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Historical Romance of the American Negro

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Title: Historical Romance of the American Negro

Author: Charles Henry Fowler


        
Release date: February 5, 2011 [eBook #35189]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35189

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


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HISTORICAL ROMANCE OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO

BY

CHARLES H. FOWLER, M. D.

PRESS OF THOMAS & EVANS,

604-608 Water Street,

BALTIMORE.

_1902._

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1902, by

CHARLES H. FOWLER, M. D.,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C.




--TABLE OF CONTENTS--


  - PREFACE.
  - INTRODUCTORY.
  - CHAPTER I.
  - CHAPTER II.
  - CHAPTER III.
  - CHAPTER IV.
  - CHAPTER V.
  - CHAPTER VI.
  - CHAPTER VII.
  - CHAPTER VIII.
  - CHAPTER IX.
  - CHAPTER X.
  - CHAPTER XI.
  - CHAPTER XII.
  - CHAPTER XIII.
  - CHAPTER XIV.
  - CHAPTER XV.
  - CHAPTER XVI.
  - CHAPTER XVII.
  - CHAPTER XVIII.
  - CHAPTER XIX.
  - CHAPTER XX.
  - CHAPTER XXI.
  - THE AMERICAN-SPANISH WAR--I.
  - THE AMERICAN-SPANISH WAR--II.
  - BLACKS IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR AND IN 1812.
  - "NICK" BIDDLE.
  - COLOR IS NO BAR TO OFFICE.

--*ILLUSTRATIONS*--

Respectfully yours--Charles H. Fowler M. D. A. M.
BEULAH JACKSON.
THE ESCAPE.
SCENES IN NEW ORLEANS.
SCENES IN BUFFALO.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
BATTLE OF MILLIKEN'S BEND.
BATTLE OF PORT HUDSON.
JOHN BROWN.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER STEAMER.
A SCENE ON THE JACKSON PLANTATION.
SCENES AT NIAGARA FALLS.
COTTON PICKING.
A RELIC OF SLAVERY DAYS.
MR. JACKSON.
HOUSE WHERE LINCOLN DIED.
EMANCIPATION STATUE BOSTON, MASS.
HAULING COTTON TO THE GIN.
FIRST READING EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.
DE SOTO DISCOVERING MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
IN DANGER OF THE OVERSEER'S LASH.
JAMES A. GARFIELD.
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES.
CHAS. SUMNER.
WM. LLOYD GARRISON.
FRED'K DOUGLASS, ROCHESTER, N. Y.
SOUTHERN CHIVALRY--ARGUMENT VERSUS CLUB'S.
STATUE OF LIBERTY.
GRANT'S TOMB.
DICKENS' OLD CURIOSITY SHOP.
TOWER OF LONDON.
GEN. ANTONIO MACEO.
THE DEFENSE OF SANTIAGO.
BATTLE OF SAN JUAN HILL.
COLORED SOLDIERS AND MUSICIANS.
SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.
THE BOSTON MASSACRE.
THE GRAVE OF NICK BIDDLE.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.




PREFACE.


[Illustration: _Respectfully yours--Charles H. Fowler M. D. A. M._]


For a number of years it has been on my mind to write a book regarding
the principal events that have occurred to the colored race since the
beginning of the agitation against slavery, going on from thence to the
great Rebellion, passing through that war, and also dealing with all
subjects of great importance that have arrested our attention under our
glorious freedom.

At the same time it has occurred to me, as it has to many another
writer, that my book would be far more interesting to the general
reader, if I were to select a representative woman of our own race, and
make her the mouthpiece of all I wished to say; in other words, to
introduce the whole under the pleasing form of an historical romance, so
that we might keep our heroine constantly before our eyes, and make her
weave in a continuous tale of love, travel, war and peace, and thus
portray the lady playing her own parts on that tremendous stage of Time
that has been set forth for the gaze and astonishment of the whole
country during the past fifty years. I hope those members of the general
public who favor me by a perusal of my book will be pleased with my
plan.

"Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war," and I have
introduced into my book all the great advances that our race has made
since the fall of Richmond, and, indeed, have brought things down to
this year. The reader will find a number of things that are intended to
introduce humor, and to brighten the darker portions of the story.

And as some fault-finding person may say that I have overdrawn my
heroine, and made her far more clever than she could ever have naturally
been, I venture to affirm that such a charge can by no means be just,
for we have women among us, and men, too, who are as intelligent and
clever as can be found among any other race on the face of the earth. I
believe my book will prove the truth of this assertion in those cases,
at least, where the heroines and heroes of the colored race are
mentioned in its pages by name.

Beulah Jackson will therefore stand as a representative woman among our
own people.

CHARLES H. FOWLER.

Baltimore, Md., 1902.




INTRODUCTORY.


In this period of the Negro's development so much has been wielded
towards influencing him in the expression of manly sentiment, that when
an unhampered and heartfelt defense is made in his behalf by one of his
number, it should, and I believe will, secure a universal support by the
defenders.

The eagerness to devour books is so prevalent in the present decade that
the Anglo-Saxon litterateurs and publishers endeavor to withhold and
suppress all that tends to prove the Negro a man and an equal, patting
all of their writers and molders of public opinion on the back, who are
cringing and palliating with the deceitful exclamation, "Behold, thee!
thou art great!" The desire to secure this cowardly approbation has,
indeed, become too numerous. Learned men, with ability to withhold the
sentiments of their hearts and people, have too frequently sold the
golden opportunities of their lives for paltry sums and positions to
these literary hawks. But few of the public speakers and writers of
these times dare utter the thoughts of Douglass, Turner, Price, Garnett,
and that grand galaxy of post-bellum fighters, who knew no middle
ground, but stood out for all that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments to the Constitution had embodied in them. They had no axe to
grind, and even so, their oppressed feelings wouldn't permit them have
it ground at the expense of the manhood of their four million brothers.

It is high time that the Negro judge whose utterances are fitting and
suitable to his case, who stands for his utterances, and which have his
sanction, not to allow those hostile to your very existence select,
under the guise of friendship, those sentiments put forth by
aggrandizing writers and leaders distasteful to you, and brand them as
your daily thoughts and hourly prayers. Respect for the sycophant cannot
exist long, even among them whom he traitorously serves. A tree is
judged by its fruit; so is a race judged by its representative men. If
they be honest, the race is placed in the category of men; if wicked,
treacherous and deceitful, their place is fixed among the distrustful.


[Illustration: _BEULAH JACKSON._]


It therefore becomes a small part for us to perform in signalizing the
honest writer and leader by giving him our unanimous support. The author
has spent months of effort and toil in compiling data and accounts, that
Caucasian authors with alertness suppress. He has made a strong case and
defense of the Negro's manhood and trustworthiness at a time when most
men would have been honest with pain. The simplicity with which his data
is compiled and presented to the reader stamps him neither in quest of
gold or greatness, but striving to convince the ignorant that heroes and
heroines can even be found among this despised race of America, whom
some would brand as rapists and thieves. A tale is welded together in
which every experience, occurrence and stage is passed through that can
occur to a poor, struggling people; yet, no instance presents itself by
which the character, the basal part of any people, can be impeached.
'Twill serve as a firer of the ambition and aspirations of the young
Negro, and at the same time, so thrilling are its narratives, that
'twill prove as interesting reading matter as many a romance. The
eagerness with which our youth devour such tales as relates the better
side of his ancestry's life, is too well known to us. The story of
Beulah Jackson will fill a long-felt niche in the young Negro's reading
matter, that will in itself prove highly beneficial.

JACOB NICHOLSON.

HISTORICAL ROMANCE OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO.




CHAPTER I.


Though this is the year of grace, just forty-seven years after the date
when my adventurous story begins, my recollections of that bright
morning in May, 1855, when I arose and at one bound broke loose from
slavery, are as vivid as the lightning's flash. "A still tongue makes a
wise head," and so I held my tongue and bided my time until I made at
last that successful spring. And never do I behold the glorious sun
rising over the hills and forests but the joyous recollection of that
Wednesday morning in May comes back to me, like the rebounding reaction
of the bow that is unbent.

I was born in the State of Kentucky, a few miles below Louisville, where
my father's mansion stood on one of those sloping hills that faces the
river Ohio, which the French named with justice, the "Beautiful River."
That mansion, with all its splendid surroundings, belonged to my father
and owner, a white man named Lemuel Jackson; but my own mother, a woman
of uncommon beauty, belonged to the colored race. My mother, for some
cause or other, was sold down the river in New Orleans, in the year
1853, when I was but fifteen years of age. I never got over that sudden
separation, and I at once formed my own resolutions, of which I said
nothing.

As my father was a rich man, who indulged me in many ways and appeared
to love me, and as I often had occasion to accompany him and Mrs.
Jackson, or some of the other members of the family, to Louisville, he
seldom refused to give me the cash I asked for, which I now began to
carefully put away in a secret place only known to the Lord and myself.
Two eventful years had passed away. I had by this time discovered the
whereabouts of my mother, Harriet, in New Orleans, and my hopes of
meeting her again grew stronger every day as the time approached for me
to kick off the detested chains of slavery. For the coming of this happy
deliverance I prayed to my good Lord both day and night.

