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Their Stories in Their Words | Episode 13 · Stories That Live In Us

• 0:01
  Crista Cowan: Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future.
• 0:09
  Crista Cowan: I'm C rista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist.
• 0:13
  Crista Cowan: I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything can change everything.
• 0:29
  Crista Cowan: I always knew that my mom's ancestors moved from Tennessee to Northwest Arkansas in the 1830s.
• 0:32
  Crista Cowan: As a matter of fact, my grandparents were born there and loads of cousins still live there but there was a lot I didn't know.
• 0:40
  Crista Cowan: For example, I knew that the Civil War affected Northwest Arkansas, but I didn't always know what side of that battle my ancestors sympathized with or how they fared during that time.
• 0:56
  Crista Cowan: I knew there had been some members of the family who had served on both sides, but there was a lot I didn't know.
• 1:04
  Crista Cowan: A few years ago on Ancestry, I got a little leaf hint on one of the cousins who lived in Arkansas at the time.
• 1:16
  Crista Cowan: Now she had been born in Georgia and I didn't know when she'd come to Arkansas.
• 1:21
  Crista Cowan: It was much later than the rest of the family, but there was this little leaf hint and it told me that she had written a letter to her children and grandchildren, about her migration from Georgia to Arkansas and about her time in the Civil War and the effect that that had on her for the rest of her life.
• 1:44
  Crista Cowan: And I was intrigued and interested.
• 1:54
  Crista Cowan: But then I started reading the letter and I was completely enveloped in her story, not only the story of perseverance and the little details that she shared, that brought her experience to life for me, but also what it revealed about my own ancestors.
• 2:10
  Crista Cowan: So here are the people you're going to hear about and from my three times great grandfather is a man named James Lawrence.
• 2:21
  Crista Cowan: He was called Uncle Jimmy by most of his extended family and some of the community members that weren't even related to him.
• 2:29
  Crista Cowan: He was the first one who brought a large group of his family in the 1830s from Tennessee to Northwest Arkansas.
• 2:38
  Crista Cowan: The letter writer is a young woman named Martha Brown.
• 2:43
  Crista Cowan: She was born Martha Mills and she is Uncle Jimmy's niece.
• 2:49
  Crista Cowan: Now I will just give you a word of caution that this letter was written in 1890 by a woman in her later years who had been raised in the southern United States.
• 3:01
  Crista Cowan: So there is some vernacular in this letter that is not language we would use today.
• 3:07
  Crista Cowan: I will also warn you that, as she describes some of the events of the Civil War, that there are some hard things to hear, but I think it's so important that we hear their stories and their words wherever possible.
• 3:20
  Crista Cowan: So that's what we're going to do.
• 3:22
  Crista Cowan: Here's the letter Written by Martha Mills Brown the 22nd of February 1891.
• 3:32
  Crista Cowan: I was born in Walker County, georgia, near Lafayette, the county seat, on December 1st 1848.
• 3:38
  Crista Cowan: My life passed pleasantly and uneventfully, as most children's lives do, until the summer of 59, when my parents began to talk of moving to Arkansas, which was the topic of conversation of both men and women of our neighborhood.
• 3:52
  Crista Cowan: I well remember sitting for hours at a time listening to my parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts talk of the great West, meaning Arkansas.
• 4:01
  Crista Cowan: We, the children, really believed it.
• 4:04
  Crista Cowan: It a paradise.
• 4:05
  Crista Cowan: But what a sad mistake.
• 4:07
  Crista Cowan: It was finally decided that my father and his family and two uncles and their families were to move to Arkansas.
• 4:14
  Crista Cowan: The ensuing fall, my mother's parents were to follow in one or two years.
• 4:18
  Crista Cowan: My grandfather was a well-to-do farmer.
• 4:21
  Crista Cowan: Likewise, he had a great deal of business to tend to before leaving Georgia.
• 4:25
  Crista Cowan: All was jubilant over the prospects, except my poor grandmother.
• 4:29
  Crista Cowan: She shed many bitter tears.
• 4:32
  Crista Cowan: It seemed as if she had a foreboding that she would never see her children anymore.
• 4:36
  Crista Cowan: But my grandfather assured her that she would soon be with them all again.
• 4:40
  Crista Cowan: Soon.
• 4:42
  Crista Cowan: All the preparations were hastily made for the journey.
• 4:44
  Crista Cowan: My father made a visit to his parents in Chattanooga County and bid them a long farewell, as they had no intention of ever coming to Arkansas.
• 4:52
  Crista Cowan: A few weeks before we started on our journey, my father's three brothers came to bid us goodbye and if they could not possibly persuade my parents to remain in Georgia as they were not all elated at the prospect of going to Arkansas.
• 5:06
  Crista Cowan: Everything being ready, we started the 1st of October 1859.
• 5:12
  Crista Cowan: Our company consisted of nine grown persons, 11 children, five good ox teams and wagons.
• 5:18
  Crista Cowan: We had a long and slow but very pleasant journey.
• 5:22
  Crista Cowan: We were all in good health and the weather was fine.
• 5:25
  Crista Cowan: We children would walk for miles building bright castles in the air of our future home in Arkansas.
• 5:31
  Crista Cowan: The only drawback in my pleasure was in passing the large Negro farms we could.
• 5:35
  Crista Cowan: We could see blackheads sticking up among the white cotton as far as our eyes would let us see.
• 5:41
  Crista Cowan: The last that we would see at night was the Negroes going to their quarters.
