"Yas'm, I seen 'em comin' down de street. Every one had er canteen on de side, a blanket on de shoulder, caps cocked on one side de haid. De Cavalry had boots on, and spurros on de boots. First dey sot de niggers free on Dead River, den dey come on here and sot us free. Dey march straight up Broad Street to de Planters Hotel, den dey camped on de river. Dey stayed here six months till dey sot dis place free. When dey campin' on de river bank we go down dere and wash dey clo'se fer a good price. Day had hard tack to eat. Dey gib us hard tack and tell us to soak it in water, and fry it in meat gravy. I ain't taste nothin' so good since. Dey say, 'Dis hard tack whut we hadder lib on while we fightin' to sot you free.'"
FREEDOM
Although the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered on January 1st, 1863 it was not until Lee's final surrender that most of the negroes knew they were free. The Freedman's Bureau in Augusta gave out the news officially to the negroes, but in most cases the plantation owners themselves summoned their slaves and told them they were free. Many negroes stayed right with their masters.
Carrie Lewis, a slave on Captain Ward's plantation in Richmond County, said, when asked where she went when freedom came, "Me? I didn't went nowhere. Da niggers come 'long wid de babies and dey backs, and say I wus free, and I tell 'em I was free already. Didn't make no diffunce to me—freedom."
Old Susannah from the Freeman plantation said, "When freedom come I got mad at Marster. He cut off my hair. I was free so I come from Ca'lina to Augusta to sue him. I walk myself to death! Den I found I couldn't sue him over here in Georgia! I had to go back. He was jus' nachally mad 'cause we was free. Soon as I got here, dere was a lady on de street, she tole me to come in, tek a seat. I stayed dere. Nex' mornin' I couldn't stand up. My limbs was hurtin' all over."
Tim from the plantation in Virginia remembers distinctly when freedom came to his people. "When we wus about to have freedom," he said, "they thought the Yankees was a-goin' to take all the slaves so they put us on trains and run us down south. I went to a place whut they call 'Butler' in Georgia, then they sent me on down to the Chattahoochee, where they were cuttin' a piece of railroad, then to Quincy, then to Tallahassee. When the war ended I weren't 'xactly in 'Gusta, I was in Irwinville, where they caught Mars. Jeff Davis. Folks said he had de money train, but I never seed no gold, nor nobody whut had any. I come on up to 'Gusta and jined de Bush Arbor Springfield Church.
"When freedom came they called all the white people to the court house first, and told them the darkies ware free. Then on a certain day they called all the colored people down to the parade ground. They had a big stand," explained Eugene Wesley Smith, whose father was a slave in Augusta. "All the Yankees and some of our leading colored men got up there and spoke, and told the negroes: "You are free. Don't steal! Now work and make a living. Do honest work, make an honest living and support yourself and children. There are no more masters. You are free!"
"When the colored troops came in, they came in playing:
'Don't you see the lightning?
Don't you hear the thunder?
It isn't the lightning,
It isn't the thunder
But the buttons on the Negro uniform!'
"The negroes shouted and carried on when they heard they were free."