as such a shortage of food
and clothes at our white folks houses, that we decided to move to a
Dutch Fork plantation. My daddy go 'long with other niggers to fight for
'Uncle Abe' and we never see him no more. Soon after that me and mammy
told our mistress goodbye, and move down to her daddy's place, 'bout ten
miles from Chapin. I was ten years old that year and we raise corn,
beans, 'taters and chickens for ourselves and to sell, when we could go
to Columbia and sell it and buy coffee and other things that we could
not raise at home. So we do pretty well for a year or two and we keep
up our tradin' trips to Columbia, which 'counts for me and Ben Lyles, my
cousin 'bout my age, comin' to Columbia on February 16, 1868. We sold
out and stayed all night at the home of Ben's uncle. He had us do some
tasks 'bout his home on Lincoln Street the next day and it was way in
the day befo' we start home. We walk north on what was known then as the
Winnsboro road 'til we come to Broad River road, and we take it. There
was one or two farm houses north of Elmwood Street on the Winnsboro road
at that time and only one house on Broad River road, the farm house of
Mr. Coogler, which is still standin'. There was a big woodsland at the
forks of the Winnsboro road and Broad River road.

"After we walk 'long the Broad River road, what seem to us for a quarter
of a mile, we see four or five old men standin' on the left side of the
road wavin' a white flag. We walks out in the woods on the right side
opposite and watches. Soon we see what seem lak a thousand men on hosses
comin' briskly 'long. The men keep wavin' the white flag. After many had
passed, one big bearded man rein up his hoss and speak with the men
wavin' the white flag. They tell the soldier there am no 'Rebel soldier'
in Columbia and the blue-clad army am welcome; beggin' them to treat the
old folks, women and children, well. The Yankee soldier set straight and
solemn on his hoss, and when the old men finish and hand him a paper, he
salute and tell them, 'Your message will be laid befo' General Sherman'.

"All this time the ground am shakin' from the roar of big guns 'cross
the river. Ben and me run thru the woods to our footlog and see
thousands still comin' into Columbia, all 'long. We get 'fraid and
stayed in the woods 'til we get out of sight of the soldiers. But we
ain't got far over the top of the hill 'til we come face to face with
more men on hosses. One of the men, who se