• 5:45
  Crista Cowan: The first in the morning was them going to the cotton fields.
• 5:49
  Crista Cowan: About sunrise the women would go by with large wooden trays on their heads heaped up with corn cakes, many of them cooked in the ashes.
• 5:57
  Crista Cowan: This was the only food these poor mortals who worked most day and night had to appease their hunger.
• 6:02
  Crista Cowan: Who could blame them if they did steal?
• 6:05
  Crista Cowan: And as far as their clothing, they were near as naked as law would allow a human being to go.
• 6:10
  Crista Cowan: I saw women with no clothing except a toe sack fastened about their waist and a rag fastened about their shoulders.
• 6:17
  Crista Cowan: I will not dwell long on the scene.
• 6:20
  Crista Cowan: It makes me shudder to this day.
• 6:22
  Crista Cowan: Who could, knowing all this and much more, be opposed to Negro freedom?
• 6:28
  Crista Cowan: When we crossed the Mississippi River, we began to leave them a measure.
• 6:32
  Crista Cowan: As we reached the mountains we left them most entirely.
• 6:36
  Crista Cowan: I never saw but one family of them until the Missouri shove-outs, as they were called, brought them into our neighborhood in 1862 and 1863.
• 6:47
  Crista Cowan: We arrived at our journey's end on November 4, 1859.
• 6:50
  Crista Cowan: We first stopped at Uncle Jimmy Lawrence's, my mother's uncle, where we stopped for a few days after traveling five weeks.
• 6:58
  Crista Cowan: In a few days my father bought a farm or tract of land on which he intended to make a farm.
• 7:04
  Crista Cowan: The place was known as the Locust Grove Precinct, 50 miles from Batesville on the Batesville Marshall Road.
• 7:11
  Crista Cowan: The first day I spent on that place, I believe, was my first day of real trouble.
• 7:16
  Crista Cowan: The place was three miles from Uncle Jimmy's Mother had taken fever and ague after our arrival, so Papa thought it best to take my elder sister and myself home early in the morning and return and bring Mother in the evening with the three younger children.
• 7:31
  Crista Cowan: Amanda and I looked forward to a day of enjoyment looking over our new home, but we could find no pleasure there.
• 7:38
  Crista Cowan: We went from place to place trying to shake off the gloom, but still the foreboding of evil was with us.
• 7:45
  Crista Cowan: I've sometimes thought it was a premonition of what was to befall us ere long on that place.
• 7:50
  Crista Cowan: That sounds superstitious and I don't believe I am.
• 7:54
  Crista Cowan: After a long and wearisome day our parents arrived.
• 7:58
  Crista Cowan: Mother was well pleased with our new home.
• 8:00
  Crista Cowan: Papa soon had a new residence and barn built and a little farm cleared out.
• 8:04
  Crista Cowan: We really had a beautiful home.
• 8:05
  Crista Cowan: Papa's had a new residence and barn built and a little farm cleared out.
• 8:06
  Crista Cowan: We really had a beautiful home.
• 8:08
  Crista Cowan: Papa's poor health was our greatest drawback.
• 8:10
  Crista Cowan: His health had been failing 11 years and now he was not able to do any farm work at all.
• 8:16
  Crista Cowan: In March of 1860, my infant sister died, my first relative I ever saw dead.
• 8:23
  Crista Cowan: How we grieved for her.
• 8:25
  Crista Cowan: It was so sad to give up the little babe, but other troubles were soon to follow.
• 8:30
  Crista Cowan: In the spring of 1861, papa took sore eyes from which he never recovered.
• 8:36
  Crista Cowan: In 1862, my four-year-old sister died.
• 8:39
  Crista Cowan: Oh what a sorrowful time that was.
• 8:41
  Crista Cowan: We thought nothing could be worse than giving up our sweet little sister.
• 8:45
  Crista Cowan: But alas, greater sorrows awaited us.
• 8:48
  Crista Cowan: We really felt thankful that those two little girls were safe in heaven.
• 8:52
  Crista Cowan: Oh how often I have wished that I had died when I was young.
• 8:56
  Crista Cowan: Oh how the poor people of Arkansas did suffer from 1862 until 1866.
• 9:04
  Crista Cowan: First the healthy, young and middle-aged men were called into the service of the rebellion.
• 9:09
  Crista Cowan: Then the old men and boys were called.
• 9:12
  Crista Cowan: The women struggled bravely to clothe and feed the soldiers.
• 9:16
  Crista Cowan: Mother followed the plow while nursing babies lied in the fencing quarters.
• 9:21
  Crista Cowan: I remember well learning to plow my brother Thomas, two years younger than I learned to plow, at the same time plowing a roundabout.
• 9:29
  Crista Cowan: Papa said we'd done as much plowing as one good hand could do.
• 9:33
  Crista Cowan: We were very proud of our accomplishment.
• 9:36
  Crista Cowan: At 14, I could plow, hoe, tie up grain, chop wood and drive a team as well as any boy my size and besides I could knit, sew, cook, spin and weave, and so could most of the other girls my age.
• 9:50
  Crista Cowan: My mother said she'd been expecting a war for some time, that God would not permit slavery to go on much longer.
• 9:56
  Crista Cowan: When the 90 days was given for the Union people to move north, mother insisted on going.
• 10:02
  Crista Cowan: She prophesied the worst.
• 10:04
  Crista Cowan: Papa thought it best to remain at home.
