“I run away to Louisville to j’ine the Yankees one day.  I was scared to death all the time.  They put us in front to shield themselves.  They said they was fighting for us—­for our freedom.  Piles of them was killed.  I got a flesh wound.  I’m scarred up some.  We got plenty to eat.  I was in two or three hot battles.  I wanted to quit but they would catch them and shoot them if they left.  I didn’t know how to get out and get away.  I mustered out at Jacksonville, Florida and walked every step of the way back.  When I got back it was fall of the year.  My folks still at my master’s.  I was on picket guard at Jacksonville, Florida.  We fought a little at Pensacola, Florida.

“At the end of the War provisions got mighty scarce.  If we didn’t have enough to eat we took it.  They hadn’t raised nothing to eat the last two years.  Before I got back to Kentucky the Ku Klux was about and it was hard to get enough to eat to keep traveling on.  I was scared nearly to death all the time.  I’m not in favor of war.  I didn’t stay on with the master but my folks lived on.  They didn’t want to hire Negro soldiers.  I traveled about hunting a good place and got to Osceola, Arkansas.  I been here in Forrest City twenty ard years.  The best people in the world live in Arkansas.

“I’m going to try to go to the Yankee Reunion.  They sent me a big letter (invitation).  They going to send me a ticket and pay all my expenses.  It is at Gettysburg.  It is from June 29th to July 6th.  My grandson is going to take care of me.

“I get one hundred dollars a month pension.  It keeps us mighty well.  I want to live to be a hundred years old.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Anna Williamson, Holly Grove, Arkansas
Age:  Between 75 and 80

“Grandma come from North Carolina.  Her master was Rodes Herndon, then Cager Booker.  He owned my mama.  My name is Anna Booker.  I married Wes Williamson.

“My papa’s master was Calvin Winfree.  He come from Virginia.  Me and Bert Winfree (white) raised together close to Somerville, Tennessee.

“Grandma and grandpa was named Maria and Allen.  Her master was Rodes Herndon.  I was fourth to the oldest of mama’s children.  She give me to grandma.  That who raised me.  Mama took to the field after freedom.  Mama had seven or eight children.

“Mama muster been a pretty big sorter woman when she young.  A ridin’ boss went to whoopin’ her once and she tore every rag clothes he had on offen him.  I heard em say he went home strip start naked.  I think they said he got turned off or quit, one.

“When mama was in slavery she had three girl babies and long wid them she nursed some of the white babies.  She cooked some but wasn’t the regular white folks’ cook.  Another black woman was the regular cook.  I heard her say she was a field hand mostly durin’ slavery.

“Folks was free two or three years fore they knowed it.  Nobody told em.