“I talked with General Jackson. I think he is a true Christian. Yes, I think when he dies he will go to heaven. But he will be no bigger than a rat! There’s my old colored man--a preacher. He will be soaring away up in heaven, while General Jackson will be crawling along on the floor like a rat.” This recital was followed at the table by a silence as deep and universal as that which went before it. Whether the guests highly valued Dr. Nelson’s opinions that degrees of blessedness obtain in heaven and that high and low positions will in some instances be reversed up there, is by no means certain. But they appeared to think that the story entailed a moral which lay in its application, that the subject was exhausted and the conversation might be discreetly diverted to another topic. In December, 1862, Gen. Samuel P. Carter made a military raid into that portion of East Tennessee lying nearest Virginia. He was a native of one of the most eastern counties of Tennessee, which bears his surname, and he belonged to a prominent and influential family. He had been for years an esteemed officer of the United States Navy, but in 1862, was detached from it and assigned to duty with the land forces in Kentucky which might operate in East Tennessee. There, it was probably thought, his nativity and name would prove collateral aids to his services. This particular enterprise was brilliantly executed, but he was compelled by the gathering of superior hostile forces to withdraw from it speedily. A compend of his report of the expedition is appended.[29]