Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1911 — AROUND by [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AROUND by

LIVELY SCRAP IN TENNESSEE Interesting Account of M C*if Killer or Dug Hill” Battle— Twenty Out of 72 Get Away. ______ ' I have never read an account of what is known as the “Calf Killer or Dug Hill battle,” in White county, Tennessee. I don’t recollect* the date of the battle, but it was aafyfeilme in 1864. Seventy-two of ue followed Champ Ferguson, the noted guerrilla, all day until about four o’clock In the evening, and they set a thqjffor us. and we didn’t do a thing hut ride into it. I and two more comrades were advance guards, and we were some four hundred yards in advance, writes John W. Clark, bugler, First Tennessee M. T. D„ in the National Tribune. As we were riding along at ease, I noticed fresh horse traded' in the road. I looked up the road alKnft jnie hundred yards, Ahd saw two' JOhmjies sitting on their horses, wit&jjtete lying across their saddles, said: “Boys, yonder stand two confederates. Suppose we get them.” I raised my old navy, took good aim ands opened on them. The Johnnies broke, as we thought, for. life. I was bugler. I sounded.Jthe doublequiejk charge signal, and. :Ift out after them, - and about the time tee company caught up we spied, fines of battle formed. One line was- up to our right, on-high ground, about three hundred feet above us. We were in the Dug Hill road, which j ranged around the mountain about six hundred yards from where we entered it. At the loose end of this hill was another line of battle. By this time another line had formed behijtd us, and the Johnnies were cross-firing on tin three ways. We had a close ball. As I recollect it, 20 out of t1%j72 got out. John M. Hughes, colonel commanding the Tenth Tennessee, was back in the mountains, picking up deserters and conscripting, that country. He had gathered about seven hundred, including old Champ Ferguson's band of robbers and murderers, , And they were the ones we were fighting We fought our way back tiar way we came in. Wb fired every round of ammunition in the company and then used our sabers. 11118 little fight lasted from four o’clock until about six. The smoke' was so dense that you could not tell one map from another. Lieutenant Eniick Stone of the old Fifth Tennessee cavalry was in command. About six o’clock one Johnny ball passed. so close to my head that it left a blister* aIL the way across my forehead just, above my eyes. Just after that Another - cut

my bridle reins in two between my hand and my horgfe’s 'beck. We were all pretty close together, and we started almost straight up the mountain, I In the rear by this time. A confederate caught my 1 horse by the tall and ordered me to lariirrender. I didn’t have a lead in eltiier of my navies and as I was bugler 1 wasn’t supposed to carry a gun. 1 drew my sword and gave a right-hand back cut, and I was free from him. I think we lost 52 men. At least one-half that number surrendered to Colonel Huse, as he was h regular soldier and promised to protect them. He did so by passing them back to the rear to old Champ, who shot them in cold blood. tVe got this Information from a couple of old negroes, and they said that we killed naord of them than they did of us. We were 12 miles from Sparta. Tenn.. and arrived there, about two o’clock. About four o'clock Pickett came In. He reported that he was taken prisoner, and took the oath to never take up arms against she south, so he resigned his offlco and went home, and I think of all the nervous men I ever saw during the war he was the,worst. The next day we went back through that country with *OO picked men—that is. men who volunteered to go—and not a confederate could we find in arms. .' ' „ jEgjPI In society It Is always , easier to do the proper thing Hum the right thing. 1 '

”I Sounded the Double-Quick Charge.”