The Boy with the U.S. Census | Page 7

Bell County that it couldn't rain often enough to keep Hell's Half-Acre free from stains o' blood."
"It is a fearful record, Uncle Eli, when you put them together that way," the boy said.
"An' I haven't even mentioned the worst o' them, the Hargis-Cockrill feud in Breathitt County. That lasted for generations, an' started over some election for a county judge. I don' know that any one rightly remembers the time when Breathitt County wasn't the scene of some such goin's on."
"But they are all over now, aren't they?"
"I was jes' goin' to tell yo'. They're all over but one, an' that one is sometimes called the Baker-Howard or the Garrard-White feud, for all four families were mixed up in it. Not so very long ago I was talkin' to the widow o' one o' the men slain in that fightin', an' sayin' to her how good it was that the feelin' had all died out, an' she said--thar was a lot of us thar at the time--'I have twelve sons. Each day I tell them who shot their father. I'm not goin' to die till one o' them shoots him.' I'm reckonin' to hear o' trouble in Clay County mos' any time, but I really think that is the last o' them."
"What started that?"
"An argument over a twenty-five dollar note," was the response. "But you don't want to think these were the real causes; they were usually jes' firebrands that made things worse. Most o' these hyeh feuds date back to enmities made in the Civil War an' in moonshinin'."
"But why the war?" asked Hamilton. "I thought nearly all the mountaineers in Kentucky fought for the North--I know you were with Lee, of course, but I thought that was exceptional."
"None o' them fought for the No'th!" exclaimed the old Confederate soldier indignantly.
"Why, Uncle Eli!" said Hamilton, in surprise, "I was sure that most of them went into the Union army."
"So they did, boy, so they did, but those who did it thought they were fightin' for the nation, not for the No'th. An' the slavery question didn' matter much hyeh. Don' yo' let any one tell yo' that the Union army was made up o' abolitionists, because it wasn't. It was made up o' bigger men than that. It was made up o' patriots. I thought them wrong then,--I do yet; but thar ain't no denyin' that they were fightin' for what they thought was right."
"But why did you join the South, Uncle Eli?" asked the boy. "I can understand father doing it, because he was a South Carolinian."
"I was workin' fo' peace," the mountaineer rejoined "When No'th and South was talkin' war, Kentucky, as yo' will remember havin' read, decided to remain neutral, an' organized the State Guards to preserve that neutrality. I was willin' to let well enough alone, but when the No'th come down an' tried to force the State Guards to join their cause, I went with the rest to Dixie. I don' believe," added the old man solemnly, "that thar ever was a war like that befo', where every man on both sides fought for a principle, an' where there was no selfish motive anywhere."
"The Howkles were with the Federals, weren't they?" prompted Hamilton, fearing lest the old man should drift into war reminiscences, when he wanted to hear about feuds.
"Ol' Isaac Howkle was," the mountaineer replied "an' that was how the little trouble we had begun. At least, it had a good deal to do with it. Isaac an' I had never got along, an' jes' befo' the war, we had some words about the Kentucky State Guards. But I wasn't bearin' any grudge, an' I never supposed Isaac was. However, in a skirmish near Cumberland Gap, I saw that he was jes' achin' to get me, an' the way he tried was jes' about the meanes' thing I ever heard o' any one doin' on the Ridge."
"How was it, do tell me?" pleaded Hamilton, his eyes shining with interest.
"Howkle was with Wolford's cavalry, an' I was under 'Fightin'' Zollicoffer, as they called him," the old man began. "Thar had been a little skirmish,--one o' these that never get into the dispatches that don' do any good, but after which thar's always good men lef' lyin' on the ground. We had driven 'em back a bit, an' I was comin' in when I saw a lad--he didn't look more'n about fifteen--lyin' in a heap an' groanin'. Knowin' a drink would do him more good than an'thin' else, I reached for my canteen, an' stooped down. Jes' about then, a horseman dashed out o' the scrub an', almos' befo' I could think o' what was comin', he struck at me with his sabre."
"When you were giving drink to a wounded soldier!" cried Hamilton indignantly. "What