Civil War and Gold & Silver Mining
1849 to 1908

THE WAR

      I was 15 or 16 years old in late 1864, during the Sherman March to the Sea campaign of the Civil War. That would have put me born around 1849. I was born somewhere in Georgia - seemingly what is called Central Georgia - perhaps in the area southeast of Macon. [SEE NEW NOTES IN "AFTERTHOUGHTS" AT BOTTOM OF PAGE.]
      At the time of the war, I was in the Confederate Army, defending my homeland from the "Damned Yankee" invaders.
      Recall is sketchy of events prior to this particular battle. I have flashes of a farm with an old wooden cabin, but no idea of a location. In the flashes there was no activity around the house and the grass was grown high in the yard, so I cannot tell if this was as I was growing up, or a view after the war, when I returned home. It doesn't really matter, since the farm was away from any towns and there were no landmarks.
      I have flashes of going off to save my home, but few clear details leading up to that decision.
      Memories of that life begin with my sitting behind the tree, next to the fallen log inside the edge of the woods. This field is located east of Bartow, GA, where the Union Army Engineers tore out the railroad tracks, to stop Confederacy supply trains.
      The battle is going on in the field. The Union soldiers are across the field. Their shots continue hitting the tree and log, showering splinters on me.
      In the field toward the Union positions, some 25 feet from the tree-line, lies my best friend. He is calling me for help. He has been belly-shot and is in terrible pain. He calls for me to help, he calls for water, he calls for friendship. And I remain behind the tree, as bullets whiz around me, tearing chunks from the tree and log.
      A couple of times, I look out to see if maybe, just maybe.... only to feel the air from a Union round ruffle my hair. So I duck back into my hiding spot.
      I continue to wait for a break in the firing, but it just doesn't come. Meanwhile, my friend is still calling for help.
      I don't know for how long this goes on; but, at 16, to me it seemed forever. And the longer it continues the worse I feel. And my friend is making it no easier, as his pain gets worse.
      His pain was driving him to despair, and he finally hit me with the brunt of his anger. I was a chicken, a coward, not a good soldier, no friend, yellow-bellied, and everything else he could think to call me.
      And still I could not help him.
      I began to take in his words to heart, retreating deeper and deeper into myself. I began to take the blame for all of his problems.
      I don't know when the Union soldiers stopped shooting and moved on. Suddenly, it was quiet and I came out to see if I could help my friend.
      I found him dead, with the one shot to the stomach. But that had been enough.
      I had gone into that battle believing myself a soldier, a hero, able to save the South. I walked away from that field, knowing my best friend had died with his last thought that I was a coward.
      I can look back now and see there was no way to come from behind that tree and do anything besides die. But in that life, it took me years to get over the coward brand his word had put in my mind, and my mind had taken on.
      Actually, I didn't get over it totally in that lifetime.
      It was a major reason I chose the parents, through whom I came into this life. The best friend in that life was my father in this life. I came back as his son to prove to him that I am not a coward and could be a good soldier. Some of my earliest thoughts were that I would be a soldier. I became one, and retired as an officer after 20 years this time around.

GETTING AWAY FROM THE SOUTH

      Once that battle was over, I was in no mood to be around the homefolk. I didn't want to have to explain to anyone what happened.
      I figured I would head west. Gold and silver strikes in Colorado were calling me.
      I made my way across Mississippi to the river, then across into Louisiana.
      On the west bank of the Mississippi River, I stopped at a plantation to rest, and met the woman who would be one of my wives in my current life. Joanne (her name in this life) was the daughter of the plantation owner.
      The word Chiro (pronounced "Cairo", as in Egypt, from what I hear) came to my and Joanne's minds (seen and heard), associated with something or someone in that area. I have looked for "Chiro" a number of times; but only recently have I found what it was.
      I recently researched plantation houses and riverboat burnings on the Mississippi around the end of the Civil War.
      I found pictures of the plantation house I recognize and information about the riverboat Joanne and I watched burning on the river.
      The plantation is Arlington Plantation on Lake Providence, north of and across the river from Vicksburg.
      The riverboat "James Watson" went aground and burned on February 25, 1865. The riverboat "William Butler" helped to rescue the survivors, though many were lost. This happened at Island Nr. 76.
      Once I found this spot on the Mississippi, I also found "Chiro" which, as it turns out, wasn't C-H-I-R-O.
      "Chiro" turned out to be Chicot/Chicot Landing, just north of Arlington Plantation and below Island Nr 76.
      I "see" a hand-painted road sign for Chiro/Chicot - or rather, I "see" what is left of that road sign. I now realize the sign should have read Chicot, but the bottom of the second "c" and the whole "t" at the end of the name were gone - leaving what looked like "Chiro".
      Until I found Chicot, I was wondering why "Chiro" kept being screamed at me.

