The northern soldiers never did get down in here that I know of. I know
once, when they was enlisting men to go to battle a whole lot of 'em
didn't want to fight and would run away and dodge out, and they would
follow 'em and try to make 'em fight. They had a battle up here on the
Nueces once and killed some of 'em. I know my boss was in the bunch that
followed 'em and he got scared for fear this old case would be brought
up after the war. The company that followed these men was called Old
Duff Company. I think somewhere around 40 was in the bunch that they
followed, but I don't know how many was killed. They was a big bluff and
a big water hole and they said they was throwed in that big water hole.

"We had possums and 'coons to eat sometimes. My father, he gen'rally
cooked the 'coons, he would dress 'em and stew 'em and then bake 'em. My
mother wouldn't eat them. There was plenty of rabbits, too. Sometimes
when they had potatoes they cooked 'em with 'em. I remember one time
they had just a little patch of blackhead sugar cane. After the freedom,
my mother had a kind of garden and she planted snap beans and
watermelons pretty much every year.

"The master fed us tol'bly well. Everything was wild, beef was free,
just had to bring one in and kill it. Once in awhile, of a Sunday
mornin', we'd get biscuit flour bread to eat. It was a treat to us. They
measured the flour out and it had to pan out just like they measured. He
give us a little somethin' ever' Christmas and somethin' good to eat. I
heard my people say coffee was high, at times, and I know we didn't get
no flour, only Sunday mornin'. We lived on co'nbread, mostly, and beef
and game outta the woods. That was durin' the war and after the war,
too.

"I was around about 6 or 7 years old when we was freed. We worked for
George Reedes awhile, then drifted on down to the Frio river and stayed
there about a year, then we come to Medina County and settled here close
to where I was raised. We didn't think it hard times at all right after
the war. The country was wild and unsettled, with ranches 15 or 20 miles
apart. You never did see anybody and we didn't know really what was
goin' on in the rest of the country. Sometimes something could happen in
5 miles of us and we didn't know it for a month.

"I was on the Adams Ranch on the Hondo when my master come out and told
us we were as free as he was. He said we could stay on and work or could
go if we wanted to. He gave my