“Mac McClendon and John Mourning was two nigger traders and they brought my mother and sister Nancy and sister Liza and my sister Anna and Hardy Miller—­that’s me—­out here on the train from Americus, Georgia to Memphis and put us on a steamboat and brought us here to Pine Bluff and sold me to Dr. Pope.  He was a poor white man and he wanted a pair of niggers.  He bought me and Laura Beckwith.  In them days a doctor examined you and if your heart was sound and your lungs was sound and you didn’t have no broken bones—­have to pay one hundred dollars for every year you was old.  That was in 1862 and I was ten years old so they sold me for one thousand dollars and one thousand dollars for Laura cause she was sound too.  Carried us down to Monticello and when I got free my mammy come after me.

“Fore I left Georgia, my daddy belonged to a man named Bill Ramsey.  You see niggers used the name of their masters.

“I can remember when I was a boy Bill Ramsey set my father free and give him a free pass and anybody hire him have to pay just like they pay a nigger now.  My daddy hired my mammy from her master.  My mammy was her master’s daughter by a colored woman.

“My daddy had a hoss named Salem and had a cart and he would take me and my mammy and my sister Liza and go to Americus and buy rations for the next week.

“I member when the war started in 1861 my mammy hired me out to Mrs. Brewer and she used to git after me and say, ’You better do that good or I’ll whip you.  My husband gone to war now on account of you niggers and it’s a pity you niggers ever been cause he may get killed and I’ll never see him again.’

“I member seein’ General Bragg’s men and General Steele and General Marmaduke.  Had a fight down at Mark’s Mill.  We just lived six miles from there.  Seen the Yankees comin’ by along the big public road.  The Yankees whipped and fought em so strong they didn’t have time to bury the dead.  We could see the buzzards and carrion crows.  I used to hear old mistress say, ‘There goes the buzzards, done et all the meat off.’  I used to go to mill and we could see the bones.  Used to got out and look at their teeth.  No ma’m, I wasn’t scared, the white boys was with me.

“Dr. Pope was good to me, better to me than he was to Master Walter and Master Billy and my young Miss, Aurelia, cause me and Laura was scared of em and we tried to do everything they wanted.

“When the war ended in 1865 we was out in the field gettin’ pumpkins.  Old master come out and said, ’Hardy, you and Laura is free now.  You can stay or you can go and live with somebody else.’  We stayed till 1868 and then our mammies come after us.  I was seventeen.

“After freedom my mammy sent me to school.  Teacher’s name was W.H.  Young.  Name was William Young but he went under the head of W.H.  Young.

“I went to school four years and then I got too old.  I learned a whole lot.  Learned to read and spell and figger.  I done pretty good.  I learned how to add and multiply and how to cancel and how to work square root.