“Grandma was a slave woman.  Her name was Emma Harper.  She was born in Chesterville, Mississippi.  Her young master was Jim and Miss Corrie Burton.  The old man was John Burton.  I aimed[?] to see them once.  I seen both Miss Corrie and Mr. Jim.  My grandparents was never sold.  They left out after freedom.  They stayed there a long time but they left.

“The first of the War was like dis:  Our related folks was having a dance.  The Yankees come in and was dancing.  Some “fry boys” [——­ ——­] them.  The next day they were all in the field and heard something.  They went to the house and told the white folks there was [——­] a fire.  They heard it. [——­] he [——­] about.  Master told them it was war.  Miss Burton was crying.  They heard about [——­] in [——­] at Harrisburg where they could hear the shooting.

“They put the slaves to digging.  They dug two weeks.  They buried their meat and money and a whole heap of things.  They never found it.  A little white,[?] Mollita[?], was out where they were digging.  She went in the house.  She said, Mama, is the devil coming?  They said he was.”  Master had them come to him.  He questioned them.  They told him they got so tired [——­] of them said he [——­] he [——­ ——­] the [——­] Yankees come he’d tell them where all this was, but he was just talking.  But when the Yankees did come they was so scared they never got close to a Yankee.  They was scared to death.  They never found the meat and money.  They [——­] and cut the turkeys’ heads off and the turkey fell off the rail fence, the head drop on one side and the body on the other.  They milked a cow and cut both hind quarters off and leave the rest of the cow there and the cow not dead yet.

“Mr. South[?] Strange at Chesterville, Mississippi had a pony named Zane.  The Yankees hemmed him and four more men in at Malone Creek and killed the four men.  Zane rared up on hind legs and went up a steep cliff and ran three miles.  Mr. Strange’s coat was cut off from him.  It was a gray coat.  Mr. Strange was a white man.

“Uncle Frank Jones was forty years old when they gathered him up out of the woods and put him in the battle lines.  All the runaway black folks in the woods was hunted out and put in the Yankee lines.  Uncle Frank lived in a cave up till about then.  His master made him mean.  He got better as he got old.  His master would sell him and tell him to run away and come back to his cave.  He’d feed him.  He never worked and he went up for his provisions.  He was sold over and over and over.  His master learnt him in books and to how to cuss.  He learnt him how to trick the dogs and tap trees like a coon.  At the end of the trail the dogs would turn on the huntsman.  Uncle Frank was active when he was old.  He was hired out to race other boys sometimes.  He never wore glasses.  He could see well when he was old.  He told me he was raised out from England, Arkansas.

“When freedom was told ’em Uncle Frank said all them in the camps hollered and danced, and marched and sung.  They was so glad the War was done and so glad they been freed.