At last that day dawned upon me, the spring-time of all my joys. The
Lord heard my prayers, and He cleared the way to freedom. There was to
be a big church gathering at Louisville, and the first session of that
great time was to be on Wednesday morning--the first Wednesday in the
month, as I very well remember, indeed.

The bishop and his wife, who were invited guests to our house, had
arrived the day before. They were to spend the night with us, and all
things breathed religion and excitement over the events of the morrow
and the rest of the week to come.

Among the inmates of the house was one Tom, whom I was accustomed to
call, Tom Lincoln--a tall, splendid young man, a shade darker in
complexion than myself, and, like myself, a slave. Tom was now
twenty-seven years old. He had been casting "sheep's eyes" at me for
several years past, but who could think of marriage whilst in a state of
slavery? Therefore I gave him no encouragement, but as he was thoroughly
reliable, I said to him one day in strict confidence, and in the most
significant manner possible, "I will talk to you about that when we are
free. While in a state of slavery it is a mockery to profane the names
of love, courtship and marriage. I will never, so help me God, be
married in the house of bondage!"

Tom Lincoln was a clever fellow, a general factotum, and acquainted with
everything about the house. He was always relied on, and the great
house, as it was called, would be left in his charge while the family
and the upper servants attended the gathering at Louisville. Soon after
the bishop and his wife arrived, I called Tom aside and laid before him
my whole plan, which had been well formed for some time past in my mind.

"Capital!" said he, slapping his knee with his big hand. "Capital,
indeed! Strike when the iron is hot, and kill chickens when they are
fat! But, Beulah, will you marry me then?"

"Yes, with pleasure, when we are free from the chains of slavery."

When I gave Tom that answer his eyes flashed bright as the stars on a
frosty night, and mine, no doubt, flashed back in a reflected lustre.

"All right," said he, and then, after some thought, he added: "Get your
trunk ready by ten o'clock to-morrow morning, as all things will be in
readiness by that time. Beulah, I will be a bondman no longer. Just
think of it. Twenty-seven years old, and a slave!"

"That's right, Tom; stick to it! Minds are never to be sold! Stick to
it!" was my instant reply.

With immediate freedom and all its joys before him, the brave Tom did
not let much grass grow under his feet. We kept a boat near the house,
and although not an expert oarsman, he knew enough to handle it when
called upon. In the darkness and silence of Tuesday night, he slipped
over to the other side of the stream, then made his way for a mile or
two down the Indiana side, where he ran the boat up a creek, near which
stood a little cabin in which some acquaintances of his lived. He
confided his secret to his friends, and as the man of the house kept a
horse and wagon, the latter consented to convey our trunks to the house
of a mutual friend in New Albany next morning. Then leaving this cabin
and the boat tied up in the creek, Tom made his way to New Albany on
foot, where his mission was also successful. With these preliminary
preparations, he returned to the great house in safety, and it was never
known that he had so much as been out of his own room! Of course there
was some risk to run, but who would not dare all for freedom?

As for that anxious Tuesday night, my excitement was such that I never
slept a wink. I thought much of a similarly planned and quite successful
dash for freedom that took place shortly before this near our place. A
girl of fifteen and her brother, twelve years of age, were left alone
one day to take care of the house while all the white people had gone
away. They never suspected anything so unusual from a girl of fifteen,
especially as she was mild and quiet.

But after they had gone, Muriel called her brother Willy, and said,

"Willie, do you see that boat? We are nothing but slaves, and yonder
across the river lies Indiana--a free State. Master keeps money in the
bureau, and I will burst it open and take what will carry you and me on
the train to a place of safety and freedom. Let us take clothes along
with us, and whatever we need. This is no robbery. It belongs to us by
right, for slavery is nothing but a system of robbery, anyhow."

So Muriel and Willy crossed the Ohio river in the open day, walked to
the nearest railway station, took a train for the North, and speedily
arrived in a land where they were slaves no longer.

The longest night comes to an end, and the morning of that
never-to-be-forgotten Wednesday in May brought lovely weather, lots of
fine prayers from the bishop, and an immense show of devotion from Mrs.
Jackson, the woman who caused my precious mother to be sent down to New
Orleans. There was a grand breakfast at the big house, and, as usual, I
figured like a flower girl at a wedding. I did my best to keep down my
excitement, but, indeed, it would never have been noticed that morning,
such was the stir on the account of our visitors and the coming glorious
gathering of the "saints" at Louisville.

Horses and carriages, and all the rest of our rich display soon hove
into sight, and in due time the coast was clear for Tom and me to strike
for freedom. We packed two large leather trunks that had long done
service on the steamboats and railways of the sunny South.

We had clothing enough to put us through for a long time to come, both
summer and winter. Tom being a big and powerful man, soon carried the
trunks down to the boat, without exciting any undue suspicion among the
few old folks and children about the house. It was wonderful, under the
circumstances, to see him so cool and circumspect.

Tom heaped up some sacking and other things upon the trunks to give the
whole the appearance of a trading skiff, and as the wind was blowing in
the right direction, he put up a little sail.

To still further avoid unwelcome attentions, I insisted on lying flat on
the bottom of the boat, and being covered with sacking (the Fugitive
Slave Law was in force now, and the sleuth hounds of slavery might be
upon our trail). At last the boat was cast loose and headed for a little
ways down the Kentucky shore. Then my adventurous pilot crossed to the
Indiana side, and concealed our little craft behind a string of barges
floating down the Ohio. Several steamboats came puffing and blowing up
the stream, and so, amid the general turmoil and confusion, we slipped
into the little creek, ran our boat under the bushes, and in a short
time had our trunks and belongings safe inside the cabin of our friends.
O praise ye the Lord! for His mercy endureth forever! We had completed
our first step towards liberty!


[Illustration: _THE ESCAPE._]


Our good friend next got out his horse and wagon, our trunks and things
were speedily flung in, and he took his way alone for New Albany. After
I had made many promises to write, and given a thousand thanks, I
started for the place of meeting, and my gallant Tom brought up the rear
at a safe distance. Of course, we were now in a free State, but Kentucky
still lay in full view of us.

One by one we arrived at the appointed number and street in New Albany,
and here we dressed for the immediate journey by rail. Having blessed
one another, and made many promises to write to these friends also, we
hurriedly betook ourselves to the station. Tom marched up to the ticket
office, two tickets were quickly secured, and at last the supreme moment
of happiness arrived when we took our seats for the far-famed city of
Cincinnati. I have seen many horses in my time, and mules like the sands
of the sea, in my native State of Kentucky, but the nicest, dearest,
most lamb-like and sweetest horse I ever saw in all my life was that
strong, iron horse named "Steam Engine," that stood ready in the station
waiting for the command to start.

We were now in the carriage: it was just twelve o'clock, and the
glorious free sun shone down upon us. The train began to move, and when
it did so, I felt as though I would faint for very joy. I don't believe
that Tom was any better than myself, the transition from slavery to
happiness came with such a rush. But, then, I was only a sensitive young
woman of seventeen, whereas Tom was an experienced man ten years my
senior, and, in appearance, at least, he managed to bear things with
more composure than did I. As our train rushed along through the
beautiful land, all adorned with the thousand beauties of the pleasant
month of May, all things looked to me like consecutive scenes in a new
paradise, as when we look through rose-colored glasses all things are
colored like the rose. The winds played, the sun shone brightly, and all
nature's face was gay, and as our mighty iron steed sped along in his
vigor. Tom and I talked but little. The time for talking would come
another day, never fear! In truth, we were too happy to talk.

The afternoon wore on, and we crossed the Indiana State line and entered
Ohio, the sight of which gave our eyes the most unbounded pleasure. On,
on, sped our devoted iron horse, until at last he came to the end of his
race in the beautiful city of Cincinnati. When we two fugitives from the
land of slavery stepped on the platform here, all safe and sound, we
were reminded of a ship entering, after many risks in the voyages of
life, the port of Heaven, with all sails spread, and never an injured
plank. I looked across the "beautiful river," and beheld the hills of my
native State coming down to the water's edge, and laving their feet in
the cooling waves. An immense traffic was rolling down, down, down to
the Mississippi and the Gulf States, and everything was hum and bustle.

Thus I stood musing at the top of one of the steep streets that run down
to the Ohio river, while Tom nearby entered into some serious
conversation with a gentleman. At last he came back to me and said,

"Beulah, let us go this way."

After walking for some time we found the right address, the home of the
Rev. John Robinson, a minister of the A. M. E. Church. In the most
polite manner possible we were asked in, and invited into the parlor.
Mr. Robinson, a jolly, fat-faced, pleasant-looking Reverend, was on hand
at once. Tom told him the main points of our history in a few minutes,
and finished by requesting him to marry us any time that night.

When the question arose as to whether the marriage should be performed
in private or public, I insisted on it being done as publicly as
possible, and that a newspaper reporter should be called in, too.

