Additional Testimony for the Commissioners of Claims at Washington

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

Deposition of John A. Hague

Aged 29 years, reside 6 miles from Cleveland but was brought up in Cleveland and lived there during the war. I enlisted in the Federal army in the fall of 1862 in the 4th Tennessee Cavalry but in 1863 I was mustered into “Company I” though I always remained in Company “E”. I have an honorable discharge on the close of the war.

In the spring of the year 1861, after the fall of Fort Sumter, the people of Cleveland concluded to put up a Union pole.

Myself and father, who is now dead, hauled this pole, it was 90 feet high and was a big job. Myself and father was running a livery stable at that time and the claimant got us to haul the pole and paid us five dollars for hauling this pole. And he was active in putting it up on the courtyard square. It was set six feet in the ground. I was present aiding to raise the pole.

On the 18th day of September 1863, I was at home in Cleveland acting as pilot for the Michigan United States soldiers when there was a battle or skirmish in and around Cleveland about daylight that morning and the federal troops were put to rout. I lost my horse and ran out north 2 1/2 miles to the claimant’s house for safety. (When I got to his house he had just got from a strawstack where he had just carried them their breakfast.?) Myself, James Campbell and Enoch Shipley got to his house together. Shipley was a soldier and Campbell went into the army a few days after. We all knew the claimant and fled to his house for protection.

And I saw the three soldiers that he had hid at the stack and which he enabled them to escape from the rebels.

The rebels were in pursuit of us and I understood that a party of rebels had been there when I got there and had gone on as they supposed in pursuit of them.

In the spring of 1865, I was sent out to get some horses that the Federals were then pasturing on claimant’s farm and brought the horses away from his farm.

I had known him from my childhood and during the whole war knew him well and never doubted his loyalty to the federal government and I am satisfied that the neighbors all regarded him as a Union man and I have never heard his loyalty doubted.

signed,
John A. Hague
before, John W. Ramsey – Special Commission

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

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.