Chapter 1 In
RetrospectI can truthfully say that my entire life has been spent with
cattle. Even during my four years' service in the Confederate army,
the greater portion was spent with the commissary department, in
charge of its beef supplies. I was wounded early in the second year
of the war and disabled as a soldier, but rather than remain at
home I accepted a menial position under a quartermaster. Those were
strenuous times. During Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania we followed
in the wake of the army with over a thousand cattle, and after
Gettysburg we led the retreat with double that number. Near the
close of the war we frequently had no cattle to hold, and I became
little more than a camp-follower.
I was born in the Shenandoah Valley, northern Virginia, May 3,
1840. My fat
