Vivian Johnson of Danville has sent in an excerpt from the autobiography of Clabe Jones, Unionist and feudist, contained in the book The Last Frontier by Henry Scalf. It gives a colorful account of his adventures in the Civil War. Jones was a private in Company A of The Harlan County Battalion. His company commander was Captain George W. Morgan. Although the daily reports of the battalion commander make no mention of the capture or scouting described, the account basically agrees with the known facts.

Jones writes, "I was patrolled to do all the scouting, hardly a raid was made without sending for me to get my advice." He goes on to mention that on a trip to Floyd County to get his mother and wife, he was captured by Colonel Benjamin F. Caudill of the 13th Kentucky Cavalry, a confederate regiment. As a prisoner, he was taken with the regiment when they were ordered to Richmond, Va. On the war, they camped in Letcher County for several days.

"The weather was very cold and they made a big log fire at the mouth of our camp. I lay down on the outside in order to be able to work the stakes loose and I saw one of the guards lay his pistol on the end of the log of wood. As soon as the guards had all fallen asleep, I eased up and got the gun and law back on the ground and raising the tent cloth I rolled outside. I was about the middle of the camp, but I made my way out without being observed."

He met his captor, Colonel Caudill, whom the mountaineers called the Grey Fox, in the road the next day. "He at once drew his sword and ordered me to turn my course. I drew my gun on him and told him to hit the road and to not look back for if he die I would kill him. He took me at my word and I was glad of it for I didn't know whether my gun would fire or not. The Colonel then put a reward of $500 for my capture but he never had the pleasure of getting me but I did help capture him at Gladesville, Va."

The official daily reports of the Harlan County Battalion states that a party of men, 25 from Capt. Powell's company and 15 from Capt. Morgan's company, were detailed to go the salt well at the mouth of Leatherwood Creek in Perry County to join with some home guards who wished to join the unit. It goes on to say that they had not gone far when they were attacked by a company of rebels under Capt. D. J. Caudill numbering 100 men. The Union forces returned the fire with the rebels then retreating, leaving five dead on the field and mortally wounding Capt. Caudill. The Union loss is stated as "one wounded who has since died."

Clabe Jones' account of this incident varies slightly. "In a few weeks (after his capture), the rebels went from Whitesburg to the salt wells in Perry County. Capt. Morgan and myself concluded to drive the rebels out of Perry and on our way we met and engaged them in battle on Leatherwood Creek and surprised them while they were stealing a deaf and dumb man's watermelons. There was one man killed on each side. The rebels were commanded by Jesse Caudill, a brave man. He was on one side of the creek and I was on the other. He was standing behind a small tree. I was watching closely and as he turned to give a command to his men I gave him a Yankee pill for Shampee somewhere in his hindquarters." (Shampee was the name Jones had given his rifle.)

"We had a hot time for a while, I was unusually mad, not because we had met the Rebels, for we defeated them, but I had gathered an armful of ripe pawpaws and had to drop them when the fight began. We captured the watermelons also from the deaf man and all their grub."

From a journal kept by Elias Hall and his daughter Susannah who married Zachariah Frasier, we have the identity of the Union soldier who was killed. He was Henry Banks, son of Cassey Banks, and he died Nov. 20, 1862, from the wound he received Oct. 17, 1862, in the battle on Leatherwood.

James `Clabe' Jones was born about 1822 in Tennessee, probably in Claiborne County. In 1850, he was living in Harlan County, later moving to Floyd County. His wife Mary and their son Thomas had returned to Harlan by the 1870 census.