Bighorn River, in Montana. When the war broke out the Government removed the troops from Fort Arbuckle, taking away the protection of the Indians, so the Chickasaws were compelled through force of circumstances to enlist with the Confederates. (Confederate troops from Arkansas were actually marching in to occupy Indian Territory when most of the Five Civilized Tribes decided to join the Confederacy. Sippia's half brother Tecumseh and half sister Kathrine took their families to Kansas and lived with the Sauk and Fox tribe, which was neutral.) 

          I remember well when the buffalo roamed this country. The friendly Indians always kept us in buffalo meat. The deer, wild turkey, prairie chicken, and quail were in great abundance. There was never any need for us to be without fresh meat.  

          At one time there was a band of Cheyenne attempted a raid on Pauls Valley, in November 1871 (1878). Custer's troops drove them farther west and inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Cheyenne at the Washita, above Chickasha, Indian Territory, killing Black Kettle, their chief, and compelling them to return to their reservations. My brothers, Jesse and Sam Paul enlisted with Custer's troops to aid them in moving the Indians back. A great many of the friendly Indians were with them also. When they returned to Pauls Valley, they celebrated with a scalp dance which continued uninterrupted for three weeks. The news of the scalp dance reached Red River and hundreds of residents of Texas along the river came to witness the celebration. I remember so well seeing the wife of one of the friendly Indian Chiefs wearing Black Kettle's coat home, and I also saw the scalps they brought home. (It's interesting that Aunt Sippia reports that the entire community, including the friendly Indians, considered Black Kettle's band to be outlaws, and they celebrated the massacre of his band. Historians have made a different verdict. See my posts of May 29 and June 7, 2011.)

          After the war was over they got friendly and brought the prisoners in. Part were civilized and others were still on the war path. They had to fight to keep them from the white people. Those they could capture were held for ransom, if they were not killed. (It was common practice for the hostile tribes to capture and hold white people for ransom. They apparently did not take Chickasaw prisoners however. See my post of May 29, 2011.)

To be continued.



The Comanche and the Chickasaw, Again

          After their forced removal to Indian Territory in the 1830's, the Chickasaw were not the same strong proud nation they had been in years past. Their treaty had put them under the government of the Choctaw. The people were unable to move onto their own land because of the threat of attack by hostile tribes. For years most of the Chickasaw survived on annuities from the Chickasaw fund, provided by the sale of their homeland in Mississippi. As a result the Chickasaw became disheartened, defeated both mentally and physically by their circumstances.  

          Many changes occurred during the generation following the Removal. The Chickasaw settled their own land; they won independence from the Choctaw and set up their own government, and they fought in the Civil War.  

          As I've mentioned before, the Chickasaw had suffered raids by the plains Indian tribes ever since their removal. These raids differed though from raids on white settlements however. They were less frequent, often two or three years apart, and only stock was taken. Burning of houses and taking of hostages was almost unheard of. 

          Still the Chickasaws had been easy targets. First, they were usually taken by surprise because of the infrequency of the raids. Secondly, the Chickasaws were disorganized and their fighting spirit had been suppressed by the domination of the white man. In my post of March 25, I described the Chickasaws' attempt to pursue the Comanche after their raid on my great great grandfather Smith Paul's farm. The adventure while enthusiastic was too late and was led by the federal Indian agent, not by the Chickasaw themselves.  

          During the Civil War the Chickasaw farms on the western frontier were too far from the fighting to be requisitioned for supplies, and during the War, there had only been one raid by the plains tribes. As a result, these farms were well stocked with grain and cattle, becoming irresistible targets for the Comanche. 

          In June of 1865, after the Chickasaw military units had been disbanded and their members had returned home, about 350 Comanche warriors began an organized raid through the Chickasaw Nation starting just east of Smith and Ellen Paul's farm. They swept through the Sealy settlement just south of present day Ada, and then raided several farms around the home of Luffie Moseley, mother of the future Chickasaw Governor, Palmer Moseley. Finally they attacked the Keel settlement near the Chickasaw capital of Tishomingo. The Comanches then took the stolen livestock past the present town of Duncan, and then up the valley of Cache Creek toward their stronghold in the Arbuckle Mountains.  

