SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

It was good* We had popcorn and chinquapins in the fall of the year* I
used to pick up chips to use at the pot* I had a little basket* I picked
up corn cobs. They burnt them and made corn cob soda to use in the bread
and cakes* We parched peeled sweet potatoes slice thin and made coffee*
"The Civil War was terrible* One morning before we was all out of
bed the Yankees ecme* It was about daylight * He and the three boys were
there* They didn f t burn any houses and they didn f t hesitate but they took
everything* They took all Miss Betty f s nice silverware* They took fine
quilts and feather beds* That was in the fall of the year* They drove off
a line of our slaves (a block long) fer as from.me to that railroad* Made
them go* They walked fast in front of the cavalrymen* They took mama and
my sisters* She got away from them with her girls and found her way back to
papa at Lynchburg*
"Colonel Bedford went and took some of the slave men and his boys*
They brought home plenty beds and a barrel of salt* He brought back
plenty* He sent his slave men to town any time* They had no notion
leaving*
"One time some Yankees come* I run hid around Miss Betty 9 s long dress*
She was crying* They was pulling her rings off her fingers* I told them to
quit that* One of the mean things said, f Little niggpr, I shoot your head
off* 1 They took all her nice clothes* They said they took all niggers* I
sassed them* They went in another room* I shot under Miss Betty f s big
skirt* They looked about for me but they thought I run off to my mama* She
ffas gone but they didn f t know it* I seen my best times then* We had a good
time there* Miss Betty was good and kind to me* Good as I wanted* I wish
I had that good now*
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