Harvey Burns had located at West Liberty. My father had employed him
in some cases, and in passing from West Liberty to Breathitt Court, he would
stop at my father's house on Frozen. He told me that he would take me to
his house and prepare me for the bar, and I might pay him when I became
a lawyer. I went to West Liberty in 1851 and began the study of law. I continued
with him about two years. John W. Kendall, Wesley May, and Harry G. Burns,
his son, were in the class. I got licensed first. Judge William Moore of
Mt. Sterling examined me. Afterward, Judge Green Adams at Breathitt Circuit
Court signed it. I then located at Jackson, Breathitt County, and at once
began the practice of law. I made a living out of my practice until the
war of rebellion. The Breathitt Bar, at that time, was composed of John
Hargis, Sr., and I.N. Cardwell, a young attorney whose parents lived there.
James Hannah had recently left.
In 1847-48, I acted as deputy sheriff under Alex Herald. In 1841-45, I wrote
in the clerk's offices in Irvine under Robert Clarke, a relative of Governor
Clarke. These experiences were helpful to me in learning forms. Litigation
was very small at that time. The bulk of the practice was done by the visiting
lawyers. The Breathitt Court was visited at that time by William Harvey
Burns and Newton P. Reed of West Liberty; Kenaz Farrow; Richard Apperson
of Mt. Sterling; Judge Daniel Freck of Richmond; Samuel Ensworth and D.Y.
Lyttle of Manchester; Sydney M. Banies of Irvine whom Harvey Burns said
was the heaviest lawyer that he had met in the mountain bars. Just before
the war, the legislature formed the county of Wolfe and the commissioners
established the county seat where Campton now stands. The people of Hazel
Green were striving to get it removed to that place. The people of Campton
or that part of the county employed me to go to Frankfort and watch their
interests in the legislature. I succeeded in preventing the removal. While
there 200 Federal soldiers came into Frankfort. These were the first soldiers
I saw during the war. I did not return to Breathitt to live after the beginning
of the war. Pete Everett burnt my house where the Haddix Hotel now stands,
and I determined not to try Jackson again. I had some rough experiences
while I lived there and did not wish to renew them. In the spring, May 5,
1862, while I was recruiting a company of Federal soldiers I fell in with
a band of rebels going to join John Morgan, near the head of Red River.
We had an engagement, and in it I lost my right eye. Some of my men took
me to my uncle Andrew Wilson's and put me to bed. Captain Scott of Carroll
County commanding a squad of Confederates going to join Morgan in Virginia
took me prisoner. They put me on a horse and took me night and day to Abingdon,
Virginia. My suffering was intense. We stopped a day at Old Billy Richmond's
at Big Stone Gap. Colonel Lec Day's wife was there, a young lady waiting
on the table. Thence by Scott Court House of Bristol, thence to Abingdon
where they put me in jail. Caleb May, Thomas Ward, Al. Neff, Colin Griffin,
and others were with me. My father was attending me at my uncle Wilson's,
and, at the approach of Scott's men and friends about me, my aunt urged
me and him to run. He went reluctantly, and as he fled they shot at him.
They took him along. He was stunned but not wounded. There were 20 or 30
of us in the jail. We had stayed at Abingdon a month when news came of some
Federal forces coming from Bristol to rescue us, and they took us from the
jail and put us on board the train and took us to Lynchburg, thence to Richmond
where they put us into prison on Carry Street. We stayed there 7 days, fed
on bread and water. I got but little bread as the stronger ones presed in
ahead of me. They then offered to release us if we would join the rebel
army. Two of our members became insane from the severe treatment, but they
were restored to sanity and got home safely. They were Thomas Waller and
Reynolds.
They took us across to Manchester on the opposite side of the river and
put us into a tobacco house. We stayed there several months. When the guard
became negligent 7 or 8 of our men escaped but two of them were afterwards
recaptured. Wash Johnson of Letcher escaped home traveling by night and
eating roasting ears. Others had various hair-breadth escapes and finally
reached home. I was taken from Manchester to Libby Prison where I stayed
about two months. I had some hard experiences there. The pea soup was covered
with bugs with wings. The weavil had deposited the egg in the pea and when
they were boiled the bugs would swell up with wings and make the soup black.
At first I tried to pick them out, but I was so hungry that this process
was too slow. So then I shut my eyes and paid no further attention to the
intruders. The vermin ate all the skin off my breast and neck. I kept fighting
them but in vain. I had but one suit of clothes. The prison was a brick
building. I wrote frequently to Greene Adams who had an appointment in the
P.O. Department; also the Secretary of War, of my condition and urged them
to get me out. I sent these letters, which were small book leaves, by Federal
soldiers who would be in Libby and would be exchanged. Several of these
reached their destination. Major George Blight Halstead was one of these
prisoners who talked with me through the prison walls. I never saw his face.
