Cowan-Sergeant York and His People

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SERGEANT YORKAND HIS PEOPLE


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SERGEANT ALVIN C. YORK"Marshal Foch, in decorating him, said- 'What you did was the


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SERGEANT YORKAND HIS PEOPLE

' BYSAM K. COWAN

Illustrations from PhotographsTaken Especially for This Book

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANYNew York and London

1922


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Copyright, 1922, byFUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY[Printed in the United States of America]

Published in April, 1922

Copyright Under the Articles of the Copyright Conrention of thePan-American Republics and the United StatesAugust 11, 1910.

M\ 15 1922


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ToFLOY PASCAL COWAN

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED^ WITH A LOVE THAT WANES NOT,BUT GROWS AS THE YEARS ROLL ON


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CONTENTSPACK

I. A Fight in the Forest of theArgonne 13

II. A "Long Hunter" Comes to theValley 67

III. The People of the Mountains . . 107IV. The Molding of a Man . . . .141V. The People of Pall Mall . . . .179VI. Sergeant York's Own Story . . . 225VII. Two More Deeds of Distinction . . 261


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ILLUSTRATIONSSERGEANT ALVIN C. YORK Frontispiece

FacingPage"It was from this home that Alvin went to war, and itwas to it he returned" 32"He declined to barter the honors that came to him;

turned all down, and went back to the little worriedmother who was waiting for him in a hut in themountains, to the old seventy-five acre farm thatclings to one of the sloping sides of a sun-kissedvalley in Tennessee" 48

**The York springa brook in volume, the stream flowsclear and cool from a low, rock-ribbed cave in thebase of a mountain" 72

**The 'Valley of the Three Forks o' the Wolf,' whereAlvin was born and lives, which has been thehome of his ancestors for more than a hundredyears, is a level, fertile valley that is almost rec-tangular in form, around which seven mountainshave grown to their maturity" 88

"The bone and sinew of the army of General Jacksonin his Indian campaigns and against the British atNew Orleans were the riflemen of Tennessee andKentucky" 1I2

"The very difficulty of loading the cap and ball rifle,the time it took, taught its users to be accurate andnot spend the shot" 128

"Up the mountainside, above the York spring, a spacewas cleared for shooting matches where the prizeswere beeves and turkeys, and where the men shotso accurately that the slender crossing of two knife-blade marks was the bull's-eye of the target" 152

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ILLUSTRATIONSFacingPage

"Where the road tumbles down to the solid log cabin'Old Coonrod' Pile had built, to the spring and theYork home. The roadway comes down from thetop of 'The Knobs,' a thousand feet above, and itcomes over rocks of high and low degree, a jolting,impressive journey for its traveler" l68

"The people of Pall Mall live in farm houses that dotthe valley and in cabins on the mountainsides. Butthe social meeting point is the general store of JohnMarion Rains. The storekeeper is sure to knowwhether the stranger seen passing along the roadstopped at the Yorks' or went on to Possum Trot orByrdstown" 192

"Later I saw a little fellow of six years of age chasinga chicken that was barren of feathers over a yardthat was barren of grass. When I accused him ofmaliciously picking that chicken, his face was a spotof smiles as he vigorously denied it" 208

"From his father he inherited physical courage, from hismother moral courageand both spent their livesdeveloping those qualities of manhood in their boy" 240"The little church which sits by the road with no homesnear it is the geographical as well as the religious

center of the communityit is the heart of PallMall" 248"Before Sergeant York went to war he had given an

option to his mountain sweetheartshe could havehim for the takin' when he got back" 280Sergeant York, his bride and his mother, the guests ofGovernor Roberts of Tennessee and Mrs. Roberts

at the Governor's Mansion 288"Back again at his home in the 'Valley of the ThreeForks o' the Wolf,' he asked that the people givehim no more gifts, but instead contribute the money

to a fund to build simple, primary schools for thechildren of the mountains who had no schools. Ofthe fund not a dollar was to be for his personaluse, nor for any effort he might put forth in itsbehalf" 292

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SERGEANT ALVIN C. YORKFrom a cabin back in the mountains ofTennessee, forty-eight miles from the rail-road, a young man went to the World War.He was untutored in the ways of the world.Caught by the enemy in the cove of a

hill in the Forest of Argonne, he did notrun; but sank into the bushes and single-handed fought a battalion of German ma-chine gunners until he made them comedown that hill to him with their hands inair. There were one hundred and thirty-two of them left, and he marched them,prisoners, into the American line.Marshal Foch, in decorating him, said,

"What you did was the greatest thingaccomplished by any private soldier of allof the armies of Europe."

His ancestors were cane-cutters and In-1^2


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SERGEANT ALVIN C. YORKdian fighters. Their lives were rich in theromance of adventure. They were men ofstrong hate and gentle love. His peoplehave lived in the simplicity of the pioneer.

This is not a war-story, -but the tale ofthe making of a man. His ancestors wereable to leave him but one legacyan ideaof American manhood.

In the period that has elapsed since hecame down from the mountains he has donethree thingsand any one of them wouldhave marked him for distinction.

Sam K. Cowan.

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A FIGHT INTHE FORESTOF THEARGONNE


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A Fight in the Forest of the ArgonneUST to the north of Chatel Che-hery, in the Argonne Forest inFrance, is a hill which was known

to the American soldiers as "Hill No. 223."Fronting its high wooded knoll, on the wayto Germany, are three more hills. The onein the center is rugged. Those to the rightand left are more sloping, and the one tothe leftwhich the people of France havenamed "York's Hill" turns a shouldertoward Hill No. 223. The valley whichthey form is only from two to three hun-dred yards wide.Early in the morning of the eighth of

October, 1918, as a floating gray mist re-laxed its last hold on the tops of the trees

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEon the sides of those hills, the "All Amer-ica" Divisionthe Eighty-Secondpouredover the crest of No. 223. Prussian Guardswere on the ridge-tops across the valley, andbehind the Germans ran the DecauvilleRailroadthe artery for supplies to a salientstill further to the north which the Germanswere striving desperately to hold. The sec-ond phase of the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne was on.As the fog rose the Americans "jumped

oflf" down the wooded slope and the Ger-mans opened fire from three directions.With artillery they pounded the hillside.Machine guns savagely sprayed the treesunder which the Americans were moving.At one point, where the hill makes a steepdescent, the American line seemed to fadeaway as it attempted to pass.This slope, it was found, was being swept

by machine guns on the crest of the hill to\l62


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEthe left which faced down the valley. TheGermans were hastily "planting" other ma-chine guns there.The Americans showered that hilltop

with bullets, but the Germans were en-trenched.The sun had now melted the mist and

the sky was cloudless. From the pits theGermans could see the Americans workingtheir way through the timber.To find a place from which the Boche

could be knocked away from those death-dealing machine guns and to stop the dig-ging of "fox holes" for new nests, a non-commissioned officer and sixteen men wentout from the American line. All of themwere expert rifle shots who came from thesupport platoon of the assault troops on theleft.Using the forest's undergrowth to shield

them, they passed unharmed through the


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEbullet-swept belt which the Germans werethrowing around Hill No. 223, and reachedthe valley. Above them was a canopy oflead. To the north they heard the heavycannonading of that part of the battle.When they passed into the valley they

found they were within the range of anotherbattalion of German machine guns. TheGermans on the hill at the far end of thevalley were lashing the base of No. 223.For their own protection against the bul-lets that came with the whip of a waspthrough the tree-tops, the detachment wentboldly up the enemy's hill before them.On the hillside they came to an old trench,

which had been used in an earlier battle ofthe war. They dropped into itMoving cautiously, stopping to get their

bearings from the sounds of the guns abovethem, they walked the trench in Indian file.It led to the left, around the shoulder of


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEthe hill, and into the deep dip of a valley inthe rear.Germans were on the hilltop across that

valley. But the daring of the Americansprotected them. The Germans were guard-ing the valleys and the passes and they werenot looking for enemy in the shadow of thebarrels of German guns.As the trench now led down the hill,

carrying the Americans away from the gun-ners they sought, the detachment came outof it and took skirmish formation in thedense and tangled bushes.They had gone but a short distance when

they stepped upon a forest path. Just be-low them were two Germans, with RedCross bands upon their arms. At the sightof the Americans, the Germans droppedtheir stretcher, turned and fled around acurve.The sound of the shots fired after them

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEwas lost in the clatter of the machine gunsabove. One of the Germans fell, but re-gained his feet, and both disappeared inthe shrubs to the right.

