Edmund Winchester Rucker

We found the photo below in a trunk of papers from Adele Wynne that included newspaper clippings from the early 1900's listing members of Forrest's Cavalry from Lincoln County, Tennessee, but we could not identify him after trying cross reference it with the newspaper clippings. Today, quite by accident, we learned that the clippings and the photo are unrelated.

While visiting Cragfont, the home of James Winchester, we were surprised to see the same photo hanging on the wall there. The guide identified the man as Edmund Winchester Rucker, and some research on that name easily confirmed it. General Rucker was the grandson of James Winchester, and a hero of the South in the Civil War. He apparently lost his arm in the Battle of Nashville, after being injured and captured while leading a brigade under General John Hood during his invasion of Tennessee. Yankee doctors removed the arm which had been badly injured in the fighting. Though he was never formally commissioned General, he is rerred to as a Brigadier General because of his command of multiple brigades.

Edmund Winchester Rucker would have been Adele Wynne's first cousin, once removed. Rucker's mother Louisa, and Adele Wynne's grandmother Almira, were sisters. Rucker was four years older than his first cousin, Andrew Jackson Wynne, Adele's father. Both had grown up in middle Tennessee, about 35 miles apart -- Rucker in Murfreesboro and AJ Wynne in Castalian Springs. Both men settled in Alabama after the war -- Rucker in Birmingham and AJ Wynne 100 miles southwest in Dayton. It is very likely that Adele Wynne knew Rucker, and probably knew him well, which would explain why her papers would have included the photo.

For more on Edmund Winchester Rucker, see this article about the General Edmund Winchester Rucker Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Enterprise, Alabama.

William M. McCready

W. M. McCREADY, Superintendent of Operations, is known to everybody and generally called just "Bill." The most complete knowledge of the plant and its many operations known to any human being lies locked up under his thin blonde locks and behind those clear blue eyes. What he doesn't know about the works has yet to be found out.

Born at McCready's Gap, three miles up the river from the plant. He began with the company as a water boy when work was first started in 1894. It is said that not a brick was laid or a joint of pipe connected that he didn't see it and that no brick has ever been removed or pipe disconnected that he didn't know what became of it.

When the plant was put into operation "Bill" went to work first on the lime kilns, and then in the vat house, first on one job and then on another, vat man, mud stiller, still man, tower man and through the whole circle of "the wet side." When a vacancy occurred in the place of shift foreman, "Bill" got the job, then he became assistant superintendent of operations, and later superintendent. He knows the plant from the ground up as no other man ever did. He has worked at almost every job in it and is past master of them all.

Some of the biggest improvements in the works have resulted from Bill's suggestions and experiments. if you ask him about them he will say his men worked them out, but that is Bill's way -- to always give the other fellow credit.

An incident characteristic of his modesty occurred some months ago when after a moment's steady aim, from the side of the plant he killed a wood chuck coming down the hill across the river. Those who saw the shot marvelled at the feat and boasted of the distance between "Bill" and his mark. Some estimated it at five hundred feet, several placed it at four hundred and all agreed it was no less than three hundred. Finally they put it up to Bill and asked him how far it was. "Oh," he said casually, "about a hundred feet, I guess."

A natural mechanic, a close observer, always trying to learn, Bill is a true example of what ability backed by willingness can amount to. More bashful and modest than most girls we know, he doesn't talk -- he gets results. he knows his men, he likes them, and they like him. his long legs carry a competent man around. We wish there more Bill McCreadys in the world.

From The Alkalite.