Author: Rhonda Rogers VanDyke

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William Ball Williams, III

William Ball Williams, III fought for the Union army in the Civil War.  In this excerpt, he describes the experience of being a formerly enslaved person in the Union army and the fear he always lived in.
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Excerpt:

I ran away to Louisville to join the Yankees one day. I was scared to death all the time. They put us in front to shield themselves. They said they were fighting for us–for our freedom. Piles of them were killed. I got a flesh wound. I’m scarred up some. We got plenty to eat. I was in two or three hot battles. I wanted to quit but they would catch them and shoot them if they left. I didn’t know how to get out and get away. I mustered out at Jacksonville, Florida and walked every step of the way back. When I got back it was fall of the year. My folks were still at my master’s. I was on picket guard at Jacksonville, Florida. We fought a little at Pensacola, Florida.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
William Ball Williams, III98 years oldIrene RobertsonRobert Ball
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Forrest City, AKArkansasGreensburg, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil WarFirst Person, Union soldiers

Williams_W_1

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William Emmons

William Emmons spent much of his early life enslaved.  Here, he describes the process of traders who bought and sold enslaved people, and they bought and sold these people for various reasons, including breeding and to take advantage of struggling plantation owners who needed extra money.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted].  See more information.
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Excerpt:

Ole man Emmons had asked his family to never sell off any of the [   ] if they could help it, and never to sell any of them to [   ] traders. The traders were looked on as low, and they treated folks badly. Why I’ve seen slave traders buy up women and men for the purpose of breeding them just like animals, and they’d beat them if they didn’t do what they expected of them. The slave traders wanted strong children for work hands and they were all the time figuring to get a strong woman to carry out the plan for raising children that would sell really good. They would keep them and feed them for a few years and then sell them off to the highest bidder. There is no decency in such folks as them. 

Slavery was worse than most people could imagine, at best. The [   ] traders used to travel all over the country sometimes and buy up slaves from plantation owners who were almost ready to go down in debt. I’ve seen men chained together, and women being carried in wagons with their babies. Just taking them to market for sale like cattle.     

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
William Emmons1845 (93)UnknownRoy EmmonsRiggs
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Springfield, OHOhioNicholas, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
EconomicsFirst person, slave traders

Emmons_W_1

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William Emmons

William Emmons spent much of his early life enslaved.  He also fought in the Civil War, which he describes below, including being threatened while on the way to enlist, getting injured in battle, and the celebrations that followed the announcement of victory.  He finishes by describing briefly the work he did after emancipation.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted].  See more information.

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Excerpt:

I left and joined the army when I was 18. But forty of us from the plantation around near Carlisle went at the same time. When we went off for the army, going down a dusty road, three white fellers we knew came a riding up, and said, “Where are you [redacted] goin?”  We told them we were going to war and they tried to make us go back to the plantation. We told them we’d kill them sure if they kept on meddling with us, and they got scared and let us alone.    

In one the battles I got shot in the left hand, and I tied it up myself. The captain he noticed it one day, and he asked to see it. Then he sent me to the hospital. They thought they’d have to take my hand off, but I didn’t want them to that. So they kept me in the hospital for about thirty days and doctored it, and finally, I was back in the lines fighting.    

The day we were emancipated we were at Petersburg, Virginia, and I never heard as much shouting and hollering in my life. When the war was over, I went back to Emmonds plantation, and they asked me what I was going to do now that I was free. I told them I was going to work, but they told me no free [   ]could stay on the plantation.    

I went to Mason County and hired to a Major Read. He was an abolitionist and went about the country trying to get the plantation owners to hire the free slaves and help make good citizens of them. Major Read paid me $20.00 a month, and board and clothes. I was able to save a good little sum, and I left and went up to Ripley.    

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
William Emmons1845 (93)UnknownRoy EmmonsRiggs
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Springfield, OHOhioNicholas, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil War, EmancipationFirst person, Union soldiers

Emmons_W_2

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Alex Woodson

In this third person narrative, the interviewer first describes how Alex Woodson (who is referred to as “Uncle Alex”) was sold. The interviewer then documents several stories of enslaved people during the Civil War, before briefly referencing emancipation. 

