Carter J. Jackson [Possibly Carter J. Johnson]

Carter J. Jackson was blunt: "If you's wants to know 'bout slavery time, it was Hell." He was born in Montgomery, Alabama. His father, Charles, came from Florida and his mother, Charlotte, from Tennessee; both had been sold to a minister named Rogers. Carter had seven brothers and three sisters. He watched, with four of his siblings, as his mother was sold for $500. "Cryin' didn't stop 'em from sellin' our mammy 'way from us."

Rogers held about 42 people. The horn blew at four in the morning, and anyone who did not turn out immediately was tied up and whipped by the overseer; Steve O'Neal was the Black driver. At night the overseer walked the quarters to keep people from leaving. Each Sunday he gave every cabin enough shorts to make bread for one day. Carter took chickens because people did not have enough to eat, and said he did not think it was wrong, since they had earned what they ate. Deer were caught by setting sharp stakes inside the pea field.

He was taken to the war to wait on the enslaver's son, Dick, and stood nearby when Dick was killed at "Pittsburg," likely Pittsburg Landing, the Battle of Shiloh. Before dying, Dick asked a neighbor to take Carter home. Rogers moved to Texas in 1863 and kept Carter working as before for four years after emancipation. Carter then lived with his father until 1871, married, and settled near Tatum, Texas. He helped build the railroad from Longview to Big Sandy and raised seven children.