Latest / Classic History Book Collection / Sergeant York and His People - Sam K Cowan

Transcript

Sergeant York and His People - Sam K Cowan · Classic History Book Collection

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A fight in the Forest of the Argonne. Just to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the north of Chatel Chaeri in the Argonne Forest in
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: France is a hill which is known to the American
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: soldiers as Hill number two two three. Fronting its high
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: wooded knoll on the way to Germany are three more hills.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: The one in the center is rugged, those to the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: right and left are more sloping, and the one to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the left, which the people of France have named York's Hill,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: turns a shoulder toward Hill number two two three. The
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: valley which they form is only from two to three
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: hundred yards wide. Early in the morning of the eighth
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of October nineteen eighteen, as a floating gray mist relaxed
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: its last hold on the tops of the trees on
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the side of those hills, the All America Division the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: eighty second poured over the crest of Number two two three.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Prussian guards were on the ridge tops across the valley,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: and behind the Germans ran the d Covilla railroad. The
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: artery for applies to a salient still further to the north,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: which the Germans were striving desperately to hold. The second
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: phase of the Battle of the Mouse Argonne was on
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: As the fog rose, the Americans jumped off down the
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: wooded slope, and the Germans opened fire from three directions.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: With artillery. They pounded the hillside. Machine guns savagely sprayed
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the trees under which the Americans were moving. At one point,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: where the hill makes a steep descent, the American line
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: seemed to fade away. As it attempted to pass this slope,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: it was found was being swept by machine guns. On
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the crest of the hill to the left, which faced
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: down the valley, the Germans were hastily planting other machine
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: guns there. The Americans showered that hilltop with bullets, but
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the Germans were entrenched. The sun had now melted the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: mist and the sky was cloudless. From the pits, the
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Germans could see the Americans working their way through the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: timber to find a place from which the bosh could
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: be knocked away from those death dealing machine guns, and
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to stop the digging of foxholes for new nests. A
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: non commissioned officer and sixteen men went out from the
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: American line. All of them were expert rifle shots who
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: came from the support platoon of the assault troops on
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the left. Using the forest's undergrowth to shield them. They
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: passed unharmed through the bullets swept belt which the Germans
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: were throwing around hill number two two three, and reached
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the valley. Above them was a canopy of lead. To
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the north, they heard the heavy cannonading of that part
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of the battle. When they passed into the valley, they
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: found they were within the range of another battalion of
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: German machine guns. The Germans on the hill at the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: far end of the valley were lashing the base of
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: number two two three for their own protection against the
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: bullets that came with the whip of a wasp through
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the tree tops. The detachment went boldly up the enemy's
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: hill before them. On the hillside, they came to an
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: old trench which had been used in an earlier battle
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: of the war. They dropped into it, moving cautiously, stopping
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: to get their bearings from the sounds of the guns
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: above them. They walked the trend an Indian file. It
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: led to the left around the shoulder of the hill
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: and into the deep dip of a valley. In the rear.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Germans were on the hilltop across that valley, but the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: daring of the Americans protected them. The Germans were guarding
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the valleys and passes, and they were not looking for
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the enemy in the shadow of the barrels of German guns.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: As the trench now led down the hill, carrying the
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Americans away from the gunners, they sought the detachment, came
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: out of it and took skirmish formation in the dense,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: entangled bushes. They had gone but a short distance when
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: they stepped upon a forest path. Just below them were
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: two Germans with red cross bands upon their arms. At
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the sight of the Americans, the Germans dropped their stretcher
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and turned and fled around a curve. The sound of
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the shots fired after them was lost in the clatter
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: of the machine guns above. One of the Germans fell
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: but regained his feet, and both disappeared in the shrubs
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: to the right. It was killed or captured those Germans
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: to prevent exposure of the position of the invaders, and
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: the Americans went after them. They turned off the path
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: where they saw the stretcher bearers leave it, darted through
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the underbrush, dodged trees and stumps and brushes, jumping through
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the shrubs and reeds on the bank of a small stream,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: the Americans and the lead landed in a group of
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: about twenty of the enemy. The Germans sprang to their
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: feet in surprise. They were behind their own line of battle.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Officers were holding a conference with a major private soldiers
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and groups were chatting and eating. They were before a
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: little shack that was the German major headquarters, and from
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: it stretched telephone wires. The Germans were not set for
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a fight. Out from the brushwood and off the bank
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: across the stream, one after another came the Americans. It
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: bewildered the Germans. They did not know the number of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the enemy that had come upon them. As each of
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the buddies landed, he sensed the situation and prepared for
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: an attack from any angle. Some of them fired at
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: German soldiers, whom they saw reaching for their guns. All
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: threw up their hands with a cry of camarade. When
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: the Americans opened fire about their prisoners, the Americans formed
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: a semicircle as they forced them to disarm. At the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: left end of this crescent was Alvin York, a young
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: six foot mountaineer who had come to the war from
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: the knobs of Tennessee. He knew nothing of military tactics
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: beyond the simple evolutions of the drill. Only a few
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: days before he had seen the first flash of a
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: hostile gun. But a rifle was as familiar to his
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: hands as one of the fingers upon them. His body
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: was ridged and laced with muscles that had grown to
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: seasoned sinews from swinging a sledge in a blacksmith's shop.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: He had never seen the man or crowd of men
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: of whom he was afraid. He had hunted in the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: mountains while forked lightning flashed around him. He had heard
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the thunder crash in mountain coves as loud as the
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: burst of any German shell. He was of that type
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: into which whose brain and heart the qualm of fear
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: never comes. The Americans were on the downstep of the hill,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: with their prisoners on higher ground. The major's headquarters had
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: been hidden away in a thicket of young undergrowth, and
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the Americans could see but a short distance head. As
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the semicircle formed, with Alban York on the left end,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: he stepped beyond the edge of the thicket, and what
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: he saw up the hill surprised him. Just forty yards
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: away was the crest, and along it was a row
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: of machine guns, a battalion of them. The German gunners
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: had heard the shots fired by the Americans in front
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: of the major's shack, or they had been warned by
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: the fleeing stretcher bearers that the enemy was behind them.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: They were jerking at their guns, rapidly turning them around,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: for the nests had been masked, and the muzzles of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the guns pointed down into the valley at the foot
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: of hill number two two three to sweep it. When
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the eighty second Division came into the open, some of
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the Germans in the gun pits, using rifles, shot at York.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: The bullets burned his face as they passed. He cried
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: a warning to his comrades, which evidently was not heard,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: for when he began to shoot up the hill, they
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: called to him to stop. As the Germans had surrendered,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: they saw only the prisoners before them. There was no
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: time for parley. York's second cry look out could carry
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: no excellence of the danger to those whose view was
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: blinded by the thicket. The Germans had their guns turned
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Hell and death were being belched down the hillside upon
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the Americans. At the opening rattle of these guns, the
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: German prisoners as if through a pre arranged signal, fell
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: flat to the ground, and the streams of lead passed
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: over them. Some of the Americans, prevented by the thicket
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: from seeing that an attack was to be made upon them.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Hearing the guns, instinctively followed the lead of the Germans,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: but the onslaught came with such suddenness that those in
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the line of fire had no chance. The first sweep
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: of the guns killed six and wounded three of the Americans.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Death leaped through the bushes and claimed Corporal Murray Savage,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Privates Marian Demwalski, Ralph Wheeler, Fred Waring, William Wine, and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Carl Swanson crumpled to the ground. Wounded were Sergeant Bernard Early,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: who had been in command, Corporal William B. Cutting, and
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Private Merry O. Musey Yorke. To escape the guns he
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: saw sweeping towards him, had dived to the ground between
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: two shrubs. The fire of other machine guns was added
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: to those already in action, and streams of lead continued
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: to pour through the thicket, but the toll of the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: dead and wounded of the Americans had been taken. The
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Germans kept their line of fire about waist high so
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: they would not kill their own men, some of whom
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: they could see grobbling on the ground. York had seen
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the murder of his pals in the first onset. He
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: had heard some one say, let's get out of here.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: We are in the German line. Then all had been
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: silence on the American side. German prisoners lay on the
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: ground before him, in view of the gunners on the hilltop.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: York edged around till he had a clear view of
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the gun pits above him. The stalks of weeds and
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: undergrowth were about him. There came a lull in the
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: machine gun fire. Several Germans arose as though to come
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: out of their pits and down the hill to see
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the battle's result. But on the American side the battle
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: was just begun. York, from the brushes at the end
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: of the thicket let fly. One of the Germans, sprang upward,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: waved his arms above him as he began his flight
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: into eternity. The others dropped back into their holes, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: there was another clatter of machine guns, and again the
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: bullets slashed across the thicket, but there was silence on
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: the American side. York waited more cautiously German heads began
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: to rise above their pits. York moved his rifle deliberately
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: along the line, knocking back those heads that were the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: more venturesome. The American rifle shoots five times and a
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: clip was gone before the Germans realized that the fire
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: upon them was coming from one point. They centered upon
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: that point. Around York. The ground was torn up. Mud
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: from the plowing bullets besmirched him. The brush was moved
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: away above and on either side of him, and leaves
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: and twigs were falling over him. But they could only
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: shoot at him. They were given no chance to take
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: deliberate aim. As they turned the clumsy barrel of a
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: machine gun down at the fire sparking point on the hillside,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: a German would raise his head above his pit to
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: sight it. Instantly backward along that machine gun barrel would
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: come an American bullet crashing into the head of the
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: bosch whom manned the gun. Prisoners on the ground squirmed
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: under the fire that was passing over them. Their bodies
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: were in a tortuous motion, but Yorke held them there.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: It made the gunners keep their fire high. Every shot
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: York made was carefully placed as a hunter stops in
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the forest and gazes straight ahead, his mind receptive to
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: the slightest movement of a squirrel or the rustle of
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: leaves in any of the trees before him. So this
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Tennessee mountaineer faced and fought that line of blazing machine
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: guns on the ridge of the hill before him. His
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: mind was sensitive to the point in the line that
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: at that instant threatened a real danger, and instinctively he
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: turned towards it. Down the row of prisoners on the ground,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: he saw the German major with a pistol in his hand,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and he made the officer throw the gun to him. Later,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: its magazine was found to have been emptied. He noted
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: that after he shot at the gun pit, there was
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: a break in the line of flame at that point,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: and an interval would pass before that gun would again
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: be manned and become a source of danger to him.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: He also realized that where there was a so break
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: of ten or fifteen feet in the line of flame,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and the trunk of a tree rose within that space,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: that soon a German gun and helmet would be peeking
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: around the tree's trunk. A rifleman would try for him.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Where the machine guns failed in the mountains of Tennessee.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Alvin York had won fame as one of the best
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: shots with both rifle and revolver that those mountains had
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: ever held, and his imperturbability was as noted as the
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: keenness of his sight. In the mountain, shooting matches at
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: a range of forty yards, just the distance the row
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of German guns were from him, he would put ten
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: rifle bullets into a space no larger than a man's
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: thumb nail. Since a small boy, he had been shooting
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: with a rifle at the bobbing heads of turkeys that
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: had been tethered behind a log, so that only their
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: heads would show. German heads, and German helmets loomed large
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: before him. A battalion of machine guns is a military
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: unit organized to give battle to a regiment of infantry.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Yet one man a representative of America on that hillside
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: on that October morning, Oake the morale of a battalion
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: of machine gunners made up from members of Germany's famous
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Prussian guards. Down in the brush below the Prussians was
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: a human machine gun they could not hit, and the
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: penalty was death to try to locate him. As York fought,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: there was prayer upon his lips. He was an elder
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: in a little church back in the valley of the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: three Forks of the Wolf in the mountains of Tennessee.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: He prayed to God to spare him and to have
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: mercy on those whom he was compelled to kill. When
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: York shot and a German soldier fell backward or pitched
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: forward and remained motionless, York would call to them, well,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: come on down. It was an earnest command in which
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: there was no spirit of exultation or braggadocio. He was
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: praying for their surrender so that he might stop killing them.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: His command come down. At times above the firing was
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: heard in the German pits. They realized they were fighting
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: one man, and they could not understand the strange demand.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: When the fight began, York was lying on the ground,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: but as the entire line of German guns came into
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the fight, he raised himself to a sitting position so
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: that his gun would have the sweep of all of them.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: When the Germans found they could not get him with bullets,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: they tried other tactics. Off to his left, seven Germans,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: led by a lieutenant, crept through the bushes, when about
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: twenty yards away they broke for him with lowered bayonets.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: The clip of York's rifle was nearly empty. He dropped
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: it and took his automatic pistol. So calmly was he
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: master of himself, and so complete his vision of the
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: situation that he selected as his first mark among the
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: uncoming Germans, the one farthest away. He knew he would
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: not miss the form of a man at that distance.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: He wanted the rear men to fall first, so the
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: others would keep coming at him, and not to stop
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: in panic when they saw their companions falling and fire
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: a volley at him. He felt that in such a
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: volley his only danger lay. They kept coming and fell
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: as he shot. The foremost man, and the last a
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: toample did not get ten yards from where he started.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Their bodies formed a line down the hillside. York resumed
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the battle with the machine guns. The German fire had
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: eased up while the Bannet charge was on The gunners
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: paused to watch the grim struggle below them. The major
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: from among the prisoners crawled to York with an offer
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: to order the surrender of the machine gunners. Do it
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: was his laconic acceptance, but his vigilance did not lessen
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to the right. A German had crawled near by. He
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: rose and hurled a hand grenade. It missed its objective
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: and wounded one of the prisoners. The American rifle swung quickly,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and the grenade thrower pitched forward with the grunt of
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a man struck heavily in the stomach pit. The German
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: major blew his whistle out of their gun pits. The
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Germans came around from behind trees up from the brush
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: on either side. They were unbuckling cartridge belts and throwing
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: them and their side arms away. York did not move
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: from his position in the brush about half way down
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the hill. As they came to him, he halted them,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: and he watched the gun pits for movement of anyone
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: left skulking there. His eye went cautiously over the new
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: prisoners to see that all side arms had been thrown away.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: The surrender was genuine. There were about ninety Germans before
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: him with their hands in the air. This gave him
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: over a hundred prisoners. He arose and called to his comrades,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and several answered him. Some of the responses came from
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: wounded men. All of the Americans had been on York's
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: right throughout the fight. The thicket had prevented them from
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: taking any effective part. They were forced to protect themselves
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: from the whining bullets that came through the brush from
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: unseen guns. They had constantly guarded the prisoners and shielded
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Yorke from treachery. Seven Americans, Percy Beardley, John Konotski, Thomas G. Johnson,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Fyodor Sak, Michael A. Secchina, Patrick Donahue, and George W.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Wills came to him. Sergeant Early, Curpal Cutting, and Private Musy,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: though wounded, were still alive. He lined the prisoners up
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: by twos. His own wounded, he put at the rear
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: of the column and forced the Germans to carry those
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: who could not walk. The other Americans he stationed along
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the column to hold the prisoners in line. Sergeant Early,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: shot through the body, was too severely wounded to continue
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: in command. Yorke was a corporal, but there was no
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: question of rank, for all turned to him for instructions.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: The Germans could not take their eyes off of him,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: and instantly complied with all his orders given through the major,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: who spoke English, Stray bullets kept plugging through the branches
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: of the trees around them. For the first time, the
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Americans realized they were under fire from the Germans on
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the hill back of them, whom they had seen when
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: they had come out of the deserted trench. The German
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: station there could not visualize the strange fight that was
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: taking place behind a line of German machine guns, and
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: they were withholding their fire to protect their own men.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: They were plugging into the woods with rifles, hoping to
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: draw a return volley and thus establish the American's position.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: To all who doubted the possibility of carrying so many
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: prisoners through the fore forest or spoke of reprisal attacks
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: to release them, Yorke's reply was, let's get him out
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: of here. The German major, looking down the long line
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of Germans, possibly planning some recoup from the shame and
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: ignomy of the surrender of so many of them, stepped
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: up to York and asked, how many men have you got?
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: The big mountaineer wheeled on him. I got up plenty,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and the Major seemed convinced that the number of Americans
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: was immaterial, as York thrust his automatic into the Major's
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: face and stepped him up to the head of the column.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Among the captives were three officers. These York placed around
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: him to lead the prisoners, one on either side and
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the major immediately before him, and Yorke's right hand swung
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the automatic pistol with which he had made an impressive
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: demonstration in the fight up the hill. The officers were
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: told that at the first sign of treachery, or for
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: failure of the men behind to obey a command, the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: penalty would be their lives, and the major was informed
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: that he would be the first to go. With this information,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: no German skulking on the hill or in the bushes
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: could fire upon York without endangering the officers. Similar protection
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: was given all of the Americans acting as escort up
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: the hill. York started the column from the topography of
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the land he knew there were machine guns over the
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: crest that had had no part in the fight, straight
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: to these nests. He marched them. As the column approached,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: the major was forced by York to command the gunners
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: to surrender. Only one shot was fired after the march began.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: At one of the nests, a German, seeing so many
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: German as prisoners and so few of the enemy to
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: guard them. All of them on the German firing line
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: with machine gun nests around them, refused to throw down
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: his gun and showed fight. York did not hesitate. The
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: remainder of that man's crew took their place in line,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and the major promised York there would be no more
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: delays in the surrender if he would kill no more
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: of them. As a great serpent. The column wound among
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: the trees on the hilltop, swallowing the crews of German
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: machine guns. After the ridge had been cleared, four machine
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: gun nests were found down the hillside. It took all
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the woodcraft the young mountaineer knew to get to his
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: own command. They had come back over the hilltop and
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: were on the slope of the valley in which the
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: eighty second Division was fighting. They were now in danger
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: from both German and American guns. York, listening to the firing,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: knew that the Americans had reached the valley, and that
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: some of them had crossed it. Where their line was running,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: he could not determine. He knew if the Americans saw
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: his column of German uniforms, they were in danger. Captors
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and captives alike of being annihilated at any moment. The
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Germans from the two hilltops down the valley to check
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the eighty second Division's advance might lay a belt of
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: bullets across the course they traveled, winding around the cleared
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: places and keeping in the thickly timbered section of the
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: hill slope whenever it was possible. Sergeant York worked his
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: way towards the American line. In the dense woods. The
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: German major made suggestions of a path to take. As
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: York was undecided which one to choose, the major's suggestion
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: made him go the other one. Frequently the muzzle of
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: York's automatic dimpled Major's back, and he quickened his step,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: slowed up, or led the column in the direction indicated
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: to him, without turning his head and without inquiry as
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to the motive back of York's commands. Down near the
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: foot of the hill, near the trench they had traveled
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: a short while before York answered the challenge to halt.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: He stepped out so his uniform could be seen, and
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: called to the Americans challenging him and about to fire
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: on the Germans that he was bringing in prisoners. The
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: American line opened for him to pass and a wild
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: cheer went up from the dough boys when they saw
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the column of prisoners. Some of them called to him
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to know if he had the whole damned German army.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: At the foot of the hill. In an old dugout,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: an American PC had been located, and York turned in
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: his prisoners. The prisoners were officially counted by Lieutenant Joseph
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: a Woods, assistant division inspecter, and there were one hundred
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and thirty two of them. Three of the number were
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: officers and one with the rank of major. When the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: eighty second Division passed on, officers of York's regiment visited
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the scene of the fight, and they counted twenty five
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Germans that he had killed, and thirty five machine guns
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: that York had not only silenced, but had unmanned, carrying
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the men back with him as prisoners. When York was
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: given his receipt for the prisoners, an incident happened that
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: shows the true nightliness of the character of this untrained mountaineer.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: It was but a little after ten o'clock in the morning.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: The Americans had a hard days fighting ahead of them.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Somewhere out in the forest. York's own company company g
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: and his own regiment, the three twenty eighth Infantry, were fighting.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: He made an inquiry, but no one could direct him
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to them. He turned to the nearest American officer, saluted,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: and reported ready for duty. What he had done was
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: to him but a part of the work to be
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: done that day. But York was assigned to the command
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: of his prisoners to carry them back to a detention camp.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: The officers were held by the PC for an examination
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and grilling on the plans of the enemy whenever they could.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: The private soldiers among the prisoners gathered close to York,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: now looking to him for their personal safety. On the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: way to the detention camp, the column was shelled by
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: German guns from one of the hilltops. York maneuvered them
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: and put them in double quick time until they were
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: out of range. Late in the afternoon, back of the
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: three hills that faced Hill number two two three, the
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: All America Division cut the Dakoviy railroad that supplied as
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: salient to the north that the Germans were striving desperately
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: to hold. As they swept on to their objective, they
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: found the hill to the left of the valley that
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: turns the shoulder towards number two two three, which the
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: people of France have named York's Hill, cleared of Germans
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and on its crest silent and unmanned machine guns. Americans
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: returned and buried on the hillside, beside a thicket near
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a shack that had been the German officers headquarters six
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: American soldiers. They placed wooden crosses to mark the graves,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and on the top of the crosses swung the helmets
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the soldiers had worn out of the forest. Came the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: story of what York had done. The men in the
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: trenches along the entire front were told of it, not
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: only in the United States, but in Great Britain, France,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: and Italy. It electified the public from the meager details
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the press was able to carry. For the entire Ontante
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: firing line was ablaze and a surrender was being forced
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: upon Germany, and York's division was out in the Argonne,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: still fighting its way ahead. The people could but wonder
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: how one man was able to silence a battalion of
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: machine guns and bring in so many prisoners. Major General
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: George B. Duncan, commander of the eighty second Division, and
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: officers of York's Regiment knew that history had been made
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: upon that hillside. By personal visits of the regiment's officers
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: to the scene, by measurements, by official count of the
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: silent guns and the silent dead, by affidavits from those
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: who were with York, the record of his achievement was verified.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Major General C. P. Smarole before the officers of York's regiment,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: said to him, your division commander has reported to me
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: your exceedingly gallant conduct during the operations of your division
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: in the Meuse Argonne battle. I desired express to you
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: my pleasure and commendation for the courage, skill, and gallantry
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: which you displayed on that occasion. It is an honor
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to command such soldiers as you. Your conduct reflects great
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: credit not only upon the American Army, but upon the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: American people. Your deeds will be recorded in the history
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of this great war, and they will live as an
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: inspiration not only to your comrades, but to the generations
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: that will come after us. General John J. Pershing in
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: penning the Congressional Medal of Honor upon him, the highest
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: award for valor the United States Government bestows, called Yorke
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the greatest civilian soldier of the war, Marshall Falk, bestowing
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the Qua Deguier with palm upon him, said his feet
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: was the world war's most remarkable individual achievement. A deed
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: that is done through the natural use of a great
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: talent seems to the doer of the deed the natural
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: thing to have done. A sincere response to appreciation and
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: praise made by those endowed with real ability usually comes
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: cloaked with a genuine modesty. At his home in the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Valley of the Three Forks of the Wolf, after the
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: war was I asked Alvin York how he came to
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: be Sergeant York. Well, he said, as he looked earnestly
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: at me. You know, we were in the Argonne Forest
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: twenty eight days and had some mighty hard fighting there.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: A lot of our boys were killed off. Every company
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: asked to have so many sergeants. They needed a sergeant,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and they just took me. In the summer of nineteen seventeen,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: when Alvin York was called to war, he was working
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: on the farm for twenty five dollars a month and
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: his midday meal walking to and from his work. He
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: was helping to support his widowed mother with her family
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: of eleven, when he returned to this country to be
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: mustered out of service. He had traveled among the soldiers
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: of France the guest of the American Expeditionary Force, so
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: the man in the lions could see the man whose
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: single handed had captured a battalion of machine guns, and
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: he bore the emblems of the highest military honors conferred
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: for valor by the governments composing the Allies. At New York,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: he was taken from troopship when it reached the harbor,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: and the spontaneous welcome given him there and at Washington
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: was not surpassed by the pre arranged demonstrations for the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: nation's distinguished foreign visitors. The streets of those cities were
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: lined with people to await his coming, and police patrols
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: made way for him. The flaming red of his hair,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: his young, sunburned, weather ridged face with its smile and
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: its strength, the Warren service cap and uniform all marked
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: him to the crowds as the man they sought. On
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the shoulders of members of the New York Stock Exchange,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: he was carried to the floor of the Exchange, and
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: business was suspended when he appeared in the gallery of
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the House of Representatives at Washington, the debate was stopped
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: and the members turned to cheer him. A sergeant in rank,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: he sat at banquets as the guest of honor, with
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the highest officials of the Army and Navy, and the
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: government on either side. Wherever he went he heard the
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: echo of the valuation which Marshall Falk and General Pershing
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: placed upon his deans. Many business propositions were made to him.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Some were substantial and others strange. The whimsical offerings of
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: enthused admirers. Among them were cool fortune. He could never
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: earn at labor. Taking as a basis the money he
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: was paid for three months on the farm in the
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: summer before he went to France, he would have had
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: to work fifty years to earn the amount he was
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: offered for a six weeks theatrical engagement for the rights
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: to the story of his life, a single newspaper was
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: willing to give him the equivalent of thirty three years.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: He would have to live to be over three hundred
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: years of age to earn at the old farm wage
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the sum motion picture companies offered as a guarantee. He
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: turned all down and went back to the little worried
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: mother who was waiting for him in a hut in
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the mountains, To the gazelle like mountain girl, whose blue
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: eyes had haunted the shades of night and the shadows
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: of trees, To the old seventy five acre farm that
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: clings to one of the sloping sides of a sun
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: kissed valley in Tennessee. He refused to capitalize on his fame,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: his achievements that were crowded into a few months in
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: the army of his country. There was one influence that
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: was ever guiding him. The future had to square with
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the principles of thought and action he had laid down
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: for himself, and that he had followed since he knelt
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: four years before at the rough boarded altar in the
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: little church in the valley of the three Forks of
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the Wolf, whose belfry had been calling appealing to him
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: since childhood. Admiral Albert Gleaves, who commanded the warship convoy
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: for the troopships himself a Tennesseean, made a prediction which
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: came true. The guns of are gone, and the batteries
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: of welcome of the East were not to be compared
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: to those to be turned loose in York's home state.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: The people of Tennessee filled depots, streets, and tabernacles to
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: welcome him. Gifts awaited him, which ranged from a four
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: hundred acre farm raised by public subscription by the rotary
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: clubs and newspapers, to blooded stock for it, and almost
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: every form of household furnishings that could add to a
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: man's comfort. It took a war room at Nashville and
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the courtesies of the barns of the State Fair Association
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: to hold the gifts. He was made a colonel by
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: the Governor of Tennessee and appointed a member of his staff.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: He was elected to honorary membership in many organizations as
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: far away as Spokane. The Red Headed Club thought him
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: worthy of their membership by virtue of the color of
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: his hair, and in recognition of his services to this
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: our glorious country. The nations of Europe, for whom he
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: had fought had not forgotten, nor had they ceased to
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: honor him. After he had returned to the mountains of Tennessee.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Another citation came from the French government for a military
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: ward that had been made him in a ceremony at
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the capital of Tennessee. The Italian government conferred upon him
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the Italian Cross of War. The Valley of the Three
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Forks of the Wolf, where Alvian York was born and lives,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: which has been the home of his ancestors for more
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: than a hundred years, is a level, fertile valley that
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: is almost a rectangle in form. Three mountains rising on
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: the north, south, and west enclose it. But to the
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: east four mountains jumbled together forming a fourth side. Seems
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: that each of these is striving for a place by
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the valley. It is down the passes of these mountains
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: on the east that the three branches of the Wolf
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: River run, and it is their meeting and co mingling
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: that gave the quaint name to the valley. The forks
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: of the Wolf rushed down the passes, but the river
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: it runs lazily through the valley. It flows beside a cornfield,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: then wanders over a meadow of clover or into a
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: patch of sugar cane, turning the while from side to
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: side as the varying mountain vistas come into view. At
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the far end, where it is pushed over the mill
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: dam and out of the valley, the Wolf roars protestingly,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: then rushes on to the Cumberland River, a silver line
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: between the mountains pow Maow. The village is co extensive
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: with the valley of the three forks of the Wolf.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: As a stranger first sees Powmow, it is but a
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: half mile of the mountain roadway that runs from Jamestown,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: the county seat of Fentress County, to Birdstown, the county
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: seat of Pickett. The roadway comes down from the top
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of the knobs a thousand feet above, and it comes
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: over rocks of high and low degree, a jolting, impressive
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: journey for its traveler. It reaches the foot of the
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: mountain along one of the prongs of the Wolf, crosses
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: them at the base of the eastern mountains, and passes
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: on to the northern side of the river at the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: post office of pow Maw, which which is also the
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: store of Pastor Pyle, a frame building upon stilts to
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: allow an unobstructed flow of the Wolf when on a
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: winter rampage. The road turns at right angles to the
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: west through fields of corn. It goes across a stretch
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: of red clover to the clump of forest trees which
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: is the schoolhouse grounds and in which nestles the little
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: church that has played such a prominent part in the
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: life of the village. Then the road goes beside the
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: graveyard and again through corn to the general store of
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: John Marion Rains, which, with five houses in sight, and
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: one of these the York Homb, marks the western confine
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: of pow Maw. One can be in the center of
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: pow Maw and not know it, for the residents live
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: in farmhouses that dot the valley and in cabins on
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the mountain sides. The little church, which sits by the
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: road with no homes near it, is the geographical as
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: well as the religious center of the community. It is
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the heart of pow Maw. Passing the rain store, the
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: roadway tumbles down to the York's Big Spring, a brook
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: and volume. The stream flows clear, cool from a low
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: rock ribbed cave in the base of the mountain. Across
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: the spring branch up the mountain side, in a clump
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: of honeysuckle and roses and apple trees, is the home
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: to which Sergeant York returned. It is the two room cabin.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: The boxing is of rough boards, as are the unplaned
