They wore their wives big wide nightgowns and caps and ugliest faces you eber seed.  They looked like a gang from hell—­ugliest things you ebber did see.  It was cold—­ground spewed up wid ice and men folks so scared they run out in woods, stay all night.  Old mistress died at the close of de war an’ her son what was a preacher, he put on a long preacher coat and breeches (britches) [TR:  ‘britches’ is marked out by hand] all black.  He put a navy six in his belt and carried carbeen [carbine] on his shoulder.  It was a long gun shoot sixteen times.  He was a dangerous man.  He made the Ku Klux let his folks alone.  He walk all night bout his place.  He say, ‘Forward March!’ Then they pass by.  He was a dangerous man.  So much takin’ place all time I was scared nearly to death all time.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Maria Sutton Clements
                    De Valls Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 
[Dec 31 1937]
[TR:  Also reported as Maria Sutton Clemments]

“Missus, I thought if I’d see you agin I’d tell you this song: 

  ’Jeff Davis is President
   Abe Lincoln is a fool
   Come here, see Jeff ride the gray horse
   And Abe Lincoln the mule.’

“They sang all sich songs durin’ of the war.

“Five wagons come by.  They said it was Jeff Davise’s wagons.  They was loaded wid silver money—­all five—­in Lincoln County, Georgia.  Somehow the folks got a whiz of it and got the money outen one the wagons.  Abraham, my old mistress’ son had old-fashion saddle bag full.  Sho it was white folks all but two or three slaves.  Hogs tore up sacks money, find em hid in the woods.  They thought it was corn.  They found a leather trunk full er money—­silver money—­down in the creek.  Money buried all round.  The way it all started one colored man throwed down a bright dime to a Yankee fo sompin he wanter buy.  That started it all.  They tied their thumbs this way (thumbs crossed) behind em, then strung em up in trees by their wrists behind em.  It put heep of em in bed an’ some most died never did get over it.  The Yankee soldiers come down that [HW:  then?] and got all the money nearly.  They say the war last four years, five months.  Seemed like twenty years.”

Interviewer:  Pernella Anderson
Person Interviewed:  Fannie Clemons
                    940 N. Washington
                    El Dorado, Ark. 
Age:  78

“I was born down in Farmerville, Louisiana in the year of 1860.  Now my ma lived with some white people, but now the name of the people I do not know.  You see, child, I am old and I can’t recollect so good.  I didn’t know my pa cause my ma quit him when I was little.  My ma said she worked hard in the field like a black stepchild.  My ma had nine chilluns and I was the oldest of the nine.  She said her old miss wouldn’t let her come to the house to nurse me, so she would slip up under the house and crawl through a hole in the floor.  She took and pulled a plank up so she could slip through.