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XVII A Slave Woman's
Troubles 1 I BELONGED to Mr. Sam Gordon, and I nursed and took entire care of his sister's children. They'd always go with me everywhere I went, and I loved 'em, and they were jus' as dear to me as my own. They e't with me and slep' in the room with me, and the little ones, up to three or four or five years old, slep' in my bed. I dressed 'em and waited on 'em, and their mother jus' come to see 'em when she felt like it. In them times, if the family went traveling, I went, too. I was kep' busy, and I seldom had any Sunday at all, But I had a good mistress and master. They didn’t push their slaves in work, and they didn’t put 'em to work young — not till they were fifteen. I was
raised right
in the house with the white people. My mistress raised me jus' like she
raised
her own children, except that I didn’t get no book education, no, sir.
I wish
to the land I had some. But my old mistress learned me how to work and
to be
clean and genteel. When night come she'd say: "Now I'm goin' to learn
you
a few things for your own benefit. You'll thank me when you're big." Sometimes
she'd
keep me working till about ten or 'leven o'clock. I didn’t like to work
at night,
but I'm glad I got to understand how to act and how to weave, spin,
wash, iron,
sew, knit, and everything of that kind. I was
nearly forty
years old when the war begun. I'd been married a right smart while and
was
living in a cabin with my own family. Mr. Gordon's place was ten miles
below
the town. Befo' the battle it was jus' like a city. The Southern
soldiers were
camped all around us, and they had little old stoves back in the woods
to keep
them warm and to do their cooking. Often they'd exchange some of their
army
food for what I had. They'd bring me a bag of flour and I'd give 'em
corn meal
for it, and I'd let 'em have milk and buttermilk and all such things.
Perhaps
they wouldn’t have any tea or coffee to use with their sugar, and
they'd give the
sugar to me. A good deal of the time they didn’t have salt, and they
were so
pitiful I felt right sorry for 'em. Yes, the Southern soldiers were
hungry.
They e't every chicken we had, and a cavalryman got our hog — took it
right out
of the pen, then cut it in two, and hung half on each side of his horse
and
rode off. I wouldn’t
let the
soldiers come into the house, and my mistress would say, "Fanny, you
ought
not to be so hardhearted." "Well," I
said, "I ain' gwine let 'em come in. I have a whole parcel of children
hyar, and those men are lousy. They'd be droppin' their lice all
around.
Besides, the first thing they'd do they'd pick up my two little
children that
are twins and want to take 'em out to camp." One day a
soldier
started to walk in, and I said, "Yo' cain' come in hyar." He asked
for a
drink. "What's
the
matter with yo' neck?" I says. "You've got diptheria. I cain' let yo'
drink out of any of my cups." So he went
along to
the next house, and drank out of a cup there. Some of the family used
it
afterward, and two of the children died of diptheria. Oh! we had
terrible times
in the war. I tol' yo'
we lost
our chickens. Some Northern gunboats come up the Rappahannock a few
days later
and knocked off two or three tops of houses near hyar. A number of the
gunboat
people come to my house. I heard a rap on the do' and looked out, and
there was
three of 'em, standin' around the do'step and a whole row mo' was
settin' on
the plank fence next the gate. One of the three at the do' spoke and
said they
would like to buy a few chickens. "Gen'lemen,"
I said, "there's the henhouse. Walk right in and he'p yo'selves." Our
soldiers had
done wringed the chickens' heads off, and when the men looked into the
henhouse, they called back, "We don't see anything hyar but chickens'
heads." "No," I
says, "the Southern soldiers done took all my chickens and turkeys and
geese, and put 'em in a bag and carried 'em off. That's what they done
— and me
with seven children to feed." Then one
of the men
down on the fence said, "Come on, boys; no game hyar." Another
time some
Confederates come to the house late in the night. I was the only one
up, and
the commander said, "Where is yo' husband?" "In bed,"
I answered. "Well,"
he said, "we want him to show us the way to yo' master's house." So I tol'
my
husband to git up. He had on
a white
nightshirt, and he was skeered and forgot to take it off when he put on
his
pants. They went along up the lane, and he was all the time watchin'
for a
chance to git away. Pretty soon he dodged through a gate, slipped his
white
nightshirt off and ran. They couldn’t see him in the dark after he got
that
shirt off, and he heard the officer sayin', "Where in thunder did the
nigger go?" He come
home, and
they didn’t trouble him no mo'. The
Northern
soldiers lay over the river. Our men had burnt down the Fredericksburg
bridges,
and there wa'n't nothin' but a scow to git across from one side to the
other.
