Story by Tillman Manus 104 years old

Story by Tillman Manus

104 years old

April 09, 1939

On this day of our Lord in nineteen and thirty-nine, I hereby inscribe the story of one who has reached the year of one hundred and four. On the ninth day of April, eighteen hundred thirty-five, I arrived on this sphere of action at the home of John Manus and Lavina Middleton Manus, poor farmers, who resided in Cannon County, Tennessee and who graciously received and gave me the utmost in love and care. I was the third child and being a boy with sisters before me and after me, they made things lively for me as sisters sometimes do.

Father had to clear the land whereon he built our house and planted our garden and fields, which were fenced with rails made by our own hands. That was no small task. There was work for all to do. After father cut down the trees and trimmed the limbs from them, that brush must then be piled into great piles and then when it was dry enough we would have our great bonfires. To us children that was equal to your Fourth of July fireworks. So you see that early in life I learned to be self reliant, for there was always something small hands could do. As the clothing all had to be made by hand, each farmer would keep a few sheep and raise some cotton from which to make our clothes. When the sheep were sheared we had to wash and clean the wool of its burrs and Spanish needles, of which there were plenty, as the sheep pastured over a rough country. Then the cotton must be picked and the seed picked out by hand for there was no machinery to do it for you as there is now.

One of my earliest memories is seeing my mother passing to and fro at her spinning wheel and spinning into long threads the wool or cotton that was to be woven into cloth. I can also see her sitting before her loom throwing her shuttle back and forth weaving the cloth. She would throw the shuttle through, tramp one pedal, pull the cross bar to her tamping the thread, and tramp the other pedal crossing the thread, over and over again. Seeing the length of cloth grow day after day fascinated me as a boy.

The farmer had to watch for marauding Indians who liked nothing better than to slip in and steal the settlers stock and the folks who lived nearby had a little fear of the red man, as the time was not so far behind them when it was not only the animals that fell under their hand.

On rainy days in the wintertime my father tanned the leather to make our shoes. When he would kill a beef, he would be ready to make it up into shoes. The old beef hides would be used to make the shoe soles and the young ones would be used for the uppers. When I became large enough handle a knife it was one of my duties to help make the pegs my father used to put the shoes together with. These pegs were made of hard wood and whittled to a sharp point. To convert the hide into leather it was put into a vat or pit dug in the ground, which contained a solution of water and ground up oak bark, kept there a certain length of time. The hide was then taken out and scraped thoroughly, taking off the hair, kneaded and worked until they were soft and pliable. The upper leather was put into another solution and colored and worked over again. After that it would be soft and fine and be ready to make into shoes. So you see after all of the hard work, we had to make one pair of shoes last a long time.

We went bare foot all through the summertime and many a stone bruise and thorn in the foot was the results. My grandfather later started a tan yard, the folks in later years learned better methods, but I suppose the principle is the same.

I remember the first pair of pants I ever owned. In those days small boys wore just a single long garment somewhat like a dress. I wanted some pants badly, and one Sunday morning my father felt sorry for me and took one of his grain sacks mother had woven for him, cut out, and made me a pair of pants. I sure was a proud boy that day. They even had a pocket in them.

Schools were few in those days, and they were subscription schools where you paid so much per month to attend. And money was scarce; I only attended school about 3 months. Most business was conducted by barter. The schoolmaster would oftentimes take corn or wheat and even cloth that had been woven as part pay for his teaching. In later years I realized what I had missed.

We lived in rough hilly country and had to plant much of our grain on the hillside, plowing around the hill instead of across it to keep the soil from washing away. Sometimes we could hardly find enough soil to cover the grain for the stones. We larger children had to pick up the large stones and lay them in piles, then we would haul them to the edge of the field where father would build them into a stone fence. We mostly tended our corn with the hoe, at least that which was planted on the slope, but we grew amazingly good corn at that.

When I was but a small lad, my father and uncle would take me into the woods and teach me how to shoot and as I grew up I become very proficient with a rifle. Many times I would trudge out, almost dragging father’s old flintlock rifle, (You would only find one in a museum now) and bring home a fine dinner of squirrel or other game.

