Former Alabama Slave to the Freedmen's Bureau Superintendent of the Subdistrict of Louisville, Enclosing the Former Slave's Affidavit

Louisville Ky  August 14th 1865

Col   I have the honor to forward the enclosed affidavit and ask the assistance of the military authorities in procuring my own and my mothers and Sisters Freedom Papers under the Presidents Proclamation of Sept. 22nd 1862.  We claim protection under that Proclamation from the fact of our living in one of the States mentioned in Said Proclamation.  We further ask your assistance in procuring our wages for the time we have labored for these parties as slaves since we have been actually free   Respectfully

her           
Amy X Moore
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[Enclosure]

[Louisville, Ky.  August 14? 1865]

Amy Moore Colored, being duly Sworn deposeth and Says, that in the Summer of 1863 [1862] the United States Soldiers under command of Major McMillen came to her masters house in Huntsville Alabama, (her master and his family having left them) and carried away deponent together with her mother and three Sisters,  that they brought us all to Nashville Tenn where we were put on board of a transport and Started for Cincinnati Ohio   that when we arrived at Louisville Ky we were arrested by a man who Said he was a watchman and taken to the Slave pen on Second Street Louisville Ky and kept there two or three days when we were taken to the Depot of the Louisville and Nashville Rail Road and there another watchman took charge of us and took us to Shepherdsville Ky and kept us confined several weeks when we were sold at auction by the Sherriff of Bullett County Ky.  Dr. McKay bought deponent and paid for her the sum of Five Hundred (500) dollars   James Funk bought deponents mother and youngest Sister paying Six Hundred (600) dollars for the two, and Soon after Sold her mother to Judge Hoegner who now holds her as a Slave   James Shepherd bought my Sister Nora and Richard Deets bought my sister Ann, and further deponent saith that she and her mother and Sisters have been held as Slaves Since the above Sale and Still continue to be so held.

her            
Amy X Moore
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[Endorsement]  Bureau Refugees Freedmen &c  Sub Dist Louisville Louisville Ky.  Aug 15″ /65   Respectfully referred to Capt Harlan Asst. Adjt. Genl. Dept. of Ky. with the request that all the parties concerned in abducting, returning to and holding in Slavery these Freed people be arrested.  H A McCaleb  Lt. Col. and Supt

Amy Moore to Col., 14 Aug. 1865, enclosing affidavit of Amy Moore, [14? Aug. 1865], Unregistered Letters Received, series 1209, Louisville KY Superintendent, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, Record Group 105, National Archives. Both letter and affidavit are in the same handwriting, the affidavit undated but subsequently sworn and signed before a justice of the peace on August 15, 1865. Other endorsements indicate that the affidavit was referred to the military commander of the Post of Louisville, and by him to the provost marshal, who reported on August 24, 1865, that Dr. McKay had already responded to a summons and had been sent to the Louisville Freedmen's Bureau superintendent, and that the other purchasers of members of the Moore family would report on August 25. There is no indication of the outcome.

Published in The Destruction of Slavery, pp. 566–68. Moore's affidavit is also published in Free at Last, pp. 103–4, and in Families and Freedom, p. 34.