THE POOR TOWN NEWS
Pictures and Short Stories from the PoorTown eBook
© 2002 James D. Pearce and Rebecca P. Pearce

Number 39
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This Week's Picture

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Union cavalry searches for a crossing at Potecasi Creek
in Hertford County

From Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, October 24, 1863

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This Week's Story

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Harrellsville
October 10, 1863

To: Isaac Pierce, Co. G, 31st Infty:

My dear brother:

Worrisome things are going on. I really don't know how to explain all this clearly, so all I know is to start. Mr. Askew, mama's husband, has quit the war and come back. I only found out a couple of days ago, because I'm not at mama's house now. I've come back with Job and Priscilla to try to get another term at the academy with Professor Sharpe.

Adolphus – I'm going to start calling him that now because I'm becoming something of a man myself, I'm almost 18 – is not living at mama's house all the time. Abigail and mama told me that he has been around for over a week now and they asked me to please keep my mouth shut about it. He has just quit the 4th Cavalry and burnt his uniform, and now he's spending most of his time in a little lean-to he put up near the upper creek in mama's front woods.

I haven't had a chance to talk to him and I don't know if he even would want to talk to me, but they say he is not too keen for some people around here to know that he is back. They say he says he may have to move on, maybe across the river if the Confeds show up around here, but that he doesn't really want to join the blue-coats that he's been riding against. They say he's got a little wooden boat he stole from somebody up the river and that he'll use it if he has to in order to get across the river. He never could get along with Jack Fairless, though, so I don't see how it would be any advantage for him to cross over there if what they say about Jack is the truth.

But I know he's got to be scared, even if he is a tough old top, and even if you and I didn't get along with him too good, I feel kind of sorry for him. From all reports, the CSA does not take kindly to deserters, which I kind of guess he is now. He sure always treated mama and Abigail OK. I guess it's just the thing with young and old menfolk that belong to the same women.

Abigail told me that Adolphus said that Jeff Davis and the CS are done for – that the main army in Virginia is on the run after trying to gobble up Pennsylvania, and that now they not only don't have boots, they don't have tents and trousers any more around Richmond, and that with winter coming on. She said he told her that Cit is still doing OK – that they were in different companies and didn't ride together, and that he didn't say anything to Cit when he decided to ride out toward home. He said he does not know how Cit is holding up about the war. He said he cut and buried his saddle and turned his horse loose up north of Winton after stealing some shirts and pants from a house near Murfreesboro. He stole the boat near Winton and oared himself down to Petty Shore, hanging close in the cypress knees.

I'm wondering if I ought to try to go and talk to him. Abigail said he was surprised as all get-out to find out that the Union boys are coming and going like they please all around our place and all along the shore, with the secessionists all backed up way on the other side of the county and half the coloreds in the world gathering at the river. She said she hasn't told him yet about Sgt. Brown and the lieutenant helping them with shoes and stuff, or about me taking a little ride down to Plymouth. Abigail said she's not about to stir up any more snakes around here than she absolutely has to.

Job's kind of mixed up about it, too. He got along with Adolphus a little better than you and me, even if he didn't like him quite as much as Cit did. But Job says it might be better if we left him alone for awhile, long enough to see what develops between the CS and the USA around this side of the river. Job says if too many of us start visiting around his lean-to, there might be some semi-secessionist ears or eyes picking up the signals, and they might pass the word too far west and get him in real trouble. Job fears Adolphus is in real danger of getting shot or hung if the CSA finds him. There's talk around that the CSA is getting ready to really march heavy back this way, and some say that there are some people over north of Edenton who have been trying to get them to come there and knock over Jack. If they do, Adolphus might be in real danger of getting caught.

Isaac, we don't know what to do. There are a lot of people around here – I can't really call them bad people – that will blow with the wind. When the blue-coats are around, they'll be just as quiet and friendly as little sparrows. When the seceshes and their sheriffs and friends move through, they'll be just the same. When you go to prayer-meeting now, not too many will hang around long and talk after the preaching like they used to when you were here. I'm believing now that is because I am not the only person in this part of the country that really don't know what to say about anything any more.

So right now Mr. Askew hangs high up the creek, with mama fixing him eats and Abigail taking the vittles most of the way to him. She doesn't go all the way to his lean-to, because she's afraid somebody might follow. He gets around some, she says, because he feels a little better moving around than he does staying in one place too long. He comes to the house for a while now and then, but he's worried about that now that he has found there are blue-coats around as well as seceshes. Nowhere to turn.

I have been writing these letters to you now for about five months – ever since the end of last term at the academy when Professor Sharpe said to start writing – and I have never heard whisper nor whistle from you since then. I know there really is not any mail, but I keep giving the letters to people heading west and hoping they'll move along.

My mind is tormented and all crossed up. If you know anything or could give me any kind of advice, I surely would like to take it. Write me even if I never get it. I want to talk to you so bad.

Your brother James

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The foregoing is a selection from the eBook "Petty Shore ~ Letters from James." The eBook is based on the written records and oral history of a family living near the Chowan River between Winton and the Wiccacon during the 1800s. The "Letters from James," based on events during the Civil War, were written by James Pearce in January 2000, and no claim is made that they are literally factual.

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This Week's Verse

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The wish, the all-absorbing wish,
it sounds from every door,
from old and young, and middle age,
the rich as well the poor.
It lights upon my list'ning ear,
while on my daily tour,
the theme, the only theme I hear,
"I wish the war was o'er."

