My Life and Travels: Through the Eyes of a Civil War Slave

Submitted by Levi Branhams granddaughter, Lucille Branham

Published May 2004 U.S. Legacies
Written By Levi Branham
Submitted by Lucille Branham
Posted by Kathryn Seiley

Photo is Levi Branham, at seventy-seven years old, who tells his experiences in his own way.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I met Miss Lucille, as she is known and loved, at the Dalton, Georgia Senior Center. Every Friday I visit the center to sing, eat, and listen to stories of days gone by and provide my mother with a day out of the house. These visits are the highlights of my week.

It is rare that we have the opportunity to read and experience first-hand accounts of slavery. Here a former slave, Levi Branham, has written his memories for his descendants.

His granddaughter, Miss Lucille Branham has graciously allowed U.S. Legacies to reprint his 64 page memoir for your reading pleasure.
Over the next months you will be able to take a trip back in time, reliving the Civil War, slavery, and post war experiences from the viewpoint of a slave. I truly hope that you find this to be as entertaining and enlightening as I have.

My thanks to Miss Lucille for allowing me, and you, this glimpse into history.
Kathryn Seiley

Chapter 1.

I was born in 1852 in Murray County, Georgia, and lived there until 1863. Then I refugeed from here (Murray County) to South Georgia, Terrell County, of which Dawson was the county seat.

My first owner that I am able to recollect was Dr. Black, who later sold me to Mr. Jim Edmondson. Dr. Black not only sold me but he sold all of his Negroes to Mr. Edmondson, declaring that he (Mr. Edmondson) would not separate the Negroes.

A white boy, Sam Carter, brother of Sooth Carter, was my first white playmate that I am able to remember. We would tie pine tops together to make a seine to catch fish. The place where we fished in our childhood days is now under cultivation. During Sam's and my play together he claimed that I gave him the whooping cough. That was during the Civil War and Sam was living in Spring Place.

In 1873 I left the South and came back to Murray County to see my old playmate. When I arrived at his home he was sick of the measles which he said he was going to give me because I gave him the whooping cough. Sure enough I took the measles.

I spent a large portion of my life in the Chief Vann house with my old master, Mr. Edmondson. He had a daughter by the name of Jennie. Jennie has a waitress who was named Tein. Another of his daughters was Sug, whose waitress was Fannie. Another one of his daughters was Georgia whose waitress was Elvie. These were all of the single daughters that Mr. Edmondson had when I was with him, but he had three married daughters whose names were Harriet, Sallie and Sue. Harriet married Bob Anderson, Sue married Street, and Sallie married Dr. Mathis.

One of my young masters was John Edmondson, another, Tom Polk Edmondson. I was Tom Polk's waitman until he went to the Civil War between the North and South. Bill, the youngest, was quite small. All of the waitmen and waitresses stayed in the Edmondson house now known as the Chief Vann house. The room in which we stayed had a fine carpet on which we slept. Mr. Edmondson gave us fine blankets and we surely did sleep warm and comfortable.

My old mistress, "Miss Beckie", was very good to us. She took more pains with us darkies than our parents did, simply because she had more to care for us with, and too, she loved us.

Photo of the Vann House, Murray County, Georgia

Occasionally "Miss Beckie" would give us tea for medicine. She had a hard time getting this tea in me, but I had to take it after all. Sometimes she would give me peach brandy which I was always glad to get. Sometimes we would pretend that we were sick so we could get sweetened coffee and buttered biscuits which certainly tasted good to us darkies. I thought as much of "Miss Beckie" as I did my mother.

When all the white boys and girls would be away "Miss Beckie" would gather the little Negro children around the fire and talk with us. One day I said to "Miss Beckie"; "Why do we little Negro children have to work for you?" She said, "That's the way our fore-parents fixed the matter." I said to her, "when I get grown I am going to change the situation somewhat."

While I was still a little boy I was very fond of plowing. There was an old black man who plowed for my master. Sometimes I would give him a dime or a nickel to let me plow a round. That's the way I learned how to plow.

There was a pond in which the boys of the neighborhood would go swimming. Usually when they were swimming I would have something to do. I would hoe off the ends of the row and two or three rows on each side then I would say that I was through and then would go to the "Black Stump," which was the name of the swimming pool. Strange to say, I now own the pond on which we called the black stump.

