“Men come long the road peddlin’ from out the cities, men come long with droves of horses and mules.  They was called horse traders.  Then once in a while they come long tradin’ and selling slaves.  Nother way they sell em was at public auction.  Iffen a slave steal from another master, like go in his smoke house or crib and steal, the sheriff have to whip him.  They would have public whippin’.

“How’d they know was freedom?  How’d they not know it was freedom?  Everybody went wild.  They was jes’ crazy cause they was free.  Way I knowd for certain it was freedom Mr. John Griffin had all the slaves that hadn’t done went off come to the house and he told them they was all free.  Some of em just started walking the roads till they nearly starved.  The government didn’t start feeding the slaves till so many nearly starved.  My mother cooked on nearly a year.  Then she went to work for Vaughn in Edgefield County.

“They didn’t give them no land.  The white folks was land pore.

“They didn’t have no money.  When the masters had money they give the slaves a little spending money.  Nearly all the slaves had a little money long.  They get a pass to split rails for a neighbor and make money.  That was befo freedom.  After freedom nobody had money but the Yankee soldiers.  They keep it closer than the folks you been livin’ with.

“Mr. Griffin, he was called General by all the young men.  He was too old to fight so he trained soldiers.  He didn’t wear a uniform but they did.  They met certain days every week.  They wore gray uniforms.

“They had a battle at Lawrence.  It was 17 miles.  The soldiers passed long the Big road.  I didn’t see the battles.  I heard plenty talk about that conflict at Lawrence though.

“I heard the slaves was goin’ to get 40 acres and a mule.  I tell you they didn’t wait to see if they was going to get another meal.  They went wild, walking and hooping up and down the road.  They found out when they nearly starved they had got the bad end of the game somehow.  Then to keep em from starvin’ they had certain days to go to Lawrence and get a little rations.  Not much I tell you.  They started stealin’ and the Ku Klux started up bout that.

“The President got killed (Abraham Lincoln).  Then they knowed the gig was up.  They had to go to work hard as ever and mighty little to eat.  The slaves did vote.  It was the color of the paper they used way they knowed how to vote.  The Republican government had full sway 12 years.  All the offices at Edgefield nearly was Negroes cept the sheriff.  The Yankees tell em what to do way they knowed how.  Butler went to Congress.  He was a Negro—­(???).  That was what the Ku Klux was mad bout.  They run the Yankees out and took holt of the offices soon as they could.