Now, as good luck would have it, there was to be a great gathering at
the Methodist Church that night, so it was decided that the wedding
should take place an hour after the meeting commenced. Mrs. Robinson and
the entire family were now called into the parlor, when we were all
introduced to one another, and there was a mighty season of rejoicing.
Tea was prepared, and we adjourned to the dining-room.

In the meantime some of the friends and neighbors were sent for, a
reporter was notified, and the news of our safe arrival and prospective
marriage spread like wildfire throughout the good city of Cincinnati.
The ladies, both white and colored, were tremendously interested in my
case. They lavished attentions upon me, and caressed me to such an
extent that I was afraid I would faint!

In due time, however, we took up our grand march to the church, and here
I will give the account of our wedding as it appeared next morning in
the Cincinnati News:

"WEDDING AT THE A. M. E. CHURCH.

"Last night we were called in to witness a happy wedding, which reminded
us of that of Jacob and Rachel. The contracting parties were Mr. Thomas
Lincoln and Miss Beulah Jackson.

"This Thomas Lincoln, aged twenty-seven, a fine, tall young man, was
formerly the house steward and general factotum of Lemuel Jackson, Esq.,
of Riverside Hall, below Louisville, Ky. The beautiful
seventeen-year-old bride is the daughter of Mr. Jackson himself, by one
Harriet, a slave woman of many graces, whom Mrs. Jackson two years ago,
through jealousy, caused to be sold to New Orleans.

"Miss Beulah was indeed 'a bride adorned for her husband,' and the
ladies had her duly arrayed in orange blossoms and the regulation
wedding costume. 'The Flower Girl of Riverside Hall,' as she has been
often called, it seems, carried a beautiful bouquet. The church was
filled to suffocation, and the interest in the ceremony was intense.

"After the knot was tied, a gentleman advanced to the front, placed a
five-dollar bill on the table, and called for a wedding present 'for
these two ex-slaves from the State of Kentucky.' The call was readily
responded to, and a good sum was contributed. The young couple passed
the night at the home of the Rev. Mr. Robinson, who performed the
ceremony. They leave this morning for Columbus, Ohio, and points beyond.
Lincoln stated that he could have left Kentucky at almost any time, but
remained until he could find an opportunity to assist in the escape of
the girl.

"As the immense assemblage at the A. M. E. Church looked upon this
splendid couple, all hearts were filled with compassion to think that
the South should call such men and women 'goods and chattels.' It was
the outspoken opinion that a day of reckoning is coming; a day of war, a
holy war, sent by God Himself, that will end this system of robbery and
oppression."

I bought several copies of the paper that contained the account of our
wedding, and posted one to Riverside Hall, one to our friends at New
Albany, and another to our benefactors in the little cabin by the creek.
Next morning at breakfast the fun was delightful, and I was obliged to
laugh when Mrs. Robinson called me "The flower girl of Riverside Hall."
Breakfast over, our host and hostess insisted on accompanying us to the
station to see us off, and here we took leave of our kind friends, whom
we felt that we could never thank enough.

As we steamed away for Columbus, all things were still new and
delightful, and I never tired of beholding the fair face of nature as
our train wound along the banks of the Little Miami. I was immensely
pleased with the beautiful State of Ohio, its fine churches along the
way, its fair and fertile farms, and all its magnificent forest-clad
hills. In due time we arrived at Columbus, the State capital, and were
much impressed with the beauty of the sweet little city.

We continued our journey on through Ohio until we crossed into
Pennsylvania, by the shores of Lake Erie, that flowed away towards
Canada like a little inland sea. Thus we continued on to Buffalo, New
York, where we left the train. Here we determined to settle down, at
least for some time. For a few days we put up at a friend's house, for
we were both very much fatigued, indeed, with our long journey and its
incidental bustle and confusion. I was only seventeen years old at this
time, the most romantic age of a woman's life--or rather she is standing
on the borderland with girlhood just behind her, and all the joys of
womanhood and matrimony just before. Anticipation invests all things
with the glories of the rainbow. It is certainly a good time to get
married, for then a girl's nature is soft and pliable, and she has had
neither time nor opportunity to become possessed of cast-iron ways of
her own.

During the few days that we were resting ourselves we became acquainted
with a few most worthy colored families who belonged to the A. M. E.
Church on Vine street, as good and loving a congregation as I have found
up to this year. God bless that loving flock!

Just at this time Tom and I had a good deal of conversation about my
writing a letter to my father at Riverside Hall. If it was to be done at
all, it had better be done soon, lest the door between us be permanently
closed. Had my father done the right thing he would have married my
mother, Harriet. She was ten times more amiable and lady-like than Mrs.
Jackson, a woman whom he married for fashion's sake; but he never did or
could love her as he did my mother, or even myself. It was the identical
case of Rachel and Joseph over again. If all the rest had died, and
Harriet and Beulah had remained alive, it would have been all right to
him. Thus were there two wives in the same house--Rachel and Leah once
more. The one was loved and the other hated. So it came to pass that
through jealousy that raged in her heart, Mrs. Jackson had my beloved
mother sold down the river to New Orleans.

I ran no risk in writing to Lemuel Jackson, as everyone at Riverside
opened his own letters. So we decided that I should write home in a week
or two, when we were settled down to practical house-keeping. And,
besides all that, the old gentleman liked a good letter, and I knew mine
would be doubly welcome.

It is very true that the Fugitive Slave Bill was on the statute books of
Congress, but that bill was practically a dead letter, and it was now
only one chance in ten thousand that anyone would attempt to come after
us all the way to Buffalo. It is quite true that immediately after the
passage of that infamous bill there were several fugitive slaves caught
close to the border, and carried back to slavery, but the true spirit of
the North arose against such Southern barbarism, and after a few
slave-hunters had been shot, the South ceased to send her couriers even
to the borderland, but remained at home nursing her sullen wrath,
cursing the Underground Railroad and all Christian abolitionism, and
flaunting her oft-repeated threat in the face of the nation, that unless
she could have her own way in the Union she would have it out of it.

We did not consider, therefore, that we had any risk to run in settling
down here in Buffalo, or even in writing to my father and giving him our
street address. Mrs. Jackson would have no doubt been capable of setting
the man-hunters on our track, but father, though a rich man, would never
have made the outlay of money necessary. Besides it would have exposed
his shame and disgrace.

In the meantime, then, we rented a small and cosy cottage not far from
the sweet little church on Vine street, furnished it cheaply, but
comfortably, and at the appointed time we invited the pastor of the
church and his good wife to come and spend the evening and take tea,
that the Lord might bless us in our happy home.

After we had been settled in Buffalo about a month, I wrote the
following letter to my father, which he duly received:

"Lemuel Jackson, Esq., Riverside Hall, Ky.

"My dear Father:--

"With great pleasure I take my pen in hand to write you a few lines. It
is but natural that your daughter should take a delight in writing to
you, and we have lived too long under the same roof for me not to know
that you will be glad to receive a letter from me. I can never forget
you, my own dear father.

"I have great pleasure in informing you that Tom is a very thoughtful,
considerate and loving husband, and is most indulgent and kind to your
own dear Beulah. If I had searched the whole United States I don't
believe that I could ever have found a better man than Tom. He promised
to be good to me when we were married in Cincinnati, and I believe he
always will.

"The first thing we did, after we had furnished our cosy little cottage
and settled down, was to join the sweet little A. M. E. Church on Vine
street. We desired to have the approbation of the Almighty upon
ourselves and on our works and ways. Therefore we joined the church of
God first of all. I do believe that if people would always put God first
they would have more luck.

"I don't know how it is, but the people of Buffalo, both white and
colored have taken a very great liking indeed to Tom and myself from the
very first hour when we left the train here and set our wandering feet
within the Queen City of the Lakes. The sweet ladies of Buffalo have
been here to see me in numbers, and I also have been to their homes,
where I am received as a daughter or a younger sister. Indeed my lines
have fallen in pleasant places, and I cannot but believe that the good
Lord sent us to Buffalo.

"We have been over on a visit to Canada, which lies across the Niagara
River, for the city of Buffalo, as you are aware, lies at the foot of
Lake Erie just where it enters the Niagara River. There is a settlement
of colored people at St. Catherine's, in Canada, only a few miles back
from the river, and Tom and I were greatly interested in them.

"They all fled from slavery in the South, and many of them have come up
on the rough side of the mountain. I can assure you, when Tom and I saw
the marks of their horrible treatment, we praised the Lord that our own
cases had been so mild and bearable at Riverside Hall.

"We consider that we are lucky in coming here at this delightful season
of the year, for the pleasant month of May seems to surpass all the
other months of the year for sweetness and flowers. All around Lake Erie
and the Niagara River, both in Canada and the State of New York, the
fair face of Nature is just blooming; all the woods are dressed in their
mantle of green, the countless birds sing among the branches, and all
things hereabout clearly shows that the self-same God that has adorned
the State of Kentucky has done as much in these parts.

