Ex-Slave Alice Houston's Christmas Memories
Alice Houston was born October 22, 1859. She was a slave of Judge Jim Watkins on his small plantation in Hays County, near San Marcos, Texas and served as house girl to his wife, Mrs. Lillie Watkins...
View ArticleConfederate Civil War Christmas Memories of in Union, South Carolina
Christmas During the Civil War in South CarolinaAmerican Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940.Mrs. Ida Baker, E. Main St., Union, S.C. Interviewer: Caldwell Sims,...
View ArticleEx-Slave Angie Garrett's Christmas Memories
Angie Garrett was a slave on a boat owned by Capt Mooring running between Mobile, Alabama, and Aberdeen, Mississippi. On land, they lived in Dekalb:"Us didn't git no presents at Christmas. Sometimes us...
View ArticleConfederate Civil War Christmas Memories of Sarah Morgan Dawson 1862 in...
A Confederate Girl's Diary: Sarah Morgan DawsonBorn into a wealthy New Orleans family, Sarah Morgan, 1842-1909, was the daughter of an influential judge who moved his family to Baton Rouge when Sarah...
View ArticleEx-Slave Hannah Crasson's Christmas Memories
Hannah Crasson was born a slave on John William Walton's plantation 4 miles from Garner and 13 miles from Raleigh, in Wake County, North Carolina:"Dey gave us Christmas and other holidays. Den dey, de...
View ArticleConfederate Civil War Christmas Memories of Anita Dwyers Withers in Virginia
DIARY OF ANITA DWYER WITHERS 1860-1865A devout Roman Catholic, Anita Dwyer Withers, wife of a United States and Confederate army officer, lived at her home in San Antonio, Texas, and briefly in...
View ArticleEx-Slave Lou Williams' Christmas Memories
Lou Williams was born in southern Maryland. She and her family were slaves of Abram and Kitty Williams, and Lou served as nursemaid to her master's children from the age of eight until after the Civil...
View ArticleConfederate Civil War Christmas Memories of Mary Chestnut 1863-64 in South...
Mary Chestnut's A Diary From Dixie:Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, 1823-1886, was born in Stateburg, South Carolina, in the High Hills of Santee, to Mary Boykin and her husband, Stephen Decatur Miller. Her...
View ArticleEx-Slave Charlotte Beverly's Christmas Memories
Charlotte Beverly was born a slave in Montgomery County, Texas. She has lived most of her life within a radius of 60 miles from Houston:"Every year they have big Christmas dinner and ham and turkey and...
View ArticleConfederate Civil War Christmas Memories of Mary Jeffreys Bethell 1861-1862...
Diary of Mary Jeffreys Bethell, January 1st 1861 - Dec. 1865:Mary Jeffreys Bethell, born in 1821, was the daughter of Phereba Hinton Jeffreys and farmer and Methodist preacher George Washington...
View ArticleEx-Slave Martha Bradley's Christmas Memories
Martha Bradley was a slave to Dr. Lucas of Mt. Meigs, Alabama, long before the War between the States:"But Marster Lucas gin us big times on Christmas and July. Us'd have big dinners and all the...
View ArticleConfederate Civil War Christmas Memories of Dolly Sumner Lunt 1864 in Georgia
A Woman's Wartime Journal: an Account of the Passage over Georgia's Plantationof Sherman's Army on the March to the Sea, as Recorded in the Diary of Dolly Sumner Lunt (Mrs. Thomas Burge) :Dolly Lunt...
View ArticleEx-Slave Ellen Butler's Christmas Memories
Ellen Butler was born a slave to Richmond Butler, near Whiska Chitte, in the northern part of Calacasieu Parish (now a part of Beau Regard Parish), in Louisiana:"On Christmas time they give us a meal....
View ArticleReconstruction Christmas Memories of Mary Ames 1865
From A New England Woman's Diary in Dixie in 1865This book relates the experience of two northern white women, Mary Ames, 1832-1903, and Emily Bliss, who were employed in 1865 as teachers by the...
View ArticleEx-Slave Emma Taylor's Christmas Memories
Emma Taylor was born a slave of the Greer family, in Mississippi. She and her mother later were sold to a Texan:Sometimes de niggers danced and played de fiddle and us chillen played in de yard. We...
View ArticleA Civil War Christmas letter home
A Civil War Christmas letterWinslow Homer. Christmas in a Civil War Camp The illustration is captioned, "Christmas Boxes in Camp - Christmas 1861." It is the front cover of the January 4, 1862 edition...
View ArticleEx-Slave Nicey Pugh's Christmas Memories
Nicey Pugh was born a slave to Master Jim Bettis in Alabama:"At Christmas time, Massa would have a bunch of niggers to kill a hog an' barbecue him, an' de womens would make' lasses cake, an' ole massa...
View ArticleWoman's Work - December, 1859 Diary of Sarah Young Bovard, 31-year-old mother...
About the writer: Sarah Waldsmith Young was born on February 21, 1828 in Hamilton County, Ohio. She was the daughter of Abner Young, born 1799 in Maine, and Jane Waldsmith, born 1806 in Hamilton...
View ArticleEx-Slave Mary Reynold's Christmas Memories
Mary Reynolds was born in slavery to the Kilpatrick family in Black River, Louisiana:"They give all the niggers fresh meat on Christmas and a plug tobacco all round. The highes' cotton picker gits a...
View ArticleSlaves - Food "Beef at Christmas..."
Reuben G. Macy, a member of the Society of Friends, Hudson, N. Y., who resided in South Carolina. "The slaves had no food allowed them besides corn, excepting at Christmas, when they had beef.''Mr....
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