At the back door of the frame house occupied by Moses Slaughter and his daughter, who faithfully cared for the aged former slave, the fieldworker asked, “May I arrange an interview with Mr. Moses Slaughter?” Moses’s daughter replied, “If you won’t talk too long or let him talk too fast, you may see Papa for a few minutes. He’s so weak we don’t allow him to exert himself. We want him to save his strength.”
Inside the old-fashioned house, everything was clean and orderly. Moses, clad in white outing flannel pajamas, sat in his favorite easy chair. Beside his chair stood a bedside table, and on it was his favorite book, a well-worn Bible. Moses smiled as he welcomed the fieldworker and said that he was delighted to have callers because his daughter often was busy and he became lonely. Based on evidence that he considered reliable, Moses guessed that he was born before 1833. He remembered that he joined the Union Army when he was 30, so at the time of the interview he must have been more than 104 years old.
Moses believed that the southerners should have been remunerated for the loss of their slaves, and that if this policy had been ratified, the Thirteenth Amendment would have been accepted more gladly. He believed that northerners were as responsible for the existence of slavery as southerners.
Moses chuckled as he told the fieldworker how his mother had learned how to read from the slaveholder’s children and passed the knowledge on to her own children. His mother would say to the slaveholder’s daughter, “Come on here, Emily; Mama will keep your place for you.” And while Emily read stories, dialogues, and poems, his mother, Emalina, followed each line until she was a fluent reader.
Moses, a professed Christian, was baptized in the Cumberland River while yet a slave. He was baptized again in the Ohio River when he joined the McFarland Baptist Church, which he helped to build, since at that time he was able to do carpenter work. At the time of the interview, he was not able to work, but the fieldworker said he “is pleasant and says he enjoys living. He is glad that the black children of today enjoy advantages unknown in his childhood. He is glad they are free.”
A respected citizen, Moses was influential among local African Americans and had many white friends in Evansville and Vanderburgh County. He was commander of Fort Wagner Post No. 581 of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Moses had been a widower since March 4, 1892. Two of his six children died in childhood, and four were raised in Evansville. When the fieldworker remarked about “a beautiful walnut bedstead” in his house, Moses replied, “Yes, ma’am, money couldn’t buy that bed. Every one of my babies was born in that bed. Virginia passed away there, and there’s where I expect to die.”
The fieldworker reported that Moses related the following narrative “with careful precision, using no noticeable southern accent. No slang phrases escaped his lips. His memories of the pioneer days and the war period are vivid.”
I was born in Montgomery County, Tennessee, and my parents were the property of Joseph Fauntleroy, farmer and raiser of stock and slaves. Joseph Fauntleroy was a very wealthy man, and he owned our entire family and had the right to sell, give away, and dispose of any or all of us as he saw fit.
My mother was the sweetest woman that God ever let live. She was gentle, loving, always smiling. She was the mother often children of her own, which she nursed and tended, and also was wet nurse of ten Fauntleroy children. All of us children, black and white, called my mother “Mama,” and she never turned a deaf ear to a child.
She was housekeeper for the white family and slept in a room of the Fauntleroy home where she could care for the babies all night. Joseph Fauntleroy and his wife had so many friends and went about in society until they had no time to take care of their children, but they knew Mama would give them all the care they would ever need. She was a loyal slave, a Christian, and always ready to help the children pray.
When I was a good-sized little boy, Miss Emily Fauntleroy married G. H. Slaughter and Master Joseph gave me to Miss Emily for a bridal present. That was my first real sorrow, having to leave my mother and the other children. I have brothers named Fauntleroy that were never sold or given away, but I took the name of Slaughter when Miss Emily took me to her home.
When J was thirty years of age J enlisted at Clarksville, Tennessee, under Captain J. G. Parke. My second captain was Captain Bobbilts. We sang “Rally, Boys! Rally!” and all were enthused and hoping to win our freedom within a short time.
Army life is a hard life no matter how well the men are trained. It seems you are always meeting with some unexpected occurrence.
A policy of slave enlistment was proposed by General Lee. He suggested immediate freedom to all enlisted slaves, but the congress was not willing to sanction Lee’s policy, and the big slave dealers argued against it because it would ruin their business. President Lincoln ordered a draft for 500,000 men, and about that time there was a great many Union sympathizers in the eastern section of Tennessee, so just as soon as the congress allowed the slaves to enlist, we enlisted.
I remember when our company was encamped at Johnsonville, Tennessee. We were in training, and our camp was near a wilderness. We had heard that John Bell Hood, lieutenant-general of the Confederate Army, was a natural born soldier. He had been given the command formerly held by J. E. Johnstone and had now been given command of the Army of the Tennessee. General Thomas called an army to oppose Hood, as he was planning a big battle at Nashville, Tennessee. So many Confederate soldiers were hiding in the wilderness our men couldn’t march from Johnsonville to Nashville without surprising some party of Confederate skirmishers, so we were ordered to go by Clarksville—a much longer route than we would have had to travel—for our fear of the Confederate soldiers.
On that march we were afoot, carrying our packs. The roads were through the wilderness. We were in danger of becoming divided, and in that case many would have been lost. No maps or charts were given to us. We must just stay close together. Food was scarce, and we were unpaid, but one half of us guarded, while the other half worked, cutting our way through that awful wilderness. We went by way of the Cumberland River and through the Gap. The Gap was always a point well guarded. General Grant was commander of all the armies of the United States, and his plan was to crunch Lee’s army and all the Confederate forces. General Thomas’s command was made up of the Army of the Cumberland and the Army of the Ohio. Thomas was a thoughtful man, slow in all his ways of moving about. He was loved by all his men. When we reached Nashville, Hood’s army was soon reduced to a handful. General Thomas commanded the Union corps, although the regiment had been put under a general corps commanded by Charles H. Ottensteen, colonel of the Thirteenth Regiment. Armies were divided into regiments. A regiment was a colonel’s command and was a permanent association of soldiers. When regiments combined, brigades were formed. Combined brigades formed divisions, while divisions united to form armies. Each battalion was formed of two or more companies. A battalion was commanded by a field officer called “major.”
Hood’s army suffered severe losses in the Battle of Nashville on December 15th and 16th, 1864. Although our men were tired, the Union soldiers were fighting for a cause that had both God and President Lincoln on its side, and the Thirteenth Regiment fought for its own freedom.
No master was really good to his slaves. The very fact that he could separate a mother from her babes made him a tyrant. Each master demanded exact obedience from his slaves. Negro children were not allowed an education, and if they by any chance learned to read and write, they usually had to keep their knowledge a secret.
After the War ended I took to the river trade, steamboating on the R. C. Gray from Cincinnati to Fort Smith, Arkansas. On one trip the river froze into a solid sheet of ice. I lived at Paducah, Kentucky, but there was no way to get back home while the weather was so cold, so I got a job with a farmer who kept a corral for stock. I helped him care for the horses all that winter. Starting home in the early spring, I reached Lexington and worked near Lexington for a farmer, Mr. John Beaumont. While there I met Virginia Smith, ex-slave of a slave owner of Henley County, Kentucky. Virginia wanted me to stay in that part of the country. There was where we spent many happy days. We went to freedom celebrations, dances, picnics, and parties, and while working there I saved money to marry and make our wedding trip on. We moved to Evansville in 1867 and found it a good place to live in.