{"id":2166,"date":"2010-05-26T04:57:17","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T10:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ncgenweb.us\/nash\/?page_id=2166"},"modified":"2010-05-26T04:58:15","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T10:58:15","slug":"ruffin-van-buren-collie-1844-1951-an-old-reb-standout","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ncgenweb.us\/nash\/military\/civil-war-1861-1865\/ruffin-van-buren-collie-1844-1951-an-old-reb-standout\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruffin Van Buren Collie [1844-1951]: An Old Reb Standout!"},"content":{"rendered":"

OLD REB STANDOUTS OF 1951
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

RUFFIN VAN BUREN COLLIE
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Feb. 7, 1844 \u2013 Jan. 5, 1951]<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Excerpt transcribed from The South\u2019s Last Boys in Gray<\/em> by Jay S. Hoar, with bolded comments by Trey Matthews, GGG-grandson of Ruffin V.B. Collie]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Submitted by: Trey Matthews<\/strong><\/p>\n

Posted:\u00a0 26 May 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Both counties claim \u201cUncle Ruff\u201d Collie (originally Collins) and well they should have.\u00a0 He spent fifty-three years in each.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Born at Momeyer, three miles east of Spring Hope, he was the son of Simon [son of Wilson and Elizabeth Collie]<\/strong> and Tempie [Temperance Ann]<\/strong> Bachelor Collie [daughter of Cullen Batchelor and Cynthia Ann Deans]<\/strong>, who respectively lived to eighty-three and ninety-nine years.\u00a0 Ruffin grew up with brothers and sisters.\u00a0 [Cornelia (Abernathy), Rowena, John William, Peyton Hines, William Elbert, James Lucian, Elizabeth \u201cBettie\u201d (Bass, Winstead), and George Nick]<\/strong> An event that deeply impressed him occurred when he was thirteen \u2013 the great blizzard of 1857 which during Christmas week dumped six feet of snow on the level,<\/em> with drifts reaching astonishing heights.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 \u201cOur Colonel was named Broadfoot.\u00a0 He was an old man and his head was right white.\u00a0 Our captain, Needham Price, from way west in the state, was a smart man too.\u00a0 Gen\u2019l Joe Johnston?\u00a0 Why, I saw him anytime.\u00a0 Know right now how he looked.\u00a0 Had black hair.\u00a0 I often shot with malice aforethought, but don\u2019t know if I scored.\u00a0 I saw the whites of their eyes and saw a lot of \u2018em fallin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 He was with Johntson\u2019s Army at New Berne, at Kinston, at Averasborough, and at Bentonville.\u00a0 \u201cWe stayed at Fort Fisher till they shelled it so bad we had to leave.\u00a0 For eighteen months it was run or fight every day, and, either way, it looked like they\u2019d kill every last one of us.\u00a0 At Bentonville a Yankee bullet ripped into my blanket roll hanging at my side.\u00a0 Put eighteen holes in her.\u00a0 Jerked me clean around too.\u00a0 A bunch of us that were sick and unfit for service were put on a train and sent to High Point, \u2018n that\u2019s where I was when Johnston surrendered.\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t discharged.\u00a0 They turned us loose at High Point an\u2019 told us to get home the best way we could.\u201d<\/p>\n

