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“We come back to Athens and the Rebels captured the whole army.
Colonel Camp was in charge and General Forrest captured us and I was
carried south. We was marchin’ along the line and a Revel soldier said,
‘Don’t you want to go home and stay with my wife?” And so I went there, to
Millville, Alabama. Then he bound me to a friend of his and I stayed there
Till the war bout ended. I was getting along very well but a older boy
‘suaded me to run away to Decatur, Alabama.
	“Oh I seen lots of the war. Bof sides was good to me. I’ve seen
many a scout. The captain would say ‘By G__, close the ranks,’ Captains
is right crabbed. I stayed back with the horses.
	“After the war I worked about for this one and that one. Some paid
me and some didn’t.
	“I can remember back to Breckenridge; and I can remember hearin’ em
say ‘Hurrah for Buchanan!’ I’m just tellin’ you to show how fur back I
can remember. I used to have a book with a picture of Abraham Lincoln
with an axe on his shoulder and a picture of that log cabin, but somebody
stole my book.
	“I worked for whoever would take me – I had no mother then. If I
had had parents to make me go to school, but I got along very well. The
white folks taught me not to have no bad talk. They’s all dead now and if
they wasn’t I’d be with them.
	“I’m a natural born farmer – that’s all I know. The big overflow
drowned me out and my wife died with pellagra in ’89. Se was a good
woman and nice to white folks. I’m just a bachin’ here now. I did stay
with my daughter but she is mean to me, so I just picked up my rags and
moved into this room where I can live in peace. I’m a christian man,