Sixty years in Texas Page: 197 of 398
5 p. l., 384 p., incl. illus., plates, ports. front. (port.) 23 cm.View a full description of this book.
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SIXTY YEARS IN TEXAS. 183
of slavery, and I would ask myself the question, is
it right? I had been taught to believe that God approved
it and the Bible upheld it, and that it was
a divine instituion. But the more I thought about
it the more skeptical I became, and before the end
of the first year of the war I was of the opinion the
Confederacy and the institution of slavery was doomed.
But I could not think of going into the Northern
army. My friends were in the South, the people I
loved. My brothers were in the Southern army, and
I did not have the heart to take up arms against
them.
We were several weeks crossing the plains, but
we finally reached Denver, a town of twelve or fifteen
hundred people. It was a wide open town, gambling
halls on the lower floors and cappers in the streets
trying to rope in the suckers. I visited one large
gambling hall. Bands of music were playing, and
there were tables all around and over the hall, with
piles of gold and silver, and various different games
that men could take a part in. I was told before I
left home to never bet on another man's game, and
I had decided not to try to make my fortune that
way. We did not stay in Denver long, only a few
days, and then moved on to Central City, in the
mountains, and when we reached that point we
found more war excitement than gold fever.
I tried mining for a short time, but soon tired of
it. I took the goods we hauled out for supplies and
started a grocery store and added a bakery to it,
and made a little money that Way. The excitement
continued and a part of the building that I occupied
was used for a recruiting office, and a brass band
and a big bass drum was playing most of the time.
This recruiting was for the Federal army, but there
were a great many Southern people there, and there
was some recruiting for the Southern army, but they
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Jackson, George. Sixty years in Texas, book, 1908; Dallas, Tex.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth20205/m1/197/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.