Military Records: Winn Confederate Veterans, 1957, Winn Parish, LA Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** From: January 10, 1957 Winn Parish Enterprise (Permission to reprint Mr. H. B. Bozeman's article granted to me by Mr. Estes Bozeman) Winn Parish As I Have Known It by H. B. Bozeman Article No. 15 When I worked at the Kyiche Store in 1902-03 there were a lot of Confederate veterans still living around Dodson. It had been less than 40 years since the end of the Civil War and only a little over 30 years since the State of Louisiana had emerged from the terrible days of Reconstruction. Louisiana had been ruled by a corrupt band of Northern carpetbaggers, Southern scalawags, and ignorant Negro puppets, backed by Federal bayonets. "Uncle Jake" Grisham, manager of the Kyiche Store was an unreconstructed rebel and a Confederate veteran. He always attended every State and National Confederate Reunion. Before and after these Confederate reunions many Confederate veterans dropped by the store to talk over and re-live the stirring days of the Civil War and the black days of Reconstruction. Among those Confederate veterans that I particularly remember were Rev. George A. Kelly of Winnfield, "Uncle" Bill Dark of Gaars Mill, Antone Radescich of Tannehill, Sellinger Wyatt, of Wyatt, and Major Clark, the peddler. For hours I listened in rapt attention to the Civil War tales of these old timers. When several of them got together and started talking a crowd always gathered and if Rev. George A. Kelly was there, and the crowd got pretty big, he was sure to make a fiery speech, eulogizing the "Lost Cause of the Confederacy". He was truly a gifted speaker and entertaining talker. He could make his listeners feel like they were in the front lines of Picket's charge at Gettysburg, or wearily plodding their way back home after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Rev. George A. Kelly, after the Civil War, held several important offices in Winn Parish. At that time he was semi-retired, filling preaching appointments, guest speaker on special occasions and selling cemetery monuments. I think that he just about sold every "tombstone", as grave monuments were then called, that was sold in the Dodson area between 1902-05. Major Clark was one of those "unforgettable characters" around Dodson, when I was a boy, living there. I don't know if he was a real Confederate major or not. Everyone called him "Major". He never wore anything except a Confederate soldier's uniform. For years he had been a house-to-house peddler of household merchandise in North Winn and South Jackson Parishes. He drove a pair of slow moving mules that pulled his store on wheels, from farm house to farm house, where he either sold his merchandise or bartered it for chickens, eggs, and other farm produce. Inside his store wagon he had his stock of notions, light groceries, and patent medicines. Beneath the wagon bed were chicken coops and a compartment to hold eggs and other farm produce. On the top and sides of the store wagon were all kinds of tinware and kitchen utensils of that day, hung on pegs or tied on with wire. People living in the country said they could hear the rattle of Major Clark's tinware, at least a mile down the road, and the women folks had time to gather up the eggs and catch the chickens that they would barter for the Major's wares, long before he got to their home. He lived alone in a small house near where the Dodson High School building now is. One of the items that he sold was a salve that he made from herbs, stewed up in wash pots in his back yard. This salve was claimed to be good for whatever ailed man or beast. Adam Stinson, Aubrey Pyburn, and I became curious about what kind of herbs the Major cooked up for his salve. One day when he was cooking the herb brew, we sneaked up to his backyard through the underbrush and were gazing at the pile of herbs that looked like Polk root and Jimson weeds, when he discovered us. I had heard Major Clark "cuss" before, but when he saw us, he let loose a stream of "cussing" that must have used up ever word in the "cussing vocabulary". He came at us with a hoe and we went through the brush like rabbits. From then on, I always kept a safe running distance between the Major and myself.