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 McReynolds

Age 62 years. I am a farmer and miller and reside about four miles from Cleveland and two miles form the claimant. I am not related to the claimant and have no interest in his claim.

I have been intimately acquainted with the claimant nearly fifty years; knew his farm from schoolboy days. Our farms lie on Mouse Creek, in Mouse Creek valley, and I am well acquainted with his farm. His farm is an excellent farm, good for wheat, grass and corn.

I have examined the claimant’s account. The Bacon is certainly reasonable for his farming.

The flour could not have been made for less than 6 cents a pound. The corn was cheap at a dollar a bushel. The hay is cheap enough at one dollar per hundred pounds.

The wheat straw was cheap at that time at five dollar a ton.

The pork was cheap at that time at ten cents per pound.

The wheat crop of 1864 was not a first rate wheat crop. And I think that the claimant’s land even that poor year would have averaged eight bushel per acre. It is as good a field for wheat or corn as is in this county. I know that the claimant had good hay in 1864 and that I made two tons per acre that year on similar land.

Prices may look high but it took about two dollars in Greenback to purchase one in gold.

The claimant is considered a good farmer and has a choice farm.

Question by the claimant – Could not a hungry army have foraged something like two thousand or at least seventeen hundred dollars worth of farm products from me during the years 1862, 1863 and 1864.

Answer – I think they could and especially the way prices were at that time.

Question – Did you know me to be in debt or enthrolled at the beginning of the war?

Answer – If claimant was enthrolled in any way, I did not know it.

Question – Do you know anything unkind or ill feelings between me and Mr. J.F. Larrison?

Answer – I recollect that there were bad feelings between them about a mare before the war. And I recollect another cause of difficulty about where a road should run. This took place about the year 1861.

Question – What do you know about his feelings after this, and what did Larrison say about claimant’s losses.

Answer – When I heard him talk about the claimant he spoke of him as about as big a rebel as any of them, but declared he had been smart, and lost nothing by the war, or had managed to save his property.

Question – Do you know anything of a difficulty between J.C. Steed and claimant about the said Steed dogging and injuring a number of fine hogs for claimant?

Answer – I heard these hard feelings existing between them on account of said Steed’s people dogging and injuring claimant’s hogs. I heard this from several persons. This was about 1864. I was making inquiry, because I had several hogs that had strayed off and fences had been torn down by the armies till they were (?).

Some persons told me that they had killed some and badly abused other.

Question – Do you know anything about my loyalty?

Answer – I was a Union man in the early part of the war. And so was the claimant. And if ever the claimant was anything but a Union man, I never found it out. I know he was a Union man in the early part of the war, and I never had any reason to believe he had changed from anything I ever heard from him.

signed,
John McReynolds
before, John W. Ramsey – Spec. Comm. 

 

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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.