Lincoln County Tennessee - Fall 1865

"Sold", the high sheriff rapped the gavel on the crude pine plank desk on the south side of the square in Fayetteville, Tennessee. Alex, Lou and Grand John L. stood near the back of the dozen or so bidders this cool, overcast April morning. The three days of rain had broken, but the sticky mud of farm lot, field, roads and streets was evident on everything that moved, man or beast. John L.'s mud heavy work boots made sucking sounds as he moved forward toward the county clerk sitting on the new bandstand at an old campaign desk.

"Name?" asked the bespectacled little man who looked exactly like a small rural county government scribe should. Appearing at first impression like a clerk or schoolmaster, a covered stump where his right hand should be identified him as a veteran and survivor of the war. He placed the damaged appendage on his papers to hold them in place as he prepared to write with his left hand.

"M. L. Fields and A. A. Fields. $250 in gold," John Longstreet Fields, a 69 year-old new face to the county, told the record keeper. The clerk wrote those names down on a half page piece of paper. "Mr. Fields is it? Take this letter of sale to Mr. Gleghorn over at the Lincoln State Bank and pay for this farm. Bring the receipt to me in the courthouse after dinner and we'll work up and record the deed."