Cousin Captain Frederick Slimp, Co. F, 13th Regiment Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, As a Boy

"Old Hal," a Boone, NC correspondent to the Lenoir TOPIC (Burke Co., NC), went home to Johnson Co., Tennessee in 1885 and posted this:

So, "Fred could out run us all at school in playing ball, base, &c." In the 1903 book on his Regiment Cousin Fred is not only a hero but a storyteller: 343: "We are indebted to Captain Frederick Slimp, of Butler Tennessee, a native of Johnson county, and a man who has always been regarded as a man of unimpeachable veracity, for the following statements. We let him tell the stories of these tragedies in his own language." So we have a great many stories in the voice of Cousin Fred (1823-1904).

John S. Shoun, remembered by Old Hal,  is a cousin too (as, later, is our kinsman the baseball player Clyde Shoun).

How often do we learn that a boy born in 1823 in 1833 or 1835 or so could outrun all the rest at school in their sports? This is the sort of glimpse a biographer is grateful for.