away from the bird but I could not walk and the blood was running from
my body in dozens of places. Poor old Hector, was crippled and bleeding
for the bird was a big eagle and would have killed both of us if help
had not come." The old negro man still shows signs of his encounter with
the eagle. He said it was captured and lived about four months in
captivity but its wing never healed. The body of the eagle was stuffed
with wheat bran, by Greene Harris, and placed in the court yard in
Sumner County. "The Civil War changed things at the Mooney plantation,"
said the old man. "Before the War Mr. Mooney never had been cruel to me.
I was Mistress Puss's property and she would never have allowed me to be
abused, but some of the other slaves endured the most cruel treatment
and were worked nearly to death."

Uncle Joe's memory of slavery embraces the whole story of bondage and
the helpless position held by strong bodied men and women of a hardy
race, overpowered by the narrow ideals of slave owners and cruel
overseerers. "When I was a little bitsy child and still lived with Mr.
Gardner," said the old man, "I saw many of the slaves beaten to death.
Master Gardner didn't do any of the whippin' but every few months he
sent to Mississippi for negro rulers to come to the plantation and whip
all the negroes that had not obeyed the overseers. A big barrel lay near
the barn and that was always the whippin place." Uncle Joe remembers two
or three professional slave whippers and recalls the death of two of the
Mississippi whippers. He relates the story as follows: "Mars Gardner had
one of the finest black smiths that I ever saw. His arms were strong,
his muscles stood out on his breast and shoulders and his legs were
never tired. He stood there and shoed horses and repaired tools day
after day and there was no work ever made him tired."

The old negro man so vividly described the noble blacksmith that he