But when those Yankees got ready to come across they came. They were
the
wildest people I ever see. While the battle lasted we could hear the
cannon and
the musketry. Oh, yes! and it was a perfect judgment. The hills back
hyar were
jus' washed in blood, and the town was all filled up with the wounded. The signal
corps
had a telegraph in a shop at our place, and they got the news every
minute. Old
Mr. Cobb lived up on the hill. He had been worth a million dollars, but
now
he'd spent it all and had to do his own garden work. He was deef, too,
as yo'
had to holler at him to make him hear. Mr. Gordon was gwine to carry
him the
news of the battle, and he started to ride up there on his horse. It
was a
right smart ways, and some very bad soldiers from North Carolina —
Tarheels
they was called — was up in the woods. Those soldiers wanted to have a
little
fun with Mr. Gordon, and they threw rocks at him and knocked off his
hat. So he
turned back and come home a-flyin'. When the
battle
ended and I heard that the Union army had been defeated, I couldn’t
believe it.
My mistress said to me, "Yo' know the Northern soldiers cain' fight us
hyar." But I
said:
"Ain' God the captain? He started this war, and he's right in front. He
may stop in his career and let yo' rest up a little bit now, but our
Captain
ain' never been beaten. Soon He'll start out ag'in, and yo'll hear the
bugle
blow, and He'll march on to victory. Where the Bible says, 'Be not
afraid; yo'
shall set under yo' own vine and fig tree,' that means us slaves, and I
tell
yo' we 're goin' to be a free people. You-all will be gittin' yo' pay
sho' for
the way you've done treated us pore black folks. We been killed up like
dogs,
and the stripes you've laid on us hurt jus' as bad as if our skin was
white as
snow. But I ain' gwine to run away or frow my children in the river as
some
slaves have, for I'm as certain this war will set us free as that I
stand
hyar." I tol' her
jus'
what I thought, and my mistress said, "Fanny, you is foolish," and my
master said, "You ain't got no sense." And I said
to my
master, "When I was a young girl yo' sold ninety-six people at one time
to
pay a debt." Then I sat
down and
cried, and the white people stood there and laughed at me. "Lord," I
said, "I'd rather be dead than have my children sold away from me." They sold
my
brother and three sisters down in Alabama, and I was left entirely. My
brother
would go around and preach, and the gen'leman that owned him didn’t
want him to
preach and wouldn’t have no meetin's or preachin' on the place at all.
So they
beat my brother and whipped him with a cowskin. That killed him
tereckly. He
couldn’t stand it. He was not used to that up hyar. His master was one
bad man.
My oldest
sister
was owned by that same man, and she ran away from him. She had a baby
boy that
she left behind with a daughter who had been used so bad it made her
crazy.
While her mother was gone the baby died. They found him there in the
cabin
presently, and the foolish daughter said, "He's been sleepin' a week,
and
I'm glad of it, because I ain't bothered with him." She was a
field
hand, but not much good. Once they put her to ploughing and gave her an
old
sleepy mule. The mule wanted to go slow, and she wanted to go fast. So
she put
a nail in a stick and struck him, and he jus' jerked the plough and
her, too.
That made her mad, and she drove him into a hornet's nest. The hornets
lit all
over him, and he ran. "Go to Jerusalem!" she said, and she give him
the plough. He went jus' sailin', plough and all, as far as she could
see him. The
overseer
scolded her and said, "I'm goin' to kill you." "Kill me
then," she said, but he didn’t do anything to her at all. After the
war we
was free and could go where we pleased, and I talked with my husband
about
movin' to Fredericksburg. He said, "If yo' live in the city yo' have to
pay for the breath you breathe." But I tol'
him,
"Yo' have to pay for yo' breath anywhere," and I got him to come
because they had good schools hyar. Down there the children had to walk
three
miles to school. As soon as we moved I got all the washin' I could do,
and me
and my husband worked and got this house. I would be up half of the
night
ironing, but I didn’t mind that, for I was used to long hours. About
the only
time I'd leave my work was when some sick person needed my help. Once a
neighbor woman had dropsy, and she was sick even unto death. Her
children were
wild and rattle-brained, and for quite a while I went to her house
every night.