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: narrow strips of batting covering the cracks. There is a
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: chimney at one end, and in one room is a fireplace.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: The kitchen is a lean to, and the only porch
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: is on the rear the width of the kitchen dining room.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: The porch is for service and work, railed partly with
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: a board for a shelf which holds the water bucket,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: the tin wash basin, and burdens brought in from the farm.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Parts of the walls of the two rooms are papered
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: with newspapers and catalog pages. The rough rafters run above
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: the uncovered floor is of wide boards, worn smooth in service,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: chinked to keep out the blasts of winter. The porch
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: in the rear is on a level with the mountain side.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: To care for the mountain slope, a front stoop was built.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: The sides of it are scantlings, and the steps are
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: narrow boards. The house has been painted by poverty, but
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: the home is warmed and lit by a mountain mother's love.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: The front stoop is a wooden ladder with flat steps,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: but the entrance to the home is an arbor of
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: honeysuckle and roses. On summer nights, the York boys sat
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: on that stoop and sang. Their voices floated on the
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: moonbeams out over the valley. The little mother pottered about
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: with ever a smile on her face. For her boys
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: they were happy. It was from this home that Alvin
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: went to war, and it was to it he returned.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Visitors know, and it is well for others to realize
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: that pall Mall and the valley of the three Forks
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: of the Wolf are back among the rising ranges of
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the Cumberland Mountains, forty eight miles from the railroad. Alvin
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: York came from a line of ancestors who were cane
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: cutters and Indian fighters. The earliest ancestor of whom he
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: has knowledge was a long hunter, who, with a rifle
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: upon his shoulder, strode into the Valley of the Wolf
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: and homesteads the river bottom lands. Here as people lived
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: far from the traveled paths, marooned in their mountain fastnesses,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: they clung to the customs and traditions of the past.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Their life was simple and their sports quaint. They held
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: shooting matches on the mountain side, enjoyed log rollings and
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: corn huskings. Strong in their loves and in their hates,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: they feared God, but feared no man. The Civil War
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: swept over the valley and left splotches of blood. Friends
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of Sergeant York, knowing that the history of his people
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: was rich in story, and that the public was waiting
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: wanting to know more of the man, the German army
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: could not make run nor make surrender, and instead had
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: to come to him urged that his story be told.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: He had been mustered out of the army and come
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: back to the valley, wanting to pick up again the
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: drop thread of his former life. He was striving earnestly
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: and prayerfully to blot from recurrent memory that October morning
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: seen on York's Hill in France. His friends and neighbors
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: at Palma now waited eagerly for his return. They wanted
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: to hear from his own lips the story of his fight.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: No man of the mountains was ever given the home
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: coming that was his. It was made the reunion of
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: the people with the neighbors, the component parts of one
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: great family. When home again, Alvin wanted no especial deference
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: shown him. He wished to be again just one of them,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: to swing himself upon the counter at the general store
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and talk with them. As of old. He had much
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: to tell from his experience, but always it was of
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: other incidents than the one that made him famous. Months passed.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: He lived in that mountain cabin with his little mother,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: whose council had ever influenced him, and yet not once
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: did he mention to her that he had a fight
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: in the forest of Argonne. His consent was gained for
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: the publication of the story of his people, but it
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: was with the pronounced stipulation that it be told right
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: weeks afterwards, for I had gone to live a while
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: among his people. The two of us were sitting upon
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the rugged rock facing to the cliff above the York Spring,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: talked thinking about the fight in France. He told of
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: it hesitatingly, modestly. Some of the parts was simply the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: confirmation of assembled data, much of it denial of published
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: rumor and conjecture. Before the story came out as a whole.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: I asked the meaning of his statement that he would
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: not mind the publication if the story were done right well,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: he said, with his mountain drawl, I don't want you
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: bearing down too much on that killin part, tell it
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: without so much of that. A rock was picked up
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: and hurled down the mountain side. I then understood why
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: the little mother was just so waitin til Alvin gets
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: ready to talk. I understood why the son did not
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: wish to be the one to bring into his mother's
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: mind the picture of that hour in France when men
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: were falling before his gun. I saw the reason he
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: had for always courteously avoiding talking of the scene with anyone.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: But and he turned with that smile that wins and friends.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I just can't help chuckling at that German major. I
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: sure had him bluffed, according to the Code Mountain conversation.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: There followed a silence. Another rock bounded off a sapling
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: down the cliff. You should have seen the major. He
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: resumed moved down that hill whenever I pulled down on
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: him with that old Colt goose step it I think
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: they call it. He was so little, his back was
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: so straight and all huffed up over the way. He
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: had to mind me. I had watched the rocks as
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: they went down the cliff, and it seemed nearly every
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: one of them bounced off the same limb. I commented
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: on the accuracy of his eye. Oh, I wasn't throwing
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: at that sapling but at that leaf he straightened up
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: and threw more carefully, and the leaf floated down to
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: the waters of the York Spring. Down by the spring,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I met the little mother bringing in a tin bucket
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: to the stone milk house which nature had built. Her slender,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: drooping figure, capped by the sunbonnet she always wore, reached
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: just to the shoulder of her son, as he placed
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: his arm protectingly about her. I asked if she were
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: not proud of that boy of hers. Yes, she answered,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: with pride in every line of her sweet, though wrinkled face.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I am proud of all of them, all of my
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: eight boys. End of chapter A long Hunter comes to
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: the valley. The valley of the three Forks of the
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Wolf is more than a fertile space between two mountain ranges.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: It is a rectangular basin of verdure and beauty in
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: the glow of a southern sun, around which seven mountains
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: have grown to their maturity generously. For uncounted years, this
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: family of the hills has given to the valley the
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: surplus products of their timbered slopes, and the Wolf River
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: has gone through the valleys, distributing the wealth the mountains
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: brought in brightening and adding touches of beauty here and there,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: ever singing as she came down to her daily task.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: The mountains and the river have worked unceasingly together to
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: make the spot a place of comfort and beauty. On
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: the bare rock shoulder of one of these mountains, in
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: the closing years of the eighteenth century stood one of
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the last of the long hunters, that race of stout hearted,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: sturdy legged men, who, when the Atlantic coast was dotted
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: with sparsely settled British colonies, climbed the mountains and went
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: down the western slopes on the long hunts in the
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: unknown land that lay below. They were the pioneers of
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: the pioneers, who, in their wanderings found a spot rich
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: in game, in nuts and soil, such a home as
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: they had wished, and they beckoned back for their families
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: and their friends. The figure upon the rock ledge rested
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: upon a long muzzle loading flintlock rifle as he looked
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: out over the valley. His legs were wrapped in crudely
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: tanned hides made from the game he had killed. His
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: cap was of coonskin. His search for adventure and game
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: had carried him across the crest of the Cumberlands, and
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: along many weary, lonely miles of the western wooded slopes
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: of those mountains. Years afterward, he is known to have
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: said that the view from the crag that day was
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: the most appealing in its calmness and its beauty that
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: he had seen upon his hunts. Below him stretched a
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: grove of trees. Their waving tops told of their size,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and to his trained woodsman's eye, the quivering oval leaves
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: were the leaves of the walnut. It was assurance that
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: the soil was rich, and through the length of the valley,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: twisted irregularly, lay a wide ribbon of saffron cane, from
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: which at times the silver surface of a stream showed
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: a further evidence of the soil's fertility. Over the western
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: edge of this table land of green and yellow and silver,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: the mountains cast a shadow of purple, and the sun
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: filtered slanting rays through the forest slopes on the north
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: and east down the mountain side. He came and into
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the valley, never to leave it, except when in bartering
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: with the Indians he went to their camping places for firs,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: or in the years of prosperity that followed he was
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: upon a trading mission. He first made his way through
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Walnut Grove in search of the caned banks of the river.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: As he pushed through the reeds that swayed above him,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: he came suddenly upon a well. Beaten in its dust
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: were the prints of deer hoofs, and he followed them.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: The path threaded the length of the valley beside the
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: river's winding course, but he knew from the crest of
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the mountains above him the direction he was taking. It
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: led him to the base of one of these mountains,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: to a spring which flowed clear and cool. A brook
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: and size from a low rock ribbed cave by the spring,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: he cooked his meal. His bread was baked upon a
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: hot stone, and he drank water from a terrapin shell.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: As he ate his meal, there came the sound of
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: breaking cane, a familiar welcome vibration to the hunter. A
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: stone that is still by the spring side was used
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: as a shelter and a resting place for the rifle,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: and a deer fell as it stopped, astonished at the
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: curling smoke that rose from its watering place. This was
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the first meal of the white man at the York Spring,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: or in the Valley of the Three Forks of the Wolf,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: and for more than fifty years the hunter lived within
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: a hundred yards of where he camped that day. He
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: was Jonrad Pile, or Old Coonrod, as he is known
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the descriptive adjectives, and by name ever coupled as though
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: one word. He was the great great grandfather of Sergeant
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Alvin Cullham, York, and the earliest ancestor of which he
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: has account Above the spring in the rock facing of
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: the cliff is a large cave. Here Coonrod Pile spread
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: a bed of leaves and made his home. The camp
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: fire was kept burning, and its smoke was seen by
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: other hunters, and person Miller, Arthur Frog, John Riley and
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Moses Poor came to Coonrod in the valley, and they
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: too made their homes there, and pal Maw was founded.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: And the descendants of these men are to day eighty
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: percent of the residents in the Valley of the Three
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Forks of the Wolf. This is but one of the
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: many valley settlements made by long hunters in the Appalachian
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Mountains adventurous families in the last days of the colonies
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and in the years that came after the Revolution. Followed
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: the hunters and log cabins and clear its spaces appeared
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: in the valleys and on the mountain sides, and from
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: them sprang another race of long hunters, who went out
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: from the mountains down into the valleys of the Ohio
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: and the Mississippi, returning to tell of the land and
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: the game they had found. Not far from pow Mall
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: as the Crow would rise and journey is a carving
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: upon a tree that is believed to historically mark the
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: path of the most noted of long hunters, And it
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: says d Boone killed a bar on tree in the
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: year seventeen sixty. Immigrants of those days settled as Kunrod
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Pyle and his companions took up their squatter's rights in
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: the valley of the Wolf. As canvas covered mountain schooners
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: carrying families of the settlers moved westward. They followed the
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: trails of the hunters and stopped where it appealed to them.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Wagon tracks grew into roads as the travel increased, and
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: the roads, unvaryingly led to the passes and the gaps
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: in the mountains that offered the least resistance to progress,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: So scattered throughout the ranges of the Appalachians are many
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: homes and settlements off from the old beaten wagon trails,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: far distant from the railroads of to day, reached only
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: over rocky, rarely worked roadways. Those who dwell there are
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: the direct descendants of pioneers. Here they had lived for generations,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: unmolested by the rush and hurry for homes to the
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: more fertile west. Often in those days, a mountain neighbor
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: was forty miles away, and they were long rugged miles.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: To day, a traveler distant on the mountain side can
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: be recognized by the mountaineers, while the man's features are
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: still untraceable by the droop of a hat or a
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: peculiar walk or amble of the mule he rides. In
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: the case of any traveler along those remote roads, the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: odds are long that the man, his father, his grandfather,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: as far back as anyone can remember, all were born
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: and raised in the neighborhood. And the neighborhood is the
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: valleys and the cleared spaces on the sides of all
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: the mountains near a round So the mountaineer of to
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: day is the transplanted colonist of the eighteenth century is
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: the the backwoodsmen of the days of Andrew Jackson. His
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: life has the hospitality, the genuineness, and simplicity of the pioneer.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: It has been said of the residence of the Cumberland
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Mountains that they are the purest Anglo Saxons to be
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: found today, and not even England can produce so clear
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: a strain. The mountain families have intermarried, and because of
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: the inaccessibility of their homes, have remained marooned in their
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: mountain fastnesses. They are Anglo Saxon in their blood and
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: their customs. They are Colonial Americans in their speech and credences.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: They have a love for daring that comes from the
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: wilderness and freedom of their surroundings. They have a directness
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: of mind that is the result of unconscious training. They
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: must be sure of the firmness of each footstep they take,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: and it is through and past obstructions that they locate
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: their game. They are keen of observation, for the movement
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: of a shadow, or the swaying of a weed may
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: mean the presence of a fox, or a dropping hickory
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: nut indicate the flight of a squirrel. They are physically brave,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: for it is the inheritance of all who live in
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: the mountains. Their word is accepted, for they wish the
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: good will of the few among whom they must spend
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: their lives, and to them, lying is a form of cowardice.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: They are sensitive because they are observant and realize they
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: have been criticized and misunderstood, misclassed as a rare race
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: of moonshiners and feudists. Quickly and clearly, they see through
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: any veneer of democracy. The stranger may assume to conceal
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: an assumption of superiority. Yet for the stranger on the
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: road side, in answer to the halloo at their gait,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the mountaineers are willing to go out of their way
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: to do a favor, and they will cheerfully share such
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: food and comforts as they may have with any man.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: But they give their confidence only in proportion to demonstrations
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: of manhood and genuineness, And as humanists, they are not
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: in a hurry. If there is an aura of caste,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: the distinctions must be created by those who have come
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: as strangers into the mountains, and not by the mountaineer.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: They know they are not ignorant, except as everyone is
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: ignorant who lacks contact with new customs and changes in
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: world progress. They are fully cognizant of their lack of
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: that knowledge which comes only out of a book. But
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: whatever their educational shortcomings, no one has ever laid at
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: their door the charge of stupidity. Raised in nature's school,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: they are masters of its non elective course. They know
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: by the arc the baying hounds make, the size of
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: the circle the fox will take, and where to intercept him.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: They can tell by the distance up the mountain side
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: where the dogs are running whether the fox is red
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: or gray. They know by the sound a rock makes
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: as it is dropped into a stream the depth of
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: the ford. They have even a classical finish to their
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: woodland schooling, and they find a pleasure in noting that
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: the bullfrog sits with his back to the water as
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: the moon rises, and faces it as the moon sets.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: They know the signs of changing weather that will affect
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: their crops. The tints of the clouds that float above
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: them convey a meaning. There are cause and effect in
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: the wind that continues in one direction. They watch the
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: actions of animals and fowls, and they are wise enough
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: to attribute to beast and bird an intuitive, protective sense
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: superior to their own. They note when the moss has
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: grown heavier on the north side of the tree. The
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: steadiness of their poise and their silence in the presence
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: of strangers is not due to moroseness or the absence
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: of active thought. They have learned in the woods. If
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: they are to be successful in their hunts, to be
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: personally as unobtrusive as possible, often, to remain motionless, and
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: all the while to watch and listen alertly whenever they
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: can be of real assistance. No one can more quickly
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: or more generously respond. They have their own standard of
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: values in personal intercourse, and they can wait patiently and
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: in impressive silence. They are always willing for someone else
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: to hold the spotlight on their rural stage about themselves.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: They are naturally taciturn and public and unfriendly criticism has
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: been proved to be a hazardous diversion. If the thought
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: and comment of the stranger upon the mountaineer could be
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: compared with the keen and often humorous analysis of the stranger,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: the score would be found in surprising frequency on the
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: side of the calm and silent mountaineer. They give but
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: little heed to the clothes a man wears, but look
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: clear eyed at the man within the clothes. They have
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: no criticism for the way a man says his say
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: so he has something to say. A noted college professor,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: himself a mountain boy, maintains, I would rather hear a
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: boy say I seed when he had really seen something,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: than to hear a boy say I saw when he
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: had not seen it. Old Coonrod Pile lived in the
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: valley until his life span from the days when it
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: was a hunting ground of the Indians to the time
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: when he can be remembered by some of the men
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: and women now living in pow Maw, who knew him
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: as the most influential man of his time in the section.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: The owner of the river Bottom farm land, fast acres
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: of hardwood, timber, a general store, and a flour mill
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: worked by his slaves, A man grown to such enormous
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: size and weight that in his last days he went
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: about his farm and to oversee his workers in a
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: two wheeled cart pulled by oxen. Those of the valley
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: who now remember him were children when he died. For
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: he was born on March sixteenth, seventeen sixty six, and
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: his death occurred on October fourteenth, eighteen forty nine, he
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: saw his valley home changed from a part of the
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: state of Franklin to a part of the state of Kentucky,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: then to Tennessee, and the abstracts to the deeds for
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: land he owned show that pall maugh was first in
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Granger County, later in Overton, and finally in Fentras County.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: As the state of Tennessee developed, pall mall is but
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: seven miles from the Kentucky line, and for many years
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Coonrod thought he had taken up his residence within the
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Kentucky border. Settlers of those days, in leaving the Carolinas
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: and Virginia, traveled usually due west and searched for a
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: new home. It was this belief that he had settled
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: in Kentucky that has led many to the opinion that
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Coonrod's former home was in Virginia. Others, without more definite
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: knowledge for foundation, maintain that as he settled in Tennessee,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: he had lived in North Carolina. The written word was
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: rarely used, and the stories of the earlier days in
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: the valley of the Three Forks of the Wolf are tradition.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: In a newly settled territory, a man's birthplace and antecedents
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: are facts immaterial to the community's welfare, and many incidents
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: historical in nature concerning Old Coonrod have been lost in
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: the waste basket of forgetfulness. And no one now at
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: pall Maou has heard tale of just where he come from.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Yet some readily say that he came from over yonder,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: and they pointed back across the mountains toward North Carolina.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: In the first map of Tennessee made by Daniel Smith,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: there is a dip in the northern boundary of the
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: state line where Fentris County is located, but this was
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: found to be an error of survey and later corrected.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: The surveyors of those days were men of courtesy and accommodation,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: for in the establishment of the Tennessee Virginia line, they
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: surveyed around the southern boundary of the farm of a
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: hospitable host and left his lands in Virginia. Because the
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: old fellow maintained he had never had any health except
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: in the mountains of Virginia, that Coonrod was of English descent,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: there seemed scarcely room for doubt, and pile or pile
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: with a why and poll maw stands mute testimony, and
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: York too, is a component part of Old England. I
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: was never able to learn why the village was given
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: its unique name, and there is no tradition that associates
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: it with the noted street in London, though even to
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: day paw Maw in Fenters County is but a single road.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: I asked a white haired mountaineer how long the place
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: had been known as pow Maw, with a memory reviving
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: shake of his head that ended in a convinced nod.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: His answer was quite a whit, and that is the
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: nearest I ever came to accuracy. But seeing his reply
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: did not contain the information wanted, he looked at me
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: thoughtfully and said, he's just lack old crow. Every morning
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: forreenty two years I had looked up at the rocks
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: of that mountain in the hate changed a bit. The
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: government records show that paw Maw was made a post
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: office on April third, eighteen thirty two. Old Coonrod was
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: a man of big business for his time, one of
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: force of character who dominated his community and who sized
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: his man by standards that were peculiarly his own. A
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: man would come to him to buy a poke of
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: corn or flour, or for a favor. To the surprise
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: of the stranger, the favor might be over granted, or
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: the corn given without cost, Or upon the other hand,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: he would be brusquely dismissed without the least effort at explanation.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Unknown to the stranger, the condition of his breeches had
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: probably given him his credit rating with Old Coonrod, for
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: he held that patches upon the front of trousers, if
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: the seat were whole, were decorations of honor, showing that
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: the man had torn them doing something going forward. But
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: if the front of the trousers were good, and the
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: seat of them patched, no dealings of any nature were
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: to be had with the dictator of the valley. For
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: to Old Coonrod, it meant the man was like a rabbit.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: He could not stop without sitting down. But the residents
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: of the valley, many of them Methodists, claim this estimate
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: works a hardship upon members of their faith, for a
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: good Methodist could wear the knees out at prayer and
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: the sea out in backsliding. Old Coonrod's trading with the
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Indians was a series of successes. He is known to
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: have had their confidence and friendship, and he was an
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: arbitrator between them and his neighbors whenever disputes arose. Ventras County,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: lying on the western slope of the Cumberlands, was part
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: of the great hunting grounds of the Shawnees, Cherokees, Creeks, Chickamongas, Chickasaws,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: and even the Iroquois of New York. The basin of
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers that part now Tennessee and
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Kentucky was claimed by each of these tribes as its own,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: not as home, but as hunting ground, and when bands
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: of hunters of rival tribes met in the territory, each
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: fought the other as an invader, and their battles gave
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: to Kentucky its Indian name, meaning in the Indian tongue
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: the dark and bloody ground. But Old Coonrod kept peace
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: with all of them, then prospered from their friendship, and
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: an Indian trail turned and nud closed to where he lived.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: The last of the Indians passed through the valley in
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: eighteen forty two. As Old Coonrod prospered, he bought land
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: and slaves, and was a large owner of both. In
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: his day. He was a cautious and judicious purchaser of realty.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: The court records show that at some time or other
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: he was the owner of the most desirable parts of
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: Fentras County. He held title to the land upon which Jamestown,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the county seat now stands, which is the obudstown of
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Mark Twain's Gilded Age. He owned rock Castle, a tract
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: of hardwood timber that is enclosed by mountains and can
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: be reached by but one passageway, a place that became
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: famous during the Civil War. He bought and sold much
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: of the county's best farming land along Yellow Creek. Ventris
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: was made a county of Tennessee in eighteen twenty three,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: and the first four pages of the new county's records
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: of deeds show that within eighteen months Conrad Pywell had added,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: through a number of trades, over six hundred acres to
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: his already large holdings. So cautious in land titles was
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: he that at the time of his death he owned
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: three rights to his home place, including the farming land
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: along Wolf River. The first was his squatter's rights, which
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: he had homesteaded, but against this North Carolina in ceding
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: the territory of Tennessee to the United States government reserved
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: title to the land grants the state had offered to
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: her soldiers of the Revolutionary War, and one Henry Rowan
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: of North Carolina entered warrants given him on March tenth,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: seventeen eighty. The Revolutionary soldiers had twenty years to locate
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: their grants, and in seventeen ninety seven Rowan appeared with surveyors,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: claiming by his entry of seventeen eighty the valley of
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: the three forks of the Wolf. He operated under two
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: land warrants of three hundred and twenty acres each, and
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: in his registry one of them he specified a track
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: on the north side of Spring Creek now Wolf River,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: together with the improvements of Coonrod Pile. Old Coonrod traded
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: with him, and Rowan took up his residence in what
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: is now Overton County. As late as eighteen seventeen, there
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: appeared one Vincent Benham with title under a conflicting grant
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: dated in seventeen ninety three. Old Coonrod traded with him,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: and with ten dollars in hand, Benham went his way.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: But the deeds which Coonrod recorded were voluminous, with corners
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: as explicitly marked as any land title of today. Up
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: on one of the mountain sides, upon a rock, there
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: is a crudely carved X which was made by Coonrod
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: to mark a corner which called for a beech tree
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: that has disappeared. And this mark and the forks of
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: the Wolf River corners in Coonrod's titles stand today. A
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: survey points for the boundaries of the farms now in
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: the valley. Coonrod built his home beside the spring now
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: known as York Spring. Its yard includes the spot where
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: he made his first camp and where he killed his
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: first deer. Characteristic of him, he built well. The house
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: was hewn logs, large logs, some of them over fifty
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: feet in length, and the dwelling is now owned and
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: occupied by one of his great grandchildren, William Brooks, the
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: only brother of the mother of Sergeant York. The house
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: is today one of the most substantial in the valley.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: Just across the spring branch and up the mountain side
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: is the York homb Old. Coonrod built one of the
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: rooms without windows and with only one door. That door
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: led into his own room and opened by his bedside.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: In this windowless room he kept his valuables and it
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: was both a safe and a bank for him. Into
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: a keg covered carelessly with hides, he tossed any gold
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: coin that came to him in his trades. His rifle
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: was kept there. He had the prongs of a pitchfork
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: straightened and sharpened. The latter was his burglar insurance, and
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: he felt amply able to take care of his savings.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: And in those days, men frequently passed through the valley
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: whose occupations were unknown, and whose countenances were often evil
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: to look upon. Poll Maw is not without its legend
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: of the hidden keg of gold. It is known that
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: old Coonrod had his keg and kept in it his
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: gold pieces. It is not known just when and why
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: this method of saving was abandoned by him, but after
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: his death no trace of the keg was found, and
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: it is said that upon his death bed he tried
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: to give his sons a message which was never completed,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: and it is believed he wished to reveal where his
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: gold was hidden. There are some who say he was
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: seen to go up a ravine with a mysterious bundle,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: and to return without it. The ravine is pointed out
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: it opens on the roadway about half way between the
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Rain's store and the old home of Coonrod. But there
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: is no myth to the present day side of the story.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: More than squirrels and rabbits have been hunted up that ravine.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: But the legend of the hidden keg of Gold is
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: popular in many of the valleys of the Appalachians, and
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: it will even be found to have leap the valley
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: of the Mississippi, and almost identical in form appeer an
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: appeal to the impressionable imaginations of those who live in
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: the Ozark Mountains to the west of that river. There
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: was but one thing in which old Coonrod stood really
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: in fear, something not made or controlled by man. It
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: was lightning. Whenever a heavy thunderstorm broke over the mountains, Coonrod,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: even in the last years of his life, when he
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: had grown so fat, ran with all the speed he
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: could command for the cave above the spring. Here he
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: would stay, muttering and unapproachable until the storm abated. Then
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: he would come from the cave, swearing in that deep
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: voice that carried both power and terror, and as the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: story goes, for hours, niggers would be hopping all over
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: the valley. Coonrod had a genuine admiration for the man
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: or beast, willing to fight for his rights. Once finding
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: one of his jack eating his growing corn, he put
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: his dog upon him. The jack was old and small
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: and shaggy. He turned upon the dog sent after him, and,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: seizing the aggressor by the hare at his back, lifted
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: him from the ground, and, maintaining his dignity, trotted out
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: of the cornfield carrying the squirming dog. That jack was pensioned.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: He was given his full supply of corn in winter,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: and granted the freedom of the meadows and the mountain
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: sides in summer. Old Coonrod would never sell him. John M. Clemens,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Mark Twain's father, lived in Jamestown when his dwelling constituted
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: one fifteenth of obed'stown. He and Coonrod Pile were close friends,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Pyle helping elect Clemmens to be the first Circuit Court
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: clerk of Fenters County. Both were firm believers in the
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: future value of the timber, coal, iron, and copper to
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: be found in the mountains. In the thirties, both acquired
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: all the acreage their resources would permit. Mark Twain makes
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: Squire sy Hawkins of the Gilded Age conceded to be
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: drawn from the life of his father, struggled to keep
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: the value or the land unknown to the natives. Squire
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Hawkins confides to his wife that the black stuff that
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: crops out of the bank of the branch was coal,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: and tells of his effort to keep a neighbor from
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: building a chimney out of it, why it might have
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: caught fire, and told everything I showed him it was
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: too crumbly. Then he was going to build it of
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: copper ore, splendid yellow forty percent ore. There's fortunes upon
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: fortunes upon our land. Scare me to death. The idea
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: of this fool starting a smelting furnace in his house
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: without knowing it and getting his dull eyes opened. And
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: then when he was going to build it out of
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: iron ore, there's mountains of iron here, Nancy, whole mountains
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: of it. I wouldn't take any chance. I just stuck
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: by him. I haunted him. I never let him alone
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: until he built it of mud and sticks, like all
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: the rest of the chimneys in this dismal country. Again.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Squire Hawkins's appreciation of the speculative value of his lands
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: is shown in a talk with his wife The whole
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: track would not sell for even a third of a
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: cent an acre now, but some day people will be
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: glad to get it for twenty dollars, fifty dollars, one
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars an acre. Here he dropped his voice to
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: a whisper, and looked anxiously around to see there were
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: no eavesdroppers a thousand dollars an acre. Today, many of
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: the acres owned by coonrad Pile and John M. Clemens
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: have passed the one hundred dollar mark and are climbing
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: towards that whispered and seemingly fabulous figure. And this too
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: before the coming of the railroad, for which Squire Hawkins
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: could not wait. Twain delighted to have Squire Hawkins sit
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: upon the pyramid of large blocks called the Style, in
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: front of his home, contemplating the morning. But John M.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Clemens had his practical side, and the specifications for the
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: first jail for Fenters County, drawn by Clemens and in
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: his own handwriting, made part of the county's records in
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: eighteen twenty seven, show a very substantial strain to wit
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: for a jail a house of logs to foot square
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: twelve feet in the clear two stories high, and this
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: surrounded by another wall precisely of the same description, with
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: a space between the two walls of about eight or
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: ten inches, and that space filled completely with skinned hickory poles.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Ground floor to be formed of sills hewed about a
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: foot square, and laid closely the logs to extend through
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: the inner wall of the building, et cetera. And that
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: jail was standing serviceable and strong until a few years ago,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: when the prosperity of Fincher's County called for an edifice
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: of red stone. Clemmons and Pile remained friends in competitive
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: landowners until with an activity and a suddenness that bewildered
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: obed'stown and almost took away its breath. The Hawkinses hurried
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: through their arrangements in four short months and flitted out
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: into the great mysterious blank that lay beyond the knobs
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: of Tennessee, to Missouri, where a few months afterward Mark
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: Twain was born. Another friend of Coonrod Pile was David Crockett,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: the of the Alamo, had many hunts in Fentriss County,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: upon the Knobs and along the upper waters of the Cumberland.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: The old Crockett home still stands a few miles to
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: the north of Jamestown, beside the road that leads to
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: pal Maw. It was in a house upon land owned
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: by Coonrod Pile that Deaf and Dumb Jimmy Crockett spent
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: the last years of his life, and from which he
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: made so many journeys to locate the silver mine of
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: the Indians who had held him captive and who had
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: pinioned him to the ground while they dug their ore,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: never allowing him to see where they worked, but using
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: him to help carry the mined product. David Crockett, in
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: his autobiography, tells the story of Deaf and Dumb Jimmy,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: but he places the scene in Kentucky, making probably the
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: same mistake in the location of the state line boundary
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: which Coonrod Pile had made. Coonrod Pile lived to the
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: age of eighty three, and at the time of his
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: death was the most powerful personality in Fentriss County. His
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: business interests had grown to central proportions that he had
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: economic problems to solve, and the simple all practical methods
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: he used are followed in the valley to day. He
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: dug only so much coal as he could use the
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: transportation problem preventing its sale. He could only market the poplar,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: the cedar, and such woods as he could float on
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: the rises of the Wolf to the Cumberland River to
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: be rafted. He raised cotton, but only the mount the
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: women needed for their looms. He grew wheat and corn,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: but no more than was necessary for flour and meal
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: for the neighborhood, and to feed the stock he owned,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: laying aside a portion for use in time of need
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: for the improvident and unfortunate. He was ready at any
