' He
kept pointing out that the War wasn't going to last forever, but that
our forever was going to be spent living among the Southeners, after
they got licked. He'd cite examples of how the whites would stand
flatfooted and fight for the blacks the same as for members of their own
family. I knew that all was true, but still I rebelled, from inside of
me. I think I really was afraid to run away, because I thought my
conscience would haunt me. My father knew I felt this way and he'd rub
my fears in deeper. One of his remarks still rings in my ears: 'A clear
conscience opens bowels, and when you have a guilty soul it ties you up
and death will not for long desert you.'

"No, sir, I haven't had any education. I should have had one, though. My
old missus was sorry, after the War, that she didn't teach me. Her name,
before she married my old master, was Mrs. Long. She lived in New York
City and had three sons. When my old master's wife died, he wrote up to
a friend of his in New York, a very prominent merchant named C.C.
Stewart. He told this friend he wanted a wife and gave him
specifications for one. Well, Mrs. Long, whose husband had died, fitted
the bill and she was sent down to Texas. She became Mrs. Fitzpatrick.
She wasn't the grandmother of Governor Ferguson. Old Fitzpatrick had two
wives that preceded Mrs. Long. One of the wives had a daughter named
Fanny Fitzpatrick and it was her that was the Texas' governor's mother.
I seem to have the complicated family tree of my old master more clear
than I've got my own, although mine can be put in a nutshell: I married
only once and was blessed in it with 45 years of devotion. I had 13
children and a big crop of grandchildren.

"My earliest recollection is the day my old boss presented me to his
son, Joe, as his property. I was about five years old and my new master
was only two.

"It was in the Battle of Marshall, in Louisiana, that Col. Buchell got
shot. I was about three miles from the front, where I had pitched up a
kind of first-aid station. I was all alone there. I watched the whole
thing. I could hear the shooting and see the firing. I remember standing
there and thinking the South didn't have a chance. All of a sudden I
heard someone call. It was a soldier, who was half carrying Col. Buchell
in. I didn't do nothing for the Colonel. He was too far gone. I just
held him comfortable, and that was the position he was in when he
stopped breathing. That was the worst hur