• 10:07
  Crista Cowan: He didn't think that the war would last long, but he could not do anything anywhere and no one on either side would molest him as he didn't take sides with either party and didn't think he had an enemy in the world.
• 10:19
  Crista Cowan: Times rolled on bad enough.
• 10:22
  Crista Cowan: We thought there had been several men taken from their houses and shot down like dogs.
• 10:28
  Crista Cowan: Others' feet were burned into a crisp and then hung until they were almost dead to make them tell where someone was when they did not know.
• 10:37
  Crista Cowan: I remember one instance of a neighbor of ours, whose hair was white as cotton.
• 10:41
  Crista Cowan: He had several sons in the federal army, but one was in the rebel array.
• 10:46
  Crista Cowan: The old man and his wife, two daughters, one daughter-in-law, all lived together.
• 10:51
  Crista Cowan: A gang of soldiers came through the country Colonel Jackman's men, captain Cecil's company.
• 10:57
  Crista Cowan: They caught up with the old man and asked him where his sons were.
• 11:00
  Crista Cowan: He told them he did not know.
• 11:02
  Crista Cowan: They told him he was lying that his sons were in hiding and he knew where they were.
• 11:04
  Crista Cowan: He told them he did not know.
• 11:05
  Crista Cowan: They told him he was lying that his sons were in hiding and he knew where they were.
• 11:06
  Crista Cowan: The old man didn't know that his sons were in the army.
• 11:12
  Crista Cowan: They pulled his fingernails out by the roots, stripped off his clothing, tied two ropes around his neck and then tied them to two of their saddles and ran up a gravelly hill dragging the old man.
• 11:22
  Crista Cowan: When they reached the top they raised him to his feet and repeated their questions.
• 11:27
  Crista Cowan: He told them he did not know and they told him they would hang him until he was dead if he did not tell where his boys were.
• 11:36
  Crista Cowan: He was permitted to put on his clothes.
• 11:39
  Crista Cowan: They swung him up by the neck to a limb.
• 11:41
  Crista Cowan: The limb broke and he fell to the ground.
• 11:44
  Crista Cowan: Then they ordered him to show them to his home, which was about a mile away.
• 11:48
  Crista Cowan: He was driven home like a brute into the presence of his old wife and daughters.
• 11:53
  Crista Cowan: There they repeated the questions the old man answered.
• 11:57
  Crista Cowan: I have told you the truth.
• 11:59
  Crista Cowan: After abusing the family, they took the man about a quarter mile from the house and shot him several times and left him.
• 12:07
  Crista Cowan: The family heard the shots of the gun and went.
• 12:10
  Crista Cowan: They found the old man dead.
• 12:12
  Crista Cowan: They carried him home and dug a shallow grave in the edge of the yard and buried him.
• 12:17
  Crista Cowan: The neighbor women were afraid to help them.
• 12:21
  Crista Cowan: This was in the summer of 1864.
• 12:23
  Crista Cowan: The most painful part of my story is yet to come.
• 12:27
  Crista Cowan: This was in the summer of 1864.
• 12:31
  Crista Cowan: It was 27 years ago.
• 12:33
  Crista Cowan: Tonight.
• 12:56
  Crista Cowan: The 15th of February never comes, but it brings sad memories to me this day, to me this day, at this point, in this letter, martha stops writing for a week, and when she picks back up again, you can tell that the act of writing this letter has really taken it out of her.
• 13:19
  Crista Cowan: And maybe it's that she's trying to decide exactly what to include and what not to include, because from this point on, things get even harder for her and her family.
• 13:31
  Crista Cowan: February 22, 1891.
• 13:34
  Crista Cowan: After one week's waiting, I've tried hard to collect my wits and steady my nerves for this task.
• 13:42
  Crista Cowan: My feelings have been wounded today and I fear that I will fail to write what I indeed, but I will try, with the help of my Redeemer.
• 13:50
  Crista Cowan: It was Monday, february 15, 1864.
• 13:55
  Crista Cowan: The sun rose and shined on me that day at our work as usual, but oh God, what we were to witness before another sunrise.
• 14:04
  Crista Cowan: Oh, that we could have been spared.
• 14:08
  Crista Cowan: Father was feeling better than usual that morning and said to Mother, as it was a nice day, he would attend to some business in the neighborhood that had been put off for some time owing to his bad health and blindness.
• 14:18
  Crista Cowan: As he was almost blind, he returned in the evening, bringing with him my Aunt Julia Lawrence and her four small children to spend the night with us.
• 14:27
  Crista Cowan: Everything was quiet in the neighborhood so far as we knew.
• 14:31
  Crista Cowan: Everything was quiet in the neighborhood so far as we knew.
• 14:32
  Crista Cowan: At almost sunset that evening our nearest neighbor, wade Campbell, came to our house and insisted on Father lying in the woods with him that night.
• 14:40
  Crista Cowan: He said he thought there was going to be trouble.
• 14:46
  Crista Cowan: Father told him that it would not do for him to lay in the woods in his feeble health and that he didn't have an enemy and could do nothing for either party, and he was satisfied that no one would bother him.
• 15:01
  Crista Cowan: Amanda and I listened to their conversation.
• 15:03
  Crista Cowan: She said to me I wish Papa would go.
• 15:04
  Crista Cowan: I believe he will be killed if he stays at home.
• 15:05
  Crista Cowan: Supper was cooked and eaten as usual.