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: time to trade with anybody for almost anything. In the
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: last score of the years of his life, the most
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: successful financially, he found that the money he could accumulate
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: came only from the sale of products that could move
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: from the valley across the mountains by their own motive power,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: something that could go on foot. So he turned to
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: stock raising, and with his own slaves, cut the present
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: roadway from Palmow to Jamestown, there to join with the
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: Old Kentucky stock Road, which ran from it Atlanta and
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: Chattanooga along the Cumberland Plateau by Jamestown on to the
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: north through Frankfort and Cincinnati. Old Coonrod was not a
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: one price man on the realty he owned. If the
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: purchase was for speculation, he was a trader with his
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: sight set high. If the buyer wanted a home, he
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: was generous. It meant the upbuilding of his community. So
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: the people of that day lived in comradeship. There were
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: few luxuries and no real want. If there was a
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: farming patch to be cleared, the neighbors came from miles around,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: and there was a log rolling. If it was a
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: home or crib to be built, it was a log raising,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: and everyone worked and made fun from it. The steeple
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: of the church arose in the valley. It was built
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: by those of the Methodist faith. But before that and
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: even afterward, they held camp meetings and basket meetings, where
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: a community lunch was served under the trees, where the
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: service lasted through the daylight hours, allowing for a mountain
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: journey home. Their religious fervor was so sincere and intense
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: at these meetings that they were called melting sessions. Up
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: the mountain side, above the York Spring, a space was
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: cleared for shooting matches, where the prizes were beaves and turkeys,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: and where the men shot so accurately that the slender
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: crossings of two knife blade marks was the bull's eye
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: of the target. And everyone went on hunts, long hunts
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: when crops were laid by, or winter had checked farm work.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: And as human nature is the same the world over,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: there were many an upright resident of the valley of
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: the three forks of the Wolf, who left the plow
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: standing in the furrow because the yelp and baying of
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: the hounds grew warm upon the mountain side. The families
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: of mountain men are usually large in number, and the
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: estate of Kuonrod Pile has passed through a long division.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: He had eight children, and his son, Elijah Pyle, the
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: branch of the family to which Sergeant York belongs, had
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: eleven children. That portion of the estate which Elijah inherited
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: passed into good hands. He conserved his part, handled well
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: the talents left with him. But the second division by eleven,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: together with the ravages of the Civil War and the
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: years that followed, left only seventy five acres, and far
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: from the best of it to marry York, the truly
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: wonderful little mountain mother, who gave to Alvin York those
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: qualities of mind and heart which stood him in good
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: stead in the forest of Argonne, who taught him to
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: so live that he feared no man, and to do
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: thoroughly and always in the right way, that which he
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: had to do else, as she so frequently said to him,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: you'll have to do it over, or it'll cause you trouble.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: End of chapter The People of the Mountains. The log
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: cabin of the Pioneer influenced architecture and gave to us
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: the house of Colonial design. The first distinctly American type
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: for the colonial home grew around the Pioneer's two rooms
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: of logs, separated by an open passageway. The muzzle loading rifle,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: and it was the Pioneer's gun, with its long barrel
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: and its fine sights, gave confidence to the American soldier
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: who carried it, for he trusted the weapon in his hands.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: Progressive inventions finally displaced this rifle in military use, but
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: for the accuracy of the shot, it has never been surpassed,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: and it is today a loved relic and a valued
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: hunting piece. Men trained to shoot with it, used to
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: the slender line of its silver foresight and to the
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: delicate response of its hair trigger, have made rare records
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: in marksmanship. The very difficulty of loading the time it
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: took taught its users to be accurate and not to
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: spend the shot. This rifle stopped the British at Bunker
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: Hill and King's Mountain, and over its long barrel. Alvin
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: York and some of the best shots of the American
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: Army learned to bring their sights upward to the mark
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: and tip the hair trigger when the bead first reached
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: its object. It was training acquired in the forest, the
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: same manner of marksmanship, the same self reliance and individual
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: resourcefulness as a soldier gave to Sergeant York the power
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: to come back over the hill in Argonne Forest, bringing
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty two prisoners, and to the Army
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: under Andrew Jackson at New Orleans more than one hundred
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: years before the fighting resource to achieve victory with a
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: loss of eight killed and thirteen wounded, while England's records
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: show that about three thousand of the British were struck
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: with rifle bullets. The man trained behind the muzzle loading
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: rifle in all the wars Americas fought has been individually
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: a fighter and a shot. Formerly but little skilled in
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: military training, who, while obeying orders, fought along lines of
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: personal initiative. In the earlier wars of the nation, this
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: soldier was known as a rifleman. It was with this
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: class that General Jackson fought his campaigns against the Indians
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: and the British, and at New Orleans, the bone and
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: sinew of his force were the riflemen of Tennessee and Kentucky.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: Against Jackson, England had sent the flower of Wellington's army,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: distinguished for famous campaigns on the Spanish Peninsula against the
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: marshals of Napoleon. Wellington said of these men in his
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: military memoirs, it was an army that could go anywhere
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: and do anything. Late in life, when General Jackson had
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: grown old, had twice been president, and was spending his
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: declining days at the Hermitage, his home near Nashville, as
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: calmly and peacefully as it was possible for the fiery
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: old warrior to live, he was shown this appreciation by Wellington.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Well He said, I never pretended that I had an
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: army that could go anywhere and do anything. But in
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: New Orleans I had a lot of fellows that could
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: fight more ways and kill more times than any other fellows.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: On the face of the earth. Returning from the Indian
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: Wars and from the War of eighteen twelve, the mountaineers
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: and backwoodsmen who were then rapidly settling up the valley
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: of the Mississippi, hung their rifles over their fireplaces or
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: between the rafters of their cabin homes, and turned to
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: the enjoyment of the peace they had won. In the
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: valley of the three forks of the Wolf, Old Coonrod
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: Pile was still the dominant figure. Those who had settled
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: in the valley were prospering on its fertile soil. It was, then,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: as it is to day, remote from the popular highways,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: but the valley had grown into a community almost self supporting.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: The owners of the land had equipped their farms with
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: such agricultural tools as were in use in those days,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: and the Wolf River had been dammed and a water
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: driven flour mill erected. The houses, though built of logs
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: and chinked with clay, were comfortable homes where in winter
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: wood fires roared in wide chimney places, where there was
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: no problem of the high cost of living, and few
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: problems of any kind relating to living. The men of
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: the valley farmed diversified crops, furnishing all that was needed
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: for food and clothing, and the even raised tobacco for
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: the pipes smoked at the general store run by Coonrod
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Pile in an end room of his home. It was
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: the day when the weaving loom was the piano in
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: the home, and all the women carted, spun, and wove
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: the table garden. The care of the house, the preparation
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: of the meals, and the making of the covering and
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: the clothes were in the woman's division of the labor.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: The families usually were large, and every member of producer
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: to the girls, fell shares of their mother's work. The
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: boys helped in the fields, chopped the wood, and rounded
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: up the stock that at times wandered far into the mountains.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: There were bells on the cows, on the sheep, and
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: even the hogs, and the boys soon learned a distinguished
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: ownership by the delicate differences in the browsing tong in
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: the tone of the bells. Residents of the valley sold
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: to the outside world the live stock they raised, and poultry,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: and feathers and furs and tar and resin from the
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: pines on the mountain tops. They purchased tea, coffee, and sugar,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: a few household and farm conveniences, and little else. The
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: balance of the trade was heavily in their favor, and
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: they were prosperous and happy. They had no labor problems.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: They recognized without collective bargaining, the eight hour shift, eight
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: hours again dinner, and eight hours after it if it
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: don't rain, as one old mountaineer living there today interpreted
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: the phrase a day's work, even when the home of
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: the mountaineer was a one or two room cabin Accommendations
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: for any stranger could be provided, and if he wished
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: to remain, work could be found for him. They observed,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: without thought of inconvenience, the colonial idea of bundling. When
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: the stranger proved worthy, there would be a log rolling
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: and a space of ground cleared for him to till,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: and a log raising in which the community joined and
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: made a merry occasion of it. To give him a home.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: The way was easy for his ownership of the land
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: and the cabin. Prices for cleared land around the middle
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: of the last century ranged from twenty five cents to
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: five dollars an acre. In the valley, the father never
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: talked to the son of the dignity of labor. Much
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: was to be done, and everyone labored and thought of
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: it as but the proper use of the sunlight of
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: a day. Their life was primitive, rugged, but contented. Deer
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: and bears were in the mountains, and wild turkeys were
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: to be found in large flocks, while the cry of
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: wolves added zest to the whine of a winter wind.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: A cook stove was an unknown luxury, and the women
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: prepared their meals in the open fireplace. The men cut
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: their small grain with a repook and threshed it beneath
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: the hoofs of horses. The mode of life made men
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: of strong convictions and deep feelings, but those feelings were
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: seldom expressed, except under the influence of religious devotions. The
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: ministers were all circuit riders and venerated leaders of the
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: people of the mountain sides. They traveled the mountains on horseback,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: constantly exposed to hardships, and they labored devoutly without consideration
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: of the personal cost. It was the custom for these
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: itinerant ministers to give free rein to their horses and
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: read as they rode the mountain paths, stopping for a
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: prayer at every home they reached. Protracted meetings were held
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: in almost every community they visited. For many months would
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: pass before they returned. Funeral services would be held for
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: all who had died during the absence of the minister.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: The meetings lasted so long as there was a hope
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: of a single conversion. One of the preachers of those
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: old days, who was borne in the valley of the
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: three Forks of the Wolf and preached at pal Maw
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: as part of his circuit when ordained, has left a
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: record of one year's work. During the conference year, I
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: preached one hundred and fifty two times, traveled one thousand,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: nine hundred and eighteen miles on horseback, and prayed with
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: four hundred and twenty four families, witnessed eighty conversions to God,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: and received sixty seven persons into the church. I sold
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: about forty dollars worth of books, baptized forty adults and
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: eighteen infants, and received less than thirty dollars of salary
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: for the same, and raised for benevolence thirty six dollars
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: and twenty five cents. To God be all the glory
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: I have toiled and endured as seeing Him who is invisible. However,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: when God has poured from clouds of mercy rich salvation
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: upon the people, and when in religious enjoyment from the
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: most excellent glory, I have been lifted to Pisga's top
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: and have seen by faith the goodly land before me,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: and I would not exchange this work for a city.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: Against the worldliness of some of his people, The same
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: old mountain minister recorded a protest. I have known families
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: who have had three or four hundred dollars loaned out
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: on interest, and not less than five hundred dollars worth
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: of fat cattle on the range, who did not own
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: a Bible, or take any religious newspaper nor any other kind,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: and did not have any books in their homes, and
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: yet owned two or three fiddles and three or four
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: rifle guns. The day of prosperity and religious contentment at
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: palmou lasted until the coming of the Civil War. Fentris
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: County had contributed its pro rata of volunteers to the
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: conflict with Mexico, and Uriah York, the grandfather of Sergeant York,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: was among those who stormed the heights at Chapultepec. Though
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: this war was declared by a president who came from Tennessee.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: The Mexican conflict did not reach to the firesides and
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: into the hearts of the people of the mountains of
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: the state as other wars had done. So years passed
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: in which there was no outward evidence of the war
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: spirit of Fenter's County that was soon to tear families asunder,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: leave farms untenanted, and to obliterate graveyards under the rush
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: of horses hoofs. The Yorks had come to Fentriss County
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: from North Carolina and settled on Indian Creek. Euryah York
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: was the son of John York, and they came from
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: Buncombe County in that old North State, the county which
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: had the reputation like Nazareth so far as turning out
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: any good thing was concerned, and the path of the
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: cant derisive phrays all Buncom leads directly back to the
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: affairs of that good old county on Indian Creek. The
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: Yorks were farmers, but at his home Euriah started one
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: of the few schools then in Fentriss County. His school
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: began after crops were laid by and ran for three months.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: He used but two text books, the Blue Backed Speller
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: and the Bible. There are men living to day on
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: Indian Creek who went to school under Uriah York, and
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: they recall the uniqueness of his discipline as well as
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: his school curriculum. The hickory rod was the enforcer of
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: school rules, but full opportunity to contemplate the delicate distinction
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: between right and wrong was given to all. A three
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: inch circle was drawn upon the schoolroom wall, and the
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: offending pupil was compelled to hold his nose within the
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: penal mark until penitent. Young and active, he took part
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: in all the school sports in the long recess periods
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: for his school lasted all day learning. At the end
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: of one school term that the pupils had planned as
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: part of the simple commencement exercises to duck him in
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: Indian Creek, he exposed their plot, playfully defied them, left
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: the schoolroom with a bound through an open window, and
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: led them on a chase through the mountains. He circled
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: in his course so he could lead the run back
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: to the schoolhouse as evidence of good fellowship and as
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: an example of the spirit of generosity. In the celebration
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: of victory he gave to each of the boys as
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: they came in a drink of whisky from a clay
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: demijohn he had concealed in the school room. But in
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: those days, whisky and apple brandy were considered a necessary
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: part of household supplies, and there was but little drunkenness.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: Whiskey and brandy were medicine, used as first aid, regardless
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: of the ailment, while awaiting the arrival of the doctor
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: with his saddle bags of pills and powders. Their social
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: value too was recognized, and the gourd and demijohn appeared
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: almost simultaneously with the arrival of any guest. But it
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: was bad form evidence of a weak will for anyone
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: save the old men, to show the influence of what
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: they drank. This was, however, a perquisite and one of
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: the tolerated pleasures of old age. In the records of
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: a lawsuit tried in Fentress County in eighteen forty one,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: the price list of some necessaries and luxuries are shown.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: Two gallons of liquor one dollar, one court of whiskey,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: and six pounds of pork eighty cents one deer skin,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: seventy five cents, two kegs of tar two dollars, two
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: ounces of indigo forty cents, one gallon of whiskey fifty cents,
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: five and one hund pints of apple brandy thirty one
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: and a quarter. Since they were almost uneventful years at
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: pall Maou from the days of Coonrod Pile until the
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: Civil War, less than a score of years lapsed from
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: the death of the pioneer in eighteen forty nine until
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: over the Mountains broke the war storm in a fury
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: that has no parallel except in wars where father has
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: fought son and brother fought brother, where the cause of
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: war and the principles for which it is fought are
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: lost in the presence of cruelties created in personal hatred
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: and deeds of treachery perpetrated for revenge. A third generation
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: had grown to manhood at pall Maou in Fentras County.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: The polling of the vote upon secession was marked with bloodshed.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: The county was on the military border between the free
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: and slaveholding states. Coonrod Pile had been a slaveholder, but
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: few of the Mountaineers were owners. Slavery as an institution
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: did not appeal to their Anglo Saxon principles poverty. It
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: prevented slavery advance into the mountains. As a custom, and
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: as racial distinction was not to be clearly defined into
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: master and worker, the negro's presence in the mountains was unwelcomed.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: A war to uphold a custom they did not practice
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: did not appeal to them. So as a great wedge
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: the Allegheny Mountains, extending far into the slave owning states,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: was peopled with Union sympathizers. Fenter's County, on the slope
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: of the Great Mountain Range and on the border between
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: the territory firmly held by the North and by the South,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: became a no man's land, subjected successively to marauding bands
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: from each side, a land for plunder and revenge. Before
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: the war, the county had been sharply divided politically, and
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: with few exceptions, that alignment held. Those who were Union
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: sympathizers went north into Kentucky and joined the Federal forces.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: Those on the side of the South went for enlistment
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: in the armies of the Confederacy. The men who remained
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: at home were compelled by public sentiment to take so
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: sidneides and the bitterest of feelings was engendered. The raids
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: of passing soldiers was the excuse for the organization by
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: both sides of bands who claimed they were home guards,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: the Federals under Tinker Beatie and the Confederates under Champ Ferguson.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: These bands, each striving for the mastery, soon developed into
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: guerrillas of the worst type. The war produced, and anarchy prevailed.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: Churches were closed for religious services were invaded that the
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: bushwhackers could get the men they sought. Homes were burned,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: civil courts suspended, post offices and post roads were abandoned.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: No stores were kept open, and the merchandise they formerly
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: held was concealed, and there became a great scarcity of
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: the necessaries of life. Many homes were deserted by entire families,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: and their land turned out as common ground. There was
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: waste and ruin on every hand, and no man's life
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: was safe. Each deed of cruelty was met with an
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: act of revenge, until men were killed in retaliation, the
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: only charge brought against them being a Norther sympathizer or
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: a Southern sympathizer. There is not a road in the
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: county not marked with the blood of some soldier or
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: non combatant. No section of the Great Civil War suffered
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: so enduringly as that which was the boundary line between
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: the sections, and no part of the boundary suffered more
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: from devastations of war, in the passing to and fro
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: of armed forces, and from the raids of marauding bands
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: steel hearted in the quest of revenge, than did Ventris County.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: At the outbreak of the war, Uriah Yorke went north
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: into Kentucky and joined the Federal forces. Ill he had
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: returned to the home of his wife's father at Jamestown,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: and while in bed, learned of the approach of a
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: band of Confederates. He arose and fled for safety to
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: a refuge shack his father in law had built in
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: the forest of rock Castle. His flight was made in
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: a storm that was half rain and half sleet, and
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: from the exposure he died in the lonely hut three
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: days afterward, only forty years of age. He had served
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: his country in two wars. The Valley of the Three
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: Forks of the Wolf paid its tribute of blood and money.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: Elijah Pyle had grown old, and years before had succeeded
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: his father Konrod Pile as head of the family. All
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: his sons had grown to manhood. He was a non
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: combatant but a Union sympathizer. His four sons were divided
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: in their allegiance, two upon each side, and two of
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: them paid the supreme price, and they paid for their
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: convictions as they rode along public highways. Conrad Pile, Junior, Rod,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: as he was known, like his father Elijah Pyle, was
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: a non combatant but sympathized with the North. In the
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: autumn of eighteen sixty three, for some cause unknown to
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: his relatives, he was taken prisoner by Confederate troops members
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: of champ Ferguson's band. As they rode along the road
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: with him, shots were fired. They left him there. In
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: June of the following year, Jeff Pile, a brother of Rod,
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: was riding along the road beyond the mill that creeks
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: in the water of Wolf River. He was going to
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: visit a brother. He had taken no active part in
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: the World War, but was a Southern sympathizer. Some of
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: Tinkerbette's men galloped into sight, fired galloped on mountain men
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: fire but once but the murder of Jeff Pyle threw
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: a red shadow across the years that were to come
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: after the war was ended. The war feuds of Fincher's
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: County did not end with the ending of the war.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: There was lawlessness for years. Some of the union men
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: and Union sympathizers in the majority of the county during
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: the hostilities assumed to the full the new power that
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: came to them by the war's outcome. Conservative civic leaders
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: sought to re establish a condition of peace, but the
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: lawless and desperate element prepared personally to profit from the situation.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: Farms had been deserted, and many of the owners of
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: these lands, who had fought on the side of the
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: Confederacy were kept away through the threats of death should
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: they return, and some who had remained throughout the war
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: were forced to flee to protect their lives from those
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: who coveted their property. A series of land frauds sprang
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: up under the cloak of law. Upon vacant farms, false
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: deanses were levied, fake administrators took charge of lands whose
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: owners had died during the conflict. Other property was hastily
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: forced under sale for taxes that the proceedings should appear legal.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: The foreclosures were by due process of law. But if
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: quietly circulated warnings against a general bidding for property when
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: offered at court sale were not effective, some well known
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: desperate character would appear at the sale and threaten anyone
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: who dared bid against him. The bitterness of the feelings
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: of the two sides subsided slowly, but there was ever
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: present the realization that old alignments could be quickly and
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: bloodily revived. Champ Ferguson, sought by the federal authorities, appeared
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: suddenly upon the streets of Jamestown that day. His old
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: rival Tinker was there. It was a personal battle. The
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: two leaders fought while Jamestown looked on silently, fearful of
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: the outcome. Beatty received three wounds but escaped on horseback.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: A short time afterwards, Ferguson was hanged at Nashville by
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: order of court martial. The charge against him was at
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: he had entered the hospital at Emory and Henry College
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: and shot to death a wounded Federal lieutenant. Ferguson claimed
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: justification as the federal lieutenant under orders to escort a
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: war prisoner, a Confederate officer and personal friend of Ferguson's,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: to head quarters had instead stood his prisoner against a
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: tree by a roadside and ordered a firing squad to
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: kill him, and the court martial indictment of Ferguson read
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: and for other crimes. One of Tinker Beattie's men was
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: Press Huff, who lived in the valley of the Three
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: Forks of the Wolf. It was generally believed that he
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: was the leader of the band who had ridden out
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: of the woods and killed Jeff Pile as he traveled
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: unarmed along Birdstown Road. Huff's father had been shot. The
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: scene of his death was where the branch from the
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: York Spring crosses the public road at the Pile home.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: The deed was done by a band of Confederates who
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: had taken the elder Huff prisoner, and neither Jeff Pile
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: nor his brothers were to be connected with it except
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: in the quickly prejudiced mind of the victim's son. The
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: The desperate character of Press Houff is evidenced by the
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: records of the United States Circuit Court for the Middle
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: District of Tennessee in the suit of the McGuinness heirs
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: for land in Fentras County. Their bill recites armed men
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: who were led and controlled by one Preston Huff, who
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: was a brigand of the most desperate character, forced complainant's
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: father and themselves to leave the county to secure their
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: lives and cap them from the county by threats of
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: most brutal violence. The history of these men and the
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: times proved clearly that these threats were not idle, nor
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: those who opposed them survived their vengeance. At the foreclosure
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: on the McGinnis property, press Huff rode his horse between
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: the court officers and those attending the sale, and pistol
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: in hand, declared the land his by right of possession.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: The bill continues as follows. Preston Huff, who was the
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: desperado heretofore referred to, publicly proclaimed that he had fought
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: for the land, had run the Mcginnises from the county,
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: and if anyone bid for the land against him, he
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: would kill him on sight. Even his co conspirators would
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: not brook his displeasure. The land was sold on his bid.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: No one dared oppose him. The history of his career
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: shows it was wisdom to shun him. Many had been
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: killed by him in the most cold and brutal manner.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: There came to pall Maw when General Burnside was moving
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: his federal forces southward. A young man by the name
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: of William Brooks. He had joined the Union Army at
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: his home in Michigan. He was a daring horseman, handsome fair,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: and his hair was red, a rich copperesque red. The
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: army moved on, but young Brooks remained in the valley.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: He claimed that as a private soldier he had done
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: more than his share in the conquest of the South,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: and that the conquest that should ever go to his
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: credit was the conquest of Nancy Pyle. When they were married,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: his father in law, Elijah Pyle, gave him a farm,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: and he tilled it, and he smiled his way into
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: the favor of the community. He lived in the valley
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: about two years, and a baby had been born to them.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: The feeling between the children of Elijah Pile and press
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: Huff was silent, but tense. Over it, there fell constantly
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: the shadow of the murder of Jeff Pile. Meeting down
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: at the old mill, one day, press Hoff and Willie
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: Brooks engaged in an excited argument between the dark, browned,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: sullen mountaineer and the slender gay young man. A contest
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: seemed uneven and was prevented. Huff told Brooks that the
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: next time they met, he would kill him. They met
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: the next day on the mountain side, on the road
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: that leads by the Brooks home, on across the Spring Branch,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: up beside the York homb and then up the mountain.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: Huff's riderless horse galloped on and stopped in front of
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: a mountain cabin. His body lay dead in the road.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: There was a hurried consultation at the home of Elijah Pyle,
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: Huff's friends. It was realized would not be long in coming.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: Young Brooks went out of his house down by the
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: spring and up the mountain back of it. He was
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: never seen in the valley again. Huff's friends waited. Weeks afterwards,
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: Nancy Brooks, carrying her baby, went to visit a friend.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: She evaded the watchfulness of her husband's enemies, succeeded in
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: crossing the Kentucky Line, and disappeared in the mountains to
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: the north of it. The friends of Press Huff knew
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: she would write home. Months elapsed, but finally a letter
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: came and it was intercepted. She and her husband were
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: at a logging camp in the northern Woods of Michigan. Secretly,
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: extradition papers for Brooks were secured, and Huff's former partner
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: in a mercantile business, fully equipped with warrant, appeared with
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: a sheriff before the door of the cabin in the
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: Michigan Woods. Brooks was brought back to Jamestown and put
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: into the log ribbed jail that John and Clemens Mark
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: Twain's father had built, but there was no trial by law.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: The next night, through the moonlight and the pines, a
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: little body of men rode up the valley across the plateau.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: They went and Jamestown was sleeping. Taking Brooks from the jail,
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: they carried him three miles down the road towards Palmow.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: Here they bound a rope around his feet, unbridled a horse,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: and tied the other end of the rope to the
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: horse's tail. They taunted Brooks, but they could not make
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: him break his silence until he asked to be allowed
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: to see his wife and baby. Rough men laughed, and
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: there was a report of a gun. The horse frightened,
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: galloped down the road, and bullets were fired into the
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: squirming body as it was dragged over the rocks. The
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: wards stealed men for the coming of death and crime.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: But at the manner of the death of Willie Brooks,
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: a shudder passed over the mountain sides to Nancy. Brooks
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: was born a son a short time afterwards, and he
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: was named after his father. A silent, broken hearted woman,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: Nancy Brooks took up again her life at her father's home.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: To the little girl she had carried on her flight
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: to Michigan, and to the boy whose hair had the
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: copper red of the father she devoted herself. The girl
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: had been named Mary, and she inherited the piquancy and
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: the wit that had made her mother the belle of
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: the valley. And as she grew to womanhood, the mountaineers
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: saw again the Nancy Brooks they had loved before war
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: had come with its cold, blighting fingers of death. At
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: the age of fifteen, Mary Brooks met William York, the
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: son of Uriah York, and they were married. A home
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: was built for them beyond the branch beside the spring,
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: and Alvin York was their third son. End of Chapter
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: The Molding of a Man. The first year after the
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: marriage of William York and Mary Brooks. They lived at
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: the old Coonrod Pile home, and William York worked as
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: a cropper securing the farm that had been given the bride.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: They modeled into a one room home, the corn crib
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: of Elijah Pile that stood across the spring branch and
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: up the mountain side. It was a long crib, and
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: they chinked it with clay, and using split logs from
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: the walls of the old shed, a punch and floor
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: was made. The coming of spring brought the blossoms of
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: flowers the girl wife had planted. Honeysuckle and roses have
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: bloomed around that cabin each succeeding summer, and it proved
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: the foundation of a home that was to withstand the
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: troubles of poverty in many winters. It was a home
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: so rare and real that it pulled back to the mountains.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: A son who had go out into the world and
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: won fame and the offers of fortunes for the deeds
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: he had done as a soldier. William York, in his
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: simple philosophy of life, disciplined himself and later his boys,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: to the theory that contentment was to be found in
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: the square deal and honest labor. He was so fair
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: and just in all his relations with his neighbors that
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: the people of the valley called him Judge York. And
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: his honesty was so rugged and impartial that not infrequently
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: he was left as sole arbiter, even when his own
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: interests were involved in talks by the roadside. At the
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: gate of his humble home, seated on the rocks that
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: surround the spring, many a neighborhood dispute has been settled
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: that prejudice could have fanned into a lawsuit. Yet William
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: York never prospered, as prosperity is measured by the accumulation
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: of property, and it has been said of him that
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: he just about succeeded in making a hard living. He
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: was a farmer, blacksmith, hunter, a man of the mountains
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: who found pleasure in his skill with his rifle. But
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: the memories of him that linger in the valley, or
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: those that are revived at the mention of his name,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: are of him in the role of husband, father, and friend.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: The Civil War had scattered much of the wealth that
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: old Coonrod Pile had accumulated, and Elijah Pyle had conserved.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: The number of heirs brought long Division to the realty,
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: and most of those who had benefited by the inheritance
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: were all left land poor. To Nancy Brooks as her
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: part came the home the old long Hunter had built
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: with such thoroughness and care, together with seventy five acres
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: of land. This she left to her boy, who had
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: been named after his ill fated father, and he lives
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: there to day. To Missus York had been given seventy
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: five acres, part level and part hilly. That was the
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: share of her aunt Polly Pile in the cave above
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: the spring, which was Coonrod Pile's first home. William York
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: built a blacksmith's shop where he mended log wagons and
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: did the work in wood and metal the neighborhood required.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: He farmed and worked in the shop, but in his
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: heart always was the call of the forests that surround him,
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: and it was his one great weakness. A blast from
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: his horn would bring his hounds yelping around him, and
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: often unexpectedly he would go on a hunt that at
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: times stretched into weeks of absence. His hounds were the
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: master pack of those hills. On his hunts, when he
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: built his camp fire at night, he gathered the dogs
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: around him and singled out for especial favors those whose
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: achievements had merited distinction during the day, Following a custom
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: that in those days prevailed among owners of hunting hounds,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: the dog that proved himself the leader of the pack
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: while on a hunt was decorated with a ribbon or
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: some emblem upon the collar. Small game was abundant in
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: the mountains that made the valley of the three Forks
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: of the Wolf, but the deer and bear had withdrawn
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: to the less frequented hills. The hunts were for sport,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: and there was no real recompense in the value of
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: the pelts. Alvin was born in the one room cabin
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: on December thirteenth, eighteen eighty seven, and there were two
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: older children, Henry and Joe. Alvin's early life was different
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: in no way from that of other children of the mountains.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: He lived in touch with nature and without ever knowing
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: when or how the information came to him. He could
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: call the birds by their names, and knew the nests
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: and eggs of each of them, knew the trees by
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: their leaves and their bark, and was familiar with the
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: haunts of the rabbit and the squirrel, the land and
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: the water turtle. While still too small for the rough
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: run of the mountains, he has stood red eyed by
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: the gate of his home and watched his father and
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: the hounds go off to the hunt. And as he
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: grew his hair took on that color, that trace of
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: him while at play could be lost in the red
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: brush that grew upon the mountain side. There was one
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: part of the routine of the week at pall Mall
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: that has interested Alvin York from early boyhood. It was
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: the shooting matches held on Saturday on the mountain side
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: above the spring, just where a swell of the slow
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: hope made a table land, and where a space had
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: been cleared for the tests of skill. The clearing was
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: long and slender, such a glade through the trees as
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: the alley of the mountain bowlers which Rip van Winkle
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: found in the Catskills, only the shooting range was longer.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: A hundred and fifty yards were needed for one of
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: the contests. This isle had been cut through a forest
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: of gray beech and brown oaks. At the points where
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: the targets were to be set, the clearing widened so
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: that the sunlight, filtering through the leaves and flickering upon
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: the slender carpet of green could fall full and clear.
