The Alabama in the Civil War Message Board

Re: Yankee activity in Autauga Co? I know some

Hello Allan,
Long time no see! I copied something from a book about the DeRamus family of Autauga County to put in my Rawlinson and DeRamus Family Files. It was where they had recorded an interview in 1966 with the very very elderly Rebecca Belle Deramus Rawlinson. Her Grandson, Harry Rawlinson, who had set up the interview and was researching the Rawlinson line, said:

"Grandma said she could remember when the Yankee soldiers came through Autauga
County. She said 4 or 5 yankee soldiers on horses rode up to their house and asked her
mother if they had any corn. Her mother told them they did not but that some man down
the hill did have. Grandma said they rode off and later 20 or 30 men on horses came
riding up the hill with a sack of corn on each horse. The other children told their mother
that they were Yankee soldiers but their mother could not see well and had thought they
were our boys wihich was why she told them where to find corn (Note from D.E.: the yankees might
have been wearing old, faded uniforms covered with dust which might've seemed like grey or butternut to her). "

Also, it was handed down in the Rawlinson family that at that time, you could stand on Rawlinson hill and in every direction you could see pillars of smoke where the Yankees were burning homes. Theirs were spared because that lady had told them where they could find food and grain.

And another story, told to me by 70+ year old man (can't think of his name right now), was where a certain family or home on Lower Wetumpka Road (Co. Rd. 57) had 300 bails of cotton hidded behind their house. It was 1865 and knowing the war was lost, they had it hidded to sell when the war was over. It was their stake to get them on their feet again after the war. Well yankees showed up and spotted the cotton bales and burned them. If I remember correctly I heard that they were going to burn Prattville because of the cotton mill (turned out uniforms and cloth for CSA),, gin shop, etc., but some kind of deal was made and they didn't.

And a guy I work with, Sam Ware, showed me where his folks' farm was (some still live there), Appleford might have been their name, just can't remember. But it was way out Hy Hy 83N then you take this left across from some hilltop country store and on out there somewhere. But anyway, the menfolk were off working the fields or visiting or something. While gone some yankees, raiding and looting, robbed there home and burned it down. The men showed up right after and learning who did it and where they were going, got a bunch guys together, including some sort of Autauga or Alabama home guard unit, and taking backroads and shortcuts they knew set up an ambush or otherwise catch them somewhere near or on the way to Selma, I think he said on the Burnsville Road, and killed every one of the yankees. I sho' wish I knew exactly where that spot was and could take my metal detector there! I figure it might have been the same bunch that took the fodder from the Rawlinsons and burned those cotton bales. Never know. Gen. Wilson's men were in Selma several days before the went on to Montgomery. I figure they had squads ranging all around looking for forage and loot.

That is about all I know other than the well known story about some yankees being caught and killed on the Burnsville Road near Selma. I wonder if that was his bunch that did that and the two stories are one and the same?
Anyway, just thought someone would find the above interesting.
Later,
Dave

Messages In This Thread

Yankee activity in Autauga Co? I know some
Re: Yankee activity in Autauga Co? I know some
Re: Yankee activity in Autauga Co? I know some
Re: Yankee activity in Autauga Co? I know some
Re: Yankee activity in Autauga Co? I know some
Re: Yankee activity in Autauga Co? I know some
Re: Yankee activity in Autauga Co? I know some