They cheered and partied as they learned of the commencement of hostilities, boisterous talk of how soon they would send the Yankees running with their tails between their legs spread like wild fire. Little did they know of the industrial might of the Union? As most of the men of the Confederacy Seth “Hoot” Davis and Samuel Jeremiah Jones rushed to join a regiment, the nearest was being raised by the wealthy planter, Jacques Roman. Jeremiah and Seth departed home in April of 1861 to join the 10th Louisiana Calvary each taking two extra horses and a male slave to attend their needs. Seth and Jeremiah arrived at the 2300 acre Oaks Alley Plantation, home of Colonel Jacques Telesphore Roman who was raising the regiment, financing its equipping, and provisioning them with his own monies.
The Oaks Alley Plantation on the banks of the Mississippi River was a self-supporting community with sugar cane as the principal crop. Jacques Telesphore Roman a wealthy Creole had the mansion built by George Swainy designed by his father in law Joseph Pilie is classic Caribbean plantation design with twenty-eight Doric square columns, a separate cookhouse, and forty slave …show more content…
Slave workers could perform any task that would be found in any large village with the exception of a doctor. Most plantations had a slave who was skilled in treating injuries and delivering babies. Very few white doctors would treat a slave. Slaves established a hierarchy within their community; the house slaves were at the top of the pecking order unless the overseer was a slave then he was the senior slave; of the house slaves the butler who was responsible for the total operation of the household. Nannies attended the children from birth until grown and many times served as a maid throughout their master’s life and attended their children after they wed. The cleaning staff, food servers, and cooks all basked in the umbrella of the house niggers. Next were the craftsmen, carpenters, brick masons, harness makers, furniture makers, butchers, and horse and mule trainers. At the bottom were the field hands who tended the crops of the plantation. The overseer was the most powerful person on the plantation who had daily contact with the slaves. The owners generally left the day-to-day operation of the plantation to him. Sometimes a Negro was the overseer and was generally very cruel in the treatment of the field slaves. These Negro overseers did not bother the house slaves and craftsmen. White overseers would go further than the black ones as they