95 comments

  1. FYI: Butler, AL is not in Butler county (in reference to Butler county courthouse picture in the article). Easy mistake!

  2. Great piece of history……how quick we Southerners forget

  3. As has been mentioned earlier by a commenter, Butler, Alabama is NOT in Butler County. It is in and is the county seat of Choctaw County, Alabama. With that having been said, I pose the question is this story from Butler, Alabama or from somewhere in Butler County?

    1. Thank you for the correction.

    2. This is a story told by my grandmother. She lived in Butler which is in Choctaw County, Ala only after she grew up. He childhood was spent in Mississippi.

      1. In the 90’s I heard a story from an older black man about his Grandmother near Red Bay, AL (I think). She was about12 when the Yankees were coming and the “Master” had all the slaves take the valuables (gold, silver), bag them from the house and bury them near the shotgun slave quarters. They dug a hole where they dumped ashes from the stoves and covered it up with the ashes.
        She was so frightened of the reputation of the soldiers that she actually forgot.
        Then in the early 30’s she remembered. She was sitting on what remained of some steps and the tree near the ashes was huge now. She told her son that she remembered people burying something next to that tree and when she told about the circumstances, they dug up the things. They sold them and bought the farm and the grandson now farms over two hundred acres. This was told to me in the presence of a business man I was visiting there. Mr. David Sibley (now deceased). I absolutely believe it to be true. My thought at the time was “Pay Day Someday” the old sermon of preacher R.G. Lee.

  4. Parker is my maiden name. (interesting!)

  5. Excellent! George Dennis Andrews

    1. Excellent, a window into another time. ‘The Yankees are coming”. I am still outraged that women and children were terrorized by this rabble from the north. Lee never allowed his troops to loot and burn in Penn. , even though the payback would have been warranted.

  6. History is never offensive….get over it…..it’s the truth….a person’s perception is a judgmental call on a personal level…duh

    1. It’s only offensive when it repeats.

    2. YOU are offensive when you disagree with someone and have a snide remark like “Duh”. Whatever happened to young people with manners and respect? Because someone does not agree with you does not mean they are dumb. By your photo, you’re too old now to teach manners and respect for others. Sad.

  7. Thank you for sharing a historical view from the eyes of a woman from her own childhood.

  8. I really enjoyed reading this.I am saddened that you have to preface this.I have read several slave narratives and it’s all just personal accounts of history of the times.

  9. Enjoyed this so much. We are kin to the Parkers and lived 20miles from Columbus,Ms.

  10. Very interesting account of her childhood. Love this kind of stories.

  11. Interesting account from the perspective of a young girl. Thank you for sharing.

  12. Very interesting story. Loved reading it.

  13. Thank you for sharing.

  14. Thank you for the story, love history.

  15. Great story of days from the past. I hope we in modern days do not have to go through anything like that!

  16. I love all of your Alabama stories. I have never lived in Alabama, but loved visiting your beautiful state where my daughter and all of her children and grandchildren live. Thank you for sharing. Hazel Hill

  17. True_Lincoln +His Yankee’s were about-like ISIS is to-day In Far-East or Boston….( any-thing go’s our Police Officers not aloud too Stop-This. ) Some-thing wrong in this Picture.

  18. An insight into a time long ago. It is wonderful to gain such views from another time but always with caution since it can be misleading in it’s truth. I can understand the incongruity of trying to make the slaves seem as happy folk loving to serve and never bemoaning their dire existence. I can even accept that perhaps on this little plantation property they were as well treated as they could be treated. But, it remains they were owned body and soul and it was not legal for them to go about the county unescorted and had not the freedom to travel at all. We Southerners love to think on those days as halcyon and carefree but that is not the true history and we must never forget that or allow others to portray it as anything other than the merciless life that it was then. Slave owners were by and large very wealthy for their day and gained all of that wealth from the unpaid labor these slaves were forced to perform. Slavery is an abomination and it must always be noted.
    Of course this woman that was a young child at the time of these memories could not have changed any of that but when she wrote the piece later in life she should have made a point of noting that they were owned whether her father bought them or inherited them they were property plain and simple.
    I dare say if this article were of white Christian folk made slaves to Boko Haram today it would not be looked upon so benevolently. And rightly so.

    1. Your comparison of White Southern planters (and slaveholders) to Boko Haram is a bit of overreach…and Simon Legree was an anomaly in that period. Slaves were always a valuable investment. However, we all realize that it was not banjos and magnolias and nobody wants to pretend that is so. Thank you for your otherwise thoughtful comments.

  19. Great story. Nicely told.

  20. Great site….please don’t apologize for the truth in history. Please!

  21. The reason I include a preface is because this website reaches people all over the world and everyone does not have the same background or perspective as we do in America. Some people may not understand that this story was written many years ago and I wanted to make that clear.

    1. Washington DC the head of-snake have went along with hand-full of group’s….Bible out school’s….Now the individual property is being destroyed and Police Officer;s not aloud too stop-this.We need leader’s not thug’s in DC going along with this behavior.

