Friday, June 19, 2009

Skg's Juneteenth post links to an unbelievably great letter from an ex-slave, Jourdan Anderson, to his former master, responding to an offer to return to the plantation as a worker (paid, evidently).

The sarcasm is priceless:
I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living.
I highly recommend reading the whole letter.

1 comment:

Sharon K. Goetz said...

And--someone commented (not there but a crosspost location) that at age 50, Anderson was employed as a coachman; someone else noted that he was buried in Dayton.