The last record made by Captain C. N. Carney of the birth of his family servants, was that of Aleck, a valuable, bright colored man, born March 30th, 1840. When the Civil War broke out, Aleck was just twenty-one, and a man of fine appearance. In 1863, he and a fellow servant, Cæsar Carney, were pressed into service to work on a Federal fort at New Providence, Tenn. They were retained three months. While employed at work raising a steamboat sunk by the Confederates in Harpeth River, Cæsar ran away and came home, and through the influence of good friends in Clarksville, who knew Col. Bruce, the Federal officer in command, Mrs. Carney secured the release of Aleck, who gladly returned home and took up his work with Uncle Isaac in the blacksmith shop. Aleck is still in the land of the living; he owns a comfortable little home on the Port Royal road leading to Clarksville, from which, by the assistance of his son, he conducts a successful blacksmith trade, and strange to say, in his shop may be seen many of the tools he bought at the Carney sale, some of which have been in use over a century.
Among the Carney colored people, none ranked above Betsy, Aleck’s sister, a fine looking yellow woman, who married Dennis Neblett, previously mentioned. No kinder heart ever beat in human breast than that of Betsy Carney-Neblett. She was a fine nurse, and would lay aside her home work any day to minister to the afflicted of her neighborhood, and when asked her charges for same, would say, “I make no charges for Christian duty.”
There was an air of dignified independence in her make up, that attracted even the casual observer. For instance, she would go to church dressed in a neat plaid cotton dress, a large housekeeper’s apron, and plain sailor hat, and feel as comfortable as if clad in the finest fabrics. Assisted by her economy, and thrift, her worthy husband was enabled to buy a small farm, a portion of the Carney estate, on Parson’s Creek, known as the Carney Quarter.
When there was all-day meeting and dinner on the ground at Grant’s Chapel, Betsy and Dennis often went along to take charge of the dinner for some special friends, as Miss Ellen Yates, Mrs. Dr. Northington, or some of the Grants. On communion days, when Rev. J. W. Cullom was pastor in charge, he never failed to go to the church door and extend an invitation to the colored people outside to go in and partake of the Lord’s Supper, and it was not uncommon to see Betsy and Dennis walk reverently down the aisle and kneel around the chancel. After a long and useful life, she passed away, ten or fifteen years ago, and her body was laid to rest on the hillside near the scene of her birth.
Henry W. Grady, the South’s greatest orator and statesman, in a speech at Boston, Mass., a few years before his death, gave a battlefield experience that was eloquently pathetic. He said:
“In sad memory I see a young Confederate soldier struck by a fatal bullet, stagger and fall, and I see a black and shambling figure make his way through a throng of soldiers, wind his loving arms about him, and bear him from the field of carnage, and from the pale lips of that dying friend, I hear a feeble voice bidding me to follow that black hero and protect him, if he ever needed protection, and I was true to my promise.”
We who love Southern soil, and cherish Southern tradition, should pause now and then and pay due tribute not only to the worthy living, but to the faithful colored dead “who sleep out under the stars!”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.