Some
claimed that
after dark they could see people in the soldiers' cemetery goin' along
without
any heads. Others said the ghos'es looked like cows or horses. Some
told, too,
of hearin' a band playin' over where the army had camped. The strangest
story
of all was that way about midnight a man in soldier's clothes was in
the habit
of ridin' a horse through the street back of the depot, People said
they could
see his buttons and everything, and that they could hear the horse's
hoofs —
ker-flop-up, ker-flop-up — jus' as plain as could be. They'd hear him a
while,
and then they wouldn’t hear a thing. My husband
said to
me: "I should think you'd be afraid to go to that sick woman's in the
dark
the way you do. Some night that ghos'll skeer you to death." "I'm gwine
on
jus' the same," I said, "for I never knew the dead to hurt the
livin'. That ghos' can keep on with his racket and go on about his
business." So I done
my duty,
though sometimes I heard things and felt kind o' funny about it. Of co'se
people are
often skeered by what they imagine. Once we had a revival hyar, and a
young man
attended the meetin's who couldn’t seem to git religion. So the old
folks tol'
him he sho' would git religion if he'd go and pray in the woods away
from the
wickedness of the town. He thought he'd try it, and he went way out
toward the
Wilderness onto an old battlefield. Then he got down on his knees, and
he'd
started praying when something tol' him to look behind him. He looked,
and
there was a skull, and he got up and flew. He didn’t try to git
religion no
mo', and he ain' got it yet — no, indeed! There
certainly was
spirits in ol' times. I heard of a house where every night the china
and other
things on the sideboard kep' up such a rattling that the people who
lived there
couldn’t hardly sleep. "What is anybody gwine to do with this house?"
they said. By and by
they went
to some ol' prophet, and he had 'em turn every do' the other way up and
make
new keyholes. The ghos'es couldn’t find their way in after that, and
the things
on the sideboard stopped rattlin'. I'm ninety
years
ol' now. When I was little some of the colored people lived till they
got
mighty near two hundred years ol'. But they're weaker these days and
don't live
half so long, Hyar I am crippled up so I cain' do anything, and I cain'
see
hardly at all. But never mind, I can take my stick and walk. I've had
twelve
children and they all growed up. I ain't had no trouble with 'em. They
were
good children, and I call that a blessing. I learned 'em all to love
the way of
salvation and to hate the ways of sin. Now I've got twenty-two
grandchildren
and five great grandchildren. I 'fessed
religion
when I was fifteen years ol', and I got a strong belief in the almighty
God,
our Captain. He knew I meant to treat everybody right and myself right.
So He
let me live till I was ol', and He's goin' to take me to heaven. I
ain't
afflicted, and there's nothin' I ask for that I don't git it. I'm
trustin' in
the Lord. When night comes I kneel down and say: "I thank yo' Lord,
that
I've passed through one mo' day. Now I lay my head on the pillow, and I
pray
yo' will enable me to go through the night and see the light of day
ag'in."
When
morning comes
I say: "Well, Lord, I'm hyar yet, no pain, and I don't wish nobody no
harm
in this world. I'm too ol' for that. I take it all with patience." I'm happy,
and I
can't thank Him enough, and soon I'll cease from trouble, and then I
will reap
my reward. ___________ 1
She was a
spectacled, kindly old body of whom every one in Fredericksburg spoke
highly.
All her family had the reputation of being self-respecting and
industrious. Her
daughter's house, where she lived, was very neat and suggestive of
prosperity.
There I spent an evening in the kitchen. The old woman sat in a corner
by the
stove. It was plain that she enjoyed recalling her early experiences,
even if
there had been much of sorrow and hardship in them. |