It was kill or capture those Germans toprevent exposure of the position of the in-vaders, and the Americans went after them.They turned off the path where they saw

the stretcher-bearers leave it, darted throughthe underbrush, dodged trees and stumpsand brushes. Jumping through the shrubsand reeds on the bank of a small stream, theAmericans in the lead landed in a group ofabout twenty of the enemy.The Germans sprang to their feet in sur-prize. They were behind their own line ofbattle. Officers were holding a conferencewith a major. Private soldiers, in groups,were chatting and eating. They were be-fore a little shack that was the German ma-jor's headquarters, and from it stretched

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEtelephone wires. The Germans were notset for a fightOut from the brushwood and off the bank

across the stream, one after another, camethe Americans.

It bewildered the Germans. They didnot know the number of the enemy that hadcome upon them. As each of the ^'Buddies"landed, he sensed the situation, and pre-pared for an attack from any angle. Someof them fired at German soldiers whom theysaw reaching for their guns.

All threw up their hands, with the cry^'Kamerad!" when the Americans openedfire.About their prisoners the Americans

formed in a semicircle as they forced themto disarm. At the left end of this crescentwas Alvin Yorka young six-foot moun-taineer, who had come to the war from "TheKnobs of Tennessee." He knew nothing of


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEmilitary tactics beyond the simple evolutionsof the drill. Only a few days before had hefirst seen the flash of a hostile gun. But arifle was as familiar to his hands as one ofthe fingers upon them. His body was ridgedand laced with muscles that had grown toseasoned sinews from swinging a sledge ina blacksmith-shop. He had never seen theman or crowd of men of whom he wasafraid. He had hunted in the mountainswhile forked lightning flashed around him.He had heard the thunder crash in mountaincoves as loud as the burst of any Germanshell. He was of that type into whose brainand heart the qualm of fear never comes.The Americans were on the downstep of

the hill with their prisoners on the higherground. The major's headquarters had beenhidden away in a thicket of young under-growth, and the Americans could see but ashort distance ahead.

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEAs the semicircle formed with Alvin

York on the left end, he stepped beyond theedge of the thicketand what he saw upthe hill surprized him.

Just forty yards away was the crest, andalong it was a row of machine gunsbattalion of them!The German gunners had heard the shots

fired by the Americans in front of themajor's shack, or they had been warned bythe fleeing stretcher-bearers that the enemywas behind them. They were jerking attheir guns, rapidly turning them around, forthe nests had been masked and the muzzlesof the guns pointed down into the valley atthe foot of Hill No. 223, to sweep it whenthe Eighty-Second Division came out intothe open.Some of the Germans in the gun-pits,

using rifles, shot at York. The bullets''burned his face as they passed." He cried


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEa warning to his comrades which evidentlywas not heard, for when he began to shootup the hill they called to him to stop as theGermans had surrendered. They sawonlythe prisoners before them.There was no time for parley. York'ssecond cry, "Look outl" could carry no ex-planation of the danger to those whose viewwas blinded by the thicket. The Germanshad their guns turned. Hell and death werebeing belched down the hillside upon theAmericans.At the opening rattle of these guns the

German prisoners as if through a pre-arranged signal, fell flat to the ground, andthe streams of lead passed over them. Someof the Americans prevented by the thicketfrom seeing that an attack was to be madeupon them, hearing the guns, instinctivelyfollowed the lead of the Germans. But


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEthe onslaught came with such suddennessthat those in the line of fire had no chance.The first sweep of the guns killed six and

wounded three of the Americans. Deathleaped through the bushes and claimed Cor-poral Murray Savage, Privates MaryanDymowski, Ralph Weiler, Fred Ware-ing, William Wine and Carl Swanson.Crumpled to the ground, wounded, wereSergeant Bernard Early, who had been incommand; Corporal William B. Cuttingand Private Mario Muzzi.York, to escape the guns he saw sweeping

toward him, had dived to the ground be-tween two shrubs.The fire of other machine guns was added

to those already in action and streams oflead continued to pour through the thicket.But the toll of the dead and wounded ofthe Americans had been taken.The Germans kept their line of fire about


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEwaist-high so they would not kill their ownmen, some of whom they could see grovel-ing on the ground.York had seen the murder of his pals in

the first onset. He had heard some one say,^Xet's get out of here; we are in the Ger-man line!" Then all had been silence onthe American side.German prisoners lay on the ground be-

fore him, in view of the gunners on the hill-top. York edged around until he had aclear view of the gun-pits above him. Thestalks of weeds and undergrowth wereabout him.There came a lull in the machine gun fire.Several Germans arose as though to comeout of their pits and down the hill to see thebattle's result.But on the American side the battle was

just begun. York, from the brushes at theend of the thicket, "let fly."

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEOne of the Germans sprang upward,

waved his arms above him as he began hisflight into eternity.The others dropped back into their holes,

and there was another clatter of machineguns and again the bullets slashed across thethicket.

But there was silence on the Americanside. York waited.More cautiously, German heads began to

rise above their pits. York moved his rifledeliberately along the line knocking backthose heads that were the more venturesome.The American rifle shoots five times, and aclip was gone before the Germans realizedthat the fire upon them was coming from onepoint.They centered on that point.Around York the ground was torn up.

Mud from the plowing bullets besmirchedhim. The brush was mowed away above

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEand on either side of him, and leaves andtwigs were falling over him.But they could only shoot at him. They

were given no chance to take deliberate aim.As they turned the clumsy barrel of a ma-chine gun down at the fire-sparking point onthe hillside a German would raise his headabove his pit to sight it. Instantly backwardalong that German machine gun barrelwould come an American bulletcrashinginto the head of the Boche who manned thegun.The prisoners on the ground squirmed

under the fire that was passing over them.Their bodies were in a tortuous motion. ButYork held them there; it made the gunnerskeep their fire high.Every shot York made was carefully

placed. As a hunter stops in the forest andgazes straight ahead, his mind, receptive tothe slightest movement of a squirrel or the

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNErustle of leaves in any of the trees beforehim, so this Tennessee mountaineer facedand fought that line of blazing machine gunson the ridge of the hill before him. Hismind was sensitive to the point in the linethat at that instant threatened a real danger,and instinctively he turned to it.Down the row of prisoners on the ground

he saw the German major with a pistol inhis hand, and he made the officer throw thegun to him. Later its magazine was foundto have been emptied.He noted that after he shot at a gun-pit,

there was a break in the line of flame atthat point, and an interval would pass beforethat gun would again be manned and be-come a source of danger to him. He also real-ized that where there was a sudden break often or fifteen feet in the line of flame, andthe trunk of a tree rose within that space,that soon a German gun and helmet would

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEcome peeking around the tree's trunk. Arifleman would try for him where the ma-chine guns failed.

In the mountains of Tennessee Alvin Yorkhad won fame as one of the best shots withboth rifle and revolver that those mountainshad ever held, and his imperturbability wasas noted as the keenness of his sight.

In mountain shooting-matches at a rangeof forty yardsjust the distance the row ofGerman guns were from himhe would putten rifle bullets into a space no larger than aman's thumb-nail. Since a small boy hehad been shooting with a rifle at the bobbingheads of turkeys that had been tethered be-hind a log so that only their heads wouldshow. German heads and German helmetsloomed large before him.A battalion of machine guns is a military

unit organized to give battle to a regimentof infantry. Yet, one man, a representative


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEof America on that hillside on that Octobermorning, broke the morale of a battalion ofmachine gunners made up from membersof Germany's famous Prussian Guards.Down in the brush below the Prussians wasa human machine gun they could not hit,and the penalty was death to try to locatehim.As York fought, there was prayer upon

his lips. He was an elder in a little churchback in the "Valley of the Three Forks o'the Wolf" in the mountains of Tennessee.He prayed to God to spare him and to havemercy on those he was compelled to kill.When York shot, and a German soldierfell backward or pitched forward and re-mained motionless, York would call tothem:

"Well! Come on downIt was an earnest command in which there

was no spirit of exultation or braggadocio.


