LAUDERDALE COUNTY, ALABAMA
OBITUARIES

B. T.  "Blue" ALLEN

Contributed May 2005
by
Elizabeth Claire Moore

July 25, 1923, Florence Times

B. T. ALLEN DEAD

Arkdell, Ala July 25, 1923 B. T. (Blue) Allen, an old Confederate Soldier,
passed away yesterday. If Blue had lived until the 26th, he would of been 88
years, and one month old. But few men went through as many rough and tumbles in the Civil War as Blue Allen did. At the battle and surrender of Ft.
Donelson rather than go to prison, on as cold a day as ever swept over
Dixeland, Blue plunged into the Cumberland River and made his escape
swimming to the other shore, through floating ice. That night he slept in a
smoke-house with a sack of salt for a pillow, and with wet clothes.
Now Blue is gone, he lived a life of the plain and simple annals of the
poor and as he often expressed himself, was open in the front, spoke what
he thought without reserve, and if he owed you $1.00 or $100.00 , you got
it.
He was a member of the Christian Church and will be layed today in the
Wright graveyard by the side of his old faithful wife. He leaves several
sons and daughters, to mourn their paternal loss. So Blue has passed into
history and crossed the river to the other side from which no traveler who
went that way has ever returned.
And now for Blue the blazeing hearth will burn no more, nor busy house-wife
ply her care. Nor Grand Children climb their Grandfathers knee. Blue is gone
and we who live today must go, for die we will and die we must, for we are
the same as our fathers and mothers have been. We see the same sun, we drink the same stream that our fathers and mothers did and run the same course they have run.

A FRIEND