• 15:08
  Crista Cowan: Father retired early, as was his custom by nine o'clock.
• 15:19
  Crista Cowan: All had retired except Mother, aunt Julia and Amanda.
• 15:20
  Crista Cowan: They were sitting up at work when they heard some unusual noise.
• 15:22
  Crista Cowan: Mother opened the door and looked out toward the big road.
• 15:23
  Crista Cowan: She saw four men standing in the yard in a whispering conversation.
• 15:27
  Crista Cowan: Several more were engaged in hitching horses.
• 15:30
  Crista Cowan: The four separated, two starting around the house, the other two to the front door.
• 15:35
  Crista Cowan: Mother asked what it was they wanted.
• 15:37
  Crista Cowan: They answered we want to know who's in the house.
• 15:39
  Crista Cowan: She told them no one but her family.
• 15:42
  Crista Cowan: As they came in four of them, mother offered them seats.
• 15:47
  Crista Cowan: One sat down.
• 15:49
  Crista Cowan: They wore federal overcoats with the collars turned up.
• 15:53
  Crista Cowan: Each carried an army pistol in his hand.
• 15:56
  Crista Cowan: Three remained standing, one done about all the talking.
• 16:01
  Crista Cowan: I was sleeping on a trundle bed drawn out in the middle of the room.
• 16:03
  Crista Cowan: Their entrance awoke me.
• 16:05
  Crista Cowan: I will tell it near as I can.
• 16:07
  Crista Cowan: As it happened.
• 16:08
  Crista Cowan: There was a great deal done and said in a short time.
• 16:12
  Crista Cowan: The spokesman said to mother we're Captain Napier's men.
• 16:16
  Crista Cowan: Where's the old man?
• 16:17
  Crista Cowan: Before mama could answer, papa raised up in bed to answer and said here I am.
• 16:22
  Crista Cowan: Then they said we're feds.
• 16:25
  Crista Cowan: Are you a sessionist?
• 16:26
  Crista Cowan: Papa said I am not the sound of those words in my ears to this day.
• 16:34
  Crista Cowan: Those were the last words he was allowed to speak, but thank God they were the truth.
• 16:40
  Crista Cowan: He tried to speak several times after that but was prevented by striking over the head with their pistols.
• 16:47
  Crista Cowan: The next was come out here and give an account of yourself.
• 16:49
  Crista Cowan: It hurt me to hear the sound of those words.
• 16:52
  Crista Cowan: It hurts me to this day.
• 16:54
  Crista Cowan: They used violent oaths all the time.
• 16:56
  Crista Cowan: Perhaps that is why I cannot stand to hear them now.
• 17:01
  Crista Cowan: As Papa got out of the bed, two took a hold of him and dragged him to the fireside and pushed him down in a chair.
• 17:06
  Crista Cowan: Mother carried his pants to him and begged them to let him put them on.
• 17:09
  Crista Cowan: They cursed him and said he didn't need them.
• 17:12
  Crista Cowan: They asked for money.
• 17:13
  Crista Cowan: Mother gave them the pocketbook.
• 17:15
  Crista Cowan: They threw it down without opening it.
• 17:17
  Crista Cowan: They poured live coals of fire on his poor feet.
• 17:20
  Crista Cowan: They dressed him, said they were badly burned.
• 17:23
  Crista Cowan: They ordered mother to get a rope to hand him with.
• 17:26
  Crista Cowan: She refused.
• 17:27
  Crista Cowan: They made an attempt to take the cord out of the trundle bedstead but failed.
• 17:31
  Crista Cowan: Then three of them started to drag him out of the house.
• 17:34
  Crista Cowan: Amanda and I held to him.
• 17:36
  Crista Cowan: They told us to let him go or they would shoot us, that they intended to kill him.
• 17:40
  Crista Cowan: We didn't let go.
• 17:41
  Crista Cowan: Papa tried to tell us something but was stopped by a blow over the head.
• 17:47
  Crista Cowan: My brother, thomas, 12 years old, tried to get outdoors but was stopped in the doorway by a blow from another one of their pistols.
• 17:53
  Crista Cowan: All this time mother was pleading for poor father's life with her three-month-old baby in her arms.
• 17:59
  Crista Cowan: There were several pistol shots.
• 18:01
  Crista Cowan: Then all was darkness and the next thing I remember we were all out in the yard.
• 18:06
  Crista Cowan: Mother was screaming at the top of her voice.
• 18:08
  Crista Cowan: Papa and Thomas were missing and the murderers had fled.
• 18:13
  Crista Cowan: As the smoke cleared away, one man came into the house on all fours, got a hat and went out.
• 18:16
  Crista Cowan: The same way, amanda came to me and said Martha, I'm shot.
• 18:21
  Crista Cowan: I said no, you're not shot.
• 18:23
  Crista Cowan: There were no shots fired, it was only caps busted.
• 18:26
  Crista Cowan: Yes, I am.
• 18:28
  Crista Cowan: Look at the blood.
• 18:29
  Crista Cowan: She opened her bosom and showed me where the bullet had entered, just above the left breast and came out below her right shoulder blade.
• 18:36
  Crista Cowan: I ran to mother and told her Amanda was shot.
• 18:39
  Crista Cowan: Aunt Julia got her to go in the house and to bed.
• 18:42
  Crista Cowan: She was suffering terribly now and did until she died Wednesday evening at two o'clock.
• 18:50
  Crista Cowan: Aunt Julia was doing all she could for sister Mother and I was hunting and listening for Papa.