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEHe was praying for their surrender, so thathe might stop killing them.His command, "Come down!'^ at times,

above the firing, was heard in the Germanpits. They realized they were fighting oneman, and could not understand the strangedemand.When the fight began York was lying on

the ground. But as the entire line of Ger-man guns came into the fight, he raised'himself to a sitting position so that his gunwould have the sweep of all of them.When the Germans found they could not

"get him" with bullets, they tried othertactics.

Off to his left, seven Germans, led by alieutenant, crept through the bushes. Whenabout twenty yards away, they broke for himwith lowered bayonets.The clip of York's rifle was nearly empty.

He dropped it and took his automatic pistol.[32]


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNESo calmly was he master of himself and socomplete his vision of the situation that heselected as his first mark among the oncom-ing Germans the one farthest away. Heknew he would not miss the form of a manat that distance. He wanted the rear mento fall first so the others would keep comingat him and not stop in panic when they sawtheir companions falling, and fire a volleyat him. He felt that in such a volley hisonly danger lay. They kept coming, andfell as he shot. The foremost man, and thelast to topple, did not get ten yards fromwhere he started. Their bodies formed aline down the hillside.York resumed the battle with the machine

guns. The German fire had "eased up'^while the bayonet charge was on. The gun-ners paused to watch the grim struggle be-low them.The major, from among the prisoners,

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEcrawled to York with an offer to order thesurrender of the machine gunners.

*^Do it!" was his laconic acceptance. Buthis vigilance did not lessen.To the right a German had crawled near-

by. He arose and hurled a hand-grenade.It missed its objective and wounded one ofthe prisoners. The American rifle swungquickly and the grenade-thrower pitchedforward with the grunt of a man struckheavily in the stomach pit.The German major blew his whistle.Out of their gun-pits the Germans came

around from behind treesup from thebrush on either side. They were unbucklingcartridge belts and throwing them and theirside-arms away.York did not move from his position in

the brush. About halfway down the hill asthey came to him, he halted them, and hewatched the gun-pits for the movement of

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEany one left skulking there. His eye wentcautiously over the new prisoners to see thatall side-arms had been thrown away.The surrender was genuine.There were about ninety Germans before

him with their hands in air. This gave himover a hundred prisoners.He arose and called to his comrades, and

several answered him. Some of the re-sponses came from wounded men.

All of the Americans had been on York'sright throughout the fight. The thicket hadprevented them from taking any effectivepart. They were forced to protect them-selves from the whining bullets that camethrough the brush from unseen guns. Theyhad constantly guarded the prisoners andshielded York from treachery.

Seven AmericansPercy Beardsley, JoeKonotski, Thomas G. Johnson, Feodor Sak,Michael A. Sacina, Patrick Donahue and

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEGeorge W. Willscame to him. SergeantEarly, Corporal Cutting and PrivateMuzzi, tho wounded, were still alive.He lined the prisoners up "by twos."His own wounded he put at the rear of

the column, and forced the Germans to carrythose who could not walk. The other Amer-icans he stationed along the column to holdthe prisoners in line.

Sergeant Early, shot through the body,was too severely wounded to continue incommand. York was a corporal, but therewas no question of rank for all turned to himfor instructions. The Germans could nottake their eyes off of him, and instantly com-plied with all his orders, given through themajor, who spoke English.

Stray bullets kept plugging through thebranches of the trees around them. For thefirst time the Americans realized they wereunder fire from the Germans on the hill


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEback of them, whom they had seen when theycame out of the deserted trench. The Ger-mans stationed there could not visualize thestrange fight that was taking place behind aline of German machine guns, and they werewithholding their fire to protect their ownmen. They were plugging into the woodswith rifles, hoping to draw a return volley,and thus establish the American's position.To all who doubted the possibility of car-

rying so many prisoners through the forest,or spoke of reprisal attacks to release them,York's reply was:

"Let's get 'em out of here I"The German major looking down the longline of Germans, possibly planning some re-coup from the shame and ignominy of thesurrender of so many of them, stepped up toYork and asked:"How many men have you got?"The big mountaineer wheeled on him:

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLE"I got a-plenty!"And the major seemed convinced that the

number of the Americans was immaterial asYork thrust his automatic into the major'sface and stepped him up to the head of thecolumn.Among the captives v^ere three officers.These York placed around him to lead the

prisonersone on either side and the majorimmediately before him. In York's righthand swung the automatic pistol, with whichhe had made an impressive demonstration inthe fight up the hill. The officers were toldthat at the first sign of treachery, or for afailure of the men behind to obey a com-mand, the penalty would be their lives; andthe major was informed that he would bethe first to go.With this formation no German skulking

on the hill or in the bushes could fire uponYork without endangering the officers. Sim-


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEilar protection was given all of the Ameri-cans acting as escort.Up the hill York started the column.

From the topography of the land he knewthere were machine guns over the crest thathad had no part in the fight.

Straight to these nests he marched them.'As the column approached, the major wasforced by York to command the gunners tosurrender.Only one shot was fired after the march

began. At one of the nests, a German, see-ing so many Germans as prisoners and sofew of the enemy to guard themall ofthem on the German firing-line with ma-chine gun nests around themrefused tothrow down his gun, and showed fight.York did not hesitate.The remainder of that gun^s crew took

their place in line, and the major promisedYork there would be no more delays in the

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEsurrenders if he would kill no more ofthem.As a great serpent the column wound

among the trees on the hilltop swallowingthe crews of German machine guns.

After the ridge had been cleared, fourmachine gun-nests were found down thehillside.

It took all the woodcraft the young moun-taineer knew to get to his own command.They had come back over the hilltop andwere on the slope of the valley in whichthe Eighty-Second Division was fighting.They were now in danger from both Ger-man and American guns.York listened to the firing, and knew the

Americans had reached the valleyandthat some of them had crossed it. Wheretheir line was running he could not de-termine.He knew if the Americans saw his column

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEof German uniforms they were in dangercaptors and captives alikeof being anni-hilated. At any moment the Germans fromthe two hilltops down the valleyto checkthe Eighty-Second Division's advancemight lay a belt of bullets across the coursethey traveled.Winding around the cleared places and

keeping in the thickly timbered section ofthe hillslope whenever it was possible,Sergeant York worked his way toward theAmerican line.

In the dense woods the German majormade suggestions of a path to take. As Yorkwas undecided which one to choose, themajor's suggestion made him go the otherone. Frequently the muzzle of York's au-tomatic dimpled the major's back and hequickened his step, slowed up, or led thecolumn in the direction indicated to him,without turning his head and without in-

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEquiry as to the motive back of York'scommands.Down near the foot of the hill, near the

trench they had traveled a short while be-fore, York answered the challenge to^^Haltl"He stepped out so his uniform could be

seen, and called to the Americans challeng-ing him, and about to fire on the Germans,that he was "bringing in prisoners.'*The American line opened for him to

pass, and a wild cheer went up from theDoughboys when they saw the column ofprisoners. Some of them "called to him toknow" if he had the "whole damnedGerman army."At the foot of the hill in an old dugout

an American P. C. had been located, andYork turned in his prisoners.The prisoners were officially counted by

Lieut. Joseph A. Woods, Assistant Division


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEInspector, and there were 132 of them, threeof the number were officers and one withthe rank of major.When the Eighty-Second Division passed

on, officers of York's regiment visited thescene of the fight and they counted 25 Ger-mans that he had killed and 35 machineguns that York had not only silenced buthad unmanned, carrying the men back withhim as prisoners.When York was given "his receipt for the

prisoners," an incident happened that showsthe true knightliness of character of thisuntrained mountaineer.

It was but a little after ten o'clock in themorning. The Americans had a hard day'sfighting ahead of them. Somewhere out inthe forest York's own companyCompanyGand his own regimentthe 328th In-fantrywere fighting. He made inquiry,but no one could direct him to them. He


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEturned to the nearest American officer, sa-luted and reported, ^^Ready for duty."What he had done was to him but a part

of the work to be done that day.But York was assigned to the command of

his prisoners, to carry them back to a deten-tion camp. The officers were held by theP. C.for an examination and grilling onthe plans of the enemy.Whenever they could the private soldiers

among the prisoners gathered close to York,now looking to him for their personal safety.On the way to the detention camp the col-

umn was shelled by German guns from oneof the hilltops. York maneuvered them andput them in double quick time until theywere out of range.

