Category: Biographies
I was born in Bartow County, Georgia, on the 22nd day of January, 1829. Sometime during my infancy, and at a period too early to be remembered, my father and his family moved to East Tennessee, where we lived until I was ten years old. About this time reports concerning the Pl...
Late in the year 1848 or early in '49, we began to hear wonderful stories about gold in California. News traveled very slowly in those days, and we could depend very little upon...
16. CHAPTER XVI.The members of our party were Bill and Jack Evans, Curly Smith, Mose Cunningham of Camden Point, and one of his neighbors, whose name I do not now recall, Wall Brinton and mysel...
17. CHAPTER XVII.There were nineteen men in the train, and but three of them, Turner, Cap. Hughes, the wagon boss, and James Curl, of Rushville, knew me. They were all discreet and kept their kn...
3. CHAPTER III.At last we were in California. I had a rather bitter introduction, but I soon felt well again and began to look about to see what California was really like and to learn the tru...
13. CHAPTER XIII.I do not recall the incidents of the trip home. I do not remember the road or how we crossed the river or anything about it, though I have tried very hard to recall them. I only...
15. CHAPTER XV.I have no distinct recollection of leaving the camp on Saline River, nor do I recall the military operations that followed the battle I have just described. I know that Steele w...
18. CHAPTER XVIII.It was too late in the fall when this decision was reached to make the trip by land, and we began to look about for an opportunity to go by the river. Two men were fitting up a...
8. CHAPTER VIII.From Christmas until the middle of March, 1854, the time passed rapidly, with mother and father and with visits to old friends and acquaintances. On April first, according to co...
1. CHAPTER I.I was born in Bartow County, Georgia, on the 22nd day of January, 1829. Sometime during my infancy, and at a period too early to be remembered, my father and his family moved to...
11. CHAPTER XI.When within a few miles of Warrensburg, we learned that a portion of Mulligan's force was camped there. We camped for the night and next morning discovered that the detachment h...
14. CHAPTER XIV.Some time early in the year 1863, Price moved his forces to Little Rock. The Federal forces under General Steele approached from Springfield, and Price began preparations to rec...
4. CHAPTER IV.It was now close to the first of August, 1851. We were camped at the western side of the fifty-mile desert which gave us so much trouble on our way over. We had packed provision...
6. CHAPTER VI.By March, our cattle were fat, and we began marketing. A bunch of dairy cows shipped across San Francisco Bay to San Francisco brought two hundred dollars a head. A month later...
9. CHAPTER IX.The fall of 1854 and the winter and spring of 1855 were not unlike our previous winters in California. There was but little to do except watch the cattle to keep them from stray...
5. CHAPTER V.The first days of May found us on the banks of the river at the mouth of Black Snake. Most of the men went along with the first load of cattle ferried across the river. As the c...
10. CHAPTER X.Shortly after the beginning of the war, Elijah Gates organized a company of southern boys, and most of my neighbors enlisted for six months. They wanted me to join them, but I s...
12. CHAPTER XII.We left in the afternoon, and, taking byroads, passed Stephen Bedford's and went on to Doc Brown's on Casteel Creek. We spent the night there. Brown kept us up until midnight, a...
7. CHAPTER VII.About the first of November, the four of us left the ranch for San Francisco. There we bought four tickets for New York for eight hundred dollars, and each man belted a thousand...