“Did your family rejoice when they were set free?” was the natural question to ask Uncle George.

“I cannot say that they were happy, as it broke up a lot of real friendships and scattered many families.  Mother had a great many pretty quilts and a lot of bedding.  After the negroes were set free, Mars.  Arnold told us we could all go and make ourselves homes, so we started out, each of the grown persons loaded with great bundles of bedding, clothing and personal belongings.  We walked all the way to Wartrace to try to find a home and some way to make a living.”

George W. Arnold remembers seeing many soldiers going to the pike road on their way to Murfreesboro.  “Long lines of tired men passed through Guy’s Gap on their way to Murfreesboro,” said he.  “Older people said that they were sent out to pick up the dead from the battle fields after the bloody battle of Stone’s river that had lately been fought at Murfreesboro.  They took their comrades to bury them at the Union Cemetery near the town of Murfreesboro.”

“Wartrace was a very nice place to make our home.  It was located on the Nashville and Chattanooga and St. Louis railroad, just fifty-one miles from Nashville not many miles from our old home.  Mother found work and we got along very well but as soon as we children were old enough to work, she went back to her old home in Georgia where a few years later she died.  I believe she lived to be seventy-five or seventy six years of age, but I never saw her after she went back to Georgia.”

“My first work was done on a farm (there are many fine farms in Tennessee) and although farm labor was not very profitable we were always fed wherever we worked and got some wages.  Then I got a job on the railroad.  Our car was side tracked at a place called Silver Springs,” said Uncle George, “and right at that place came trouble that took the happiness out of my life forever.”  Here the story teller paused to collect his thoughts and conquer the nervous twitching of his lips.  “It was like this:  Three of us boys worked together.  We were like three brothers, always sharing our fortunes with each other.  We should never have done it, but we had made a habit of sending to Nashville after each payday and having a keg of Holland rum sent in by freight.  This liquor was handed out among our friends and sometimes we drank too much and were unfit for work for a day or two.  Our boss was a big strong Irishman, red haired and friendly.  He always got drunk with us and all would become sober enough to soon return to our tasks.”

“The time I’m telling you about, we had all been invited to a candy pulling in town and could hardly wait till time to go, as all the young people of the valley would be there to pull candy, talk, play games and eat the goodies served to us.  The accursed keg of Holland rum had been brought in that morning and my chum John Sims had been drinking too much.  About that time our Boss came up and said, ’John, it is time for you to get the supper ready!’ John was our cook and our meals were served on the caboose where we lived wherever we were side tracked.”