All of those boys with whom I used to play are dead and gone. There were the Wilson and Rembert families; they are all gone. The last of them that I remember was Jim Henry. He was one of my first friends. The same year Jim Henry died he told me to clean out the swamp where the black stump was so it could be making grass while I slept. He said "some day another people will be saying old Boisey died trying to make a nickel," and old Jim Henry died trying to make a nickel. This was the last conversation that I remember having with him. He was then clerking in Fite's store, Dalton, Georgia. When he died I waited patiently at Spring Place, thinking he would be buried here, but he was buried in Dalton, therefore I did not get to see the remains of his body.

The old Chief Vann house had been torn away considerably now from what it was when we lived there. There were large sliding doors in the house. Sometimes when there would be dances, there would be as many as sixteen in a set at one time. I have often seen old Mr. Frank Peeples on the dancing floor, but oh, my! He was cutting a shine. Now Mr. Peeples is like me, he is not able to do any dancing.

My old mistress would always say she was going to whip me, but she never whipped me but once. She was always threatening to whip me and one morning after the others had gone to work and I was still lying in the bed, my old mistress came upstairs to my room with an old cow hide and struck me three or four licks. I jumped up and ran to the field. That was the first cow hide and the last one that I have seen. She never had a chance to whip anyone else, or me either, because I took the hide and cut it in two with an axe and then I buried it.

I had a very bad time when I was small, and some very good times too. Mr. Edmondson, my master, owned two farms, one in Tennessee and another in Georgia. My mother was in Tennessee on his farm while I was in Georgia with my old mistress, whom I loved as well as my mother, for she was very dear to me.

On one occasion a group of boys and I decided to go on a fishing trip. We secured several dress pins and made them into fish hooks as best we could, and then started off on our trip. We went down on the Conasauga River. We wandered around for a while fishing here and there until at last one of the boys noticed a grape vine across the river. Then we began to play with it. We pulled it up, and to our surprise there was a fish basket on it which contained about five or six trout weighing from four to five pounds. We carried the fish home to Mr. Edmondson. He asked us where we got such fine fish as we told him we caught them, so he asked us where were our hooks, and when we showed him our pin hooks he said, "Pshaw."

Image of Conasauga River

After we had exhibited the fine fish to almost the whole plantation, our next job was to prepare them for cooking. When the fish were cooked nicely by the cook and ready for the table, all the white folks helped themselves then it was left to the colored to eat their share, and by the time we had finished eating, the owner of the fish basket came up. How he knew we were the boys that got his fish, I don't know, but I suppose someone told him what fine fish they had seen a group of us colored boys with. He came and told Mr. Edmondson about it. To settle the matter Mr. Edmondson paid him a half dollar.

In those days people pulled up the cotton stalks with their hands. This was mostly the children's job. One day while a crowd of children and I were pulling up stalks, my hands became very tired so I went to the house. Mr. Edmondson asked me why I quit. I told him that I was tired, so to punish me for my laziness he carried me upstairs and put me on a very high porch so that I could not escape. He told me to watch the other children and make them work, while at the same time they were about a mile from me, but I could see them. They seemed to be having a very good time and I wanted to be with them, but could not get down until someone came after me. Within a few days from then I began to play off again, so Mr. Edmondson thinking the high porch punishment was too good for me, made it harder for me. He carried me to a dark room in the Chief Vann house and made me stay up there until dark and you may know that I got enough of it that time. When they brought me down again I was glad to stay down and from then on I never tried to play off anymore.

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CHAPTER 2

Many visitors would come to see the white folks and I would have the privilege of putting up their horses and shining their shoes and they would tip me with nickels and dimes. Soon I accumulated four or five dollars and I asked my mistress to let me go to Tennessee to see my mother. At last the day came for us to go. “Miss Beckie” gave me my money. She put it in a pair of my pants. There were several white people along and also some colored folks who were going to Tennessee. We camped at a little place call Varnell. Mr. Tom Polk Edmondson bought some whiskey and gave me a drink of it. Finally I got to feeling funny and staggered to the wagon tongue and reached in the wagon for my breeches. I found the breeches, but no money was in them. I don’t know, but I suppose some of the work hands had stolen it. That was the first whiskey I had ever tasted.

