SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

and they got out and went on their way* My young master crawled out and
went back to the Confederate army* He had to crawl out because he wanted to
keep anybody from seeing him and capturing him*
Soldiers
*I never seed but one or two soldiers* That was after the surrender*
I suppose they were Union soldiers* They had on their blue jackets* There
never was any fighting in Nashville, while I was living there*
"About all that I knew about the War was that the men went off to
fight* Hone of the colored men went—just the white men. The colored men
stayed back and worked in the field* Isabel Mitchell and her boys were
bosses* What they said goed*
Slave Houses
"The slaves lived in old log houses* Some of them were plank houses*
Some of the slaves chinked 'em up with dirt* They had these big wooden
windows in the houses* Sometimes they would be two, sometimes they would be
three windows—one to each room* There would be two or three or four rooms
to the house* That would be according to the family* My mother had three
girls besides her own children* She had a four-room house* Her house was
built right in the white folks 1 yard* My grandmother didn f t work in the
field* She tended to the children* She worked in the big house* My mother
was boss of the whole thing* She would go and work in the field but grand-
mother would see after the children* She wouldn't let me go from her to the
gate without her* I just had to follow her everywhere she went*
"Grandmother besides taking care of us used to make clothes* She cooked
for the white folks* But she sure had to see after us children* I seed
after myself* I was all the girl-child there and I just did what I wanted to*
4*