This is taken from a newspaper article, written by Albertus Vogt, and published
in the Ocala Daily Banner, Wednesday, August 10, 1910.
Albertus describes his early family life in Hancock County, Georgia, during the
Civil War:
“No man is more grateful in his remembrance to the faith of the colored
people, kept as slaves to their owners’ families in the days of our civil war
troubles than am I. When my own good father, who lost his life in the fray,
left our home for the front, on our plantation there was only my step-mother,
a young and beautiful woman, and her sister, who was our governess, and myself
and my three small brothers and two little sisters, and, with our many slaves,
we lived there on a big cotton plantation, and ournegro quarters were in sight
of the “big house”, and both our white overseers were away in the army, and my
step-mother’s word and orders were the only law to all of those big, strong ne-
groes, and she ruled them as any queen might rule her subjects, and there was
never a word or act of strife and never one of them ran away, although the
“Stoneman raiders” twice camped on our lawns and housed their officers in our
home, and Sherman’s army was for three whole days marching past and camping
in our grounds. Only one negro girl, called Polly, left our quarters, and
when Dr. Vogt, my good uncle, brought us to Florida, many of my father’s old
slaves came with us to Ocala and worked with myself in the fields, and my
mother’s head cook, “Mom Harriet”, also came to Florida with us and cooked
for us on the Dr. Vogt’s plantation for many years, and I have not seen on
earth nor in history such devotion as old “Mom Harriet” and Mom Betts”, two
negro sisters, gave to my mother’s children and to my step-mother and my aunt,
who both now live in Ocala, and whom you doubtless know, will tell you these
lines are true. And if I may ever forget the debt of gratitude my sisters and
myself and brothers owe to my father’s slaves, I know the good God, who cares
for all, will forget me, and I’ll vainly call to Him for merciful remembrance.
And I am teaching my children to cherish their father’s grateful remembrance
of his father’s war-time slaves.”