When we returned to Georgia “Miss Beckie” asked me did I give my money to my mother? I told her that I lost it or someone had stolen it from me. She said she expected they did.

While I was in Tennessee I would have to go to a little town called Jasper, to get the mail for the white folks. This town was about six miles from the farm where they lived.

There was a colored man on the Tennessee farm who was interested in teaching the colored boys how to read and write. He would make figures and letters on a wooden pad to teach us. One day my mother decided to buy me a book, so she gave me a dime and I went to the post office at Jasper where I saw a good many almanacs on a table. I asked Mr. Jim Owens, the postmaster, to give me one of those books – and he gladly handed me one. I walked away very proud with my book in my hand and a dime in my pocket, thinking about what I would buy. So I bought candy with the dime. When I reached home I told my mother that I gave the dime for the almanac.

I stayed in Tennessee for about six months. While in Tennessee I became very fond of a white fellow by the name of Mr. Bill Bramlett. He would often let me ride his mule to the field. We were both very dear friends. After the surrender I would often visit him while we both lived in Murray County. We continued to be good friends until he died which was about eight or ten years ago.

Mr. Edmondson transferred me back to Murray County to my old home in 1861.

CHAPTER 3

The Chief Vann House Where I Spent My Childhood

The Chief Vann house now has a memorial tablet, which marks the residence of Joseph Vann and reads like this:

“This Tablet marks the residence of Joseph Vann, a chief of the Cherokee Indians, built late in the Eighteenth Century.

“John Howard Payne, illustrious author of ‘Home Sweet Home,’ suspicioned of sedition, was brought to this house, examined and exonerated by the Georgia authorities. Near here stood the first Moravian Mission of the Cherokees.

“This historic spot is marked by the Governor John Milledge Chapter, D.A.R., Dalton, GA., 1915.”

The old Indian or Chief Vann house has a large spacious yard with many beautiful shade trees, and in this yard is said to be a pot of money buried there by the Indians, but no one has been able to locate it. I have played around this yard many a day with my white playmates, Mr. Edmondson’s children and others. The house is now occupied by Mr. John Cox, and owned by Dr. J.E. Bradford. The latter has had the front porch remodeled, both upstairs and down, and the upstairs porch is raised about six or seven inches higher than the former one built by the Indians. The front of the house, which faces the south, has four white columns imitating white marble posts. The door to the entrance of the house has a large arch, hand carved and pegged, which was made by the Indians. The roomy hall is seventeen and a half feet wide with a beautiful hanging stairway, the banisters of which are hand shaped and carved in many beautiful designs, and on which not a nail was used; they are pegged together where needed.

The walls on the outside are sixteen inches wide in which the Indians had secret money drawers that were unnoticeable to any one else. The inside walls are twelve inches of solid brick. All of the brick and material of which the house is made are said to have been sent from England to Savannah and then hauled from Savannah in an oxcart to Spring Place where the house now stands. The fire places are five feet wide and have a hand carved mantel that reaches up to the ceiling or plastering.

The windows are also hand carved and slope in, being thirty-two inches wide, which is a beautiful sight to any natural eye.

The door hinges: The door hinges break in the center and have an extra large brass lift hook.

The basement: The basement has two nice rooms and the one on the west facing the Cleveland road is where John Howard Payne was kept as a prisoner until examined by the Georgia authorities.

The garret: Oh! Up in the beautiful garret, where I was often put in prison, are two beautiful little windows and it is floored with almost one and a half foot plank, plastered with smooth white plastering, and the corners instead of being square are rounding. Each room has a small vacant place, or room, on each side, which is said to have been the Indians’ spying places.

The baseboards: The baseboards in the rooms are made of plank that measure thirty-five inches wide.

A part of the house has been taken away and built back by the white people.

The house: In the dining room was a long table at which about fifteen or twenty could be served.

In those days people used fly brushes, so Mrs. Rebecka had a large one over the table with a great long string that reached to the other end of the dining room and I had to pull the string. Oh! How I would pull and watch the white folks eat. They would eat and sit there and talk until I would get so hungry looking at the food my mouth would water. I always got plenty to eat, but just to stand there and look at the good food would make me hungry.

