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. F. Larrison

My name is John F. Larrison, aged 66 years, a farmer, reside about 3 1/2 miles from Cleveland.

I have been acquainted with the claimant and have been about 23 years our farms come together and we live about one mile and a quarter apart and I am well acquainted with claimants farm. It is one of the first valley farms of the county.

I think I was in the claimant’s hayfields in the summer of 1863 when he was cutting his hay.

It was good hay for this county. It was a mixture of clover and timothy but I don’t know what an acre will yield of good hay. I recollect that the claimant had two large ricks of hay and I noticed that these two large ricks or stacks of hay were still there after the rebels left these parts and after the federals came into this county.

I don’t recollect seeing any horses in claimant’s field during the year 1864. But there might have been but I paid no attention to it.

Question by claimant – Do you know anything about the rebels getting my hay in 1862?

Answer – I understood that the claimant’s hay was taken in 1862 but understood the claimant got pay for it. And I saw the rebel cattle in the claimant’s fields in the winter of 1862-3.

Question – Do you know anything about the rebels taking my cattle in September 1863?

Answer – I learned both from the claimant and J.C. Steed that the rebels had taken, just before the rebels left this county, this cattle.

Question – Do you know anything about my son Gus or James Campbell bringing some their federal soldiers to your house who had escaped from a battle or skirmish at Cleveland, to my house?

Answer – I recollect that Gus Cate and James Campbell brought some their soldiers to my house about the night after the skirmish at Cleveland. But I don’t recollect where these soldiers had been concealed during the day except I heard Gus say he found one of them in a brush heap. I went with Gus Cate and James Campbell and took these soldiers to John Cobb’s.

Gus and James came back with me to my house and stayed all night and till after breakfast next morning. I don’t recollect the names of any of these soldiers.

Question – Do you know anything about Union men trying to get to the federal lines and about them sometimes lying out days before they could get across?

Answer – I do know about Union men lying out and trying to get across the lines. I often found them and took them to my house and fed them and sometimes conveyed them further on their way. But I don’t recollect the names of any of them who were strangers. In fact I did not want to know their names – to avoid being questioned.

Question – Were not some of these conscripts that had deserted the rebel army in a destitute condition?

Answer – Some of them were a very destitute condition. I gave one a pair of pants and a vest.

Question – Did you consider me loyal or disloyal during the war?

Answer – When he was with me he claimed to be Union man, but I heard other Union men doubt it, such as Leonard Carrouth and J.C. Steed. And have heard these men and others say that he made money by the war.

Question – Do you know of the rebels furnishing protection papers to any person in this country or any safequards?

Answer – I do not of my own knowledge. I have heard Carrouth and Steed say that claimant had got protection.

Question – Did you ever tell Captain A.E. Blount that I said I had not lost anything by the war?

Answer – I don’t recollect but my impression is that claimant had that chat with me.

Question – Did you not tell Colonel James B. Brownlow that I had always said that I lost nothing by either army?

Answer – I think the claimant said he had not lost anything by either army.

Question – Did you tell Col. James B. Brownlow that I was deeply in debt at the commencement of the war?

Answer – My understanding was that he was in debt at the beginning of the war and that he had money at the end of the war. But I did not know of my own knowledge that he owed anything. What I stated was from the talk of other people such as Norman, Steed and Carrouth. The whole neighborhood said he made money by the war.

Question – Did not claimant make money by the products of his farm and from the stock he raised? And what he bought and sold?

Answer – He made money by the products of his farm and from the stocks he raised and bought and sold. Stock at that time could be bought cheap such as had been picked up by soldiers and was then sold to citizens at a cheap rate.

But I don’t know anything of his trading for stock except what I heard from others. But I frequently saw stock in his possession. Steed and myself wondered how we lost all, and he did not lose more than he did.

Question – Did you not file a claim before the Tennessee commissioners appointed by the Governor under the state law?

Answer – I did.

Question – Was J.C. Steed one of your loyal witnesses in that case?

Answer – He was.

Question – Did not Steed say that you were loyal during the war but became disloyal by voting for Seuter in the Seuter/Stokes election for Governor of the state of Tennessee?

Answer – Steed said that I was as loyal a man as was in the United States during the war and after the war up to the Stokes and Seuter election, but that I became disloyal by voting for Seuter in that election. This election was in August 1868.

Question – Have you not heard Captain A.E. Blount say that he thought more of a rebel, than of a Union man that voted for Seuter.

Answer – My best recollection is that I have.

Question – Did you ever visit me in my (?) in 1869.

Answer – I don’t recollect.

Question – Have you visited me since the spring of 1861? except on business?

Answer – I can’t recollect that I have except on business or any of the rest of the (?).

Question – Did we not have a difficulty in 1861?

Answer – We had a difficulty about a nag and then about a road about the year of 1859 – and were not friendly, but during the war we were friendly and have been so since.

signed,
J.F. Larrison
before, John W. Ramsey – Special Commissioner

 

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Links to each section of the transcribed file:

• 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
  • Depositions:
    William Cate ~ Joseph H. Davis ~ Leonard Carrouth ~ Capt. A. E. Blount ~ John A. Steed ~ J. F. Larrison ~ Mrs. Sidney Henderson ~ Col. D. M. Nelson ~ Samuel Grigsby ~ Andrew J. Maples ~ John A. Hague ~ Herman Foster ~ Thomas L. Cate ~ James McGhee ~ Thomas Rains ~ D. B. Oneal ~ Thomas A. Cowan ~ C. L. Hardwick ~ Joseph Calloway ~ J. C. Steed ~ Joseph R. Taylor ~ William W. Wood(s) ~ James H. Brown ~ James S. Robertson ~ John H. Craigmiles ~ John H. Parker ~ John McReynolds ~ John W. Witcher
• 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.