The fieldworker submitted two texts of his interview with John Eubanks. One text is mainly a summary, and the other supposedly is in the informant’s own words. At the time of the interview, John was living with his daughter, Mrs. Bertha Sloss, and several grandchildren at 2713 Harrison Boulevard, according to the WPA files; however, six months earlier he had been living with Mrs. Sloss at 2712 Van Buren Place in Gary, according to an article in the Gary Post- Tribune (March 29, 1937). A large man who said he had once weighed more than two hundred pounds, John was 98 years old when he was interviewed and said he hoped to live to be 100. Since his brother and mother both died at 98 and his paternal grandfather at 110, he thought he had a good chance to realize his ambition; however, he was badly crippled with rheumatism and had poor eyesight, and his memory was failing. Nevertheless, he recalled many details from his youth, though he was occasionally prompted by his daughter and grandchildren, who in recent years had taken notes on John’s personal experience tales. John was proud of his fifty grandchildren, for most of them were high school graduates, and two were attending the University of Chicago.
John was Gary’s only surviving Civil War veteran at the time of the interview. He said that in 1926 he was the only one of three surviving members of the Grand Army of the Republic in Gary, and he was extremely proud that he was the only one in a parade held that year. One of seven children, he was born a slave in Barren County, Kentucky, June 6, 1839. Though his father was a free man, his mother was a slave on the Everett plantation. As a child he was put to work hoeing, picking cotton, and doing other odd jobs.
Following the custom of the time, when children of the Everett family married, slaves were given to them as wedding presents. John was given to a daughter who married a man named “Eubanks,” whose name John took. John was more fortunate than many slaves, for the Eubankses were kind to him. They lived in a state divided on the question of slavery and favored the North. His brothers and sisters were given to other members of the Everett family upon their marriage or sold down the river and did not see one another again until after the Civil War.
At the beginning of the Civil War, John was twenty-one. When the North seemed to be losing the war, black regiments were formed, and slaves joining the Union Army were granted freedom. The Eubankses told John that he could join the Union Army if he wished instead of running away, as other slaves were doing. John decided to join a black regiment located at Bowling Green, Kentucky. He said he walked the entire thirty-five miles to Bowling Green from Glasgow, where he was living. He served in the army as a member of Company K of the 108th Kentucky Infantry, a company of black volunteers. When General Morgan, the famous southern raider, crossed the Ohio on his raid across southern Indiana, John was one of the black soldiers who, after heavy fighting, forced Morgan to recross the river and retreat south. He also participated in several skirmishes with cavalry troops commanded by the Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, and he was a member of a black garrison at Fort Pillow, which was located on the Mississippi. When the fort was captured, many black soldiers were massacred in the skirmish. John was in several other battles, too, but said he “never once got a skinhurt.”
John could not remember all the units he was attached to, but he recalled that one of his units was part of General Sherman’s army. He said he was with a regiment that started out with Sherman on his famous march through Georgia, but shortly after the campaign got under way, his regiment was sent elsewhere. His regiment was near Vicksburg, Mississippi, when Lee surrendered. John said that when Lee surrendered, there was much shouting among the troops. He remembered the exact date of his discharge, March 20, 1866, which his daughter verified by producing his discharge papers.
At the end of the war, John was one of many soldiers put to work loading cannons on boats to be shipped up the river. His company returned to Kentucky on the steamboat Indiana. Upon his return to Glasgow, he saw his mother and other members of his family, who were then free, for the first time in six years. Shortly after his return to Glasgow, he saw several blacks walking down the highway and was attracted to a young girl wearing a yellow dress. He said to himself, “If she ain’t married, there goes my wife.” Later they met, and they were married on Christmas Day in 1866. After their marriage, they lived on their own farm near Glasgow for several years before moving to Louisville, where John worked in a lumberyard. He came to Gary in 1923, two years after the death of his wife. They had twelve children, four of whom were still living in 1937—two in Gary and two in the South. In 1935 he returned for a brief visit to Glasgow, where he had been a slave. President Grant was the first president for whom John cast his vote, and he continued to vote until old age prevented him from walking to the polls. Although Lincoln was one of his heroes, Teddy Roosevelt topped his list of great men, and he said he never failed to vote for him. Of Lincoln’s death, he said, “Sure, now, I remember that well. We all feelin’ sad, and all the soldiers had wreaths on their guns.”
John was featured in the Gary Post-Tribune on May 29, 1937, as the “Lone Civil War Survivor to Ride in Monday [Memorial Day] Parade.” The following obituary was published in the same paper on January 24, 1938 (p. 6):
John Eubanks, Negro veteran of the Civil war and last surviving member of the Grand Army of the Republic residing in Gary, died last night. He was 98 years old and succumbed to the infirmities of old age.