          This time the Comanche were not dealing with a nation of scattered, disorganized families, however. They faced a new generation of Chickasaw, united under their own government, their pride restored. These Chickasaw were also experienced soldiers due to their recent participation in the War Between the States. This time the Chickasaw didn't seek help from the US Government or from an Indian agent. Volunteers met together at Mrs. Moseley's house, about 250 of them, quickly organized themselves under experienced leaders, and immediately set out in pursuit of the Comanche. The Chickasaw trackers quickly picked up the Comanche trail and followed them to Cache Creek where the Comanche had split up into several groups.  

          The Chickasaw leaders then made a decision not to divide their men into smaller groups, making each more vulnerable to attack. They instead took their entire force around the edge of the Arbuckle Mountains, reentering Comanche territory from the west in order to catch their enemy by surprise. For the next month the Chickasaw militia moved slowly and carefully, living off the land, sending out scouts, flankers, pickets, and trackers in every direction. Finally Johnson Cohee, a picket stationed four miles from the Chickasaw camp, saw a flash of light in the distance. It came from a silver disk on the necklace of the Comanche chief.  

          Chickasaw scouts soon located the Comanche camp some twelve miles in the distance, and that night the entire Chickasaw force encircled the Comanche village, blocking all escape. At first light the Chickasaw attack began. After the first volley only attacking Comanche warriors were shot. No fire was directed at the dwellings, to avoid harming women and children. The Comanche, who suffered severe losses in the attack, finally surrendered, realizing that their situation was hopeless. The Chickasaw allowed the Comanche to treat their wounded and to bury their dead while they rounded up their livestock.

          No Chickasaws were injured or killed in the fighting. No prisoners or trophies were taken, and no Comanche property was destroyed. Only stock with Chickasaw brands was taken. The Chickasaw told the Comanche that they had only come for their property, and then they drove their cattle and horses home. 

          This story was only told years later, after most of the participants had passed on. The Comanche raids and the Chickasaw pursuit had been kept secret at the time to avoid punishment of the Chickasaws by the US Government for making war on another tribe, but I think the story has lessons to tell.  

          Firstly the Chickasaws had not forgotten the skills of organization, strategy and stealth that had made them respected and feared by other tribes in their past. Also the respect and leniency with which they treated the Comanche stands in stark contrast to the merciless slaughter of Indians by white soldiers throughout our nation's history, for no other reason than to bend them into submission.   

Footnote: Chronicles of Oklahoma Vol 4, 1926. A Nearly Forgotten Fragment of Local History.

My Family During the Civil War

                             Mississippia Paul Hull

          As late as 1858, my great great grandparents, Smith and Ellen Paul, were living right next to Fort Arbuckle, one of the principal forts on the frontier. (see posts of March 19, March 25, and April 2, 2011) They had moved there in 1851 for the safety the fort provided from roving bands of  hostile Indians. As a war between North and South became more eminent, living next to a fort wasn't such a good idea, so in 1859 Smith Paul moved about twenty miles north, to a fertile valley located where Rush Creek joins the Washita River. I don't actually know whether Smith Paul was that prescient about the events to come, or if his decision was just a coincidence, but by the time the Civil War started, he had established another farm at a fairly safe distance from the fort.  

          The land that Smith Paul chose for his new farm was remarkably productive. According to my great aunt Sippia, who was 9 years old at the time, her father's farm produced 30 to 40 bushels of corn per acre without cultivation. Smith Paul built a double log cabin for his family. A "double log cabin" was simply two log cabins built close together, with doors opening into a small space between them. Aunt Sippia said that "These houses though they were crude were comfortable." For several years Smith Paul was the only white man living in the area.  

          In 1861, Confederate troops invaded Indian Territory from Arkansas to the east, and from Texas to the south. Federal troops immediately abandoned Forts Washita, Arbuckle, and Cobb with the help of the Delaware chief, Black Beaver. (see post of April 17, 2011)

          For the course of the War, Indian Territory belonged to the South. It is ironic that the Indians would take the side of the same greedy settlers who had driven them from their homes just 24 years before, and if it had been up to the full bloods, Indian Territory might have remained neutral. Cherokee Chief John Ross sent a letter to Chickasaw Governor Cyrus Harris warning him not to enter into "a family misunderstanding" between the whites "in which…we have no direct and proper concern," but many of the mixed bloods owned slaves and shared a life style similar to southern plantation owners. Also most of the Indians blamed the federal government under Andrew Jackson for the suffering caused by the Removal, and more recently several bills had been submitted to Congress proposing to open Indian Territory to white settlement.  

