ut her slaves, and Anna because
she thought the Union soldiers would harm Mrs. Dove. When the chief
officer of the soldiers came to the home of her mistress, she says, he
demanded entrance in a gruff voice. Then he saw a ring upon Mrs. Dove's
finger and asked: "Where did you get this?" When told that the ring
belonged to her husband, who was dead, the officer turned to his
soldiers and told them that they should "get back; she's alright!"

Provisions intended for the Confederate armies were broken open by the
Union soldiers and their followers, and Anna's mother, to protect her
master, organized groups of slaves to 'tote the meat from the box cars
and hide it in dugouts under the mistress' house'. This meat was later
divided between Negroes and whites.

A Provost Judge followed the advance of the army, and he obtained a list
of all of the slaves held by each master. Mrs. Dove gave her list to the
official, who called each slave by name and asked what that slave had
done on the plantation. He asked, also, whether any payment had been
made to them since the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed, and
when answered in the negative told them that 'You are free now and must
be paid for all of the work you have done since the Proclamation was
signed and that you will do in the future. Don't you work for anybody
without pay'.

The Provost Judge also told the slaves that they might leave if they
liked, and Anna was among those who left. She went to visit the husband
of her mother in Charleston. With her mother and five other children,
Anna crossed rivers on log rafts and rode on trains to Charleston.

Elias Mumford was Anna's step-father in Charleston, and after spending a
year there with him the entire family joined a colonizing expedition to
West Africa. There were 650 in the expedition, and it left in 1867.
Transportation was free.

The trip took several weeks, but finally the small ship landed at Grand
Bassa. Mumford did not like the place, however, and continued on to
Monrovia, Liberia. He did not like Monrovia, either, and tried several
other ports before being told that he would have to get off, anyway.
This was at Harper Cape, W. Africa.

Here he almost immediately began an industry that was to prove
lucrative. Oysters were 'large as saucers', according to Anna, and while
the family gathered these he would burn them and extract lime from them.
This he mixed with the native clay and made brick. In addition to hi