"I am not aware whether you have ever visited Niagara Falls or not, as I
have never heard you say, but whether or not, it is a most wonderful
place, and one well worth the trouble of coming even from the ends of
the earth to see. It is well for Buffalo and all the towns and villages
that lie around about this river, that they are so located, that is, so
near the falls, because there is always a great tide of people coming
here from every land beneath the sun, almost; and these same people seem
never, never to grow weary of one of the most stupendous works that the
great Creator has made.

"After we had settled down at home here, and before Tom went to work as
house steward in one of the first mansions on Delaware Avenue, the
leading avenue for private residences in Buffalo, we took a special day
and went to see Niagara Falls. As we had read and heard so much of these
celebrated falls, I might almost say since the time we were born, we
were both in a state of great excitement on the morning of this
expedition. Really, my dear papa, there are some things that we really
never, never can forget.

"There were hundreds on the early morning train with us--almost all
strangers, and all in a state of highest excitement. We soon drew out of
the railway station, and left the city behind. Now we were on the bank
of the Niagara River, which flows on almost a perfect level with the
fields, and on the opposite, or Canadian side, the tall pines were
beautiful to behold. As we drew near to the station at the falls, the
roaring of the mighty waters struck with great force upon our astonished
ears, and when we got out, what astonished us more and more was the
grand stampede of every person down the road in the direction of the
great river. No need to ask which way to go; we had but to follow the
sound. At last, through the tall trees we beheld the flying waters, and
there we saw Niagara Falls before us in all their grand and terrible
array!

"For about three-quarters of a mile above where we stood, the Rapids of
Niagara came thundering down the steep incline, and the great waves
leaped like the waves of a troubled ocean. It was just one continuous
and eternal yell. I was completely dumfounded. I could do nothing but
quote from the Bible, and shout the praises of the great Creator. But
who heard me then? For the Rapids made such a noise that nobody else
could hear!

"The American Fall, on our own side, is the smaller one; the opposite,
or Canadian Fall, which assumes the shape of a gigantic horseshoe, is
the grandest one. The waters are deeply green, and at the top are said
to be eighteen feet deep. Oh, my! What a place it is, to be sure!

"We now crossed a light wooden bridge that connects our side with Goat
Island. This portion of the Rapids of Niagara was now just under our
feet, and it required all the nerve we had to allow us to even look down
upon the flying, yelling, and most tremendous waters! This is one of the
places to which so many come for the purpose of committing suicide. But
we are Christians, my dear father, and we could never think of doing
such a very foolish thing.

"My dear papa, I shall have to stop now, and continue my narrative at
another time. Here comes Tom home for his tea, and our minister and his
wife along with him. Our love to you all. Au revoir!

"From your most affectionate daughter,

"BEULAH LINCOLN."

I ran to the nearest box and posted my letter, and in ten days received
the following reply from my dear papa:

RIVERSIDE HALL, NEAR LOUISVILLE, June, 1855.

"Mrs. Beulah Lincoln,

"My Dear Daughter:--

"I duly received your nice, kind and most welcome letter. I am heartily
glad to hear that you are both in good health, and so very comfortable
in every way. I did not take your sudden leaving so much to heart as you
might imagine--I mean in the way of vexation--but Mrs. Jackson was so
much disturbed that she has not recovered from the effects of it yet, as
she did not think you and Tom would leave us. However, now that you have
gone, I wish you well, and I enclose herein a postoffice order for
$50.00, which is my wedding gift to yourself and Tom. Please excuse my
short letter; you know I am not fond of writing. Please send me a letter
at any time that you feel like writing. I am,

"Your most affectionate papa,

"LEMUEL JACKSON."

As far as my father was concerned, then, it seemed that we were safe.
From him, at least, we had nothing to fear.




CHAPTER II.


_Beulah's Journey to New Orleans--Rescues Her Mother From Slavery, and
Mother and Daughter Return to Buffalo on the Good Boat Columbia, by Way
of Havana, in the Island of Cuba, West Indies and New York City._

The present was a great time among all classes of the abolition party,
the "Underground Railroad," and all that sort of thing. There were the
border ruffians in Kansas, where John Brown, that hero of fame, led on
the fray, and fugitive slaves escaped over the lines into the free
States, whence their owners were unable to get them back. The Fugitive
Slave Law was a dead letter, for the great gospel guns over all the
North had denounced it as a shame and a disgrace to a Christian nation;
and when the South found that fugitive slaves would resist their
pursuers unto death, and that their messengers were likely to be shot
down, they ceased to send them, at the same time making the slave laws
worse than ever before. However, the tighter and more oppressive they
made them, in greater numbers did the slaves escape from the house of
bondage, for who can stem the spirit of the brave? Slavery is an
abomination before the Lord!

We had at this time all the anti-slavery leaders coming round the
country--the greatest speakers I ever heard. I never had a more
wonderful experience than turning out with Tom at night to the halls and
churches to listen to such arguments and eloquence as I had never
dreamed had any existence in this or any other country. William Lloyd
Garrison came to Buffalo, and Fred. Douglass, and all the rest were
there. We listened to men and women who had seen slavery in all parts of
the South, people who had been in Kansas, and almost everywhere else,
and such tales of truth and horror I never heard before in all my life.

It is true that even slavery had its backers in the North, and too many
of them at that, but the entire Christian portion of the population was
determined that slavery should come no further, although the South
seemed to demand, with the most unblushing impudence, that they should
carry their slaves into every State and territory under the stars and
stripes. The South acted like a violent, high-strung woman, whose
husband tries to reason with her in vain. She seemed to say, "I shall
have my own way, or I will fight with you, Sam! I'll be no submissive
wife! I'll be master and mistress, too! I'll fight and have my own way!"

At this time, freemen from Europe were pouring into the United States in
legions. They had no slavery in those countries from which they came,
and coming here while the tidal wave of anti-slavery sentiment was at
its height, they were ready not only to attempt to stem the
encroachments of slavery, but to resist them by force, if the worst came
to the worst. The Quakers were also in the field, and they gave Congress
no rest. The Southern senators and representatives resisted them at
Washington, and demanded that the whole subject be laid upon the shelf.
Here they were opposed by such men as Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens,
and a host of others. Thus things went on from bad to worse in the halls
of Congress, and all over the free North. The heavens grew darker and
darker as the months rolled by, and the South prepared to leave the
Union unless she had her own way.

There was very little sign, indeed, of her ever getting it, for how
could freedom and slavery ever be dominant in the United States at one
and the same time? It is very true that slavery was a legacy left the
thirteen original States by England, but we had gone ahead and spread
the iniquity ourselves, after the disposal of it was left entirely in
our hands; whereas England had long since abolished both slavery and the
slave trade throughout her dominions. She had even paid the owners full
indemnity for the loss of their slaves.

I dwell the more fully on these things because they led up to the war of
secession, and actually brought it on in the year 1861.


[Illustration: _SCENES IN NEW ORLEANS._]


How did the South treat the oppressed African? She bought, she sold, she
stole, she killed for gold. She hurled all revealed religion to the
winds, and set the Almighty at open defiance. Thus millions of backs had
to bend and labor over the cotton plant, the sugar cane and the rice
stalks of the South. Families were torn asunder, and every human feeling
violently dealt with in men and women born in the image of God, that
silver and gold might be extracted through their blood and tears from
the cotton fields, from the sugar plantations, and from the rice swamps
of the Sunny South. With such crimes as these and a thousand nameless
ones besides that high heaven had to avenge, was it any wonder that the
coming tempest was heralded by rising winds, by darkening skies, by
colder weather, and violent flurries of snow, hail and sleet?

It was one of the curses of slavery that the slave-holder often had a
colored wife in the kitchen, and a white one in the parlor. This was
very bad, indeed. It was just Hagar and Sarah over again, and not only
did the iniquitous system bring the two women into conflict, but the
poor, guileless children were brought into conflict also. It was a shame
and a disgrace all the way through. If white American parents had never
taught their innocent babes that the color of the skin made a
difference, "American prejudice" would never have been known in the
world.

My own beloved and charming mother was the first in the field. If my
father had done the right thing by her, he would have married her out
and out, and made her his wife de jure, as she certainly was de facto.
Thus it always was in those days of slavery.

The grand, chivalric white planter had a splendid octaroon or quadroon
for his "house keeper," a woman whom he loved supremely till Southern
pride took alarm, and he took unto himself a white wife--to be like his
neighbor! Alas! Alas! Such a crooked, dual system as that never worked,
and it never will! Sarah and Hagar could not get along; neither could
Rachel and Leah, and so on to the end of the chapter. Turkish women in
the same harem fight among themselves like dogs and cats, and the poor
miserable Turk sometimes has to provide a separate establishment for
every wife.

At last my father brought Mrs. Jackson to the house, and my mother,
Harriet Jackson, as she was called, was pushed to the wall. I am glad
that I was my father's only child by his first wife, for had there been
more of us, the mischief would have been the greater. As the reader
already knows, a day came when I was up the river at Louisville, when,
in some way only known to the devil and herself, Mrs. Jackson caused my
beloved mamma to be spirited away, and as we all subsequently learned,
to be sold down the river to New Orleans. Mr. Jackson seemed very sorry,
indeed, but he said nothing about it at the time, as he knew that he
himself was to blame for the whole matter. But I made up my mind at once
to endeavor to find out her exact place of abode, and to trust in God to
bring us together again.

