In the 'non-existant POW camp' thread below, both Bryan & Ms. Linda talked about the stories they had heard growing up about their ancestors in the war. That must be a common theme with a lot of us who are interested in the war.
When I was a little tike I used to pester my grandparents about their parents & the war. I couldnt get enough of it. My grandpa used to tell me about his pap, who was a teenaged Union cavalryman. I remember being confused as to why he had fought for the north instead of the south. I had an image of him being a southern cavalier, a Jeb Stuart type of cavalryman with a plume in his hat! I got over it.
The most interesting story my grandpa told happened in the early 1900's. He & family were going off to eastern or maybe southern Arkansas to sharecrop for a season. He took his elderly pap & mammy along with them. At some place they stopped by the roadside to have some lunch & rest. The old man had been looking around for awhile with interest. He told grandpa that he knew the area, as they had had a scrape with the rebs thereabouts. They had captured some wagons loaded with powder & provisions. He told how they had parked the wagons on the banks of a pond or a slough & set them on fire. They rolled the wagons into the pond & threw the gunpowder on top of the blazing wagons. The explosion must have been enormous. The old man wanted to find the pond, so he had my grandpa drive him around for awhile, but they never could find it. Too much land had been cleared & farmed over in the years since the war. My grandpa said his dad was real disappointed they couldnt find the place.
When my grandma said the word "bushwhacker" there was a fear, a hatred, in her old voice that was unmistakeable. Her mother was a Ross from northern Pope county & that mountain area must have been plagued with them. She said the men had to sleep out in the woods for fear the bushwhackers would pay a visit. When they did they would tear a house apart, stealing whatever meager food or belongings the women had hidden. She said they once ripped the floorboards up to find a tub of cornmeal that had been hidden under the house. After filling their saddlebags the bandits dumped the rest out on the ground for their horses, denying the pleadings of the women for a little bit of the meal. Hard times in those days.