Additional Testimony for the Commissioners of Claims at Washington

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

Deposition of William W. Woods

Aged 44 years, reside in Cleveland, Tennessee. I am in the tin and stove and dry good business. I am not related to claimant and have no interest in his claim. I have known the claimant 23 years and lived about half the time in a mile and a half of him and a half of the time 2 1/2 miles from the claimant. I always regarded him as a true Union man. I never heard anybody doubt his loyalty.

Question by claimant – Did you ever notice the intimacy between me and Capt. Blount for the first few years after the war?

Answer – I often saw them together and acting together as good friends for years after the war.

Question – Were you not an indorser on a note in bank for Capt. A.E. Blount’s benefit? If so state the circumstances under which you were on it and what became of it and when it was.

Answer – I did go on a note for his benefit for two thousand dollars thinking it was a note for two hundred dollars. He suffered it to go to protest in the First National Bank at Cleveland, and I had to mortgage my town property to raise the money to pay said debt. It was, if I recollect it was about twelve months before I got the money out of him.

This Bank note went to protest about 1870 or 1871. I paid the debt under judgement and execution.

Question – Do you know anything about T.L. Cate, a nephew of mine, having a registered letter lost in the post office at Cleveland under Capt. Blount?

Answer – I heard the rumor and that he or his clerk was getting up the money to pay it. The clerk was not turned off.

signed,
W.W. Wood [as transcribed]
before, John W. Ramsey – Spec. Comm.

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.