Hinds County MsArchives News.....CAPTAIN WHITE USED SMART IDEAS IN CAPTURING TRAIN July 194?
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Pattie Snowball http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00017.html#0004072 October 13, 2007, 10:23 am

Daily Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, Mississippi July 194?

April 27, 194_
Daily Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, Miss.

CAPTAIN WHITE USED SMART IDEAS IN CAPTURING TRAIN
___________________
 
  Captain Sterling White came from Texas to Raymond, Mississippi, Hinds 
County, during the Civil War and married the Widow Sims, who owned a 
plantation about a mile from Raymond.
  He was a devout member of the church and his gentle manner belied his 
fearless spirit.  He commanded a company of Scouts, who operated all around 
Vicksburg during and after the Siege.
  When I was about nine years old, after attending Sunday school at the 
Methodist church in Raymond, my cousin, Vaser Shearer and I with several other 
boys, were standing on the corner of the street opposite the home of Dr. 
Dupree, later the home of Captain W.T. Ratliff.
  We saw a train of wagons coming up the road from Bolton and Edwards with one 
Confederate soldier riding up and down the line.  Upon closer view I 
recognized Captain White.  There were twenty-five wagons of the Union Army, 
two soldiers and two mules to each wagon with one man in the wagon and the 
other riding one of the mules.
  I later learned the tactics used by Captain White in capturing this Yankee 
wagon train.
  Vicksburg is about 28 miles from Raymond in a north westerly direction and 
from there the wagon train had been sent on a foraging expedition.  Captain 
White, presumably, had slipped into Raymond to see his wife and when he heard 
of the Union foraging scouts being on one of the roads leading from Vicksburg 
to Raymond, realized his own men were too far away to assist in their capture.
  Being a very daring and fearless officer and knowing so well the surrounding 
country, He laid his plans to meet them at the pinnacle of a very steep hill.  
He waited on his side of the hill until the first wagon appeared, then 
ordering them to throw their guns and pistols on the ground, he called back as 
if to his company. “Come on boys, we’ve got them.”  As he road down the line 
with an army pistols in each hand, continued disarming the fifty Yankee 
soldiers who were manning the wagons before they realized he was alone.  
  I consider the above a companion story of the Civil War to the one of Alvin 
York of the World War.
  William Baker Sivley, Sr.
  Memphis, Tenn., 1222 Union Ave.


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