I said that when I got so I could travel I was sent from Dr. Ragg’s hospital in Charleston to Col.  Singleton’s plantation near Columbia, in the last part of the year 1864.  I did not do any work during the remainder of that year, because I was unwell from my wound received in the fort.

About that time Gen. Sherman came through Georgia with his hundred thousand men, and camped at Columbia, S.C.  The slave holders were very uneasy as to how they should save other valuables, as they saw that slavery was a hopeless case.  Mistress had some of her horses, mules, cows and hogs carried down into the swamp, while the others which were left on the plantation were divided out to the negroes for safe keeping, as she had heard that the Yankees would not take anything belonging to the slaves.  A little pig of about fifty or sixty pounds was given to me for safe keeping.  A few of the old horses and mules were taken from the plantation by the Union soldiers, but they did not trouble anything else.

After Columbia had been burned, and things had somewhat quieted, along in the year 1865, the negroes were asked to give up the cows and hogs given them for safe keeping; all the rest gave up theirs, but mine was not found.  No doubt but my readers want to know what had become of it.  Well, I will tell you.  You all know that Christmas was a great day with both masters and slaves in the South, but the Christmas of 1864 was the greatest which had ever come to the slaves, for, although the proclamation did not reach us until 1865, we felt that the chains which had bound us so long were well nigh broken.

So I killed the pig that Christmas, gathered all of my associates, and had a great feast, after which we danced the whole week.  Mother would not let me have my feast in her cabin, because she was afraid that the white people would charge her with advising me to kill the pig, so I had it in one of the other slave’s cabins.

When the overseer asked me for the pig given me, I told him that I killed it for my Christmas feast.  Mistress said to me, “Jacob, why did you not ask me for the pig if you wanted it, rather than take it without permission?” I answered, “I would have asked, but thought, as I had it in hand, it wasn’t any use asking for it.”  The overseer wanted to whip me for it, but as Uncle Sam had already broken the right arm of slavery, through the voice of the proclamation of 1863, he was powerless.

When the yoke had been taken from my neck I went to school in Columbia, S.C., awhile, then to Charleston.  Afterward I came to Worcester, Mass., in February, 1869.  I studied quite a while in the evening schools at Worcester, and also a while in the academy of the same place.  During that time I was licensed a local preacher of the African Methodist Episcopal church, and sometime later was ordained deacon at Newport, R.I.

A short time after my ordination I was sent to Salem, Mass., where I have remained, carrying on religious work among my people, trying in my feeble way to preach that gospel which our blessed Saviour intended for the redemption of all mankind, when he proclaimed, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.”  In the meantime I have been striking steady blows for the improvement of my education, in preparing myself for a field of work among my more unfortunate brethren in the South.