The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1920-03-18
Thursday, March 18, 1920.
FUNERAL SERMON BY SLAVE.
'sTen Cent" Bill Delivers Grafton
Over Master.

the funeral of their comrade, Capt.
Thomas McColl Yopp.
There were ladies from the United
Daughters of the Confederacy and the
Daughters of the American RevOlu-
ton. There were men in the blue
from the Grand Army of the Repub-
lie. The chapel benches were filled
and many stood.
Two ministers spoke-words of
honor to the dead and of comfort for
the living. A quartet sang and there
was prayer. But it was none of these
whose mission it was to pay the last
memorial tribute.
The former slave of the dead vet
eran, a man whose heart is as white
as his wrinkIed face is black, deliver
ed the final funeral grafton in the
chapel, followed to the cemetery the
casket shrouded in the Stars and
Bars, and above the grave bowed his
head in sorrow and love of the mas
ter he had served for more than half
century.
'Ten-Cent" Bill Yopp, himself one
of the fast fading company whose
comrades wait for them across the
river, had been chosen to give the
funeral oration.
Holding Derby Hat.
He sat, holding his black derby hat
in his hands, his frayed overcoat
frightened about his shoulders, on the
front row of the chapel. BY stretch
ing one hand he could have touched
the Confederate flag that draped the
casket of his master. Behind him
were rows filed with veterans from
the home.
Some of them smiled at hin: o.
waved knotty hand, but, sach was
the occasion, they were mostly silent.
From the rear you saw 80 pairs o.
bent shoulders, 80 bowed heads, white
hair what seemed making a gentle
halo over each. In the dim light
fitting through the stained glass
windows you could see their hands
eupped behind their ears, while they
listened:
On the other side of Jordan
In the green fields of Eden,
Where the Tree of Life is blooming,
There is rest for you -.
Then "Ten Cent" Bill rose in his
place and began to speak.
My dear friends" he said, Il
thank you from the depths of my
heart for the kind compliment you are
are paying me and the kind permis-
sion you have given me. Like the
minister who spoke before me, 1, too,
wish to God that the same old feeling
existed today between the white and
black that existed in 1860.
"I have known Capt. Thomas Nc
Call Yopp, my former master, for 81
years. My mother nursed him, and so
his father, who thought so much of
him, gave my mother to him before l
was born. l know that he never spoke
an unkind word to her or to any of
his servants.
s'Since 1856, when l was only lit
tie pickaniny in nothing but cotton
shirt and he wasn't too proud to pick
me up and ride me on the back of his
horse we have been friends. We
hunted together and fished together
all day long. rode with him week in
and week out We would eat our
lunch out in the woods and then come
home together Every night before
he would go to bed he would go to
one servants house and to another's
and another's, and sit and laugh and
joke with them. By and by he would
say, Bill, I'm getting sleepy and we
would go back to the big house and
eat a little lunch before we went to
bed. 1 slept beside him every night"
Tells of the War.
Bill paused, gulp in his voice, and
then he began to tell of the war, how
he and Captain Yopp, joining the
army in Atlanta in June, 1861, went
to Lynchburg in a freight car and
took the field.
They slept side by side in the cap
tain's tent, he said, and when it was
very bad weather, Captain Yopp, with
a single blanket, between them; would
say, "Cold, Bill? Then pull over"
Once Bill was sick and Captain Yopp
gave him a pass to Richmond and
$50, Bill leaving only on condition
that he could come back.
''He could not see one man imposed
.t1,., .o;d <sTon Cont Ril1 -