The way home for Pvt. Collie was 300 miles east by foot \u2026 both feet lame.\u00a0 He and a full score of companions, each suffering some handicap(s), set out for their homes that late April.\u00a0 Trains there were none, for much track had been torn up, twisted, or wound about trees as reported in William Faulkner\u2019s The Unvanquished<\/em>.\u00a0 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 \u201cto fight till Hell freezes over!\u201d (It had begun to jell around the edges.)\u00a0 The unfailing hospitality, the freely-shared scarce morsels or contrived tasty dishes, the sheltering whether shed, hay loft, or daughter\u2019s cheerful loss of her featherbed, the tender receptions and partings, the not infrequent kindling of romances welling out of spiritual hurt \u2013 such outpourings these who were sublime in their physical exhaustions would ever remember.\u00a0 Each passing day the group got smaller until mid-May, as Ruffin reached the Nash County line, he had but two comrades.\u00a0 After spending his last night with them in Wake Forest\u2019s old Primitive Baptist Church and saying his final farewells, Ruffin re-entered the peaceful pastures of a familiar back-country world.\u00a0 From this closing Civil War struggle he emerged in triumph.\u00a0 For the next two years he proved himself in heavy work-chores that would \u201cset to rights\u201d the Collie place when Simon and Tempie needed him most.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 Sue C. Rich [Susan Jane Collie married William Charlie Rich]<\/strong>, Emily C. Benton [married Arthur Calvin \u201cCallie\u201d Benton her first cousin]<\/strong>, Ida C. Champion [married Robert Downey and then Joseph Crocker Champion]<\/strong> and Van (Buren).\u00a0 They lived in a big log house on the Spring Hill Road, north of Spring Hope.\u00a0 Ruffin operated a bonded still and ran a store and farm.\u00a0 \u201cPolly\u201d died in 1892.\u00a0 Their children were all grown up by the mid-1890s.\u00a0 In April 1897, Ruffin, 53, married Ann (Annie) Powell (Mar. 31, 1879 \u2013 Sept. 18, 1946), 18, of Franklin County, and they would have forty-nine and a half years together and seven children \u2013 Miss [Ira]<\/strong> Maude Collie, Ruffin [Van]<\/strong>, James Simon, [Joseph] <\/strong>Robert, Mamie C. Greene, Mary [Annie] <\/strong>C. Inscoe, and Ruth C. Brubaker.\u00a0 Uncle Ruff was thus married for more than seventy-four years.\u00a0 On ample acreages farmer Collie, besides raising two families, harvested tobacco and cotton for marketing and corn and hay for his hogs and horses.\u00a0 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. \u00a0Fishing proved closest to his heart as he got into his most advanced years.\u00a0 At ninety-three in the winter of \u201937 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.\u00a0 As usual, too, he clogged and square danced at socials.<\/p>\n

Family testimonials bring us closer.\u00a0 In his Jan. 29, 1982 letter from Spring Hope, Vincent O. Brubaker, 66, offers \u2013<\/p>\n

In 1943 I married his youngest child, Ruth, born in 1918.\u00a0 We are looking to our 40th<\/sup> Anniv.\u00a0 I can without much thinking name 55 of his grandchildren and I am sure there are more.\u00a0 Sometimes I called him \u201cColonel\u201d but mostly \u201cMr. Ruff.\u201d\u00a0 We have his discharge papers (or affidavit of service in the Confederate Army) he somehow obtained.\u00a0 He married my wife\u2019s mother in 1897; he was 53; she, 18.\u00a0 They had nine children.\u00a0 A boy died at 2 \u00bd [Arthur]<\/strong>; a girl at 4 [Clara, who was age 3 years, 3 mo, 11 days old]<\/strong>. \u00a0Of our own six children, three are his youngest grandchildren.\u00a0 His eldest grandchild, born in 1898, lives just a few hundred yards from us [Perhaps he means the oldest child from Ruff\u2019s second marriage, Maude, who was born in 1898.\u00a0 Ruffin\u2019s oldest grandchild was actually James Roger Rich, son of William Charlie Rich and Susan Jane Collie, who was born 18 Aug 1888]<\/strong>.\u00a0 Mr. Ruff was witty in his seriousness, and serious in his witticisms.<\/p>\n

In his Feb. 10, 1982 note from Salisbury, Maryland, Thomas D. Irvin, who served on the Maryland Civil War Centennial Commission, observes \u201cOne of Ruff\u2019s daughters, Mrs. Luther Greene, of Louisburg, North Carolina, gave me a frying pan type cooking utensil he carried all during the war.\u00a0 It was roughly made, probably in a blacksmith shop.\u00a0 It has three legs like an old spider and, I believe, came in handy to cook corn biscuits.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her December 9, 1972 and Mar. 3, 1982 letters from Louisburg, Mamie C. (Mrs. Luther) Greene shares a fond memory or two \u2013<\/p>\n

\u201cFather lacked 32 days of being 107.\u00a0 He was not white-headed, just gray.\u00a0 When I was a child he always lay down at noon to rest on the back porch.\u00a0 He wanted me to pick gray hairs from his head.\u00a0 There weren\u2019t many, but I\u2019d look and pick them out.\u00a0 When asked how he had lived so long, he\u2019d say, \u201cI have worked hard, gone to bed early, eaten corn bread, and always loved pretty girls.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019d eat corn bread three times a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her May 29, 1982 and Feb. 1, 1984 letters, Edna (Mrs. Van Buren) Collie, a daughter-in-law, of Nashville, North Carolina, says \u2013<\/p>\n

