Rhonda Rogers VanDyke

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

George Dorsey

George Dorsey was an enslaved child during the Civil War. In this excerpt, he describes the fear he always had when he saw soldiers approaching the plantation where he was enslaved. He tells of hiding from them, and also of witnessing them stealing food and supplies from the plantation. He ends by describing a tale of a horse that belonged to the enslaver’s son being stolen by soldiers, but returned by the soldiers when the son confronted them about it.

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Excerpt:

About the time the war was over I saw my first soldier. The road that passed along in front of our house was a dirt road. I’d gone with Mother to watch her milk a young cow late one night, about dark I guess, when I heard somebody hollering and yelling and I looked down the road and saw them coming. I was about five years old then and it looked to me like all the army was coming up the road. The captain was on a horse and the men afoot and the dust from the dirt road flying. There was a moon shining and you could see the muskets shining in the moonlight. I was sitting on a fence and when I saw them it scared me so I started to run. When I jumped off I fell and cut a hole in my forehead right over this left eye. The scar’s there yet. I ran in the house and hid. Mr. Sammy Duvall had to get on a horse and go to New Liberty and fetch a doctor to plug up the hole in my head. I saw lots of soldiers after that and I always ran under the bed or hid in a closet or somewhere. They stayed around here for a long time. Finally provender got low and the soldiers took to stealing. We called it stealing, but I reckon it wasn’t for they came and got the stuff like meat out of the smoke house in broad open daylight. Mr. Duvall had a chestnut earl stallion he called Drennon and they came, or somebody did, and got him one night. One day, about two or three weeks later, Will Duvall, a son of Mr. Sammy Duvall, heard that the horse was over in Henry County where the soldiers had a camp. So he went over there and found the Captain and told him he’d come after old Drennon. The Captain said to describe him and Will said, Captain, he’s a chestnut earl named Drennon. If I whistle a certain way he’d nicker and answer me. Well, they went down to the stable where they had a lot of stalls like, under tents. and when they got there, Will, he whistled, and sure enough, old Drennon nickered. So the Captain, he said, That’s your horse all right. Go in and get him and take him on home.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
George Dorsey	1860 (76)	John Forsee	Sammy Duvall

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Owens County, KY	Kentucky	Owenton, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War	First person, Union troops

Dorsey_G_1

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

John Graves

John Graves was originally enslaved in Charleston but his mother was purchased and moved to Kentucky when he was five. In this excerpt, he briefly recounts how it came to be that he and his mother moved from Charleston to Kentucky.

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

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Excerpt:

I was born ten years when Freedom came out. Been seventy-odd years since Freedom, ain’t it, Cap? Dr. Jim Gibbs was mighty good to me. You see that I’m going about now. Dr. Gibbs came from Aiken to Union and set up a drug store where Cohen’s is now. Dr. Gibbs was a Charleston man, but I am a Kentucky man. Dr. Gibbs brought me from Kentucky to Charleston when I was five years old. My ma was the one that they bought. Dr. Gibbs’ wife was a Bohen up in Kentucky. When Dr. Gibbs fetched his wife to Charleston, he bought my ma from his wife’s pa, and she fetched me along too.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
John Graves	Unknown (85 years old)	Caldwell Sims	Dr. Jim Gibbs

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Spartanburg, SC	South Carolina	Unknown

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family	First Person, Dialect, Sold (self or family), Slave Traders

Graves_J_1

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

John Patterson

John Patterson was an enslaved person who moved to Arkansas during the Civil War because his enslaver wanted to keep John and other enslaved people from being taken by Union soldiers. In this excerpt he briefly shares this experience, as well as telling of some of the songs they used to sing while being enslaved.

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Excerpt:

I was born near Paducah, Kentucky. Mother was never sold. She belonged to Master Arthur Patterson. Mother was what folks called black folks. I’ve never seen a father to know. I never heard mother say a thing about my father, if I had one. He never was no use to me nor her neither.

Mother brought me here in time of the Civil War. I was four years old. We came here to be kept from the Yankee soldiers. We were sent with some of the Pattersons.

