By Staff
I am finishing up with the article written by Mr. A.J. McCreary for the newspaper in 1980. I have seen some other write-ups in old newspapers here in the office and am going to try to let you know about them in the future.
Mr. Hart was living in Florida on the Yellow River when the Florida Creek Indian War of 1837 broke out. He joined the Army and served as a private in the West Florida Volunteers until the war scare blew over. He later moved into south Alabama and settled on the bounty land he received for serving in the Army during this war.
Mr. Hart had four sons serving in the Confederate Army at this time. One of his sons, Allen Thomas, lived a short distance up the road from his father on the right side of the road. He was in the Confederate Army and his wife, on hearing the Yankees were coming, took what livestock she could gather and what cured meat she could carry and hid everything in the woods back of her house. As the raiders were well supplied with corn and potatoes, she only lost some chickens and pigs that she could not hide and a wagon they burned.
Another son, Reuben Sylvester, was in the Rebel Army and was captured Aug. 3, 1864, by the Yankees between Marietta and Atlanta, Ga., during the Battle of Atlanta. He was wounded in Marietta a short time before his capture. An almost spent Yankee bullet hit him in his forehead, broke the skin for three inches and glanced off his skull. He said later that his head was too hard for a Yankee bullet to penetrate. He was sent to Camp Chase, Ohio, arriving there Aug. 13th. He was paroled from Camp Chase on the 18th of March, 1865, and was shipped to Point Lookout, Md., arriving there March 27th, and was released shortly after the war ended April 9th. It took him more than a month to get home as he had to walk all the way home. He said people along the way were real nice, giving him food and letting him sleep most of the time in their barns. He was not alone. Hundreds of others were going home the same way.
Although it was raining and had been for several days, high water did not hinder the Yankees on their march as there is not a creek of any size on the east side of the Conecuh River from where they entered the Three Notch Road to Andalusia, so they did not have to cross any large swollen streams.
I have received several emails with information and asking for information. Maybe some of our readers may be able to help with this request from Joyce Smith Irwin, who wrote, "My father is Edison Fulton Smith, his father is John Allen Smith, his father is Robert L. Smith, his father is David Smith, his father is Jacob Smith I. I have a copy of Annie Water's "History of Escambia County Alabama." As Mrs. Water's book did not include my father as one of the 13 children of John A. Smith and Mary Godwin, I am aware that there are some mistakes in her book.