The dread of being separated, and sold away down south, should they remain on the old estate, united them as one man, and kept them patient and alert.
We started from home about eleven o'clock at night, and till the following noon made no permanent halt. The men trudged on foot, the children were put into the wagon, and now and then my wife rode for a while. On we went through Alexandria, Culpepper, Fauquier, Harper's Ferry, Cumberland, over the mountains on the National Turnpike, to Wheeling. In all the taverns along the road were regular places for the droves of negroes continually passing along under the system of the internal slave trade. In these we lodged, and our lodging constituted our only expense, for our food we carried with us. To all who asked questions I showed my master's pass, authorizing me to conduct his negroes to Kentucky, and often was the encomium of "smart nigger " bestowed on me, to my immense gratification.
At the places where we stopped for the
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