Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Hardy Miller
702-1/2 W. Second Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85
Occupation: Yardman
"Mistress, I'll tell you what my mother said. She said she birthed me on Christmas morning in 1852 in Sumpter County, Georgia. It was on her old master's place. Bright Herring was his name. Old mistress' name was Miss Lizzie. My father belonged to a different owner.
"Mac McClendon and John Mourning was two nigger traders and they brought my mother and sister Nancy and sister Liza and my sister Anna and Hardy Miller—that's me—out here on the train from Americus, Georgia to Memphis and put us on a steamboat and brought us here to Pine Bluff and sold me to Dr. Pope. He was a poor white man and he wanted a pair of niggers. He bought me and Laura Beckwith. In them days a doctor examined you and if your heart was sound and your lungs was sound and you didn't have no broken bones—have to pay one hundred dollars for every year you was old. That was in 1862 and I was ten years old so they sold me for one thousand dollars and one thousand dollars for Laura cause she was sound too. Carried us down to Monticello and when I got free my mammy come after me.
"Fore I left Georgia, my daddy belonged to a man named Bill Ramsey. You see niggers used the name of their masters.
"I can remember when I was a boy Bill Ramsey set my father free and give him a free pass and anybody hire him have to pay just like they pay a nigger now. My daddy hired my mammy from her master. My mammy was her master's daughter by a colored woman.
"My daddy had a hoss named Salem and had a cart and he would take me and my mammy and my sister Liza and go to Americus and buy rations for the next week.
"I member when the war started in 1861 my mammy hired me out to Mrs. Brewer and she used to git after me and say, 'You better do that good or I'll whip you. My husband gone to war now on account of you niggers and it's a pity you niggers ever been cause he may get killed and I'll never see him again.'
"I member seein' General Bragg's men and General Steele and General Marmaduke. Had a fight down at Mark's Mill. We just lived six miles from there. Seen the Yankees comin' by along the big public road. The Yankees whipped and fought em so strong they didn't have time to bury the dead. We could see the buzzards and carrion crows. I used to hear old mistress say, 'There goes the buzzards, done et all the meat off.' I used to go to mill and we could see the bones. Used to got out and look at their teeth. No ma'm, I wasn't scared, the white boys was with me.