"One day I went to mill. They didn't low the chillun to lay around, and while I was at the mill a Yankee soldier ridin' a white hoss captured me and took me to Pulaski, Tennessee and then I was in the Yankee army. I wasn't no size and I don't think he would a took me if it hadn't been for the hoss.
"We come back to Athens and the Rebels captured the whole army. Colonel Camp was in charge and General Forrest captured us and I was carried south. We was marchin' along the line and a Rebel soldier said, 'Don't you want to go home and stay with my wife?' And so I went there, to Millville, Alabama. Then he bound me to a friend of his and I stayed there till the war bout ended. I was getting along very well but a older boy 'suaded me to run away to Decatur, Alabama.
"Oh I seen lots of the war. Bof sides was good to me. I've seen many a scout. The captain would say 'By G----, close the ranks.' Captains is right crabbed. I stayed back with the hosses.
"After the war I worked about for this one and that one. Some paid me and some didn't.
"I can remember back to Breckenridge; and I can remember hearin' em say 'Hurrah for Buchanan!' I'm just tellin' you to show how fur back I can remember. I used to have a book with a picture of Abraham Lincoln with an axe on his shoulder and a picture of that log cabin, but somebody stole my book.
"I worked for whoever would take me—I had no mother then. If I had had parents to make me go to school, but I got along very well. The white folks taught me not to have no bad talk. They's all dead now and if they wasn't I'd be with them.
"I'm a natural born farmer—that's all I know. The big overflow drownded me out and my wife died with pellagra in '87. She was a good woman and nice to white folks. I'm just a bachin' here now. I did stay with my daughter but she is mean to me, so I just picked up my rags and moved into this room where I can live in peace. I'm a christian man, and I can't live right with her. When colored folks is mean, they's meaner than white folks.
"I'm gettin' along very well now. I been with white folks all my day—and it's hard for me to get along with my folks.
"In one way the world is crueler than they used to be. They don't appreciate things like they used to. They have no feelin's and don't care nothin' bout the olden people.
"Well, good-bye, I'm proud of you."