Alas! my dear reader, how shall I ever make you understand the dreadful
gap that was now created in my sensitive heart, when dear mother and I
were torn apart? You can imagine how grieved I was, but how much worse
must mother have felt? It was a shame to separate us, but Mrs. Jackson
was fond of making grand, ostentatious shows, and she determined to keep
me to grace her grand festal occasions. Still, I missed my dear mother
for many a day. Clouds and thick darkness would gather round my heart. I
was in great heaviness every now and then, and often would I retire to
my bed-room, where I used to get into bed, cover myself up, and there
lie and weep, and pray to God to bring mother and me together once more.

Now, one would imagine that this feeling would have worn off in the
course of time, but it never did. Two whole years had passed away before
I made my escape. I must admit the truth, that my newly-found freedom,
marriage and acquaintance with the glorious people of the North brought
me immense relief all the summer, but one day, about the beginning of
the fall, I was once more completely overshadowed by grief. It was the
self-same "old trouble"--a trouble that no doctor could cure. I locked
up the house, and went to bed as I used to do at Riverside Hall, and
wept and prayed until I fell asleep. The first thing I knew I was
awakened by a very loud knocking at the door; Tom had come for his tea,
so I arose and let him in, and he was greatly surprised to find me all
in tears, and in such a bad way generally.

"Why, Beulah," said he, "what is the matter with you to-day? You have
been crying, and you seem as though you have lost your reason
altogether."

"Well, Tom, I have had such a heavy day on account of my mother. It is
one of those 'spells' come back again, the same as I used to have at
Riverside Hall. I declare I hate to feel in this uncomfortable way, but
it just came on me, and I could not help it."

"I am afraid, Beulah," replied Tom, "there are bad times in store for us
both if you are going to be subject to those spells of crying and sorrow
as came over you now and then before we left Riverside. I wonder if
anything can be done to put an end to this state of affairs once for
all? I would give a good deal to put an end to such a very mournful
state of affairs. Can you suggest no remedy, my own dear Beulah?"

"I am not aware, Tom," said I, "that there can be any remedy in the
world, unless it be to bring my mother and me together again. I think
one of the greatest horrors of slavery is to tear a family in pieces. I
firmly believe that Almighty God is driving the South into a terrible
war that she may receive her well-merited punishment for her blood-red
crimes like these. Even one of her preachers once preached a sermon in
defence of slavery, and he took for his text these words of Holy Writ,
'These are the Lord's doings, and they are wondrous in our eyes!'
Indeed, Tom, they are truly wondrous!"

On the morning after this conversation, I went to work at an early hour
and packed my trunk. It was now the fall of the year, and glorious
weather for me to travel. All nature's face was gay, and I myself was
blessed with health and strength and vigorous life. At all events, I
felt a hundred times better than I had twenty-four hours before! The sun
of righteousness had risen upon me with healing in his wings. "Arise,
shine forth, for thy light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen
upon thee."

Once more I found myself at one of the railway stations, and took my
departure for Cincinnati, by way of Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. It was
most delightful traveling to speed over the rails along the shore of
Lake Erie, to see once more the lovely foliage of the forests of the
beautiful state of Ohio, and then at last to skim away, and away down
the smooth and level banks of the Little Miami river, where I could
hardly hear or feel the train in motion at all. At last the "beautiful
river," as the French called the Ohio, hove in sight once more, with the
delightful hills of Kentucky and Ohio, on opposite sides, running up
from the water's edge, all clad with forest trees.

I next came to Cincinnati, and the "Public Landing" was crowded with
passengers and traffic going up and down the river, and as neither Tom
nor myself were millionaires, and I was desirous of cheapening things as
much as I could, I went aboard one of these floating palaces of the
Mississippi, and engaged myself as a waitress for the voyage down the
Mississippi. The "Natchez" was to leave at 4 P. M. the same day, so I
got my trunk on board, and reported myself for duty.

I gave a shout for joy as we left the Public Landing and floated out on
the mighty and splendid Ohio. Owing to the recent heavy rains all along
the head branches of this beautiful river, the stream was swollen from
bank to bank, and presented a grand appearance as we plunged into the
high-rolling waves and surges in the centre of the river. The glorious
sun danced upon the silvery tide, and covered all the forests, the hills
and dales on each side of the great and rushing flood. Huge barges were
floating down from Pittsburg, and the far North, and large and small
craft of every description were dancing and whirling away, whistling and
screaming and advancing towards us, or retreating around the bends.

So far as my duties on the boat permitted, my eyes were never off the
river, the hills, woods and forests, and the wild, fast-flowing traffic
that was going up and down, and which seemed to have no end. The red and
fiery sun went down in the wild waters of the beautiful river that
looked like heaving, molten gold; then up came the silver moon, and
turned all things visible into silver sheen.

The great Creator, indeed, was on the waves, and the Natchez drove on at
a rapid rate. We had now the Indiana shore on our right hand, having
passed the Ohio state line at Lawrenceburg, Indiana. In the early
morning we came to Louisville, Ky., where we remained for a few hours.
Here we passed through the Portland canal, and soon went by Riverside
Hall, and the little cabin on the opposite side of the river. It stands
two or three miles below New Albany, and I could see some of our dear
friends standing before the door. It was here that Tom and I had crossed
the Ohio.

The "beautiful river" still continued to increase and to swell, and we
plunged along at a glorious rate. All on board seemed to be in a
laughing mood, for the weather was superb, and that floating palace,
"The Natchez," swept along at a furious speed. You can talk as much as
you please about a light heart, but during this most delightful voyage
mine did seem "as light as any feather." I had such joyful dreams every
night, and hailed each coming morning with delight. Indeed I dressed
myself every morning while my mouth was full of laughter.

"What are you laughing at?" "I think you must be in love." "You always
appear in such tip-top humor." Such remarks were addressed to me by my
companions in the waiting department, as we made our toilets before the
looking-glass. To which I would reply, "I am laughing for the self-same
reason that the bird sings in the forest, because the sun shines. As the
children say, I am laughing at nothing!"

By this time the beautiful hills on both sides of the Ohio had fallen
away. We had the state of Illinois in front of us at last, when we
passed the mouth of the Wabash; and lower down on our left, the
Cumberland and Tennessee rivers poured all their flood into the Ohio,
after they had drained the mountain lands of Virginia, North Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. "The beautiful river" was
beautiful no more, but on both sides the lands were flat and fertile.

Ho for the Mississippi! What a rush there was among our passengers to
behold the great "Father of Waters" absorbing our smaller Ohio at Cairo,
in the state of Illinois. The city of Cairo lies right in the fork of
these two rivers--the Mississippi and the Ohio. "Whew! What a river!
Why, to be sure, this is, indeed, something like a river! It is more
like a flowing sea of fresh waters than a river," were the remarks of a
gentleman on board, and the sight was one that I am sure I never shall
or can forget, either.

Our arrival upon the Mississippi seemed to add to my good humor, and
then I was drawing nearer and nearer to my devoted and beloved mother
every hour, and I seemed to have a firm presentiment from high heaven
that my adventurous mission would turn out a success.

On, on, on, we rushed night and day, passing the mouths of the St.
Francis, the White, the Arkansas and Red rivers on our right hand, and
the Yazoo and other smaller ones on our left. It grew much warmer as we
advanced farther south. We were now coming into the lands famed for the
cultivation of the sugar cane, the cotton plant, and the rice. The only
thing that dampened my spirits was to behold from the deck of the
swift-flying Natchez, hundreds and thousands of oppressed colored people
toiling and sweating in the sun, whilst their overbearing overseers
stood over them, whip in hand, to make them work on, or receive the lash
on their backs. How even Southern people could look upon such barbarity
as that, and call themselves Christians, I could not understand. But as
sure as there is a God in heaven, there is a terrible "judgment day" in
store for all this, and I firmly believe that we shall all see it very
soon.

What was to hinder Mrs. Jackson from selling me down South here, and
forcing me to work till I died, in these very fields that I can see from
the deck of the Natchez? Wherein am I better than these full-blooded
Africans before my eyes, who were murderously torn away from their
beautiful homes in Africa, brought over in "floating hells," and sold
like cattle in the markets of the South? Shall not these who criminally
carry on the slave-trade, and slavery, soon atone for all this? As
surely as God lives, the "judgment day," even in this world, cannot be
far off! The Southern people, like the doomed inhabitants of wicked
Jerusalem, know not the approaching day of their visitation.

Musing in this way, we passed the cities of Memphis, Helena, Vicksburg,
Natchez, Baton-Rouge and Donaldsonville, and, at last, amidst a great
deal of noise and excitement, came to the wharf at New Orleans.