      1. So, what I am hearing you say is it would be acceptable or rather even so far as preferred that religion be forced on all children in schools. I take it then that you agree that the madrassas of Pakistan are the preferred schools for the young Muslims? That one should be forced at a young age to profess your undying loyalty to ONE religion without being educated in the sciences or literature? Oh what a horrible world you must want for your grandchildren. One in which failure to follow the “law of god” as interpreted by the ruling class would subject a person to punishments not seen in 600 years outside of the Middle East. That a woman raped is to be a woman stoned to death for daring to entice a man to rape her. A child put to the whip for not bowing when a priest walks the path along which the child plays. These were the types of things that the first Europeans that came to this land were running from so they might be able to live FREE of the tyranny of religious LAW. They knew that FREE and PLENTIFUL EDUCATION was the salvation of their children and they employed every moment to assuring that it came to pass. Moses was not a Founding Father, Ben Franklin was though.

      2. You really need to learn the difference between plural and possessive.

  22. looks like a house my mama and 7 brother and sisters lived in at the bottom of Needem’s Hill.Randolph County,Al.

  23. my grandfather was a young boy during the civil war his older brothers fought for the south….he told my mother stories of how he and his friends would throw rocks at the yankee soldiers ….his family at the time lived in georgia they later moved to alabama

  24. THIS LOOKS LIKE A MANSION COMPARED TO WHAT WE LIVED IN DURING 1940’S AND I UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEMS DURING THOSE YEARS AND I PRAY NO ONE HAS TO LIVE LIKE THAT AGAIN.

  25. I wish I knew the story of my 2 great grandmother, my 2nd great grandfather died in the war, leaving her with 7 children, 5 under 12, one being my great grandfather. I have looked for her on census, but can not locate her until 1910 where she was living with her youngest daughter. She also died in 1910, and is buried with some of my other relatives. But I think of her all the time and what she must have gone through. What a treasure this story is for their family!

  26. I really enjoyed this story. I hate that the truth may be found offensive by some.

  27. i would live here RIGHT NOW.

  28. I’ve heard stories in my area when word got around that the Yankees were coming people buried their valuables to keep the Yankees from robbing them. Enjoyed the story.

  29. That was an Awesome account of this young girls life. I could actually see in my head all that happening. Thanks for sharing.

  30. This was very interesting. Sure did enjoy reading it!

  31. Civil War times through a childs eyes is interesting with some of her side lights of personal life of her era.

    My family history: they put food in a grave yard to keep from those troops looking for food

  32. I so enjoyed this story from our past.
    Please keep them coming.

  33. I would live there right now

  34. Having read Mrs. Parker’s story, I would like to share a little of the childhood story of another child of that time..
    The story I tell begins with a slave woman, the cook for her master’s family. She was forbidden to give even the smallest bit of the delicious dishes she prepared to her very young daughter who played in the kitchen while her mother worked.
    After being warned, the slave woman was discovered giving a little of her master’s plentiful food to her child. Her punishment was a horrible, bloody beating (it is not known if she survived the bludgeoning). But that was not all. Her little girl was sold so far away that the two never saw each other again. The child was so young she only knew her mother’s name as Mama.
    During the years of her enslavement, until the war ended in 1865, the girl was sold five times, always to cruel masters. She learned to fear the white faces of the men who beat and raped her. The beatings left deep, painful scars in her thighs that brought her misery all of her life.. She cried “Mama!” but her mother never came. She forgot how to smile. Her face remained solumn even when freedom came at the end of the war.
    I am the great granddaughter of that little girl sold from her mother so many years ago. I marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1963. Because America has grown since its beginnings, I am educated, able to vote, free in body and mind. For many years, I have been a motivational speaker promoting racial harmony in various parts of the country..
    I am now 82 years old, and no Pollyanna. I am aware that recent headlines have been discoraging, Setbacks happen, and prejudice, like a living thing, struggles to remain, capable of warping the understanding of souls of any color. But I have seen the glory of the Lord in this nation, and I continue to believe.
    My grandmother used to say, “God moves in mysterious ways.” This nation has been destined by God to live up to its ideal words, many of which were originally addressed only to white males with property, but now speak to all of us.
    I believed in America when I marched in Washington, D. C., in 1963, as one of 250,000 black Americans (there were also some whites in the march). Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., the objective of the march was “jobs and freedom.” indiscriminately. If I had not believed that change was possible, I would not have marched. I still believe in America.
    The story of Clemmie and the story of my great grandmother’s childhood are the benchmarks against which I measure the progress of the nation to date. The child, Clemmie, thought her slaves, whom she loved, were happy in their condition, and could not understand Marshal’s leading a protest after he was free. He was protesting the wretchedness of discrimination. Nor did Clemmie understand the haggard faces of the former slaves when they were free. She thought it was evidence that they were better off as slaves.
    Freedom is life’s most precious of human conditions. No free person would exchange that freedom, however difficult, for the chains of slavery. Slaves, no matter how well their masters believed they were treated, still longed to be free to seek their own destinies, even in hardship. These are the stories that came down to me from my ancesters — the same desire for freedom that made the nations founders pull up roots and cross an ocean. This I know from the verbal histories I heard as a child from the descendants of slaves such as my grandmother, experiences they would not share with white people. But at last, our tongues are loosed and we speak, because America has progressed from those days.
    Slavery was very damaging to black people, reducing their self-esteem. It also damaged white people, giving them a false sense of superiority that Clemmie expresses when she compliments Marshal’s intelligence and talent not as a person but as a Negro. Clemmie the child could not be expected to know that human intelligence and human stupidity are not affected by or limited to any skin color or our arbitrary designations of race. Marshal’s enslavement prevented her from knowing him simply as another human. The core of who he was remained hidden, as it had to be under the institution of bondage. I hopw my great grandmother’s story helps to remove residual separatist attitudes that may remain as barriers to understanding.
    According to the Holy Bible, sins of the fathers are visited to the fourth generation. We have been generations healing from the sin of slavery, both those of us who are black and those of us who are white. But we have been healing, and I for one will work for the continuing healing of our nation in every way I can.
    One person commented that God had been taken from our schools. I disagree. Within our pledge of allegiance are the inspiring words, “one nation under God,” and “liberty and justice for all.” These are righteous words, for they guide us toward what is right. .
    In some nations, children are not allowed to worship in any way except that decided by the state. We American parents are free to teach our children of God with no government interference.
    When I was a highschool girl, I took the Bible to school every day and read it in my free time. No one opposed me.
    The freedom worship however I individually choose, and even not to worship if I so choose, is the most precious freedom afforded to all Americans.

