PAPA'S ACCIDENT

My grandfather and grandmother May reared a family of ten children. Five of their children were born after the Civil War ended in 1865.

The main amusement of the young people of that day was square dancing. The girls would be dressed in hoop skirts that reached their ankles in length. The dances would be given in their homes and every young person in reach would go. Sometimes they would dance all night. Grandpa was one they depended on to play the violin. In later years he lost his eye sight and although blind, he still enjoyed playing.

My parents moved from Tennessee to Texas sometime after the year 1882. (Exact date unknown).

My father, years earlier at the age of sixteen years old, had volunteered for service in the Civil War and was in the cavalry. But owing to an accident in mounting his horse and reaching for his gun, it was accidentally discharged and injured two fingers that had to be amputated at the knuckle of his right hand. He was handicapped for life as to the use of his hand.

I do not know how long Papa was in the service and know but very little as to his life while growing into manhood. All I have written as to the happenings and hardships during the Civil War, and the things experienced by my grandparents, were told to me by my mother who was ten years old at the time. She could give a vivid description of it all and related it many times to we children. It is from the memory of what she told me in my childhood that I have tried to put in writing as accurate as possible.