          The Confederacy coveted Indian Territory for its rich farm land, and also for its strategic location between east and west. Confederate representatives promised to continue the tribes' annuities and to guarantee their independence, and possibly of more significance, they now occupied the forts. Aunt Sippia said simply:  

          When the war broke out the Government removed the troops from Fort Arbuckle, taking away the protection of the Indians, so the Chickasaws were compelled through force of circumstances to enlist with the Confederates. 

          Aunt Sippia goes on:  

          When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the friendly Plains Indians came around the locality where my father had his farm. They were Comanche, Caddo, Cheyenne, Osages, and I think some Delaware. One mixed band located at Cherokee Town, another on my father's farm, a band of Osage across the river and a band of Caddo Indians under old lady White Bead, five miles up the river. And the government realized that they must do something for these Indians, so they appointed my father as an agent, to issue them rations. This was one reason that my father did not have to go to war.  

          Smith and Ellen's family included Ellen's older brother Ja-pawne; her daughter Katherine, who was married to an easterner named Tom Waite; a son Tecumseh, who was married to a Chickasaw woman, Mary McKinsey, and two other sons too young to be conscripted into the army. Uncle Ja-Pawne, along with the two older siblings, took their families to Kansas, where they lived with the Sauk and Fox tribe for the duration of the war. Hull may have had Northern sympathies - I don't know. Uncle Ja-Pawnee and Tecumseh, I'm pretty sure, left because they wanted no part in the white man's battles.    

          Although there wasn't much fighting in Indian Territory during the Civil War, at least not as far west as Smith Paul's farm, our family certainly felt the effects of the war. First, the absence of federal troops at Fort Arbuckle exposed them again to raids from hostile tribes. Aunt Sippia: 

          During the time that my father was agent over the friendly plains Indians, there were wild Indians from Texas and what is now western Oklahoma, that came into this section of the country killing and robbing people. We were always afraid they were coming to molest us, but they never did. However, they did come near enough at one time to scalp one of the Courtney boys, whose father had a farm on "Courtney Flats." There were times when we would hear they were coming and would hide out in the corn fields and in the woods during the day and night.          

          The friendly tribes living nearby offered protection and also meat, since Smith Paul was not yet raising cattle. Aunt Sippia recalled: 

          I remember well when the buffalo roamed this country. The friendly Indians always kept us in buffalo meat. The deer, wild turkey, prairie chicken and quail were in great abundance. There was never any need for us to be without fresh meat. 

          According to Aunt Sippia, the family's main hardship during the war was the lack of manufactured goods.  

          During the Civil War we had to spin and weave all of our cloth, to make our clothes, and knit our hose. I was anxious to do what every one else did and they let me, although I was only about nine years old, I wove enough cloth to make me a dress, even though it looked rather knottie, they made me a dress out of it. The cotton from which we spun the thread had to be picked from the seeds with our fingers. We usually did this work at night. The pecans grew in this locality in great abundance as they do today, and we ate nuts and picked the cotton off the seeds and my mother would tell us Indian legends. We learned by putting the cotton down by the fire and getting it warm it was much easier to get the seeds out. It was during those early days that a man came through the country with what he called a miniature gin, similar to a clothes ringer of today, and this helped us to get the seeds out faster. Of course people came in to see how it worked and every one wanted to try and turn the handle and my brother boy-like turned it and broke the handle off. My mother used to make straw hats for the boys out of wheat straw and in the winter they would catch coons and she would make them caps out of the skins. My father would make us shoes out of cow-hide, he could do a little of everything, but this was only in war times. How I disliked them, and how glad I was when we could buy shoes ready made. 

Footnote: The quotations from Aunt Sippia, Mississippia Paul Hull, are from a talk she made in 1929. She was my great grandfather Sam Paul's younger sister.

Grandpa

                                                            Grandpa

As I mentioned in a previous post, Earliest Memories, my mother Jim was named after her grandfather, James T. Rosser. Grandpa grew up in Cedartown, Georgia, before the Civil War. His parents owned a plantation there and slaves. Grandpa had a "play boy" named Nat, a slave his age who was his companion growing up. Jim didn't say so but I wonder if he was also a whipping boy. She was told that they were as close as brothers.

