ty, Mississippi, February 17, 1857. My
father's name is Elias Grinstead, a German, and my mother's name is
Ann Greenstead after that of her master. I am a son by my mother and
her Master. I have four other half brothers William (Bill) oldest,
Albert, Silas, and John.

I was only eight years of age at freedom and for that reason I was too
young to work and on account of being the son of my Master's I
received no hard treatment and did little or no work. Yet, I wore the
same clothing as did the rest of the slaves: a shirt of lowell for
summer and shirt and trousers for winter and no shoes. I could walk
through a briar patch in my bare feet without sticking one in the
bottom of my feet as they were so hard and resistant.

I was the only child of my Master as he had no wife. When the War
broke out he went to the War and left the plantation in charge of his
overseer and his two sisters. As the overseers were hard for them to
get along with they were oftener without an overseer as with one, and
therefore they used one of the Negroes as overseer for the most of the
time.

Across the river was another large plantation and slave owner by the
name of Master Wilson. We called him Master too, for he was a close
friend and neighbor to our Mistresses. There was one Negro man slave
who decided to not work after Master went to the War and the white
overseer was fired and the Negro overseer was acting as overseer, so
my Mistress gave him a note to take across the river to Master Wilson.
The note was an order to whip this Negro and as he couldn't read he
didn't know what the note contained until after Master Wilson read it
and gave orders to his men to tie him for his whipping. After this,
the whipping was so severe that they never had any more trouble in
making this Negro slave work and they never had to send him back again
to Master Wilson to be whipped. The fun part of this above incidence
was the Negro carried his own note and went alone to be whipped and
didn't know it 'til the lashes was being put on him.

My Master's plantation was about 2 miles long and 1-1/2 mile wide and
he owned between 30 or 40 slaves. The Negro overseer would wake up the
slaves and have them in the field before they could see how to work
each morning and as they would go to work so soon their breakfast was
carried to the field to them. One morning the breakfast was taken to
the field and the slaves were hoeing cotton and among them was a lad
about 15 ye