The following are little stories that my mother (Laura Harvey Nelson) told me of her daddy's life and hardships during the civil war and his trouble with the Indians afterwards.

Mama said he was born in East Tennessee in 1818. At about the age of 13 he saw all the stars fall. It was dark the rest of the night but the next night they were shining again. Several years ago my sister, Lottie cut a clipping from a news paper about the stars falling in 1833. Since then, by research it has been found that his birth date was probably in 1820.

It seems he deserted the army more than once during the Civil War. Mama use to show us the place about where he threw the ball & chain when he escaped. He had friends who helped free him of the chains. The place was near Decator [Texas] in a ravine.

One time when he escaped, the officers were transferring him some where and they stopped at a cafe. When the waitress brought the coffee, he upset the table spilling the hot coffee on the officers and got away. That night in the army camp at one end the soldiers would yell "Who turned the tables over", and at the other end the soldiers would answer "Harvey did".

At one time when he was making his way home some army officers rode up to question him and he pretended to be deaf and dumb, so they went on their way.

I don't know if it was the time he hadn't eaten in 3 days and he found an old piece of cornbread in the road. He said that was the best cornbread he had ever eaten.

Mama said his reason for deserting the army was because he didn't want to fight for the south, as he wanted the blacks to be freed from slavery.

Of late I've heard some say he wanted to get home to take care of his children. At that time he had 3 children by Diana (Honeycut) Harvey, Martha born 1847, John W, born 1853 and Thomas born about 1855. Perhaps it was both reasons. It seems as if he must have been in Wise County, Texas during the Civil War, which was 1861 to 1865, or most of it.

It was about the latter part of the war and for a few years after, that the people in Wise County had their problems with the Indians.

One of the stories mama told was that one day her dad and one of his sons had started somewhere on horse back and as they came over a rise they came upon a group of Indians setting in a circle under the shade of a tree. Thomas raised his gun and held it on them. After a while the Indians got up one at a time, got their horses and rode away until all were gone.

Another time mama said the Indians must have known that all the men were out of the settlement on business that day. As two of Thomas' children and their school mates, I assumed it was Martha & John, and another boy and girl, came in sight of the Thomas' house, and they saw the Indians raiding his house.

They were riding around the house on their ponies whooping and hollering and emptying the feather beds and pillows into the air. The children ran to hide and the boys got separated from the girls. The girls made it to a thicket of trees and covered themselves with leaves in a small ravine.

The two boys got separated and Thomas' boy made it on to a farm house. That night they could hear the Indians racing through the cornfield raising cane. The next morning the other boy was found scalped. They said the thought of her son's torture drove his mother crazy.

Max [son of Gayle] was told by a grandson of Martha (Harvey) Higgens, that the boy who was scalped and Martha were planning to marry.

Mama also said that her daddy worked in and ran a salt mine in Wise County.