The wish is borne on every breeze,
on every passing hour,
oft as the swinging pendulum ticks,
"I wish the war was o'er."
The tears, the sighs, the flowing blood;
the crimsoned fields of gore,
extort the cry from burdened hearts,
"I wish the war was o'er."

The wish, it fills ten thousand hearts,
thousands of thousands more,
millions in concert now exclaim,
"I wish the war was o'er."
The wish is borne on eagles' wings
echoes from shore to shore,
from center to circumference rings,
"I wish the war was o'er."

The wish, it fills a nation's heart,
it swells the nation's breast,
it flows and ebbs to flow again,
restless, it seeks for rest;
the wish enough to move a world,
a lever strong to move,
but not a fulcrum yet is found,
to overthrow this weighty load.
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(A. Anderson, 1862)

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This Week's Definition

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PAST, n.

That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of tomorrow. They are one ~ the knowledge and the dream.

(Ambrose Bierce)

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This Week's Mailbox

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I really enjoy The Poor Town News ...... Your mention of the "Whippet" automobile reminded me that my grandfather, Augustus Alfred Pierce, owned a Whippet. It was a two-door model, a two-seater with a large package tray between the seats and the back window. When my father and grandfather went off in the Whippet and I went with them, I would lie up by the back window. I was probably about four or five years old at the time. ~ David C. Miller, Northeast NC

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The road to Cotton's Island (the Hertford County farm where I grew up) is still much like the one in your picture. They have put a few rocks and a little gravel on it. Also deepened the ditches. But it still looks a lot like the one in the picture. You have come up with some neat pictures lately. Brings back old times ...... Going to have to make a trip (back there) myself, maybe next year. I haven't been back in a number of years. ~ John Taylor, Texas

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George Parker (of Rochester NY) said that if I would send you my eMail address, you would send me The Poor Town News direct ...... Thanks. I really enjoy reading the stories. ~ Doris Schimming

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One of the things about Ahoskie (in the old days) is that I don't remember ever being bored, which I think would amaze teenagers today (considering) all the diversions they have in comparison to the few we had. No television, no malls, no computer games, no CDs, no drugs (thank God). During school (we had) basketball and activities like the Pow-Wow ~ and just being with friends. In the summer we could get on our bikes (we were too young to drive even if we could borrow a car), and ride the nine miles to Tuscarora and spend the day there swimming and playing records. There was the radio whose signal was strong enough to get the big bands from New York. Though we never had to face the war the way England did, it still was a part of our lives, no matter how far away it seemed at times. My memory could be better, but all my memories of Ahoskie are good. ~ Betty, New York NY.

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Thanks for some more fine articles. I loved the fish story. After reading the "mailbox" I consider myself fortunate to be on your list. I am in good company. ~ Norma, West Melbourne FL

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THOSE REFLECTIONS AND ECHOES

This brings thanks and a warning.

First, the thanks. Our good buddy, George Parker, has recently forwarded to us edition Number 37 of The Poor Town News. As with previous numbers, we enjoyed it and also Number 38 which we found when we checked out your archives again. Even though we hailed originally from a region a couple of thousand miles away from Murfreesboro, namely, the Pacific Northwest, our family has Poor Town memories of life in logging camps, spearing salmon alongside Native Americans on rickety platforms over raging rapids on the Columbia River, etc. Those memories, though different in detail, help us feel close to the recollections you share with your readers.

We relate to Ron Lupton's "Reflections and Echoes" in Number 38. During downsizing in preparation for our move to a retirement community several years ago, we discovered a "priceless jewel" - a forgotten audio tape on which my Dad tells, among other things, about doing dangerous work as a "whistle punk" on a logging operation when he was ten years old. We, like Ron, appreciate the wealth of words and images you are providing.

We have one regret as we read your stories. We regret that we can't share The Poor Town News with a good friend who passed on recently. He grew up in East Texas. He was wise enough to write down some of his lifetime experiences for his children and grandchildren and shared a copy of his memoir with us. We are struck by how his recollections of a childhood picking cotton, working in a sand pit, dining on beans and syrup, or dried peas with a little slab of bacon which produced drops of grease floating on the hot potlikker, parallel some of the reminiscences you publish. He recounted how, as the peas aged, weevil larvae would appear in the floating drops of grease. The ones he saw were gladly removed; the unseen ones were reluctantly eaten. He also recalled being in the radio gang when the carrier Hornet went down in the battle of Santa Cruz Island in October 1942, of being bitten by a cottonmouth, and Aunt Maude who dipped snuff.

Secondly, the warning. Murfreesboro has been discovered by the Yankees; and, in case you haven't noticed, the invasion has begun. We have young friends now living north of the Mason-Dixon Line who have fallen in love with your area and have consummated the relationship by purchasing a house in Murfreesboro. Even now they are moving household goods south to secure their beachhead. We confess we have aided and abetted them by making them aware of The Poor Town News so they can take on protective coloration by such means as mastering the shibboleth "Mufflesburro" (see Number 37).

We recommend you undertake defensive action. For some years Portland, Oregon, organized volunteers called "The Rainmakers" whose duty it was to be at the airport to greet deplaning passengers, especially those from California. The Rainmakers dressed in oilskins and galoshes and carried umbrellas. Their function was to warn newcomers that it rains almost constantly in Portland and that they were welcome to visit but not to stay.

Or you may prefer the approach we read about recently in a report from Bozeman, Montana. There, prospective city-slicker transplants are being given a document entitled, "The Code of the West." It points out, among other things, that if a stray Angus tramples your daffodils, it's up to you, not your ranching neighbor, to keep cattle out of the garden.

Thanks again and keep up the good work.

Lee and Mary Erickson, Fairport NY

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