Project #1G55
Stiles ~. Soru~gs	390307	- .
Columbia, S. C.
	.	REV. JA1~t1ES E. JOHNSON
		EX—SLkVE 82 YE~.RS OLD.



~	name is James H. Johnson. I was born December 20, 1855,
t
at the to~ servants quarters of Alfred Brevrt at Camden, South Caro~

lina, and that was home until I was turning into twelve years of age. I was nearly ten years old, when the ar~ of General Sherman came to Camden. I talked to some of the soldiers, soon after they arrived.“

	Such was the greeting of the Rev. James H. Johnson~ a retired, and weLl educated Methodist Episcopal minister, when a WPA reporter called at his residence, 2029 ~.rion Street, Columbia, South Carolina, and asked for an interview. He sat in his study, furnished for corn-‘

forband equipped about as well as any study, of this kind, in Columbia.

	“My mother ~‘ he explained, (( was one of the maids at the Brevo rt home ‚ and n~ father was one of the overseers of the plantation. . We did not hear about President Lincoln‘s freedom procle.znation in.1863, but the status quo of s lavery kept right on as it had been until Shermant ~ carne through. You know General Lee surrendered the same spring, and we learned we were free.

~	t‘ :E~ 1866 ~ father bought ~ four acres in the vicinity of Camden

and baproved it with a house and barn, and we lived there for several years.

~	father went into the mercantile business in Camden and prospered. There

I went to~ the pubi ic schools • We had teachers frorn the North, and I finish-‘

ed ~ all the grades • There ~~no high e chools in the state at that tine.

	“We had our awn home-raised hams and plenty of food products in our

quartera, when n~ ~ther and I heard shooting nearby. We stepped into the yard and saw‘ a big number of soldiers shooting at a running white man of

the comiminity. They did not hit hint. In a moment or two five soldiers