OLD REB STANDOUTS OF 1951
RUFFIN VAN BUREN COLLIE
[Feb. 7, 1844 – Jan. 5, 1951]
[Excerpt transcribed from The South’s Last Boys in Gray by Jay S. Hoar, with bolded comments by Trey Matthews, GGG-grandson of Ruffin V.B. Collie]
Submitted by: Trey Matthews
Posted: 26 May 2010
The Seven Paths Community in Cypress Creek Township, some six miles west of Spring Hope (Nash County) in extreme southeastern Franklin County boasted one of the final three Confederate heroes in North Carolina. Both counties claim “Uncle Ruff” Collie (originally Collins) and well they should have. He spent fifty-three years in each. Except for eighteen months (plus) service in Co. A, First N.C. Infantry, he lived in the same twelve-square-mile area ALL his 106 years and 11 months. Born at Momeyer, three miles east of Spring Hope, he was the son of Simon [son of Wilson and Elizabeth Collie] and Tempie [Temperance Ann] Bachelor Collie [daughter of Cullen Batchelor and Cynthia Ann Deans], who respectively lived to eighty-three and ninety-nine years. Ruffin grew up with brothers and sisters. [Cornelia (Abernathy), Rowena, John William, Peyton Hines, William Elbert, James Lucian, Elizabeth “Bettie” (Bass, Winstead), and George Nick] An event that deeply impressed him occurred when he was thirteen – the great blizzard of 1857 which during Christmas week dumped six feet of snow on the level, with drifts reaching astonishing heights.
Late in 1862, Ruffin, at eighteen enlisted in Nashville, his county seat, and briefly trained at Camp Weldon in Raleigh and at Camp Stokes near Greensboro. “Our Colonel was named Broadfoot. He was an old man and his head was right white. Our captain, Needham Price, from way west in the state, was a smart man too. Gen’l Joe Johnston? Why, I saw him anytime. Know right now how he looked. Had black hair. I often shot with malice aforethought, but don’t know if I scored. I saw the whites of their eyes and saw a lot of ‘em fallin’.”
Pvt. Collie fought across much of eastern North Carolina, saw service in the bombardment of Fort Fisher, was in the defense of Wilmington and elsewhere along the coast. He was with Johntson’s Army at New Berne, at Kinston, at Averasborough, and at Bentonville. “We stayed at Fort Fisher till they shelled it so bad we had to leave. For eighteen months it was run or fight every day, and, either way, it looked like they’d kill every last one of us. At Bentonville a Yankee bullet ripped into my blanket roll hanging at my side. Put eighteen holes in her. Jerked me clean around too. A bunch of us that were sick and unfit for service were put on a train and sent to High Point, ‘n that’s where I was when Johnston surrendered. Wasn’t discharged. They turned us loose at High Point an’ told us to get home the best way we could.”
The way home for Pvt. Collie was 300 miles east by foot … both feet lame. He and a full score of companions, each suffering some handicap(s), set out for their homes that late April. Trains there were none, for much track had been torn up, twisted, or wound about trees as reported in William Faulkner’s The Unvanquished. As thousands of other battle-weary Tar Heelers returning to what they hoped would be their undamaged homes, Ruffin went with a clear conscience, having carried out the orders of their Governor Zebulon B. Vance “to fight till Hell freezes over!” (It had begun to jell around the edges.) The unfailing hospitality, the freely-shared scarce morsels or contrived tasty dishes, the sheltering whether shed, hay loft, or daughter’s cheerful loss of her featherbed, the tender receptions and partings, the not infrequent kindling of romances welling out of spiritual hurt – such outpourings these who were sublime in their physical exhaustions would ever remember. Each passing day the group got smaller until mid-May, as Ruffin reached the Nash County line, he had but two comrades. After spending his last night with them in Wake Forest’s old Primitive Baptist Church and saying his final farewells, Ruffin re-entered the peaceful pastures of a familiar back-country world. From this closing Civil War struggle he emerged in triumph. For the next two years he proved himself in heavy work-chores that would “set to rights” the Collie place when Simon and Tempie needed him most.
