at 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 Afric