Will and Mary McMasters had just celebrated an uneasy Christmas. The weather was cold and rainy, and news of the war was unsettling. William’s brother, John, had stopped in just before the meal was served to inform them that the Yankees were on their way.
2 When he saw the chicken and ham that Mary had prepared for dinner, he said, “And they’ll be hungry too!” “General Forrest is goin to make a stand south of the creek, but we’re just tryin to buy a little time for General Hood and his boys to git cross the river,” he explained.
3 William patted his brother on the back, his eyes full of water. “You be careful, John,” Mary announced as she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. John nodded, grabbed a biscuit from the kitchen table and headed for the door.
4 Mary had her silver tea service sitting on the table for their Christmas celebration. Their daughter Charity and her new husband, Jim Kelley, had joined them for Christmas dinner. There was a sense of apprehension and urgency as they ate the meal that had taken most of the day to prepare.
5 After dinner, the ladies had cleared away the food, washed the dishes and began hiding valuables from plain sight. “I don’t want those dirty Yankees to git their grubby hands on anything I’ve got!” William proclaimed.
6 While Will and Jim secured the livestock and attempted to hide tools and farm equipment in the woods, Mary and Charity took the tea service into the orchard. Mary had carefully wrapped it in an old quilt and held it there while Charity dug a shallow hole beneath one of the apple trees.
7 When she was finished, she took the bundle from her mother and gently laid it in the hole and pulled the dirt over it with her hands. Mary grabbed some of the wet leaves and a few of the rotten and withered apples that still littered the ground and scattered them over the fresh dirt.
8 “Maybe they won’t find it, Momma,” Charity offered as she surveyed their handiwork. “I hope not. We ain’t got much left,” her mother fretted.
9 In the meantime, John and his comrades had entrenched themselves along a ridgeline overlooking Sugar Creek from the south. There, behind some fallen trees and fence rails, they waited in the sleet and fog for the approaching Yankees. They didn’t have long to wait.
10 About sunrise the next morning, they could hear the splashing of the Union Cavalry in the ford below them. The fog was so thick that they couldn’t actually see them, but they knew that they were there just the same.
11 “Steady boys,” General Forrest announced in hushed tones. “Don’t fire until they git here!”
12 When the first outlines of the approaching men and horses appeared out of the fog, the rifle and musket fire commenced immediately without command from anyone. The stunned Union soldiers, now under heavy fire, quickly retreated back toward the creek.
13 Forrest held his sword aloft, and John and the other soldiers arose from behind their breastworks and charged after the Yankees. They chased them all the way back to the cold waters of the creek. And, for a few minutes, the waters of Sugar Creek ran red with blood.
14 Nevertheless, the Union forces soon regrouped and were reinforced, and it was then the Rebels’ turn to retreat back behind the lines that they had established on the ridge. Even so, the boys in grey and butternut held out long enough for the main body of Hood’s army to escape into Alabama and cross the Tennessee River. It would prove to be the last important action of the Civil War in Tennessee.
15 Now William David McMasters married Mary Ross, and they had a daughter named Charity.
16 Charity McMasters married James Kelly, and they had a daughter named Frances.
17 Frances Kelly married Albert Favors, and they had children together.
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