Charles W. Dickens

Charles W. Dickens was born August 16, 1861, the year the war began, and lived at 1115 East Lenoir Street in Raleigh, North Carolina, when he was interviewed. His mother, Ferebee Dickens, and her children were enslaved by Washington Scarborough; his father, John Dickens, belonged to Obediah Dickens. He had nine brothers and sisters: Allen, Douglas, Jake, Johnnie, Jonas, Katie, Matilda, Francis and Emily. About a dozen people were enslaved on the plantation, and the mistress did her own bossing. His father, a carpenter, also split slats and sold baskets, and was allowed to keep the money.

He remembered Union troops passing so thick on the road they looked "like your fingers," with chickens crowing on their saddles. His mother hid a shoulder of meat under a mattress, and the soldiers took it anyway. When the young Charles spat at them, his mother snatched him back, afraid they would kill him. He also recalled that before the surrender one of the Scarborough sons stabbed his uncle Louis in a fight so badly that his uncle had to carry his own wounds to the house; Louis survived and was over a hundred at the time of the interview.

About a year after the war his father moved the family to Franklin County by steer cart. Dickens credited Abraham Lincoln with freeing the enslaved and said he had voted for Franklin Roosevelt and would again.