The Lone Star Defenders

by S. B. Barron

CHAPTER XVII

MY LAST BATTLE

Tories and Deserters—A Tragic Story—A Brutal Murder—The Son’s Vow—Vengeance—A Southern Heroine—Seeking Our Command—Huntsville—A Strange Meeting—We Find the Division—The Battle in the Fog—My Last Battle.

Haden Pryor, who lived eight miles west on the same road, was a whole-souled, big-hearted old gentleman, who also had a large place and plenty of everything to live on, and whose hospitality towards a Confederate soldier was unbounded. His boys were in the army in Virginia, and he and his wife were at home alone. I had stayed with him while hunting a blacksmith shop, and found that a tired Confederate soldier was more than welcome to his home. Lonely, and impatient for the war to close, that his gallant boys might come home, he would sit out on his front veranda and play solitaire, and was glad to see a soldier come, and sorry to see him leave. He had a nephew in our regiment that I knew and liked, and I had fallen in love with this old gentleman. Next morning McClatchie and I, when we came to his house, called to pay him our respects and to tell him good-by.

This neighborhood, or rather the neighborhood just south of this, and a considerable scope of country lying along the western border of Georgia and the eastern border of Alabama, was infested with a class of the meanest white men on earth—Tories and deserters, men too cowardly to fight in either army, but mean and unscrupulous enough to do anything. We knew they were there, but while our army was in the neighborhood they were never seen. Since the armies had left they were growing bolder, and we were told at Mr. Pryor’s that morning about some of their thievery and robbery. Providence protected us that day. Here were two roads, one to the left and one to the right, and we could follow one or the other and reach our destination in the same number of miles. The matter was left to me, and, without thinking of danger, I selected the right-hand road. On that day the left-hand road was waylaid by a band of these infamous characters and every Confederate soldier who attempted to pass the road was robbed of horse, arms, and everything of any value, and one or two of them murdered. These soldiers had been left behind slightly wounded or sick, and were on their way to overtake their commands. One of the murdered ones belonged to Ross’s brigade.

Since the war I have heard, from a reliable source, a tragic story of this Pryor family, which, if told in detail, would sound like fiction. It seems that in the spring of 1865 a band of these cut-throats, eight in number, rode up to Haden Pryor’s gate and without provocation shot him while he was standing in his front yard in presence of his wife; as he turned and was in the act of returning to his house he fell in his front veranda, a corpse. This was a few days after General Lee’s surrender. His oldest son, John, and a younger one, with eight or ten other Confederates, on their way home that night came within eight or ten miles of their homes, when, tired and footsore, they lay down to rest until morning.

John Pryor, haunted by a strange presentiment, could not sleep, and determined he would quietly leave the camp and go on to his father’s house. While he was dressing one of the others woke and said: “Hello, John, what are you up to?” “I am going home,” said John. “Wait a minute,” said the other, “and I’ll go too.” From that one by one they all roused up and were soon on the road again. Arriving at home, John Pryor found his father a bloody corpse and his mother a widow. His mother told him how it all happened, and gave him the names of his father’s murderers. The next day the funeral took place, and the noble father who had so patiently waited and longed for the return of his soldier boys was laid under the sod.

Over his father’s grave John Pryor made a vow that he would not engage in any business whatever as long as one of his father’s murderers was alive, and starting out upon his fixed purpose he killed one or two of them before the gang became alarmed. The rest now became panic-stricken and fled the country, hiding in different States. John hunted them constantly and relentlessly for weeks and months, until the weeks grew into years, and as he found them they were sent to their final account, one by one, until finally he found the last and least guilty one in Travis County, Texas, a few miles from Austin. It was in the spring of the year, and the man was plowing when John walked into the field where he was. Seeing John coming and recognizing him, he stopped his horse and, waiting until he was within a few steps of him, he said, “John, I know what you have come for; but I will ask you to let me go to the house and tell my wife and children good-by.” John consented, and they went to the house, where were the innocent wife and two small children in a comfortable little home. The husband and father then said: “John, I never hurt your father; I didn’t want those fellows to kill him, and told them not to do it.” “I remember that my mother told me something about this,” replied John, “and said you were the only one who said a word against the murder of my father; and now I will retract my vow as to you, and leave you with your wife and children.”

Now feeling that he had fulfilled his mission, Pryor returned to his home, and devoting his attention to business became a prosperous and successful man.