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: Each Saturday, the mountaineers were there, and William Yorke and
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: Alvin were among the regulars. Often there were fifty or
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: more men, and they came bringing their long rifles, horns
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: of powder, pouches made of skin in which were lead
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: and bullet molds, cups of caps, cotton gun wadding, carrying turkeys,
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: driving beaves and sheep which were to be the prizes.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: And when the prizes gave out, some of the men
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: remained and shot for money. Pony persons, they were called
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: the turkey. Shoots were over two ranges, some forty yards
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: and one one hundred and fifty yards. At the latter range,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: the turkey was tied to a stake driven in the
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: center of the opening. At the further end of the glade.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: A cord about two feet in length was fashioned to
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: the stake and to one leg of the gobbling, moving target.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: It was ten cents a shot tossed to the man
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: who offered the prize. Often the bird fell at the
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: first trial, and a hit was any strike above the
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: turkey's knee. But the long distance turkey shoots were the
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: opening events, and the marksman had his gun to warm up,
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: his eye detests, and his shooting nerve to be brought
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: to calmness. So frequently it would happen that the entrance
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: money ran into a sum that gave a prize value
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: to the turkey. As prices ran for turkeys in those days,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: there was the element of chance for the man offering
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: the prize that was always alluring. The second turkey shoot
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: was held at the forty yard range, but the bird
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: was now tethered behind a log, so that only his
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: head and red wattles could appear here too. The turkey
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: was given freedom of motion and granted self determination as
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: to how he should turn his head in wonder at
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: the assemblage of the men before him, or if he
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: should elect He could disappear entirely behind the log if
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: he found something that interested him upon the ground near by,
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: and the marksmen must wait for the untimed appearance of
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: the bobbing head. It took prompt action and a quick
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: bead to score a hit, and it was years afterward
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: that Alvin York had become the most expert rifle shot
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: that those mountains had ever held that he sat in
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: the brush on the slope of a hill in the
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: forest of Argonne, and watched for German helmets and German
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: heads to bob above their pits and around trees just
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: forty yards away. The event in which center the interest
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: of all gathered at those Sunday matches, was the shooting
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: for the beef. Each man prepared his own target, a
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: small board which was charred above a fire built of
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: twigs and leaves. On this black surface was tacked a
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: piece of white paper about two by three inches in size,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: and in the center of the bottom margin of the
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: white paper was cut a notch, an inverted V not
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: over a half inch in height. This permitted the marksmen
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: to raise the silver foresight of his rifle over a black,
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: charred surface until the hairline of the sight fit into
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: the tip of the triangle cut into the white paper.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: It was a pinpoint target that left to the ability
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: of the marksmen the exactness of his bead. The tip
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: of the triangle in the paper was not the bull's eye.
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: It was simply the most delicate point that could be
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: devised upon which to draw a bead. The bull's eye
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: was a point at which two knife blade marks crossed.
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: When the target was in position, this deliberately marked bullseye
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: could not be seen by the shooter. With practice shots,
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: they established how the gun was carrying and the direction
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: in which the nerves of the marksman's eye were at
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: the time deflecting the ball. Finally, the marksmen drew his
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: bead on the tip of the triangle, and where the
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: shot punctured the white paper, the bull's eye would be located.
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: This was done by moving the white paper until the
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: knife blade cross showed just through the center of the
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: hole the bullet had made in it. The paper in
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: this position was retacked upon the board, and underneath was
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: slipped a second piece of paper, making the paper target
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: appear as if no hole had been torn through it.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: The bull's eye, so located, was usually within half an
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: inch radius of the triangle tip. So exact was the
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: marksmanship of these men that they recognized that neither gun
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: nor man shot the same day after day. They knew
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: a man's physical condition changed as these contests progressed, and
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: that the gun varied in its register when it was
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: hot and when cool. The range for the beef shot
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: was forty yards if he shot from a chunk twenty
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: seven yards, or about two thirds the distance if the
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: shot was off hand. A chunk was any rest for
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: the rifle, a bowed limb cut from a tree, the
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: fork of a limb driven firmly into the ground, a
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: part of a log, anything that was the height to
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: give the needed low level to the rifle barrel when
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: the shooter lay sprawled behind the gun. The permission to
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: shoot from the rest was a concession to poorer marksmanship.
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: Shooting off hand required nerve and steadiness of nerve to
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: put it there and hold it. The science of marksmanship
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: they learned through experience. The rifle ball forced down through
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: the muzzle, was firmly packed, and the cap carefully primed
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: to prevent a long fire. In taking aim. In the
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: off hand shots, the gun barrel was brought upward so
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: the target was always in full view, and as the
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: bead was drawn, the body was tilted backward until an
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: easy balance for the long barrel was found. The elbow
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: of the arm against which the butt of the rifle
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: rested was lifted high, awkwardly high, but this position prevented
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: any nervous backward jerk. Or muscular movement of the arm
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: that might sway the barrel. Only the way to the
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: forefinger was needed to spring the hair trigger. When the
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: gun sights were nearing the tip of the black triangle,
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: the marksmen ceased breathing until the shot was fired. So
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: accurate were they, and when the bullet tore out the
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: point where the two knife blade marks crossed, it was
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: simply considered a good shot. It was called cutting center.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: But to decide the winning shot from among those who
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: cut center, it was necessary to ascertain how much of
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: the ball lay across the center. Each contestant who claimed
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: a chance to win brought his board to the judges
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: for award. For each one of them, a bullet was
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: cut in half, and the half with the flat side
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: up was forced into the bullet hole in the target
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: until level with the board's surface. With a compass, the
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: exact center of the face of the half bullet was
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: marked a dent, as if made by a pin point.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: Then across the surface of the bright newly cut lead,
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: the knife blade marks of the original bull's eye, partly
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: torn out by the shot, were retraced. The distance between
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: the pin dent center and the point where the knife.
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: Marks crossed could then be exactly measured. When the cross
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: passed directly over the dented center, the shot was perfect,
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: and the mountaineers called it laying the seam of the
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: ball on center. In the beef shots, it was a
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: dollar a shot. Each man could purchase any number of shots.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: When the pot contained the number of dollars asked for
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: the beef, the contest began. The prize was divided into
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: five parts. The two best shots got each a hind
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: quarter of the beef, the third and fourth, the four quarters,
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: the fifth of the winners, the hide, and tallow. The
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: beef was slain at the scene of the shoot, each
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: winner carrying home his part. William York has been known
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: to carry the prize home on hoof having made the
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: five best shots, but this was unusual for all the
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: mountaineers grew up with a rifle on their hands and
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: they knew how to use it. At the shooting matches,
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: it was again Judge York. He always handled the compass
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: in making the awards to the shooting matches. Still held
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: at pall Mall, Sam York, Alvin's brother, brings the compass
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: and the rifle which his father had used. The contest
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: for the sheep was under the same conditions that surrounded
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: the beef matches, only the entrance fee was smaller. Usually
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: it was six shots for a dollar. This odd division
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: of the dollar made to fit their term a shilling
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: a shot shows the people of the valley clinging to
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: their English customs and still influenced by the colonial period
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: in America. In colonial days, in many parts of the country,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: the shilling's value was placed at sixteen and two thirds cents.
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: Contests for the pony purses were consolation shoots for those
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: who had made no winning and to gratify that element who,
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: for the love of the sport, would keep the matches
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: going until in the day's dimming light the sights of
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: the gun could not be used. One day, at one
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: of these shooting matches at paw Maw, I witnessed a
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: demonstration of the imperturbability of these mountain men. One of
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: the contestants had cut center and about a third of
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: the ball lay across it. When Ike Hatfield, a cousin
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: of Alvin's, took his place at the line. He was young,
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: over six feet in height, slender and erect as a reed,
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: and only his head drooped as his rifle came into position.
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: Someone said to the man whose shot so far was
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: the winning one, get is nerve, else he'll beat you.
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: There are no restrictive rules on the comments or actions
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: of the contestants or spectators. There is usually a steady
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: flow of railery towards the one at the shooting post.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: To get Hatfield's nerve, the man ran forward, waving his hat,
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: offering his services to get a fly off Hatfield's gun.
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: The rifle barrel continued slowly to rise. There was no
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: recognition of the incident, no movement seen in the tall figure.
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: Then his opponent talked and sang, and as this produced
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: no noticeable effect, he danced and, stooping, began to cut
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: the pigeon wing directly under the rifle barrel. At this
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: a soundless chuckle swept over Hatfield's shoulders. With a face motionless,
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: he drew back his gun and, turning quietly, spat out
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: a quid of tobacco, as if it were all that
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: interfered with his aim. He again slowly raised his rifle
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: and fired. Despite continued efforts to disconcert him, he walked
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: leisurely back to the crowd, rested his gun against a
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: tree and took his seat on the ground. His The
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: only comment was I think I pestered him. The judges
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: found that Hatfield had laid the seam of the ball
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: on center and won. In these contests, a mountain marksman
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: will shoot eight or ten times, and often so closely
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: will each shot fall to the knife blade cross that
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: the whole cut by all of them in the white
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: paper target would be no larger than a man's thumb nail.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: One of the favorite methods of warming up used by
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: John Solders, the closest competitor that Alvin York had in
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: hundreds of matches, was to drive fifteen carpet tacks halfway
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: into a board, then step off until the heads of
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: the tax could just be seen, and with his rifle
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: Sowders would finish driving twelve or thirteen out of the fifteen.
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: It was not astuteness on the part of the German major,
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: as he lay flat upon the ground in that Argonne
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: forest under the swaying radius of Alvin York's rifle, that
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: caused the major to propose when he found his men
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: were given no time to get a clear shot at
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: the American sergeant that if Alvin York would stop killing them,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: he would make the Germans surrender in the shooting matches
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: back in the mountains of Tennessee. That American soldier had
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: been trained to the minute for the mission then before him.
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: But there were more powerful influences than his marksmanship that
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: gave to Sergeant York the steadiness of nerve, the coolness
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: of brain, and the courage to fight to victory against
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: such overwhelming odds. Back in the mountains, in the days
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: of William York, there were other forms of amusement than
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: the shooting matches. The log rollings, the house raisings, which
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: always ended in a feast or barbecue, continued popular with
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: the people, and they had corn huskings to which all
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: the neighbors came. The corn husking was a winter's sport.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: These at times were held at night under the light
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: of hand held lanterns the mountaineers used to guide themselves
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: with over the rough roads and along mountain paths. But
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: day or night, the husking ended with a feast. The
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: ears to be husked were piled in a cone on
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: the corn crib floor, and usually at the bottom and
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: in the very sense of the cone, a jug of
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: whiskey plugged with a corn cob stopper was hidden with
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: songs and jokes. They made sport of the work, each
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: trying to be the first to reach the jug. Once
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: the jug was secured, the husking ceased, and it was
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: a fair contest between the corn's owner and his guests
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: to see how much or how little could be done
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: before the jug shaped goal was reached. Seated on the
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: floor around the pile, each of the huskers sought to
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: make a narrow cut into the corn before him and
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: reach the prize more quickly. It was the farmer's part
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: to have the corn piled in such a toppling cone
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: that the ears above would roll down as fast as
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: the inroads could be made, and often the sliding ears
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: entirely buried a husker. He must then draw back to
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: the edge of the pile and start again. The shout
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: of victory that went up when the prize was pulled
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: forth warned the women folk at the house that they
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: must make ready for the coming of hungry men with
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: appetites well wetted on a product of corn. The next day,
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: the farmer host, without help, shucked the ears that were
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: left upon his corn crib floor, Alvin, with the mountain
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: sides as his playground, grew sturdy and resolute. He had
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: been put to work by his father when first old
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: enough to hold a hoe to help about the house,
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: pack water and bring in wood. The sparks that bounced
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: from the anvil and the shadow of the cave fascinated him,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: and he hung around the blacksmith's shop and learned how
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: to blow the bellows for his father and keep the
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: fire hot. He soon grew large enough to swing the sledge,
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: and he turned the shoes and made them ready. All
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: of this wrapped hard muscles over a body that was
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: unusually large for his age. His companions began to call
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: him the Biggin, and the by name still clings to him. This,
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: together with a calmness and an unmatched reserve, gave him
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: the prestige of a leader among his boy associates. At
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: the age of fifteen, he swung the sledge with either
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: hand and was a man's match in wrestling bouts. One
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: of his neighbors gave this view of him. Alvin was
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: a quiet, straight going boy. When he started to shoe
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: a mule, he always did it, no matter how troublesome
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: the mule. He was so quiet about what he was
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: doing that we never noticed much of that side of
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: his character before he went away, but now we see it.
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: In a season of prosperity, William York moved from the
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: cave and built a blacksmith's shop beside the road where
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: at Forks, where one of the forks turns down the
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: middle of the spring Branch bed on its way to
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: the mill and to Birdstown, and he and Mary remodeled
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: their home, making a two room cabin of it. Eleven
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: children were born to them, eight boys and three girls.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: Most of the winters of the thirty years of married
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: life pressed privations upon them. Much of the seventy five
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: acres was poor soil, and the earnings from the shop
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: were small. Charge of William York for blacksmith's work was
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: always made in full realization that it was something done
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: for a friend and neighbor. Seldom was a job done
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: for cash. Instead, at some time that was convenient to
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: the custom, he would call and ask the amount he owed,
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: and usually from William Yorke's book of memory, the account
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: was made out, and not in thirty years was it
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: disputed or held to be exorbitant. There have been winters
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: of privation in the valley for all those dependent upon
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: small acreage and uncertain crops, but there was no real
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: want or suffering from the lack of the necessaries of life. Then,
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: as it is today, the community spirit in the valley
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: of the three Forks of the Wolf stood guard at
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: the mountain passes, and no real poverty could enter. The
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: farmers bins were open to any neighbor in need. The
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: store keeper willingly waited until some livestock were sold, or
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: even until the next crop came in. For the once
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: of his family. There was credit for the man who
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: lived in the valley and worked. He could not speculate
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: on the wealth of his neighbor, but there was never
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: the need of real need. Old Kunrod Pyle's theory of
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: the distinctive difference in the location of the trouser patches
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: is still regarded as a sound basis for business transactions.
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: Those who have tried to live there upon as little
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: work as they could do have sooner or later followed
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: the path of the setting sun, and from the valley
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: that in densed the western slope of the Great Mountain Range.
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: That path leads downward. A visitor from the city once
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: asked missus Yorke if she did her own work. Sure enough,
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: the little lady said, and part of other peoples. We
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: had to to raise so many children and keep them
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: right is a great big job. A number of years
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: went by in the period of Alvin's boyhood when no
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: school was held that he could attend. The school term
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: was only for three months, beginning in early July. It
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: was found impractical to hold sessions in the winter, for
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: many of the children lived long distances away, and the
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: branches from the mountain springs that crossed the roadways and
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: fed the river Wolf would go on rampages that could
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: hold the pupils water bound overnight. The schools and the
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: mountains received no aid from the state, and in the
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: remote districts it was difficult to secure teachers except in
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: the pleasant summer months. The school term could not begin
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: earlier than July, for it must wait until crops were
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: laid by, for the students ranged in ages from six
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: to twenty years, and the larger boys were needed on
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: the farms. Then it was the time for the potatoes
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: to be gathered and tomatoes hung red upon the vine
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: and were ready for polling. The fall period of the
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: farm was on. The progress which Sergeant York was able
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: to make in all the years of his school life
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: would be about equal to the completion of the third
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: grade of a public school. He was not sufficiently advanced
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: to become interested in reading and self instruction. Before he
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: was called to the army. He had been but a
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: few miles away from the valley where the men, as
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: do other men of the mountains, live in the open
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: of the farm and forest, and think in terms of
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: their environments. The need of an education had not come
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: home to him. It was thus equipped that Sergeant York
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: came into the presence of the generals of the Allied
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: Armies and sat at banquet boards with the leading men
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: of this country in politics and business. Ever, in the
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: experiences that have been crowded into the past two years
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: of his life, has he met a situation he could
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: not command, or one that broke his calmness and reserve.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: Clearly and quickly he thinks, but those thoughts flow slowly
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: into words. He is keenly appreciative of his own limitations,
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: and quietly observes everything around him. From early childhood he
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: has been taught to be swift and keen in observation.
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: The rustling of a leaf might be related to a
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: squirrel's presence, and behind each moving shadow there is a
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: cause and a meaning. When he came to Protois, France,
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: the soldiers sought to honor him by having him carry
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: the division flag in the horse show. All was new
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: to him, and he was told but little the routine
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: expected of him. He had become the man whom all
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: the American soldiers wished to see, and his presence was
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: the feature of the occasion. The officers of his own
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: regiment watched him closely, and not a mistake did he
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: make in all the days of maneuvers. A comment of
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: one of the officers was, he seems always in distinctively
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: to know the right thing to do. Came from a
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: cabin in the backwoods of Tennessee, but he was raised
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: under influences that make real men. A boy's ideal in
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: his early life is the father who guides him, and
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Yorke had before him a character that was picturesque
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: in its rugged manhood and honesty, and inspiring in its
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: devotion to right and justice. The very privations he endured
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: and that he saw influencing his home throughout his childhood,
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: were due to principle. For William Yorke would owe no
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: man beyond the period of his promise to pay. In
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: the light of the sparks from the anvil and the
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: shop in the cave, sparks that burned brighter even than
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: the light of day, the comradeship between father and son
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: was formed, and they were companions until the boy reached manhood,
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: when the death of the father separated them. There was
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: nothing pretentious about the home in which he was raised.
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: It was but a cabin, yet the chairs the tables
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: were of seasoned oak, handmade solid. The punch and floor
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: was worn smooth with use, and over it was a
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: polished glow from the care of cleanliness, showing purity was there.
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: The walls were papered with newspapers, that was to keep
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: out the winter's wind. But over the windows were curtains
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: of white muslin, and a scarf of it ran the
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: length of the simple bored mantel shelf, and in season
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: the blossom of some flower swayed there. Within the home,
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: no angry words were heard, but often there was laughter
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: and song, and when the formulas for conduct were not followed.
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: Even the words of correction were affectionately spoken, as the
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: boy's first steps were guided by tender hands, so the
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: proper way to walk through life was pointed out with
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: gentle words and simple truths. The mother's teachings were the
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: products of an untrained mind, but her philosophies came from
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: a brain that has the power to think clearly and quickly,
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: and is never influenced by either anger or excitement, qualities
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: transmitted eminently to her son. This little mother in the mountains,
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: unread and untutored, with only the dictates of her her
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: own heart to guide her, had early adopted as her
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: guiding philosophy the belief that the greatest thing in life
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: is love. So the impressionable, observant boy realized that life
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: in the rugged mountains around him called for strength and endurance,
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: but in his home, or wherever his mother was concerned,
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: there must be gentleness and love, and she had been
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: the greatest influence in his life. He has always listened
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: to her counsels, except in a brief period of wildness
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: in young manhood, as his standard of life was formed
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: under her teachings. It may be again said of him,
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: But this time from the moral standpoint, he seems always
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: instinctively to know the right thing to do. It was
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: the love for his mother, his love for his home
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: life in paw Maow, and the sweetheart who was waiting
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: for him there. They called him back to the valley
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: of the three Forks of the Wolf, after he had
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: gone out into the world and won fame among men.
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: The very sunlight falls gently on the verdant beauty of
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: that valley, and the seven mountains rise around it as
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: though they would shield it from the contending currents of
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: the world. Over the valley there comes a long gray dawn,
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: for the sun is high in the heavens when its
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: slanting rays first fall in the silver waters of the Wolf.
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: And through this dawn the men are moving, feeding stock,
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: harnessing their teams, and many of them sing as they
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: ride to their work in the fields, for they are content.
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: The tinkling of the bells on the cows grow fainter
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: as the cows browse along the paths that lead to
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: their mountain pastures up and down the road in companionable groups.
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: The pigs are moving audibly, condoling with each other over
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: the lack of business methods that cause the loss of
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: the location of the entrance to the field of corn.
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: A crow flaps lazily across the valley and over the
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: crest of the mountain. The sun comes up in the
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: summer twilight there is long, and as it dips into night,
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: a drowsiness rises, fog like over the valley. When a
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: half moon hangs between the mountains, its light is that
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: of drooping, drowsy lids. The lamps in the cabins on
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: the mountain sides gleam but a brief time and go out.
