“During the Civil War things was quiet like where I was.  The soldiers didn’t come through till after the war was over.  Then the Union soldiers took Washington.  They come there after the surrender.

Freedom

“The Union soldiers came in a gang out from Washington all over the surrounding country, scouting about, and notified all the black folks of freedom.  My folks made arrangements to stay on.  Two colored men went through the country getting folks to move to southwest Georgia but before mother decided to move anywhere along come two men and they had a helper, Mr. Allen.  It was Mr. William H. Wood and Mr. Peters over here on Cat Island.  They worked from Washington, Georgia.  We consented to leave and come to Arkansas.  We started and went to Barnetts station to Augusta, to Atlanta.  There was so many tracks out of order, bridges been burnt.  We crossed the river at Chattanooga, then to Nashville, then to Johnsonville.  We took a boat to Cairo, then to Memphis, then on to some landing out here.  Well, I never heard.  We went to the Woods’ place and made a crop here in Arkansas in 1866.  I worked with John I. Foreman till 1870 and went back to the Woods’ farm till 1880.  Then I went to the Bush place (now McCullough farm).  I farmed all along through life till the last twelve years.  I started preaching in 1875.  I preach yet occasionally.  I preached here thirty-six years in the Marianna Baptist church.  I quit last year.  My health broke down.

“Chills was my worst worry in these swamps.  We made fine crops.  In 1875 yellow fever come on.  Black folks didn’t have yellow fever at first but they later come to have it.  Some died of it.  White folks had died in piles.  It was hard times for some reason then.  It was hard to get something to eat.  We couldn’t get nothing from Memphis.  Arrangements was made to get supplies from St. Louis to Little Rock and we could go get them and send boats out here.

“In 1875 was the tightest, hardest time in all my life, A chew of tobacco cost ten cents.  In 1894-’95 hard times struck me again.  Cotton was four and five cents a pound, flour three dollars a barrel, and meat four and five cents a pound.  We raised so much of our meat that didn’t make much difference.  Money was so scarce.

“Ku Klux—­I never was in the midst of them.  They was pretty bad in Georgia and in northeast part of this county.  They was bad so I heard.  They sent for troops at Helena to settle things up at about Marion, Arkansas now.  I heard more of the Ku Klux in Georgia than I heard after we come here.  And as time went on and law was organized the Ku Klux disbanded everywhere.

“Traveling conditions was bad when we came to Arkansas.  We rode in box cars, shabby passenger coaches.  The boats was the best riding.  As I told you we went way around on account of burnt out and torn up bridges.  The South looked shabby.