n, Arkansas
Age: 80

I was born nine miles south of Nashville, Tennessee. The first I ever
knowed or heard of a war, I saw a lot of the funniest wagons coming up
to the house from the road. I called the old mistress. She looked out
the window and pushed me back up in the corner and shot the door. She
was so scared. I thought them things they had on their coats (buttons)
was pretty. I found out they was brass buttons. I peeped out a crack it
was already closed 'cept a big crack, I seed through. Well, the wagons
was high in front and high in the back and sunk in the middle. Had pens
in the wheels instead of axels. Wagon had a box instead of a bed. The
wagons would hold a crib full of corn. They loaded up everything on the
place there was to eat and carried it off. My folks and the other folks
was in the field. Colored folks didn't like 'em taking all they had to
eat and had stored up to live on. They didn't leave a hog nor a chicken,
nor anything else they could find. They drove off all the cows and
calves they could find. Colonel Sam Williams, the old master, soon did
go to war then. The folks had a hard time making a living. Old mistress
had four girls and her baby Ed was one day older than I was. The
children of the hands played around in the woods and every place and
stayed in the field if they was big enough to do any work. Old mistress
had all the children pick up scaley barks and hickory nuts and chestnuts
and walnuts. She put them in barrels. She sold some of them. She had a
heap of sugar maple trees. They put an elder funnel to run the sap in
buckets. We carried that and she boiled it down to brown sugar. She had
up pick up chips to burn when she simmered it down or made soap. She
kept all the children hunting ginsing up in the mountains. She kept it
in sacks. A man come by and buy it. We hunted chenqupins down in the
swamps. There was lots of walnut trees in the woods.

No the slaves didn't leave Colonel Williams. He left them. He brought me
and Ed and we went back and moved to the old Williams farm on Arkansas
River close to Little Rock. Then he sent for my folks. They come in
wagons. They worked for him a long time and scattered about. I stayed at
his house till he said "Henry, you are grown; you better look out for
yourself now." Ed was gone. He sent all the girls off to school and Ed
too. They taught me if I wanted to learn but I didn't care much about
it. I went to the colored school and Ed to the white