Several months ago, I called at 1217 Ash Street, Texarkana, Arkansas
where I had been informed a voluble old negro lived. An aged,
gray-haired, negro woman came to the door and informed me her father was
in the wood shed at the back of the house. Going around to the wood shed
I found him busily engaged in storing his winter supply of wood. When I
made known my mission he readily agreed to answer all my questions as
best he could. Seating himself on a block of wood, he told this almost
incredible story, along with lengthy discourses on politics, religion
and other current events:

"I wuz born March 15, 1843, in Monroe County, Mississippi, near
Aberdeen, Mah Mahster wuz Colonel Ogburn, one ob de bigges' planters in
de state of Mississippi. Manys de time he raised so much cotton dat dem
big steamers just couldnt carry it all down to N'Awlins in one year.
But den along came de Civil War an' we didn't raise nothin' fo' several
years. Why? Becase most uf us jined the Confederate Army in Colonel
Ogburn's regiment as servants and bodyguards. An' let me tell yo'
somethin', whitefolks. Dere never wuz a war like dis war. Why I 'member
dat after de battle of Corinth, Miss., a five acre field was so thickly
covered wid de dead and wounded dat yo' couldn't touch de ground in
walkin' across it. And de onliest way to bury dem wuz to cut a deep
furrow wid a plow, lay de soldiers head to head, an' plow de dirt back
on dem."

"About a year after de war started de Mahster got one ob dese A.W.O.L.'s
frum de Army so we could come to Miller County, where he bought de place
on Red River now known as de Adams Farm.