Late in the afternoon, back of the threehills that face Hill No. 223, the ''All Ameri-ca" Division "cut" the Decauville Railroadthat supplied a salient to the north that the

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEGermans were striving desperately to hold.As they swept on to their objective theyfound the hill to the left of the valley, thatturns a shoulder toward No. 223whichthe people of France have named ^^York'sHill"cleared of Germans, and on its crest,silent and unmanned machine guns.Americans returned and buried on the

hillsidebeside a thicket, near a shack thathad been the German officer's headquarterssix American soldiers. They placedwooden crosses to mark the graves and onthe top of the crosses swung the helmetsthe soldiers had worn.Out from the forest came the story of

what York had done. The men in thetrenches along the entire front were told ofit. Not only in the United States, but inGreat Britain, France and Italy, it electri-fied the public. From the meager detailsthe press was able to carry, for the entire


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEEntente firing-line was ablaze and a sur-render was being forced upon Germany, andYork's division was out in the Argonne stillfighting its way ahead, the people could butwonder how one man was able to silence abattalion of machine guns and bring in somany prisoners.

Major-General George B. Duncan, com-mander of the Eighty-Second Division, andofficers of York's regiment knew that historyhad been made upon that hillside. By per-sonal visits of the regiment's officers to thescene, by measurements, by official count ofthe silent guns and the silent dead, by affi-davits from those who were with York, therecord of his achievement was verified.Major-General C. P. Summerall, before

the officers of York's regiment, said to him"Your division commander has reported

to me your exceedingly gallant conduct dur-ing the operations of your division in the

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEMeuse-Argonne Battle. I desire to expressto you my pleasure and commendation forthe courage, skill, and gallantry which youdisplayed on that occasion. It is an honorto command such soldiers as you. Your con-duct reflects great credit not only upon theAmerican army, but upon the Americanpeople. Your deeds will be recorded in thehistory of this great war and they will liveas an inspiration not only to your comradesbut to the generations that will come afterus."

General John J. Pershing in pinning theCongressional Medal of Honor upon himthe highest award for valor the UnitedStates Government bestowscalled Yorkthe greatest civilian soldier of the war.

Marshal Foch, bestowing the Croix deGuerre with Palm upon him, said his featwas the World War's most remarkable in-dividual achievement.

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEA deed that is done through the naturaluse of a great talent seems to the doer of the

deed the natural thing to have done. A sin-cere response to appreciation and praise,made by those endowed with real ability,usually comes cloaked in a genuine modesty.At his home in the ^'Valley of the Three

Forks o' the Wolf," after the war was over,I asked Alvin York how he came to be^^Sergeant York.""Well," he said, as he looked earnestlyat me, "you know we were in the ArgonneForest twenty-eight days, and had somemighty hard fighting in there. A lot of ourboys were killed off. Every company hasto have so many sergeants. They needed asergeant; and they jes' took me."

In the summer of 1917 when Alvin Yorkwas called to war, he was working on thefarm for $25 a month and his midday meal,walking to and from his work. He was

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"He declined to barter the honors that came to him, turned all down,and went back to the little worried mother who was waiting for himin a hut in the mountains, to the old seventy-five-acre farm thatclings to one of the sloping sides of a sun-kissed valley in Tennessee."


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEhelping to support his widowed mother withher family of eleven. When he returned tothis country to be mustered out of servicehe had traveled among the soldiers ofFrance the guest of the American Expedi-tionary Force, so the men in the lines couldsee the man who single-handed had captureda battalion of machine guns, and he bore theemblems of the highest military honors con-ferred for valor by the governments compos-ing the Allies.At New York he was taken from the

troop-ship when it reached harbor and thespontaneous welcome given him there andat Washington was not surpassed by the pre-arranged demonstrations for the Nation'sdistinguished foreign visitors.The streets of those cities were lined with

people to await his coming and police pa-trols made way for him. The flaming ^edof his hair, his young, sunburned, weather-

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEridged face with its smile and its strength,the worn service cap and uniform, allmarked him to the crowds as the man theysought.On the shoulders of members of the New

York Stock Exchange he was carried to thefloor of the E.xhange and business was sus-pended. When he appeared in the galleryof the House of Representatives at Wash-ington, the debate was stopped and the mem-bers turned to cheer him. A sergeant inrank, he sat at banquets as the guest of honorwith the highest officials of the Army andNavy and the Government on either side.Wherever he went he heard the echo of thevaluation which Marshal Foch and GeneralPershing placed upon his deeds.Many business propositions were made

to him. Some were substantial and othersstrange, the whimsical offerings of enthusedadmirers.


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEAmong them were cool fortunes he could

never earn at labor.Taking as a basis the money he was paid

for three months on the farm in the summerbefore he went to France, he would have.,had to work fifty years to earn the amounthe was offered for a six-weeks' theatrical en-)gagement. For the rights to the story of hislife a single newspaper was willing to givehim the equivalent of thirty-three years. Hewould have to live to be over three hundred Tyears of age to earn at the old farm wage

j

the sum motion picture companies offered,/as a guarantee.He turned all down, and went back to thelittle worried mother who was waiting forhim in a hut in the mountains, to the gazelle-like mountain girl whose blue eyes hadhaunted the shades of night and the shadowsof trees, to the old seventy-five acre farm thatclings to one of the sloping sides of a sun-


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEkissed valley in Tennessee. He refused tocapitalize his fame, his achievements thatwere crowded into a few months in the armyof his country.There was one influence that was ever

guiding him. The future had to square tothe principles of thought and action he hadlaid down for himself and that he had fol-lowed since he knelt, four years before, at

Ia rough-boarded altar in a little church in

^ the "Valley of the Three Forks o' theWolf," whose belfry had been calling, ap-pealing to him since childhood.Admiral Albert Cleaves, who com-manded the warship convoy for the troop-

ships, himself a Tennesseean, made a pre-diction which came true. "The guns ofArgonne and the batteries of welcome ofthe East were not to be compared to thoseto be turned loose in York's home state."The people of Tennessee filled depots,

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEstreets and tabernacles to welcome him.Gifts awaited him, which ranged from afour-hundred acre farm raised by publicsubscriptions by the Rotary Clubs and news-papers, to blooded stock for it, and almostevery form of household furnishings thatcould add to man's comfort. It took a ware-room at Nashville and the courtesies of thebarns of the State Fair Association to holdthe gifts.He was made a Colonel by the Governor

of Tennessee, and appointed a member of hisstaff. He was elected to honorary member-ship in many organizations. As far away asSpokane the ''Red Headed Club" thoughthim worthy of their membership ''by virtueof the color of his hair and in recognitionof his services to this, our glorious country.'^The nations of Europe for whom he

fought had not forgotten nor had theyceased to honor him. After he had returned

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEto the mountains of Tennessee, another cita-tion came from the French Government fora military award that had been made him,and in a ceremony at the capital of Tennes-see the Italian Government conferred uponhim the Italian Cross of War.The ''Valley of the Three Forks o' the

[Wolf," where Alvin York was born and lives,Iwhich has been the home of his ancestors

I for more than a hundred years, is a level fer-tile valley that is almost a rectangle in form.Three mountains rising on the north andsouth and west enclose it, while to theeast four mountains jumble together, form-ing the fourth side. It seems that each ofthese is striving for a place by the valley.

It IS down the passes of these mountainson the east that the three branches of theWolf River run, and it is their meeting andcommingling that gave the quaint name tothe valley.

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEThe forks of the Wolf rush down the

passes, but the river runs lazily through thevalley. It flows beside a cornfield, thenwanders over to a meadow of clover or intoa patch of sugar-cane, turning the whilefrom side to side as the varying mountainvistas come into view. At the far end whereit is pushed over the mill dam and out ofthe valley, the Wolf roars protestingly; thenrushes on to the Cun^erland River a silverline between the mountains.

Pall Mall, the village, is co-extensive withthe "Valley of the Three Forks o' the Wolf."As a stranger first sees Pall Mall it is but ahalf-mile of the mountain roadway that runsfrom Jamestown, the county seat of Fentresscounty, to Byrdstown, the county seat ofPickett.The roadway comes down from the top

of "The Knobs," a thousand feet above, andit comes over rocks of high and low degree,


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEa jolting, impressive journey for its traveler.It reaches the foot of the mountain along oneof the prongs of the Wolf, crosses them atthe base of the eastern mountains and passeson to the northern side of the river.At the post office of Pall Mall, which is

also the store of 'Taster" Pilea framebuilding upon stilts to allow an unob-structed flow of the Wolf when on a winterrampagethe road turns at right angles tothe west. Through fields of corn it goes,across a stretch of red clover to the clumpof forest trees which is the schoolhousegrounds and in which nestles the littlechurch that has played such a prominentpart in the life of the village. Then theroad goes beside the graveyard and againthrough corn to the general store of JohnMarion Rains, which with five houses insightand one of these the York home!marks the western confine of Pall Mall.