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: The descending of the shade of night is the universal
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: bedtime of the mountain people. An occasional swinging light may
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: still be seen, but it is the mountaineer giving attention
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: to some trouble among his stock. Then there is silence
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: over the valley except for the chorus of katy DIDs
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: and the whistle of the gray owl to his mate
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: in the woods. Now and then there comes the soft,
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: faint clank of a cowbell, different from its sound as
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: the cows run the road or feed in the pasture.
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: It is a slow and sleepy tang that soothes the ear.
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: But the mountain curfew is the bark of a dog.
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: Somewhere up on the range, a hound will call to
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: another that all is well with him in his watch
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: of the night, and the family he guards are all abed.
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: The aroused neighbor calls to the dog at the cabin
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: next to him, and the message that all's well sweeps
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: on the voices of the hounds on down the valley
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: until it ends in an echo in the crags end
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: of chapter. People of paw Maw, they are a tranquil
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: people who pass us their days as do those who
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: now live in the valley of the three forks of
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: the Wolf. They are free from invidious jealousies and the
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: blight of avarice toward each other, free from doubt of
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: the rectitude of their daughters, and relieved from solicitude that
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: the future of their sons, if they remain in the valley,
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: will be influenced by dissipation or dishonesty. A people who
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: find in the changes of the weather and its effect
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: upon crops their chief cause for worry. Through the gray dawn,
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: the farmer looks up to the skies for his weather
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: report for the day. As he works, he watches the
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: clouds scurrying across the mountain tops, and when he notes
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: they are banking against the unseen summit of the blue
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: mountains that rise to the east, he knows that rain
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: is soon to come. Some local, unknown bard, watching those
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: banking clouds, has left a lyric to his people. And
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: I heard a gray bearded mountaineer singing it as he
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: predicted the break of a summer drought. The sun rose bright,
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: but hid its head, soon to a rain of night
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: if it don't rain. Aforeenoon with their homes back in
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: the mountains, nearly fifty miles from the railway, with a
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: journey before them over rocky roads and up mountain sides
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: to the other communities of Fincher's County. The people of
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: paw Mau live in the communion and democracy of one
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: great family. Children call old men by their Christian names.
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: In it is not the slightest element of disrespect, and
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: it is instead an appreciated propriety which the old men
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: recall as the custom of their boyhood. Reverend R. C. Pyle,
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: the pastor of the Church of Christ in Christian Union,
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: the Church of the Valley, is rosier to everyone. All
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: worshiped together in the same church, all toil alike in
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: the fields in the predial, peaceful routine of their days.
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: There is a positive similarity. A farmer will ride direct
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: to the cornfield or the meadow of a neighbor, knowing
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: the neighbor will be found at work there, and as
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: through the gray dawn of the day they look up
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: to the skies, the wish of one for rain will
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: be found to be the community desire. The social meeting
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: point of the people of the valley is the general
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: store of John Marion Rains. The storehouse sits by the
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: roadside at the foot of a mountain in the western
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: end of the valley, just where the road tumbles down
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: to the solid log cabin old Coonrod Pile had built
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: to the spring and the York home. One end of
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: the long porch of the storehouse, as it runs with
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: the road, is but a step from the ground, and
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: the mountain falls away until the floor is conveniently up
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: to the height of a wagon's bed. Then the road
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: dips again until the porch is on a level with
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: the saddle stirrups, and the women dismount with ease from
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: their high backed, tasseled side saddles as they come in
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: sun bonnets and ginghams. The men of the Mountains seldom
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: hurry on any mission. Their walk is a slow and
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: foot shore tread. When they come to the store, if
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: only for a plug of tobacco, they remain with John
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: Marion for a social hour or more. Their purchase is
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: an incident the last act before they depart. It is
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: rare during the daylight hours that someone is not sitting
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: on the porch or in one of the chairs of
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: the row that skirts the showcased counter, just within the door,
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: or somewhere upon the open horseshoe kegs that border the
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: floor of the counter opposite. They are waiting to hear
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: if anything new has happened. For all the news of
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood comes to the store, the storekeeper is sure
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: to know whether the stranger seen passing along the road
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: in the morning stopped at the Yorks or went on
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: to Possum Trot or to Birdstown. The very commodities upon
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: the shelves and counters of that store are in friendly confusion.
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: Canned meats, pepper, candy, soap, and chewing tobacco may be
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: found in one partition, while next to them groceries, shotgun shells,
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: powder and chinaware are in a position of prominence according
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: to the needs of the past purchaser. In the rear,
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: piled high are overalls and store clothes, hats and shoes.
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: But the counter facing the shells of dress goods for
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: the women, is free of obstructions, and its surface is
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: worn smooth and polished by the years of unrolling of
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: bolts of cloth. While at every quarter yard along the
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: counter's rear edge is the shining brass tackhead. The yardstick
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: of the department. A pair of large shears swing prominently
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: from an upright partition. The department is orderly and neat,
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: a mute tribute to those who patronize it. Into the
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: showcases has crept every article of small dimension that had
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: no habitat or kind. Upon the shelves around, from laces
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: to lead, pencils, upon nails, and the rafters of the
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: ceiling swing buckets and dippers and lamps, current combs and brushes.
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: Off In an l that runs at a right angle
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: from the main store are bacon and tires for wagon wheels,
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: country cured hams and brooms, flour kerosene and plows. Under
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: the counter by the door is an open wooden box
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: of crackers, and its exact location and the volume of
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: the supply are known to every child in the mountains around.
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: Out of it comes their land yap from making a
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: journey to the store. Beside the door, upon a shelf
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: sits the water bucket, kept cool by frequent repleashing from
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: the York spring. Here, every man who enters stops, and
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: after he has shifted his quid of tobacco, looked around
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: and made his cheerful greeting a hearty one with howdy people.
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 1: He lifts the dipper filled with its pleasing refreshment, and
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: the surplus goes accurately in a crystal curve to the
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: back of some venturesome chicken that has come upon the
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: store porch. Above the door as you enter, hangs a stenciled, uneven,
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: unpunctuated sign no credit, cash or barter. But that sign
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: has lost its potency. It is yellow with age, and
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: no longer is there anyone who believes in it. It
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: was hung when John Marian first opened his store, and
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: before he knew his people and wanted cash or barter
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: for his wares. There is trading every day that is barter,
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: but it is the women bringing chickens under their arms,
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: or a basket of eggs. The eggs are deposited in
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: a box, the store keeper counting them aloud as he
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: packs them for shipment, or one of the eleven reins
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: as kids is bestirred to the barn with the chick pickens,
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: where they remain in semi captivity until the egg and
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: poultry man in an old canvas covered schooner comes on
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: his weekly rounds, and the cash value to the barter
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: is traded to ascent. A poke of flour, or of sugar,
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: or a cut of tobacco usually evens the transaction. It
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: is many a journey around the store that John Marion
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: makes in a day. The decision to purchase each article
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: is announced slowly, as though it were the only thing desired.
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: The plump and genial storekeeper goes leisurely for it, and
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: with a smile of satisfaction, places it before the customer.
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: There is a moment of silence, then a journey for
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: the next need, and it is only in balancing the
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: barter that the merchant makes a suggestion. A small glass
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: showcase is refuting testimony that the sign over the door
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: of no credit had been discredited long ago. The charge
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: account is open to everyone. A memorandum of the purchases
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: is made upon a strip torn from a writing tablet
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: or upon a piece of wrapping paper, and tossed into
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: the showcase among many others of its kind, until the
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: customer comes around to settle up. Then, with an unerring instinct,
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: John Marian can pull from the tumbled pile of memoranda
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: the records of the charges he seeks. If the charge
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: account is to remain open until the next crop comes
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: in or some rainy day, he will transcribe the charge
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: into his day book. The clocks of the valley are
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: not controlled by the governments or the railroad's standard of time.
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: They go by sun time and are regulated by the
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: hour the almanacs say the sun should rise. John Marion
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: winds the store clock after it is run down, and
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: he sets it by no consultation with anything but his
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: feelings as to what hour of the day it should be.
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: At least once a week, every man who lives in
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: the valley is at the store, but Saturday is the
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: popular meeting time. When the chairs and the row of
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: horseshoe kegs are occupied. The men rest their hands behind
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: them on the counter and swing to a place of
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: comfort upon it, Or they sit upon the window sills,
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: keeping well within the range of raillery that welcomes the
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: coming and speeds the parting guest. It is a good
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: natured humor that these mountaineers love, quick as the crack
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: of a rifle, and as direct as its speeding ball.
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 1: There is never an effort to wound, but always there
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: is the open challenge to measure resource and wit. Many
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 1: a trade in mules that owners have ridden to the
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: store has resulted from the defense against the mule wise critics,
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: who several times outnumber the man who rode the mule.
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: The mount is a newly acquired one. The special pleasure
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 1: is found in a seemingly serious pointing out why any
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: sort of trade was a bad one for that particular animal.
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: A mule trade is a measure of business capability. No
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: lie is ever told an answer to a direct question,
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 1: but no information is relinquished unless the question is asked.
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: No hand is passed over the mule's eyes, and there
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: is no specific inquiry about the eyes before the trade
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: is consummated and the animal proves blind. In one of them,
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: fault lies in the mule swamping ability of the new owner.
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: Over no question could two men be seemingly so widely
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 1: apart as the two when both are anxious to trade,
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 1: they are jockeying for that something to boot, which always
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: makes at least one participant satisfied. In a mountain mule trade.
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: There are pitfalls for the unwary in the conversations that
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: pass across the store Aisle. Bill Sharp, who has spent
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: eighty two summers in the valley and the winters as well,
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: with seeming innocence, started a discussion as to how far
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: a cow bell could be heard. He sat quietly as
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 1: several compared their experiences while hunting cattle in the mountains. Finally,
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: the old man said his hearing was not so good
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: as it used to be, but he remembered once hearing
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: a cowbell all the way from Overton County down the line.
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: A rural statistician figured it must be seventy miles from
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: pow Maw to the nearest point in Overton County, and
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: the jests began to explode in the old man's vicinity.
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: He conceded many changes since he was young, but so
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: far as he could see, there was evidently no improvement
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: in the man's hearing powers. When all his efforts to
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: secure a side bet that he could prove his assertion
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: were futile, he explained, well, boys, you got away, and
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: once I won two gallons of whiskey on it. I
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 1: was in Overton County. I bought a cow and as
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: she had a bell on her and I drove her home,
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: I heard that cow bell all the way from Overton County.
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: On Saturday afternoon or a rainy afternoon, when Alvin Yorke
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: and the right boys, and one of them will Wright,
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: is president of the bank at Jamestown. Ab Williams grave,
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: hair and bent, but vigorous of tongue. His son Sam Williams,
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: tall and straight as an Indian, and equally upstanding for
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: his opinions. John Evans, a local Justice of the Peace,
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: Bill Sharp, who lives in the shadow of Old Crow T. C.
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: Frog of Frog's Chapel, who farms, preaches or teaches school
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: as the demand arises, Pastor Pyle, and his brother Virgil Pile,
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: who has been county trustee. When any of these are
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: among those gathered at the store, there is a tournament
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: of wit with a constant change of program. Many a time,
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: John Marion is compelled to retreat behind a they's in
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 1: when in a lull a shot is taken at him,
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: and his smile is his acknowledgment that he cannot be
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: expected to add up a charge slip and at the
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: same time defend himself against a carefree man upon a
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: keg of horseshoes. But the storekeeper is never taken by
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: surprise at the bandonage of his patrons. One afternoon, after
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 1: a long wait and another day in the valley seemed
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: sure to pass with no unusual incident, an old fellow
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: arose from one of the chairs, stretched himself and said,
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: John Marion, I want to shift of shirts else I
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: got to go to bed to get this un washed.
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: The storekeeper laid out several of dark color. Here's some
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: you can wear without change till the shirt falls off.
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: That's right, John, give it one that won't advertise that
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: the old woman's neglected me. Another was uncertain about the
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: size of a pair of overalls for his boy. Don't know,
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 1: John Marion, one tight enough to keep the bees out.
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: A kid show a waste energy when a bee gets
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: in him when it is good dusk. The storekeeper closes
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: the wooden shutter and fastens them by looping a small
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 1: cotton string over a nail. All the mountaineers are on
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: their way home, but they had not parted without an
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: interchange of invitation. Home with me, boys home. If I
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: can't feed you well, I'll be friendly. Or maybe the
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: invitation is not so sweeping, and holds a reservation spend
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: the night with me. I'll not stop you. I'll let
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 1: you leave afore breakfast. Over any gathering of the store,
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 1: a pall of silence descends when a stranger rides up.
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: If the newcomer is a new drummer, unfamiliar with the
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: ways of the mountains, if he comes imbued with the
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: belief that the voice with the smile wins and talkatively
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: radiates his individual idea of fellowship and democracy, one by one,
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 1: his auditors silently drop away to them an insincere a
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: false note of democracy has been struck. Perhaps around the
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: door there will slinger some of the mountain boys, waiting
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: to satisfy their curiosity over the contents of the drummer's cases.
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: John Marion Rains always listens to the store worry of prices,
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: but his shelves are really replenished by the drummers who
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: drive to the barn instead of the store who unhitched
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: their own horses and feed them from the storekeeper's supply
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: of corn, who come into the center of the crowd
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: only after they have unobtrusively lingered a while in the
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: fringe of it. One afternoon, one of these mountaineers, who
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: had withdrawn to the porch, unhitched without being solicited, a
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: drummer's horse, and he had trouble in pulling off a
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: loose shoe and renailing it. The drummer wanted to pay
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: for the work, but the mountaineer shook his head. The
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: deed had been done for the horse. The visitor insisted,
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: and finally the price was fixed by a nickel. A
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: mountaineer seldom asks questions. Instead, he makes a statement of
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: that which appears to him to be the fact, and
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 1: if unchallenged or uncorrected, it is accepted as the proper deduction.
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: Early in my visit to pal Maw, I learned my lesson.
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: Have you lived all your life in the valley? I
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 1: asked an old mountaineer whom I met on the road,
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: as he was carrying on his shoulder, a sack of
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: corn to the mill. Into his eye, there came a
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: light of playfulness, then pity, quickly to be followed by
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: a twinkle of fun. He simply could not let the
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: opening pass, not yet, he said. Later, I saw a
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: little fellow of six years of age chasing a chicken
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: barren of feathers, over a yard that was barren of grass.
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: When I accused him of maliciously picking that chicken, his
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 1: face was a spot of smiles as he vigorously denied it.
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: Are you going to school? I asked him. The smile
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: changed to a look of surprise at an inquiry so
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: out of line with his immediate activities. When it starts,
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: he called back, as he and the chicken disappeared under
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: the cabin. I dropped questions and adopted the direct statement
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: as a method of procedure in which there was less
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: personal liability. Alvin Terry, dressed in a patched corduroy with
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: a hunting pouch made of the skin of a gray fox,
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: and with his long rifle in hand, stopped at the
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: store and told how he got a bear. There was
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: a hunter's pride in the achievement, with apparently little given
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: to the bravery of the personal role he had played.
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: He had been on a hunt back in the hills.
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 1: His dogs had gone ahead of him, and he knowed
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: they had something when he came in sight of them,
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: and they rushed into a cave, and some came out
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: yelping and bloody when they wouldn't go back in. Then
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: it was he sized it were a bear. He looked
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: at the mountains around him, but there was not a
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 1: cabin in sight where he could get help. Is the
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: dogs couldn't get it out what was in there and
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: was only keeping it in. I sat down to think
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: it over. I lowed I would tell someone, and folks
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: would say, that's the man who had a bear in
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: a cave and did not get him. If I went
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: in and come out alive with scratches on me, folks
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: would say a bear done that. But he got the bear.
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: He cut a long pole, fastened a pine knot to
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: the end of it, and set it afire. Getting to
• 2:19:51
  Speaker 1: the side of the mouth of the cave, he began
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: slowly to push in the burning knot, leaving the channel
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: opened if anything wanted to come out. But the bear
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: didn't come out, and the hunter grew afraid that the
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: smoke would not move his prey, yet would prevent him
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: from seeing around in the cave if he had to
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: go in. The cave's mouth was low, a rock hung
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: over it, and he could not crawl upon his hands
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: and knees. I pushed the pine knot as fur as
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: it would go. I set my rifle and pushed it
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: ahead of me. I got my knock where I could
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: get it, went down flat and begun to pull myself
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: on my elbows. When I could just peep around the rock,
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: I seed the bear. It was setting on his haunches.
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: His head turned to looking at the pine knot, picked
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: out a spot about three inches below his collar bone,
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: and never drew such a bead on anything. Then I
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: touched her off. You should have seen me come backward
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 1: out of there. He waited, and there was no sound
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: in the cave. He sent the dogs in, and they
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: would not come out at his call. He reloaded his
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: rifle and began to crawl in again. As soon as
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: I seed him, I knowed he was dead. I got
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 1: both my hands on his paw and began to pull.
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: He was heavier than I was, so I slid to
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: him I tried ketch him. I toes in the rocks,
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: but I couldn't hold, and I never moved him. He
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: went ten miles over the mountains to get help to
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: pull his bear out of the cave. The language of
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: the people of the Great Smokies and the Blue Ridge
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: Mountains is filled with a quaintness of expression. Many of
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: their words and phrases that attract through their oddity, were
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: at one time in popular use and grammatically correct. These
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: people are clinging to the dialect of their fathers, who
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: were Anglo Saxons. The use of hit for it is
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: not confined to the mountains, but the old English grammars
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: give hit as the neuter of the pronoun he. Uns
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 1: too had once a grammatical sanction for ewun or un
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: was the early English for one, and uns was more
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: than one. And many parts of the South are found
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 1: the expressions ewuns and weuiyuns. The mountaineer says ewuns when
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: he is addressing more than one person. It is one
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: of his plural forms for you, and he is adopting
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: an earl English ending. But the true mountaineer does not
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: employ wian's, though we to him is plural. The suffix
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: is superfluous in the same way. He says ye when
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: speaking to more than one, but he uses U when
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: addressing an individual. He seems too to make a distinction
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 1: between ewan's and ye. The former is usually the nominative
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: and the latter the objective. When he wishes to convey
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: the idea of past tense, the ending ed is popularly employed,
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: but when he may, he drops the e. While he
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: will properly use the present tense of a verb, he
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: goes out of his way to add the D, so
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: he says node seed, But he's not always consistent. He
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: prefers kilt the old form to killed. Generations pass in
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: which they had little opportunity to attend school, and there
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 1: are today a number of the older people of the
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: valley of the three forks of the Wolf who cannot
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: read nor write. Some of the younger generations have been
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 1: away to college, but as with Alvin York, most of
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: them grew to manhood with only a month or a
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: month and a half at school during a year with
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 1: many years no school in session. The church is in
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 1: the center of the valley, at the edge of a
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: grove of forest trees. It is a frame structure built
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: by the Methodist during the past century. The board walls
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: of the interior are unplastered and unpainted, and the pews
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: are movable benches. The pulpit is slightly elevated, with a
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 1: railing in front ending in two pillars, upon which rests
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: the preacher's Bible, song books, and lamps. Along the entire
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: front of the pulpit runs the mourner's bench. In the
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: rear of the church, a ladder rests against the wall,
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: and down toward it swings a rope from the open belfry.
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 1: Every one in the valley attends church, and there are
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: but few who do not go to every service, without
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 1: regard to the denomination conducting it. They come on horse
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: and mule, back on foot in wagons, in the beds
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 1: of which are chairs for the entire family. In summer,
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: many of the men wear their overalls, and all, excepting
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 1: the young men acting as escorts, come in their shirt sleeves.
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: Some of the women are in silks, but more of
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: them are in Gingham's and many sunbonnets are to be seen.
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: At the door of the church, the men and women part,
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 1: and they sit in separate pews. I attended a service
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: at the end of a revival that was being conducted
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: by the Reverend Melvin Herbert Russell of the Church of
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: Christ in Christian Union, the frail and eager Evangelists who
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: three years before had brought Sergeant Yorke to his knees
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: before the altar of that church. It was in August day,
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: and the sun's rays fell into the valley without a
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 1: single cloud for a screen. The little church was filled
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 1: with worshippers, while many sat in the shade of the
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: trees that sheltered it. Within the sound of the minister's
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: voice down through the grove. The hitched horses stomped and switched,
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 1: but this was the only evidence of restlessness. The minister
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 1: conducted the services in his shirt sleeves, without collar, and
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 1: with the sleeves rolled up. There is no organ in
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 1: the church, and he played a guitar as he led
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: the earth earnest singing. The Mountain Evangelist had but few
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: of the pulpit arts of the minister, but he had
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 1: the soul of a great preacher. His life, to him
• 2:25:09
  Speaker 1: was a mission to the unconverted, to point out the
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: imminence of death and its meaning. His belief had carried
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 1: him beyond and above the pleading of the uncertainty of
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: death to arouse fear in the hearts of his congregation. Instead,
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: to him, the great clock of time was actually ticking off,
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: an opportunity which the unconverted could not permit to pass.
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: In his earnest bleeding, his voice would rise from a
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: conversational tone until it rang penetratingly throughout the hall, and
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: he would emphasize his words with a startling resound from
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: his open palm upon the altar rail. The mountaineers had
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: brought their entire families, and during the service, the smaller
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: children would fall asleep, to awaken with a cry at
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: the changing vibrations up and down the sounding Carpetleous aisles
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: of parents would pass, carrying out some child to comfort it.
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: But the incidents were unnoticed by the minister, nor did
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: they break the chant of amen, or the growing number
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: of repetitions of the minister's words by the devout worshippers.
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: When the eyes of the auditors were turned from the evangelist,
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: they reverently sought the face of some expected convert in
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: the service. In the feelings of the people, there was
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: real religion. Sundays pass when there is no preaching in
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: the church. Pastor Pyle, the local minister, has several charges
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: and can conduct the services at pall Mall but once
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: a month. But each Sunday morning there is Sunday school
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 1: and in the afternoon a singing class. Some one of
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: the York boys leads the unaccompanied songs, and Alvin's leadership
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: an interest in these services cause the catchy phrase a
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: singing elder to be a part of nearly every newspaper
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: story of him that went over the country. The singing
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: class draws to the church on Sunday afternoon the younger
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: element of the community. When the service is over, some
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: go for a swim in the Wolf River which runs
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 1: along the foot of the grove, or on a grassless
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 1: space under a giant oak on the schoolhouse yard. There
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: will be a game of marbles. It is the old
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: fashioned ring men that they play, where five large marbles
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 1: are placed in a small square marked in the dust,
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: one marble on each corner and one in the middle.
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 1: Over in France, when the officers of Sergeant York's regiment
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: were trying to obtain all the facts of his wonderful exploit,
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 1: they asked him what he did with the German officers
• 2:27:19
  Speaker 1: he had captured. When he started to bring in his
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: line of prisoners, his reply was a smile from his
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: boyhood in the mountains, I just made a middler out
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 1: of myself. Among all the American officers present, there was
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: but one who recognized his reference to the old marble game.
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: The death of his father when Alvin was twenty one,
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 1: relaxed a hand that had protected and guided him more
• 2:27:40
  Speaker 1: than he realized. His two older brothers were married, and
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: he became the head of the family of ten that remained.
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 1: He left to his younger brothers the care of the
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 1: crops upon the farm, and he hired out on any
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 1: job that brought an extra revenue. In summer, he worked
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 1: on neighboring farms, and in winter hauled staves and merchandise
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: when the roads could be traveled or law in the
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: lumber camps. He formed new associates, and under the new influences,
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 1: began to drink and gamble with his companions. On Saturday
• 2:28:08
  Speaker 1: and Sunday he would go to the Kentucky line through
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: the mountains. Along the state line between Tennessee and Kentucky,
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 1: there were road houses or saloons that were so built
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: that one half of the house would be in Kentucky
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: and one half in Tennessee. The keeper paid his federal
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: license and was free from the clutches of the United
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 1: States government, but he avoided the licenses of the states
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 1: by carrying a customer from Tennessee into the Kentucky side
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 1: of the house for the business transaction, and the Kentuckian
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 1: was invited into Tennessee. No customer of the state line
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: saloons could swear before a grand jury that he had
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: violated the liquor laws of his state, and he was
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 1: not subject to a summons at his home by the
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: grand jury of the county or state in which he
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 1: made his purchase. Upon receipt of a grapevine signal that
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 1: officers were approaching, the entire stock of liquids would disappear,
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: and when the officers arrived, the saloon keeper would be
• 2:28:57
  Speaker 1: at work in the fields of his farm. The nearest
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: state line saloon to pall Mau was seven miles by
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 1: the road, and but little over half the distance by
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: paths on the mountains. This was the only period of
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: Alban's life when the wishes of his mother did not
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 1: control him. These week end sprees were relaxation and fun,
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 1: and he worked steadily the remainder of the week. In them,
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 1: he grew jovial, and the friends he drew around him
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: were fun, not trouble makers. His physical strength and the
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: influence of his personality were quickly used to check in
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 1: incipiency any evidence of approaching disorder. His shooting up consisted
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: of pumping lead from an old revolver he owned into
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 1: the spots on the beech trees as he and his
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: friends galloped along the road, and he became so expert
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: that he would pass the revolver from hand to hand
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 1: and empty it against a tree as he went by.
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 1: When the eight Germans charged him in the fight in
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: the Argonne, he never raised his automatic pistol higher than
• 2:29:52
  Speaker 1: his cartridge belt. His mother knew the latent determination of
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: her boy, and she was ever in dread that there
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 1: might arise some trouble among the men when he he
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: was away on these drinking trips. Alvin is just like
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: his father, she said. They are both slow to stock trouble.
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: But if either one would get into hit, they'd go
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: through with the job and there'd be a hurtin'. But
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: since the fistfights of boyhood. Alvian Yorke has never had
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: a personal encounter. His intents and deeds do not lead
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: him into difficulties, and in his eye there is a
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 1: calm blue light that steadies the impulses of men given
• 2:30:24
  Speaker 1: to explosions of passion and anger. At a basket dinner
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: where he and his friends were drinking, he took his
• 2:30:30
  Speaker 1: last drink. To these outings, the girls bring in a
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 1: woven hickory basket a dinner for two. The baskets are auctioned,
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: the proceeds are given to some church charity, and the
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 1: purchaser and the girl have dinner together. They are often
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 1: expensive parties to serious minded mountain swain who cannot surrender
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 1: the day's privileges to arrival, or will not yield his
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 1: dignity and rights to fun makers who enliven the biddings
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: by making the basket brought by his girl cost at
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 1: least as much as a marriage license. An His mother
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 1: had often pleaded with her boy that he was not
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 1: his real self, not his better self. While drinking. Something
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 1: happened at a basket party in nineteen fourteen that caused
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 1: the full meaning of his mother's solicitude to come to him.
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: He left, declaring he would never take another drink, and
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: his drinking and gambling days ended together. Late in the
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 1: afternoons in the fall months, when the squirrels are out.
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: So the story runs in the valley, but without confirmation
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 1: from the sergeant, Alvin would be seen leaving home with
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 1: his gun. He would cut across the fields to the
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: west and pass along the outskirts of the farm of
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: Squire F. A. Williams. Those who saw him wondered why
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 1: he should take this long course to the woods, while
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: on the mountain above his home the oak and beech
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 1: masts were plentiful, and other hunters were going there for
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: the squirrels. About this same time, the wife of Squire
• 2:31:48
  Speaker 1: Williams noted with pleasure that Gracie, her youngest daughter, a
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 1: girl of sixteen, with golden hair and eyes that mirror
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: the blue of the sky, went willingly to the woodlots
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: for the cows. When she returned with them, she was singing,
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: and this too pleased Missus Williams. The road from Squire
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: Williams's home to the church passes the Yorcombe, and after
• 2:32:09
  Speaker 1: the service, as far as his gate, Alvin would often
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 1: walk with them, as Gracie was silent and timid when
• 2:32:15
  Speaker 1: any stranger was near, so diffident that when on their
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 1: way home from church, she walked far away from Alvin.