Early in the spring we would get the sap from the sugar tree (you call them maple trees now) by boring a hole into the tree and inserting a hollow tube made from cane or elder through which the sap would flow into pails. Many of those pails were made from large gourds which we had grown on vines around the place, for every one planted gourds because they were handy in which to store things as well as to use for pails. When the pails were full of sap we would carry them to a large kettle where father superintended the boiling down into good thick syrup and maple sugar. When mother used eggs, she would break them carefully and save the shells, which we children would fill with maple sugar and when it would harden, we would have nice pieces of maple candy. That and wild honey were the only sweets we had.

Many times I have watched bees fly by and followed them to their hives in hollow trees which I would mark and go tell father who would cut the tree down. Then we would take out some old rags, make a heavy smoke which would stupefy the bees so that father could take out part of the honey, always leaving enough for the bees until they could gather more. What a feast we would have, mother would make a kind of cake, sweetened with honey, which was very good indeed.

Of coarse she had to do all of her cooking and baking before the fireplace in an iron kettle and bake in a Dutch oven. She made a bread, which was called corn lightbread that was also very good, and then there was johnnycake. Wish I had some now, but modern cooks have lost the art.

There was hominy which mother made by boiling corn in lye made from wood ashes. We made a wedge-shaped hopper, which would hold about fifty bushels of ashes, with a trough in the bottom of it. When the hopper was full of ashes, we children would have to carry water from the spring, bucket after bucket, and pore over the ashes until the lye run freely. Mother would use part of the lye to make hominy and the rest she would put aside with which to make soap. To make the hominy, we children would shell white corn and mother would boil it in the lye until the husk would slip off, take it out of the lye bath and down to the spring to wash it until the lye taste was all gone. It was boiled again until tender, seasoned with salt and pepper and fat of some kind and you had a dish fit for a king.

When mother was ready to make our supply of soap for the year, she would take the rest of the lye and all of the old fat meat scraps and old grease she had been saving, put them all together in a large kettle, and boil. By and by the lye would eat the meat and grease up or dissolve it and then she would have a kettle of soft soap, which was used for all cleaning purposes. I don’t believe my readers would like to wash their hair and take a bath in such strong soap, for it sure would sting and bite your flesh if you let it stay on very long.

We carried all our water from the spring some distance from the house. It seemed to me that the buckets always needed to be filled. I used to wonder why they did not build the house by the spring.

Gourds were also used for our drinking vessels. Did you ever drink from a gourd dipper? If not you have missed something worth while. Here is how mother prepared the gourd for use. She would select a gourd with a long straight handle and with a sharp knife cut a hole in one side, take out the seed, scrape the inside wall and boil in lye water. It was washed and scraped some more and then it was ready for use. There was always one hanging on a tree near the spring and many, many times I have drunk from the old gourd dipper.

The spring branch was an attraction for my sisters and me. We would wade in it to cool our hot, dusty feet, build dams across it to form miniature pools and lakes on which to sail boats. We spent many happy hours there, but there was so much work to do, as it took the combined effort of us to plant and tend the crops, as most of the work was done by hand.

In those days the cattle and hogs pastured out in the woods, or most any place where their fancy led them. It was one of my duties to search for the old cow in the evening and drive her in to be milked. Sometimes I would get lost myself and when it begin to grow dark, I was like most small boys, I would become frightened but the old cow would lead me home in her own good time.

The farmers had a system whereby they knew their own hogs. They would put a mark in their ears then take that mark to the courthouse and have it recorded under their names. It was always known as their mark thereafter. Each farmer was careful when he went out to butcher a hog to find one of their own marks. Some of the marks the farmers living around us had were shallow fork in the right ear, cut off the top of left ear, one round hole in right ear and two holes in the left ear. These markings would be done when the pigs were about six weeks old.

In the fall there were nuts in abundance of many kind. We always went to the woods and gathered quantities of hickory nuts of different kinds, walnuts, chestnuts, butternuts, hazelnuts and through the winter the high point of our parties would be the maple candy filled with the nuts we had gathered.

We did not raise much wheat for we had no binders or thrashers. We had to cut it with a scythe, thrash it with a flail, and fan the chaff out by hand. I went to a wheat field recently to see a combine work. It was a long way from the reap hoop and flail of my boyhood to the combine of today. Here is the way we would thrash the grain. Lay a homemade sheet on the ground, build a pen over it with rails, lay some rails across the top, put the bundle of wheat on top of them. We would flail with a pole, fan the chaff out, and take it to a water mill to be ground. We oftentimes had to take the grain a long distance to mill, which had to be built over a good stream of water that ran swiftly. A dam was built, which caused the water to fall on a large paddlewheel, which in turn would turn the stone to grind the grain. When we would get out of meal before father could go to the mill, we would grate or pound some corn and make coarse meal that way. We only had flour bread once a week and that was usually on Sunday morning and sometimes on a birthday or some special occasion.

