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Note: 2 SOUR S2425 3 DATA 4 TEXT Date of Import: Mar 22, 2002 [cliftonshelp.FTW] Ancil Kirby Clifton (1839-1925), the fifth child of the John Cliftons, was born near Winchester, Franklin County, Tennessee. As a young boy he and his brothers were always exploring. Once he and his brother, Jim, were prodding in an old well with water in it about three feet deep. The pole broke and Jim went in. He had to stand on his toes to keep his head out of the water. He stayed there until Ancil Kirby went and found a pole to put in the well so Jim could climb out. They didn't tell their parents about it, but they never played near the old well again. At another time he and his brother Isaac were wading in the Elk River. Isaac was carried down stream to the next shoal where Ancil Kirby caught him. When he caught him, he was lifeless, so he pulled him out of the river scared nearly to death, and started artificial respiration on him. He didn't give up and after a long time, he was finally revived. That was a narrow escape. Ancil Kirby Clifton was a poor boy and had to start working hard when a small boy. When he was a boy twelve years of age, he was driving a team hauling rocks out of the Nashville-Chattanooga Tunnel. He married Mary Garner in 1859. The Garner family was an old family of Winchester, Tennessee. He was twenty years old when they married. They had five children as follows: John Frank, born 14 June 1860; Sara, born 4 December 1862; William Henry, born 10 November 1866, and died 20 August 1935; Emeline, born in 1872 and died in 1875; and Martha, born 27 June 1876. Ancil Kirby Clifton joined the Confederate forces at the first of The War Between the States. He was in Company 17 TE Infantry [17th Regiment, Tennessee Infantry, company I, rank of private], General Newman [Colonel Tazewell W. Newman] and Bushrod Johnson, Bragg's Army. During the last year of the war at which time the Confederate Army was retreating south out of Tennessee, Ancil was given a pass to go by home and see his folks. After making the visit home, he started following his army and was shot in the left arm by a bushwhacker. The bullet struck at the elbow and went down tearing his arm and hand all to pieces. He was nine days getting to his army to have it taken off. They gave him chloroform but didn't get him to sleep. Then they put two men on him to hold him. He had them to take the men off and watched them amputate it. He was the first man to draw a Civil War pension in Newton County, Arkansas. He was wounded in 1864. Application No. 600 was approved for pension on August 15, 1892. [www.itd.nps.gov/cwss: The 17th Infantry Regiment was organized at Camp Trousdale, Summer County, Tennessee, in Jun, 1861, with 914 men. Its companies were raised in the counties of Bedford, Marshall, FRANKLIN, Moore, Coffee, Jackson, and Putman. It served at Cumberland Gap, then moved to Kentucky where it was engaged at Rock Castle and Fishing Creek. Later the unit was ordered to Mississippi and assigned to A.T. Hawthorn's Brigade. Returning to Kentucky attached to B.R. JOHNSON's Brigade, it fought at Perryville, then joined the Army of Tennessee. After fighting at Murfreesboro and Chickamauga, the regiment was consolidated with the 23rd Infantry. This command was sent to Knoxville, then Virginia where it saw action at Drewry's Bluff, took its place in the Petersburg trenches, and, assigned to McComb's Brigade, ended the war at Appomattox. The 17th totalled 547 effectives in June 1862, lost forty-one percent of the 598 at Murfreesboro, and had fifty-two percent disabled of the 249 at Chickamauga. It surrendered 5 officers and 64 men on April 9, 1865. The field officers were Colonels Albert S. Marks, T.C.H. Miller,and Tazewell W. NEWMAN; Lieutenant Colonel Watt W. Floyd; and Majors James C. Davis and Absalom L. Landis.] In 1878 Ancil decided to move to Texas. So he sold his team, cows, tools, and other personal property. He left Winchester via train, going by way of Nashville, Tennessee and Iron Banks on the Mississippi River, then to Popular Bluff, Missouri; to Little Rock, Arkansas; then to Texarkana, to Bromon, Texas, to Waco, Texas; then to their destination: Gatesville, Yell County, Texas. After arriving there, they bought a small farm. They then bought the necessary stock and tools to make a crop. They planted a crop, but then in May, they decided to sell out and go back home. They sold their farm and crop and started back to Winchester, Tennessee in a covered wagon. It takes a long time to cover approximately one thousand miles in a covered wagon with a team of small horses. However, they set out on this long journey with hope of all of them returning to Winchester. They knew that the journey would be rough and dangerous because the roads, through much of the territory that they were to travel, were merely paths. Wild