Boys Become Men Through the Eyes of War

By J. Terry Hall and Ben F. Hall

Boys Become Men through the Eyes of War is a story of two young boys growing up in the mountains of Western North Carolina during the turbulent years surrounding the Civil War. Having become blood brothers following a Cherokee Indian tradition, they promised to always have each others back. Although following the declaration of war, each boy had to follow his own conscience and march to a different drummer, one going north, one going south.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504984195

J. Terry Hall

J. Terry Hall spent forty years in public education receiving a doctor of education degree from the University of North Carolina. He served as teacher and administrator in Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina before retiring to the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. Ben F. Hall is a dedicated husband and father. He is an avid sports fan who volunteers his time as a Little League football coach in his community and actively works for the development and welfare of all children.

Book preview

Prologue

John Frank Cochran’s Grandpa Nelson used to sing a song to him when they sat around the fireplace in their cabin on cold winter nights. It went something like this:

Two young boys playing in the woods,

Riding stick horses as cowboys would.

One’s stick broke and his horse fell dead

While the other boy offered his horse instead.

"Climb on with me and away we will ride,

My horse is strong and will not be denied."

Away they rode through the forest green

As swift and as fast as any machine.

When the boys grew into men so strong,

There was a war that was going on.

Marching away so fearless and brave,

The two men thought of no early grave.

In the midst of a battle so dangerous and wild,

One man fell in less than a mile.

Climb on my back, cried his friend and brother-

We are always there to care for each other.

Away they did run as fast as could be,

The two blood brothers were glad to be free.

They ran and ran until home they could see,

A man and his friend as happy as could be.

Chapter 1

Fog rose in the small mountain valley on that January morning of 1860 like smoke billowing from a forest fire. Winter’s chill sent bone deep cold and made the body shiver so every breath could be seen.

John Frank Cochran, a boy who had seen only fourteen winters in his short life, crawled out of the straw bed his mother Mary had made and stuffed with straw three winters ago. He was so skinny that he sank down deep in the straw bed (five or six of his mother’s hand-made quilts piled on top), making him almost invisible. He was a handsome boy with coal black hair like his mother. His nose he inherited from his Grandpa Nelson. It was what they called a Roman nose, sloped downward like the slope of the mountain where he lived in Cooper’s Gap. His eyes also reminded Mary of Grandpa Nelson for they were deep blue, and, when he looked at a person, it was like he could see their most secret thoughts. Mary was so proud of her son. She knew he would grow into a handsome man and be chased by many young girls, but for now, he was her baby and she would protect him with her very life.

As he dressed for the day, he could smell bacon frying in the kitchen and knew his mother was busy making breakfast on the old wood stove. He loved the smell. He and his mother lived with his Grandpa Nelson in a small mountain cabin located along Brights Creek in the community of Coopers’ Gap in Polk County, North Carolina. The Cochran clan had always been a close-knit family and looked after each other like mountain families do.

Nelson was an old man of the mountains. He was around six feet tall and skinny as a rail. As said before, when he looked into one’s eyes, one would have the feeling that he could look deep into the soul. Nelson seldom spoke, but when he did, one could feel the wisdom of his eighty-two years. John Frank loved and admired his Grandpa. Sometimes, at night, as the family was sitting around the fireplace in their small cabin, he would stare at him and think he was the wisest man in the whole wide world.

John Frank never knew his father. There was a rumor that John Frank’s mother, Mary, a beautiful blue-eyed girl with hair the color of a raven, hanging halfway down her back, had an affair with a local boy from a well to do family in Columbus, North Carolina, located down the road a few miles. When she became in the family way, the boy and his parents refused to accept any responsibility what-so-ever. John Frank had heard boys snicker as he walked by and seen the looks that some of the girls gave him as he grew up in the small settlement of Coopers Gap.

After breakfast, Mary said, John Frank, as she always called him by both names as was common among the mountain folks, go on down to the store and fetch me some coffee, I’m nearly plumb out. The country store was about a mile down the creek, up on a high bluff, where it would not wash away, when Brights Creek got out of banks and flooded, as it often did. Although news was slow in reaching Coopers Gap, John Frank had heard word spreading around the neighborhood of what was taking place up in Washington D.C.