Our lives were hard but we had a lot of fun, as young people the world over do. I remember one time being out in the woods and finding a baby deer or fawn where its mother had left it while she was out feeding. A fawn is very hard to see as one is spotted and looks like leaves with the sun shining through. I happened to see this one and decided I would catch him. When I did, he started bleating and his mother came running and pawing the ground. I was very badly frightened but did not want to give up my prize; so I happened to think and grab him by the nose so he could not cry and scared the mother away. I took my baby home and fed him warm milk until he was old enough to eat grass and leaves. He was very gentle and would follow me anywhere. I had some good times with him but when he was about half grown father sold him for two bushels of wheat. I was heart broken and cried just as children sometimes do when they loose one of their pets but that was only one of a succession of pets that passed under my hand. Squirrel, coon, and such like. I tried to catch a ground hog once, but he put up such a fight I was glad to leave him alone.

One great sorrow that came to me in childhood was the death of my little brother who was so small but I thought it would be wonderful to have a brother to play with and work with. I planned to teach him to hunt as father had taught me and it was like taking part of me when he went away.

We used to have some very cold winters with lots of snow and I spent much of my time in the woods and fields with my dog and gun. The wild game I brought home was a very welcome addition to our larder.

My grandfather had a large family, there being eleven boys and two girls, my father being the oldest. They lived some distance away, but my younger uncles and I were together often. We learned to wrestle and box and run foot races, as these were the principle sports.

The neighborhood amusements were log rolling, house raising and things of that type when a young man and a young woman got married. It was no trouble to build them a house. He would select a place to build, always near some spring, although some folk did carry their water some distance. He would cut his logs and as timber was plentiful, he would select tall straight trees; when he cut enough to build his house, he would take a team of oxen and drag the logs to the sight, invite the neighbors, sometimes miles away, who would come and make a gala occasion of it. It did not take a crowd of men long to raise a house. Some of them would begin to make the logs ready by cutting a notch in each end so it would fit the one below it (no nails were needed and besides they were scarce and expensive), while some would begin in one end to build the fireplace and chimney (as it was called). Others would take some large stones and make a large hearth on which the cooking could be done. The chimney was laid in mortar of clay. When all was ready they would begin to put together the logs of the house, which consisted of two rooms, with a mixture of clay and sticks which filled up the cracks between the logs. There was laid a floor of puncheon, which is logs split in the middle and planed smooth with a adze and laid face up (sometimes they were not so smooth and we might get splinters in our feet if we were not careful). A roof of boards, which had been made by hand, was put on. To make the boards we would take a nice straight block of the proper length, one that would split easily and with a maul and fro rive each board the same thickness, a good boardmaker could make a roof that would last for years. The doors were put on with wooden or leather hinges and had a wooden latch with a hole bored from the outside by pulling the string (that was the way we got the saying, “The latch string is always out to you”). At night a heavy bar was put across the door from the inside.

When the house was finished, the women would cook quantities of food and of coarse; everyone was hungry after such hard work and would do justice to the good dinner. Fun would begin. If it was early afternoon, there would be games mostly consisting of strength and swiftness and I tell you we had some strong men in those days. If it were in the evening, there would be a party, in some neighborhoods, there would be dancing but my father and mother did not believe in dancing. The only thrashing my father ever gave me was for slipping out one night and going dancing.

We did not often have church nearby but when a preacher would come in, everyone would go for miles around. Some often walked a long distance. Some would come in ox carts filled with hay, on which the whole family and oftentimes the neighbors would ride. Some rode horseback, sometimes two or three on one horse.

Church was always held at early candlelight. We would take a torch to light our way home, as we had no other light. We made the torches of round sticks of wood by splitting it down about six inches into fine splinters and when it was dry they made a good light.

When we would have a meeting of a week or more, folks would go and camp for the duration of the time; sometimes if they had small children, they would take a cow with them, for there was plenty of grazing for them. It would be a time of social meeting as well as a spiritual uplift.

When I was near fourteen years of age, I could do a man’s work. I went to work helping to build the McMenville and Tullahoma railroad, which was the first railroad to be built through the Southern States.