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: The neighbors for a long while had no explanation for
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 1: Alvin's squirrel hunts along the base of the mountain instead
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: of up towards the top of it, and Missus Williams
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: at her home heard so many gunshots off in the
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: woods in the course of a day that she attached
• 2:32:35
  Speaker 1: no significance to them. But Alvin and Gracie's meetings along
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 1: the shaded roadway that leads to the Williams home were discovered,
• 2:32:42
  Speaker 1: and Missus Williams put a ban upon them, for Gracie
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 1: was too young. She maintained to have thoughts of marriage.
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 1: The real facts in that mountain courtship are known to
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 1: but two, and even now they are carefully guarded, as
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: though the romance had not become a reality and culminated happily.
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: But the neighbors have fragments out of which they build
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 1: a stone, and it varies with the imagination of the relator.
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 1: The Big Sergeant's confirmation or denial is a smile and
• 2:33:06
  Speaker 1: a playful, taunting silence that leaves the conclusion in doubt.
• 2:33:10
  Speaker 1: There is a path that leads from the store around
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: the side of the mountain that edges a shoulder between
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 1: the store and the Williams home. A little off this
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: path is a large flat rock. Around it, massive beech
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: trees grow, and their boughs arch into a dome above
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: the rock. There are carvings on the trunks of those
• 2:33:27
  Speaker 1: trees that were not found until the rock was selected
• 2:33:30
  Speaker 1: as the altar for a Woodland wedding at which the
• 2:33:33
  Speaker 1: Governor of Tennessee officiated. When Gracie would come to the store,
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: she passed the york Comb on her way. Often, when alone,
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: she would return by the mountain path. It was longer
• 2:33:43
  Speaker 1: than by the road, but it was shaded by trees,
• 2:33:46
  Speaker 1: and as it bends around the mountain, glimpses of the
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: valley could be seen. The rock ledge among the beech trees,
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 1: was not half way to her home, but it was
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 1: a picturesque place to rest, and down below was the
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: roof of the york Comb and the spring branch as
• 2:34:00
  Speaker 1: it wound its way to the Wolf River. It was
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 1: their favorite meeting place. When the war broke in Europe.
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 1: Those who lived in the valley gave little heed to it.
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 1: When there was talk of the United States entry, there
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 1: was deep opposition there, opposed to any war. The wounds
• 2:34:15
  Speaker 1: of the Civil War had healed, but the scars it
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: left were deep. The thought of another armed conflict meant
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 1: more to the old people than it did to the
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: younger generation. I did not know, Alvin said of himself
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 1: why we were going to war. We never had any
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: speakings in here, and I did not read the papers closely,
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 1: and I did not know the objects of the war.
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 1: I did not feel I wanted to go. He had
• 2:34:38
  Speaker 1: given up his work on the farm and was making
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: more money than he had ever made before. The short
• 2:34:43
  Speaker 1: cut of the Dixie Highway, that part that runs from
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 1: Louisville to Chattanooga, had been surveyed and was being graded
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: through Fenters County. It runs through the valley of the
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: Three Forks of the Wolf. He was driving steel on
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 1: the pike for his days in the blacksmith shop had
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: taught him to wield a sledge hammer, and many rocks
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: were to be blasted to make a roadway. For this,
• 2:35:03
  Speaker 1: he was receiving a dollar sixty five a day for
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 1: ten hours work. While on the farm, he had not
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 1: been able to earn more than twenty five dollars a month,
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 1: working from can't see to can't see. When he joined
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: the church, he had given himself to it unreservedly. They
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: were holding many meetings and the church was growing. He'd
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 1: become the second elder at the time, too, He was
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 1: planning for the day when he could marry. In June.
• 2:35:28
  Speaker 1: Following the country's entry into the war, Alvin registered for
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: the draft, and in October at Jamestown took his examination.
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: They looked at me, They weighed me, he told on
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: his return, and I weighed one hundred and seventy pounds
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 1: and was seventy two inches tall, So they said I
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 1: passed all right. He was with Pastor Pyle and turned
• 2:35:47
  Speaker 1: to him, This means goodbye for me, but I'll go
• 2:35:51
  Speaker 1: after his registration. His mother never ceased to worry over
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: his going to a war so far away from her.
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 1: The situation troubled him times. He would see his mother
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: looking steadily at him, and there was always a sadness
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: in her face. He knew that she needed him for
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 1: the next oldest of the boys of those who were
• 2:36:08
  Speaker 1: at home was only seventeen, but his country had asked
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: him to stand by and would call him if they
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: needed him. The struggle within him lasted for weeks. Then
• 2:36:17
  Speaker 1: he asked that they seek no exemption for him. In
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: his presence. His mother never again referred to his going,
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 1: but he would see her troubled face watching him. But
• 2:36:25
  Speaker 1: she talked with the influential men in the valley, hoping
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 1: there would be some suggestion that would honorably relieve Alvin
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: from the duty of going. Pastor Pyle had gone ahead
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: to see what he could do, and he learned that
• 2:36:36
  Speaker 1: those who were conscientious objectors would not have to go.
• 2:36:41
  Speaker 1: The tenets of his church, he held, were against all wars.
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 1: Alvin was an elder, he had subscribed to and was
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: living the principles of his religion. He hurried home to
• 2:36:51
  Speaker 1: missus Yorke, but the soldier himself had to make the
• 2:36:54
  Speaker 1: plea for exemption, and no one could make it for him.
• 2:36:57
  Speaker 1: Alvin never made it. In the middle of November, his
• 2:37:01
  Speaker 1: summons reached him. He had but twenty four hours to respond.
• 2:37:05
  Speaker 1: He sent a note to Gracie telling her his little
• 2:37:08
  Speaker 1: blue card had come, and he asked her to meet
• 2:37:11
  Speaker 1: him at the church which always stands open by the roadside.
• 2:37:15
  Speaker 1: As they walked towards her home. They arranged to meet
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: the next morning at the rock under the beech trees,
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 1: when she would leave to carry the cows to the pasture,
• 2:37:22
  Speaker 1: and it was there she promised to marry him. When
• 2:37:24
  Speaker 1: he returned from the war. Men at the store saw
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 1: Alvin come down from the mountain, and he could not
• 2:37:29
  Speaker 1: escape some bantering over the success or failure of his
• 2:37:33
  Speaker 1: early morning tryst. Just left it to her, he has
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 1: said to have frankly confessed, she can have me for
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: the taken when I get back. He and his mother
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 1: were alone in their home for several hours. When he left,
• 2:37:45
  Speaker 1: he stopped at the brooks porch, where relatives and neighbors
• 2:37:47
  Speaker 1: had assembled. As he walked away, he turned unexpectedly up
• 2:37:52
  Speaker 1: the path towards the rock on the mountain side is
• 2:37:54
  Speaker 1: now known. He went there to kneel alone in prayer.
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: When he came down to the store to the men
• 2:37:59
  Speaker 1: waiting for him, he spoke with an assured faith he
• 2:38:02
  Speaker 1: had not shown before. I know now that I'll be back,
• 2:38:06
  Speaker 1: he told them. His mother, weeping, though hiding it from him,
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: had slowly followed as far as the Brook's porch, Alvin,
• 2:38:13
  Speaker 1: looking back towards the old coonrod pile home, saw her
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 1: and waved to her, then hurried to the buggy that
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 1: was to take him to Jamestown. As the grating of
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: the moving buggy wheels on the road reached the Brook's porch,
• 2:38:26
  Speaker 1: Missus York gave a cry that went to responsive hearts
• 2:38:29
  Speaker 1: in every home in that part of the valley, and
• 2:38:31
  Speaker 1: she secluded herself and sobbed for days. End of chapter
• 2:38:37
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Yorke's own story. When Alvin went to war, he
• 2:38:41
  Speaker 1: carried with him a small red cloth covered memorandum book,
• 2:38:44
  Speaker 1: which was to be his diary. He knew that beyond
• 2:38:47
  Speaker 1: the mountains that encircled his home there was a world
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 1: that would be new to him. He kept the little volume,
• 2:38:53
  Speaker 1: now with broken back, and warn constantly with him, and
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: he rode in it while in camp, on shipboard, and
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 1: in the trenches in France. It was in his pocket
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 1: while he fought the German machine gun battalion in the
• 2:39:05
  Speaker 1: forest of Argonne. The book, with its records was intended
• 2:39:09
  Speaker 1: for no eyes but his own. Yet painstaking, using ink,
• 2:39:13
  Speaker 1: he had headed the volume a history of places where
• 2:39:15
  Speaker 1: I have been as a whole, the volume would be
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 1: unintelligible to a reader, for while it records the things
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 1: he wished to remember of his camp life, the trip
• 2:39:24
  Speaker 1: through England, his stay in France, and tells in order
• 2:39:28
  Speaker 1: the places he had been, it is made up of
• 2:39:30
  Speaker 1: swift moving notes that enter into no explanatory details. But
• 2:39:34
  Speaker 1: to him the notations could, even in the evening of
• 2:39:38
  Speaker 1: his life, revive the chain of incidents in his memory.
• 2:39:41
  Speaker 1: His handling of his diary is typical of his mind
• 2:39:44
  Speaker 1: and his methods. To him, details are essential, but when
• 2:39:47
  Speaker 1: they are done carefully and thoroughly, their functions are performed,
• 2:39:51
  Speaker 1: and thereafter they are uninteresting. They are but the steps
• 2:39:55
  Speaker 1: that must be taken to walk a given distance. His
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 1: mind instead dwells upon the object of the walk. When
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: he left his home at Palmow, he reported to the
• 2:40:04
  Speaker 1: local recruiting station at Jamestown, the county seat. He was
• 2:40:07
  Speaker 1: sent to Camp Gordon, near Atlanta, Georgia, and reached there
• 2:40:11
  Speaker 1: the night of November sixteenth, nineteen seventeen. His diary runs.
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 1: I was placed in the twenty first Training Battalion. Then
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: it was called the first morning of my army life.
• 2:40:21
  Speaker 1: To police up in the yard all the old cigarette butts,
• 2:40:24
  Speaker 1: and I thought that was pretty hard as I didn't smoke,
• 2:40:27
  Speaker 1: but I did it just the same. His history tells
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 1: in one sentence of months of his experience in training
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: with the Awkward squad and of his regiment assignment. I
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: stayed there and done squad's right and squads left until
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: the first of February nineteen eighteen, and then I was
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: sent to Company G three, twenty eight Infantry, eighty second Division.
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 1: This was the All America Division, made up of selected
• 2:40:52
  Speaker 1: men from every state in the Union, and in its
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: ranks were the descendants of men who came from every
• 2:40:57
  Speaker 1: nation that composed the Allies that were fighting German. In
• 2:41:00
  Speaker 1: his notes, Alvin records temptations that came to him while
• 2:41:04
  Speaker 1: at Camp Gordon. Well, they gave me a gun, and
• 2:41:07
  Speaker 1: oh my, that old gun was just full of grease,
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: and I had to clean that old gun for inspection.
• 2:41:12
  Speaker 1: So I had a hard time to get that old
• 2:41:14
  Speaker 1: gun clean. And oh those were trying hours for a
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: boy like me trying to live for God and do
• 2:41:19
  Speaker 1: his blessed will. Then the Lord would help me bear
• 2:41:22
  Speaker 1: my hard tasks. So there I was. I was the
• 2:41:26
  Speaker 1: homesickest boy you ever seen. When he entered the army,
• 2:41:29
  Speaker 1: Alvin York stood six feet in the clear. There were
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: but few in the camp physically his equal. In any
• 2:41:35
  Speaker 1: crowd of men, he drew attention. The huge muscles of
• 2:41:38
  Speaker 1: his body glided littlely over each other. He had been
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: swinging with long, firm strides up the mountain signs. His
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: arms and shoulders had developed by lifting hay laden pitchforks
• 2:41:49
  Speaker 1: in the fields and in the swing of the sledge
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: in his father's blacksmith shop. The military training coordinated these muscles,
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: and he moved among the men, a commanding figure whose
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 1: quiet reserve seemed never fully called into action by the
• 2:42:02
  Speaker 1: arduous duties of the soldier. The strength of his mind,
• 2:42:06
  Speaker 1: the brain force he possessed, were yet to be recognized
• 2:42:09
  Speaker 1: and tested, and even to day, with all the experiences
• 2:42:12
  Speaker 1: he has had in the advancement he has made, that
• 2:42:15
  Speaker 1: force is not yet measured. It is in the years
• 2:42:18
  Speaker 1: of the future that the real mission of Sergeant Yorke
• 2:42:20
  Speaker 1: will be told. He came out of the mountains of
• 2:42:23
  Speaker 1: Tennessee with an education equal to that of a child
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 1: of eight or nine years of age, with no experience
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 1: in the world beyond the primitive, wholesome life of his
• 2:42:31
  Speaker 1: mountain community, with but little knowledge of the lives and customs,
• 2:42:34
  Speaker 1: the ambitions and struggles of men who lived over the
• 2:42:37
  Speaker 1: summit of the Blue Ridge and beyond the foothills of
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: the Cumberlands. But he was wise enough to know there
• 2:42:43
  Speaker 1: were many things he did not know. He was brave
• 2:42:45
  Speaker 1: enough to frankly admit them. When placed in a situation
• 2:42:48
  Speaker 1: that was new to him, he would try quietly to
• 2:42:51
  Speaker 1: think his way out of it, and through inheritance and training,
• 2:42:54
  Speaker 1: he thought calmly he had the mental power to stand
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: at ease under any condition, and await sufficient developments to
• 2:43:01
  Speaker 1: justify him to speak or act. Even German bullets could
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 1: not hurry nor disconcert him. He was keenly observant of
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 1: all that went on around him in the training camp.
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 1: Few sounds or motions escaped him, though it was in
• 2:43:14
  Speaker 1: a seemingly stoic mien that he contemplated the things that
• 2:43:17
  Speaker 1: were new to him. In the presence of those whose
• 2:43:19
  Speaker 1: knowledge or training he recognized as superior to his own,
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: he calmly waited for them to act. And so accurate
• 2:43:25
  Speaker 1: were his observations that the officers of his regiment looked
• 2:43:29
  Speaker 1: upon him as one by nature a soldier, and they
• 2:43:31
  Speaker 1: said of him that he always instinctively knew the right
• 2:43:35
  Speaker 1: thing to do. Placed at his banquet board the guest
• 2:43:38
  Speaker 1: of honor with a row of silver by his plate,
• 2:43:41
  Speaker 1: so different from the table service in his humble home,
• 2:43:43
  Speaker 1: he did not misuse a piece from among them, or
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: select one in error. But throughout the courses he was
• 2:43:49
  Speaker 1: not the first to pick up a needed peace. His
• 2:43:52
  Speaker 1: ability to think clearly and quickly under conditions that tried
• 2:43:55
  Speaker 1: both heart and brain was shown in the fight in
• 2:43:57
  Speaker 1: the Argonne. With eight men not twenty yards away charging
• 2:44:01
  Speaker 1: him with bayonets, he calmly decided to shoot the last
• 2:44:04
  Speaker 1: man first, and to continue this policy in selecting his mark,
• 2:44:08
  Speaker 1: so that those remaining would not see their comrades falling
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: and in a panic stop and fire a volley at him.
• 2:44:14
  Speaker 1: Military critics analyzing the tactics York used in this fight
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: had been able to find no superior way for removing
• 2:44:21
  Speaker 1: the menace of the German machine guns that were over
• 2:44:23
  Speaker 1: the crest of the hill and between him and his regiment. Then,
• 2:44:26
  Speaker 1: to form the prisoners he had captured in a column,
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: put the officers in the front and marched directly to
• 2:44:31
  Speaker 1: each machine gun nest, compelling the German officers to order
• 2:44:34
  Speaker 1: their gunners to surrender and to take their place in line.
• 2:44:38
  Speaker 1: Calm and self controlled, with a hair of copper red,
• 2:44:40
  Speaker 1: and face and neck browned and furrowed by the sun
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: and mountain winds. Inured to hardships and ready for them,
• 2:44:47
  Speaker 1: this young mountaineer moved among his new found companions at
• 2:44:50
  Speaker 1: Camp Gordon. Reticent he seemed, but his answer to an
• 2:44:53
  Speaker 1: inquiry was direct, and his quiet blue eyes never shifted
• 2:44:57
  Speaker 1: from the eyes of the man who addressed him. Friendships
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: were formed, his moods were noted by his comrades. At
• 2:45:03
  Speaker 1: times he was playful as a boy, using cautiously, even gently,
• 2:45:08
  Speaker 1: the strength he possessed. Then again he would remain in
• 2:45:11
  Speaker 1: the midst of the sports, thoughtful and as though he
• 2:45:13
  Speaker 1: were troubled. Back in the mountains, he had but little
• 2:45:16
  Speaker 1: opportunity to attend school, and his sentences were framed in
• 2:45:19
  Speaker 1: the quaint construction of his people, and nearly all of
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 1: them were ungrammatical. There were many who would have regarded
• 2:45:25
  Speaker 1: him as ignorant by the standards that hold that education
• 2:45:29
  Speaker 1: is enlightenment that comes from acquaintance with books, and that
• 2:45:33
  Speaker 1: wisdom is a knowledge of the ways of the world.
• 2:45:35
  Speaker 1: He was, but he had a training that is rare,
• 2:45:38
  Speaker 1: advantages that come to too few from his father. He
• 2:45:41
  Speaker 1: inherited physical courage from his mother moral courage, and both
• 2:45:46
  Speaker 1: of them spent their lives developing these qualities of manhood
• 2:45:49
  Speaker 1: in their boy. His father hiked him through the mountains
• 2:45:52
  Speaker 1: on hunts that would have stoutened the heart of any
• 2:45:54
  Speaker 1: man to have kept the pace, and he never tolerated
• 2:45:57
  Speaker 1: the least evidence of fear of man or beast. He
• 2:45:59
  Speaker 1: taught his boy to so live that he owned apology
• 2:46:02
  Speaker 1: or explanation to no man. While I was at Palmow,
• 2:46:06
  Speaker 1: one of his neighbors, speaking of Alvian, said, even as
• 2:46:09
  Speaker 1: a boy, he had his say and did his due,
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: and never stopped to explain a statement or tell what
• 2:46:14
  Speaker 1: prompted an act, left those to stand for themselves. And
• 2:46:18
  Speaker 1: the little mother, whose frail body was worn from hard
• 2:46:20
  Speaker 1: work and racked by the birth of eleven children, was
• 2:46:23
  Speaker 1: before him the embodiment of gentleness, spirit, and faith. When
• 2:46:28
  Speaker 1: he came from the hunt into the door of that
• 2:46:30
  Speaker 1: cabin home and hung his gun above the mantle or
• 2:46:33
  Speaker 1: came in from the fields where the work was physical.
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 1: He put from him all feelings of the possession of strength.
• 2:46:38
  Speaker 1: When he was with her, he was as gentle as
• 2:46:40
  Speaker 1: the mother herself. She too wanted her son to live
• 2:46:43
  Speaker 1: in such a way that he would not fear any man.
• 2:46:46
  Speaker 1: But she wanted his course through life to be over
• 2:46:48
  Speaker 1: the path her Bible pointed out, so that he would
• 2:46:51
  Speaker 1: not have the impulse to do those deeds that called
• 2:46:53
  Speaker 1: for explanation or demanded apology from her. He inherited those
• 2:46:57
  Speaker 1: qualities of mind that gave him at all times the
• 2:47:00
  Speaker 1: full possession of himself. Her simple, home made philosophy was
• 2:47:04
  Speaker 1: ever urging her boy to think clear through whatever proposition
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: was before him, and when in a situation where those
• 2:47:12
  Speaker 1: around him were excited, to slow down on what he
• 2:47:14
  Speaker 1: was doing and think fast. I have heard her say,
• 2:47:18
  Speaker 1: there hain't no good in gettin excited. You can't do
• 2:47:20
  Speaker 1: what you ought to do. She had not seen a
• 2:47:23
  Speaker 1: railroad train until she went to the capital of Tennessee
• 2:47:26
  Speaker 1: to the presentation of the medal of honor given her
• 2:47:28
  Speaker 1: son by the people of the state. She came upon
• 2:47:31
  Speaker 1: the platform of the tabernacle at Nashville wearing the sunbonnet
• 2:47:34
  Speaker 1: of stays, she wore to church in the Valley of
• 2:47:36
  Speaker 1: the Three Forks of the Wolf. The Governor, in greeting her,
• 2:47:40
  Speaker 1: lifted off the sunbonnet. His possession was momentary, for missus
• 2:47:44
  Speaker 1: Yorke recaptured it in a true York style. Her smiling
• 2:47:48
  Speaker 1: face and nodding head told that the governor had capitulated.
• 2:47:52
  Speaker 1: It was pantomime, for the thousands were on their feet,
• 2:47:55
  Speaker 1: waving to her and cheering her. Calm and still smiling,
• 2:47:58
  Speaker 1: she looked over the demonstration in the vast auditorium, more
• 2:48:01
  Speaker 1: as a spectator than the cause of the outburst of applause. Later,
• 2:48:06
  Speaker 1: at the reception at the Governor's mansion, guests were gathered
• 2:48:09
  Speaker 1: round her, and she held a levee that crowded one
• 2:48:11
  Speaker 1: of the big drawing rooms. Those who sought to measure
• 2:48:14
  Speaker 1: wit with her found her never at a loss for
• 2:48:17
  Speaker 1: a reply, and woven through her responses were many similes
• 2:48:20
  Speaker 1: drawn from her mountain life. Under her proctorship, the moral
• 2:48:24
  Speaker 1: courage of her son had developed in her code of manhood.
• 2:48:27
  Speaker 1: There was no tolerance for infirmity of purpose, and mental
• 2:48:31
  Speaker 1: fear was as degrading and as disintegrating as physical cowardice.
• 2:48:36
  Speaker 1: He had been a man of the world, in the
• 2:48:37
  Speaker 1: miniature world that the miles of mountains had enclosed around him.
• 2:48:41
  Speaker 1: He had lived every phase of the life of his people,
• 2:48:44
  Speaker 1: and lived them openly. When he renounced drinking and gambling,
• 2:48:47
  Speaker 1: he was through with them for all time. When he
• 2:48:49
  Speaker 1: joined the church, his religion was made the large part
• 2:48:52
  Speaker 1: of the new plan of his life. It was while
• 2:48:55
  Speaker 1: at Camp Gordon that he reconciled his religious convictions with
• 2:48:58
  Speaker 1: his patriotic duty to his country. The rugged manhood within
• 2:49:02
  Speaker 1: him had made him refuse to ask exemption from service
• 2:49:05
  Speaker 1: and danger on the ground that the doctrine of his
• 2:49:08
  Speaker 1: church opposed war, but his conscience was troubled that he
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 1: was deliberately on the mission to kill his fellow man.
• 2:49:14
  Speaker 1: It was these thoughts that caused his companions to note
• 2:49:17
  Speaker 1: his moody silences in behalf of his mother, who, with
• 2:49:20
  Speaker 1: many mothers of the land, was bravely trying to still
• 2:49:23
  Speaker 1: her heart with the thought that her son was on
• 2:49:25
  Speaker 1: an errand of mercy. The pastor of the church in
• 2:49:28
  Speaker 1: the valley made out the strongest case he could for
• 2:49:30
  Speaker 1: Alvin's exemption and sent it to the officers of his regiment,
• 2:49:34
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Edward Buxton Junior and Major E. C. B. Danford,
• 2:49:39
  Speaker 1: who was then the captain of York's company, sent for him.
• 2:49:43
  Speaker 1: They explained the conditions under which it were possible if
• 2:49:46
  Speaker 1: he chose to secure exemption. They pointed out the way
• 2:49:49
  Speaker 1: he could remain in the service of his country and
• 2:49:51
  Speaker 1: not be among the combat troops. The sincerity the earnestness
• 2:49:56
  Speaker 1: of York impressed the officers, and they had not one
• 2:49:59
  Speaker 1: but a number of talks in which the scriptures were
• 2:50:01
  Speaker 1: quoted to show the Saviour's teachings. When man seeth the
• 2:50:05
  Speaker 1: sword come upon the land. They brought out many facts
• 2:50:07
  Speaker 1: about the war that the Tennessee mountaineer had not known.
• 2:50:11
  Speaker 1: York did not take the release that lay within his grasp. Instead,
• 2:50:14
  Speaker 1: he thumbed his Bible in search of passages that justified
• 2:50:17
  Speaker 1: the use of force. One day before the regiment sailed
• 2:50:20
  Speaker 1: for France, when York's company was leaving the drill field,
• 2:50:24
  Speaker 1: Captain Dandford sent for him. Together they went over many
• 2:50:27
  Speaker 1: passages of the Bible which both had found. If my
• 2:50:30
  Speaker 1: kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.
• 2:50:33
  Speaker 1: They were together several hours at last, York said, all right,
• 2:50:37
  Speaker 1: I'm satisfied. After that there was no reference to religious objection.
• 2:50:42
  Speaker 1: From the first he had seen the justice of the war.
• 2:50:44
  Speaker 1: Now he saw the righteousness of it. York's abilities as
• 2:50:48
  Speaker 1: a soldier were soon revealed. He quickly qualified as a sharpshooter,
• 2:50:52
  Speaker 1: both as skirmisher and from the top of the trench.
• 2:50:55
  Speaker 1: In battalion contest formation, where the soldiers run and fall
• 2:50:59
  Speaker 1: and fire shooting at moving targets, it was not difficult
• 2:51:02
  Speaker 1: for him to score eight hits out of ten shots,
• 2:51:05
  Speaker 1: and with a rifle that was new to him. This
• 2:51:07
  Speaker 1: too over arrange that began at six hundred yards and
• 2:51:10
  Speaker 1: went down to one hundred yards, with the targets in
• 2:51:12
  Speaker 1: the shape of the head and shoulders of a man.
• 2:51:15
  Speaker 1: In these maneuvers, he attracted the attention of his officers.
• 2:51:19
  Speaker 1: The impressive figure of the man, with its ever present
• 2:51:21
  Speaker 1: evidence of reserved force. The strength of his personality, uneducated
• 2:51:25
  Speaker 1: as he was, made him a natural leader of the
• 2:51:28
  Speaker 1: men around him. Officers of the regiment have said that
• 2:51:31
  Speaker 1: he could have received a promotion while in the training camp,
• 2:51:34
  Speaker 1: but for the policy of not placing a command a
• 2:51:36
  Speaker 1: man who might be a conscientious objector. The All America
• 2:51:41
  Speaker 1: Division passed through England on its way to France, and
• 2:51:43
  Speaker 1: the first real fighting they had was in the Saint
• 2:51:45
  Speaker 1: Mihel Salient. From there they went to the Argon Force,
• 2:51:48
  Speaker 1: where the division was on the front line of the
• 2:51:50
  Speaker 1: battle for twenty six days and nights without relief. It
• 2:51:53
  Speaker 1: was in the Saint Mihel Salient that York was made
• 2:51:56
  Speaker 1: a corporal, and when he came out of the Argonne
• 2:51:58
  Speaker 1: Forest he was a sergeant and the armistice was signed
• 2:52:01
  Speaker 1: a fortnight later. The war made Yorke more deeply religious.
• 2:52:05
  Speaker 1: The diary he kept passed from simple notations about places
• 2:52:08
  Speaker 1: he had been to a record of his thoughts and feelings.
• 2:52:12
  Speaker 1: In it are many quotations from the Bible, many texts
• 2:52:15
  Speaker 1: of sermons he heard while on the battlefields of France.
• 2:52:17
  Speaker 1: With the text were brief notes that would recall the
• 2:52:20
  Speaker 1: sermons to his memory. The book is really a history
• 2:52:23
  Speaker 1: of his religious development. When he would kneel by a
• 2:52:26
  Speaker 1: dying soldier, he would record in his diary the talk
• 2:52:29
  Speaker 1: he had with his comrade and would write the passage
• 2:52:31
  Speaker 1: of scripture that he or the dying man had spoken.