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEOne can be in the center of Pall Mall and

not know it, for the residents live in farmhouses that dot the valley and in cabins onthe mountainsides. The little church, whichsits by the road with no homes near it, is thegeographical as well as the religious centerof the communityit is the heart of PallMall.

Passing the Rains store the roadwaytumbles down to the York's big spring. Abrook in volume the stream flows clear andcool from a low rock-ribbed cave in the baseof the mountain.

Across the spring branch, up the moun-tainside in a clump of honey-suckle androses and apple trees is the home to whichSergeant York returned.

It is a two-room cabin. The boxing is ofrough boards as are the unplaned narrowstrips of batting covering the cracks. Thereis a chimney at one end and in one room is a

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEfireplace. The kitchen is a ^4ean-to" andthe only porch is on the rear, the width ofthe kitchen-dining room. The porch is forservice and work, railed partly with a boardfor a shelf, which holds the water-bucket,the tin wash basin and burdens brought infrom the farm.

Parts of the walls of the two rooms arcpapered with newspapers and catalogpages; the rough rafters run above. Theuncovered floor is of wide boards, wornsmooth in service, chmked to keep out theblasts of winter.The porch in the rear is on a level with

the mountainside. To care for the moun-tain's slope a front stoop was built. Thesides of it are scantlings and the steps are Inarrow boards.The house has been painted by Poverty;

but the home is warmed and lit by a moun-tain mother's love. The front stoop is a

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEwooden ladder with flat steps but the en-trance to the home is an arbor of honey-suckle and roses.On summer nights the York boys sat on

that stoop and sang, and their voices floatedon the moonbeams out over the valley. Thelittle mother '^pottered" about, with ever asmile on her face for her boys. They werehappy.

It was from this home that Alvin wentto war, and it was to it he returned.

Visitors know, and it is well for others torealize, that Pall Mall and the "Valley ofthe Three Forks o' the Wolf" are backamong the rising ranges of the CumberlandMountains fo4:ty^igl^^iiles from the rail-road.Alvin York came from a line of ancestors

who were, cane-cutters and Indian fighters.The earliest ancestor of whom he has knowl-edge was a "Long Hunter," who with a rifle

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEupon his shoulder strode into the Valley ofthe Wolf and homesteaded the river bottom-lands. Here his people lived far from thetraveled paths. Marooned in their moun-tain fastnesses, they clung to the customsand the traditions of the past. Their lifewas simple, and their sports quaint. Theyheld shooting-matches on the mountainside,enjoyed "log-rollings" and "corn-huskings.'^Strong in their loves and in their hates, theyfeared God, but feared no man. The CivilWar swept over the valley and left splotchesof blood.

Friends of Sergeant York, knowing thatthe history of his people was rich in story,and that the public was waiting, wanting toknow more of the man the German armycould not run, nor make surrenderand in-stead had to come to himurged that hisstory be told.He had been mustered out of the army


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEand come back to the valley wanting to pickup again the dropped thread of his formerlife. He was striving earnestly and prayer-fully to blot from recurrent memory thatOctober morning scene on ''York's Hiir^ inFrance.

His friends and neighbors at Pall Mallwaited eagerly for his return. They wantedto hear from his own lips the story of hisfight.No man of the mountains was ever given

the home-coming that was his. It was madethe reunion of the people, with the neigh-bors the component parts of one greatfamily.When home again, Alvin wanted no es-

pecial deference shown him. He wished tobe again just one of them, to swing himselfupon the counter at the general store andtalk with them as of old. He had much totell from his experience, but always it was


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEof other incidents than the one that madehim famous.Months passed. He lived in that moun-

tain cabin with his little mother, whose coun-sel has ever influenced him, and yet not oncedid he mention to her that he had a fight inthe Forest of Argonne.His consent was gained for the publica-

tion of the story of his people, but it waswith the pronounced stipulation that "it betold right.'*Weeks afterwardfor I had gone to live

awhile among his peoplethe two of uswere sitting upon the rugged rock, facing tothe cliff above the York spring, talkingabout the fight in France.He told of it hesitatingly, modestly. Some

of the parts was simply the confirmation ofassembled data; much of it, denial of pub-lished rumor and conjecturebefore thestory came out as a whole.

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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEI asked the meaning of his statement thathe would not ''mind the publication if the

story were done right."''Well," he said with his mountain drawl,

*'I don't want you bearing down too muchon that killing part. Tell it without so muchof that!"A rock was picked up and hurled downthe mountain.

I then understood why the little motherwas "jes' a-waiting till Alvin gits ready totalk." I understood why the son did notwish to be the one to bring into his mother'smind the picture of that hour in Francewhen men were falling before his gun. Isaw the reason he had for always courteouslyavoiding talking of the scene with any one.

"But," and he turned with that smile thatwins him friends, "I just can't help chuck-ling at that German major. I sure had himbluffed."


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEAccording to the code of mountain con-

versation there followed a silence. Anotherrock bounded off the sapling down the cliff.

^'You should have seen the major," he re-sumed, "move on down that hill wheneverI pulled down on him with that old Colt.'Goose-step it', I think they call it. He wasso little! His back so straight! And allhuffed up over the way he had to mind me.''

I had watched the rocks as they went downthe cliff and it seemed nearly every one ofthem bounced off the same limb. I com-mented on the accuracy of his eye."Aw! I wasn't throwing at that sapling,

but atthatleaf."He straightened up and threw more care-fully; and the leaf floated down to the wa-ters of the York spring.Down by the spring I met the little motherbringing a tin bucket to the stone milk-house

which nature had built. Her slender, droolp-f64]


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IN THE FOREST OF ARGONNEing figure, capped by the sunbonnet she al-ways wore, reached just to the shoulder ofher son, as he placed his arm protectinglyabout her.

I asked if she were not proud of that boyof hers.

"Yes," she answered, with pride in everyline of her sweet though wrinkled face, "Iam proud of all of them all of my eightboysT*

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IIA ''LONGHUNTER''COMES TOTHE VALLEY


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IIA "Long Hunter" Comes to the Valley

HE "Valley of the Three Forkso' the Wolf" is more than a fer-tile space between two mountain

ranges. It is a rectangular basin of verdureand beauty in the glow of a Southern sun,around which seven mountains have grownto their maturity. Generously, for uncountedyears, this family of the hills has given tothe valley the surplus products of their tim-bered slopes, and the Wolf River has gonethrough the valley distributing the wealththe mountains brought in, brightening andadding touches of beauty here and there,ever singing as she came down to her dailytask. The mountains and the river haveworked unceasingly together to make thespot a place of comfort and beauty.


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEOn the bare rock-shoulder of one of thesemountains, in the closing years of the eigh-

teenth century, stood one of the last of the'Xong Hunters," that race of stout-hearted,sturdy-legged men who when the AtlanticCoast was dotted with sparsely settled Brit-ish colonies climbed the mountains and wentdown the western slopes on the long hunts inthe unknown land that lay below. Theywere the pioneers of the pioneers, who intheir wanderings found a spot rich in game,in nuts and soilsuch a home as they hadwishedand they beckoned back for theirfamilies and their friends.The figure upon the rock-ledge rested

upon a long, muzzle-loading, flint-lockrifle as he looked out over the valley. Hislegs were wrapped in crudely tanned hidesmade from game he had killed. His cap wasof coon-skin. His search for adventure andgame had carried him across the crest of the


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A ''LONG HUNTER'Cumberlands and along many weary, lonelymiles of the western wooded slopes of thosemountains. Years afterward he is known tohave said that the view from the crag thatday was the most appealing in its calmnessand its beauty that he had seen upon hishunts.Below him stretched a grove of trees.

Their waving tops told of their size and tohis trained woodsman's eye the quiveringoval leaves were the leaves of the walnut.It was assurance that the soil was rich. Andthrough the length of the valley, twisted ir-regularly, lay a wide ribbon of saffron cane,from which at times the silver surface of astream showeda further evidence of thesoil's fertility. Over the western edge ofthis tableland of green and yellow and sil-ver the mountains cast a shadow of purpleand the sun filtered slanting rays through theforest slopes on the north and east.

