"I member when the Yankees come, my white folks would run and hide and hide us colored folks too. Boss man had the colored folks get all the meat out of the smokehouse and hide it in the peach orchard in the grass.
"I used to play with old mistress daughter Addie. We would play in the parlor and after we moved to town some of the little girls would pick up and go home. You know these town folks didn't believe in playin' with the colored folks.
"After mama was free she stayed right there on the place and made a crop. Raised eight hundred bales and the average was nine. Mama plowed and hoed too. I had to work right with her too.
"I never went to school but once. I learned my ABC's but couldn't read. My next ABC's was a hoe in my hand. Mama had a switch right under her belt. I worked but I couldn't keep up. Just seein' that switch was enough. I had a pretty good time when I was young, but I had to go all the time."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: James Henry Nelson
1103 Orange, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 82
Occupation: Gardener
"I member all about the war—why of cose. I saddled many a cavalry hoss. I tell you how I know how old I am. Old master, Henry Stanley of Athens, Alabama, moved to Palaski, Tennessee and left me with young mistress to take care of things. One day we was drivin' up some stock and I said, 'Miss Nannie, how old is you?' And she said, 'I'm seventeen.' I was old enough to have the knowledge she would know how old I was and I said, 'How old am I?' And she said, 'You is seven years old.' That was durin' the war.
"I remember the soldiers comin' and stoppin' at our building—Yankees and Southern soldiers, too. They fit all around our plantation.
"The Yankees taken me when I was a little fellow. About two years after the war started, young Marse Henry went to war and took a colored man with him but he ran away—he wouldn't stay with the Rebel army. So young Marse Henry took me. I reckon I was bout ten. I know I was big enough to saddle a cavalry hoss. We carried three horses—his hoss, my hoss and a pack hoss. You know chillun them days, they made em do a man's work. I studied bout my mother durin' the war, so they let me go home.