Autobiography and Reminiscences of John W. Carroll

LARGE PRINT EDITION: My only apology for writing whatever may appear on the following pages is that I may leave on record a brief synopsis of my very tame and uneventful life; that my four little grandsons of whom I am very proud, may have an opportunity in after life to take a slight glance at some of the events transpiring in the short life of their paternal grandfather, in the hope that they may improve on my successes (if it can be said that I have had such) and profit by my mistakes which have been many. To them - Raymond Trice Carroll, John Murchison Carroll, Thomas Burns Carroll, and Kirk McKenzie Carroll - the following lines are affectionately dedicated by their grandfather, My great grandfather Carroll immigrated to this country from Ireland many years before the Revolutionary War. Landing in Maryland, the family drifted into North and South Carolina and finally some of them to Tennessee. He and several brothers were in the American army during the entire war, as were also some of his oldest sons. Grandfather Joseph Carroll was about eighty years of age at the close of the Revolutionary War, as he has related to me many times by way of entertainment with many other stirring scenes calculated to live in the tablets of the mind of a small but intensely interested boy. He emigrated to Middle Tennessee in his young manhood, bringing with him five thousand dollars, quite a little fortune for that day and time, where he engaged in farming. Let me say in regard to his character that he was one of those big-hearted, open-handed Irishmen, who loved a dram and occasionally took too much, and when in those happy moods became endorser for other men, which finally nearly exhausted all his means, leaving himself and family in straitened circumstances. (Boys, become surety for no man.) He soon after emigrated to West Tennessee, settling in Henderson County, then sparsely settled. Here he recuperated somewhat, his lost fortune, but never fully. About this time war was declared by the United States against Great Britain. He immediately volunteered and took part in the battle of New Orleans, Jan. 8th, 1815. It was of great interest to me when a lad to have him relate to me some of the many incidents of camp life and of how he and some comrades on the evening before the battle walked down the line of battle and found one poor fellow down praying and crying, scared almost to death, before there had been a shot fired, and of how they upbraided him for his cowardice; about the death of Gen. Pakenham, the British general, etc. These recitals fired my youthful heart with a burning patriotism and how I wished to wear a uniform; to hear strains of martial music and the roar of cannon; and see glorious war. I thought such things would never come in my day, but alas! they did. Let the sequel tell. Of my mother's people I knew but little, save that they immigrated to this country shortly after the Revolutionary War from Scotland. My mother's maiden name was Susan Ann Burns, a Christian woman in deed and in truth, small in stature never weighing as much as one hundred pounds in her life; afflicted always after I knew her, but ever cheerful, always looking well to the wars of her household. She ate not the bread of idleness. My mother's eldest brother, Samuel Burns, was elected Major of a volunteer battalion to go to New Orleans with Gen. Jackson, but, arriving at the place of rendezvous too late, he with his command, was among the number that were refused, owing to the great number of men offering their service. Many were turned away sadly disappointed.