• 18:54
  Crista Cowan: In about half an hour we heard him groan twice.
• 18:57
  Crista Cowan: We ran to him.
• 18:58
  Crista Cowan: I got to him first.
• 19:00
  Crista Cowan: He handed me his hand and looked up at me.
• 19:02
  Crista Cowan: Thomas heard him from where he was hidden and came to him and said Pa, are you shot?
• 19:06
  Crista Cowan: He said no.
• 19:08
  Crista Cowan: Mother came and raised him up and sat down with his head and shoulders on her lap.
• 19:12
  Crista Cowan: He was lying in a great pool of blood but his breath had left him.
• 19:21
  Crista Cowan: About this time.
• 19:22
  Crista Cowan: Parson, oa Mabry, who lived about one and a half miles from us, came to us and said he'd heard Mother's scream.
• 19:26
  Crista Cowan: Papa had run about a hundred yards from the house and fell against the fence.
• 19:28
  Crista Cowan: It was a bright, moonlit night and what a horrible sight it was to see.
• 19:33
  Crista Cowan: Papa was shot in several places.
• 19:36
  Crista Cowan: I never knew just how many.
• 19:38
  Crista Cowan: We thought he died from loss of blood.
• 19:42
  Crista Cowan: In my mind I can see him now just as he looked that night.
• 19:45
  Crista Cowan: Mr Mabry helped us carry him to the house.
• 19:48
  Crista Cowan: We then left and went for some of our neighbors.
• 19:51
  Crista Cowan: They came to us and did all they could for us.
• 19:54
  Crista Cowan: We got a doctor the next day, but he could do nothing for my poor little sister.
• 19:58
  Crista Cowan: She was in her right mind and talked freely until a short time before her death.
• 20:04
  Crista Cowan: She said she knew one of the murderers.
• 20:07
  Crista Cowan: His name was T Johnson.
• 20:10
  Crista Cowan: He was a Missourian who lived about four miles from us.
• 20:13
  Crista Cowan: Her breath left her just as they were putting Papa in his coffin.
• 20:19
  Crista Cowan: For weeks after I could not realize that what had taken place was true.
• 20:23
  Crista Cowan: It seemed as if it was too horrible to be true, that it was a terrible dream.
• 20:29
  Crista Cowan: Oh how I tried to wake up and find that it was not true.
• 20:33
  Crista Cowan: But alas, it was a great deal more than I can write or tell.
• 20:37
  Crista Cowan: I have never told even what I have written on these sheets.
• 20:40
  Crista Cowan: My tongue refuses to tell.
• 20:43
  Crista Cowan: As I have said before, my father was always a union man but never spoke his sentiments.
• 20:51
  Crista Cowan: On the night of the murder, a number of men went to a neighbor's house about dark, about a mile from ours, whose name was Honeycutt.
• 20:58
  Crista Cowan: He was a union man and was lying out at the time waiting for an opportunity to go into the federal army.
• 21:03
  Crista Cowan: They told the women they were federals and wished to find some union men they could talk with as they were scouring the country.
• 21:11
  Crista Cowan: And the women believed them.
• 21:12
  Crista Cowan: They told them my father was a good Union man and that they could rely on him.
• 21:17
  Crista Cowan: They came right to our house and did just what I have related.
• 21:21
  Crista Cowan: We've never heard who all those men were.
• 21:24
  Crista Cowan: I was informed, I think correctly, in the summer of maybe 1881, the names.
• 21:29
  Crista Cowan: Of the four that came to our house.
• 21:31
  Crista Cowan: Three of them were from Missouri Hancock, abernathy and T Johnson.
• 21:35
  Crista Cowan: We were not acquainted with them.
• 21:37
  Crista Cowan: The other was an Arkansas man raised in this county, robert Seypert.
• 21:42
  Crista Cowan: I hope and pray justice will be meted out to each and every one of them.
• 21:47
  Crista Cowan: Vengeance is mine and I will repay saith the Lord.
• 21:53
  Crista Cowan: We stayed at home until the next August, but not unmolested.
• 21:57
  Crista Cowan: We were robbed several times.
• 21:59
  Crista Cowan: They took the dress my sister had on when she was murdered.
• 22:02
  Crista Cowan: It was a new Lindsay dress.
• 22:04
  Crista Cowan: She and I had put on new dresses.
• 22:06
  Crista Cowan: That Sunday morning she was killed in hers and mine had two holes shot through it.
• 22:11
  Crista Cowan: I never did see how I escaped being killed too, but I was spared for some purpose.
• 22:21
  Crista Cowan: The good Lord only knows that.
• 22:22
  Crista Cowan: I hope it was for some good purpose.
• 22:22
  Crista Cowan: I've written these pages so that my children could know that their mother suffered.
• 22:26
  Crista Cowan: I cannot tell them, and it has been a severe trial for me to write what I have written.
• 22:31
  Crista Cowan: It is every word true, although it may seem untrue to the reader.
• 22:35
  Crista Cowan: I have not told it one.
• 22:38
  Crista Cowan: Half as bad as it really was.
• 22:39
  Crista Cowan: I could not either with tongue or pen and ink.
• 22:44
  Crista Cowan: We left our home in August 1864.
• 22:47
  Crista Cowan: Mother told people she was going to try to go to Springfield, missouri, where she had a brother and sister.
• 22:52
  Crista Cowan: It was rumored that we would start on Sunday.
