I was in the War three and one half years. They had us going to
school. They had Yankee teachers in the army. All the schooling I ever
got. I was mustered out at Chattanooga, Tennessee.

"My parents was Julia Ann Hodge and Cairo Hodge. I don't know my
mother's last owners. When I was about eight years old I was sold to Ben
Cowen. When I was thirteen years old I was sold to Master Anderson
Harrison. My brothers Sam and Washington never were sold. Me and Sam
Hodge, my brother, was in the War together. We struck up and knowed one
another. A man bought mama that lived at Selma, Alabama. I never seen
her ag'in to know her. After I was mustered out I went to Birmingham
where she was drove and sold in search of her. I heard she was taken to
Selma. I went there. I give out hunting for her. It was about dusk. I
saw a woman standing in the door. I asked her to tell me where I could
stay. She said, 'You can stay here tonight.' I went in, hung my overcoat
up. I started to the saloon. I met her husband with a basket on his arm
coming home. I told him who I was. We went to get a drink. I offered him
sherry but he took whiskey. I got a pint of brandy, two apples, two
oranges, for his wife and two little boys. I spent two nights there and
two and a half days there, with my own mother but neither of us knew it
then.

"Fourteen years later Wash wrote to me giving me the address. I told him
about this and he said it was mama. He told her about it. She jumped up
and shouted and fell dead. I never seen her but that one time after I
was sold the first time. I was about eight years old then. She had
eighteen of us boys and one girl, Diana, and then the half-brothers I
seen at Selma. I had eleven brothers took off in a drove at one time and
sold. They was older than I was. I don't know what become of them. I
never seen my papa after I was sold. Diana died in Knoxville, Tennessee
after freedom. I seen better times in slavery than I've ever seen since
but I don't believe in slave traffic--that being sold.

"I was with my young master till my capture. That was my part in
freedom. I was forced to fight by the Yankees then in the Union army. I
was with General Grant when Lee surrendered at Appomattox. That was
freedom. After the War I come to Arkansas and settled at Madison. My
hardships started. I got married the first thing.

"This is how good my owners was to me. He sent me to Hendersonville,
North Carolina (Henderson?) to learn to fiddle. I