"This story was told by an old lady, Mrs. "Tilly" Presley Walden, who is now living and is at the present time ninety three years old.

I was born in 1847 on Indian Creek near the foot of the Cumberland mountains in Tennessee and as my mother died when I was a baby, I was reared by grandparents.

We let Tennessee on horse back and in covered wagons and landed at Prairie Grove, AR, then from there to Alabam, AR in November.

I was ten years old when we landed at Alabam and our nearest neighbor was an Indian family and our other neighbors were Burnett Denny, Mr. Henry Ray and Uncle Hugh Berry all of whom were from Tennessee, but we all became dissatisfied and started back to Tennessee and got as far as Ozark. We met a family coming from Illinois who persuaded us to come back. War broke out in 1861 and we were forced to stay for we couldn't get away.

The men were drafted and the farm and care of the family were left to the women, but I don't think war would have been so bad had it not of been for bushwhackers who raided our home, drove off our stock or killed them, burned our buildings and took our precious belongings.

Once we had several bushels of corn hid under the floor of a crib as the rats were camping off a lot of it. We thought the bushwhackers would find it. We hid three or four bushels in in a box out on a high ridge. We would go get a few gallons at a time and take it to the mill. We always slept in the mill shed and if it was spring we could gather wild onions for dinner and for supper we'd eat cornbread and onions and for breakfast we would eat cornbread and onions!!

One night after we had been to the mill, we heard the bushwhackers coming so we hid our cornmeal under some gooseberry bushes in the yard but they found it and took everything we had left to eat, also our nicest clothes. One garment that caused quite a stir between my Grandmother (Elizabeth Presley Carlisle) and the bushwhackers was a hoop skirt. This I would not release so they set fire to our beds, but as soon as we began calling for help they quickly disappeared without our meal after they had smothered out our fire.

Now all our corn but one ear was gone and it was time to plant spring fields to with no seed; so we went to the rat den's, carefully selected each grain with a heart and planted it; therefore, we were forced to do without bread until roasting ears were grown. For many weeks we were out of anything to eat besides fruit and meat that we were skilled in getting.

Some bushwhackers were more cruel than others for some would burn the feet of little babies to cause the mothers to tell where the food and money was hid. I'll tell you it was a terrible thing."