By Dr. Charles Pendley
Contributing Writer

When Freedom Came
This year, 2021, is our county’s Bicentennial year, marking 200 years since our County’s founding by an act of the Georgia state legislature on May 15, 1821. It is altogether fitting to look back on the last two centuries, on the people and events that made Henry County what it is today and – hopefully – to draw some lessons from our county’s history.

Among the five or six most important events in our County’s history is when slavery ended in 1865. This article seeks to capture what the historic moment was like in the words of those who actually lived and experienced it.

As the main source for this article, we are indeed fortunate to have transcripts of interviews with former slaves conducted by the Federal Writers Project under the Works Progress Administration in 1936-38. By that time, most of the people interviewed were in their late 80s or early 90s, but still had vivid memories of the historic moment when freedom came.

This article weaves together the memories of former slaves from Henry and nearby counties. They are Charlie Tye Smith, 86 years old, Lewis Ogletree, about 88 years old, Charlie King, about 85 years old, Henry Nix, 90 years old, G.W Pattillo, 84 years old, Emily Mays, 77 years old, Mollie Mitchell, 85 years old, and Mollie Malone, age unknown.

Uninvited Visitors
The first clear sign that the plantation system in Henry County was under a mortal threat that was soon going to end it forever was the invasion of Henry County by Union forces under the command of General William Sherman in November 1864. Since most able-bodied men were away at war, the plantations and farms in Henry County were especially vulnerable. Many were plundered of food, animals and valuables and their mills, gins, barns, storehouses and crops were destroyed. Here’s how some people who experienced the Yankee onslaught remembered it years later:
Charlie Tye Smith remembers when the Yankees came through. “The first thing they did when they reached the Master’s place was to break open the smokehouse and throw the best hams and shoulders out to us, but as soon as the Yankees left folks made them put it all back into the smokehouse.”
Fanny Nix remembers, “there were more than a hundred Yankees, riding mighty poor old wore out horses. All the men wanted something to eat and some good horses. They poured into the smokehouse and the kitchen. How those Yankee men cut and hacked at the best hams. After they ate all they could hold, they saddled up the master’s finest horses and away they rode!”

Lewis Ogeltree remembers standing inside the picket fence with a lot of others watching for Sherman’s army, and when the Yankees got close enough to be heard, they hid in the bushes or under the house. The Yankees poured into the yard and into the house, making Lettie, his mother, open the smokehouse and get them the best whiskey. They then made his mother cook them a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs.

“I remember them Yankees coming down the road stealin’ as they went along. They swapped their old bag of bones horses for good, fat horses. I never saw so many poor horses at one time in my life. The Yankees stole all the meat, chickens and even bedclothes before they left.”

A few months later following events at a place called Appomattox in faraway Virginia, the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee had surrendered and Confederate President Jefferson Davis had fled and was captured and taken prisoner by the Yankees in south Georgia. Within a few days the short-lived experiment known as the Confederacy was over, and with it, slavery.

Free at Last
Lewis Ogletree remembers very clearly when he got his freedom: “The Master sent me and my Mammy out to the cabins to tell everyone to come up to the Big House. When they got there, there were so many that were up on the porch, on the steps and all over the yard.

The Master stood up on the front porch and announced, ‘You are all free now. You don’t belong to me no more. Now pack up your things and go on off.’ Oh Lord, how we did cry, and most of us did not leave.

After the war ended, G.W. Patillo recalls that Master Ingram called his people together and told them of their freedom, saying to them, “Now Mr. Lincoln has whipped the South, and we are going back to the Union. You are as free as I am, and if you wish to remain here you may. If not, you may go any place you wish. I am not rich, but we can work together here for both our families, sharing everything we raise equally.”

Mollie Malone, from a plantation in the Locust Grove area, remembers as a young girl that after the war she and her mother “hired out” on a farm in Butts County for two years, where they worked in the fields. Her family “knocked around awhile,” and then they moved to Griffin where they settled down. Mollie became a familiar figure driving an ox-cart along the streets of Griffin, doing odd jobs like cooking, cleaning and minding children for families and leading a useful life in the community. Besides her own family, Mollie has raised fifteen orphaned Negro children. She was about 90 years old when she was interviewed in the late 1930s.

Mollie Mitchell was 15 years old when one day the owner came out to the fields and told them they were as free as he was. Her family stayed with the owner. He gave them a horse or mule, groceries and a “patch to work”, that they paid for in about three years. Before the war, whenever people on the plantation reached 70 years old, the Master set them free and gave them a mule, cow and a “patch” of land.

Mollie married when she was 17 years old and moved to her husband’s farm. She had 9 children. She “spun cloth” for their clothes, and did any kind of work, even the men’s work. In 1936 she was living in Griffin.

The end of the Civil War in April 1865 marked the dawn of a new era in the history of Henry County. The old order was gone. Stirring scenes from the last acts of Gone with the Wind would repeat themselves across Henry County and throughout the Old South.

After the war, Emily Mays’ father rented a “patch” of land from the owner and the whole family worked in the fields, except Emily. She was not big enough, so they let her work in the “big house.” She helped tend to the babies, “washed and ironed table napkins and waited on them ‘generally’” for which she can’t remember receiving any pay, but they fed and clothed her. Later Emily worked in her father’s fields until she married, then she came to Griffin, where she has lived ever since. She was 75 years old and had cooked for other families until she was too old to “see good.” Emily lived with her daughter in Griffin when she was interviewed in 1937.

Thus freedom came. There was no agreed definition of freedom, no plans or instructions about what to do when you were “free.” What would the future bring? The once-despised president Abraham Lincoln was dead. No one had any money; what money there was worthless, and there was nothing to buy anyway. What freedom meant played out in individual plantations and farms throughout the county. Suddenly, without any warning or preparation, people were responsible for their own life and their future.

After the Civil War ended, some people did not even know they were free. They were not told by their former owners. Some were even tricked into signing “contracts” which bound them to their former owners for several years.

Epilogue
In the uncertain years after the Civil War, thousands of people, including many from Henry County, thronged to cities like Atlanta, McDonough, Griffin, and Macon, whose populations more than doubled by 1870. Many others chose to stay on the same farms where they were born, living and working, only now as sharecroppers, tenant farmers or laborers. Even though slavery had ended, the old racial attitudes and beliefs did not, as we shall later see.

Others remember that the people on the plantation were glad when they were told they were free, but there were no big demonstrations or celebrations, as they were afraid of what might happen afterwards. Many, especially the older people, women and children, stayed on the land they knew, while others, mostly younger men, left the plantation as soon as they could.

When asked his opinion of slavery and freedom, a former slave said that he would rather be free because he is able to do as he pleases. On the other hand, he did not have to worry about food and shelter then as he does now.

Their voices are long silent now, but their words and memories live on in article such as this one. Lewis, Mollie, Fanny, G. W. Patillo, Emily and the other people we met in this article never imagined that their words and memories would be of interest to people like us over 80 years later. They did not know at the time that they were living history.

The next article in this bicentennial series will be about the achievements – and failures – of Reconstruction in Henry County as the county struggled to recover from the economic and social devastation of the Civil War and once again become an integral part of the United States they had left only five years earlier.