. . . I forgot our plough songs: ‘I Wonder Where my Darling is.’ ‘N***** Makes the Cotton and the White Man Gets the Money.’ Everybody used to sing. We worked from sun to sun; we courted and were happy. People are not happy now. They are craving now. About four o’clock we all start up singing. Sing till dark.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
John Patterson	[Year (age at interview)]	Irene Robertson	Arthur Patterson

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Helena, AR	Arkansas	Paducah, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War, Family	First person, dialect, Union Soldiers

Patterson_J_1

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

Rev. John R. Cox

Rev. John R. Cox was born to two enslaved parents in Kentucky. In this excerpt, he tells a story of his mother’s escape from enslavement and how she lived in the wilderness for 2 years before being recaptured and sold. He then relates how this led her to his father, how they were married and had children together while enslaved, including Rev. Cox. He finishes up by telling about his education, and the punishment enslaved people sometimes got if they were caught trying to learn to read or write.

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Excerpt:

A slave owner, in West Virginia, bought a thirteen-year-old black girl at an auction. When this girl was taken to his home she escaped, and after searching everywhere, without finding her, he decided that she had been helped to escape and gave her up as lost. About two years after that a neighbor, on a close farm, was in the woods feeding his cattle, he saw what he first thought was a bear, running into the thicket from among his cows. Getting help, he rounded up the cattle and searching the thick woodland, finally found that what he had supposed was a wild animal, was the long lost fugitive black girl. She had lived all this time in caves, feeding on nuts, berries, wild apples, and milk from cows, that she could catch and milk. Returned to her master she was sold to a Mr. Morgan Whittaker who lived near where Prestonsburg, Kentucky now is.

Dr. David Cox, a physician from Scott County, Virginia, who treated Mr. Whitaker for cancer, saw this slave girl, who had become a strong healthy young woman, and Mr. Whitaker unable to otherwise pay his doctor bill, let Dr. Davis have her for the debt.

At this time the slave girl was about twenty-one years of age, and Dr. Davis took her home to Scott County, Virginia where he married her to his only other slave, George Cox, by the ceremony of laying a broom on the floor and having the two young negroes step over the broomstick.

Among the children of George Cox and his wife was Rev. John R. Cox, Col. who now lives in Catlettsburg, Kentucky, and is probably the only living ex-slave in this county.

After the Emancipation Proclamation, by President Lincoln, in 1865, John managed to get four years of schooling where he learned to read and write and become very proficient in arithmetic.

He says that had he had the opportunity to study that we have today he could have been the smartest man in the United States. He also says, that before freedom, the negroes in his neighborhood were allowed no books, if found looking at a book a slave was whipped unmercifully.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Rev. John R. Cox	1852 (	Carl F. Hall	Dr. David Cox

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Cattletsburg, KY	Kentucky	Unknown

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Education, Literacy	Third person, slave patrol, whipped, sold (family)

Cox_J_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

John Rudd

John Rudd lived with his mother and brothers on a plantation in Kentucky. John’s enslaver sold one of his brothers, byt John, his mother and other siblings stayed together after the enslaver sold them all when he was a child. In this excerpt, he describes the barrel used to tie the enslaved to in order to whip them, and a grisly example of several enslaved persons getting badly whipped. One of them was a good friend of his, who then ran away and was found 3 days later hanging inside a barn, possibly a suicide.

*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:

John had only been at the Moore home a few months when he witnessed several slaves being badly beaten. Henry Moore kept a white overseer and several white men were employed to whip slaves. A large barrel stood near the slave quarters and the little boy discovered that the barrel was a whipping post. The slaves would be strapped across the side of the barrel and two strong men would wield the cat of nine tails until blood flowed from gashed flesh, and the cries and prayers of the unfortunate culprits availed them nothing until the strength of the floggers became exhausted.

