“Peace was declared to us fust in January in Alabamy, but not in Miss’sippi ’til Grant come back, May 8th.

“I ain’t seen my boss since dem Yankees took me ’way.  I was seven miles down in de swamp when I was tuk.  I wouldn’ of tol’ him goodbye.  I jes wouldn’ of lef’ him.  No sir, I couldn’ have lef’ my good boss.  He tol’ me dem Yankees was comin’ to take me off.  I never wanted to see him ’cause I would have went back ‘cause he pertected me an’ loved me.

“Like dis week, I lef’ de crowd.  One day, Cap’in Bob McDaniel came by, an’ asked me if I wanted to mek fires an’ wuk ’round de house.  I said, ‘I’d like to see de town whar you want me to go, an’ den I come to West Point.  It wa’nt nothin’ but cotton rows—­lot of old shabby shanties, with jes one brick sto’, an’ it b’longed to Ben Robertson, an’ I hope[FN:  helped] build all de sto’es in West Point since den.

“I seed de KuKlux.  We would be workin’.  Dem people would be in de fiel’, an’ must get home ‘fo dark an’ shet de door.  Dey wo’ three cornered white hats with de eyes way up high.  Dey skeered de breeches off’n me.  First ones I got tangled up wid was right down here by de cemetery.  Dey just wanted to scare you.  Night riders was de same thing.  I was one of de fellers what broke ’em up.

“Old man Toleson was de head leader of de Negroes.  Tryin’ to get Negroes to go ‘gainst our white people.  I spec’ he was a two faced Yankee or carpetbagger.

“We had clubs all ’round West Point.  Cap’in Shattuck out about Palo Alto said to us niggers one day, ’Stop your foolishness—­go live among your white folks an’ behave.  Have sense an’ be good citizens.’  His advice was good an’ we soon broke up our clubs.

“I ain’t been to no school ’cept Sunday School since Surrender.  A good white man I worked with taught me ’nough to spell ‘comprestibility’ and ‘compastibility.’  I had good ‘membrance an’ I could have learned what white folks taught me, an’ dey sees dey manners in me.

“I mar’ied when I was turnin’ 19, an’ my wife, 15.  I mar’ied at big Methodist Chu’ch in Needmore.  Same old chu’ch is dere now.  I hope build it in 1865.  Aunt Emaline Robertson an’ Vincent Petty an’ Van McCanley started a school in de northeast part of town two years afte’ de War.

“Emaline was Mr. Ben Robertson’s cook, an’ her darter, Callie, was his housekeeper, an’ George an’ Walter was mechanics.  George became a school teacher.

“Abraham Lincoln worked by ’pinions of de Bible.  He got his meanin’s from de Bible.  ‘Every man should live under his own vine and fig tree.’  Dis was Abraham’s commandments.  Dis is where Lincoln started, ’no one should work for another.’

“Jefferson Davis wanted po’ man to work for rich man.  He was wrong in one ‘pinion, an’ right in t’other.  He tried to take care of his Nation.  In one instance, Lincoln was destroying us.

“I j’ined the church to do better an’ to be with Christians an’ serve Christ.  Dis I learned by ‘sociation an’ harmonious livin’ with black an’ white, old an’ young, an’ to give justice to all.