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEDown the mountainside he came, and into

the valley; never to leave it, except when inbartering with the Indians he went to theircamping-places for furs, or in the years ofprosperity that followed he was upon atrading mission.He first made his way through ^Walnut

Grove" in search of the caned banks of theriver. As he pushed through the reeds thatswayed above him he came suddenly upon awell-beaten path. In its dust were the printsof deer-hoofs, and he followed them. Thepath threaded the length of the valley besidethe river's winding course, but he knew fromthe crests of the mountains above him thedirection he was taking.

It led him to the base of one of thesemountains, to a spring which flowed clearand cool, a brook in size, from a low rock-ribbed cave.By the spring he cooked his meal. His

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A ''LONG HUNTERbread was baked upon a hot stone and hedrank water from a terrapin shell. As heate his meal there came the sound of break-ing cane, a familiar welcomed vibration toa hunter. A stone, that is still by the springside, was used as a shelter and a resting-place for the rifle, and a deer fell as itstopped, astonished at the curling smoke thatrose from its watering-place.This was the first meal of the white man

at the York spring or in the "Valley of theThree Forks o' the Wolf," and for more thanfifty years the hunter lived within a hundredyards of where he camped that day. He wasConrad Pileor "Old Coonrod," as he isknown, the descriptive adjectives and by-name ever coupled as though one word. Hew^as the great-great-grandfather of SergeantAlvin Cullom York, and the earliest ancestorof which he has account.Above the spring in the rock-facing of

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEthe cliff is a large cave. Here Coonrod Pilespread a bed of leaves and made his home.The camp-fire was kept burning and itssmoke was seen by other hunters, and Pear-son Miller, Arthur Frogge, John Riley andMoses Poor came to Coonrod in the valley,and they too made their homes there, andPall Mall was founded and descendants ofthese men are today eighty per cent of theresidents in the ^^Valley of the Three Forkso' the Wolf."

This is but one of the many valley settle-ments made by "Long Hunters" in the Ap-palachian Mountains. Adventurous familiesin the last days of the Colonies and in theyears that came after the Revolution, fol-lowed the hunters, and log cabins and"cleared spaces" appeared in the valleys andon the mountainsides. And from themsprang another race of long hunters whowent out from the mountains down into the

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A ''LONG HUNTERvalleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, re-turning to tell of the land and the game theyhad found. Not far from Pall Mall, as thecrow would rise and journey, is a carvingupon a tree that is believed to historicallymark the path of the most noted of the"Long Hunters," and it says:"D Boon CillED a BAR On Tree in ThE

yEAR 1760."Emigrants of those days settled as Coon-

rod Pile and his companions took up their"squatter's rights" in the Valley o' theWolf." As canvas - covered mountain-schooners carrying families of the settlersmoved westward they followed the trails ofthe hunters and stopped where it appealedto them. Wagon-tracks grew into roads asthe travel increased. And the roads unvary-ingly led to the passes and the gaps in themountains that offered the least resistanceto progress. So scattered throughout the

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEranges of the Appalachians are many homesand settlements off from the old, beaten,wagon-trails, far distant from the railroadsof to-day, reached only over rocky, rarely-worked roadways.

Those who dwell there are the direct de-scendants of pioneers. Here they had livedfor generations unmolested by the rush andhurry for homes to the more fertile West.Often in those days a mountain neighbor wasforty miles away, and they were long ruggedmiles. To-day a traveler distant on the moun-tainside can be recognized by the mountain-eers while the man's features are still un-traceable, by the droop of a hat or a pecu-liar walk, or amble of the mule he rides.In the case of any traveler along those re-mote roads the odds are long that the man,his father, his grandfatheras far back asanyone can rememberall were born andraised in the neighborhood, and the neigh-

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A ''LONG HUNTER''borhood is the valleys and the cleared spaceson the sides of all the mountains neararound.

So the mountaineer of to-day is the trans-planted colonist of the eighteenth century;he is the backwoodsman of the days of An-drew Jackson; his life has the hospitality,the genuineness and simplicity of the pio-neer. It has been said of the residents ofthe Cumberland Mountains that they are thepurest Anglo-Saxons to be found to-day andnot even England can produce so clear astrain.

The mountain families have intermarriedand because of the inaccessibility of theirhomes have remained marooned in theirmountain fastnesses. They are Anglo-Saxonin their blood and their customs. They areColonial-Americans in their speech andcredences.They have a love for daring that comes

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEfrom the wildness and freedom of their sur-roundings. They have a directness of mindthat is the result of unconscious training.They must be sure of the firmness of eachfootstep they take, and it is through andpast obstructions that they locate their game.They are keen of observation, for the move-ment of a shadow or the swaying of a weedmay mean the presence of a fox, or a drop-ping hickory-nut indicate the flight of asquirrel. They are physically brave, forit is the inheritance of all who live in moun-tains. Their word is accepted, for they wishthe good will of the few among whom theymust spend their lives; and to them lying isa form of cowardice.They are sensitive because they are ob-

servant and realize they have been criticizedand misunderstoodmisclassed as a rarerace of "moonshiners" and "feudists."Quickly and clearly they see through any

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A "LONG HUNTER''veneer of democracy the stranger may as-sume, to conceal an assumption of superior-ity. Yet for the stranger on the roadside,in answer to the halloo at their gate, themountaineers are willing to go out of theirway to do a favor, and they will cheerfullyshare such food and comforts as they mayhave, with any man. But they give theirconfidence only in proportion to demonstra-tions of manhood and genuineness, and ashumanists they are not in a hurry. If thereis an aura of caste, the distinctions mustbe created by those who have come asstrangers into the mountains and not bythe mountaineer.They know they are not ignorant, except

as everyone is ignorant who lacks contactwith new customs and changes in worldprogress. They are fully cognizant of theirlack of that knowledge which ^'comes onlyout of a book.'' But whatever their educa-

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEtional shortcomings, no one has ever laidat their door the charge of stupidity.

Raised in nature's school they are mas-ters of its non-elective course. They knowby the arc the baying hounds make the sizeof the circle the fox will take and where tointercept him. They can tell by the distanceup the mountain's side where the dogs arerunning whether the fox is red or gray.They know by the sound a rock makes as itis dropped into the stream the depth of theford. They have even a classical finish totheir woodland schooling and they find apleasure in noting that the bullfrog sitswith his back to the water as the moon risesand faces it as the moon sets.They know the signs of changing weather

that will affect their crops. The tints ofthe clouds that float above them convey ameaning. There are cause and effect in thewind that continues in one direction. They

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A "LONG HUNTER''watch the actions of wild animals and fowls,and they are wise enough to attribute tobeast and bird an intuitive protective sensesuperior to their own. They note when themoss has grown heavier on the north sideof the tree.The steadiness of their poise and their

silence in the presence of strangers is not dueto moroseness or the absence of activethought. They have learned in the woods, ifthey are to be successful in their hunts, tobe personally as unobtrusive as possible,often to remain motionless, and all the whileto watch and listen alertly. Whenever theycan be of real assistance, no one can morequickly or more generously respond.They have their own standard of values

in personal intercourse, and they can waitpatiently and in impressive silence. Theyare always willing for someone else to holdthe spotlight on their rural stage.

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEAbout themselves they are naturally taci-turn, and public and unfriendly criticism has

been proved to be a hazardous diversion. Ifthe thought and comment of the strangerupon the mountaineer could be comparedwith the keen and often humorous analysisof the stranger the score would be found insurprizing frequency on the side of the calmand silent mountaineer.They give but little heed to the clothes aman wears but look clear-eyed at the man

within the clothes. They have no criticismfor the way a man says his say, so he hassomething to say. A noted college professor,himself a mountain boy, maintains:

"I would rather hear a boy say *I seed'when he had really seen something, than tohear a boy say *I saw' when he had not seenit."Old Coonrod Pile lived in the valley

until his life spanned from the days when it


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A ''LONG HUNTERwas a hunting-ground of the Indians to thetime when he can be remembered by someof the men and women now living in PallMall, who knew him as the most influentialman of his time in the section, the owner ofthe river-bottom farm land, vast acres ofhardwood timber, a general store and a flourmill worked by his slavesa man grown tosuch enormous size and weight that in hislast days he went about his farm and tooversee his workers in a two-wheeled cartpulled by oxen.Those of the valley who now remember

him were children when he died, for he wasborn on March 16, 1766, and his deathoccurred on October 14, 1849.He saw his valley home changed from a

part of the State of Franklin to a part ofthe State of Kentucky, then to Tennessee,and the abstracts to the deeds for land heowned show that Pall Mall was first in

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEiGranger county, later in Overton and finallyiin Fentress county as the State of Tennesseedeveloped. Pall Mall is but seven milesfrom the Kentucky line, and for many yearsCoonrod thought he had taken up his resi-dence within the Kentucky border.

