From Bent Twigs in Jefferson County, by the inestimable late County Historian, Jean Patterson Bible. Transcribed by the incomparable Doris Kinser Fountain.

Mrs. Carson's Window Curtains

(p. 92)

When Mr. Pritchett [Rev. Reuel B.] moved to Dandridge years ago, he bought the old Benny Carson home, a large frame house on the old Dandridge-Greeneville road five miles east of Dandridge.

The daughter of the Carsons, a Mrs. Owens, an elderly lady when she died years ago, remembered some of the Civil War stories her mother had told her. She spoke of the Battle of Dandridge and how two soldiers were killed in battle which the army asked Mr. Carson to bury. Mr. Carson made walnut coffins and Mrs. Carson used the curtains from her parlor to wrap the mangled bodies of the unknown soldiers in. Mr. Carson buried them in the Gentry graveyard in front of the house.

(Text includes photos of Rev. Reuel Pritchett in front of his home, the old Carson House, and a monument to Unknown Soldiers in Civil War in Strawberry Plains Cemetery, a gift of Mrs. Mayme Parrott Wood.)

(For further reading of local Civil War stories, see Broken Hearts - Broken Lives, Jefferson County, Tennessee, 1860-1868, Civilian Life in the Civil War, Community History Series, East Tennessee Historical Society.)