He also gave my father a blanket, for my father was with me in all this
experience. I asked him if he knew Green Clay Smith. He said he did. I told
him when he got to Washington to see him and ask him to get me out of this
prison. He said he would do so. I was exchanged a short time after that,
but I did not know who my deliverer was until I received a letter from Major
Halstead dated April 27, 1895, Excelsior P.O., Lake Minatonka, Minnesota.
He told me in this letter that he had carried my message to Green Clay Smith.
Major Halstead, his brother, and General Smith called on President Lincoln
and laid the cases before him. Major Halstead recommended that the rebel
sympathizers be arrested and held for exchange of citizen prisoners or Union
sympathizers in prison. This was done, and this is the way I escaped with
my father from Libby Prison. Major Halstead visited with me in October of
1895, when he attended the grand army meeting in Louisville. He lives in
Minnesota. He fought through the war and was honorably discharged at the
close of the war. He was present at the surrender of Lee at Appomattox.
I used to work for Hugh White. I was born in 1815. Between 21 to 25 years of age while working for him, James White, Sr., stayed all night with us. He was the brother of Hugh who was returning from Lexington, Kentucky, where he had been to have Dr. Dudley remove a gravel stone from his little boy. He was old and white headed, but had a young wife. He said it had been nine days since the operation had been performed. The child was running about and seemed to be doing well. (William White, son of Hugh, remembers the visit and thinks it must have been much earlier. He thinks James did not have a second wife. J.J.D.)
I live in Leslie County, I am 55 years old. I was born in Clay County.
My father's name is Aaron Brock. My mother was Barbara Shepherd. Her father's
name was James Shepherd. He was born in Virginia. I don not know what county
it was; it was near Fort Yokum and Fort ---, which was taken when he was
about ten years old by the Indians who were led by Benge, the white man
who was taken by the Indians when a boy seven years old. His capture was
as follows. His mother had sent him to gather elderberries for the ducks.
A party of Indians came upon him and attempted to kill him. He gathered
stones and began to fight them. Pleased with his valor they took him prisoner
saying, "He will make a good warrior." I have heard my grandfather
tell this and many other things, among them the taking of Fort --- and the
killing of Benge.
At the taking of this last mentioned fort, the Indians killed all but two
women, the wives of George and Peter Levice. (Livingston in Collins.) Among
the slain were the aged mother and father of Benge. After the massacre one
of the captured women asked Benge if he did not remember an old man and
an old woman who were killed. He said he did. She said, "They were
your father and mother." He dropped his head and wept. They crossed
the Cumberland Mountains at Benge's Gap. One of the women was tied to an
Indian chief but the other, led by Benge (Peter Levice's wife), marked the
path of their retreat by pieces of her clothing torn and scattered.
As the whites pursued, they came to the house of my great grandfather, Nimrod
Shepherd. My great grandmother was baking bread. It was not more than half
cooked but was divided among them hastily. They took down some dried bear
meat and venison saying, "We will use the bear's flesh for meat and
the venison for bread." The first sight they got of the Indians was
an Indians who had been stationed as a picket. He was roasting a turkey
and nodding. Peter Levice slipped within 31 feet of him. They feared to
shoot, lest the prisoners should be murdered. Springing for behind a tree,
Levice, at three bounds, fell upon his victim and dispatched him with his
tomahawk. He fell into the fire and the pursuers first ate turkey and then
went on in their pursuit. Peter had lost a wife before this by the Indians
and had recently remarried. He swore he would have her if he had to pursue
them into Ohio.
George Levice's wife was enciente. Peter Levice's wife was sitting awake.
Benge was asleep with his hand in her lap. Only one Indian was awake. A
bird hovered over Benge's head, fluttered, and darted off in the direction
of the pursuers. The waking Indian shook Benge and told him there was danger.
He grunted but fell back to sleep. The bird repeated its performance. The
Indian then awakened Benge and told him, "Get up. Bad luck. Bad luck."
Benge rose and climbed a black gum tree nearby and got some mistletoe, saying,
"I have always gotten mistletoe from this tree when coming to Powell's
Valley and have always had good luck." He put it in his shot pouch
and they started. The white men overtook them near Benge's Gap. Mrs. Peter
Levice first saw her rescuers, and her husband was the first one she saw.