Coming up on the porch, he kicked his boots on the stone step, knocking off at least some of the red clay mud from the creek bank. Entering the store and letting the screen door slam behind him, he walked over to the old pot-bellied stove, shining red from the intense heat, and began rubbing his hands together trying to get some feeling back into them from the cold. Three men, old enough to have been John Frank’s grandaddies, were sitting around the stove talking, while spitting tobacco juice into a coffee can, beside the stove. Brown stains ran down the side of the stove where they had missed the can. John Frank could tell by the loudness of the conversation that emotions were high, as he heard Josh, an old white-headed man with a white beard almost down to his belt say, Can you believe what them Yankees are doing in Washington? Now that old Abraham Lincoln has gone and got elected President of the United States of America, they think they can tell us folks in the south to jump and we just have to jump! I for one ain’t about to let them Yankees tell me a darn thing! I’ve fought before and I’ll fight again if I have too. Why can’t they just leave us be and let each state decide on what they want to do? Rufus spit a wad of tobacco at the can, but missed, before butting in, The Constitution of this here United States gives every state the right to decide on everything that goes on in their state. That includes taxes that the Federal government is trying to make us pay to support things we don’t believe should be happening, and even the God-given right for a white man to own slaves if he decides to and has enough hard cash money to buy him some. Why, everybody and their kin knows the nigger was put on this here earth to serve the white race; even the Holy Bible supports slavery. I ain’t having no darn Yankee tell me any different.

Taking all this in, John Frank spoke up in a very loud voice and said, Ain’t no Yankee going to tell me how I’m going to live. Why, I can whip any blamed Yankee they throw at me. I got my Pappy’s old shotgun and I’ll blow the brains out of any Yankee who gets in my way.

The men sitting around the stove laughed and said, That’s a southerner talking for sure, but you are just a boy. Go on home and grow up a bit, and, you just may get your chance at killing a Yankee. I hear tell they have drawn a line in the sand down in Charleston and the Southerners are threatening to take over Fort Sumter since South Carolina seceded from the United States of America.

Having been put down as being just a boy, John Frank lowered his head and went about the business of buying coffee for his mama. When he got back home, all John Frank could talk about to his mama was the coming of a possible war. He could picture himself marching off to battle as everyone stood along the road and shouted, Ho Rah! Ho Rah! just like they did for the men who marched off to battle during the war that the Patriots fought for their independence from England. He had learned about the Great War for independence during the short time he attended school up on the hill above Brights Creek. John had only attended school for about three months one winter, because his mama needed him to get work done around the house with his Granddaddy Nelson being old and sickly. Although he could picture himself standing brave and tall and fighting for his country, if the United States of America was going to take away his rights of being a North Carolina citizen, then he would just have to fight for his freedom like his ancestors had done nearly eighty-six years ago.

Mary, being only thirty years old, had never seen a war. She had heard of the great War for Independence, but she was never allowed to go to school and knew only a few details about that war. And, as far as the War of 1812 when England once again attempted to retake their English colonies in America, Mary had only heard it being mentioned a time or two. Girls were not allowed to attend school, as it was commonly thought in this mountainous area, that a woman’s place was in the home, to serve her husband and to have as many babies as the good Lord saw fit. Mary always felt beaten down and had little self-respect. Not only had she not been able to attend school like a few of the well-to-do girls, she had thought she was in love with a wonderful boy, who loved her as much as she loved him, and, that he would always be there to love and protect her from the dangers of the world. Little did she know, that he was seeing other girls at the same time as Mary, and was just in it for a good time with absolutely no intentions of marrying her. He certainly had no plans of having a baby with her. When Mary realized she was in the family way, she planned to meet the boy at their secret place and explain the situation.

