- ~ Oklahoma Writers‘ Project	.	Phoebe Banks ..~4-.




so before the fighting start he put out a tub of white liquor (corn whiskey) ana. steam them up sois theytd be mean enough to whip their grannie! The soldiers do lots of riding and the saddle-sores get so bad they grease their body every night Wi th snake oil ~ s they could keep going on.

	Uncle Jacob said. the biggest battle was at Honey Springs (1863). That was down near Elk Creek, close by Oheôotah, below Rentiersville. He said. it was the niost terrible fighting he seen, but the Unioneoldiers whip~ed and. went back into Fort ~libson. The Rebels was c1~ased ai]. over the country and. 00~1dfltt find. each other for a long time, the way he tell it.

	After the war our family come back here and s~ttle at Port Gibson, but it aifltt like the plade my môther told. me about. There was big houses and. buildings of brick setting on the high land above the river when I first see it, not like she know it when the Perr~jmans come here years ago.

	She heard the Indians talk about the old fort (1824) ‚ the one that rot down long before the Civil ~ar. And she seen it herself when she go with the Master for trading with the stores. She said it was made by Matthew Arbuckle and his soldiers, and. she talk about Company~ B, C, D, IC, and. the $eventh Infantry whè was there and. made the Osage Indians stop fighting the Creeks and Oherokees. She talk of it, but that old. place all gone when I first see the Fort.

	Then I hear about how after the Arbuckle soldiers leave the old log fort, the Cherokee Indians take over the land and start up the town of ~Ceetoowah. The folks who move in there make the place so wild and. rascally the Cherokees give up trying tomáke a goodS town and it kinder blow away.

My husband wa~ ~ot~ Banks, but the boy I got ain‘t my own son, but I found on my doorstép when hets about three weeks old. and raise him like he is my bl~d.~ ~ ~Ô *entth school at the manual training school at Tallahassee and. ed.ii~a~t~6~ iiégö‘t get him a teacher job atTaft (Okia), ~here he is now.
him own

.	~ the



~