Uncle Seth sat on the "loafers" bench outside the country store. It was a hot July day, and every time a model A would drive by, the wind would pick up the larger part of the road and settle it on the bushes alongside the road. Uncle Seth would usually comment that they seemed to be in a mighty big hurry - "Rushing to their graves! Rushing to their graves!" - he would lament. Even though the old Confederate Veteran seemed out of place in this new and progressive South, somehow the people who knew him reckoned that he had a better grasp on what the world had in store for us than Dixie's model A owners.

"Uncle Seth," intoned Carroll Ray, "where does that road go?"

"It goes anywhere you might want to go- but the better question is why you would want to go in the first place? Every thing we need and all of our people are right around here."

"But Uncle Seth," Carroll Ray protested, "during the War you got to go all the way up to Kentucky."

"Yep, but that was because the army sent me up there," explained Uncle Seth. "But I guess you are right, it is only natural for young people to want to explore the world," he said thoughtfully. "When I was up in Kentucky, I meet some real heroes who belonged to Morgan's raiders," noted Uncle Seth.

"Uncle Seth, I thought all ya'll were heroes," joked Carroll Ray.

"Well, these fellows were a cut above the rest of us," explained Uncle Seth as he settled back into a comfortable storytelling position on the hard bench. Carroll Ray watched the old man closely, knowing all along that he would soon be treated to another story of the War.

"A Kentuckian, Richard R. Worsham, and I had joined up with Captain Thomas Quirk's Scouts. Captain Quirk was an Irishman who joined Morgan's Raiders in September of 1861. In December 1862, we went with Quirk's Company on Morgan's famous "Christmas" Raid. We headed straight for Glasgow, Kentucky, where we made our first contact with the Yankee invader. At Bear Wallow Captain Quirk's vidett came back with word that the Yankees were on the road ahead. Without so much as a by-your-leave, Captain Quirk drew his pistol, ordered his company to do the same, and charged a whole battalion of Yankee Calvary."

"Uncle Seth, that's impossible odds," exclaimed Carroll Ray.

"Yep, Carroll Ray - around a hundred of us against about one thousand of them, give or take a few dozen one way or the other - but who's counting at a time like that," declared Uncle Seth. "We quickly dismounted, the Captain figured that against such odds we would have a better chance in the woods on foot rather than out in the open. We left our horses with Number 4, you know the soldier who tends the horse when we dismounted to fight on foot, and advanced firing from behind trees. Before long the Yanks located our Number 4s who were keeping our horses, charged and dispersed them, leaving us on foot and outnumbered ten to one. We held the Yankees off, firing at them from as close as thirty feet. I jumped over a fence to find myself face to face with Captain Quirk. His face was covered with blood from two head wounds. He looked me straight in my eyes and declared 'Yes, the damn Yankees have shot me twice in the head, but I'll get even with them before the sun sets.' He then ordered me to get to the rear as fast as I could (a suggestion that had already briefly entered my mind) and to 'Tell my men that if they don't come back here and help me clean those Yankees out, I will personally come there and shoot every damn one of them.' I was glad to take the message back to the rear! It wasn't long after I delivered my message that Morgan's advance regiment came to the rescue. We rode straight into the Yankee camp and dispersed them. It became a running fight, and Captain Quirk was in the middle of it even though he was wounded. During the fight, Captain Quirk killed a Yankee officer with his six-shooter."

"Not long after that, General Basil Duke was wounded by an exploding shell and rendered unconscious. Captain Quirk placed the unconscious General astride Quirk's horse, mounted behind the General, and plunged both men and horse into the swollen, freezing waters of the Rolling Fork River. He brought the wounded General back to Dixie, refusing to allow him to fall into enemy hands," declared Uncle Seth as he surveyed the dust of an approaching automobile.

"Uncle Seth," Carroll Ray asked, "why did ya'll fight the Yankees even though we were outnumbered? It wasn't a fair fight to begin with? What made you think that we would be able to win?"

"Carroll Ray," Uncle Seth's voice contained a note of disappointment in it as he began to answer the boy's question. "When it comes to principles such as the right to live under a government ordered upon the consent of the governed, the right to be left alone, the right to live in a country where all members honor the limitations imposed by the organic law - our original Constitution - in such matters you never count the cost. It is better to strive against evil and lose than to become a part of evil by passively allowing tyranny to reign unchecked or unchallenged." Uncle Seth's voice was chocked off in a cloud of red clay dust blown up by the passing automobile - no doubt they too were "rushing to their graves!"

© James Ronald Kennedy, www.KennedyTwins.com. Uncle Seth is a fictional character. His adventures are based on actual events as told by Confederate Veterans and other Southerners who were actual witnesses to the events described.