First Forney Cafe Operator Tells of War

Bees Help Federals Win Battle From Confederates.

Art Combination

House Painter Helps Put on Shows and Stages Horse RAces.

By W. S. Adair.

"I was born at St. Louis, in 1852, and was in the South during the Civil War," said C. S. Southern, 2811 Marsalis avenue. "My father, Stephen F. Southern, who had fought in Taylor's command in the Mexican War, and served in some Indian campaigns, moved to Tennessee toward the end of the [illegible], and early became a Confederate soldier. Soon battles were raging all around us, and we refugeed to Georgia. There we found things even worse, and once more took to fight, bringing up in Mills' Valley, on the line of Alabama and Tennessee, a spot so out-of-the-way that it seemed no sort of disturbance could ever penetrate its solitude.

"But the first thing we knew the armies had picked the farm we were on for a battlefield. WE had a number of hives of bees. Mother had the negroes to carry the bee gums to the second floor of the loghouse in which we lived, foreseeing that otherwise she would have no honey after the battle. The armies shifted in such a way as to get our house between them.

"The Confederates, who were getting the better of the bout, soon invaded our yeard and used the house and negro cabins for breastworks. A Federal shell struck the top of the house, tore away part of the roof and upset the beehives. The enraged bees streamed forth, and, mistaking the Confederate soldiers for the guilty parties, began to sting them and make them clear out.

Good Word for the Federals.

"Finally, the Confederates gave ground and the Federals followed them, the din of battle lessening as they went. But in a short time here they came back, and this time the Federals occupied our yard. When the Federal officers discovered that mother and we children had been in the house during hte fighting, they treated us with the utmost kindess, and even left us with a store of provisions, and it was well they did so, for otherwise we should have been in destitute circumstances, with all that those two big words imply, for the armies left that region a desert. When the firing ceased our yard was full of dead soldiers: Confederate and Federals lay peacefully side by side. General Wheeler was one of the commanders in this fight; I do not remember the name of the other. Just before hte battle I had managed to get hold of a copy of a Nashville newspaper. Mother made me take it to General Wheeler, who eagerly snatched it, and handed me a $100 bill, in Confederate money.

"Toward the end of th war, father was a Confederate spy, and spent most of his time among the Yankees. To prevent reinforcements from reaching the Federals, General Beauregard ordered father to burn the bridge over Duck River at Wartrace, the upshot of which was that a train crowded to standing room with Union soldiers went into the river. At the close of the war, the Federal Government offered a reward of $30,000 for father, dead or alive. He refugeed to Havana. After a stay of a year to Cuba, he returned to the United States and asked for a trial. He was tried at Louisville, Ky., and acquitted.

Moves to Texas.

"The next year, 1867, we moved to Texas. We traveled by steamboats as far as Shreveport, and from there to Tyler, where we temporarily settled, by stage. At that time there were but there railroads or rather pieces of railroads in Texas—the Old Harrisburg line, the Houston & Texas Central, extending from Houston to Hempstead, and the Marshall & Shreveport line, extending from Shreveport to Marshall, and beyond Marshall to Hallsville. Father, who was a house, sign and [illegible] pointer and decorator and paperhanger, found himself reduced to the necessity of falling back on his trade, the war having strtipped him of all his worldly possessions.

Article provided by Bill Page.

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