At that time people were afraid of new improvements and predicted dire things to happen if the railroad was built. The Stagecoach Company through out the country would be ruined, as well as itself, although it was some time before the stagecoach quit making its regular run. One time I drove the stagecoach myself and after that I would substitute for the regular driver whose name was Liash Bates. If any of his descendants should read this, they may remember hearing him talk of those old times.

I now began to yearn for other adventures. About this time a circus came to our town and I thought it would be just the thing for me; so when it left town a certain boy left with it, without his father and mother knowing about it. I had been with the circus about six months before my parents found where I was. One of my uncles learned of my whereabouts and my father came to bring me home. I had learned a lot of things before that time though. I was a bareback rider and was riding three horses abreast, which were some feat at that time.

I was a very active person, being small and sinewy and became quite a stunt man. All my life I have kept up my activities. When I was one hundred years old, I could still stand on my head, balancing myself with the aid of a chair post.

After my father took me home from the circus, I remained and worked with him for a while but soon grew restless again. This time when I slipped away I went down to Kentucky where I hired to a man by the name of Cummins to make fence rails. I made two thousand for him for which I received five dollars per thousand and out of that I would have to pay someone to help me cut the trees down and saw them into lengths. After the timber was cut, I could make two thousand for him which I received five dollars. I expect my readers now would hardly work for wages like that.

A Mr. Wallace who lived nearby decided to move to Texas and asked an uncle of mine and me to help him move. Of course there were no railroads, but Mr. Wallace had three covered wagons, one drawn by an ox team, my uncle drove the mules and Mr. Wallace drove the horses. In driving oxen, we used no lines like you do on horses. They were trained to guide with a whip, being yoked together with a bow of wood called a yoke and when one turned the other had to follow. We braided our whip of long strands of leather, braiding four strands together. A good teamster could guide his oxen by cracking his whip over them and never touching them. The men were expert at cracking the hip and would practice for hours so they could crack it until it could be heard for a mile. The roads were just tracks in the wilderness. In many places we would scarcely get through because there were no bridges across the rivers and streams had to be forded. The horses would swim across and drag the heavy wagons after them. Sometimes there was a ferry that could be hauled from one side of the river to the other with ropes drawn by oxen or mules. We were three weeks on the road and when we got there, we helped Mr. Wallace get settled in his new home and then started home. We made the trip back on foot in the same time it took us to go out because we had no teams or anything to bother us. Mr. Wallace paid us fifty cents per day and our board on the trip out but coming back we had to bear our own expense. We would stay at night in some settler’s home, if there were one, but more often we slept under a tree. Of coarse, we had our blankets and gun since it would not have been safe to travel otherwise. We killed wild game for most of our food. We always carried salt, a skillet and something to heat water to make coffee.

When we arrived home, I stopped in Illinois at the time when they were building the Illinois Central Railroad through the southern part of the state and I went to work on that. It was the first railroad through that country and being something new there were those who would always say that it could not be done but it was even though there was opposition.

Later, I hired as a brakeman and ran up and down the road I had helped build. We always had to be on the alert because quite often we had to stop the train and chase a cow or a drove of hogs off the tracks before we could proceed. Sometimes even wild animals would stand on the track until we would scare them away by blowing the whistle. We could look from the train window and see all kinds of wild animals, deer bounding away through the woods, wild turkey rising through the air with a mighty whirl of wings and small things in plenty scampering along. There was mostly forestland with now and then a cleared field with a high rail fence around it and with its lonesome little log house in the center of it. When the train would whistle the children who had been playing around the cabin would run into the house and shut the door because they were afraid of the train.

The story goes (although I do not vouch for the truth of it) that when the telegraph lines were put up through this section that there came a terrible drought and some of the people tried to tear the wires down, saying they were the cause of it by taking the electricity from the air.

Growing tired of the road, I went down into the Mississippi bottom to cut cordwood for the steamboats to burn, as well as the trains, there being no coal to burn to make their power. There was dense forest of cottonwood trees growing along the river where it was easy to get to the landing and gangs of men worked, cutting them down and sawing them into lengths that would go into the firebox of the engine. Then they were hauled to the boat landing where the Negro men, or roustabouts, as they were called, could load it onto the boats. I always enjoyed watching them load because they seemed to make a game of it. They would form two lines, one going to the boat full and the other coming off empty, singing a song with a lilting tune. The Negro was always singing and appeared to be happy. The steamer had to land often to take on fuel, for it takes a lot of power to pull a heavily loaded steamer against the swift current of the Mississippi River.

