there are now. Black niggers stood the climate better. At least,
everybody thought so.

"If a woman didn't breed well, she was put in a gang and sold. They
married just like they do now but they didn't have no license. Some
people say that they done this and that thing but it's no such a thing.
They married just like they do now, only they didn't have no license.

"Ol' man came out on April 9, 1865. and said, 'General Lee's whipped now
and dam badly whipped. The war is over. The Yankees done got the
country. It is all over. Just go home and hide everything you got.
General Lee's army is coming this way and stealing everything they can
get their hands on.' But General Lee's army went the other way.

"I saw a sack of money setting near the store. I looked around and I
didn't see nobody. So I took it and carried it home. Then I hid it. I
heard in town that Jeff Davis was dead and his money was no good. I took
out some of the money and went to the grocery and bought some bread and
handed her five dollar bill. She said, 'My goodness, Henry, that money
is no good; the Yankees have killed it.' And I had done gone all over
the woods and hid that money out. There wasn't no money. Nobody had
anything. I worked for two bits a day. All our money was dead.

"The Yankees fed the white people with hard tacks (at Liberty,
Virginia). All around the country, them that didn't have nothin' had to
go to the commissary and get hard tacks.

"I started home. I went to town and rambled all around but there wasn't
nothin' for me.