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Louise Neill's mother was a slave and her father a white overseer. Louise Neill remembers very little about the Civil
War as she was a little girl at that time. She remembers that four half brothers went to war on the Southern side.
"My mothah was a slave but my papa was a white overseer on the big plantation in Taylor County, Georgia, near
Butler, Georgia. We lived in a tenant house made of logs near the plantation house. We never went to school a
single day in our lives and as a result, I can't write.
"My father's name was Britt Smith and my mother's name was Harriett Walker. She was a slave till the wah set her
free. My fathah was good and when we got freedom he took us all and moved to another fahm. He used to come to
our cabin in the afternoon when he was restin' and set on the front po'ch and sing a song that went like this: I wish -
I wish - I wish, I wish I was young again. He sang some other songs which I don't remember. 'Member I had chills
from eatin' too many wild grapes what we gathered in the fields. We would go out and pick black haws,
huckleberries and black walnuts an'what a feast we would have. Guess I must a eat too many of them there grapes
'cause they gave me the chills.
"When people were a refugeeing from the plantation my mama told me not to run from the Yankees else they would
shoot me. An' I never did run. I guess that what saved my life. My mama was a cook on de plantation and was sure
a good woman. She never had time to learn us much of anything but she was always good to us.
"I 'member a song we used to sing when we was out playing. It went: Hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree, and we
go marchin' on.
"Learned it from some grown folks we was with an' I guess they got it from the Yankees. I was a little girl when the
big wah come and I don' 'member much about it 'cept that they was no fightin' near our house."
Louis Neill is seventy-seven years old, she said, and is in good health except a stroke which she suffered several
years ago which left her face partially paralyzed.
