Additional Testimony for the Commissioners of Claims at Washington

Claim of William Cate of Bradley county, Tennessee no. 15.774 and 20702

Deposition of J. C. Steed

Age 53, Residence near Cleveland. I am a farmer not related to the claimant and have no interest in his claim.

Question by the claimant – Are you acquainted with my farm and were you acquainted with it during the war?

Answer – I am and was well acquainted with it during the war.

Question – Do you know anything of the amount I had in clover and grass in 1862-3 that I mowed?

Answer – I suppose that there must have been seventy five to eighty acres.

Question – Was it good clover and grass?

Answer – As far as I recollect it was a good field of clover. It was mixed with timothy and clover.

Question – When did you leave home in 1863 for the federal lines and who went with you?

Answer – I left on the 18th day of September 1863, and Gus Cate, James Campbell and I think James Baker went with me to the federal lines. I went on to Knoxville and was gone about a month.

Question – Was there a fight at Cleveland the morning before you left and did you hear anything about two or three federal soldiers getting to my house pursued by rebels.

Answer – There was a fight at Cleveland and the federals were scattered and I understood from the claimant that two or three federals had got to his house and I have no doubt but that was true for one of them came on to my house. I was living on the far side of the claimants house from Cleveland. And I believe that I heard the claimant say that some rebel soldiers came in pursuit of them.

Question – Do you know anything about General Dibbrel’s command pressing the Cleveland Mills and grinding up some sick wheat? And do you recollect anything about how I deceived the rebels about my wheat and saved it?

Answer – I recollect that General Dibbrell pressed the Cleveland mills, and ground up some sick wheat that made their soldiers sick and I recollect the claimants telling me how he saved his wheat from the rebels by pretending it was sick wheat.

Question – Do you recollect anything about the federal soldiers taking my sheep?

Answer – I heard the claimant say that the federal soldiers taking his sheep about the time it was down and as they took a cow from me.

Question – Did you know anything about my business during the war?

Answer – But little about his business as I stayed close at home and attended to my own business.

Question – Did you tell Col. John B. Brownlow that I had never fed nor concealed Union soldiers?

Answer – If I told him anything on that subject I told him that I did not believe he did. But I don’t recollect that he ever asked me such a question.

Question – Do you recollect anything about a conversation about filing our claims before the Board and asking me if I was going to file my claim?

Answer – I may have asked him such a question, but I don’t recollect it. I have an indistinct recollection of talking on that subject but don’t recollect what it was.

Question – Did you tell James B. Brownlow that my rebel neighbors all considered me a rebel?

Answer – If he ever asked me such a question, I told him they did.

Question – Will you state the names of some of these rebel neighbors?

Answer – I don’t recollect the names of any of these rebel neighbors and would not tell if I did.

Question – Do you know anything about J.F. Larrison and myself being at outs or ill terms for the last several years?

Answer – You and he have been on ill terms for several years.

Question – Have there been any neighborship between you and I since 1865?

Answer – There has not been, but I lived further from him than before the war.

Question – Were you a loyalty witness for J.F. Larrison before the Tennseess Court of Claims and what did you prove for Him?

Answer – I was called before them and would not prove for him after he became a conservative.

( At this point Mr. J.C. Steed, who had all the time showed a disposition not to testify any further than he could avoid it, refused to testify any further but got up and left my office. I requested him to sign his name to what I had written and read over to him sentence by sentence as I wrote it, but he refused to do it saying that he would not have come to testify for the claimant at all if he had known what sort of question he was going to ask him. A word about the dogging the claimant’s hogs had dropped out. Which at once fi(?)d the witness and showed that since that difficulty there had been no friendship between them.)

before and written by John W. Ramsey – Spec. Comm.

 

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Introduction & Part VIII — Conclusion
Part I — William Cate’s Claimed Losses
Part II — Notes from the Office of the Commissioners of Claims
Part III — Depositions Taken in 1875 Regarding Claimant’s (Cate) Loyalty
Part IV — Opinion Submitted by John B. Brownlow, U. S. Special Commission
Part V — Additional Testimony for the Commissioners of Claims at Washington
Part VI — Summary of All Evidence for and Against Cate’s Loyalty
Part VII — Opinion of Witnesses by John W. Ramsey
Part VIII — William Cate’s Letter to Judge A. O. Alder

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The information in these articles was formerly linked from Bradley County TNGenWeb to a site owned by Danny Roy Williams at Geocities.  The site was last available in 2009.  It is available through the Internet Archive here.  No copyright infringement is intended.