He died in the home of his son, John Eubanks, Jr., at 2721 Harrison. His body was removed to Smith’s funeral home pending completion of funeral arrangements. He is survived by his son; a daughter, Mrs. Bertha Sloss, also of 2721 Harrison, 15 grandchildren and five great great grandchildren.
Death took “Grandpa” Eubanks before he was able to realize his ambition to live to be 110 years old, the age reached by his paternal grandfather. “Grandpa” was born June 6, 1839, in Glasgow, Ky., where he was one of seven children born to a chattel of the Everett family of Glasgow. He was the last of the slave family to pass on....
Here is John’s narrative from the WPA files:
I remember well, us younguns on the Everett plantation. I worked since I can remember—hoein’, pickin’ cotton, and other chores ’round the farm. We didn’t have much clothes—never no underwear, no shoes—old overalls and a tattered shirt, winter and summer. Come the winter, it be so cold my feet were plumb numb most of the time, and many a time, when we got a chance, we drove the hogs from out of the bogs an’ put our feet in the warm, wet mud. They was cracked, and the skin on the bottoms and in the toes were cracked and bleedin’ most of time, with bloody scabs, but the summer healed them again.
“Does you-all remember, Grandpap,” his daughter asked, “your master? Did he treat you mean?” No, it were done thataway. Slaves were whipped and punished, and the younguns belonged to the master to work for him or to sell. When I were ’bout six years old, Marse Everett give me to Tony Eubanks as a weddin’ present when he married Marse’s daughter, Becky. Becky wouldn’t let Tony whip her slaves who came from her father’s plantation. “They are my property,” she said, “an’ you can’t whip them.” Tony whipped his other slaves, but not Becky’s.
I remember how they tied the slave ’round a post, with hands tied together ’round the post. Then a husky [man] lashed his back with a snakeskin lash till his back were cut and bloodened. The blood spattered an’ his back all cut up. Then they’d pour saltwater on him. That dried and hardened and stuck to him. He never take it off till it healed. Sometimes I see Marse Everett hang a slave tiptoe. He tied him up so he stand tiptoe an’ leave him thataway. Marse Everett whipped me once, and mother, she cried. Then Marse Everett say, “Why you-all cry? You cry, I whip another of these younguns.” She try to stop. He whipped another. He say “If’n you-all don’t stop, you be whipped too!” And mother, she tried to stop, but tears roll out, so Marse Everett whip her too.
I wanted to visit Mother when I belong to Marse Eubanks, but Becky say “You-all best not see your mother, or you want to go all the time.” She want me to forget Mother, but I never could. When I come back from the army, I go home to Mother and say, “Don’tyou know me?” She say, “No, I don’t know you.” I say, “You don’t know me?” She say, “No, I don’t know you.” I say, “I’se John.” Then she cry and say how I’d growed, and she thought I’se dead this long time. I done explain how the many fights I’se in with no scratch, and she bein’ happy.
I be twenty-one when war broke out. Marse Eubanks say to me, “You-all don’t need to run ’way if’n you-all want to join up with the army.” He say, “There would be a fine if’n slaves run off. You-all don’t have to run off; go right on, and I don’t pay that fine.” He say, “Enlist in the army, but don’t run off.” Now I walk thirty-five mile from Glasgow to Bowling Green to this place, to the enlistin’ place. From home, four mile to Glasgow; to Bowling Green, thirty-five mile. On the road I meet up with two boys, so we go on. They run ’way from Kentucky, and we go together. Then some bushwhackers come down the road. We’s scared and run to the woods and hid. As we run through the woods, pretty soon we heard chickens crowing. We fill our pockets with stones. We goin’ to kill chickens to eat. Pretty soon we heard a man holler, “You come ’round outta there,” and I see a white man and come out. He say, “What you-all doin’ here?” I turn ’round and say, “Well, boys, come on boys,” an’ the boys come out. The man say, “I’m Union soldier. What you-all doin’ here?” I say, “We goin’ to enlist in the army.” He say, “That’s fine,” and he say, “Come ’long.” He say, “Get right on white man’s side.” We go to station. Then he say, “You go right down to the station and give your information.” We keep on walkin. Then we come to a white house with stone steps in front, so we go in. An’ we got to enlistin’ place and join up with the army. Then we go trainin’ in the camp, and we move on. Come to a little town ... a little town. We come to Bowling Green, then to Louisville. We come to a river ... a river, the Mississippi.
We were infantry, and pretty soon we gets in plenty fights, but not a scratch hit me. We chase them cavalry. We run them all night, and next mornin’, the captain, he say, “They done broke down.” When we rest, he say, “See, they don’t trick you.” I say, “We got all the army men together. We hold them hack till help come.”
We don’t have no tents. Sleep on naked ground in wet and cold and rain. Most the time we’s hungry, but we win the war. And Marse Eubanks tell us we no more his property; we’s free now.