Downs' still house is?"
My mother started to answer, but the man who owned her told her to move
on. The soldiers told him to keep quiet, or they would make him sorry.
After he went away, my mother told the soldiers where the house was. The
reason her master did not want her to tell where the house was, was that
some of his Rebel friends were hiding there. Spies had reported them to
the Yankee soldiers. They went to the house and captured the Rebels.

Next soldiers came walking. I had no cap. One soldier asked me why I
did not wear a cap. I said I had no cap. The soldier said, "You tell
your mistress I said to buy you a cap or I'll come back and kill the
whole family." They bought me a cap, the first one I ever had.

The soldiers passed for three days and a half. They were getting ready
for a battle. The battle was close. We could hear the cannon. After it
was over, a white man went to the battle field. He said that for a mile
and a half one could walk on dead men and dead horses. My mother wanted
to go and see it, but they wouldn't let her, for it was too awful.

I don't know what town we were near. The only town I know about had only
about four or five houses and a mill. I think the name was Fairfield.
That may not be the name, and the town may not be there any more. Once
they sent my mother there in the forenoon. She saw a flash, and
something hit a big barn. The timbers flew every way, and I suppose
killed men and horses that were in the barn. There were Rebels hidden in
the barn and in the houses, and a Yankee spy had found out where they
were. They bombed the barn and surrounded the town. No one was able to
leave. The Yankees came and captured the Rebels.

I had a cousin named Jerry. Just a little while before the barn was
struck a white man asked Jerry how he would like to be free. Jerry said
that he would like it all right. The white men took him into the barn
and were going to put him over a barrel and beat him half to death. Just
as they were about ready to beat him, the bomb struck the barn and Jerry
escaped. The man who owned us said for us to say that we were well
enough off, and did not care to be free, just to avoid beatings. There
was no such thing as being good to slaves. Many people were better than
others, but a slave belonged to his master and there was no way to get
out of it. A strong man was hard to make work. He would fight so that
the white men trying to hold him would be breathless. Then there