CHAPTER 4

Mrs. Rebecka’s Sheep

Mr. Edmondson has a cur dog by the name of Watch, which we children did not like; he was a very good dog, too. One day Mr. Westfield gave “Miss Rebecka” a drove of sheep, about fifty, I suppose, so to do injury to the dog. Mr. Edmondson’s children and I took some sheep wool and packed it between the dog’s teeth. Then carried the dog to “Miss Rebecka” Edmondson and told her that the dog had been killing her sheep. She ordered the dog to be killed, believing that he was killing sheep, but the poor dog was innocent. I have thought over and over how bad it was that we told what was not true on the poor dog, and I am compelled to say that I hate to think how bad it was for us to do a trick like that. But you know how boys are.

CHAPTER 5

Published U.S. Legacies june 2004

In 1861

In 1861 I saw a troop of soldiers drilling west of Spring Place, Georgia, near the place where I am now living. That was the first group of soldiers I ever saw.

When I was a boy, and old colored man wanted a white boy and me to get some whiskey for him, as the colored people could not get any whiskey in those days. So Bill Ellis the white boy that went with me, he was about my age, bought the whiskey and had it put in a jug. We started on back, and on our way we had to pass through a place called “the haunted holler.” There we stopped and began to draw us some of the whiskey. We had a bottle but could not see how to pour the whiskey, so we drew it out in our mouths and emptied it into the bottle until we had the bottle full. We then took up our load and began to travel. When I got home and sat down by the fire it made me sick, and “Miss Rebecka” asked me what was the matter, so I told her that I had been to town and some one had shocked me on the shocking machine. She said, “all right, I will see about it,” and Mrs. Scythe Luffman came along and told her that she had seen Bill and me with some whiskey, so she asked me again and I had to tell her the truth. She then asked Bill about it and made it so plain that he had to tell her just how it was. I tell you Mrs. Rebecka was hard to fool, but we sure did fool her about Watch (the dog) killing her sheep.

Chapter VI War

Published U.S. Legacies July 2004

I have seen three wars in my life. When I was a boy we saw a comet and I asked Mrs. Rebecka what was a comet. She said, “the comet is a sign of war,” and I asked her did “they get up in the trees and shoot?” She said, “no, but sometimes they get behind trees.”

This was the civil war. The next war was the Cuban war, and then the World war.

When we were refugeeing in 1863, we went as far as Mayhill and camped and bought seven sacks of flour and each sack had one hundred pounds of flour in it. Mr. Edmondson bought this to travel on and we carried ten or twelve head of milk cows. Just about good day light Bragg’s army came by and we had to wait until they got by. Then Mr. Bill Edmondson and the negro men stole a mule and a hog from the army. The soldiers also had a little negro boy riding along behind. I wondered why they did not steal him, too. In this travel they also stole a fine dog and this dog was a regular negro catcher. After the surrender some man came along and claimed the dog, but no one ever claimed the mule and the hog. We got to keep them.

After we reached Terrell county, we children were not used to ribbon cane and peanuts, so one day Mr. Edmondson bought a lot of peanuts and cane and we children had to shell the peanuts to plant. Me. Edmondson stood over us with a stick to keep us from eating them, but we managed to eat some of them any way. We would shell them and slip them into our mouths so quick that he did not see us. And when he had the cane planted, we would slip to the patch and dig it up and chew it.

After the cane was ripe we boys went to the patch and ruined about a half acre. Mr. Edmondson had a whipping man, and he was my uncle, so he called us together and asked about the cane. As soon as one would own to eating the cane he would let them alone and get the next one. I think I was about the fourth and I was so scared I gave the thing away when he hit me about four licks. There was one boy who never would own to eating the cane. He had about twelve or fifteen boys to whip, but we boys would always prepare ourselves for whipping by wrapping our bodies in old tow sacks. Mr. Edmondson did not care so much about the cane as he did about us telling a lie.

When we dug the peanuts we put them in an old log house, and we boys would go down in the bottoms, cut a long pole, and would stick one end in a crack of the house then all of us would get on the other and raise it up so some one could stick his hand in the crack and drag out the peanuts. Well one can never tell what a crowd of boys will do.

