Wartime Memories Civil War

By Kenneth Hill

I have a cobblestone pill box big enough to hold 60 people, that came from Lincoln County, Oklahoma. It's round and has two floors in it and slots about four inches in diameter all the way around it. If the Indians attacked, the settlers would all run and get into it. They kept enough supplies in it to last them about a month. The pill box was fixed so the settlers could lay on the floor, stick their rifle barrels up to these holes and shoot out of them. They had to be careful not to stick their rifles out of the holes, because the Indians could grab them.

When the Indians hit, they would hit all at once and then two minutes later, you wouldn't see no Indians. They were all gone. That's the way they fought. That's the way the Cherokee fought through the South. That's also the way that General Stand Watie fought. I lived a half a mile from the Big Cabin battle ground where he was buried at. I picked up a lot of cannon balls at that battleground that had round fuses in them, about the size of your thumb.

This article was originally published in the September 1996 issue of The Legacy Magazine,

a division of US Legacies .

Civil War