Settlers of those days in leaving the Caro-linas and Virginia traveled usually due westin search for a new home. It was this beliefthat he had settled in Kentucky that has ledmany to the opinion that Coonrod's formerhome was in Virginia. Others, without moredefinite knowledge for foundation, main-tain that as he settled in Tennessee he hadlived in North Carolina. The written wordwas rarely used and the stories of the earlierdays in the "Valley of the Three Forks o'the Wolf" are tradition.

In a newly settled territory a man's birth-place and antecedents are facts immaterialto the community's welfare and many inci-

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A ''LONG HUNTER''dents historical in nature concerning OldCoonrod have been lost in the waste-basketof forgetfulness and no one now at Pall Mallhas "heard tell of jes' where he come from."Yet some readily say that he came from"over yonder," and they point back acrossthe mountains toward North Carolina.

In the first map of Tennessee, made byDaniel Smith, there is a dip in the northernboundary of the state line where Fentresscounty is located. But this was found to bean error of survey and later corrected. Thesurveyors of those days were men of cour-tesy and accommodation, for in the estab-lishment of the Tennessee-Virginia line theysurveyed around the southern boundary ofthe farm of a hospitable host and left hislands in Virginia because the old fellowmaintained he had never had any healthexcept in the mountains of Virginia.That Coonrod was of English descent

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEthere seems scarcely room for doubt, and"Pile," or "Pyle" and "Pall MalP^ stand asmute testimony. And "York" too is a com-ponent part of old England.

I was never able to learn why the villagewas given its unique name and there is notradition that associates it with the notedstreet in London, though even to-day PallMall in Fentress county is but a single road.I asked a white-haired mountaineer howlong the place had been known as Pall Mall.With a memory-reviving shake of his headthat ended in a convinced nod, his answerwas, "quite a-whit."And that is the nearest I ever came to

accuracy.But seeing his reply did not contain the

information wanted he looked at methoughtfully and said:

"Hit's jes' like ^Old Crow!' Every morn-ing for eighty-two years I ha' looked up at

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A ''LONG HUNTER'the rocks o' that mountain 'en they h'aintchanged a-bit."The government records show that Pall

Mall was made a post-office on April 3,1832.Old Coonrod was a man of Big Business

for his time; one of force of character whodominated his community and who "sizedhis man" by standards that were peculiarlyhis own.A man would come to him to buy a "poke"of corn or flour, or for a favor. To the sur-prize of the stranger the favor might beover-granted or the corn given without cost;or, upon the other hand, he would bebruskly dismissed without the least effortat explanation. Unknown to the strangerthe condition of his "britches" had probablygiven him his credit rating with Old Coon-rod, for he held that patches upon the frontof trousers, if the seat were whole, were

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEdecorations of honor, showing the man hadtorn them doing something, going forward.But, if the front of the trousers were goodand the seat of them patched, no dealingsof any nature were to be had with the dic-tator of the valley, for to Old Coonrod itmeant the man "was like a rabbit; he couldnot stop without sitting down."

But the residents of the valley, many ofthem Methodists, claim this estimate worksa hardship upon members of their faith fora g^od Methodist could wear the knees outat prayer and the seat out in "backsliding."Old Coonrod's trading with the Indians

was a series of successes. He is known tohave had their confidence and friendship,and he was arbitrator between them and hisneighbors whenever disputes arose.

Fentress county lying on the westernslope of the Cumberlands was part of thegreat hunting-grounds of the Shawnees,

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A ''LONG HUNTER''Cherokees, Creeks, Chickamaugas, Chicka-saws, and even the Iroquois of New York.The basin of the Ohio and Mississippi riv-ers, that part now Tennessee and Kentucky,wa claimed by each of these tribes as itsown, not as home but as a hunting-ground,and when bands of hunters of rival tribesmet in the territory each fought the otheras an invader, and their battles gave to Ken-tucky its Indian name, meaning in theIndian tongue the "Dark and BloodyGround."But Old Coonrod kept pace with all of

them and prospered from their friendship,and an Indian trail turned and led close towhere he lived. The last of the Indianspassed through the valley in 1842.As Old Coonrod prospered he bought land

and slaves, and was a large owner of both inhis day. He was a cautious and judiciouspurchaser of realty. The court records show

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEthat at some time or other he was the ownerof the most desirable parts of Fentress coun-ty. He held title to the land upon whichJamestown, the county seat, now stands, .which is the "Obedstown" of Mark Twain's"Gilded Age." He owned "Rock Castle,"a tract of hardwood timber that is enclosedby mountains and can be reached by but onepassageway, a place that became famousduring the Civil War. He bought and soldmuch of the county's best farming-landalong Yellow Creek.

Fentress was made a county of Tennesseein 1823 and the first four pages of the newcounty's records of deeds show that withineighteen months Conrad Pile had added,through a number of trades, over six hun-dred acres to his already large holdings.

So cautious in land titles was he that atthe time of his death he owned three rights tohis home-place including the farming-land


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A ''LONG HUNTER''along Wolf River. The first was his squat-ter's rights, which he had homesteaded. Butagainst this, North Carolina in ceding theterritory of Tennessee to the United StatesGovernment reserved title to the land grantsthe state had offered to her soldiers of theRevolutionary War, and "one Henry Row-an" of North Carolina entered warrantsgiven him on March 10, 1780. The Revo-lutionary soldiers had twenty years to locatetheir grants, and in 1797 Rowan appearedwith surveyors, claiming by his entry of 1780the "Valley of the Three Forks o' the Wolf."He operated under two land warrants of 320acres each, and in his registry of one ofthem he specified "a tract on the north sideof Spring Creek (now Wolf River), to-gether with the improvements of CoonrodPile."Old Coonrod traded with him, and Rowan

took up his residence in what is now OvertonC91]


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEcounty. As late as 1817 there appeared "oneVincent Benham" with title under a con-flicting grant dated in 1793. Old Coonrodtraded with him and with "$10 in hand''Benham went his way.But the deeds which Coonrod recorded

were voluminous, with corners as explicitlymarked as any land title of to-day. Up onone of the mountainsides upon a rock thereis a crudely carved "X" which was made byCoonrod to mark a corner which called fora "beech tree" that has disappeared, andthis mark and the forks of Wolf River,corners in Coonrod's titles, stand to-day assurvey points for the boundaries of the farmsnow in the valley.Coonrod built his home beside the spring,

now known as "York Spring." Its yard in-cludes the spot where he made his first campand where he killed his first deer. Char-acteristic of him, he built well. The house

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A ''LONG HUNTER'was hewn logs, large logs, some of them overfifty feet in length. And the dwelling is nowowned and occupied by one of his greatgrandchildren, William Brooks, the onlybrother of the mother of Sergeant York.The house is to-day one of the most substan-tial in the valley. Just across the springbranch and up the mountainside is the Yorkhome.Old Coonrod built one of the rooms with-

out windows and with only one door. Thatdoor led into his own room and opened byhis bedside. In this windowless room hekept his valuables and it was both a safe anda bank for him. Into a keg covered care-lessly with hides he tossed any gold cointhat came to him in his trades. His riflewas kept there. He had the prongs of apitchfork straightened and sharpened. Thelatter was his burglar insurance and he feltamply able to take care of his savings. And

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEin those days men frequently passed throughthe valley whose occupations were unknownand whose countenances were often evil tolook upon.

Pall Mall is not without its legend of thehidden keg of gold. It is known that OldCoonrod had his keg and kept in it his goldpieces. It is not known just when and whythis method of saving was abandoned byhim. But after his death no trace of the kegwas found and it is said that upon his death-bed he tried to give his sons a message whichwas never completed, and it is believed hewished to reveal where his gold was hidden.There are some who say he was seen togo up a ravine with a mysterious bundle andto return without it. The ravine is pointedout. It opens on the roadway about half-way between the Rains' store and the oldhome of Coonrod.

