Carrie Lewis, a slave on Captain Ward's plantation in Richmond County, said, when asked where she went when freedom came, "Me? I didn't went nowhere. Da niggers come 'long wid de babies and dey backs, and say I wus free, and I tell 'em I was free already. Didn't make no diffunce to me--freedom."
Old Susannah from the Freeman plantation said, "When freedom come I got mad at Marster. He cut off my hair. I was free so I come from Ca'lina to Augusta to sue him. I walk myself to death! Den I found I couldn't sue him over here in Georgia! I had to go back. He was jus' nachally mad 'cause we was free. Soon as I got here, dere was a lady on de street, she tole me to come in, tek a seat. I stayed dere. Nex' mornin' I couldn't stand up. My limbs was hurtin' all over."
Tim from the plantation in Virginia remembers distinctly when freedom came to his people. "When we wus about to have freedom," he said, "they thought the Yankees was a-goin' to take all the slaves so they put us on trains and run us down south. I went to a place whut they call 'Butler' in Georgia, then they sent me on down to the Chattahoochee, where they were cuttin' a piece of railroad, then to Quincy, then to Tallahassee. When the war ended I weren't 'xactly in 'Gusta, I was in Irwinville, where they caught Mars. Jeff Davis. Folks said he had de money train, but I never seed no gold, nor nobody whut had any. I come on up to 'Gusta and jined de Bush Arbor Springfield Church.
"When freedom came they called all the white people to the court house first, and told them the darkies ware free. Then on a certain day they called all the colored people down to the parade ground. They had a big stand," explained Eugene Wesley Smith, whose father was a slave in Augusta. "All the Yankees and some of our leading colored men got up there and spoke, and told the negroes: "You are free. Don't steal! Now work and make a living. Do honest work, make an honest living and support yourself and children. There are no more masters. You are free!"
"When the colored troops came in, they came in playing:
'Don't you see the lightning? Don't you hear the thunder? It isn't the lightning, It isn't the thunder But the buttons on the Negro uniform!'