hey was havin'
somethin'. I remember when they taken this town (Pine Bluff). The people
what owned me was the parson of the Methodist church--Parson Walsh. Yes
ma'm I knowed the Union soldiers was dressed in blue and the Secessors
was called Greybacks. My father was with the Yankee soldiers. I don't
know how he got with em but I know he was gone away from this town three
years. He come back here after he was mustered out in Vicksburg.

"I remember the Yankee soldiers come and took the colored folks away if
they wanted to go. That was after surrender. They carried us to the
'county band' and fed us.

"I know the day the Yankees taken Pine Bluff; it was on Sunday and Marse
Jesse went to services. The Secessor soldiers left Pine Bluff. Of course
I didn't understand what it was all about cause in them times people
didn't enlighten children like they does now. They know everything now,
ain't no secrets.

"Most work I've done is washin' and ironin' since I been a full-grown,
married woman. I was twenty some odd when I was married. I know I was
out of my teens.

"I went to school a good while after the war. My first teacher was Mr.
Todd from the North.

"I used to do right smart sewing. I did sewing before machines come to
this town. The frocks they used to make had from five to ten yards.

"We is livin' now in a time of worry. What they is doin' is told about
in the scripture."

DEC 21 1937
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Rachel Harris
8161/2 E. Fifth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 90

"I reekolect when the war started. I was big enuf to be totin' water,
sweepin', feedin' chickens. I was a big chap when it started. I went
with the white chillun and watched the soldiers marchin'. The drums was
playin' and the next thing I heered, the war was gwine on. You could
hear the guns just as plain. The soldiers went by just in droves from
soon of a mornin' till sundown. They said they was goin' to head off the
Yankees. Dis fore the war ended I heered en say they was gwine to free
the colored folks. That was in Mississippi.

"My old master was Jim Smith and old mistress' name was Louisa Smith.

"I had many a whip put on me. When they wasn't whippin' me the chillun
was. They whipped my mother and everybody.

"My brother Lewis went plum through the war till surrender. He waited on
a Rebel soldier--cooked and washed for him. I never did see no white
Yankee soldiers but