Eyewitness Report: Black Confederate Soldiers

Excerpts from The "Slave Narratives"

This is one in a series of articles featured on the Political Spectrum as part of Secession Week.

86% of the 2,300 former slaves that were interviewed in the 1930s had positive things to say about their masters and/or slavery.

Frank Childress, 85, Mississippi

"Yassuh, I'se the one what fought on both sides," he claims proudly, "but I neber fought for de Yankees till dey captured me and put me in a corral and said, 'Nigger, you fought for de South; now you can fight for de North."

Blewitt, Peter 87, Mississippi

"I went to war with my master---Henry Blewitt---to look after his hoss. I was with my old marsta at Vicksburg. I had charge of five horses dere and had to keep dem hid under a cliff. Old Masta and my father was both killed in the Vicksburg siege. They was fighting down close to de river just before de battle was ovah. I was back at de camp wid de hosses. After dat I went back to Old Miss, with Capt. Stephens who lived in Newton County. After de war I stayed on wid old Mistess until 1872. Old Miss had three chillun: Betsy, Willie and Henry. I nussed all dem chilluns, and worked 'round de house. I attended to de stock and milked de cows. Nearly all Old Miss's slaves stayed on wid her atter de war was over. She was good to us and we didn't have no udder place to go. We's satisfied dere, and stayed wid her till she sold out and went to Californy.

Boggan, Manda 1847, Mississippi

"I believes I had de bes' master in de worl'. I gits ter thinkin' ob de days back in slavery time an' wishes ole Mars could ev alwa's cared fo' us. He was a preacher an' sho' did live his religion, an' taught us slaves ter walk in de straight an' narrow way. He wouldn't 'low no overseers wukin' his slaves, 'cause he wont gwine ter hab 'em beat. He got wuk a plinty out 'en us, fer when yo' turn a bunch ob niggers a loose an' let 'em sing, pray, an' shout all dey wants ter he's sho' gwine ter turn de wuk off.

Bohanon, Georganna 104, Mississippi

I worked awful hard when I wus growing up but I is too ole to remember anything about back yonder and my folks wus allus good to me and I wish I had stayed a slave.

Brewer, Wiley 103, Mississippi

"Yas'm, I went to de war. Marster took me wid him, and I fit, too, I killed a thousand Yankees... You look like you don't believe dat, Miss, but it's de truth. Mistis always told me to tell the truth, and I ain't never told nobody no lies. Some ub dem Yankees I shot and some uv 'em I drowned. Marster always told me Yankees was de worst friends I had, so when dey come round after de war telling me de Government was gonna give us 40 acres and a mule, I knowed it wan't so and went back to Marster. He let me work for him, part de time as wage hand and part as sharecropper till he died. I saved my money and bought me a mule, and en about 32 years ago I bought me a farm. Dat's where me and my wife lives now, just a few miles from Columbus. I calls my house 'Rasling Jacob'.

Bell, Bettie Massingale, Alabama,

"Yer sees, young marster, Marster John Massingale was sho' good to his slaves. He gib each slave wid a fam'ly a sep'rate piece of groun' tu raise his own stuff on, an' Marster John Massingale allers tuck dere stuff dat dey raised to Claiborne whar he allers tuck his cotton tu sell an' ship on de steamboats."

*Note, these quotes were written in a specific manner to preserve the accent and dialect they were spoken in and the dignity of the Southern pride of the people who spoke these words.  This technique has been used various times in American literature, most notably Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, which was written in several Southern dialects.

Source: Southern Heritage 411