EDITOR'S NOTE: On October 8, 1918, Corporal Alvin C. York of the 328th Infantry fought a desperate battle with a German machine gun detachment and brought into camp 132 prisoners. He was promoted to a sergeancy, awarded the D.S.C., the French Croix de Guerre, and many other decorations, and generally acclaimed the greatest individual hero of the war. Much has been written about him, but here for the first time in print, he tells his own story.
PART ONE:
How long my ancestors have lived in Tennessee is farther than I can tell. They were the first persons that settled this country. My great-great-grandfather was the first white man to settle here.
When grandpap first came he lived in a rock house, a cave, near Wolf River, in the Pall Mall Valley. We live "under the mountain," down in the river-bottom sections, a little over 500 feet from the top of the mountains, a distance of five miles. The Pall Mall Valley is located in the northeast part of middle Tennessee, three miles from the Kentucky line.
My great-great-grandfather, Coonrod Pile, took up this land and owned all of the valley and part of the mountain. He was the first white man there and took first choice. There is a bunch of the Piles still around here.
Grandpap York was in the Mexican War and helped storm the heights at Chapultepec. When he came back from Mexico he was taken sick at the head of the creek and died there. They call it Rock Creek.
My grandpap on my mother’s side, William Brookes, was a Northerner. He came down with the cavalry from Detroit, Michigan, and after the war he got into with some bushwhackers. There was no law and everybody toted a gun. And they said he shot down one of their leaders; but they never proved it.
But they killed him – just the same. They hooked him to a mule and dragged him through the streets of Jamestown, the county seat, and they shot him to pieces. So, you see, my ancestors were all pioneers and soldiers—and God-fearing people, too, like most all mountain people.
We lived in a one-room log cabin. I can’t say for certain whether grandpap built the cabin or not. I think he did. It was built out of hewn logs hewn with a broadax. They cut down the trees, hewn the logs, and built the cabin right there. The logs were chinked with clay and sticks. The inside was pasted with newspapers and colored magazine covers.
My father was a blacksmith. He ran his shop in the same cave where my great-great-grandfather spent his first night when he came into the valley, the first white man to get by the Creeks and Cherokees. In that same cave is where I got my early days of blacksmith training. He was very fond of hunting and shooting.
Father would do his hunting every day, and if he had any blacksmith work he had to catch up with do that of night. He was a good shot. He loved shooting very much, and always, won every match.
His advice was always to be accurate in shooting. He would always advise me to take more time and study this more. I grew up with him—hunted with him and worked in the blacksmith shop with him.
Publication Date: July 14, 1928