During all this glorious and enchanting travel from Buffalo by rail and
steamboat, like a good and faithful wife, I never forgot to write every
second day to my brave and beloved Tom, and I knew well that he would be
greatly interested in hearing of my progress down the Ohio and the
Mississippi. He afterwards told me that he used to read these letters of
mine over, and over, and over again, and sometimes before he went to
sleep, he would again light the lamp and read the last "arrival" from
end to end once more.

Here, then, at last, the good boat Natchez has brought us all safe and
sound to New Orleans, in the Sunny South. There is no snow here, and
fruits and flowers are to be found all the year round. The climate is
almost tropical, and everything out of doors breathes of orange blossoms
and all those exotics found in the warm climates. The whole scene had an
irresistible charm for me, and I felt a pleasure in being in the state
of Louisiana that I felt quite unable to describe.

But even the charms of nature and the strange French air of the people
did not produce the greatest impression on me here. That which produced
the greatest impression of all, was the mighty river Mississippi itself,
and the immense traffic carried over its irresistible waters. It is true
that its banks are quite plain and homely when compared with the
beautiful Ohio in its upper and middle courses. But then the Mississippi
is so big, that it is always majestic, solemn and grand. You are never
tired of looking at the immense and gigantic "creature," and especially
where it has constructed for itself a high embankment, cast up by the
silt and overflow of its muddy waters, in the lofty bosom of which the
mighty river flows as in an elevated canal.

And thus the Natchez was high up above the level of the plains on our
right and left hand, and we could look down on the valley of the
Mississippi from the deck of our palatial steamboat. Oh, the Mississippi
is a glorious sight to behold, always immense, solemn and grand!

The next thing that attracted me so much was the immense traffic that
came rolling down from the North, and that ascended the stream. When I
came off its mighty waters, I felt as if I was coming up from a wild,
riotous and troubled sea. And though forty-six years have now fled and
gone, the tremendous impression made upon my heart and soul by the
Father of Waters remains. I therefore cried, Ho for the Mississippi! as
I walked the gang-plank into the city.

My dear and beloved mother, Harriet Jackson, was one of those religious
women who would go to church if she went nowhere else. She went to the
A. M. E. Church whenever she could get there, and I had ascertained
before I left Riverside Hall, that she attended the services of that
congregation that lay nearest the mansion of the family to whom she had
been sold. I cannot say that she belonged to that family, for slavery
was nothing but a system of robbery in its best estate. She had been
sold down the river to an ancient French family--Roman Catholics--but,
in their indifferent, careless way, they allowed mother to go to her own
A. M. E. Church. She was so steady and devoted in her ways, and so very
remote from Kentucky, that they regarded it as an impossibility that she
would ever even dream of making her escape; and never, never, that any
one would ever come after her in this far-away part of the great world.

First and foremost, then, I made inquiries from those who could speak
English, for the name of the pastor, and found it with no great
difficulty. (As my complexion was so light and fair, I passed for one of
the whites of the city. There are many thousands of "whites" in the
South like me). I informed the reverend gentleman, when I first met him,
that I wished to have a private, confidential talk with him. I felt that
I was indeed conversing with a father, and there was not the slightest
fear. He informed me at once that my dear mother attended his church,
and was a warm-hearted and enthusiastic member of the same. He said she
would be at the prayer-meeting that very night, and named the hour when
it began; but while he should be glad to see her obtain her freedom, it
was the part of prudence that it should not even be known that he knew
anything about it, as they might murder him outright for even holding
his tongue! To this I replied that no doubt I could manage very well
myself, and that mother would perhaps have some amendments to put to my
own schemes after we met. In the meantime, I engaged a room with a nice
family, being fully resolved to stay there till such time as mother
could make her escape. I depended upon a well-laid plan, and to carry
out that plan with boldness. When I got myself settled in my temporary
home, and had written another letter to Tom, I walked out to see the
far-famed city of New Orleans, and indeed I obtained a pretty good idea
of it before my return in the evening. New Orleans is indeed a wonderful
place. But I need not take up the reader's time in describing this
quaint French city in America. The kind reader knows all about it
already. What I am most of all interested in at this time is the meeting
with my beloved mother, and getting her away from slavery into a land
where she shall be free to come and go, and do as she pleases, just as I
am doing!

Many thousands of slaves obtained their freedom by running away from
their owners; some of them encountered great difficulties on the way,
while others seemed to meet with no difficulties at all. I am also safe
in saying that many a hundred more might have gained their liberty, but
they were simply afraid to venture--they were too timid to take the
first step, or they were deterred from going by being unable to make up
their minds to leave parents, wives and children behind them. The latter
step was proven over and over again by their running away, obtaining
their freedom, but afterwards becoming so homesick that they actually
returned and surrendered themselves again to slavery, being unable to
stay away from those they loved most upon earth.

The African is both pleased and cursed by being possessed of a very warm
heart, and tender and loving affections. This is indeed a blessing and a
curse at one and the same time. We need not go far for the proof, for I
myself am a living witness to the same, and here I was at New Orleans
after my dearly-beloved and tender-hearted mother, whom I was unable to
live without; and then behold what I have suffered for the want of her
for more than two years--wrenched from me by the diabolical ways of
slavery, and the malice and spite of Mrs. Jackson! If my pinings and
regrets have been so great, longing day and night after my dear mother,
how much worse must that dear mother have felt for the loss of me? I
dare not even look at the picture! But our prayers have been heard by
the Lord; for He always hears those who love Him, and the hour for the
prayer-meeting is drawing nigh; the shades of night are at last falling
upon the long autumn day, and I find myself in the dusk in the
neighborhood of the A. M. E. Church, watching for the approach of my
mother, as maiden never waited for the coming of her lover advancing
among the trees to the well-known trysting-place.

All things come to those who wait, and here she comes at last! She is as
sweet and graceful as ever, and her step as light as the greyhound's! I
advanced to meet her, first looking cautiously around into the
increasing darkness, that no other was too near. The over-hanging trees
favored our meeting as I came up to her, and whispered softly in her
ear, "Mother!" We took each other by the hand, and kissed one another,
when she hurriedly drew me round into a side entrance to the basement
and rear of the church, where, entering a small classroom which would
not be used for the night, we sat down together, had one very long and
close embrace, and the happiness of that blessed and speechless half
hour seemed to me to equal all that which might be called out of an
ordinary lifetime. "Sweet the moments, rich in blessing, which within
thy courts I spend!" The remaining hour was passed in conversation,
during which we gave and received a complete history of the time that
had elapsed since the time mother was sold down the river.

"There will be no difficulty whatever about my getting away. They are
old people, and have not the remotest idea that I would ever make the
attempt. The best time for us to leave will be at this hour a week
to-night, and, my dear daughter, there is a big leather trunk that is
called mine, and which stands in my little bed-room upstairs, in an
out-of-the-way wing of the house, which I will manage to send empty to
your lodgings, whither I will send or bring my entire wardrobe myself. I
must not go without clothes, as they will be both necessary and useful
for me for years to come, if God my life shall spare. In the meantime
write Tom and give him all my love, and tell him when he may expect us
at home."

To all of this I most heartily agreed, and I was more happy and
lightsome than a butterfly. We came out before the congregation, and
another warm kiss and embrace under the trees, then mother steered away
homewards for the old French mansion, and I took my way to my lodgings,
where the people received me with great affection. I had told them that
I was married, and wore a gold ring to that effect, because without
giving them that needful piece of information, young beaux are bad for
coming around seventeen-year-old girls, and I did not wish any of the
kind New Orleans flunkeys to be coming around me with any of their sweet
kind of foolishness. When I got into my bed-room, I found the flowers of
the Sunny South perfuming the whole place like cologne, and I slept like
the angels there. Seven days and nights came and went. Mother and I met
one another as often as it was discreet and prudent for us to do. There
was not the remotest suspicion of her approaching departure--much less
of the direction which we meant to take. Like Tom and myself leaving
Riverside Hall, our plans were well-laid and matured, our hearts were
stout and brave within us, and we carried things out with a bold front.

As the New York passenger boat Columbia lay at her pier with steam up in
readiness for her departure on the following Wednesday night, while the
streets were full of horses, wagons, porters, passengers, and all the
rest of it; while late passengers were hurrying into the office to get
their tickets for New York, and boys were shouting the latest edition of
the city papers, two ladies in half mourning and heavily veiled, drove
up in a carriage, alighted in haste, had a heavy leather trunk carried
on board, and the elder of the two (a lady seemingly about thirty-six or
thirty-seven years of age) made for the ticket office and procured
tickets for two, and a corresponding cabin for New York. These two
ladies, the reader will understand, were my own dear mother and myself.
No notice was taken of us in any way. All was noise, bustle and
confusion about the Columbia. We were shown to our cabin like the rest,
and felt at home at once. It was growing dusk, the last bell was rung,
and with anxious hearts and high-beating hopes we cut loose from the
shore, and plunged out into the great river. The night being warm and
balmy, as is usual in the Sunny South, mother and I went on deck to see
our own departure, and to watch the passing vessels coming to and going
from the port of New Orleans. Here, in taking leave of the "Queen City
of the South," as the metropolis of Louisiana is called, I must say that
I was most delightfully impressed. I had been so very kindly treated on
all hands, and there was so much to charm the senses about this famous
French city. As for mother, the depth of the ocean was as nothing
compared with the depth of her contentment at getting away with her
beloved Beulah, the separation from whom had given her so much sorrow.

