HISTORY OF HENDERSON COUNTY, KY.              785

recruits to General Sumpter, who was defeated, and Captain McCoy
and his son made prisoners. They were carried to Augusta, Georgia,
where one Colonel Brown was commanding. Brown had served with
McCoy and recognized him. A court martial was immediately sum-
moned and Captain McCoy was tried for treason, condemned and
hung on the same day. His son, a youth of sixteen, a prisoner, was
executed at the same time. Mrs. McCoy, having heard of the capture
of her husband and son, set out immediately for Augusta to see them.
She arrived while they were still hanging, and had them taken down,
put in rude coffins, placed them in her wagon, and carried and buried
them. Three months afterwards, Thomas McCoy, the maternal
grandfather of our sketch, was born. He remained in Carolina until
1800, when he moved to Breckenridge County, Ky., where he settled
and lived until his death, in 1862. Elizabeth McCoy was the sixth
child born of this marriage, and was marfied to Rev. Ezra Ward on
the sixteenth day of January, 1839.  They settled in Hardin County,
where they lived up to their death, she dying October 17th, 1855.
There were seven children born of this marriage, of which Thomas E
was the third. His childhood was passed on his father's farm, near
Stephensburg, in Hardin County, where he enjoyed the usual chances
of securing an education at a country school taught three months in a
year. The ups and downs of life were his, and. through multipled
trials, gained his education. So anxious was he upon this point, he
hired himself to Rev. James Vinson, of Wolf Springs, Hardin County,
to work during mornings and evenings and on Saturdays, during ten
months, for his board and tuition. This school was broken up by the
war, and, soon thereafter, young Ward enlisted as a private in the
Forty-eighth Kentucky Federal Regiment, infantry, commanded by
Colonel Burge, a Methodist clergyman.  He remained in the service
four months, mostly on detached duty, when, on a final organization,
his C.aptain was left out, and he, with others, declined to be mustered
in. He then returned to Hardin County, and again entered Rev.
Vinson's school, upon the previous terms, and there remained for seven
months, up to June, 1864. Carrying away the honors of the class of
thirty-four,he returned to farming,where he remained until January,1865,
when he took charge of a school at Longgrove, Hardin County, and
taught three months. He quit teaching, and, in November, 1865, en-
tered the employ(as man of all work) of Hon. W. L. Conklin, at Litch-
field. He commenced the study of law and so applied himself that, upon
his examination in May,1866, he received the compliments of the exam-

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