Additional Testimony for the Commissioners of Claims at Washington

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

Deposition of Mrs. Sidney Henderson

Aged 69, reside in Cleveland Tennessee and am the widow of John Henderson deceased.

I recollect that in the spring of 1864 while the federals were camped at Cleveland and General McPherson and others were camped at my house in Cleveland that the claimant came to my house to see a Quartermaster who was through and had a talk with the Quarter Master about hay and straw that the troops had taken from him. I recollect that I was present and heard their conversation and heard the Quartermaster talk of giving a voucher to claimant if he could ascertain how much command had got but the Quartermaster said the Quartermaster Regulations he did not think authorized his giving a voucher for the straw.

I knew Mr. Cate as a Union man, and I interceded for him and told the Quartermaster that I hoped he would do something for him as he had lost so much. I don’t recollect the amount but it was a large amount of each that was claimed for.

I know that the army that was here was obliged to forage on the country because supplies were cut off at the time. I recollect that the claimant did not get any voucher at that time.

I also recollect that in the fall of 1864 I saw large quantities of hay hauled from the direction of the claimant’s farm and upon inquiry found that it came from Mr. William Cate’s farm.

Question by claimant – How long did Captain A.E. Blount board at your house?

Answer – He boarded there about fifteen months.

Question – Did you ever hear Captain A.E. Blount speak of me as a Union man?

Answer – I heard him often talk about you and your family. Your family was a favorite one with him and he often spoke of you as one of the strong Union men of the county.

Question – Was there any rebel raids made to Cleveland after Captain A.E. Blount came back to board with you?

Answer – I recollect that sometime before Christmas 1864 while Mr. Blount was at my house after my husbands death; Captain Blount was down in town and he came running to my house and told me that I would have to take care of myself for that if the rebels caught him they would hang him. I told him to take care of himself. He said he would go out to Uncle (Bill?) Cate’s the claimants – as the safest place he knew of, and he left in a hurry.

The next morning the claimant came to town and past my house to see what was going on and finding that the rebels were not in town he went back home and in the evening Captain Blount back to my house.

Question – Do you recollect that Captain A.E. Blount got me to come in and eat dinner with some Union officers in the spring of 1865 and the conversation that took place on that occasion?

Answer – I recollect Captain Blount bringing in the claimant to dinner and introducing him to the Union officers as one of the staunch Union men of this county. I recollect that at that dinner a conversation took place about how the claimant fooled the rebels about the sick wheat.

Question – Whose family did Capt. Blount primarily associate with after he came back to your house to board at the close of the war and after he was married?

Answer – The claimant’s family was the only family Capt. Blount visited after he came back. In a few days after he married and brought his wife home to my house he took his wife out to the claimant’s house on a visit to spend the day and he and his wife visited the claimants several times before he left my house and moved home.

Question – Do you know anything of Capt. Blounts’ making a dinner after he moved to his own house and inviting myself and family?

Answer – I recollect that Capt. Blount made a dinner and invited the claimant and his family to the dinner and nobody else. I felt a little hurt after he had boarded so long with me because he did not invite me. I never knew Capt. Blount to ask anybody else to dinner except the claimant and his family unless it was the Honorable Horace Maynard.

Question – Do you recollect anything of Union barbecue in the fall of 1865 at Colonel Beard’s for the returned Union soldiers and what did he do?

Answer – I recollect that I let him have my carriage to go to this barbecue and he only took himself and wife to the barbecue and that when the dinner came on he took his dinner and instead of putting it on the public tables he went round behind the carriages and to eat it all alone with his wife.

signed,
her mark, Sidney Henderson

note by John W. Ramsey – Special Commissioner
This witness is so nervous that she would not try to write her name though a lady of intelligence. 

 

---

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.