"I don't know nothin' 'bout Mr. Lincoln 'cep'n he freed all us slaves, an' when we heard dat us was free all de niggers marched to Prairieville an' had a celebration.
"Honey, I's had nine chilluns, twenty five gran' chilluns, twenty seven great gran' chilluns an' thirteen great great gran'chilluns, an' I is expectin' mo' to come along pretty soon. I guess maybee I'll have 100 descendents fo' I shuffle off."
[Josephine]
Interview with Josephine
—Gertha Couric, Eufaula, Alabama
WHEN SHERMAN PASSED THROUGH
Aunt Josephine claims to be the oldest Negro in Eufaula. She says she was born ninety-four years ago in North Georgia on a plantation above Atlanta. She lives now in Eufaula, Alabama with a great-granddaughter.
"I used to belong to Marse Rogers," she said. "After surrender, Marse Rogers moved to dis country, and bought a plantation 'twixt Marse Josiah Flourney's and General Toney's. He said his plantation j'ined theirs." She was a nurse-maid all of her life, even in Slave days, and never was a "field nigger." Asked if she saw any soldiers during the war she said she saw "thousands."
"I and my Mistis and her baby hid in de swamps three days while Sherman and his army was passin' through," she explained. "Marse Rogers was in Virginny and when he got back home, there wasn't nothin' left but a well. Everything had been burned up. His house was gone and so was de smoke house; everything." She added that the well was a "dry well" where melons and butter and milk and meats were placed, in Summer, to keep them cool.
"Those three days my little brother hid in this well, while the soldiers were passin'," she said.
"'Fore God, Missy," she exclaimed, "when we got dat little nigger out ob dat well, he had almost turned white!"