One day, when several Negroes had just recovered from an unusual amount of chastisement, the little Negro, John Rudd, was playing in the front yard of the Moore’s house when he heard a soft voice calling him. He knew the voice belonged to Shell Moore, one of his best friends at the Moore estate. Shell had been among those severely beaten and little John had been grieving over his misfortunes.

“Shell had been in the habit of whittling out whistles for me and petting of me”, said the now aged negro. “I went to see what he wanted with me and he said ‘Goodbye Johnnie, you’ll never see Shellie alive after today.’” Shell made his way toward the cornfield but the little [redacted] boy, watching him go, did not realize what situation confronted him. That night the master announced that Shell had run away again and the slaves were started searching fields and woods but Shell’s body was found three days later by Rhoder McQuirk, dangling from a rafter of Moore’s corn crib where the unhappy [redacted] had hanged himself with a leather halter.

“Shell was a splendid worker and was well worth a thousand dollars. If he had been fairly treated he would have been happy and glad to repay kindness by toil. Master Henry would have been better to all of us, only Mistress Jane was always riling him up”, declared John Rudd as he sat in his rocking chair under a shade tree.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
John Rudd	1854 (83)	Lauana Creel	Benjamin SimmsHenry and Jane Moore

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Evansville, IN	Indiana	Springfield, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, violence	Third person, witnessed extreme cruelty, whipped

Rudd_J_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

John Rudd

John Rudd lived with his mother and brothers on a plantation in Kentucky. John’s enslaver sold one of his brothers, but John, his mother and other siblings stayed together after the enslaver sold them all when he was a child. In his excerpt, he relates a story of his mother’s reaction to being whipped for no reason by her enslaver, and the resulting sale of his mother to an enslaver in Louisville.

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Excerpt:

Uncle John related a story concerning his mother as follows: “Mama had been working in the cornfield all day ’till time to cook supper. She was just standing in the smokehouse that was built back of the big kitchen when Mistress walks in. She had a long whip hidden under her apron and began whipping Mama across the shoulders, without telling her why. Mama wheeled around from where she was slicing ham and started running after old Missus Jane. Ole Missus ran so fast Mama couldn’t catch up with her so she threw the butcher knife and stuck it in the wall up to the hilt. I was scared.

I was afraid when Master Henry came in I believed he would have Mama whipped to death. ‘Where’s Jane?’ said Master Henry. ‘She’s upstairs with the door locked’, said Mama. Then she told old Master Henry the truth about how Mistress Jane whipped her and show him the marks of the whip. She showed him the butcher knife sticking in the wall. ‘Get your clothes together’, said Master Henry.

John then had to be parted from his mother. Henry Rudd believed that the Negroes were going to be set free. War had been declared and his desire was to send Liza far into the southern states where the price of a good negro was higher than in Kentucky. When he reached Louisville he was offered a good price for her service and hired her out to cook at a hotel. John grieved over the loss of his mother but afterward learned she had been well treated at Louisville.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
John Rudd	1854 (83)	Lauana Creel	Benjamin Simms, Henry and Jane Moore

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Evansville, IN	Indiana	Springfield, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Violence	Third person, witnessed extreme cruelty, whipped, sold (family)

Rudd_J_2

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

John W. Fields

John W. Fields lived in enslavement and gained freedom shortly before the Civil War ended. In this excerpt, he describes the situation that arose when his first enslaver died, and the 12 children had to pick the name of their new enslaver out of a hat. This led to every child being separated from their mother.

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Excerpt:

My name is John W. Fields and I’m eighty-nine (89) years old. I was born March 27, 1848 in Owensboro, Ky. That’s 115 miles below Louisville, Ky. There were 11 other children besides myself in my family. When I was six years old, all of us children were taken from my parents, because my master died and his estate had to be settled. We slaves were divided by this method. Three disinterested persons were chosen to come to the plantation and together they wrote the names of the different heirs on a few slips of paper. These slips were put in a hat and passed among us slaves. Each one took a slip and the name on the slip was the new owner. I happened to draw the name of a relative of my master who was a widow. I can’t describe the heartbreak and horror of that separation. I was only six years old and it was the last time I ever saw my mother for longer than one night. Twelve children taken from my mother in one day. Five sisters and two brothers went to Charleston, Virginia, one brother and one sister went to Lexington Ky., one sister went to Hartford, Ky., and one brother and myself stayed in Owensburg, Ky. My mother was later allowed to visit among us children for one week of each year, so she could only remain a short time at each place.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
John W. Fields	1848 (89)	Cecil C. Miller	David Hill