    1. An eloquent response.

  35. Hi there to all, the contents present at this site are actually amazing
    for people knowledge, well, keep up the good work fellows.

  36. Yep what we need….mire $##% stirring

  37. Thank you, a little glimpse into history is always an eye opener.

  38. Another great book to read is by my 3rd cousin 4x removed, Letitia McCrery Burwell:

    https://archive.org/details/girlslifeinvirgiburw

  39. Love those old stories of history

  40. reminds me of my grandparents place in rock springs, al

  41. Love this story, woukd like to read more!

  42. Very interesting, thank you

  43. Hi,
    The author of this story was my great grandmother, Mama Cox, as well called her. I was about four years old when she died in Butler, AL. She was a wonderful Christian lady and loved by all who knew her. I can assure you that everything she wrote was true. They were not living on a plantation. My great grandfather was a young physician just starting out when the war began. They lost all their children during the war except for Clementine. Is her story in your book?

  44. Wonderful story! I do wish she had continued on with her life’s story though. Wanted to read more about her from her pen.

  45. I truly enjoyed reading this story I’m not a reader but all the things you post catch my eye thank you so much

  46. Nice story and I was surprised she went to college in Verona Mississippi. I have passed where this college stood many times in Lee County Mississippi and was told of the old college that stood there.

  47. Very interesting. Wish I could find stories or journals by my own ancestors.

  48. How I would love to find some stories such as these on some of my families.

  49. Very interesting read. Thanks for sharing!

  50. Very interesting. Love first hand accounts. Wish we knew what happened to Annes, if she had a happy life after that. Amazing that those freed slaves seemed to have affection for their former enslavers. Love and forgiveness. Very powerful.

  51. I always enjoy Alabama Pioneers – fascinated by first hand accounts from those long ago days

  52. Lillian Stevens Young, Bill Young

  53. Glen Williams the little girl was from Butler.

    1. June thanks. An interesting little story, her perspective is one that we don’t know, for many hard to appreciate I’m sure.

  54. Fascinating perspective of a child during the War.

  55. What can be said? I was right there with the author. My Grandmother often talked about her family history during the Civil War. This writing brought back memories of those stories in what is now Chilton County…Cobbs and Shelby’s.

  56. Anyone who pretends to be offended by this is mistaken. These people and their lives deserve to be judged in accordance with the times and their lives to be painted against the canvas of the reality they existed in.
    Nothing in this is mean spirited or cruel. No person living today, of any race, is resposible for the ills of slavery that existed. None alive have been slaves and no others owned slaves.If we destroy history we all suffer unimaginable harm. Growing up in the 1950s in rural Georgia I saw many interactions between people that taught me many lessons. Some taught me how to treat others and as many taught me how I should never behave. If cruelty and unkindness are mere rumors how are we to know how to keep them far away from our lives?

  57. Such an interesting story from that time in our history!

  58. Dorothy Scofield i remember your grandmother. Is this a book would love to read it. Haven’t seen you in a while, Hope all is well with you.

  59. Want to read more about the Civil War? Read STUBBORN MEN AND
    PARCHED CORN about the 18th
    Georgia Volunteer infantry regiment written by B GENERAL
    JERRY C MCABEE USMC.

  60. What people today have to remember it was a different time and different standards but it is OUR history.

  61. I would love to order this but the link opens to a jackpot winning.

  62. I’m not offended. It is our history, our life at the time and it should never be erased.

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