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted].  See more information.
See full document • Visit the Library of Congress to see the original document

Excerpt:

…[Alex Woodson] was a good-sized boy, possibly 7 years or more when Freedom was declared. His master was “Old Master” Sterrett who had about a 200-acre place and whose son in law Tom Williams ran a store on this place. When Williams married Sterrett’s daughter he was given Uncle Alex and his mother and brother as a present. Williams was then known as “Young Master.”

When war came Old Master gave his (Woodson’s) mother a big roll of bills, “greenbacks as big as your arm”, to keep for him, and was forced to leave the neighborhood. After the war… [Alex Woodson’s mother] returned the money to him intact.

Uncle Alex remembers his mother taking him and other children and running down the river bank and hiding in the woods all night when the soldiers came. They were [Confederate General] Morgan’s men and took all available cattle and horses in the vicinity and beat [searched] the woods looking for Yankee soldiers. Uncle Alex said he saw Morgan at a distance on his big horse and he “was sure a mighty fine looker.”

Sometimes the Yankee soldiers would come riding along and they took things too.

When the [Civil] War was over old Master came back home and the [redacted] continued to live on at the place as usual, except for a few [formerly enslaved people] that wanted to go North…

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Alex WoodsonUnknown (80-85)  Iris Cook“Old Master” Sterrett, Tom Williams 
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
New Albany, ININWoodsonville,  KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation, EconomicsFirst Person, Third Person, Dialect, Sold, Hired Out, Hart County

Woodson_A_1

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Wes Woods

Wes Woods grew up near the end of enslavement in our country, but shares the memories he has or has been told of life as an enslaved person.  He describes the living conditions first, and then  how his father hired him out to earn extra money after Emancipation.
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Excerpt:

There were three or four cabins for the slaves to live in, not so very far from the house. The cabin where my mother and father lived was the closest to the house, for my mother did the cooking. Our cabin was one long room, with a loft above, which we reached with a ladder. There was one big bed, with a trundle bed, which was on wooden rollers and was shoved under the big bed in the daytime. The oldest boys slept in a big wooden bed in the loft. The cabins were built of logs and chinked with rock and mud. The ceiling was of joists, and my mother used to hang the seed that we gathered in the fall, to dry from these joists. Some of the chimneys were made with sticks and chinked with mud, and would sometimes catch on fire. Later people learned to build chimneys of rock with big wide fireplaces, and a hearth of stone, which made them safer from fire.

We were glad when the news came that we were free, but none of us left for a long time, not until the Woods family was broken up. My father hired me out to work for my victuals and clothes, and I got $25.00 at the end of the year. I do not remember any wedding or death in my old master’s house.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Wes Woods1864Eliza IsonEliza Kennedy
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Garrard County, KYKentuckyCartersville, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, 1st Person, Bound out after war

Woods_W_1

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Scott Mitchell

Scott Mitchell lived through the Civil War, though he does not know his age.  Here, he briefly describes his recollection of the war and stories of lynchings and hangings that took place during that time.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted].  See more information.
See full document • Visit the Library of Congress to see the original document

Excerpt:

Yes, I remember the Civil War, because I was living in Christian County where I was born, right with my master and mistress, Captain Hester and his wife. I was raised on a farm right with the, then I left there.

Yes, Captain Hester traded my mother and my sister, ’twas in 1861, he sent them to Mississippi. When they were away from him about two years, he bought them back. Yes, he was good to us. I was my mistress’ boy. I looked after her, and she made all of my clothes, and she knitted my socks, because I was her [redacted].

Yes, I was twenty years old when I was married. 

I remember I was a boy when they had the Civil War. I remember there was a brick office where they hanged colored folks. Yes, the blood was a-streaming down. Sometimes they hung them by their feet, sometimes they hung them by their thumbs.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Scott MitchellUnknownMargaret BishopCaptain Hester
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Breathitt County, KYKentuckyChristian County, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil War, Violence,First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, Klan/mob violence,

Mitchell_S_1

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William Quinn

William Quinn was born into enslavement in a rare family that paid a small sum of money to their enslaved people.  Here, he describes this practice and how rare it was.
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Excerpt:

Mr. Quinn said that they were what were called “gift slaves”. They were never to be sold from the Stone farm and were given to Stone’s daughter as a gift with that understanding. He said that his “Old master paid him and his brother ten cents a day for cutting down corn and shucking it.”