During the Civil war, 1865, Old Man Dover sent all the negroes over to a little town called Dover in Terrell county to fast and pray. Another little negro boy and I got our fish hooks and started to go fishing. He told us if we did not go to fast and pray that we would have to get our hoes and go to the field and work, so we went on to Dover with the rest of the colored people and I got down and prayed the best I knew how. This was the words of my prayer: “O Lord, please help Abraham Lincoln to whip Jefferson Davis.” When we were all through praying we went back home. Mr. Edmondson said to me, “what did you pray?” and I told him that I prayed like this: “O Lord, please help Jefferson Davis to whip Abraham Lincoln,” and he said, “you prayed right,” and handed me a half dollar. I was afraid to tell him what I prayed.

In 1862 the slave owners had paddle rollers that they used to whip their slaves with when they were caught away from home. Once two slaves who belonged to Seay were caught on Mr. Edmondson’s place for running off from their master’s home. I ran along behind them to see what the white people were going to do with the slaves. They whipped them, giving them twenty-nine or thirty-nine licks each. All slaves caught after sundown without a pass were beaten. It was always an easy matter for Mr. Edmondson’s slaves to obtain a pass, because most of the white folks would give the slaves a pass. The slaves of other owners would hardly ever get a pass, but they would go anyway.

In 1863 I begged Mr. Edmondson to let me stay with some other white people (Mrs. Keister.) After some begging he consented for me to go. I went on to Mrs. Keister’s and after I had stayed two days I became dissatisfied and ran away. Mr. Edmondson told me that I would have to stay because I had made a trade with them. I went back and stayed about a month. During my stay with Mrs. Keister I had to wash dishes. They drank milk from large tumblers, and one day just before I washed the dishes I fell asleep and when I awoke the milk had gotten hard in the tumblers. I studied what to do for a long time. Finally I thought of pouring hot water into the tumblers to soften the milk. I put all the tumblers in a row and poured water into them. Just about the time I had finished filling all the glasses all of them bursted open. I took the broken tumblers and threw them into the well. Every time I would break anything I would throw it into the well. After the surrender I came back to Mrs. Keister’s and she told me about finding broken dishes in their well when they cleaned it out.

I went down south and stayed about nine years. When I came back to Murray county I stayed with Mrs. Keister again. I did not have anything to do, only cut wood for the fires and tend to the horses. Mrs. Keister was very good to me and when I did not have anything to do she would teach me how to read and write. She taught me arithmetic, geography, also history. About three years ago (1926) I began to think of how nice Mrs. Keister was to me, so I sent her some corn and watermelons. A few weeks later I carried her some tomatoes. When I reached her door I knocked and she came to the door. I asked her how she felt; she said, “I am feeling very well, but I can hardly get about.” I went in and talked with her. She teased me about throwing dishes into the well. Mrs. Keister was very feeble at this time, and told me her time was not long. Her last words to me were, “We must be ready to meet death.”

Chapter VII. In 1870.

One day while I was plowing in a field in Terrell county, a boy whose name I have forgotten, hid himself in the hollow of a tree not very far from where I was plowing near a road, and waited there until a man by the name of Fletcher came along. When he sprang from the tree, shot the man and killed him. I had worked there all day and did not know any one was near, and when I saw that he had killed the man I was certainly scared, and did not know what to do or where to go. Mr. Fletcher had about fifteen or twenty men with him. They were bridge builders, and one of the shots hit the saw that one of the colored men had in his arm.

After he had killed the man the boy rambled all night, and the next day, but did not get more than five miles from where he had done the killing, so he was found and brought back and put in jail. He was kept there for a year or more, so one night, the jailer ran out in town and shot and reported that a mob had overpowered him and opened the jail, and cut the boy’s throat. The boy was there lying on the floor handcuffed, with his throat cut, and it was always supposed the jailer killed him.

The jailer then moved to Texas and lived there for a year or more. While there he was taken sick, and while lying on his death bed he confessed to killing the boy for one thousand ($1,000) dollars, but it was never known who gave him the money to do the killing.

In 1870 there was a bog show in Terrell county, Dawson, Georgia, and while the ticket agent was engaged in selling tickets as show folks do, they had a woman for door keeper and a man there for protection. Two men who started in had been drinking and the men pushed them back. They then began shooting. The door keeper, one of the ring masters and one of the men were killed. One of the men killed was an Oxford, some relation to the Oxfords that live up here now.

