The colored people did not want to work that way, and refused.  This was the cause of the raids by white farmers.  My mother recognized one of the men in the gang and reported him to the standing soldiers in Louisville.  He was caught and made to tell who the others were until they had 360 men.  All were fined and none allowed to leave until all the fines were paid.  So the rich ones had to pay for the poor ones.  Many of them left because all were made responsible if such an event ever occurred again.

Our family left because we did not want to work that way.  I was hired out to a family for $20 a year.  I was sent for.  My mother put herself under the protection of the police until we could get away.  We came in a wagon from our home to Louisville.  I was anxious to see Louisville, and thought it was very wonderful.  I wanted to stay there, but we came on across the Ohio River on a ferry boat and stayed all night in New Albany.  Next morning the wagon returned home and we came to Bloomington on the train.  It took us from 9 o’clock until three in the evening to get here.  There were big slabs of wood on the sides of the track to hold the rails together.  Strips of iron were bolted to the rails on the inside to brace them apart.  There were no wires at the joints of the rails to carry electricity, as we have now, for there was no electricity in those days.

I have lived in Bloomington ever since I came here.  I met a family named Dorsett after I came here.  They came from Jefferson County, Kentucky.  Two of their daughters had been sold before the war.  After the war, when the black people were free, the daughters heard some way that their people were in Bloomington.  It was a happy time when they met their parents.

Once when I was a little boy, I was sitting on the fence while my mother plowed to get the field ready to put in wheat.  The white man who owned her was plowing too.  Some Yankee soldiers on horses came along.  One rode up to the fence and when my mother came to the end of the furrow, he said to her, “Lady, could you tell me where Jim Downs’ still house is?” My mother started to answer, but the man who owned her told her to move on.  The soldiers told him to keep quiet, or they would make him sorry.  After he went away, my mother told the soldiers where the house was.  The reason her master did not want her to tell where the house was, was that some of his Rebel friends were hiding there.  Spies had reported them to the Yankee soldiers.  They went to the house and captured the Rebels.

Next soldiers came walking.  I had no cap.  One soldier asked me why I did not wear a cap.  I said I had no cap.  The soldier said, “You tell your mistress I said to buy you a cap or I’ll come back and kill the whole family.”  They bought me a cap, the first one I ever had.

The soldiers passed for three days and a half.  They were getting ready for a battle.  The battle was close.  We could hear the cannon.  After it was over, a white man went to the battle field.  He said that for a mile and a half one could walk on dead men and dead horses.  My mother wanted to go and see it, but they wouldn’t let her, for it was too awful.