A Visit with F. L. Warner

Recently through Ancestry I was able to contact a descendant of F. L. Warner brother whose name was Frederick L Warner. The descendant lives in Tennessee where the family has been since the mid 1800s. He send me a had written story that was transcribed by his grandmother. He does not know what magazine or newspaper it came from. I do caution that stories told to a reporter like family lore is to be taken with a grain of salt

A Visit with F. L. Warner

 

“He lives in a house

By the side of the road

And is a friend to man.”

 

 

 

                                        A Visit with F. L. Warner

 

          On the state highway midway between Tempe and Phoenix, Arizona, some distance from the west entrance of the Papago Sahuaro National Park, one can see a sign on the south side of the Road which reads,” Warner Heights.”  Few people, as they speed along on the concrete highway, notice the small weather-beaten house resting on the highest of the several granite knolls, at the foot of which is one of the most beautiful cactus forests in the surrounding country.

          A winding road cut around the hills leads up to this house.  What a delightful breeze one feels as he reaches the summit.  The fresh desert air as it fills his lungs makes him thrill within and as he looks all around at the wonderful view of the surrounding country he can almost feel the very presences of the God who created it all.

          It was in the late afternoon of an early autumn day that I found myself standing on the hill by the house, catching my breath after the short climb from the previous knoll where I had left my car.  Presently the spell of the admiration’ which the pure air and delightful breeze had cast upon me, was broken by a soft voice, as I turned toward the door I saw an old and somewhat feeble woman who bade me come in.  “Sit down, my boy,” she said as she motioned toward a large overstuffed leather rocker, “and I will bring you a drink of water.”

          During her short absence I became deeply interested in the quaint and artistic furnishings of the room.  The long rows of windows on two sides of the room were draped with freshly laundered scrim curtains, and over-looked a green wooded river bed about a mile beyond.  The walls were hung with large oil paintings which she had painted and a bust or medallion of some noted artist filled each corner and nook.  A large fern trailing up the wall by the door waved its soft green tendrils in the sunshine.  The lady returned with a pitcher of water and was followed by her husband, a man gray and stooped with age, but exceedingly active.  After a cordial greeting he sank down in a large tapestry upholstered arm chair.  He spoke with a broken German accent. A lively conversation was started, in the course of which he told of some very interesting incidents which he had encountered.  “You must have had an extremely interesting life, Mr. Warner,” I said, “will you tell me the story of your life?”

          “Oh,” he laughingly replied, “it has been not very much.  I am eighty-eight years old now and I forget so easily some of my life, but I will tell you as much as I can.  I was born in Whitehall, Louisiana, a small town on the Mississippi River below Baton Rouge.  I was named Ferdinand.  My parents had been in the States only a few years.  I spent my early childhood on our sugar cane plantation and when I was thirteen years old my mother took me to Heidelberg, Germany where I studied for years.  One of the largest schools of Germany is now at Heidelberg.  We traveled all over central Europe before we returned home to Louisiana where I stayed only one year.  Again I went to Germany where I studied for two years in Tubingen University and then to Geneva, Switzerland, where I studied French.  Before returning to America I toured Europe again and went into Egypt.  How vividly I recall the trip up the Nile and our visit to Alexandria, Cairo, and the Four Cities.  From there I went across the Mediterranean Sea to France and then to my home in America.  I spent several years helping my father with the sugar cane crops until the Civil War broke out.

          Being a southerner by birth and father having negro slaves, I naturally went to a fight for our interests, so I became a member of the First Regiment of Heavy Artillery, Confederate Army of America, in 1861.  I was stationed at Fort Harris on the Mississippi but was later moved to Fort Donaldson where I helped build the water battery.  It was here that I experienced my first fighting, when General Grant came up the Cumberland River in gun-boats and waged a twenty-three day battle.  The general in command of our fort surrendered and I with fifteen thousand other men, was taken prisoner.

          My partner and I slipped past the guards one night and by swimming the Cumberland River we managed to escape to Nashville, Tennessee.  From there I was sent to Island Number Ten where we fought for two weeks when General Mc Call was forced to surrender the island with five thousand men.

          I was again taken prisoner but escaped to Memphis with five companies of heavy artillery which broke away from the guards.  From Memphis I was ordered to Fort Pillow where I fought until we were forced to evacuate and then I went to Vicksburg where I stayed for four months.  It was here we suffered one of our biggest defeats when General Grant came down the Mississippi with flotillas and General Farragut came up the river with his gunboats and bombarded Vicksburg.  On July 4, 1863 we surrendered and I was again taken prisoner but was later exchanged, man for man, for a colonel of the Seventh Cavalry of the Union Army.

          I then went with General Forests’ cavalry to attack Fort Pillow.  The fort was being held by negro troops under the command of white officers.  As we attacked the fort the Yankees raised a white flag of truce.  All firing ceased for a moment and as we started over the barricade to take the fort we were fired upon.  It was too late, however, for General Forest raised a black flag which means no quarters, kill the very last man.  We did.  Most of the officers fled and escaped but we brutally massacred the negroes, the very thing they had planned to do to us by establishing a false truce.

          On April 12, 1865 General Lee surrendered the entire Confederate Army to General Grant. There were no telephones or radios then so it was four days later that we learned of the surrender and ceased fighting.  Barefooted and in rags I walked to my home.  I suffered greatly because my health was broken by the strain and exposures of the war so I came to Arizona in February 1889, thirty-three years ago.

          I camped on a ranch near the Salt River about two miles below Tempe and raised a few chickens for a living and a pastime.  The west was wild at that time and the Americans were being killed by the Apache Indians in the Upper part of the valley.  Occasionally a white man was killed around here so I was always on the alert for the redskins.  One day as I was sitting in my shack I looked out and saw about forty Indians walking slowly about in my yard.  Some naked and some wore a few clothes, but all were armed with bows and arrows or guns.  I sat on my couch, white from fear, with my gun across my lap.  For two hours I underwent indescribable mental tortures with those naked redskins walking about me, peering in at the windows and cracks.  I knew they had come to kill me and I had decided to kill as many of them as I could as soon as they made a bad move.  Presently they all disappeared as suddenly as they had come, but that only frightened me the more for I was sure they had only retreated to make a new and final attack upon me.  I waited but they did not come so I stepped outside and the whole plot was revealed to me.  They had not come to kill me, but to kill rabbits.

          I could see them spread out in a fan shape going through the brush.  As I watched them they gradually gathered at a wooden pen where they killed their game.  They all got on their ponies and as they came back past my shack they stopped and watered their horses in a small irrigation ditch.  I felt greatly relieved as they rode away out of sight.

          After a time of open air living my health was restored and I moved to Tempe where I started a grocery store, but after seven years my health again failed and I gave up my business and came to these granite knolls to die, twenty-three years ago.  The fresh pure air and the beautiful desert flora have aided my good wife to nurse me to health again, so today I am as strong and healthy as anyone.  In fact, I am in my second boyhood.”

          As he finished his story the sun was almost behind the blue mountains in the west.  The few rifting clouds were fading from a delicate pink to beautiful lavender.  Along the mountain tops was a strip of golden clouds and I did not wonder, as I walked down the hill, that such a wonderful surrounding had given him such health and happiness in his old age.  

 

 

 

Transcribed by Hal Perry from a document written by Paul Parry, Oct., 1922 and originally transcribed by hand, by Mary Warner, Sept., 1925 (then age 16).