There was
a perty big bunch of em. Us chillun was glad to hear it. I member just
as well as if 'twas yesterday.
"I member when the Yankees come and took all of Miss Mary's silver--took
every piece of it. And another time they got three or four of the
colored men and made em get a horse apiece and ride away with em
bareback. Yankees was all ridin' iron gray horses, and lookin' just as
mad. Oh Lord, yes, they rid right up to the gate. All the horses was
just alike--iron gray. Sho was perty horses. Them Yankees took
everything Miss Mary had.
"After the war ended we stayed on the place one year and made a crop and
then my father bought fifty acres of Mr. Ben Martin. He paid some on it
every year and when it was paid for Mr. Ben give him a deed to it.
"I'm the only child my mother had. She never had but me, one. I went to
school after the war and I member at night I'd be studyin' my lesson and
rootin' potatoes and papa would tell us stories about the war. I used to
love to hear him on long winter evenings.
"I stayed right there till I married. My father had cows and he'd kill
hogs and had a peach orchard, so we got along fine. Our white folks was
always good to us."
Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
Person interviewed: Lucy Cotton
Russellville, Arkansas
Age: 72
[Jan 7 1938]
"Lucy Cotton's my name, and I was born on the tenth day of June, 1865,
jist two months after the surrender.
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