In 1867, Ruffin married a widow (There were a number of them.), Mrs Mary Jane Solomon Lewis of Nashville, six miles east of Momeyer; they would have twenty-five years together and four children – Sue C. Rich [Susan Jane Collie married William Charlie Rich], Emily C. Benton [married Arthur Calvin “Callie” Benton her first cousin], Ida C. Champion [married Robert Downey and then Joseph Crocker Champion] and Van (Buren). They lived in a big log house on the Spring Hill Road, north of Spring Hope. Ruffin operated a bonded still and ran a store and farm. “Polly” died in 1892. Their children were all grown up by the mid-1890s. In April 1897, Ruffin, 53, married Ann (Annie) Powell (Mar. 31, 1879 – Sept. 18, 1946), 18, of Franklin County, and they would have forty-nine and a half years together and seven children – Miss [Ira] Maude Collie, Ruffin [Van], James Simon, [Joseph] Robert, Mamie C. Greene, Mary [Annie] C. Inscoe, and Ruth C. Brubaker. Uncle Ruff was thus married for more than seventy-four years. On ample acreages farmer Collie, besides raising two families, harvested tobacco and cotton for marketing and corn and hay for his hogs and horses. But often as not he found hours for his fondest pursuits, hunting squirrels and yellowhammers and fishing for trout and perch in Cypress Creek, in Peachtree Creek, and sometimes in the Tar River. Fishing proved closest to his heart as he got into his most advanced years. At ninety-three in the winter of ’37 Ruff Collie was running a two-horse farm, had five 250-pound hogs, over sixty barrels of corn in the crib, and his cotton and tobacco sold. As usual, too, he clogged and square danced at socials.
Family testimonials bring us closer. In his Jan. 29, 1982 letter from Spring Hope, Vincent O. Brubaker, 66, offers –
In 1943 I married his youngest child, Ruth, born in 1918. We are looking to our 40th Anniv. I can without much thinking name 55 of his grandchildren and I am sure there are more. Sometimes I called him “Colonel” but mostly “Mr. Ruff.” We have his discharge papers (or affidavit of service in the Confederate Army) he somehow obtained. He married my wife’s mother in 1897; he was 53; she, 18. They had nine children. A boy died at 2 ½ [Arthur]; a girl at 4 [Clara, who was age 3 years, 3 mo, 11 days old]. Of our own six children, three are his youngest grandchildren. His eldest grandchild, born in 1898, lives just a few hundred yards from us [Perhaps he means the oldest child from Ruff’s second marriage, Maude, who was born in 1898. Ruffin’s oldest grandchild was actually James Roger Rich, son of William Charlie Rich and Susan Jane Collie, who was born 18 Aug 1888]. Mr. Ruff was witty in his seriousness, and serious in his witticisms.
In his Feb. 10, 1982 note from Salisbury, Maryland, Thomas D. Irvin, who served on the Maryland Civil War Centennial Commission, observes “One of Ruff’s daughters, Mrs. Luther Greene, of Louisburg, North Carolina, gave me a frying pan type cooking utensil he carried all during the war. It was roughly made, probably in a blacksmith shop. It has three legs like an old spider and, I believe, came in handy to cook corn biscuits.”
In her December 9, 1972 and Mar. 3, 1982 letters from Louisburg, Mamie C. (Mrs. Luther) Greene shares a fond memory or two –
“Father lacked 32 days of being 107. He was not white-headed, just gray. When I was a child he always lay down at noon to rest on the back porch. He wanted me to pick gray hairs from his head. There weren’t many, but I’d look and pick them out. When asked how he had lived so long, he’d say, “I have worked hard, gone to bed early, eaten corn bread, and always loved pretty girls.” He’d eat corn bread three times a day.”