It was very unusual for a slave to receive any money whatsoever for working. He said that his master had a son about his age, and the son and he and his brother worked around the farm together, and “Master Stone” gave all three of them ten cents a day when they worked. Sometimes they wouldn’t, they would play instead. And whenever “Master Stone” would catch them playing when they ought to have been at work, he would whip them—”and that meant his own boy would get a licking too.”

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
William QuinnunknownHarry JacksonSteve Stone
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Marion County, INIndianaHardin County, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags
Family, EconomicsThird person, hired out

Quinn_W_1

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Kate Dudley Baumont

Kate Baumont was very young when slavery ended, but she has specific memories from her childhood, which she shares.  This excerpt describes a story of an enslaver who married and ran away with one of the enslaved males on the plantation.  She goes on to describe the reactions and impact this had on the enslaver’s family.
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Excerpt:

A lot of men from our place went to war.  I had two uncles who went.  It was nothing to see soldiers in our neighborhood.  When the war was over, Mr. Preston gave all his slaves deeds for so much land, and built them each a little four-room cottage.  Some of them folks are still on that piece of land.

Preston’s slaves were the same as free in those times.  The ones on his farm, they tended their own land and was their own boss.  Folks said he let his enslaved be free, and some of them talked a lot and said that when his daughter married. 

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Kate Dudley BaumontUnknownUnknownPreston
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Clark County, OHOhioBath County, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Emancipation, Civil WarFirst person, Union troops

Baumont_K_1

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Julia King

Julia King lived with her entire family on the same plantation.  When she was very young, her father, mother and sister all ran away and escaped via the Underground railroad.  Here, she describes her memory of a song her mother sang before she escaped.
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Excerpt:

I think the colored folks had a church, because Mamma was always a Baptist. Only colored people went to the church.

Mamma used to sing a song:

“Don’t you remember the promise that you made,

To my old dying mother’s request?

That I never should be sold,

Not for silver or for gold.

While the sun rose from the East to the West?

And it hadn’t been a year,

The grass had not grown over her grave.

I was advertised for sale.

And I would have been in jail,

If I had not crossed the deep, dancing waves.

I’m upon the Northern banks

And beneath the Lion’s paw,

And he’ll growl if you come near the shore.”

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Julia King1857 (80)K. OsthimerUnknown
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Toledo, OHOhioLouisville, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, ReligionFirst person, dialect

King_J_2

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Angie Boyce

This is a brief recollection of Angie Boyce’s child, as told to her by her mother.  Angie was born into enslavement in Kentucky early in the Civil War.  Her mother married a man who purchased their freedom and attempted to move them to free territory.  The following excerpt recalls their experience being arrested, returned to Kentucky, and put on trial to determine if they should return to enslavement.
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Excerpt:

The mother of Angie was married twice; the name of her first husband was Stines and that of her second husband was Henry King. It was Henry King who bought his and his wife’s freedom. He sent his wife and baby Angie to Indiana, but upon their arrival, they were arrested and returned to Kentucky. They were placed in the Louisville jail and lodged in the same cell with large Brutal and drunken Irish woman. The jail was so infested with bugs and fleas that the baby Angie cried all night. The white woman crazed with drink became enraged at the cries of the child and threatened to “bash its brains out against the wall if it did not stop crying”. The mother, Mrs. King was forced to stay awake all night to keep the white woman from carrying out her threat.

The next morning the N***o mother was tried in court and when she produced her free papers she was asked why she did not show these papers to the arresting officers. She replied that she was afraid that they would steal them from her. She was exonerated from all charges and sent back to Indiana with her baby.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Angie Boyce1861 Wm. R. MaysJames Breeding
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Johnson County, INIndianaKentucky
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, equality, emancipationThird person

Boyce_A_1

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