• 2:52:34
  Speaker 1: It was upon this his interests centered to others. He
• 2:52:37
  Speaker 1: left the task of telling of the battle's result. He
• 2:52:40
  Speaker 1: wrote in his diary this simple story of his fight
• 2:52:42
  Speaker 1: with the battalion of German machine guns. On the seventh
• 2:52:46
  Speaker 1: day of October. We lay in some little holes on
• 2:52:48
  Speaker 1: the roadside all day. That night we went out and
• 2:52:51
  Speaker 1: stayed a little while and came back to our holes
• 2:52:54
  Speaker 1: the shells bursting all around us. I saw men just
• 2:52:57
  Speaker 1: blown up by the big German shells which were bursting
• 2:53:00
  Speaker 1: all around us. So the order came for us to
• 2:53:02
  Speaker 1: take Hill two two three and two four zero the eighth.
• 2:53:06
  Speaker 1: So the morning of the eighth, just before daylight, we
• 2:53:08
  Speaker 1: started for the hill at Chateau che Ari. Before we
• 2:53:12
  Speaker 1: got there, it got light and the Germans sent over
• 2:53:14
  Speaker 1: a heavy barrage and also gas, and we put on
• 2:53:17
  Speaker 1: our gas masks and just pressed right on through those
• 2:53:19
  Speaker 1: shelves and got to the top of Hill two two
• 2:53:22
  Speaker 1: three to where we were to start over at six
• 2:53:25
  Speaker 1: ten am. They were to give us a barrage. Time
• 2:53:28
  Speaker 1: came and no barrage, and we had to go without one.
• 2:53:31
  Speaker 1: So we started over the top at six ten am
• 2:53:34
  Speaker 1: and the Germans were putting their machine guns to work,
• 2:53:36
  Speaker 1: and all over the hill in front of us, and
• 2:53:38
  Speaker 1: on our left and right. I was in support, and
• 2:53:41
  Speaker 1: I could see my pals getting picked off until it
• 2:53:43
  Speaker 1: almost looked like there was none left. So seventeen of
• 2:53:46
  Speaker 1: US boys went around on the left flank to see
• 2:53:48
  Speaker 1: if we couldn't put those guns out of action. So
• 2:53:51
  Speaker 1: when we went around and fell in behind those guns,
• 2:53:53
  Speaker 1: we first saw two Germans with red cross band on
• 2:53:56
  Speaker 1: their arms. Some one of the boys shot at them
• 2:53:58
  Speaker 1: and they ran back to our right. So we all
• 2:54:01
  Speaker 1: ran after them. And when we jumped across a little
• 2:54:03
  Speaker 1: stream of water that was there, there was about fifteen
• 2:54:06
  Speaker 1: or twenty Germans that jumped up and threw up their
• 2:54:08
  Speaker 1: hands and said, comrade, the one in charge of US
• 2:54:11
  Speaker 1: boys told us not to shoot. They were going to
• 2:54:13
  Speaker 1: give up anyway. By this time the Germans from on
• 2:54:16
  Speaker 1: the hill was shooting at me. Well, I was giving
• 2:54:18
  Speaker 1: them the best I had. The Germans had got their
• 2:54:21
  Speaker 1: machine guns turned around. They killed six and wounded three.
• 2:54:24
  Speaker 1: That left just eight. And then we got into it right.
• 2:54:27
  Speaker 1: So we had a hard battle for a little while.
• 2:54:30
  Speaker 1: I got a hold of a German major and he
• 2:54:32
  Speaker 1: told me if I wouldn't kill any more of them,
• 2:54:34
  Speaker 1: he would make them all quit fighting. So I told
• 2:54:36
  Speaker 1: him all right, if he would do it now, So
• 2:54:39
  Speaker 1: he blew a little whistle and they quit shooting, came
• 2:54:41
  Speaker 1: down and gave up. I had about eighty or ninety
• 2:54:44
  Speaker 1: Germans there. They disarmed, and we had another line of
• 2:54:47
  Speaker 1: Germans to go through to get out. So I called
• 2:54:49
  Speaker 1: for my men and one answered me from behind a
• 2:54:51
  Speaker 1: big oak tree, and the other men were on my
• 2:54:54
  Speaker 1: right in the brush. So I said, let's get these
• 2:54:57
  Speaker 1: Germans out of here. One of my men said it's impossible,
• 2:55:01
  Speaker 1: so I said, no, let's get them out of here.
• 2:55:04
  Speaker 1: When my men said that, this German major said how
• 2:55:08
  Speaker 1: many have you got? And I said I got a
• 2:55:11
  Speaker 1: plenty and pointed my pistol at him. All the time
• 2:55:14
  Speaker 1: in this battle I was using a rifle or a
• 2:55:16
  Speaker 1: forty five colt automatic pistol. So I lined the Germans
• 2:55:20
  Speaker 1: up in a line of twos and I got between
• 2:55:22
  Speaker 1: the ones in front and had the German major before me.
• 2:55:25
  Speaker 1: So I marched them right straight into those other machine
• 2:55:28
  Speaker 1: guns and I got them. When I got back to
• 2:55:30
  Speaker 1: my major's PC, I had one hundred and thirty two prisoners.
• 2:55:34
  Speaker 1: So you can see here in this case of mine,
• 2:55:36
  Speaker 1: where God helped me out. I had been living for
• 2:55:39
  Speaker 1: God and working in church work some time before I
• 2:55:41
  Speaker 1: came to the army. I am a witness to the
• 2:55:43
  Speaker 1: fact that God did help me out of that hard battle.
• 2:55:46
  Speaker 1: For the bushes were shot off all around me, and
• 2:55:48
  Speaker 1: I never got a scratch. So you can see that
• 2:55:51
  Speaker 1: God will be with you if you will only trust him.
• 2:55:54
  Speaker 1: And I say He did save me. By this time,
• 2:55:57
  Speaker 1: he wrote, the Germans from on the hill shooting at me, Well,
• 2:56:01
  Speaker 1: I was given them the best I had. That best
• 2:56:04
  Speaker 1: was the courage to stand his ground and fight it
• 2:56:06
  Speaker 1: out with him, regardless of their number, For they were
• 2:56:09
  Speaker 1: the defilers of civilization, murderers of men, the enemies of
• 2:56:12
  Speaker 1: fair play, who had shown no quarter to his pals,
• 2:56:15
  Speaker 1: who were slain unwarned while in the act of granting
• 2:56:18
  Speaker 1: mercy to the men in their power. That best was
• 2:56:21
  Speaker 1: the morale of the soldier who believes that justice is
• 2:56:23
  Speaker 1: on his side and that the justness of God will
• 2:56:27
  Speaker 1: shield him from harm. And in physical qualities, it included
• 2:56:30
  Speaker 1: a heart that was stout and a brain that was clear,
• 2:56:33
  Speaker 1: a mind that did not weaken when all the hilltop
• 2:56:36
  Speaker 1: above flashed in a hostile blaze, when the hillside rattled
• 2:56:40
  Speaker 1: with the death drumbeat of machine gun fire, and while
• 2:56:42
  Speaker 1: the very air around him was filled with darting lead.
• 2:56:45
  Speaker 1: As he fought, his mind visualized the tactics of the
• 2:56:48
  Speaker 1: enemy in the moves they made, and whether the attack
• 2:56:51
  Speaker 1: upon him was with rifle or machine gun, hagrenade or bayonet,
• 2:56:55
  Speaker 1: he met it with an unfailing marksmanship that equalized the
• 2:56:57
  Speaker 1: disparity in numbers. Another page in his direct and simple
• 2:57:01
  Speaker 1: story shows the character of this man who came from
• 2:57:03
  Speaker 1: a distant recess of the mountains with no code of
• 2:57:06
  Speaker 1: ethics except a confidence in his fellow man. Those of
• 2:57:10
  Speaker 1: the Americans who were not killed or wounded in the
• 2:57:12
  Speaker 1: first machine gun fire had saved themselves as Yorke had done.
• 2:57:16
  Speaker 1: They had dived into the brush and lay flat upon
• 2:57:18
  Speaker 1: the ground behind trees among the prisoners, protected by any
• 2:57:22
  Speaker 1: obstruction they could find, and the stream of bullets passed
• 2:57:25
  Speaker 1: over them. York was at the left, beyond the edge
• 2:57:28
  Speaker 1: of the thicket. The others were shut off by the
• 2:57:30
  Speaker 1: underbrush from a view of the German machine guns that
• 2:57:32
  Speaker 1: were firing on them. York had the open of the
• 2:57:35
  Speaker 1: slope of the hill, and it fell to him to fight.
• 2:57:37
  Speaker 1: The fight he wrote in his diary when he could
• 2:57:40
  Speaker 1: find time, and the story was written in foxholes in
• 2:57:43
  Speaker 1: the forest of ar Gone in the evenings after the
• 2:57:45
  Speaker 1: American soldiers had dug in. Though his records were for
• 2:57:49
  Speaker 1: no one but himself, he had no thought that raised
• 2:57:51
  Speaker 1: his performance of duty above that of his comrades. They
• 2:57:54
  Speaker 1: killed six and wounded three. They just left eight, and
• 2:57:58
  Speaker 1: we got into it right. So we had a hard
• 2:58:00
  Speaker 1: battle for a little while. Yet in the height of
• 2:58:03
  Speaker 1: the fight not a shot was fired but by York
• 2:58:06
  Speaker 1: in their admiration for him and his remarkable achievement, so
• 2:58:10
  Speaker 1: that the honor should rest where it belonged. The members
• 2:58:12
  Speaker 1: of the American Patrol who were the survivors of the
• 2:58:14
  Speaker 1: fight made affidavits that accounted for all of them who
• 2:58:17
  Speaker 1: were not killed or wounded, and showed the part that
• 2:58:20
  Speaker 1: each took. These affidavits are among the records of Lieutenant
• 2:58:23
  Speaker 1: Colonel G. Edward Buxton, Junior official historian of the eighty
• 2:58:28
  Speaker 1: second Division. At the time of the fight, Sergeant York
• 2:58:31
  Speaker 1: was still a corporal. From the affidavit by Private Patrick Donaghue.
• 2:58:36
  Speaker 1: During the shooting, I was guarding the mass of Germans,
• 2:58:38
  Speaker 1: taking prisoners and devoted my attention to watching them. When
• 2:58:42
  Speaker 1: we first came in on the Germans, I fired a
• 2:58:44
  Speaker 1: shot at them before they surrendered. Afterwards, I was busy
• 2:58:47
  Speaker 1: guarding the prisoners and I did not shoot. I could
• 2:58:49
  Speaker 1: only see Private Wills, Secchina and Soak. They were also
• 2:58:53
  Speaker 1: guarding the prisoners as I was doing. From the affidavit
• 2:58:57
  Speaker 1: of Private Michael A. Secchina, I was guarding the prisoners
• 2:59:00
  Speaker 1: with my rifle and bayonet on the right flank of
• 2:59:03
  Speaker 1: the group of prisoners. I was so close to these
• 2:59:05
  Speaker 1: prisoners that the machine gunners could not shoot at me
• 2:59:08
  Speaker 1: without hitting their own men. This I think saved me
• 2:59:10
  Speaker 1: from being hit. During the firing, I remained on guard,
• 2:59:14
  Speaker 1: watching these prisoners and unable to turn around and fire myself.
• 2:59:17
  Speaker 1: For this reason, I cannot see any of the other
• 2:59:20
  Speaker 1: men in my detachment. From this point, I saw the
• 2:59:22
  Speaker 1: German captain and it aided my rifle at him when
• 2:59:25
  Speaker 1: he blew his whistle for the Germans to stop firing.
• 2:59:28
  Speaker 1: I saw Corporal York, who called out to us, and
• 2:59:31
  Speaker 1: when we all joined him, I saw seven Americans beside myself.
• 2:59:34
  Speaker 1: These were Corporal York, Privates Beardsley, Dunhue, Wills, Sok, Johnson,
• 2:59:40
  Speaker 1: and Konatsky. From the affidavit by Private Percy Beardsley. I
• 2:59:45
  Speaker 1: was at first near Corporal York, but soon after thought
• 2:59:48
  Speaker 1: it would be better to take cover behind a large
• 2:59:50
  Speaker 1: tree about fifteen paces in the rear of Corporal York.
• 2:59:53
  Speaker 1: Privates Demwwski and Waring were on each side of me,
• 2:59:56
  Speaker 1: and both were killed by machine gun fire. I saw
• 2:59:59
  Speaker 1: Corporal York fire his pistol repeatedly in front of me.
• 3:00:03
  Speaker 1: I saw Germans who had been hit fall down. I
• 3:00:05
  Speaker 1: saw the German prisoners who were still in a bunch together,
• 3:00:08
  Speaker 1: waving their hands the machine gunners on the hill as
• 3:00:11
  Speaker 1: if mosting for them to go back. Finally, the fire stopped,
• 3:00:14
  Speaker 1: and Corporal York told me to have the prisoners fall
• 3:00:17
  Speaker 1: in columns of twos and to take my place in
• 3:00:20
  Speaker 1: the rear. From the affidavit by Private George W. Wills.
• 3:00:24
  Speaker 1: When the heavy firing from the machine guns commenced, I
• 3:00:27
  Speaker 1: was guarding some of the German prisoners. During this time
• 3:00:30
  Speaker 1: I saw only Privates Downey, Hue, Sichina, Beardsley, and Musy.
• 3:00:34
  Speaker 1: Private Swanson was right near me when he was shot.
• 3:00:37
  Speaker 1: I closed up very close to the Germans with my
• 3:00:39
  Speaker 1: bannet on my rifle and prevented some of them who
• 3:00:42
  Speaker 1: tried to leave the bunch and get into the bushes
• 3:00:44
  Speaker 1: from leaving. I knew my only chance was to keep
• 3:00:46
  Speaker 1: them together and also keep them between me and the
• 3:00:49
  Speaker 1: Germans who were shooting. I heard Corporal York several times
• 3:00:52
  Speaker 1: shouting to the machine gunners on the hill to come
• 3:00:55
  Speaker 1: down and surrender, but from where I stood I could
• 3:00:57
  Speaker 1: not see Corporal York. I saw him, however, when the
• 3:01:00
  Speaker 1: firing stopped and he told us to get along sides
• 3:01:03
  Speaker 1: of the column, I formed those near me in columns
• 3:01:06
  Speaker 1: of twos. The report which the officers of the eighty
• 3:01:09
  Speaker 1: second Division made to General Headquarters contained these statements. The
• 3:01:13
  Speaker 1: part which Corporal York individually played in this attack the
• 3:01:16
  Speaker 1: capture of the De Cave railroad is difficult to estimate.
• 3:01:20
  Speaker 1: Practically unassisted, he captured one hundred and thirty two Germans,
• 3:01:24
  Speaker 1: three of whom were officers, took about thirty five machine guns,
• 3:01:27
  Speaker 1: and killed no less than twenty five of the enemy
• 3:01:29
  Speaker 1: later found by others on the scene of York's extraordinary exploit.
• 3:01:34
  Speaker 1: The story has been carefully checked in every possible detail
• 3:01:36
  Speaker 1: from headquarters of this division and is entirely substantiated. Although
• 3:01:41
  Speaker 1: Corporal York's statement tends done to estimate the desperate odds
• 3:01:44
  Speaker 1: which he overcame, and has been decided to forward to
• 3:01:47
  Speaker 1: hire authority. The account given in his own words, The
• 3:01:50
  Speaker 1: success of this assault had a far reaching effect in
• 3:01:53
  Speaker 1: relieving the enemy pressure against American forces in the heart
• 3:01:56
  Speaker 1: of the Argonne Forest. In decorating Sergeant York with a
• 3:02:00
  Speaker 1: qua de guere with palm Marshall, Falk said to him,
• 3:02:04
  Speaker 1: what you did was the greatest thing accomplished by any
• 3:02:06
  Speaker 1: private soldier of all the armies of Europe. When the
• 3:02:09
  Speaker 1: officers of York's regiment were securing the facts for their
• 3:02:12
  Speaker 1: report to General Headquarters and were recording the stories of
• 3:02:15
  Speaker 1: the survivors, York was questioned on his efforts to escape
• 3:02:19
  Speaker 1: the onslaught of the machine guns. By this time, those
• 3:02:22
  Speaker 1: of my men who were left had gotten behind trees,
• 3:02:25
  Speaker 1: and the men sniped at the bosh. But there wasn't
• 3:02:27
  Speaker 1: any tree for me, so I just sat in the
• 3:02:29
  Speaker 1: mud and used my rifle, shooting at the machine gunners.
• 3:02:33
  Speaker 1: The officers recall his quaint and memorable answer to the
• 3:02:36
  Speaker 1: inquiry on the tactics he used to defend himself against
• 3:02:39
  Speaker 1: the Bosch who were in the gun pits, shooting at
• 3:02:41
  Speaker 1: him from behind trees and crying for him through the brush.
• 3:02:45
  Speaker 1: His method was simple and effective. When I seed a German,
• 3:02:49
  Speaker 1: I just touched him off. In the afternoon of October eighth,
• 3:02:53
  Speaker 1: York had brought in his prisoners by ten o'clock in
• 3:02:55
  Speaker 1: the morning. In the seventeenth hour of that day, the
• 3:02:58
  Speaker 1: eighty second Division cut the Cave railroad and drove the
• 3:03:01
  Speaker 1: Germans from it. The pressure against the American forces in
• 3:03:05
  Speaker 1: the heart of the Argonne Forest was not only relieved,
• 3:03:07
  Speaker 1: but the advance of the division had aided in the
• 3:03:10
  Speaker 1: relief of the lost battalion under the command of the
• 3:03:12
  Speaker 1: late Colonel Whittlesey, which had made it stand in another
• 3:03:16
  Speaker 1: hollow of those hills, only a short distance from the
• 3:03:18
  Speaker 1: hillside where Sarvant York had made his fight. As the
• 3:03:21
  Speaker 1: eighty second Division swept up the three hills across the
• 3:03:24
  Speaker 1: valley from Hill two two three, the hill on the left,
• 3:03:27
  Speaker 1: York's Hill was found cleared of enemy, and there was
• 3:03:30
  Speaker 1: only the wreckage of the battle that had been fought there.
• 3:03:32
  Speaker 1: York's fight occurred on the eighth day of the twenty
• 3:03:35
  Speaker 1: eighth Day and Night Battle of the eighty second Division
• 3:03:37
  Speaker 1: in the Argonne. They were in the forest fighting on
• 3:03:40
  Speaker 1: when the story went over the world that an American
• 3:03:42
  Speaker 1: soldier had fought and captured a battalion of German machine gunners.
• 3:03:46
  Speaker 1: Even military men doubted its possibility until the All American
• 3:03:50
  Speaker 1: Division came out of the forest with the records they
• 3:03:52
  Speaker 1: had made upon the scene, and with a clear expression
• 3:03:55
  Speaker 1: of the tactics in the remarkable bravery and generalship that
• 3:03:58
  Speaker 1: made Sergeant York's achievement possible, Alvin York faced a new experience.
• 3:04:02
  Speaker 1: He found himself famous end of chapter two, More Deeds
• 3:04:08
  Speaker 1: of Distinction. Alvin was not prepared for the ovations that
• 3:04:11
  Speaker 1: awaited him. The world gives generously to those who succeed
• 3:04:15
  Speaker 1: in an extraordinary endeavor, where the resource and ability of
• 3:04:19
  Speaker 1: men are in competition. For intellectual achievement, there is deference
• 3:04:23
  Speaker 1: and wonder. For moral accomplishment, there is approbation and love.
• 3:04:27
  Speaker 1: But for physical courage there are all of these, and
• 3:04:30
  Speaker 1: an added admiration that burst in such fervor of approval
• 3:04:34
  Speaker 1: that men shout and toss their caps in air. It
• 3:04:37
  Speaker 1: has been true since the world began. The first honors
• 3:04:40
  Speaker 1: came to him from his soldier associates. Then the men
• 3:04:43
  Speaker 1: of other regiments and the regiments of other nations wanted
• 3:04:46
  Speaker 1: to see the American who single handed had fought and
• 3:04:49
  Speaker 1: forced a battalion of machine gunners to come to him.
• 3:04:52
  Speaker 1: The people of France, too were calling for him. It
• 3:04:55
  Speaker 1: was with a military yardstick the soldiers measured the deed,
• 3:04:59
  Speaker 1: for they knew the guiding competency of a single machine gun,
• 3:05:02
  Speaker 1: and had seen the destructive power of the scythelike sweep
• 3:05:05
  Speaker 1: of a battalion of them. The civilian, in doubt and wonder,
• 3:05:09
  Speaker 1: realized the magnitude of the achievement in visualizing the number
• 3:05:12
  Speaker 1: of prisoners that had surrendered to one man. The only
• 3:05:15
  Speaker 1: contact Alvignyork had had to the role of a man
• 3:05:18
  Speaker 1: of prominence was to stand in line at attention as
• 3:05:21
  Speaker 1: persons of importance passed before him. But when his regiment
• 3:05:25
  Speaker 1: came out of the Argonne forest, where its almost unbroken
• 3:05:28
  Speaker 1: battle had lasted twenty eight days, he was taken from
• 3:05:31
  Speaker 1: the line and passed in review before the soldiers of
• 3:05:33
  Speaker 1: other regiments, under orders from headquarters of the American expeditionary force,
• 3:05:39
  Speaker 1: he traveled through the war zone. As a guest of honor,
• 3:05:42
  Speaker 1: he was sent to cities in southern France. In Paris,
• 3:05:45
  Speaker 1: he was received with impressive ceremonies by President Boonquerre and
• 3:05:49
  Speaker 1: the government officials. It was during this period that many
• 3:05:52
  Speaker 1: of the military awards were made to him, and brigade
• 3:05:54
  Speaker 1: reviews were selected as the occasions for his decoration. Against
• 3:05:58
  Speaker 1: this background of enthusiasm, the tall, reserved, silent mountaineer, in
• 3:06:03
  Speaker 1: natural repose, moved through the varying programs of a day
• 3:06:07
  Speaker 1: as all was new to him. He complied with almost
• 3:06:10
  Speaker 1: childlike docility to the demands upon him, but he was
• 3:06:13
  Speaker 1: ever watchful that his conduct should conform to that of
• 3:06:16
  Speaker 1: those around him. If called upon to speak, he responded,
• 3:06:19
  Speaker 1: and he stood before the cheering crowds in noticeable mental control.
• 3:06:24
  Speaker 1: The few words he used did not miss fire nor jam.
• 3:06:27
  Speaker 1: They ended in a smile of real fellowship that beamed
• 3:06:30
  Speaker 1: from a rugged face that was furrowed and tanned, and
• 3:06:33
  Speaker 1: always with the quaint mountain phrase of appreciation, I thank ye.
• 3:06:37
  Speaker 1: In the months he remained with the army in France,
• 3:06:39
  Speaker 1: he grew in personal popularity from his unaffected bearing. The
• 3:06:43
  Speaker 1: letters written home to his mother during this period show
• 3:06:45
  Speaker 1: him basically unchanged. These letters, usually two a week, were
• 3:06:50
  Speaker 1: the same as those he had been writing all the while.
• 3:06:52
  Speaker 1: In them were but few references to himself. Even in
• 3:06:56
  Speaker 1: the privacy of his correspondence with his home. There was
• 3:06:58
  Speaker 1: not a boastful thought over a thing that he had done,
• 3:07:01
  Speaker 1: and only the vaguest reference to the homage paid to him,
• 3:07:04
  Speaker 1: as though all of it were a part of a
• 3:07:06
  Speaker 1: soldier's life. It was only through others that the mother
• 3:07:09
  Speaker 1: learned of the honors given to her son in France.
• 3:07:12
  Speaker 1: At the beginning of each letter, he quieted his mother's
• 3:07:14
  Speaker 1: forebodings for him and turned to inquiries about home. Out
• 3:07:18
  Speaker 1: of his pay of thirty dollars a month as a
• 3:07:20
  Speaker 1: private soldier, he had assigned twenty five dollars of it
• 3:07:23
  Speaker 1: to his mother. He wanted to know that the remittances
• 3:07:26
  Speaker 1: had reached her. Two brothers had married and moved away. Henry,
• 3:07:31
  Speaker 1: the eldest was living in Idaho and Albert in Kentucky.
• 3:07:34
  Speaker 1: He wanted news of them. Two other married brothers, Joe
• 3:07:38
  Speaker 1: and Sam, while still living in the valley, were not
• 3:07:40
  Speaker 1: at the old home. He wanted every detail about their
• 3:07:43
  Speaker 1: crops that told of their welfare. His most valuable personal
• 3:07:47
  Speaker 1: possession was two mules. Were George and Jim and Robert,
• 3:07:51
  Speaker 1: the younger brothers, keeping those mules fat. How much of
• 3:07:54
  Speaker 1: the farm were they preparing to put in corn? Corn
• 3:07:57
  Speaker 1: was sure to be scarce and would be worth two
• 3:08:00
  Speaker 1: dollars and fifty cents by harvest time. Was missus Embry Wright,
• 3:08:04
  Speaker 1: his only married sister. Staying with his mother to comfort
• 3:08:06
  Speaker 1: her were Lily and Lucy, his little sisters still helping
• 3:08:10
  Speaker 1: her with the hard work. Of course they were, and
• 3:08:13
  Speaker 1: in every letter there was an inquiry about the sweetheart
• 3:08:16
  Speaker 1: he had left behind. The mother, when each letter had
• 3:08:19
  Speaker 1: been read, placed it upright on the board shelf, which
• 3:08:22
  Speaker 1: was the mantle of the family fireplace. When a new
• 3:08:24
  Speaker 1: letter came, she took down the old one and put
• 3:08:27
  Speaker 1: it carefully away. So there was always some news from Alvin,
• 3:08:30
  Speaker 1: which was accessible to all the neighbors. Will Wright, president
• 3:08:34
  Speaker 1: of the Bank of Jamestown, received the first printed story
• 3:08:37
  Speaker 1: that gave any description of the fight Alvin had put
• 3:08:40
  Speaker 1: up in the forest of Argne, and mister Wright hurried
• 3:08:44
  Speaker 1: to Missus Yorke with it with the family gathered around
• 3:08:47
  Speaker 1: her in that hut in the mountains, and with tears
• 3:08:49
  Speaker 1: running down her expectant face, she learned for the first
• 3:08:52
  Speaker 1: time what her boy had done. She made mister Wright
• 3:08:55
  Speaker 1: read the story not once, but seven times. America was
• 3:08:59
  Speaker 1: ready for so Argant York when among the returning soldiers
• 3:09:02
  Speaker 1: his troop ship touched port the harbor of New York
• 3:09:05
  Speaker 1: in May nineteen nineteen. The story of the man had
• 3:09:07
  Speaker 1: run ahead his fight in the forest that had added
• 3:09:10
  Speaker 1: to the cubic stature of the American soldier, the artlessness
• 3:09:14
  Speaker 1: of his life and the geniusness of his character, which
• 3:09:17
  Speaker 1: as yet showed no alloy the modest becoming acceptance of
• 3:09:21
  Speaker 1: illustrious honors paid to him in France. The people saw
• 3:09:24
  Speaker 1: in this simple, earnest mountaineer the type of American that
• 3:09:27
  Speaker 1: had made America. They thought of him as coming from
• 3:09:30
  Speaker 1: that stratum of clay that could be molded into a
• 3:09:32
  Speaker 1: rail splitter, and when the need arose, remodeled into the
• 3:09:36
  Speaker 1: nation's leader, and quickly and unexpectedly, Sargeant York was destined
• 3:09:40
  Speaker 1: to show, by two other deeds, prompted by an inborn eminence,
• 3:09:44
  Speaker 1: that the esteem was not misplaced in New York and Washington.
