Below is a fond recollection of Sam Ervin’s early days, and Uncle Joe of the Sixth North Carolina.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Uncle Joe of the Sixth North Carolina Regiment:
“Two
of the most gallant of Burke County’s fifteen hundred Confederate
soldiers was Joe Allman and his younger brother Noah, who were
affectionately known by the community as Uncle Joe and Uncle Noah. They
served in one of North Carolina’s most heroic combat units, the famous
Sixth North Carolina Regiment. Uncle Noah was a teetotalist, but Uncle
Joe sometimes succumbed to the temptation to imbibe a little too freely.
Uncle
Joe’s devotion to the Confederacy intensified as the years passed. He
attended all reunions of Confederate veterans, arrayed with the badges
and ribbons denoting his attendance at previous reunions.
Shortly
after our wedding trip, my wife and I met Uncle Joe on a Morganton
sidewalk. He was enroute to the forthcoming reunion in Memphis, bedecked
with all his badges and ribbons. Uncle Joe extracted a bottle of booze
from his hip pocket and invited my wife and I to drink with him.
At
that time North Carolina was bedeviled by the hysteria of prohibition,
and the courts rarely extended any mercy to anyone who was apprehended
in the possession of intoxicating beverages. In declining his
invitation, I gave Uncle Joe this warning:
“Uncle
Joe, please put that bottle back in your pocket. If the police catch
you with it, they will take you to jail, and you’ll miss the reunion.”
“Don’t
you worry about that,” Uncle Joe said. “Before the police could even
lock the jailhouse door, Sue Tate and the Daughters of the Confederacy
would set me free and send me to Memphis.”
Knowing cousin Sue as I did, I
am convinced that Uncle Joe was right.”
After
the Good Lord called Uncle Joe hence, a former resident visited
Morganton, met Uncle Noah, and asked him about Uncle Joe. “Brother Joe
died last year,” Uncle Noah informed him. “If he hadn’t drunk so much
mean booze, he might have lived to a ripe old age.”
How old was Uncle Joe when he died?” the former resident inquired.
Uncle Noah replied, “About ninety.”
(Humor of a Country Lawyer, Sam J. Ervin, UNC Press, 1983, pp. 46-47)
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