• 22:54
  Crista Cowan: On Sunday evening there was 10 or 15 men past our house going on to overtake and rob us that night, some of the same men that were at our house the night of the murder.
• 23:04
  Crista Cowan: We did not start until the next day, and then we went over the mountain instead of over the Marshall Road, as was expected.
• 23:12
  Crista Cowan: Our persecutors lay in wait for us until Tuesday, then went back to see what had become of us.
• 23:17
  Crista Cowan: They were very angry when they learned that we had gone across the mountain, for they feared to follow us in that direction.
• 23:23
  Crista Cowan: They told the neighbors that if they had found us they would have taken everything we possessed except the clothes we wore.
• 23:29
  Crista Cowan: Mother hired a neighbor man to go with us across Blue Mountain and stay all night with us.
• 23:35
  Crista Cowan: He was a good man but a rebel.
• 23:37
  Crista Cowan: I shall never forget that night.
• 23:39
  Crista Cowan: We barely got 10 miles from home.
• 23:41
  Crista Cowan: The next morning, louis Bradshaw left us at our camp and returned to his home.
• 23:45
  Crista Cowan: Our enemies were afraid to cross the mountain.
• 23:50
  Crista Cowan: Our company consisted of my mother and her five children, I being the oldest, I was 15 years old my Aunt Julia Lawrence with her four little boys, the oldest eight years old, the youngest two.
• 24:00
  Crista Cowan: Each family had an old wagon and a very good yoke of oxen, some cornmeal and bacon that we had managed to get away from home.
• 24:07
  Crista Cowan: We were not molested and we reached Louisburg in about 10 days.
• 24:11
  Crista Cowan: We camped there about a week and was joined there by two other families Mrs Baker and her six children and married daughter Mrs Alexander and her two small children.
• 24:19
  Crista Cowan: They only had one ox wagon.
• 24:22
  Crista Cowan: Mrs Baker and several of the children were sick.
• 24:25
  Crista Cowan: Mr Baker and Mr Alexander were in Springfield, missouri.
• 24:28
  Crista Cowan: So was my uncle, john Lawrence, in the Federal Army.
• 24:32
  Crista Cowan: We were trying to get there.
• 24:34
  Crista Cowan: We left Louisburg with many fears as we had to go through a very dangerous community.
• 24:38
  Crista Cowan: My mother and Mrs Baker thought it a good idea for them to claim to be widows and the others to all be their children.
• 24:44
  Crista Cowan: In the evening after we left Louisburg we met a company of rebel soldiers.
• 24:49
  Crista Cowan: We were all badly scared.
• 24:51
  Crista Cowan: They ordered us to halt and surrender our wagons.
• 24:53
  Crista Cowan: The spokesman said where are your men?
• 24:55
  Crista Cowan: Mother answered we are widows.
• 24:58
  Crista Cowan: They roared with laughter and called out come on, boys, here's a good chance to get married.
• 25:03
  Crista Cowan: I never saw so many widows.
• 25:04
  Crista Cowan: Mother said only two widows, the others are our daughters.
• 25:08
  Crista Cowan: They only laughed more.
• 25:10
  Crista Cowan: They did not bother us.
• 25:12
  Crista Cowan: They only took a federal blanket from Mrs Baker.
• 25:17
  Crista Cowan: We had many trials from there on.
• 25:18
  Crista Cowan: I will mention a few.
• 25:19
  Crista Cowan: We children all took whooping cough.
• 25:22
  Crista Cowan: Mrs Baker and her little grandbaby grew weaker all the time.
• 25:26
  Crista Cowan: We could only travel eight or ten miles a day.
• 25:29
  Crista Cowan: I don't know how many times we were robbed before we reached Van Buren, arkansas.
• 25:34
  Crista Cowan: The last time was four miles from Van Buren, when we reached Fort Smith.
• 25:40
  Crista Cowan: We were advised to cross the river and go into refugee camps.
• 25:42
  Crista Cowan: We went, and what an awful place it was, right in the river bottoms.
• 25:48
  Crista Cowan: Nearly everybody was sick.
• 25:49
  Crista Cowan: We only stayed about a week.
• 25:51
  Crista Cowan: We were out of all sorts of provisions or any money to buy with.
• 25:56
  Crista Cowan: We drawed rations from the government.
• 25:58
  Crista Cowan: Now.
• 25:58
  Crista Cowan: Plenty of good beef, hardtack, army beans and coffee.
• 26:02
  Crista Cowan: Now we longed for bread.
• 26:04
  Crista Cowan: We were given our choice to remain in the camps or go with the government train to Fort Drywood, kansas.
• 26:09
  Crista Cowan: We thought it best to go.
• 26:11
  Crista Cowan: The government furnished transportation for all that had no wagons and teams of their own.
• 26:16
  Crista Cowan: We started sometime in October.
• 26:19
  Crista Cowan: Soldiers were sent to guard the train and herd of cattle.
• 26:22
  Crista Cowan: We only traveled about 10 miles a day, or from one grove of trees to another.
• 26:26
  Crista Cowan: We were ordered into camps before sunset.
• 26:29
  Crista Cowan: First thing in camps, the refugee doctor visited every wagon.
• 26:33
  Crista Cowan: Never an evening passed but there was someone buried.
• 26:36
  Crista Cowan: If they died during the night or day, they were buried after we went into camps.
• 26:41
  Crista Cowan: So many died.
• 26:42
  Crista Cowan: Mrs Alexander's baby died.
