Smoke Signals and other news
Usually, when I take my little dog, Charlie, out at night, I sit on my porch until he is ready to return inside. One night this week, everything was off my porch in preparation for a badly needed Thompson Water Seal. So, I sat on the front steps since it was too painful to stand while he finished his business. Then I looked up to find a beautiful dark blue sky sprinkled with brilliant stars. The neighborhood was mostly quiet, and I could enjoy the beauty of God’s work.
It was hard to imagine that on the other side of the world, bombs were going off, and people are suffering and dying. At the same time, I prayed for the soldiers who have and are serving and sometimes dying so that we can enjoy the freedom to sit on the porch steps and enjoy the beauty.
So many festivals and activities are happening for families this time of year. The Veterans Administration Home, where my husband Doug is a resident, had advertised a trunk or treat. Not familiar with what they did, I assumed it was something for the veterans. Some veterans collected candy and saw hundreds of kids in their costumes. To say this group of employees goes “all out” is an understatement.
Every parking place not set up to give out candy was taken by an attendee. Cars were parked down the long driveway and across the street at a small park. When there were no more parking places, cars began driving through the area with the array of trunks open. Employees were returning inside with empty carts and returning back loaded with candy bags. I literally could not leave for over an hour because of the traffic.
We went from record-high temperatures for October to frost within hours on Sunday.
Weather is such a phenomenon. Being of the older generation, I remember times when I cut grass in December, and I remember having snow flurries in October. Enjoy every season to the fullest. You never know how many you may have left.
From the pages of “The History of Byhalia” by former Mayor Barton Williams, another partial account of the engagement at Ingram’s Mill from the Confederate viewpoint: October 12, 1863. On the morning of the 12th, I was ordered to go into camp at Ingram’s Mill on Pigeon Roost Creek. The command had scarcely reached camp when I received an order from Colonel Richardson to move up in the vicinity of Byhalia to meet the enemy. Owing to the broken-down condition of my men and horses and the distance of about eight miles, I was unable to reach him in time. The night of the 12th, I was ordered into camp four miles south of Ingram’s Mill with orders to move back to the Mill at four o’clock in the morning of the 13th to hold the enemy in check until 9 a.m., then to fall slowly in the face of the enemy.
When I arrived, a brisk skirmish ensued at this place, but finding it to be the purpose of the enemy to gain my rear by pushing a column up the creek in the direction of Wall Hill. I fell back to the roads, the place I had scarcely reached when the enemy followed close on my rear all day, but made no other attack.
I reached the ferry in the rear of the whole command, but had not crossed before scouts announced the enemy within land one-half miles of our position. I was ordered to dismount, recross the river, take a position on the extreme left, and hold it at all hazards, which I did. The enemy made no attack on my position during the evening. I was withdrawn under cover of darkness and ordered into camp near the ferry.
At midnight, I was ordered to mount and fall in the rear of the Twelfth Tennessee and move in the direction of Oxford. After proceeding four miles, I was ordered by General Chalmers to return with my command to the entrenchments near the ferry, where I remained until late in the P.M. Of the 14th when I was ordered into camp near College Hill, with instructions to proceed on the following day to my present camp. I beg leave to mention in terms highest the conduct of some of the men of the Seventh Tennessee. I regret that I cannot furnish some of the most conspicuous names, but it is sufficient to say that they bore themselves with all the gallantry of true veterans and brave soldiers.
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