Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1912 — Remembers the Tennessee Winter of ’64. [ARTICLE]

Remembers the Tennessee Winter of ’64.

R. M. Moore’s statement in Wednesday’s Democrat regarding the past winter in. Tennessee having been the. coldest since 1864, brought back old memories to N. S. Bates, who was with the Union army camped about Nashville during that memorable cold winter. Mr. Bates well remembers the privations of the soldiers.. The snow was knqp deep and firewood was very scarce, on account of the proximity of the enemy. He and his tent-mate had provided a small fireplace in their dog-tent and one night w*h en they had run out of fuel aind Mr. Bates got so cold that he couldn’t sleep, he got up and. taking a small sled that he and his comrad had made, went out on a secret foragitng expedition: (after fuel. He found a lot of cedar ! posts over near a house about a i mile i fr,om camp and' loaded his sled down with them. After he had got the posts securely tied on he looked about a 1 bit and found one lone hen left in the henhouse, and with a few brief passes he deprived biddy of her -head and started back to camp w’th both fuel and food. There j was crust enough on the snow to bear up the sled and its load, and it was quite comfortable for sev- | eral days thereafter in the Bates tent. The chicken stew didn't t go bad with the inner man, either.