• 26:45
  Crista Cowan: They hauled it all day.
• 26:47
  Crista Cowan: That evening a man came around with a cracker box and they buried the baby with several others near our camp.
• 26:53
  Crista Cowan: Every evening there was plenty of beef butchered for all.
• 26:57
  Crista Cowan: One of each family would go and draw beef according to their number.
• 27:01
  Crista Cowan: We went through the Indian Territory, through Fort Gibson.
• 27:03
  Crista Cowan: We were at Fort Gibson all day.
• 27:05
  Crista Cowan: Mother bought 10 or 12 ears of corn.
• 27:08
  Crista Cowan: Mother and Aunt Julia ground it in a steel mill.
• 27:11
  Crista Cowan: It was like a good grade of chops.
• 27:13
  Crista Cowan: Mother stirred it up with cold water and baked it in an oven by the campfire.
• 27:17
  Crista Cowan: It made all that we wanted for one meal.
• 27:19
  Crista Cowan: Now that was the best kind of bread of any kind we had for several weeks.
• 27:25
  Crista Cowan: For some reason the soldiers had been ordered back to Fort Smith.
• 27:28
  Crista Cowan: We were almost without a guard now, but no danger was anticipated.
• 27:32
  Crista Cowan: We were nearing the Kansas line.
• 27:34
  Crista Cowan: The government train and soldiers always went ahead of the refugees.
• 27:37
  Crista Cowan: They were expected to follow close in the rear.
• 27:39
  Crista Cowan: This morning Aunt Julia's oxen could not be found.
• 27:43
  Crista Cowan: The grass was so high and thick, although they were not far from camp.
• 27:48
  Crista Cowan: When we were ready to start, the train and soldiers were far out of sight.
• 27:51
  Crista Cowan: Three or four other families were also left, for which we were ready to start the train, and soldiers were far out of sight.
• 27:53
  Crista Cowan: Three or four other families were also left, for which we were very glad.
• 27:55
  Crista Cowan: So there were four or five men with them.
• 27:58
  Crista Cowan: We pushed on with all the speed we could and we soon came to where the road forked.
• 28:02
  Crista Cowan: The road was dim and the wagons had gone both ways.
• 28:05
  Crista Cowan: We didn't know which one to take, but after some pairing, the men took the right-hand road and we followed.
• 28:10
  Crista Cowan: We'd not gone far when we heard gunshots and saw an awful smoke rising.
• 28:15
  Crista Cowan: It was a squad of General Price's men.
• 28:18
  Crista Cowan: They were coming off of their raid in Kansas and seeing the train in the distance and that there was only a few soldiers with it, they scattered the herd of cattle and set fire to the wagons.
• 28:27
  Crista Cowan: They didn't have time to tarry long as that.
• 28:29
  Crista Cowan: They knew that the Federals were in pursuit.
• 28:31
  Crista Cowan: They managed to save enough wagons to get the refugees into Fort Drywood that night.
• 28:38
  Crista Cowan: Mrs Baker was with the trains and the fright killed her as she was very weak.
• 28:42
  Crista Cowan: We saw Price's army.
• 28:44
  Crista Cowan: They took the road we had just left.
• 28:46
  Crista Cowan: That was the last rebel army I ever saw.
• 28:50
  Crista Cowan: They saw our wagons.
• 28:52
  Crista Cowan: A few of them came to us and asked for guns and ammunitions, but we had none.
• 28:56
  Crista Cowan: One of the men that was with us was a doctor.
• 28:58
  Crista Cowan: He had a small trunk of medicine on the back of his buggy.
• 29:01
  Crista Cowan: One of the rebs jerked it off and stomped it to pieces.
• 29:04
  Crista Cowan: That was about all they had time to do with us.
• 29:07
  Crista Cowan: The men that was with us ran off and hid in the grass.
• 29:10
  Crista Cowan: They soon returned and we jogged on About this time a calf about six months old came to us and fell in close behind our wagons all day.
• 29:19
  Crista Cowan: That night the men killed it and divided it.
• 29:22
  Crista Cowan: We got enough to do us until the next day.
• 29:26
  Crista Cowan: We got to a settlement in Kansas.
• 29:27
  Crista Cowan: We'd been on the road near three months.
• 29:29
  Crista Cowan: We camped on a creek where we could get wood and rested a few days and washed our clothes.
• 29:34
  Crista Cowan: The people were good to us.
• 29:35
  Crista Cowan: We then went to Fort Scott, got work out in the country and stayed there a month.
• 29:40
  Crista Cowan: Then went to Douglas County, kansas, near Baldwin City.
• 29:43
  Crista Cowan: Mother rented a farm.
• 29:45
  Crista Cowan: The people there were good to us.
• 29:47
  Crista Cowan: We got there the last of November 1864.
• 29:51
  Crista Cowan: We were all sick.
• 29:52
  Crista Cowan: I don't see how we lived through that winter we had so little means and none of us could work any.
• 29:58
  Crista Cowan: But the good people helped us till we could help ourselves.
• 30:01
  Crista Cowan: As soon as possible we broke land and planted our crop of 20 acres in a garden.
• 30:06
  Crista Cowan: Then mother began washing for the neighbors.
• 30:08
  Crista Cowan: Brother Thomas, 14 years old by this time, was hired at $20 a month.
• 30:13
  Crista Cowan: Mother got a dollar, a washing, sister Cynthia and I cultivated the crop.
