"This is what my father, Isaac Johnson, always told us:

'I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. Mama died and left three of us
children and my papa. He was a blacksmith.' I don't recollect grandpa's
name now.

'A man come to buy me. I was a twin. My sisters cried and cried but I
didn't cry. I wanted to ride in the surrey. I was sold and taken to
Montgomery, Alabama.'

"Angeline was his oldest sister and Emmaline was his twin sister. He
never seen any of his people again. He forgot their names. His old
master that bought him died soon after he come back from North Carolina.

"His young master didn't even know his age. He tried to get in the army
and he did get in the navy. They said he was younger than he told his
age. He enlisted for three years. He was in a scrimmage with the Indians
once and got wounded. He got twenty dollars then fifty dollars for his
services till he died.

"He wasn't old enough to be in the Civil War. He said he remembered his
mistress crying and they said Lincoln was to sign a freedom treaty. His
young master told him he was free. The colored folks was having a
jubilee. He had nowheres to go. He went back to the big house and sot
around. They called him to eat, and he went on sleeping where he been
sleeping. He had nowheres to go. He stayed there till he joined the
navy. Then he come to Mississippi and married Sallie Bratcher and he
went back to Alabama and taught school. He went to school at night after
the Civil War till he went to the navy. He was a light-brown skin.