She was surprised, about having a baby. At fifteen, she was not really sure how babies came to be. But, now she was going to have one of her own. Although surprised, she still felt good. She was confident the ‘’love-of-her-life" would be just as proud to be a father as she would to be a mother. She could picture herself, sitting by the fireplace in their own little cabin, when her loving husband would come home from working in the fields, kiss the baby and then grab her and swing her around the room, telling her how much he loved her and their baby. It was a surprise, but it was going to be wonderful!

They had planned to meet at their secret place, Saturday night, after her love finished working for old man Turner down in his lower forty acres. He had signed on to plow corn for old man Turner, although, he didn’t need the money. His daddy was one of the most wealthy men in Poke County and, if he had wanted any spending money, all he would have had to do was ask, his daddy would have handed it to him. Walking down the dusty road, he had only one thing on his mind. Mary had called him! All the times before, he had been the one who had sent her a message to meet. By her sending him a message, it must mean she just couldn’t wait to have sex with him again.

Mary was already there when he arrived; she was so very excited. They were going to be a family and he would be just as excited and would make everything all right! He stopped at his parents house to wash up. He was also excited, but for a different reason - he wanted to have sex with Mary! He had been with many girls over the years, and, most were more exciting and adventurous than Mary; but she was always a good time to be had and, she tried to give him everything he asked. As he began to touch her, she pulled back a little and said, Darling, I have something special to tell you. We’re going to have a baby! He drew back with an expression of disbelief on his face. What! What are you saying girl? She explained and told him it was not bad, but good; she said, You were right darling when you told me that we loved each other and no one was ever going to stand in our way. That, even though we are young, we were going to get married one day and have a family. It just came along a little sooner than we expected.

With a look of disbelief on his face like she had never seen before, he shouted, Now you listen here woman! Ain’t no way in hell I’m going to be a father. Why, I don’t even know if it’s my baby or not. Why, my mama and daddy would throw me out of the house if they thought I had fathered a baby. Ain’t no way! Just ain’t no way!’ He turned and rushed off back toward the road, never looking back.

Mary stood there in the dark with tears running down her cheeks. She dropped to her knees, burying her head in her hands. She cried like she had never cried before. After awhile, she got to her feet, weeping, and staggered back home

Mary’s mother had died when she was three years old, and, she had been raised by her father Nelson Cochran. He was an old white-haired man of eighty-two years when Mary came home crying, and, told him about her situation. He put his big arms around her and gave her a hug as he said, My child, my sweet child, life comes hard, babies come easy. We have each other, and, whatever may come, we will make it through together. With that said, they walked together into the house arm in arm.

When her time came, Mary, with great difficulty, delivered her son and had raised him for the past fourteen years. She never did get married and the father never acknowledged he had fathered a child.

When John Frank was around six years old, Mary and he were walking along a path through the woods, down below the house, when they happened to meet Nancy Johnson and her son, Jim. Nancy and her husband, Joseph, lived about a mile down Brights Creek with their son, Jim. Jim was only a year older than John Frank and both boys soon became the best of friends. John Frank and Jim were as far different in looks as could be. Whereas John Frank was skinny, Jim was fat; John Frank had black hair while Jim’s hair was blond. There was one thing they could agree on and that was they both loved being out in the woods. As the young boys neared their teenage years, there was not a day when they were not in the woods, playing children’s games. One day John Frank would be the sheriff and Jim would be the robber; the next day or so they would switch roles and Jim would become the good guy and John Frank, the bad. No matter what role they assumed, they were always there for each other. A few times, other boys from the community would join them in their games. If there was ever an argument, and, there were many, John Frank and Jim would always side together against the other boys. Even as boys, they soon realized that they always had each other’s back and nothing nor nobody would ever come between them.

One day they were running and playing in the thick woods when it started to rain. Normally, they played right on through the rain, but this time, the thunder shower grew into a strong thunderstorm. Lightning flashed all over the sky and thunder crashed and roared overhead! The wind rapidly picked up to the point that small trees swaying along the path began to break, sending limbs flying through the air! Realizing the danger, the two became afraid and began seeking shelter. As they scampered about, they discovered the entrance to a cave which had