When "Grandpa" went off to fight in the Civil War, Nat went with him but ran away when the fighting started. He returned home saying that his young "master" had been killed. The family told this as a joke, as if Nat was a coward. It occurred to me that he might have had conflicting loyalties, or simply decided it wasn't his fight.

After the war Nat went to Texas with an uncle of Grandpa's, and apparently visited his old playmate as a free man, and an old friend, so maybe they were as close as brothers.

Grandpa had been educated at a military school, and Jim said that he always held himself erect, "like he had a poker up his back bone," because of his military training. He enlisted on May 6, 1862, for "3 years or the War." It was about a year after Secession.

Shortly after his enlistmant Grandpa became ill - possibly with malaria? - and was taken to an island off the coast according to the story Jim was told. There he was nursed back to health by a woman who ran a kind of hospital there. Grandpa always credited her for saving his life. The records are incomplete so we don't know if Grandpa returned to his original unit, but he wasn't there on the only other muster available, September and October, 1862.

About a year later, presumably after he had recovered his health, Grandpa returned to duty, but only for six months. Then he resigned. It was about the same time that General William Tecumseh Sherman's army moved into Georgia. As Sherman made his way through Georgia, he did go through the Rosser plantation. I doubt if Grandpa was there though. It would have been too dangerous. I rather think he went to Mobile, Alabama, to join his fiancee, Emily Bass. He and Emily were married in Mobile, and then returned to Georgia after the War.

Grandpa's family was treated leniently by Sherman's army. As the story goes, Sherman was destroying the crops and most of the buildings, so Grandpa's mother decided to try and save some of the family's wealth by hiding silverware and jewelry in her bed. When an officer came to the house - I don't know if it was Sherman or not - Grandpa's mother was in bed "sick." Fortunately the officer accepted her story. She saved the silver and she saved her home. 

I think the story is pretty remarkable because the Rosser slaves apparently supported the ruse. I'd like to think they were loyal because the Rossers had been good to them, but maybe they were just afraid of retaliation.

Grandpa was always addressed as "Captain Rosser" after the War, but according to his military records he was only a sergeant. He was proud of his service with the Confederacy. Jim said that Grandpa's uniform hung in the closet "until the moths ate it up." 

When Jim was little, probably five or six, one of Grandpa's cousins visited him - I think it was a Whitehead -  wearing a Confederate uniform. Jim said that Mamma told her she could sit with them if she was quiet, so she sat with her Grandpa while he laughed and talked with his cousin.

It was Grandpa's opinion that the Civil War could have been avoided. "It was started by some Hot Heads," he said. Grandpa also had a lot of respect for Abraham Lincoln. He thought that if Lincoln had lived, the Reconstruction period would have easier for the South.

After the War the Rosser family's fortune was gone. According to the story Mamma told, when the slaves came to Grandpa's mother asking for help she told them, "I'm as poor as you are." Actually that wasn't true. The Rossers still had their land, and they recovered. Grandpa and Emily intended to stick it out in Georgia, but something happened which changed everything.  

One day Grandpa met one of the family's former slaves on the road to town, and they started talking about the upcoming elections. For a while after the war the freed slaves were allowed to vote, at least until the southern whites regained control and figured out a way to disenfranchise them again. Anyway Grandpa was talking to the man about the upcoming election, when up came a "carpetbagger," the term used by southerners for northern opportunists who came south after the War to take advantage of the unstable conditions.

The carpetbagger told Grandpa he shouldn’t be telling the black man how to vote. An argument ensued, and then a fight. Grandpa knocked the carpetbagger down, and he didn't get up. Grandpa knew he was in trouble. He didn't stop to find out if the man was alive, he just ran home. Grandpa knew that he would go to jail, and with the hostile reconstruction government in power, he might hang.

That night he and Emily packed what they could fit into a wagon, hitched up the oxen, and took off. I don’t know what happened to the carpetbagger, and I don't know whether the authorities organized a search, but Grandpa and his little family escaped. They headed west toward Texas. Grandpa's brother Ed had settled there.

They made the journey in stages, travelling a hundred miles or so at a time. Grandpa would farm for a while, save some money, and then they would move on. They never made it to Texas though. They ended up settling in Indian Territory in 1888. Their journey had taken over 20 years.