TIME TO MOVE

      Then I was on my way to Nevada.
      I had heard of the gold and silver. So, when I got to Reno, I stopped and watched for a bit.
      Probably for several years, I worked for others in some of the mines around Virginia City.
      And I particularly watched the Virginia City-Reno mule train.
      The mule train brought the gold and silver down the hill from Virginia City to the railroad in Reno, where the gold and silver were shipped off to the mints. Then the mule train would load up with supplies and head back to Virginia City. Besides the supplies, the mule train carried the cash from the sell of the gold and silver. (The mule train was the main supply method of all of Virginia City.)
      The old mule train toll road is still visible off to the west (right) of the present-day Reno-to-Virginia City highway - one on one wall of the ravine the other opposite.
      As the toll road rises from the valley floor, there is one spot where, due to the steep grade, the mule trains came almost to a halt. I set myself up there and, for awhile at least, made a fairly brisk business of robbing the skinners. I mean, after all, they were scalping the townsfolk of Virginia City with their outlandish fees, why couldn't I get a piece of the action - it was a toll road, wasn't it? I was just collecting.
      That went on for awhile, until I was caught and thrown in the State Penitentiary in Carson City.
      While I was in the Pen, I learned leather working and sadlery. There was, and still is, a small store on the property (now a parking lot) of the Pen, where the goods made by the inmates can be bought. My saddles were sold there.
      I served my time and was released.
      From Carson City, I went east to Ft. Churchill, where I stopped for a bit to check in with the military authorities (reason unrecalled), then continued southward.
      I worked honestly on my way south along current Highway 95, getting jobs at the new mines as they would pop up along the way.
      Then I heard of the strikes in Cripple Creek, Colorado.

TO COLORADO

      From there, I went to Colorado, and got a claim between Cripple Creek and Victor. The claim was located on the south/west/right side of the middle road, now Highway 67, about 2/3 the way from Cripple Creek to Victor.
      I worked this claim with a number of partners for a few years.
      I feel there were 5 or 6 different partners over the time I had the claim. So far this life, I have identified two of them, when I have met them this life.
      Kurt, of this life, was one of the partners. On a trip to Cripple Creek, I was just beginning to pull off at the claim, when Kurt said, "Could you pull over here?" We looked around for a bit. He knew, as well as I did, that we had been there together before. (This was his first time to the claim this life, though I had been there 6 or more times since 1980.)
      Linda, then a man named Frank, was another partner. Linda, upon meeting me this time, immediately saw images of Cripple Creek, but didn't understand why. Frank was killed when a large rock fell down the shaft, striking him on the right side of the head. The rock pressed a piece of bone into Frank's brain. Had any of us known to remove the piece of bone, Frank would have likely survived. Now Linda is suffering a tumor at that same spot, which is impairing her motor skills. Hopefully, she will have the surgery soon to remove the tumor, and will be fine. (This is an example of the way a cause of death or major injury in a past life can result in unexplainable scars and/or ailments in this life. It is also a signal that she will soon be working significantly with karma left over from that life.)
      I had a number of happy and successful years, working and living hard, in the Cripple Creek area. I preferred Cripple Creek to Victor - and still do.
      One of the local hotels/saloons/"sporting houses" on Bennett Avenue ("Street" back then) was a favorite hangout of mine when I made it to town. The Madam of the house then, and now a dear friend of mine, is Paula (then, Brenda). Paula and I met this life and pretty much immediately liked each other, though there was not, at the time, recognition of that life. I do remember, from the moment we met, being attracted physically to her and thinking she is very sexy (and now I realize that's hardly surprising).
      Brenda was hanged for killing a man who abused one of her girls. While she was right for what she did, a woman, especially in that occupation, was not supposed to defend herself or someone else in that occupation.
      One of Paula/Brenda's girls is back in a life in Australia. Jennifer found my web page, and is now a friend.
      Another of Paula/Brenda's girls, Becky, lives in Colorado Springs. At the beginning of the rush she was married and living in Cripple Creek. Her husband was killed early on at a poker game. To survive, she became a prostitute of Brenda's. In this life she dislikes what has happened to CC since CO opened gambling - understandable, considering what happened then to her husband, caused by gambling!
      Once the gold in my claim ran out, I continued to hang around Cripple Creek, living off the money I had put away from the mine, and doing some investing.
      I remember sitting in the hotel and seeing the "money people" (financial experts from back east) going around, buying up claims and properties. My thought at the time was that they would own everything and the little people would be out...
      About the same time I realized that this applied to the whole mining system, the rich would own everything and they were the ones with the money.
      This is when I also figured it was time to head back west to the next streak of mines.