We fellows that worked in the timber were always pulling off some stunt and one day when we were working down near the Hamburg Landing, we got into a discussion as to our ability to swim across the river at the point, where it was very wide then (as the river is constantly changing I do not know how it is now because I have not been there for years). John Prior and I said we could and of coarse, there were wagers made for and against us. Some of them took a canoe and our clothing and followed us. We swam across but did not swim back but we could have, had we been in training.

We were always wrestling and running footraces. I being one considered the fastest runner in this country. The boys said they would find someone that could beat me, I said, “Yes, you may.” I was challenged by Jim Kerr, who was a fast runner and who they said could beat me; so the date was set and the place was to be Jonesboro where there was a crowd of men and boys to see the fun (foot racing was as popular then as horse racing is now). The day came and after a lot of raillery on each side, the race was on. After we started to run, I looked back over my shoulder and said, “Come on Jim, come on.” He saw that I was a faster man than he was and he became angry and wanted to fight. (There was a lot of fighting in those days and in Tennessee where I was born. It was not uncommon to see feuds last for years with just such a beginning as that). The crowd prevented the fight however, and said we were there to have fun and not fight.

On April the tenth, eighteen hundred fifty-six, I was married to Miss Nancy E. Morgan, who was the girl I had known and admired in Tennessee and who had moved with her parents to southern Illinois some time before. We settled on a farm where we resided until the Civil War.

When the call for volunteers came to serve in the Army, I enlisted. I had heard Abraham Lincoln speak at Jonesboro, Illinois and felt he was in the right, although my father was for the south and some of my uncles were in the Southern Army who I knew would be fighting against me but I still was for the Union. When my father learned this, he disowned me and said I was no son of his but after a few years he repented and claimed me again. It was a sore trial for my mother as I was her only boy. My wife and I talked it over and she felt as I did, that I ought to go although we had two children at that time.

It was hard to go and leave them but she was young and strong and her father and mother lived near to help if she needed them. I do not believe there are many women in this age that could do the work and suffer the hardships that the wives and mothers did during the Civil War. The worry and toil was bad enough, but the loneliness was worse. Sometimes there were no neighbors for miles and when sickness would come there was no one to help and no one to send for help through the dark night. We had only a small candle to light the cabin and maybe hot little hands would fall away still and lifeless from mother’s neck when the father was not there.

Through carelessness on my part my war record gives my age twenty-one instead of twenty-seven years old when I enlisted. Wherever a crowd of fellows were together, there was always racing or wrestling taking place and of coarse, I would have to be in the middle of it when my name was called and someone answered for me, saying he was twenty-one and that is why I am really six years older than my war records show me to be.

When we were called out, we got our first taste of fire just across the Ohio River from Cairo, in Kentucky. After being thus initiated, we were kept busy most of the time. I bore a charmed life as far as bullets were concerned, only being wounded twice; first, just slightly; and second, by a spent ball striking me in the shin, which bruised the bone and for years after that I was troubled with it breaking open and discharging at times. I could tell of a number of times that I just escaped being blown to bits. One time I recall, I was standing beside a fence post during a battle and when I moved and another man who stepped up where I had been standing, had his head cut off completely by a cannon ball that come whistling by. Such things were happening every day. It was rather humiliating after that to come down with the typhoid fever and almost losing my life. Then they believed in starving a fever and I want to tell you that in my case they almost did starve me.

The soldiers had a lot of hardships, as they always do in war. We had a heavy load to carry, consisting of sixty rounds of ammunition besides our clothing, food, blankets, and rifle. I don’t just recall how much it weighed but I know we had to run a mile with that on our back; we were almost too tired to fight when we got there.

The first winter we were out we had small tents to sleep under, two men to a tent but after that we just slept on the ground and covered with the stars. We each had two blankets under and two over us. We would put our hat over our faces to keep out the snow and rain. Sometimes we would wake to find ourselves covered with snow but that made a warm blanket. Just try it sometime.

We were issued five days rations at a time; if we ate it up before the five days were up, we just had to manage. We were allowed nine hard tack and three rashers of bacon for each day. The hardtack was a kind of cracker, only much bigger that the crackers we have today. We also had a can to make coffee in and when we had a chance to stay in one place long enough we would cook a mess of beans.

