I just noticed a scanner error in the part I sent earlier. The name Rugger, should be Dugger. HISTORY OF THE I3TH REGIMENT Page 338 THE MASSACRE AT LIMESTONE COVE. This occurred at an earlier date than other tragedies already mentioned, November, 1863, but we have written this chapter as the events were brought to our minds without regard to their sequence. One Col. Witcher, of Virginia, had just arrived in Carter county to try his hand in subduing the "Lincoln-ites" and "Thugs," and he proved a fitting successor to the bloody-handed tyrants who had come and gone, and predecessor of those that were to come. Between them all it was a question of ability to devise the most shocking methods of murder and rapine. In the case of Witcher it would appear that behind him must have been an unseen Beelzebub in spirit-form directing and aiding him in his atrocious work, as well as men in the flesh so lost to justice and human sympathy as to go with him and point out their neighbors as his victims. We suppress their names for humanity's sake. While in the army the murders and house-burnings perpetrated by this man reached our ears and filled our men with unspeakable rage. In a charge near Mount Airy, Va., some rebel prisoners were captured, and being Page 339 asked to what command they belonged they said they were Col. Witcher's men. A half dozen men grasped their carbine's to shoot them, but officers interfered. We are informed that there were two Confederate officers named Witcher who held the rank of Colonel in the C. S. A., one, Vincent A. Witcher, Sr., of Pittsyvania county, Va., the other one's name was also V. A. Witcher, Jr., a nephew of the former. It is said to have been the latter who operated in these counties. James and David Bell were well-to-do and well-known citizens of Carter County. The latter was a reputable physician, and was a man of family, and his brother James was a bachelor past the conscript age. Their home, like that of every loyal man in Carter county, was a place of refuge for Union people and they fed and cared for them with unstinted hands. The morning of the tragedy a company of refugees, about 50 in number, making their way from North Carolina to the Federal army had arrived at the Bell home and expected to secure the services of Dan. Ellis to pilot them through the lines. They had traveled all night and stopped in the yard waiting to get something to eat which the family was preparing for them, and to take a rest before proceeding on their journey. It was probably not known there that Witcher, with his regiment, had come into Carter county, and they did not expect to fall in with a large force of rebels, Witcher, piloted by rebel citizens, came on to them unexpectedly and as was always the case, being unprepared to fight, they tried to save themselves by flight. The soldiers pursued them on horseback and shot them down without mercy. Eight or ten men were killed, and one or two wounded. The following are the names of the killed and wounded as far as we have learned them: Calvin Cantrel, John Sparks, Wiley Royal, Elijah Gentry, Jacob Lyons and B. Blackburn. Preston Pruitt was seriously wounded, as was a man named Madison who was cared for by the family of a Union man named Thomas Green, who lived close by, until he recovered from his wound. 340 They shot and killed James Bell, and it is said that after wounding him his head was laid on a stone and his brains beaten out until they bespattered the ground all about his body. One other man, named William Sparks, was sick and had gone into the house and lain down and was in there while the shooting was going on. After killing James Bell, Witcher ordered the house, a large brick residence, to be set on fire which was done. Sparks made his escape through the smoke and was concealed and finally saved through the efforts of Miss Elizabeth Morrison, who lived in the neighborhood, and was at Bell's house through all that scene of horror; she did many brave and helpful deeds that morning. The story of the inhumanity and cruelty practiced upon this family and these men should bring a blush of shame to a Comanche Indian if one-half is true that ha's been told. On this same raid Witcher and his men killed two other Union men, namely, Commodore Sloan, fifty-six years of age, and William Bird, the latter at the house of William1 McKinney, and the former in his own yard and in the presence of his family. It is said he boasted that in the brief space of twenty-four hours he had rid the world of twenty-one Lincolnites. He was soon called to other fields of usefulness and it was perhaps well for him for Dan. Ellis and his lieutenants had his case under consideration, and had he remained it would have been a wonder if he had escaped the fate of Young and Parker. We have omitted some details of cruelties in the foregoing account, it being bad enough in the mildest form we are able to relate it. Jackie and Dawn Peters http://www.tngennet.org/carter/ - Carter County Tennessee Genealogy http://www.rootsweb.com/~tnwag/index.htm - Watauga Association of Genealogists