"When You Is About, We Is."

The Boonville correspondent of the Cincinnati Daily Commercial writes:

These Missouri niggers know a great deal more than white folks give them credit for, and whether Missouri goes for the confederacy of for the Union, here slaves have learned a lesson too much to ever make them useful as slaves.  I was struck with the apt reply of one of a crowd who came from a big house to the road to see us pass, the other day.  Says I, “Boys, are you all for the Union?”  “Oh yes, massa, when you’s about we is.”  “And when Price comes you are secesh are you?”  “Lord, Yes, massa, we’s good secesh, then.  Can’t allow de white folks get head niggers in dat way.”  The darkey understood the whole question and the game played.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, February 18, 1862, p. 2