We were only sorry that we could not see the usual sights along the
Mississippi river to the same extent, as if we had left in the morning.
But that was impossible, and I think mother and I had great reason to
thank God that all things fitted in so well at the hour of our
departure. It was the night and hour for the prayer-meeting at the A. M.
E. Church--Wednesday night--with the good boat Columbia leaving at the
same hour. In this crooked world it is a difficult thing to make all
things work together just as we want them. We did indeed want to see our
poor, oppressed race at work among the sugar-canes, the cotton and the
rice, and the orange and fig-trees, and all the rest, which could only
be done rightly by day. We did indeed see plenty of their humble
quarters and cabins along the shores, and some little way back into the
country, and knew them well by the lights in the windows. Alas, alas!
for these poor, dear, miserable creatures! There they lay, no doubt,
sound asleep--sleeping in the sleep of the oppressed--poor old men and
women, laboring and toiling their lives away under a Southern sun, that
oppressors may feast and riot at their expense. But there is a God in
heaven, and we snuffled both war and freedom in the wind. Even a child
could foresee all that.

We retired early to bed. When were two women ever so happy on a New York
boat on the Lower Mississippi? It was enough to make the angels laugh
for joy, to think of it! Our departure was another installment in
swelling the volume of Southern wrath to break up the Union, as the
Fugitive Slave Bill would not work in their favor. Mother and
I--murmuring our thanks to Almighty God--soon fell into a happy sleep,
while the Columbia was ploughing her way down the Mississippi, and
moving out at the mouth of one of the passes, as they are called, into
the Gulf of Mexico. When we came back on deck next morning, the weather
was most delightful. The water was intensely clear--indeed it was as
clear as crystal! All things smacked of the Southern seas--of Southern
people, and all things Southern. In due course of time the west end of
the Isle of Cuba hove in sight, and soon the Columbia tied up in the
harbor of Havana.

As the Columbia was to remain a few hours at Havana, we were permitted
to go ashore to see the most famous city in the West Indies. The
tropical vegetation was all that the heart could wish, but what
interested mother and me the most was the quaint old city of the
Spaniards, and the different races of people who inhabited the "Ever
Faithful Isle," as it is called. Here we found Spaniards from old Spain,
Spanish creoles, free colored people and slaves. I hated the very sight
of slavery here in the Spanish island, though I have always understood
that slavery was less cruel here than in the Southern States. But all
the same it is slavery, and not freedom. Almighty God certainly never
meant that one man should own another. Besides, these odious Spaniards,
a lying, thieving nation, have promised the civilized nations of the
world a hundred times to abolish slavery, but they have always broken
their promises, and they will continue to break them until they are
compelled to give their slaves up by force. Spain is a dark, suspicious
nation, reduced to the last stages of poverty, but swollen with
ignorance and pride. But this present time of writing is 1897. We may
next take a retrospect, as it is forty-two years since mother and I were
at Havana. Poor Spain has already lost all her slaves, because she could
keep them no longer; and the Cuban war has now lasted for over two
years, during which the patriots have gained possession of the whole
island, except a few fortified towns like Havana. I will not here
narrate the sights, sounds and scenes that came under our observation in
the metropolitan city of Cuba. I will just mention that I was infinitely
amused at the system of courtship that was in vogue in their parts. The
young men went to see their fair lovers, and conversed with them through
grated windows, the young ladies being inside the bars, and the young
gentlemen standing outside on the street. I never think of these funny
scenes without laughter!

The Columbia got up steam once more, and we got out of the harbor of
Havana, passed through the Florida Straight, and in a few days were off
Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. All these places were new to us, and as
the fall weather was of the most delightful description, my dear mother
and I spent a great deal of time on deck. At last Sandy Hook was passed,
and we shortly after landed in New York.




CHAPTER III.


_Mrs. Lincoln Brings Her Mother to Buffalo--Warm Welcome Home--Harriet
Jackson married to Mr. J. B. Sutherland--Letter From Mrs. Sarah Jackson
and Beulah's Answer--Beulah, Mrs. Sutherland and Tom at a Great
Abolition Meeting--A Famous Gathering of the Clans._

Our delight at being once more on shore in our own country, and so near
home, and for the first time in the full possession of our own freedom,
filled our hearts and souls with the wildest enthusiasm, and from the
very bottom of our hearts we blessed and praised the Lord for His mercy
endureth forever.

We had intended to send a telegram to my own dear Tom at Buffalo, but we
changed our minds, and determined to take him by surprise. Besides, when
we had reconsidered the matter, we did not deem it altogether prudent to
send a telegram, because there were many wealthy families in New York,
who owned thousands of slaves in the South, and in some respects this
great city was even more dangerous than Georgia and Louisiana. So we
left on the first train for Buffalo, where we arrived in due time, and
hired a cab that took us home. Tom had left the key with a good
neighbor, so we opened the door, went in, and prepared tea for him by
the time he came home. It is very true that we had more need of going to
bed than to thus attend to the work of the house; but we were so excited
with our freedom, our successful journey from New Orleans, and the
exciting times right ahead, that we never thought of fatigue, but only
the present enjoyment.


[Illustration: _SCENES IN BUFFALO._]


At last we saw Tom coming up the street, when such a scene ensued as it
would take the very angels of heaven to tell. We sat up to a late hour
that night, and seemed quite unwilling to break up and retire for the
night. The pastor of the church, his good lady, and all the friends came
flocking round to see us, and the rejoicing over our mother's safe
arrival from the land of slavery was both loud and deep. When we next
went to church, the interest there was most unbounded, and the
enthusiasm ran higher than the waves of the sea. We made no secret of
anything. Abolition was now under full swing; the "Border Ruffians" were
now in Kansas, and the temper of the whole North was up, that slavery
should come no further. Therefore our white and colored friends came on
in droves to church to see mother, and welcome her to Buffalo, and
prayer, praise and hymns of rejoicing were kept up till a late hour.
Praise ye the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever!

It is sometimes a very difficult thing for a young person like myself at
this time to know what to do for the best, lest I should be doing wrong.
It has often been said that a woman cannot keep a secret, and I am bound
to confess that I had hard work to hold myself back at this time from
writing to my father and telling him the good news of mother's escape
from slavery. In the secret of his heart I knew well that he would
rejoice to hear it; but Mrs. Jackson might get hold of the letter, and
that was where the trouble came in. In fact, so far as unruffling her
feelings was concerned, I did not care whether she saw my letter or not!
I certainly intended to pen no falsehoods, and saw no good reason why
any one should object to the simple truth. Thus openly to publish our
whereabouts might have endangered mother, Tom and myself, because the
Fugitive Slave Bill was on the National Statute books. It is true that
some of the Southerners had been up to the far North after their
fugitives, and tried hard to carry them back to slavery; but though the
public officers were vigorously called on to do their duty, according to
the letter of the law, the general public arose against such arrests,
and the slave hunters had to go home again to the South without their
prey, avowing and swearing that this would never be a country anyhow
till slavery extended from the Lakes to the Gulf. There was, therefore,
no real cause for fear on account of either mother, Tom or myself. I had
promised my father to write again, and besides he had sent me a present
of fifty dollars, which I was bound to acknowledge, and then my
description of our first visit to Niagara had been broken off in the
middle. There was another thing that would deter Mrs. Jackson from
sending any expedition after us, and that was the fact that we were
right on the Canadian border, there being nothing between us and the
British dominions but the Niagara river. Indeed this was the true reason
why my own dear Tom and I never came to a halt till we reached the
beautiful city of Buffalo. Upon the least hint of man-hunters being on
our trail, we had nothing to do but steer across the river, where we
could have a glorious holiday among our friends, and come back again to
Buffalo as soon as ever our pursuers had returned home.

One thing was certain--if I were going to write at all, I must write
soon, or let it slide altogether. Of course, I could never make up my
mind to follow the latter alternative, so I took my pen in hand and sat
down and penned the following epistle:

"BUFFALO, N. Y., October, 1855.

"To Lemuel Jackson, Esquire,

"My Dear Father:--I am sure it shows very bad manners in me to be so
very slow in answering your thrice-welcomed letter. I am under a
thousand obligations to you for your present to my own dear Tom and me
on the occasion of our happy wedding. We consider that you have indeed
been most mindful of us, and we return you our warmest thanks. We are
both well, and Tom has a good situation on Delaware avenue, the
principal residence street in Buffalo.

"The last time I wrote you, I was giving you a description of our first
visit to Niagara Falls, and was interrupted in the middle of it by Tom's
coming home to tea, in company with our pastor and his wife. I am now
desirous of finishing the narrative, but before I do so, I will tell you
something that will indeed surprise you.