\u201cMy husband was Polly\u2019s son, Van.\u00a0 He was much older than I and passed away in 1940 at age 61.\u00a0 Mother \u2013 Mary Elizabeth Collie Eddins \u2013 is a niece of Ruffin, a daughter of Ruffin\u2019s third brother William \u201cBill\u201d Collie.\u00a0 She will be 102 on June 3, 1984.\u00a0 A bit feeble now but with good mind (She looks after her own bills.), Mother says, \u201cI always knew uncle Ruff as a hard worker and one who loved to hunt with my daddy.\u201d\u00a0 I can\u2019t begin to recall the first time I ever saw Uncle Ruff as I always knew him.\u00a0 Very loveable, he loved people and more people.\u00a0 He lived about eleven miles from us and visited several times a year.\u00a0 I\u2019ve prepared many Sunday dinners for him.\u00a0 He wore navy blue suits with one or two of his Confederate medals but seldom wore gray or the U.C.V. uniform.\u00a0 Memorial days he went to ceremonies about every year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few Old Rebs \u2013 perhaps a dozen (Jas. W. Moore, Burl Nash, Wm. Banks, Wm. Buck, John W. Harris, John Steger, John Claypool, Homer Atkinson among them) \u2013 attended as many U.C.V. Reunions as did Comrade Collie in the 20th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 He was fond of them and remembered each.\u00a0 However, he was least fond of the June 1930 one in Biloxi, where hoodlums, believed from New Orleans, robbed the Confederate Brotherhood \u2013 surely one of the lowest instances of disgrace and in the bottom of the Depression.\u00a0 Capt. Phil Alston, Joseph J. Allen and James Cheever were among Ruff\u2019s last local Gray buddies, whose riotous cajolery he came to miss.\u00a0 Mr. Collie was on hand at Gettysburg for the last great joint reunion of the Blue and Gray in July 1938.\u00a0 Here, the story goes, Ruff educated a bragging Yankee.\u00a0 Says Ruff, \u201cWe sat on the reviewing stand, right near President Roosevelt.\u00a0 The fellow next to me found out that I was from near Rocky Mount.\u00a0 He says, \u2018I was down that way.\u00a0 Lost 18 men when we burned the Rocky Mount Mills to the ground.\u00a0 Never did find out what became of \u2018em.\u2019\u00a0 That made me mad.\u00a0 So I told him, \u2018Well, I <\/em>know what became of them and you ought to be right there with \u2018em.!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Beginning in 1934, a local tradition developed around Uncle Ruff\u2019s ninetieth birthday, a festive occasion that would go for sixteen years.\u00a0 On the first Sunday of February, Bob Melton, a restauranteur and cousin by marriage, whose birthday was also on Ruff\u2019s, would throw a huge barbecue.\u00a0 These affairs grew.\u00a0 It was in 1937 when someone asked Uncle Ruff why he never seemed to drive his car anymore, that he said, \u201cBecause I would just simply have to haul the ladies, and Mrs. Collie might object.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 97 he grew a tooth.\u00a0 At 101 he still chewed with his own teeth.\u00a0 At 102 he could shoot as squarely as ever.\u00a0 At 103 he had no sign of a bald spot and used neither walkingstick nor glasses.\u00a0 At 104 he danced a jig for his son\u2019s friends.\u00a0 At that birthday barbecue he had 300 guests, 112 of them his relatives.\u00a0 On his 105th<\/sup> 340 guests and relatives descended upon his Seven Paths farm.\u00a0 Again, it was a day the old man stood up to before the \u201ccamera-dearie,\u201d a day for bouncing fifth and sixth generations on his knees, a day for tikes to tug at his mustache.\u00a0 Again came a delegation from Bethel Heroes Chapter, U.D.C., with their cake and individual gifts for their honorary member.\u00a0 This all happened again at his 106th<\/sup> in 1950.\u00a0 His age and status as a soldier of the Confederacy attracted hundreds.\u00a0 (Septembers the Collies still have reunions.)<\/p>\n

During his last year Uncle Ruff Collie was a Tar Heel celebrity widely beloved and honored.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 His family were with him.\u00a0 A veritable throng attended his funeral at Cypress Baptist Church, where he had long worshiped.\u00a0 Leaving some 180 descendants in five generations, he was laid to rest in Cypress Baptist Church Cemetery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OLD REB STANDOUTS OF 1951 RUFFIN VAN BUREN COLLIE [Feb. 7, 1844 \u2013 Jan. 5, 1951] [Excerpt transcribed from The South\u2019s Last Boys in Gray by Jay S. Hoar, with bolded comments by Trey Matthews, GGG-grandson of Ruffin V.B. Collie]…<\/p>\n

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