ourself and children. No more
masters. You are free."

Eugene said when the colored troops come in, they sang:

"Don't you see the lightning?
Don't you hear the thunder?
It isn't the lightning,
It isn't the thunder,
But its the button on
The Negro uniforms!

"The slaves that was freed, and the country Negroes that had been run
off, or had run away from the plantations, was staying in Augusta in
Guv'ment houses, great big ole barns. They would all get free provisions
from the Freedmen's Bureau, but people like us, Augusta citizens, didn't
get free provisions, we had to work. It spoiled some of them. When the
small pox come, they died like hogs, all over Broad Street and
everywhere."

WILLIS BENNEFIELD, HEPHZIBAH, GA., Born 1835.

[TR: "Uncle Willis" in individual interviews.]

"Uncle Willis" lives with his daughter Rena Berrian, who is 74 years
old. "I his baby," said Rena, "all dead but me, and I ain't no good for
him now 'cause I can't tote nothin'."

When asked where Uncle Willis was, Rena looked out over the blazing
cotton field and called:

"Pap! Oh--pappy! Stop pickin' cotton and come in awhile. Dey's some
ladies wants to see you."

Uncle Willis hobbled slowly to the cabin, set in the middle of the
cotton patch. He wore clean blue overalls, obviously new. His small,
regular features had high cheekbones. There was a tuft of curly white
hair on his chin, and his head was covered with a "sundown" hat.

"Mawnin," he said, "I bin sick. So I thought I might git some cotton
terday."

Willis thinks he is 101 years old. He said, "I was 35 years old when
freedom delcared." He belonged to Dr. Balding Miller, who lived on Rock
Creek plantation. Dr. Miller had three or four plantations, Willis said
at first, but later stated that the good doctor had five or six places,
all in Burke County.

"I wuk in de fiel'," he went on, "and I drove de doctor thirty years. He
owned 300 slaves. I never went to school a day in my life, 'cept Sunday
school, but I tuk de doctor's sons fo' miles ev'y day to school. Guess
he had so much business in hand he thought the chillun could walk. I
used to sit down on de school steps 'till dey turn out. I got way up in
de alphabet by listenin', but when I went to courtin' I forgot all dat."

Asked what his regular duties were, Willis answered with pride:

"Marster had a cay'age and a buggy too. My father driv' de cay'age and I
driv de doctor. Sometimes I was fi