Maybe some of us would be lucky enough to kill a few squirrels or some other wild game and then we would have a feast. Sometimes we were able to buy something from the farmhouses, if everything had not been stolen from them. I have exchanged coffee for eggs and other things to eat.

An uncle of mine, who was in my company, was poisoned and died from drinking some buttermilk he had bought. I wanted to stay with him while he was so ill but I had been detailed to go as scout and had to leave him. He was dead and buried when I returned. I missed him so much and always felt that they might have let me stay with him until he died.

I learned to be quite a tailor and carried my needle and thread with me, earning a lot of dollars with them. I learned to change the pockets in our uniforms, which were put in such a way we could loose things out. I first changed the pockets in mine and when the other boys saw how much better they were, they wanted theirs changed too. I charged them fifty cents apiece for altering them. I had quite a monopoly for awhile but soon another one of the boys learned the trick and I did not make too much money after that.

I must not become tiresome, but in this story I want to tell that while we were camped near a small village not far from Baton Rouge when some of us boys were down in the village, one of the boys slyly rigged a fishhook on a line and was trailing it along the ground when some chickens were running around out in the street and one of them swallowed the hook. It begins to flutter and pull back. As it was being dragged along, one of the

boys yelled “Hey George, where are you going with that chicken?” George looked around and pretended to see the chicken for the first time and said, “Faith, boys and I would kill any man’s chicken that would try to bite me” and went on pulling the chicken after him to camp.

I was an excellent shot and was often detailed to silence a gun that was finding its mark too often. I remember one time I had to crawl several hundred yards on my stomach, just inching along when the gunner spotted me and turned his fire in my direction. I fell over behind a log and lay there until he thought I was dead and he turned his attention back to the company. I slid over where I could get a shot at him, who was so well hidden that I could see only his hands. I finely made it so hot for him that he could not load any more and then a cheer went up from our boys.

Another exciting time was when we fought above the clouds on Lookout Mountain in Tennessee. You have read about that in you history but nothing can give you the picture as it appeared to me on that day. When we started to climb, with the enemy above us, they had the advantage, for they could fire down on us while we were having to climb up to them, loaded up as we were with our rifle and ammunition. They rolled rocks down on us that came crashing into trees and men. The rumble of crashing rocks added to the roar of the gunfire was frightening indeed but good soldiers go where they are ordered to go if they can and this time we went, we saw, we conquered.

At last we reached the summit and were standing above the clouds. You have never stood above the clouds and saw them rolling along beneath your feet. I hope you never have to mount the mountain with fire upon you.

Another time when we were within one-half mile of the enemy, I told my officer I could bring their flag down with my rifle. He said, “Tillman, I do not believe you can but I will watch you with my glasses while you try.” The first shot just glazed the pole and he told me to shoot a little more to the left. I did so and the flag came down. You should have heard the hurrah that went up from our boys.

It has been so long ago that I cannot recall just where some of these things took place but the incident is as fresh in my mind as if it were yesterday. I am too old to work now and all I have to do is to sit and think. My mind races over the scene like a moving picture passes over the screen. I wish I was able to put it on paper as I can see it in my mind but many of the details have escaped me like a silent picture that passes over the screen too fast for you to read the lines.

I was in seven major battles and a number of minor battles as well as skirmish after skirmish.

When we arrived at Vicksburg and camped outside the city, we did not know what the next five days would bring forth. It was a time of suspense to both sides, the blue and the grey. We felt it was the deciding time and it might mean we could return to our homes or it might mean the lives of many who were there. We were all tired of war and I am sure that both sides wished it to end. I remember the large clock there was in that city and that we could hear it strike for a long distance, cleaning our guns for the coming fight, if there should be one. And when the two Generals met in conference under that old oak tree, we were all wishing for a peaceful termination because we felt it would be such a shame to have a battle in that beautiful city and see it fall into ruins as we had seen some other lovely towns fall, to say nothing of the broken homes and the loss of lives and sorrowing of women and children.

War is cruel, cruel, cruel. Why can not some way be found to settle our differences peacefully? I have lived through three wars and sometimes it looks as if we were on the verge of another one. Knowing what a useless toll war takes and knowing that war will never end war. I would like to see peace come to the earth before I am called to leave it. If the warlords would have to fight their own battles, peace would be here now.

When peace was made that day, we threw our hats into the air and our guns down, vowing then that we would never take them up again but of coarse, that spirit did not last long for there were a few skirmishes after peace was signed.

