He answer me back: "They been in de army 'long time. They don't study hell anymore."
De train still rumble by. One gang of soldier on de top been playing card. I see um hold up de card as plain as day, when de luck fall right. They going to face bullet, but yet they play card, and sing and laugh like they in their own house ... All going down to die.
De train pull 'cross de trestle. I stand up and watch um till he go out of sight 'round de bend. De last thing I hear is de soldier laugh and sing ... All going down to die.
SOURCE: Interview with William Rose, 80, ex-slave of Edisto Island, S.C., in 1936.
Project #1655
W.W. Dixon
Winnsboro, S.C.
BENJAMIN RUSSELL
EX-SLAVE 88 YEARS.
"I was born fourteen miles north of Chester, S.C. the property of Mrs. Rebecca Nance. After eighty-eight years, I have a vivid recollection of her sympathy and the ideal relations she maintained with her slaves.
"My father was just Baker, my mother just Mary. My father was bought out of a drove of slaves from Virginia. I have been told my mother was born on the Youngblood place. (Youngblood name of my mistress' people in York County.) My father was a slave of a Mr. Russell and lived two or three miles from the Nance place, where mother lived. He could only visit her on a written pass. As he was religiously inclined, dutiful and faithful as a slave, my mother encouraged the relation that included a slave marriage between my father and mother. My mother in time, had a log house for herself and children. We had beds made by the plantation's carpenter. As a boy I remember plowing from sun to sun, with an hour's intermission for dinner, and feeding the horses.
"Money? Yes, sometimes white folks and visitors would give me coppers, 3-cent pieces, and once or twice dimes. Used them to buy extra clothing for Sundays and fire crackers and candy, at Christmas. We had good food. In the busy seasons on the farm the mistress saw to it that the slaves were properly fed, the food cooked right and served from the big kitchen. We were given plenty of milk and sometimes butter. We were permitted to have a fowl-house for chickens, separate from the white folks. We wore warm clothes and stout brogan shoes in winter; went barefooted from April until November and wore cotton clothes in summer. The master and some of the women slaves spun the thread, wove the cloth and made the clothes. My mother lived in a two-story farm house. Her children were: William, Mattie and Thomas. We never had an overseer on the place. Sometimes she'd whip the colored children, but only when it was needed for correction.
"Yes, sir, I went with my young master, William, to Chester Court House, and saw slaves put on a block and auctioned off to the highest bidder, just like land or mules and cattle. Did we learn to read and write? We were taught to read, but it was against the law to teach a slave to write. The Legislature passed an act to that effect. A number of cases in which slaves could write, the slave would forge a pass and thereby get away to free territory. They had a time getting them back. On one occasion I run in on my young master, William, teaching my Uncle Reuben how to write. They showed their confusion.