animals, aplenty, were in the woods; dangerous rivers were to be crossed; horse thieves were very prevalent, and wild Indian territories were to be crossed. Nevertheless, they were determined to go and nothing could have prevented them from starting. They had plenty of time to get back before next years' crop season. They stopped at every place that they could find employment and worked as long as they could. They chopped cotton, worked in cornfields, picked cotton, and did odd jobs. The first town they came through was Dallas, Texas. They went from there to McKinney, Texas, then crossed Red River into the Choctau Nation, a territory of Choctau Indians. They crossed the Red River in a ferry boat about eleven o'clock one day. The river had been up and quicksand had settled on the banks. When the team was driven off the ferry, they immediately began to sink in the quicksand. They went down to their hips. The wagon and horses had to be dug out, which took the rest of the day. The three men that were running the ferry worked diligently until the horses and wagon were out of the sand. While going across "The Choctau Indian Nation," they met about fifteen young Indian boys, with each of them carrying about an eighteen-inch-long club. The Indians explained that they threw the clubs at squirrels and killed them. The Cliftons then headed from Red River and the Choctau Nation to Little Rock, Arkansas. Little Rock was a small town at that time. >From Little Rock they went to Des Arc, Arkansas, one of the county seats of Prairie County, the County that I'm [Gus Clifton circa 1959] now living in, which is about twenty miles up White River from DeValls Bluff, where I now reside. They camped one night on Botchy Bay, a bay between Cache and White Rivers, running North from just about the Pluckett farm for about eight miles. There were many wild animals through there. Few wagons had gone through. In places they had to cut their road. Canes were as high as the average trees. The land was marshy and wet. This must have been a wild looking place for them to camp. To make it worse, some men stopped them and asked if they planned to camp in the bottoms. Grandfather [Ancil's 18/19-yr-old son, John Frank] told them that they did. They said, 'nobody ever camps in there because everybody is scared of horse thieves. They are stealing a lot of horses these days.' [A house is standing now(1959) where they camped on the river banks.] The men were probably giving good advice because the Clifton's dog barked all night causing grandfather [Ancil's son, John Frank] to stay up all night with their lantern lit and a gun across his lap. He told me [Gus] a few weeks ago [Dec 1958] that he really thought the horse thieves would get Joe and Bill, their horses, that night. After they had crossed White River, Botchy Bay, and Cache River in Prairie County, they headed toward Memphis, Tennessee. But before they got there, they learned that there were some yellow fever cases in Memphis. So they went to Richardson's Landing, about forty miles above Memphis, to cross the Mississippi River. From there they went to Des Arc, Tennessee; Boliver, Tennessee; Shelbyville, Tennessee; Belle Buckle, Tennessee;and then to Winchester, their destination. After the Ancil Kirby Clifton family returned to Tennessee from Texas, they farmed for four years. They farmed about forty acres in wheat, cotton, corn, and hay. In 1882 they decided to come to Arkansas, so they sold out. The trip was made by train, and they settled on the divide between the Big and Little Buffalo Rivers, five miles from Boxley in Newton County, Arkansas. There they bought a forty acre farm in the rough with a log house on it. They cleared some land and began farming, growing corn, oats, truck crops, and hay crops. They farmed this place for three years. To supplement their farm income, they hauled commodities from Sam Edgeman, a Boxley merchant, from Clarksville, Arkansas. This was about a sixty-five mile round trip. It took about five days to make the trip. One could haul about one thousand pounds. In 1885 this farm was traded for a farm known as the McFarland farm, located ten miles East of Low Gap in the same county. They stayed on this farm for eight years (1885-1893). Then they sold it and bought a place on the North side of Big Buffalo River between that River and Osage. At this place a small store building was erected and a small stock of goods was put in. This place was sold in 1898. Then they bought a one-hundred-sixty acre farm located six miles East and stayed on it until they moved to Western Grove in 1919. In Western Grove they bought a twenty-three acre farm located one and one-half miles West of that town. Ancil Kirby Clifton always left a place in better condition than when he went on it, thereby netting a little profit on each of the farms." �1
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