AUTHOR: Larry Alderman; edited by Cheri Todd Molter
AN ORAL TRADITION
During the War Between the States, my family—the Combs family—lived near Pine Ridge, North Carolina. Granny Combs, of the Zadoc and Manoah Combs family, did something to show her dislike for the war. This story was told to me by my great-grandfather, Friel Combs. His daughter, Melecta Combs, is my paternal grandmother. Clinton Alderman is my father.
Granny Combs was an “independent foothill of the Blue Ridge Mountains” woman. She did not care for the war. She had a grandson who was only fifteen years old, and she decided he would not be taken in the Army to fight.
Anytime a column of grey riders came near, she was happy to give them food and drink as a good, Christian woman, but they were not allowed to find her grandson.
She would hide the boy (Papa Combs didn’t tell me the boy’s name) under the planks in the porch until they left with her biscuits and prayers for all. Later in the war when Stoneman’s cavalry came in the area, she hid the boy under the porch from the Union also to make sure they didn’t take him either.
