Lindsey Fleming Barnes  and related Civil War stories
Taken from a letter dated 29 June 1977 from Maurice Barnes to his sister, Garnette Barnes Biggers. Edited as necessary.
 
After the Civil War, Grandpa Barnes ran the store at Nokomis on the Coan River in Northumberland County, along with a shipping area for lumber and cordwood to be sent to Baltimore, Philadelphia and points north.   The area was well known as "Barnes' Wharf" and continued as such well into the 1900s. He had inherited a part of the old Barnes farming area and had it under cultivation, mostly by Papa (William Fleet, Jr. known as "Billy").  Grandpa knew nothing about the actual details of farming.  For instance he never learned, according to Papa, how to put the harness on a horse and hook it to a buggy.  As I remember him, he was always dressed in a white shirt with a collar and tie, also with a frock-tailed coat, like the one Mr. (Rev.) Judson Reamy used to wear.

I recall an actual encounter with one of  Grandpa's former slaves who was about 70-75 years old when I saw him.  One day Kesley and I were walking to school (Heathsville) about 1913 or 1914.  As we approached the flood-gate end at Clark's mill pond dam, an old Negro stood from where he was seated on a log fishing.  He bowed and took off his straw hat.  I remember he had gold rings in his ears.  He asked if we were "Mister Billy's boys."  We told him we were so he told us that before the war he was "Marse Flem's" slave and proceded to tell us the following story:

He said that during the war Federal soldiers on horseback from time to time would come to the area looking for food and horses.  (As you know the Northern Neck for the most part was occupied by the North and that very little if any fighting occured in that area)  Of course, word spread when the soldiers came so the people hid most of their animals.  This time the soldier got down off his horse came over to the boy and asked where the horses were, but he didn't say anything . The soldier took him by the ear and "pulling that long knife (sword) and said , 'Boy, if you don't tell me where the horses are I'm going to cut your ear off your head.'  Then I told the soldier they were over there in that gully, three of them.  Then he let me go and I thought how Marse Flem going to beat me with a hickory stick for telling.  But you know, after the soldiers left he came over and said, "Boy I don't blame you.  I would have done the same thing.'"

We saw the old man around that area several times a year or so after that and when he saw us coming he would always stand and tip his hat and usually pass few words.

Often when a former slave got into trouble or needed medical attention the family would provide some assistance.  One such time, about 1916 or 1917, Papa (Billy) and Uncle Fletcher got word that one of the old ex-slaves, then living somewhere around Warsaw had gotten into trouble for stealing chickens.  They came to his rescue and paid for the chickens and court fines, but he had to serve a short term in the Richmond County Jail.






Another Civil War-related story  was told to me and other children by Uncle Lloyd Hundley, Mama's half-brother and confirmed by an ex-slave at Mantua, Dave Smith: 

The area around the waterfront and rivers was patrolled by Federal gunboats. The Mantua plantation house is clearly visible from the mouth of the Coan River where it empties into the Potomac.  Part of the farm land makes a long point around which the Coan makes a bend before it comes top Coan Wharf.
     
The gunboats used to put officers and men ashore on the down river side to check around Mantua.  The occupying forces allowed the farm to keep animal, chickens and such in some proportion to the number of people, black and white the farm had to support.  Mantua's house has a "widow's walk" on its roof from which a lookout could observe the gunboats coming into the river.  Immediately word would go out to the various families along Coan Wharf road., not only to warn people to conceal their animals but to have minor children to come to Mantua and other farms to be counted by the Federals so a greater allowance would be made.  Sometimes the Yankees would slaughter excess animals and take them away.

Uncle Lloyd was about 8 to 10 years old. Once when the Yankees came he ran over to Mantua and was counted by the Yankee officer along with Dave Smith.  When the Federals finished  they went  back to the gunboat and proceeded around the riverbend to Coan Wharf.  By land it's only about a mile through the woods and swamp and apparently the Yankees didn't know this.  When they got to checking Capt. William Headley's place, the officer started counting people.  Suddenly he stopped counting and said to Uncle Lloyd, "Boy, didn't I see you at that big Mantua farm house about an hour ago?"  Uncle Lloyd knew then the jig was up.  Many years later, Mrs. Alice Headley, Capt. Headley's widow, told me the same story and added that "They slaughtered a cow and  chickens and took 
them on the gunboat."