Correspondent's interview with former slave

[gary]

Boston Journal correspondent Charles Coffin entered Richmond shortly after its fall. He learns of the Confederate effort to raise Afro-Confederate soldiers and of their drilling in Richmond. In an interview with a "negro," he records the following:

"How many coloured men enlisted?" I asked of a negro.

"'Bout fifty, I reckon, sir. Dey was mostly poor Souf Carolina darkies, - poor heathen fellers, who didn't know no better."

"Would you have fought against the Yankees?"

"No, sir. Dey might have shot me through de body wid ninety thousand balls, before I would have fired a gun at my friends."

Then you look upon us as your friends?"

"Yes, sir. I have prayed for you to come; and do you think that I would have prayed done way and fit de other?"

"I'll tell you, massa, what I would have done," said another, taking off his hat and bowing: "I would have taken de gun, and when I cotched a chance I'd a shooted it at de rebs and den run for de Yankees."

Taken from page 547 of Coffin's The Boys of '61

[mobile_96]

Gary,
Have you read The Roving Editor, or Talks with Slaves in The Southern States, by James Redpath.
I got this book in auction several years ago but not gotten to it yet.
From the little skimming I did, appears to be very interesting. Will post a segment later as I'm presently in a cw chat room in yahoo.
Chuck in Il