• 3:09:49
  Speaker 1: There were receptions and banquets in his honor, and around
• 3:09:52
  Speaker 1: him gathered high officials of the Army and Navy, and
• 3:09:55
  Speaker 1: the government, and men who were leaders in civilian life.
• 3:09:58
  Speaker 1: It was with impetuous enthusiasm that the people crowded the
• 3:10:01
  Speaker 1: sidewalks to greet him as he passed along the streets.
• 3:10:04
  Speaker 1: The Warren service uniform, the color of his hair, the
• 3:10:07
  Speaker 1: calm face that showed exposure to stress and hardships, set
• 3:10:10
  Speaker 1: in the luxurious leathers of an automobile, surrounded by men
• 3:10:14
  Speaker 1: so different in personal attire and appearance, marked him as
• 3:10:17
  Speaker 1: the man they sought. There is something in the man
• 3:10:20
  Speaker 1: that creates the desire and others to express outwardly their
• 3:10:23
  Speaker 1: approval of him. At the New York Stock Exchange, business
• 3:10:26
  Speaker 1: was suspended as the members rode him upon their shoulders
• 3:10:29
  Speaker 1: over the floor of the exchange, where visitors are not allowed.
• 3:10:33
  Speaker 1: In Washington, the House of Representatives stopped debate, and the
• 3:10:36
  Speaker 1: members arose and cheered him when he appeared in the gallery.
• 3:10:40
  Speaker 1: There were ovations for him at the railroad stations along
• 3:10:42
  Speaker 1: his way to Fort Oglethorpe near Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he
• 3:10:46
  Speaker 1: was mustered out of service, and in the midst of
• 3:10:49
  Speaker 1: all these mental distracting demonstrations, Alban Yorke was put to
• 3:10:53
  Speaker 1: the test. He was offered a contract that guaranteed him
• 3:10:56
  Speaker 1: seventy five thousand dollars to appear in a moving picture play.
• 3:11:00
  Speaker 1: They would be staged in the Argonne in France and
• 3:11:02
  Speaker 1: would tell the story of his mountain life. There was
• 3:11:05
  Speaker 1: another proposition of fifty thousand dollars. There were offers of
• 3:11:08
  Speaker 1: vaudeville and theatrical engagements that ranged up to one thousand
• 3:11:12
  Speaker 1: dollars a week and totaled many thousands. On these, his
• 3:11:16
  Speaker 1: decision was reached on the instant they were offered. The
• 3:11:19
  Speaker 1: theater was condemned by the tenets of his church, and
• 3:11:21
  Speaker 1: all through his youth the ministers of the Gospel, whom
• 3:11:24
  Speaker 1: he had heard preached against it. The theater in any
• 3:11:27
  Speaker 1: form was, as he saw it, against the principles of
• 3:11:30
  Speaker 1: religion to which he had made a vowel. Then up
• 3:11:33
  Speaker 1: to the surface among those who were crowding around him,
• 3:11:35
  Speaker 1: their wormed men, who saw on Sergeant York's popularity the
• 3:11:38
  Speaker 1: opportunity for them to make money for themselves. Some of
• 3:11:42
  Speaker 1: the propositions that were made to him were sound, some whimsical,
• 3:11:45
  Speaker 1: others strangely balanced upon a business idea, but back of
• 3:11:49
  Speaker 1: all of them ran the same motive. The past in
• 3:11:51
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Yorke's life had been filled with hard work and hardships.
• 3:11:55
  Speaker 1: The present was new, the future uncharted. But to him
• 3:11:58
  Speaker 1: there was something in the voices of the people who
• 3:12:00
  Speaker 1: were claiming him that was not for sale. When he
• 3:12:03
  Speaker 1: left Fort Oglethorpe for his home, the people of his
• 3:12:06
  Speaker 1: mountain country, in automobiles, on horseback, upon mules, whole families
• 3:12:11
  Speaker 1: riding in chairs in the beds of farm wagons met
• 3:12:13
  Speaker 1: him along the roadway as he traveled the forty eight
• 3:12:15
  Speaker 1: miles over the mountains from the railroad station to pall Mall,
• 3:12:19
  Speaker 1: and they formed a procession as they wound their way
• 3:12:21
  Speaker 1: towards the valley. Only a few months before, when Alvin
• 3:12:25
  Speaker 1: had returned home on a furlough which he had secured
• 3:12:27
  Speaker 1: while in training at Camp Gordon, he had picked up
• 3:12:31
  Speaker 1: a wagon ride over thirty six miles from the railroad
• 3:12:34
  Speaker 1: station to Jamestown, and he had walked the twelve miles
• 3:12:37
  Speaker 1: from Jimtown to pall Maow carrying his grip. His mother
• 3:12:42
  Speaker 1: was among those who met him at Jamestown. They rode together,
• 3:12:45
  Speaker 1: and the last of the long shadows had faded from
• 3:12:47
  Speaker 1: the valley of the Three Forks of the Wolf when
• 3:12:49
  Speaker 1: they reached their cabin home. The next morning, while it
• 3:12:52
  Speaker 1: was not yet noon, the sergeant and Miss Gracie Williams
• 3:12:55
  Speaker 1: met on the Big Road near Rains's store. Those sitting
• 3:12:59
  Speaker 1: on the store porch, and there were to be but
• 3:13:01
  Speaker 1: little work done on the farms. That day saw the
• 3:13:04
  Speaker 1: two meet bow and pass on pow mall is, but
• 3:13:08
  Speaker 1: little given to gossip. Yet there was a strange story
• 3:13:11
  Speaker 1: to be carried back to the woman folk in the
• 3:13:13
  Speaker 1: homes in the valley and on the mountain sides. Only
• 3:13:15
  Speaker 1: the foxhound that moved slowly behind his newly returned master
• 3:13:19
  Speaker 1: knew of an earlier meeting that day between Sergeant York
• 3:13:22
  Speaker 1: and his sweetheart, and of a walk down a tree
• 3:13:25
  Speaker 1: shaded path that had given the hound time to explore
• 3:13:27
  Speaker 1: every fence, rail corner and verify his belief that nothing
• 3:13:31
  Speaker 1: worth while had been along that road for days. But
• 3:13:34
  Speaker 1: a quiet, uneventful life in the valley was not to
• 3:13:36
  Speaker 1: return to Sergeant York. The Sunday following was Tennessee's Decoration
• 3:13:41
  Speaker 1: day from the mountains for miles around. The people came
• 3:13:44
  Speaker 1: to pall Mall during the ceremonies. While the flowers were
• 3:13:47
  Speaker 1: being placed upon the graves in the little cemetery, they
• 3:13:50
  Speaker 1: wanted Alvin to talk to them. He and Gracie were
• 3:13:53
  Speaker 1: seated in the empty bed of an unhitched wagon down
• 3:13:56
  Speaker 1: at the edge of the grove of forest trees that
• 3:13:58
  Speaker 1: surrounds the church. He came to the cemetery and his
• 3:14:01
  Speaker 1: talk was the untrammeled outpouring of his heart for all
• 3:14:05
  Speaker 1: that had been done for him. The spirit of the day,
• 3:14:07
  Speaker 1: with his own people around him, his experiences, and the
• 3:14:11
  Speaker 1: changes that had come into his life since the last
• 3:14:13
  Speaker 1: decoration services he had attended there seemed to move him deeply,
• 3:14:17
  Speaker 1: and here was first displayed a power of oratory which
• 3:14:20
  Speaker 1: was so rapidly to develop. The people of Tennessee began
• 3:14:24
  Speaker 1: to gather gifts for him before he left France, and
• 3:14:26
  Speaker 1: the Tennessee Society of New York City entertained him when
• 3:14:29
  Speaker 1: he left his troopship. The people of the South had
• 3:14:32
  Speaker 1: always remembered with added reverence that Robert E. Lee had
• 3:14:36
  Speaker 1: declined to commercialize with his military fame, while some of
• 3:14:39
  Speaker 1: the other generals of the Confederacy had sacrificed their reputations
• 3:14:42
  Speaker 1: upon the altar of expediency. So when it became known
• 3:14:45
  Speaker 1: that Sergeant Yorke, with no knowledge of history to guide him,
• 3:14:48
  Speaker 1: but acting from principle, had refused to capitalize the record
• 3:14:51
  Speaker 1: of a few brief months he had spent in the
• 3:14:53
  Speaker 1: service of his country, there was nothing within the gift
• 3:14:56
  Speaker 1: of the people he could not have had. His welcome
• 3:14:59
  Speaker 1: home of the State date of Tennessee was to be
• 3:15:01
  Speaker 1: held at the capitol on June ninth. But Sergeant York,
• 3:15:04
  Speaker 1: before he went to war, had given an option, one
• 3:15:06
  Speaker 1: over which he was showing deep concern. His mountains sweetheart
• 3:15:10
  Speaker 1: was to have him for the taking when he got back.
• 3:15:14
  Speaker 1: So it was mutually amicably arranged that the foreclosure proceedings
• 3:15:18
  Speaker 1: should take place in Pallmou on June seventh, and their
• 3:15:21
  Speaker 1: bridal tour would be to Nashville. It was an out
• 3:15:24
  Speaker 1: of door wedding so that all of the guests in
• 3:15:25
  Speaker 1: pall Maw for that day could be present, and they
• 3:15:28
  Speaker 1: came not only from all parts of Tennessee, but from
• 3:15:30
  Speaker 1: neighboring states. The altar was the rock Ledge on the
• 3:15:33
  Speaker 1: mountain side above the spring, under the beech trees that
• 3:15:37
  Speaker 1: arched their boughs into a verdant cathedral dome. It had
• 3:15:40
  Speaker 1: been their meeting place when he was an unknown mountain
• 3:15:42
  Speaker 1: boy and she a golden haired schoolgirl. As the sunlight
• 3:15:46
  Speaker 1: flickered on the trunks of those trees, it showed scars
• 3:15:49
  Speaker 1: of knife carvings that had carried the dates of other
• 3:15:51
  Speaker 1: meetings there. The swaying boughs were draped with flags and flowers.
• 3:15:55
  Speaker 1: The ceremony was performed by Governor Roberts of Tennessee, assisted
• 3:15:59
  Speaker 1: by Reverend Rosier Pyle, the pastor of the church in
• 3:16:02
  Speaker 1: the valley, and Reverend W. T. Haggard, Chaplain General of
• 3:16:06
  Speaker 1: the Governor's staff. The bride'smaids were miss Ida Wright, Miss
• 3:16:10
  Speaker 1: maud Brier, and Miss Adelia Darwin, and Sergeant Yorke's best
• 3:16:14
  Speaker 1: man was Sergeant Clay Brier of Jamestown. Their friendship had
• 3:16:18
  Speaker 1: been proved upon the fields of France. The wedding march
• 3:16:21
  Speaker 1: was the wind among the laurels and the pines. The
• 3:16:24
  Speaker 1: welcome home for him at Nashville by the people of
• 3:16:27
  Speaker 1: Tennessee will long be remembered among the public demonstrations of
• 3:16:31
  Speaker 1: the state. Tennessee has always been proud of the fact
• 3:16:34
  Speaker 1: that the conduct of her sons in those times when
• 3:16:36
  Speaker 1: the nation went to war had entitled her to the
• 3:16:39
  Speaker 1: name of the volunteer state, that one of her sons
• 3:16:42
  Speaker 1: should come back from the World War having done in
• 3:16:45
  Speaker 1: the sum of its accomplishment, that which the commander of
• 3:16:48
  Speaker 1: the Armies of the Allies called the greatest feat of valor,
• 3:16:51
  Speaker 1: while finding solely on his own resources, of any soldier
• 3:16:54
  Speaker 1: of all the armies of Europe, made the welcome one
• 3:16:57
  Speaker 1: that sprang joyously from the hearts of the people, And
• 3:17:00
  Speaker 1: that this soldier, while poor and still facing the possibility
• 3:17:03
  Speaker 1: of a life filled with the deprivation of poverty, with
• 3:17:07
  Speaker 1: no assurance but the continued labor of his hands, should
• 3:17:09
  Speaker 1: turn down the offers of fortunes, because to him, they
• 3:17:13
  Speaker 1: were prompted by a motive that was unworthy, opened the
• 3:17:16
  Speaker 1: very inner sanctuary of their hearts, and the people came
• 3:17:18
  Speaker 1: with gifts that he should sustain no loss of opportunity,
• 3:17:22
  Speaker 1: and should never be in need. The offerings were not
• 3:17:25
  Speaker 1: in money, They were presents from the people. They were
• 3:17:28
  Speaker 1: fertile acres that he could till, as that was his
• 3:17:31
  Speaker 1: selection for the life he wished to follow. There was
• 3:17:33
  Speaker 1: a model modern house in which he could live, and
• 3:17:36
  Speaker 1: furnishings for it. There were blooded fowls and stock and
• 3:17:39
  Speaker 1: farming implements down to the files for his scythe The
• 3:17:43
  Speaker 1: donors were individuals, organizations, and communities. Waiting for him was
• 3:17:47
  Speaker 1: the State's medal, which bears the device service Above self.
• 3:17:51
  Speaker 1: He was appointed a member of the Governor's staff, and
• 3:17:54
  Speaker 1: upon him was conferred the rank of colonel. This was
• 3:17:57
  Speaker 1: the wedding trip of Sergeant Yorke and his bride to
• 3:18:00
  Speaker 1: Nashville in the bridal party to see and hear the
• 3:18:02
  Speaker 1: honors to be paid. Her son went Missus York the mother.
• 3:18:06
  Speaker 1: It was the first time she had ever seen a
• 3:18:07
  Speaker 1: railroad train, and now it was Missus Yorke's turn. She too,
• 3:18:11
  Speaker 1: faced a battalion. Wearing her calico sunbonnet. She came suddenly
• 3:18:16
  Speaker 1: upon the gorgeous social battalion, so fully equipped with the
• 3:18:19
  Speaker 1: bayonets of class and the machine guns of curiosity, and
• 3:18:22
  Speaker 1: she captured it. As her son had never seen the
• 3:18:25
  Speaker 1: man or crowd of men of whom he was afraid.
• 3:18:28
  Speaker 1: She with her philosophy of life, looked upon everyone as
• 3:18:31
  Speaker 1: worthy of friendship, and the meeting with them a pleasure
• 3:18:34
  Speaker 1: and not an occasion for disconcertment. If they approached her
• 3:18:38
  Speaker 1: with a greeting of wit, her answer was quick and gentle,
• 3:18:41
  Speaker 1: and as playful as a mountain stream. If their mood
• 3:18:44
  Speaker 1: was serious, she immediately impressed them with her frankness and
• 3:18:47
  Speaker 1: her common sense. She went everywhere the programme provided and
• 3:18:51
  Speaker 1: enjoyed every moment of it. As she was preparing to
• 3:18:54
  Speaker 1: return home, her appreciation was expressed in her declaration that
• 3:18:57
  Speaker 1: she intended to come again when she could go quietly
• 3:19:01
  Speaker 1: and really see things, when policemen would not have to
• 3:19:04
  Speaker 1: make a way for her. Alvin was beginning life anew
• 3:19:07
  Speaker 1: decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross and the rare Congressional
• 3:19:11
  Speaker 1: Medal of Honor, the highest award of his country to
• 3:19:13
  Speaker 1: a soldier, the Medele Militaire and the Coua de Guierre
• 3:19:17
  Speaker 1: with Palm of France, the Crocco de Guera of Italy,
• 3:19:21
  Speaker 1: the War Medal of Montenegro, the Legion of Honor, medals
• 3:19:25
  Speaker 1: for gallantry from Tennessee and the Methodists Centenary, and the
• 3:19:28
  Speaker 1: Comoworth of Rhode Island was beckoning to him to decorate
• 3:19:31
  Speaker 1: him with the medal the state's legislature had voted. There
• 3:19:35
  Speaker 1: were the gifts the people of Tennessee had given him,
• 3:19:37
  Speaker 1: and others that began to come from all sections of
• 3:19:40
  Speaker 1: the Union. The mountaineers of the state of Georgia club
• 3:19:43
  Speaker 1: together and sent a remembrance, and presents came from the
• 3:19:46
  Speaker 1: far west. Several cities offered him a home if he
• 3:19:49
  Speaker 1: would come and live among their people. Communities wanting him
• 3:19:53
  Speaker 1: selected their most desirable farming sites and tendered them. But
• 3:19:57
  Speaker 1: the valley of the three Forks of the Wolf was
• 3:19:59
  Speaker 1: home to him, and while in France, he had said
• 3:20:01
  Speaker 1: he wished to live nowhere but at palmou So. The
• 3:20:05
  Speaker 1: rotary clubs, headed by the Nashville Organization, raised the fond
• 3:20:09
  Speaker 1: for the York Comb through public subscription, and there has
• 3:20:12
  Speaker 1: been given to him four hundred acres of the bottom
• 3:20:15
  Speaker 1: land of the Valley of the Wolf and one of
• 3:20:17
  Speaker 1: the timbered mountain sides, land that had been homesteaded and
• 3:20:21
  Speaker 1: first brought into cultivation by old Coonrod Pile, his pioneer ancestor,
• 3:20:26
  Speaker 1: land that had remained in the possession of his family
• 3:20:28
  Speaker 1: until lost in the vicissitudes of the days following the
• 3:20:31
  Speaker 1: Civil War, as his residence on his new farm was
• 3:20:34
  Speaker 1: yet to be built for him, he carried his bride
• 3:20:36
  Speaker 1: back to the valley into the little two room cabin
• 3:20:38
  Speaker 1: that had been his mother's and his home. It was
• 3:20:41
  Speaker 1: impossible for Sergeant York to accept all the invitations he
• 3:20:44
  Speaker 1: received to visit cities and address conventions, and he had
• 3:20:48
  Speaker 1: often to disappoint delegations who traveled a long, rough mountain
• 3:20:52
  Speaker 1: road to urge in person his acceptance, and he could not,
• 3:20:55
  Speaker 1: with a slow moving pen upon a table of pine answer.
• 3:20:58
  Speaker 1: All the communications came before the war, two letters for him,
• 3:21:02
  Speaker 1: and half a year was an occasion worthy of comment. Now,
• 3:21:06
  Speaker 1: each day, over the mountains, upon a pacing roan, postmen
• 3:21:09
  Speaker 1: came and the mail pouches swung, His saddle bags swayed
• 3:21:13
  Speaker 1: in unison with the horse's step. Most of the letters
• 3:21:16
  Speaker 1: were for the York homb The public mind pays tribute
• 3:21:19
  Speaker 1: to its heroes in ways that are odd. In the
• 3:21:21
  Speaker 1: growing mass of mail that was kept in a wide
• 3:21:23
  Speaker 1: wooden box under the bed, letters that in number had
• 3:21:27
  Speaker 1: gotten away from the sergeant's ability to answer, they were
• 3:21:30
  Speaker 1: displayed many mental idiosyncrasies and an abundance of advice, and
• 3:21:34
  Speaker 1: there were many strange requests. Some of them were pathetic
• 3:21:38
  Speaker 1: begging letters, as though the sergeant were a rich man.
• 3:21:41
  Speaker 1: Some came from prison cells asking his influence to secure
• 3:21:44
  Speaker 1: a pardon, some from those still desirous of securing a
• 3:21:47
  Speaker 1: business partnership with him. Among them were even belated matrimonial
• 3:21:51
  Speaker 1: proposals describing the writer's attractive qualities. These the big Sergeant
• 3:21:56
  Speaker 1: teasingly turned over to the golden haired girl, who herself
• 3:22:00
  Speaker 1: had come but recently into that home, and they may
• 3:22:02
  Speaker 1: be safely classed among those letters the sergeant could never
• 3:22:06
  Speaker 1: answer while he was at home, which was now only
• 3:22:09
  Speaker 1: for brief intervals between trips. In answer to the invitations
• 3:22:12
  Speaker 1: he had accepted, it was noted that he was unusually quiet.
• 3:22:16
  Speaker 1: Often he would sit for an hour or more upon
• 3:22:18
  Speaker 1: the doorstep, looking out past the arbor of honeysuckle, over
• 3:22:22
  Speaker 1: the acres of land that had been given him, gazing
• 3:22:25
  Speaker 1: on to the mountains. But he kept his own counsel.
• 3:22:28
  Speaker 1: Some of those who lived in the valley who saw
• 3:22:30
  Speaker 1: him sitting thinking, wondered if there had come a longing
• 3:22:34
  Speaker 1: into Alvan's heart to be out in the world again.
• 3:22:36
  Speaker 1: But his problem was far From that, he had asked
• 3:22:39
  Speaker 1: himself two questions, What was the great need of the
• 3:22:42
  Speaker 1: people who live far back in the mountains. What, since
• 3:22:46
  Speaker 1: the world had been so generous to him and lifted
• 3:22:48
  Speaker 1: from his shoulders the trials of living, could he do
• 3:22:51
  Speaker 1: for his people? He was trying to answer them subconsciously,
• 3:22:55
  Speaker 1: A great and genuine appreciation of all that had been
• 3:22:58
  Speaker 1: done for him was pushing him onward, unaided he had
• 3:23:01
  Speaker 1: solved the first It was education. How keenly, within the
• 3:23:05
  Speaker 1: few months that had passed, he had realized his own need,
• 3:23:08
  Speaker 1: But at that time he did not appreciate how rapidly
• 3:23:11
  Speaker 1: he was building for himself a bridge over that shortcoming.
• 3:23:14
  Speaker 1: The second problem he found was more difficult. He recognized
• 3:23:17
  Speaker 1: he could do a greater good, and his efforts would
• 3:23:20
  Speaker 1: be more lasting and far reaching if he proved to
• 3:23:22
  Speaker 1: be an aid to the younger generation. In his effort
• 3:23:25
  Speaker 1: to reach a practical plan, he went as far as
• 3:23:27
  Speaker 1: he could with his limited knowledge of organization before he
• 3:23:31
  Speaker 1: sought counsel. Then he asked that no other gifts be
• 3:23:33
  Speaker 1: made to him, but instead the money be contributed to
• 3:23:36
  Speaker 1: a fund to build simple primary schools throughout the mountain districts.
• 3:23:40
  Speaker 1: Where there was no state or county tax appropriations available
• 3:23:44
  Speaker 1: for that purpose. Of the funds, not a dollar was
• 3:23:47
  Speaker 1: to be for his personal use, nor for any effort
• 3:23:49
  Speaker 1: he might put forth in its behalf. So again the
• 3:23:52
  Speaker 1: form of Sergeant York rose out of the valley above
• 3:23:55
  Speaker 1: the mountains, and the sunlight of the nation's approval fell
• 3:23:58
  Speaker 1: upon it. Men of dominance volunteered to aid him in
• 3:24:01
  Speaker 1: his efforts for the children of the mountains, and the
• 3:24:03
  Speaker 1: result was the incorporation of the York Foundation, a non
• 3:24:07
  Speaker 1: profit sharing organization that is to build schoolhouses and operate schools.
• 3:24:12
  Speaker 1: Among the trustees are an ex Secretary of the United
• 3:24:14
  Speaker 1: States Treasury, bishops of the churches, a state governor, a congressman, bankers, lawyers,
• 3:24:20
  Speaker 1: and businessmen. The fund is already a substantial one, steadily growing,
• 3:24:25
  Speaker 1: and its success is assured in connection with each school
• 3:24:29
  Speaker 1: is to be land to be tilled by the students
• 3:24:31
  Speaker 1: as a farm, and besides providing instruction and agriculture, the
• 3:24:35
  Speaker 1: farm is to aid in the support of the school,
• 3:24:37
  Speaker 1: and no child of the community is to miss the
• 3:24:39
  Speaker 1: opportunity to attend through inability to pay the tuition charge.
• 3:24:44
  Speaker 1: As each unit becomes self supporting, another school is to
• 3:24:47
  Speaker 1: be established in a new district. In this new endeavor,
• 3:24:50
  Speaker 1: Alvin wished to do what he could to shield the
• 3:24:52
  Speaker 1: boys now at play among the red brush upon the
• 3:24:54
  Speaker 1: mountain sides from being compelled to say, after they had
• 3:24:57
  Speaker 1: grown to young manhood, what he himself had been forced
• 3:25:00
  Speaker 1: to confess. I'm just an ignorant mountain boy, and he
• 3:25:04
  Speaker 1: is making rapid strides of progress for himself. I saw
• 3:25:07
  Speaker 1: him enter the great banquet room of a leading hotel
• 3:25:10
  Speaker 1: in one of the country's largest cities. The hall was
• 3:25:13
  Speaker 1: filled with men and women of refinement and culture. As
• 3:25:16
  Speaker 1: Sergeant York and his young wife entered, the banqueters arose
• 3:25:19
  Speaker 1: and cheered them. This demonstration was a welcome to Sergeant York,
• 3:25:23
  Speaker 1: the soldier. He paused with a smile of appreciation as
• 3:25:27
  Speaker 1: he looked over the vast assemblage, and he bowed with
• 3:25:30
  Speaker 1: a grace and dignity far beyond that which was expected
• 3:25:32
  Speaker 1: of him from what his audience had read and heard. Then,
• 3:25:36
  Speaker 1: without turning his head, he reached for the hand of
• 3:25:38
  Speaker 1: his bride and led her to the speaker's table upon
• 3:25:41
  Speaker 1: a raised platform, and he was again to bring that
• 3:25:43
  Speaker 1: assemblage to its feet and fill that hall with its cheers.
• 3:25:47
  Speaker 1: This time it was for Alvin York the Man, as
• 3:25:50
  Speaker 1: he talked to them about the boys of the Mountains.
• 3:25:53
  Speaker 1: Three days afterward, he entered the store of John Marion
• 3:25:55
  Speaker 1: Rain's at Palmow, as all the chairs and kegs of
• 3:25:59
  Speaker 1: horseshoes were occupied. He put his hands behind him, swung
• 3:26:02
  Speaker 1: himself up to a place of comfort upon the counter,
• 3:26:04
  Speaker 1: took his part in the Battle of Wit as the
• 3:26:06
  Speaker 1: firing flashed amid the tobacco smoke. Pal Maw was home,
• 3:26:10
  Speaker 1: and there he permitted no distinction between individuals. This has
• 3:26:14
  Speaker 1: wandered far afield as a biography of Sergeant Yorke. It
• 3:26:18
  Speaker 1: is but a story of the strength and the simplicity
• 3:26:20
  Speaker 1: of a man, a young man whom the nation has
• 3:26:22
  Speaker 1: honored for what he has done with something in it
• 3:26:25
  Speaker 1: of those who went before and left him as a legacy,
• 3:26:28
  Speaker 1: the qualities of mind and heart that enabled him to
• 3:26:31
  Speaker 1: fight his fight in the forest of Argonne. The biography,
• 3:26:34
  Speaker 1: no doubt, will be written later. He has not planned
• 3:26:37
  Speaker 1: for the long years that lie ahead, but is following
• 3:26:39
  Speaker 1: after a principle with a force that can not be
• 3:26:41
  Speaker 1: deflected or checked. The future alone will tell where this
• 3:26:45
  Speaker 1: is to lead him. This is really a story of
• 3:26:47
  Speaker 1: but two years of his life, a period of time
• 3:26:50
  Speaker 1: that has elapsed since Alban York first found himself, a
• 3:26:53
  Speaker 1: period in which he has done three things, and any
• 3:26:56
  Speaker 1: one of them would have marked him for distinction. He
• 3:26:59
  Speaker 1: fought a great fight, decline to barter the honors that
• 3:27:02
  Speaker 1: came to him, and using his newfound strength, he has
• 3:27:05
  Speaker 1: reached a helping hand to the children of the mountains
• 3:27:07
  Speaker 1: who needed him. Palmum quy merruit ferat. Let him bear
• 3:27:12
  Speaker 1: the palm who has deserved it. End of chapter and
• 3:27:17
  Speaker 1: end of Sergeant York and his People by Sam Cowan