Marriages on the Freeman Plantation, were conducted in much the same manner as they are today. Mr. Hammond only remembers attending just one marriage of a colored couple. A white minister performed the ceremony right in the mistress's yard as every one white and colored looked on. After the ceremony the usual frolic did not take place; however on other plantations frolics often took place immediately following a marriage. Whiskey served as refreshment for some while others had to content themselves with barbecue.
"When we got sick we were not allowed to suffer through negligence on the part of our owner", remarked Mr. Hammond. Family doctors of the white families attended the slaves and through them they were well cared for. Castor oil was the favorite home remedy used in those days and it could always be found on the family shelf.
"My first impression of the civil war was received when the methodist and Baptist Churches began to disagree", remarked Mr. Hammond. He continued,--"One day as my uncle and I worked on Miss Adeline's truck farm Wheeler's Calvary, a group of Confederate soldiers came to the field and forced us to give them our two best mules. In their place they left their old half starved horses. We immediately rode to town and informed the mistress of what had taken place. During this time Confederate soldiers were known to capture slaves and force them to dig ditches, known as breastworks. My mistress became frightened, and locked me in the closet until late in the evening. She then fixed a basket of food and instructed me as to the direction in which to travel back to the field. It was a common sight to see soldiers marching on to Macon, Ga., in the mornings and in the evenings see the same group on their way back running from the Yanks".
Mr. Hammond made the following statement concerning the end of the war. "Our mistress told us we were free; however, I was too young to realize just what freedom would mean to us, but somehow I knew that we would have to be responsible for our own upkeep. Doctors bills, medicines, clothing, (etc) would have to be paid by us from then on. After that we worked for anyone who would hire us and never earned over 25 or 30 cents a day. Sometimes our pay consisted of a peck of meal or a piece of meat."