In her May 29, 1982 and Feb. 1, 1984 letters, Edna (Mrs. Van Buren) Collie, a daughter-in-law, of Nashville, North Carolina, says –
“My husband was Polly’s son, Van. He was much older than I and passed away in 1940 at age 61. Mother – Mary Elizabeth Collie Eddins – is a niece of Ruffin, a daughter of Ruffin’s third brother William “Bill” Collie. She will be 102 on June 3, 1984. A bit feeble now but with good mind (She looks after her own bills.), Mother says, “I always knew uncle Ruff as a hard worker and one who loved to hunt with my daddy.” I can’t begin to recall the first time I ever saw Uncle Ruff as I always knew him. Very loveable, he loved people and more people. He lived about eleven miles from us and visited several times a year. I’ve prepared many Sunday dinners for him. He wore navy blue suits with one or two of his Confederate medals but seldom wore gray or the U.C.V. uniform. Memorial days he went to ceremonies about every year.”
Few Old Rebs – perhaps a dozen (Jas. W. Moore, Burl Nash, Wm. Banks, Wm. Buck, John W. Harris, John Steger, John Claypool, Homer Atkinson among them) – attended as many U.C.V. Reunions as did Comrade Collie in the 20th century. He was fond of them and remembered each. However, he was least fond of the June 1930 one in Biloxi, where hoodlums, believed from New Orleans, robbed the Confederate Brotherhood – surely one of the lowest instances of disgrace and in the bottom of the Depression. Capt. Phil Alston, Joseph J. Allen and James Cheever were among Ruff’s last local Gray buddies, whose riotous cajolery he came to miss. Mr. Collie was on hand at Gettysburg for the last great joint reunion of the Blue and Gray in July 1938. Here, the story goes, Ruff educated a bragging Yankee. Says Ruff, “We sat on the reviewing stand, right near President Roosevelt. The fellow next to me found out that I was from near Rocky Mount. He says, ‘I was down that way. Lost 18 men when we burned the Rocky Mount Mills to the ground. Never did find out what became of ‘em.’ That made me mad. So I told him, ‘Well, I know what became of them and you ought to be right there with ‘em.!’”
Beginning in 1934, a local tradition developed around Uncle Ruff’s ninetieth birthday, a festive occasion that would go for sixteen years. On the first Sunday of February, Bob Melton, a restauranteur and cousin by marriage, whose birthday was also on Ruff’s, would throw a huge barbecue. These affairs grew. It was in 1937 when someone asked Uncle Ruff why he never seemed to drive his car anymore, that he said, “Because I would just simply have to haul the ladies, and Mrs. Collie might object.”
At 97 he grew a tooth. At 101 he still chewed with his own teeth. At 102 he could shoot as squarely as ever. At 103 he had no sign of a bald spot and used neither walkingstick nor glasses. At 104 he danced a jig for his son’s friends. At that birthday barbecue he had 300 guests, 112 of them his relatives. On his 105th 340 guests and relatives descended upon his Seven Paths farm. Again, it was a day the old man stood up to before the “camera-dearie,” a day for bouncing fifth and sixth generations on his knees, a day for tikes to tug at his mustache. Again came a delegation from Bethel Heroes Chapter, U.D.C., with their cake and individual gifts for their honorary member. This all happened again at his 106th in 1950. His age and status as a soldier of the Confederacy attracted hundreds. (Septembers the Collies still have reunions.)
During his last year Uncle Ruff Collie was a Tar Heel celebrity widely beloved and honored. He closed out his grand life at the Park View Hospital in Rocky Mount, where he succumbed to heart and kidney failure after being in a coma fourteen hours. His family were with him. A veritable throng attended his funeral at Cypress Baptist Church, where he had long worshiped. Leaving some 180 descendants in five generations, he was laid to rest in Cypress Baptist Church Cemetery.