idn't get
nothing for making clothes in those days".
She remembered when the Yankee soldiers came into Spartanburg. She said
they took all they could get, stole something to eat, just went into the
stores and took liquor and handed it out drink by drink to the other
soldiers. Aunt Mary stated she saw Abe Lincoln when he came through
Spartanburg; said he was armed himself and had soldiers all around him.
He told the colored folks who seemed scared of him that he wasn't going
to hurt anybody, not to be scared of him. (Here she must have confused
Lincoln with some one else, probably Colonel Palmer, who commanded a
detachment in pursuit of Jefferson Davis, which stopped over-night in
Spartanburg in April, 1865. FK.)
SOURCE: Aunt Mary Williams, 391 Cudd St., Spartanburg, S.C.
Interviewer: F.S. DuPre, Spartanburg, S.C.
=Project 1655=
=Genevieve W. Chandler=
=Georgetown County, S.C.=
=FOLKLORE=
=EX-SLAVE STORY=
=UNCLE WILLIS WILLIAMS=
"When wuz I born? Born in August. When I wuz born been August. I wuz a
man grown pulling boxes, (turpentine boxes) when the shake wuz. I know
the very night the shake come----on a Wednesday night. I wuz on door
step loosing my shoe string. There wuz more religion then than they is
now. Praying and prayer meeting for a month. Everybody tend meeting.
"I been with the Yankee. I kin tell you bout the Yankee. They come home
there to Rock Creek when the war wuz breaking up and carried me to
Fayetteville. (N.C.) Kept me with 'em till Johnson surrendered in
Raleigh,----then they kept me in Goldsboro and took me on to Petersburg.
After everything over they give me free transportation back home. Free
on train back to Fayetteville. They had put all the Yankee clothes on
me,----all the blue shirt, blue coat and bumps on the shoulder,--and
when they start me home took all the Yankee clothes way from me. Put
gray clothes on me and sent me back. I member they took me up in a
way-up-yonder building--to Richmond. Couldn't tell you the depth of it.
Man on the ground looked like boy.
"The man I belonged to been Mass John A. Williams. (Born on the Cape
Fear.) I goes by Mass John name--Williams. His sons been John, James,
Charlie, Wallis, William, James. James come home from army sick. Had the
mumps; thirty days furlough.
"Member when the Yankees come. Been Sunday morning. Ride up to the gate
on horses. Old Boss happened to come out and walk to the lot. I happened
to be at g
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