When I returned to Springfield to be mustered out of the Army, I was a happy man and there were a lot of other happy ones. I had served three years and twenty-seven days in the Army and that twenty-seven was a long time, for we had to wait the twenty-seven days for transportation back home.

When I was home again, I settled down to farming. I had to reacquaint myself with my children as they had forgotten how I looked, for I had not seen them in three years. Farming in a sparsely settled country after being in such a crowd for so long was rather lonesome at first but work occupied most of my time. I purchased a farm that had only a small place cleared of timber. In the summertime, I would tend my crop and in the winter, clear more land, make rails and build more fences also cut wood and haul it into town to sell it to buy things that we could not raise. The wood was a ready sale for then there was very little coal and besides folks liked to burn wood the best for their fireplaces and stoves were not equipped to use coal. Many as yet were cooking by the fireplace. I oftentimes traded a load of wood or kindling at the store for sugar and coffee. My wife would spin and weave the cloth to make the most of our clothing; so you see we were a busy and happy family. As the years went by there were more factories to make cloth and other things. Home spinning and weaving ceased to be a pastime. We kept a few sheep and spun the yarn to knit stockings and mittens for an increasing family that wore homespun clothes. My wife wove lovely bedspreads which if we had now; we would prize very highly. It was as if part of our family was gone when we discarded our loom. We felt lost in the house for the loom was so large it took up almost one end of the house with its two rooms and attic. That was the day of the trundle bed. You young folks never saw a trundle bed. Well, it was a little low bed that slid under the large bed through the daytime and at night was brought out and made up for the children. Sometimes when one of them had been naughty, they would crawl up in the trundle and hide. Many games of hide-and-seek were played with them hiding there.

In later years we built a home we felt we had more room than we needed. My boys were now getting large enough to take over a large part of the work. We yet used rails to fence our fields. We tried not to waste anything and still worked the surplus wood and hauled it to town to sell.

About this time there began an increasing market for small fruit and vegetable. We planted more and more strawberries and other small fruit, for which we found a ready market in Chicago and elsewhere. The ground was good, the yield was heavy and the prices were also good. I have had strawberries to sell for seven and eight dollars per crate containing twenty-four quarts.

Soon all of my children were getting married and making homes of their own. I gave each of them a home. In nineteen eleven my wife died and I felt that I had nothing to live for; so I divided up what I possessed and moved to Anna, Illinois to live with my daughter, with whom I lived quietly for twenty years. Then she was taken from me. It is very hard for one of my years to be uprooted again. I was soon to be one hundred three years old and wondered why I was not the one instead of her. After her passing, I went to live at the home of my youngest son, where at last I have become adjusted to the change and am very comfortably cared for by my daugher-in-law. I have just dropped over my one hundred and fourth milestone on Easter Sunday, April ninth, nineteen hundred thirty-nine. My life is once more quiet and peaceful and I do not know how long I will stay here but I feel the sands of time are just about run for me.

When the Veterans were first allowed pensions, they received three dollars per month, which seemed like a lot of money to us. Then it was increased to twelve dollars per month that was a fortune. Just imagine a whole twelve dollars per month being given to us, for we had given our services to our country and expected no reward other than the thirteen dollars per month we first received while in the Army and later our pensions were increased to twenty-five dollars!

I am well in body, no ailments of any kind but the infirmities of age. I am still able to care for myself, read the headlines and hear reasonably well, but things are different now from what they used to be and I feel I am living in another world, waiting for the summons to the other side.

Tillman Manus Transcribed by:Mrs.

Andrew Manus

BEYOND

A long life and a full one

Of play and work and rest.

You find your race is nearly run;

Is the evening time the best?

You have almost reached the summit,

Can you see from where you stand,

Through the misty veil on the other side,

Can you see the Promised Land?

You have climbed to the top of the hill of life.

Can you see the river wide,

Is the boatman coming for you,

Can you see the other side?

The years are long; you’ve seen many slip

O’er the rim and none may see

What waits beyond that river wide,

In that vast eternity.

Tillman had this verse in his book. It is not known if he wrote it or not.

On March 20, 1941 Tillman Manus died at the home of his youngest son Andrew Manus, Anna Illinois, after a sickness of two weeks. He was 21 days from his birthday number 106. Buried in the Trinity Cemetery, Anna Illinois.