President Andrew Johnson (he had known him before the war) a letter about thus:

I have been reared a Democrat, and taught the doctrine of States’ rights. and at the call of my State (Tennessee) I Ioined the Confederate army as a private soldier, and have served to the best of my ability from Aug.. 1861, to Dec. 16, 1864, at which time I was captured, but if you see fit to grant me a pardon I will return to mv home and kindred and make a peaceable citizen.

He says he wrote to the President more for pastime than anything else: he gave him a favorable hearing and sent an order for his release, so that he was one of the first to step out from Camp Chase, a free citizen again. He wended his way back to his old home and the land of his nativity, poor and penniless. A fter browsing around a short time with relatives and friends and getting a decent suit of clothes on, he went to Coma, Tenn., where lie obtained a good position in a dry goods store with Mr. H. H. Lovelace and Judge W. J. Hurt; the business was very prosperous from the start, and in four months the firm dissolved and the firm of Wood, Hurt & Company was started, O. A. Hearne being the company: this business also prospered.

Feb. 1866, Mr, Hearne married his second wife. Mattie J. Perkins. Within a week after marriage his wife took a school, so that at the end of a successful year in both store and school their little capital was considerably increased. From here they moved to Station, on the Memphis & Louisiana Railroad. continuing in the mercantile business with success. Then be bought a nice farm and farmed it for two years, and sold at a good profit and bought another farm at Como, and again engaged in the mercan- tile business in connection with the farm. In a little while he took the California fever; he sold out all and went to the “Golden State," and bought a beautiful farm near Meridian, on the Sacramento River, finely improved. California did not come up to his expectations. so after a two years’ stay he sold out, after suffering disaster from the floods, and went to Texas in the spring of 1882, first stopping at Round Rock, expecting to go into the cattle business, but after three months’ observation, be decided that it would not suit him, and in July he went to Pilot Point, Texas, and at once bought an interest in a good grocery business and continued it successfully for some years, until his health was impaired by paralysis in his right side.

[Continued on page 119]