BACK TO NEVADA

      I finally settled in what became Tonopah, possibly under the name Jim Butler, where I lived the rest of my life, except for various trips across the border into California on business.
      It seems I did fairly well in Tonopah, too.
      I feel like I died in the first decade of the 20th Century, around 1908, around 60 years old.
      I don't think I was known as Jim Butler that whole lifetime.

AFTERTHOUGHTS

      I now know why, as a child in this life, I was able to rebuild a saddle without thought and had almost no wasted material.
      I haven't been able to win at gambling in Reno, but do great in Cripple Creek. In Cripple Creek I made an honest living through hard work. In Reno I was a crook and can't get Reno to pay me... I do okay in Tonopaugh, though not as well as in Cripple Creek.
      This lifetime I spent 20 years in the Army, proving to myself and my father that I can be a good soldier, even though I realize that, had I known everything, I would have probably been happier not being a soldier at all.
      There are still many people from that life that I feel I should remember in this one, but I seem to have yet to meet them. Even so, I have run into a fair number of them in my meanderings.
      I have met a number of the "that life" Louisiana plantation white workers and black slaves in this life, though I was only at the plantation that lifetime a short period.

      In July of 2000, I moved to Georgia from California.
      I decided I would explore more of my past now that I am here.
      However, my health prevented that for the first couple of years to a certain extent.
      Much of Crystal's and my free time was spent running me back and forth to the VA hospitals in Dublin and Augusta, Georgia, so that time for exploration was none, once our other desired activities were completed.
      There was a side benefit to the trips to the VA hospital in Augusta, though.
      We did not start our first trip in 2001 to Augusta from somewhere that would take us by Interstate - an ambulance took me, and Crystal had to chase behind. The route was more direct, from Dublin to Augusta on state and county highways - much more scenic, enjoyable, shorter and REVEALING, as we were later to realize.
      After that first 'chase', we rode together and experienced the road.
      Crystal noticed that specific portions of the road (in particular, one stretch a couple of miles north of Wrightsville to just south of Bartow) caused me to react severely and unconsciously, yawning with tears streaming from my eyes - not crying - just lots of energy passing through my system.
      Each time over the next 5 years that we drove this stretch of the road, I have had this reaction.
      Once I turned my attention to it, I realized this was the location of the battlefield behind which I found the tree to hide at the top of this page, and eventually I would need to return and find it.

      Only in late summer of 2006 did my health and Crystal's work schedule settle enough that we could start the explorations.
      We made a trip and circled some of the area.
      I found the location just outside the eastern edge of Bartow, where the battle took place and the tree had been, though we did not get out of the car, because the treeline was across a farmer's field on the south side of the highway. That battle took place around December 1st, 1864, as the "Right Wing" of Sherman's forces moved through Bartow, on its way to Savannah.
      I believe I may have been from a homestead in the area just east and north of present-day Wrightsville.