Clinch Valley News, Jeffersonville, VA

July 6, 1917

A STORY OF THREE WARS.

T. L. Webb, who lives near the Russell line, and who was a Confederate soldier, told a remarkable story to two veterans, who served on different sides in the same war. His story, boiled down, is about as follows: Released from Johnson's Island, he was enroute for Dixie, but stopped and worked for a rich farmer in Ohio, but suspecting matrimonial designs on the part of the farmer's daughter, who he said was as ugly as sin, he escaped and finally landed in Carroll county, where he got in bad with his neighbors, voting for Grant. Presumably he moved to Russell, where he has a store near Raven. He claims to be the father of sixteen children, ten of whom are boys between 21 and thirty one years of age, and all anxious to go to the war.

Two older sons were in the war with Spain, one wounded in the Phillippines. The mother of all these children weighs 285 pounds and keeps store while he comes to town, but is often bothered a good deal by the 79 grand children, who occasionally raise Cain while swelling the census. He has or has had four daughters, one of whom pulls down the scales at 256 pounds.

Mr. Webb owes much of his present prosperity to the fact that he never had to call in a doctor but twice, and this reporter would love to know just what sort of a cataclysm of miSery brought about these two visit.

Webb, who looks to be sixty, has a son 48 years old and his youngest is 21. He was wounded at Gettysburg, but the ball struck his cheek and he soon recovered. Mr. Webb didn't impress the old soldiers to whom he unfolded this story as a romancer, but as a rather serious and well balanced citizen who certainly deserves well of this country, and who should receive an autograph letter from Col. Roosevelt, who has done things himself. Any one who doubts this story can inquire of Geo. McCall at Raven for direction to Webb's store. Mr. Webb will doubtless show him the way back, or in duce him to remain permanently.