He was peeping from behind a tree. He caught her eye and shook his fist
at her to keep her quiet. She went only a few steps, when she broke away
and started toward her husband, screaming. Benge made three leaps after
her, but seeing his danger, he turned in retreat. Levice fired at him as
he was pursuing his wife but feared lest he would kill his wife. As Benge
retreated he bounded from side to side to prevent his pursuers from hitting
him. Vinton Hobbs saved his load till Benge would get into the narrow gap
and then at a distance of 55 yards he put a ball through his head. Benge
had a "blackjack" cup tied to his body which he clapped over his
forehead, and it filled with blood and brains. He also had a small keg of
brandy swung over his shoulder. The white men were so infuriated that they
turned the contents of the cup upon the ground and drank the brandy from
it. They took three strips of flesh from his back, 18 inches long, saying,
"These are for razor strops." They put his skull in the cleft
of a rock, and my mother said she had seen it often. George Levice's wife
clenched the Indian to who she was tied and held his arms. He struck at
her with his tomahawk over his shoulders but she had his arms pinioned and
he could only use them below the elbows. She would dodge his lick as far
as her head was concerned but her collar bone received the blows. She held
him till her husband came to the rescue and dispatched him. Soon after she
died. A party of white men had gone another route in pursuit of the Indians
and they killed all that escaped from this party save one and he died after
reaching home. This was the last Indian raid into that country. My grandfather
died about 20 years ago (1878), he was about 90 (88-94) years old. This
would place this event late in the last century. (Collins' account is from
Beiy Shaw's in American Pioneers.) Collins says 1793, Bell County.
The Indians had captured a little Negro boy. They had him in one end of
a sack and a keg of liquor or brandy in the other end of the sack. When
they were attacked they tumbled the sack over the cliff. It struck the top
of a spruce pine which softened the fall. After they had settled with the
Indians and had started back they heard the little boy crying. Going down
under the cliff they found him. When they asked him how he got there he
said, "Why they just throwed me over here and didn't care whether they
killed me or no."
A man named Wallin, with a squad of seven men came from Virginia to Harlan
County to hunt. Near the mouth of what is now called Wallins in Harlan County
one of the party saw an Indian sitting on a log patching his moccasin and
raising his trusty rifle shot him dead. Within two hours the Whites were
surrounded by Indians and were all shot dead but one man. He escaped to
Virginia and it was 7 days before he returned with a party to bury the dead.
Each hunter had his dog. These dogs had attacked the bodies of the dead,
except Wallin's. His dog lay by the side of his master's corpse and would
neither touch it himself nor suffer another to do so. They buried them where
they were shot, which was on Laurel Branch, a little above the mouth of
Wallin's Branch, at the foot of Pine Mountain. Wallin's Creek got its name
in this way.
My grandfather, Joseph Roberts, came to Clay County from Powell's Valley,
Virginia. My father said that when my grandfather came to Clay County there
were only three families on Red Bird, viz. Dillion Asher, John Gilbert,
and Edward Callahan. Mr. Roberts settled near the mouth of Big Creek on
main Red Bird. He had children as follows: Farris (probably named for John
Farris of Laurel who settled first on Red Bird); Jesse; Thomas; George Washington
(father of deponent), born about the time of the Battle of New Orleans and
was named in honor of that victory; Betsey (Begley); Rachel Wilson (Sturgeon
people); Sookey (Bowling), mother of Elisha and Delaney Bowling of Laurel
and Jackson Counties; Chana (Hacker), wife of Samuel Hacker, the largest
man ever in Clay County, being a great bully; Action (Hacker), wife of Claiborne
Hacker, mother of Ulus and Logan Hacker of Terrill's Creek, Jackson County,
also "Long" John Hacker.
Mr. Roberts says further: "Eli Vanover and his wife, Nancy Bailey,
of Harlan live now on Buffalo Creek, Owsley County, His is 95 and his wife
about 85, both active. He visited my house last spring. She told me that
James Burkhart, the man who lived in the sycamore tree in Harlan, lived
to be 130 years old. When he was 80 or 90 he planted a walnut tree and said
he wanted his coffin made from the wood of that tree, and it was done. The
body of the tree was split and hewed into boards from which the coffin was
made. When he was about 110 years old his gray hair came out like one who
was afflicted with fever and there came in its stead a growth of black hair
just like that of a child. About the same time he cut a full set of teeth
which were very white and strong and continued so to the day of his death.
After this he would dance like a youth and claimed he was a boy again. Mrs.
Vanover was a girl at that time and saw this with her own eyes. She was
raised near Burkhart. Ad. White, son of James White, the nephew of Hugh
White, married Davis Irvine's daughter. He lived at Richmond, Kentucky.
He represented his district in Congress. His brother was mayor of Huntsville,
Alabama, died eight or ten years ago."
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