“When Wheeler’s cavalry came through they didn’t take nothing—­nothing but what they et.  I heard a fellow say, ‘Have you got anything to eat?’

“My mother said, ‘I ain’t got nothin’ but some chitlins.’

“He said, ‘Gimme some of those; I love chitlins.’  “Mother gave ’em to me to carry to him.  I didn’t get half way to him before the rest of the men grabbed me and took ’em away from me and et ’em up.  The man that asked for them didn’t get a one.

Slave Money

“The slaves would sometimes have five or six dollars.  Mostly, they would make charcoal and sell it to get money.

Patrollers

“I seen patrollers.  They come to our house.  They didn’t whip nobody.  Our folks didn’t care nothin’ about ’em.  They come looking for keys and whiskey.  They couldn’t whip nobody on my master’s plantation.  When they would come there, he would be sitting up with ’em.  He would sit there in his back door and look at ’em.  Wouldn’t let ’em hit nobody.

“Them colored women had more fun that enough—­laughing at them patrollers.  Fool ’em and then laugh at ’em.  Make out like they was trying to hide something and the patrollers would come running up, grab ’em and try to see what it was.  And the women would laugh and show they had nothing.  Couldn’t do nothin’ about it.  Never whipped anybody ’round there.  Couldn’t whip nobody on our place; couldn’t whip nobody on Jessie Mills’ place; couldn’t whip nobody on Stephen Mills’ place; couldn’t whip nobody on Betsy Geesley’s place; couldn’t whip nobody on Nancy Mills’ place; couldn’t whip nobody on Potter Duggins’ place.  Potter Duggins was a cousin to my master.  Nobody run them peoples’ plantations but theirselves.

Social Life

“When slaves wanted to, they would have dances.  They would have dances from one plantation to the other.  The master didn’t object.  They had fiddles, banjo and quills.  They made the quills and blowed ’em to beat the band.  Good music.  They would make the quills out of reeds.  Those reeds would sound just like a piano.  They didn’t have no piano.  They didn’t serve nothing.  Nothing to eat and nothing to drink except them that brought whiskey.  The white folks made the whiskey, but the colored folks would get it.

“We had church twice a month.  The Union Church was three miles away from us.  My father and I would go when they had a meeting.  Bethlehem Church was five miles away.  Everybody on the plantation belonged to that church.  Both the colored and the white belonged and went there.  They had the same pastor for Bethlehem, Union, and Dairy Ann.  His name was Tom Adams.  He was a white man.  Colored folks would go to Dairy Ann sometimes.  They would go to Union too.

“Sometimes they would have meetings from house to house, the colored folks.  The colored folks had those house to house meetings any time they felt like it.  The masters didn’t care.  They didn’t care how much they prayed.