But there is no myth to the present-day194]


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEvoice that carried both power and terror,and, as the story goes, "for hours ^niggers'would be hopping all over the valley."Coonrod had a genuine admiration for the

man or beast willing to fight for his rights.Once finding one of his jacks eating hisgrowing corn, he put his dog upon him.The jack was old and small and shaggy. Heturned upon the dog sent after him and seiz-ing the aggressor by the hair of his backlifted him from the ground and maintaininghis dignity trotted out of the corn-field car-rying the squirming dog. That jack waspensioned. He was given his full supply ofcorn in winter and granted the freedom ofthe meadows and the mountainsides in sum-mer. Old Coonrod would never sell him.John M. Clemens, Mark Twain's father,

lived in Jamestown when his "dwelling con-stituted one-fifteenth of Obedstown." Heand Coonrod Pile were close friends, Pile


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A ''LOKG HUNTER''helping elect Clemens to be the first CircuitCourt Clerk of Fentress county. Both werefirm believers in the future value of the tim-ber, coal, iron and copper to be found in themountains. In the 30's both acquired allthe acreage their resources would permit.Mark Twain makes "Squire Si Hawkins"

of "The Gilded Age,"* conceded to bedrawn from the life of his father, struggleto keep the value of the land unknown to the"natives." Squire Hawkins confides to hiswife that the "black stuff that crops out onthe bank of the branch" wascoal, and tellsof his effort to keep a neighborfrom build-ing a chimney out of itl"Why it might have caught fire and told

everything. I showed him it was too crum-bly. Then he was going to build it of cop-Copyright by Clara Gabrilowltsch and Susan Lee Warner.

Harper & Bros., Publishers, N. Y. Permission is also grantedby the Estate of Samuel L. Clemens and the Mark Twain Co.

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEper oresplendid yellow forty per-cent ore.There's fortunes upon fortunes upon ourland! It scared me to death. The idea ofthis fool starting a smelting furnace in hishouse without knowing it and getting hisdull eyes opened. And then he was goingto build it out of iron ore! There's moun-tains of iron here, Nancy, whole mountainsof it. I wouldn't take any chance, I juststuck by himI haunted himI never lethim alone until he built it of mud and sticks,like all the rest of the chimneys in this dis-mal country."

Again ^'Squire Hawkins' " appreciationof the speculative value of his lands is shownin a talk with his wife:"The whole tract would not sell for even

over a third of a cent an acre now, but someday people will be glad to get it for twentydollars, fifty dollars, a hundred dollars anacre." (Here he dropped his voice to a

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A ''LONG HUNTER''whisper and looked anxiously around to seethere were no eavesdroppers'^a thousanddollars an acrel"To-day many of the acres owned by Coon-

rod Pile and John M. Clemens have passedthe hundred-dollar mark and are climbingtoward that whispered and seemingly fabu-lous figure. And this, too, before the com-ing of the railroad for which ^^Squire Haw-kins" could not waitTwain delighted to have "Squire Haw-

kins" sit upon "the pyramid of large blockscalled the stile, in front of his home, contem-plating the morning." But John M. Clem-ens had his practical side, and the specifica-tions for the first jail for Fentress county,drawn by Clemens and in his own hand-writing made part of the county's records in1827, show a very substantial strain"To wit, for a jail, a house of logs hewed

a foot square, twelve feet in the clear, two[99]


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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEstories high, and this surrounded by anotherwall precisely of the same description, witha space between the two walls of about eightor ten inches, and that space filled complete-ly with skinned hickory poles, the groundfloor to be formed of sills hewed about afoot square and laid closely .... the logsto extend through the inner wall of thebuilding"etc.And that jail was standing serviceable and

strong until a few years ago when the pros-perity of Fentress county called for an edi-fice of red stone.

Clemens and Pile remained friends andcompetitive land owners until "with an ac-tivity and a suddenness that bewilderedObedstown and almost took away its breath,the Hawkinses hurried through their ar-rangements in four short months and flittedout into the great mysterious blank that laybeyond the Knobs of Tennessee"to Mis-

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A "LONG HUNTER''souri, where a few months afterward "MarkTwain" was born.

Another friend of Coonrod Pile wasDavid Crockett. The "Hero of the Alamo"had many hunts in Fentress county, uponthe "Knobs" and along the upper watersof the Cumberland. The old Crockett homestill stands a few miles to the north of James-town beside the road that leads to Pall Mall.It was in a house upon land owned by Coon-rod Pile that "Deaf and Dumb JimmyCrockett" spent the last years of his life, andfrom which he made so many journeys tolocate the silver mine of the Indians whohad held him captive and who pinioned himto the ground while they dug their ore,never allowing him to see where theyworked, but using him to help carry themined product. David Crockett in his auto-biography tells the story of "Deaf and DumbJimmy" but he places the scene in Kentucky,

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEmaking probably the same mistake in thelocation of the state-line boundary whichCoonrod Pile had made.

Coonrod Pile lived to the age of eighty-three and at the time of his death was themost powerful personality in Fentress coun-ty. His business interests had grown to suchproportions that he had economic problemsto solve and the simple practical methods heused are followed in the valley to-day.He dug only so much coal as he could

use, the transportation problem preventingits sale. He could only market the poplar,the cedar and such woods as he could floaton the rises of the Wolf to the Cumberlandriver to be rafted. He raised cotton, butonly the amount the women needed for theirlooms. He grew wheat and corn, but nomore than was necessary for flour and mealfor the neighborhood and to feed the stockhe owned, laying aside a portion for use in

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A ''LONG HUNTER''time of need for the improvident and un-fortunate.He was ready at any time to trade with

anybody for almost anything. In the lastscore of the years of his life, the most suc-cessful financially, he found that the moneyhe could accumulate came only from the saleof products that could move from the valleyacross the mountains by their own motivepowersomething that could go on foot. Sohe turned to stock-raising and with his ownslaves cut the present roadway from PallMall to Jamestown, there to join with theold Kentucky Stock road which ran fromAtlanta and Chattanooga, along the Cum-berland plateau by Jamestown on to thenorth through Frankfort and Cincinnati.Old Coonrod was not a one-price man on

the realty he owned. If the purchase wasfor speculation he was a trader with hissights set high. If the buyer wanted a home,

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEhe was generous. It meant the upbuildingof his community. So the people of that

' day lived in comradeship. There were fewluxuries and no real want. If there was "afarming patch" to be cleared, the neighborscame from miles around and there was a"log-rolling." If it was a home or a cribto be built, it was a "log-raising," and every-one worked and made fun from it.The steeple of a church arose in the val-

ley. It was built by those of the Methodistfaith. But before that and even afterwardthey held "camp-meetings" and "basket-meetings" where a community lunch wasserved under the trees and where the ser-vice lasted through the daylight hours, al-lowing for a mountain journey home. Andthe religious fervor was so sincere and in-tense at these meetings that they were called"melting sessions."Up the mountainside above the York

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A ''LONG HUNTER''spring, a space was cleared for shootingmatches, where the prizes were beeves andturkeys, and where the men shot so accurate-ly that the slender crossing of two knife-blade marks was the bull's-eye of the target.And every one went on hunts, long huntswhen crops were laid by or winter hadchecked farm work. And as human natureis the same the world over, there was manyan upright resident of the ^^Valley of theThree Forks o' the Wolf" who left theplow standing in the furrow because theyelp and baying of the hounds grew warmupon the mountainside.The families of mountain men are usu-

ally large in number, and the estate of OldCoonrod has passed through a long division.He had eight children, and his son ElijahPile, the branch of the family to which Ser-geant York belongs, had eleven children.That portion of the estate which Elijah in-

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SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLEherited passed into good hands. He con-served his part, handled well the talents leftwith him; but the second division by eleven,together with the ravages of the Civil Warand the years that followed, left only seven-ty-five acres, and far from the best of it, toMary York, the truly wonderful little moun-tain mother who gave to Alvin York thosequalities of mind and heart which stood himin good stead in the Forest of Argonne, whotaught him to so live that he feared no man,and to do thoroughly and always in the rightway that which he had to do. "Else," asshe so frequently said to him, "you'll have todo hit over, or hit'll cause you trouble."

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Cowan-Sergeant York and His People