There were some mighty wealthy and high toned people at the show. They had their drivers to drive the hack right up to the tent door and spread down carpets for them to walk on to keep from getting in the mud, but when the shooting began they split the mud and made doors in all parts of the tent. That was a sad and bad act, but old corn liquor was the cause of it all.

In 1903 I saw a show man shot and killed in Dalton, Georgia Whitfield county.

In 1908 I saw a gallows built in Spring Place, Georgia, (Murray county) to hang a man by the name of Harper who killed Mr. Ben Keith, sheriff of Murray county, but he wasn’t hanged and I do not know whatever became of the gallows of the man Harper either.

I saw a young man shot in Spring Place by the name of Mr. Gus Keister.

Some folks believe whatever is to be will be and I believe that, too. Of course that is hardshell doctrine, but I am that way and this is my reason for believing that: I saw two men in Spring Place, both had a pistol and both snapped their guns, but neither of the guns fired. One of the men was Charlie Williams and the other was Captain Gibbs. They were both as brave as could be. I was in about ten feet of one of them, and was so sure they were going to get killed I shut my eyes to keep from seeing them killed, but neither one was hurt.

I believe in dreams. In 1870 I dreamed that a rattle snake bit me twice. The next night I got cut twice. I never like to dream of wasps, because whenever I dream of them I am always confused afterwards. It seems that something good always follows when I dream of honeybees, and when I dream of watermelons I always receive money.

My Mistress told me that the negroes were brought from Africa so they might be enlightened and that they may be taught to serve God. That may be so, but I hardly know what to think of it. I had a colored friend who is now dead, who always argued with me that negroes were brought from Africa to be enlightened. It seems that the negroes do not stick to one another as the white people do. If one negro has money the others will stick with him, if he has no money they are all down on him.

The negro race is a peculiar race, so far as color and mind is concerned. Some are black, some dark black, some are dark brown and some light brown, some are yellow and some are nearly white. To me they resemble Joseph’s coat. They all have many different minds. I believe the North Georgia negroes had better treatment and were more enlightened that the South Georgia negroes.

Once upon a time Major Jackson and I carried a drive of mules that belonged to Mr. Sam Carter to South Georgia. The white man in South Georgia to whom we carried the mules, said he did not allow negroes in his house. I said to him, “I was reared in white folks’ house.” He said, “the negroes here would steal if they had to steal the dish rag.” This white gentleman treated us very nice. Some of those negroes down in South Georgia said they wished Mr. Carter would bring them a sack of flour, because they had had no biscuits since last Christmas and it was almost Christmas again.

The old colored folks in South Georgia told me that the negro foreman were as hard again on them as their owners were. One old negro in South Georgia told me that they had to steal or perish because the white folks did not give them enough to eat.

I thank the Good Lord that my master always gave me plenty to eat and treated me like I was a human being.

The grandchildren and great grandchildren of Mr. Edmondson seem to think a lots of me and my wife. Always when they come from South Georgia and from the placed in the north they would bring me and my wife something nice to eat and wear. It seems that they cannot come to North Georgia without coming to see “Uncle Boisey” and “Aunt Amanda.”

Once I was working for a man who was building a railroad from Albany, Georgia to Cuthbert. The contractor had over a hundred mules and carts and lots of work hands. The place where the work hands camped looked like a little village. The tents used for shelter were made of poles were covered with pine top, sand and bark. Once upon a time a hard rain came and the sand over the tent gave way and killed a family of two. The people had to dig to find them.

The contractor paid the hands in money called “Kimbel and Bulloch”, which was in no smaller pieces than a dollar and no larger than two dollars. I do not know what became of Bulloch, but I suppose there is a Kimball house in Atlanta. I lost over a hundred dollars of Bulloch money because it went dead.

I used to belong to an insurance company, a twenty year payment. At the end of the twentieth year the company paid me off. The amount was $1,100.00. I put the money in the Georgia State Bank. A white man named Mr. John Cole told me to take the money out of the bank and pay it on my place. He said if I lacked any he would lend me some. I took out the money as he advised me to do and within two months after I took it out the bank failed, and I lost $50.01. Some white man asked me what would I have done if I had lost my $1,100? I told him I suppose I would have died.

Written By Levi Branham
Submitted by Lucille Branham
Posted by Kathryn Seiley

Legacies