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Lafayette, IN	Indiana	Owensboro, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, slave traders	First person, sold

Fields_J_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

John W. Fields

John W. Fields lived in enslavement and gained freedom shortly before the Civil War ended. In this excerpt, he describes an example of extreme cruelty, in which an enslaved person was whipped severely, and the other enslaved people were forced to pour salt water on her wounds.

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Excerpt:

My Mistress had separated me from all my family but one brother with sweet words, but that pose was dropped after she reached her place. Shortly after I had been there, she married a northern man by the name of David Hill. At first he was very nice to us, but he gradually acquired a mean and overbearing manner toward us. I remember one incident that I don’t like to remember. One of the women slaves had been very sick and she was unable to work just as fast as he thought she ought to. He had driven her all day with no results. That night after completing our work he called us all together. He made me hold a light, while he whipped her and then made one of the slaves pour salt water on her bleeding back. My innards turn yet at that sight.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
John W. Fields	1848 (89)	Cecil C. Miller	David Hill

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Lafayette, IN	Indiana	Owensboro, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Violence	First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, hired out

Fields_J_2

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

John W. Fields

John W. Fields lived in enslavement and gained freedom shortly before the Civil War ended. In this excerpt, he describes the process of Emancipation and his failed attempts to join the Union Army. He finishes by describing the first paid work he was able to get.

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Excerpt:

At the beginning of the Civil War I was still at this place as a slave. It looked at the first of the war as if the south would win, as most of the big battles were won by the South. This was because we slaves stayed at home and tended the farms and kept their families.

To eliminate this solid support of the South, the Emancipation Act was passed, freeing all slaves. Most of the slaves were so ignorant they did not realize they were free. The planters knew this and as Kentucky never seceded from the Union, they would send slaves into Kentucky from other states in the south and hire them out to plantations. For these reasons I did not realize that I was free until 1864. I immediately resolved to run away and join the Union Army and so my brother and I went to Owensburg, Ky. and tried to join. My brother was taken, but I was refused as being too young. I tried at Evansville, Terre Haute and Indianapolis but was unable to get in. I then tried to find work and was finally hired by a man at $7.00 a month.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
John W. Fields	1848 (89)	Cecil C. Miller	David Hill

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Lafayette, IN	Indiana	Owensboro, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation	First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, hired out, Civil War

Fields_J_3

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Joseph Allen

Joseph Allen was an enslaved person who lived on the same plantation until the end of the Civil War. Here, he recalls instances of being whipped by his enslaver’s wife, and his attempts to retaliate.

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Excerpt:

Ole Missus was cross and whipped us children a-plenty. A white man taught us in their slave room. I learned my A, B, Cs quick, and Ole Missus caught me studying and learning. I ain’t forgot it. When she whipped, she stuck my head between her knees and clamped me tight. She slipped my garment aside and fanned me plenty with a shingle on my bare self. I was getting too big, and I studied how I’d break her. Next time, I bit her like a dog and held on with my teeth to her leg. Ol’ Missus was lame for a spell; I broke her. I says, “I’ll eat you up like a dog.” After that, she buckled me up on the ground and lashed me.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Joseph Allen	1851	Martha Freeman, William Tuttle	Matt (Met) and Eliza Allen

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Muncie, IN	Indiana	Cumberland County, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Violence	First person, whipped, dialect

Allen_J_1

Author: Rhonda Rogers VanDyke

George Dorsey

John Graves

John Patterson

Rev. John R. Cox

John Rudd

John Rudd

John W. Fields

John W. Fields

John W. Fields

Joseph Allen

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