Charley Mitchell, farmer in Panola Co., Texas, was born in 1852, a slave of Nat Terry, an itinerant Baptist preacher of Lynchburg, Virginia. Charley left the Terrys one year after he was freed. He worked in a tobacco factory, then as a waiter, until 1887, when he moved to Panola Co. For fifty years he has farmed in the Sabine River bottom, about twenty-five miles southeast of Marshall, Texas.
"I's born in Virginia, over in Lynchburg, and it was in 1852, and I 'longed to Parson Terry and Missy Julia. I don't 'member my pappy, 'cause he's sold when I's a baby, but my mammy was willed to the Terrys and allus lived with them till freedom. She worked for them and they hired her out there in town for cook and house servant.
"They hired me out most times as nuss for white folks chillen, and I nussed Tom Thurman's chillen. He run the bakery there in Lynchburg and come from the north, and when war broke they made him and 'nother northener take a iron clad oath they wouldn't help the north. Durin' the war I worked in Massa Thurman's bakery, helping make hard tack and doughnuts for the 'federate sojers. He give me plenty to eat and wear and treated me as well as I could hope for.
"Course, I didn't git no schoolin'. The white folks allus said niggers don't need no larnin'. Some niggers larnt to write their initials on the barn door with charcoal, then they try to find out who done that, the white folks, I mean, and say they cut his fingers off iffen they jus' find out who done it.
"Lynchburg was good sized when war come on and Woodruff's nigger tradin' yard was 'bout the bigges' thing there. It was all fenced in and had a big stand in middle of where they sold the slaves. They got a big price for 'em and handcuffed and chained 'em together and led 'em off like convicts. That yard was full of Louisiana and Texas slave buyers mos' all the time. None of the niggers wanted to be sold to Louisiana, 'cause that's where they beat 'em till the hide was raw, and salted 'em and beat 'em some more.
"Course us slaves of white folks what lived in town wasn't treated like they was on most plantations. Massa Nat and Missy Julia was good to us and most the folks we was hired out to was good to us. Lynchburg was full of pattyrollers, jus' like the country, though, and they had a fenced in whippin' post there in town and the pattyrollers sho' put it on a nigger iffen they cotch him without a pass.
"After war broke, Lee, you know General Lee himself, come to Lynchburg and had a campground there and it look like 'nother town. The 'federates had a scrimmage with the Yankees 'bout two miles out from Lynchburg, and after surrender General Wilcox and a big company of Yankees come there. De camp was clost to a big college there in Lynchburg and they throwed up a big breastworks out the other side the college. I never seed it till after surrender, 'cause us wasn't 'lowed to go out there. Gen. Shumaker was commander of the 'Federate artillery and kilt the first Yankee that come to Lynchburg. They drilled the college boys, too, there in town. I didn't know till after surrender what they drilled them for, 'cause the white folks didn't talk the war 'mongst us.
"Bout a year after the Yankees come to Lynchburg they moved the cullud free school out to Lee's Camp and met in one of the barracks and had four white teachers from the north, and that school run sev'ral years after surrender.
"Lots of 'Federate sojers passed through Lynchburg goin' to Petersburg. Once some Yankee sojers come through clost by and there was a scrimmage 'tween the two armies, but it didn't last long. Gen. Wilcox had a standin' army in Lynchburg after the war, when the Yankees took things over, but everything was peaceful and quiet then.
"After surrender a man calls a meetin' of all the slaves in the fairgrounds and tells us we's free. We wasn't promised anything. We jus' had to do the best we could. But I heared lots of slaves what lived on farms say they's promised forty acres and a mule but they never did git it. We had to go to work for whatever they'd pay us, and we didn't have nothing and no place to go when we was turned loose, but down the street and road. When I left the Terry's I worked in a tobacco factory for a dollar a week and that was big money to me. Mammy worked too and we managed somehow to live.