nned away and went to Pine Bluff to get to the Yankees.
I was on the Blackwell plantation south of Pine Bluff in '63. They was
building a new house; I wanted to feel some putty in my hand. One early
morning I clim a ladder to get a little chunk and the overseer man, he
seed me. Here he come, yelling me to get down; he gwine whip me 'cause
I'se a thief, he say. He call a slave boy and tell him cut ten willer
whips; he gwine wear every one out on me. When he's gone to eat
breakfas', I runs to my cabin and tells my sister, "I'se leaving this
here place for good." She cry and say, "Overseer man, he kill you." I
says, "He kill me anyhow." The young boy what cut the whips--he named
Jerry--he come along wif me, and we wade the stream for long piece.
Heerd the hounds a-howling, getting ready for to chase after us. Then we
hide in dark woods. It was cold, frosty weather. Two days and two nights
we traveled. That boy, he so cold and hungry, he want to fall out by the
way, but I drug him on. When we gets to the Yankee camp all our troubles
was over. We gets all the contraband we could eat. Was they more
run-aways there? Oh, Lordy, yessum. Hundreds, I reckon. Yessum, the
Yankees feeds all them refugees on contraband. They made me a driver of
a team in the quatamasters department. I was always keerful to do
everything they telled me. They telled me I was free when I gets to the
Yankee camp, but I couldn't go outside much. Yessum, iffen you could get
to the Yankee's camp you was free right now.

That old story 'bout 40 acres and a mule, it make me laugh. Yessum, they
sure did tell us that, but I never knowed any pusson which got it. The
officers telled us we would all get slave pension. That just exactly
what they tell. They sure did tell me I would get a passel (parcel) of
ground to farm. Nothing ever hatched out of that, neither.

When I got to Pine Bluff I stayed contraband. When the battle come,
Captain Manly carried me down to the battle ground and I stay there till
fighting was over. I was a soldier that day. No'um, I didn't shoot no
gun nor cannon. I carried water from the river for to put out the fire
in the cotton bales what made the breas'works. Every time the 'Federates
shoot, the cotton, it come on fire; so after the battle, they transfer
me back to quartemaster for driver. Captain Dodridge was his name. I
served in Little Rock under Captain Haskell. I was swored in for during
the war (Boston held up his right hand and re