• 30:21
  Crista Cowan: The two little children were shut up in the house.
• 30:22
  Crista Cowan: I shall never forget the day that peace was declared.
• 30:25
  Crista Cowan: We heard the cannons.
• 30:27
  Crista Cowan: We thought it must be a battle.
• 30:28
  Crista Cowan: We were 15 miles from Lawrence.
• 30:30
  Crista Cowan: There was an artillery there.
• 30:32
  Crista Cowan: In the evening someone came along and told us peace was declared.
• 30:32
  Crista Cowan: We were 15 miles from Lawrence.
• 30:33
  Crista Cowan: There was an artillery there.
• 30:33
  Crista Cowan: In the evening someone came along and told us peace was declared.
• 30:35
  Crista Cowan: We couldn't believe it.
• 30:37
  Crista Cowan: It seemed too good to be true.
• 30:40
  Crista Cowan: Only a few days, though, until another gloom was cast over us.
• 30:43
  Crista Cowan: Early in the morning the college bell began to toll.
• 30:47
  Crista Cowan: We wondered all day what it meant when a neighbor who had been to town told us that President Lincoln had been killed.
• 30:54
  Crista Cowan: How sad we felt.
• 30:56
  Crista Cowan: We feared the war would start again.
• 30:58
  Crista Cowan: But the mail service was soon started and we heard from our old home.
• 31:03
  Crista Cowan: Oh, how the people had suffered after we had left there.
• 31:08
  Crista Cowan: They had almost starved.
• 31:09
  Crista Cowan: We had letters from my grandparents in Georgia.
• 31:12
  Crista Cowan: Grandfather Lawrence advised us to go back to our home in Arkansas.
• 31:15
  Crista Cowan: We children did not want to go back where we had suffered so much.
• 31:20
  Crista Cowan: But finally, in August of 1865, mother decided to go back home.
• 31:26
  Crista Cowan: We'd made a good crop and had no trouble selling it, and started on our way back to Arkansas.
• 31:31
  Crista Cowan: We went by way of Springfield, missouri, and there met Uncle John Jenkins.
• 31:35
  Crista Cowan: He insisted we go home with him and rest a few days.
• 31:38
  Crista Cowan: Mother was about out of money.
• 31:41
  Crista Cowan: Uncle John had bought a fine farm on the James River.
• 31:43
  Crista Cowan: He thought it best we stay there until the next fall.
• 31:46
  Crista Cowan: So we stayed until August of 1866.
• 31:51
  Crista Cowan: When we finally arrived at our old home, our house and most of the old fencing had been burned.
• 31:56
  Crista Cowan: There was an old cabin on the farm that we moved into.
• 31:59
  Crista Cowan: I was hired out all that winter at a dollar a week.
• 32:02
  Crista Cowan: My work consisted of mending, sewing, carding, spinning and some knitting.
• 32:07
  Crista Cowan: My time was from 4 am to 9 pm.
• 32:10
  Crista Cowan: I never complained of my wages or work.
• 32:13
  Crista Cowan: No one did.
• 32:14
  Crista Cowan: We were too glad to get work in peace.
• 32:17
  Crista Cowan: My grandfather sent mother $300, which was a great help to us.
• 32:21
  Crista Cowan: Mother paid a neighbor $50 to build us a log house to the chimney that was still standing where our house had been burned.
• 32:28
  Crista Cowan: We all worked hard and saved and soon had plenty of stock and plenty to eat.
• 32:34
  Crista Cowan: On the 20th of January 1869, I was married to Thomas E Brown of the 3rd Arkansas Cavalry Company, m, usa.
• 32:45
  Crista Cowan: Now my story is told of a few of my trials and hardships during the war between the states, written for my children and grandchildren, signed Martha Mills Brown.
• 32:59
  Crista Cowan: So that's Martha's letter and I know it was probably hard to hear.
• 33:04
  Crista Cowan: But when I found this letter on that little leaf hint on ancestry, I got it because she was already in my tree.
• 33:13
  Crista Cowan: So James Lawrence, uncle Jimmy, who was my great-great-great-grandfather.
• 33:20
  Crista Cowan: He had come to Arkansas, established a family and then some of his nieces and nephews and siblings followed him in the later decades Martha and her family came to Arkansas, stayed with Uncle Jimmy for a little while before they set up their own homestead.
• 33:44
  Crista Cowan: And here's what I had done in my family tree I had found all of my family living in Northwest Arkansas in the 1860 census and the 1870 census.
• 33:59
  Crista Cowan: Now I knew that Martha's father had died in between those two censuses because he was listed with the family in 1860 and not listed with the family in 1870.
• 34:15
  Crista Cowan: It was also curious to me that they were living in the same place.
• 34:19
  Crista Cowan: And if those two records were the only things I had ever looked at, think about all of the story I would have missed about what happened in that decade.
• 34:30
  Crista Cowan: Now I knew a civil war was going on, I knew that Arkansas had been involved and I knew that I had family on both sides of that conflict.
• 34:39
  Crista Cowan: But I had no idea that the sentiments ran so, so deep.
• 34:44
  Crista Cowan: I had no idea the horrors that that family faced in that place at that time and I certainly had no idea that Martha and her mom and her siblings had left the state and had been refugees of the war in those years in between the censuses.
• 35:04
  Crista Cowan: So while census records can give us a great framework for starting our family history, while they do contain stories, when we string them together sometimes we have to look a little deeper because the story sometimes happens in the in-between years.