"You will remember the fits of sadness and depression I was subject to
every now and then after dear mother was sent down the river to New
Orleans. My happy marriage had suspended these attacks altogether for a
time; but one day in the beginning of the fall, they returned in great
force. That was the first attack, and after Tom and I had discussed the
matter over, it was at last fully decided that I must not have a second.
If you wish to hear all the particulars of what followed, I am quite
willing to give you them; but in the meantime--after your own style of
writing--I will be brief. I proceeded to New Orleans, rescued mother
from slavery, and brought her safe and sound home to Buffalo on the
steamer "Columbia," by way of Havana and New York City. This successful
and happy event has caused the liveliest satisfaction to dear mother, to
Tom and myself, and to the entire population of Buffalo, so far as they
have become acquainted with it. Tom is quite pleased to have such a
delightful mother-in-law in the house, and all three work most
harmoniously together.

"In my letter, dearest papa, I promised to give you the rest of the
account of our first visit to Niagara Falls. As, however, I have so very
much to say, and as I think it may please you better, instead of giving
you the rest of that most delightful narration and description in my own
words, I will--on Tom's recommendation--send you a most capital 'Guide
to Buffalo and Niagara Falls, with Numerous Illustrations.'

"I beg leave now to draw these few lines to a close. Mother and Tom
write in lots of love to you, and I am sure I shall be delighted to
receive even half a dozen lines from you at any time that you can make
it convenient, or feel disposed to write your dear daughter. And I am
yours in all affection,

"BEULAH JACKSON."

Having written the above letter, I posted it at once, and no doubt but
it was received in a couple of days and read with great interest by my
own dear father, and also by Mrs. Jackson, though with very different
feelings from his. I was perfectly well aware that there was an
abundance of pent-up wrath in her imperious temper, and that it would
explode one of these fine days!

As my mother, Harriet Jackson, was a woman of great handsomeness, beauty
and a thousand graces, and still comparatively young, being only
thirty-seven, her hand was sought by a settled and most honorable man
named Mr. John B. Sutherland, a resident of Buffalo, and a member of the
A. M. E. Church. They had a nice wedding at the church on Vine street,
in the presence of an applauding and highly-respectable company. It was
a perfect union of hearts, like Jacob and Rachel's over again. As we had
plenty of room, and were unwilling to have mother set up a different
establishment, Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland took up their residence with us,
and all things went on most harmoniously together. The Almighty seemed
to pour His richest blessings upon us all, and we tried to honor and
glorify His holy name in all that we did. Our experience in slavery had
been light, and we were now only too thankful to be free.

One day in the month of November, Tom received the following letter from
Mrs. Jackson at Riverside Hall, though it was intended for all three of
us:

"RIVERSIDE HALL, Near Louisville, November, 1855.

"Mr. Thomas Lincoln,

"Dear Tom:--We duly received all your letters, and also the Buffalo
newspaper with an account of the marriage of Harriet to Mr. John B.
Sutherland. That would all be right enough if you were white people, or
even free people of color, but the whole three of you are neither one
nor the other. You are our goods and chattels, and our runaway slaves,
and we have decided to bring you back, or else you must pay us the
reduced sum of one thousand dollars apiece; that is, two thousand
dollars, when we will give you your free papers, and a full discharge.
As your master and mistress, we are herein doing you a great favor, for
we could easily get two thousand dollars apiece for each of you, Tom and
Beulah, in the public market. I suppose you are aware that the Fugitive
Slave Bill is the law of the land, and in case you do not give us
satisfaction immediately, we will proceed to put the law in force, and
either bring you back to Riverside Hall, or sell you down the river.
Now, Tom, a word to the wise is sufficient. We shall look for a letter
from you soon.

"I am yours respectfully,

"SARAH JACKSON."

When the above letter arrived at our house, the whole four of us were
seated at the tea table in the evening, and laughing first over one
thing and then another, as people will do at eventide when the work of
the day is done. We read the letter aloud in the midst of great sport
and laughter, which went on, grew and increased the more we examined it.
It was the work of Mrs. Jackson and hers alone. None of us believed that
father knew anything about it at all, and I am sure he did not. Mrs.
Sarah Jackson evidently was unable to keep down her temper and spite
after all our grand escapades, marriages and other things.

"Why," said Mr. Sutherland, "I suppose she will be coming on us with
bloodhounds themselves! She would look grand in hunting costume on the
streets of Buffalo with bloodhounds!"

"What makes me laugh," remarked Tom, "would be to see the boys and young
lads pelting those dogs with stones, and belaboring their sides with big
sticks!"

This was followed by another shout of loud laughter, when mother
exclaimed,

"She would indeed be a sight well worthy of a first-class painter in the
midst of an infuriated crowd who were bent upon our protection and
rescue."

As it was now my turn to put in a word, I remarked,

"She had better send nobody after us. It is now five years since the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill, which no man can enforce, because
the Christian spirit of the North will not have it, and the North is
right to resist it."

The question next arose as to who should answer the letter. Tom and Mrs.
Sutherland absolutely refused to answer it in any shape or form, so I
took pity on the great lady of Riverside Hall, and said that I would
answer her one of these fine days, which would be both sport and
pleasure for me, and then perhaps she would let us all have a rest. So
in a few days after the receipt of her wonderful letter, I took up my
pen and wrote as follows:

"BUFFALO, N. Y., November, 1855.

"Mrs. Sarah Jackson,

"Madam:--As both Tom and Mrs. Sutherland have absolutely refused to take
the slightest notice of your letter, it has fallen to me to answer it.
It would not suit the convenience of any of us to come to Riverside Hall
at this time, or, indeed, to go anywhere else. Even if we had all the
opportunities in the world, we would not come to Riverside unless we
came as specially invited guests; a visit, in short, that would be a
mutual gratification to us all. But at this time, Tom has got a most
excellent situation on Delaware avenue, the grand residence avenue of
Buffalo; besides, he has married a wife, and therefore he cannot come.
(Such is the language of Holy Writ).

"As for myself, the grand committee on abolition have engaged me to give
a number of lectures, and to sing at their meetings in the interest of
the freedom of all those who are held in the South in enforced and
involuntary bondage. The committee on freedom think that the presence of
a young woman like me would help on the good cause, draw the crowds, and
drive another nail into the coffin of slavery in Kentucky, and wherever
the hated institution exists.

"It will not be a very hard thing for me to make out a clear case
against slavery, and in favor of freedom. Now, just look at myself, and
all those graces and qualifications that I possess and inherit from both
father and mother, and how our gracious Lord has cut me out to be
something, and to do something in the world! Suppose that I had chosen
to remain at Riverside Hall! What was to hinder you spiriting me away to
the cotton fields of the Sunny South to wear my life away as if I were a
mere animal, instead of being a human being like yourself, and one for
whom Christ died? I therefore rejoice at dear mother's freedom; for
slavery is nothing but a revolting crime--a system of robbery and
murder! Now, here I am, and in a short time intend to appear on the
public stage in the capacity of a lecturer, a singer and a player on the
piano. Just fancy the idea of a handsome young woman of seventeen, like
myself, being sold away to Louisiana or Georgia to wear my life away
among the rice fields, the cotton and the cane, when nature has
qualified me with gifts and graces, the admiration of my gallant and
clever Tom, and the 'pick' of the general public to serve against
slavery in the Northern States! I only hope that I shall be able to do
my full share to help on the great conflagration that is now raging all
over the free states, and which I hope will never cease burning until it
has burnt the whole 'institution' down to the ground. Here in the North
I shall be seen and heard by legions of people. But who would ever see
or hear me in the cotton fields, or the sugar plantations, and in the
rice swamps of Louisiana or Georgia?

"I have failed to answer your letter in the way intended. What
impression you intended to make on my mind is more than I know. Your
statements were nothing but the old parrot cries of the South, that have
been heard for many years. Of course, you cannot compel us to come back
so long as we ourselves object. If you write us any more, and expect
your letters to be read, you will have to make them of a readable
character. We will tolerate no less respect than if you were writing to
the Bishop or his wife. I know you don't wish your letters to be
returned to you unread. 'A word to the wise is sufficient.'

"I am yours very respectfully,

"BEULAH JACKSON."

The country continued to ring with abolitionism. Orators and agitators
continued to traverse it in all directions. Men and women mounted the
rostrum, and held forth hour after hour before greatly-interested
gatherings of both sexes and all ages. Fugitive slaves who had made
their escape over the lines were introduced upon the platform, and gave
their wonderful experiences of slavery in the South, and how they
managed to get away. It was thrilling to hear some of them tell of all
the dangers they encountered upon the road; how they were pursued for
hundreds of miles by men, horses and even bloodhounds; how they were
assisted by free people of color, and even by those in bondage and white
people; and thus helped along week after week, and month after month,
till they felt that they were at last both safe and free. When we
consider how the slave States passed one law after another, and all
pulled, and hauled, and banded together to protect and perpetuate their
hold upon their human property, it was most wonderful how very many
slaves effected their escape. The nearer the awful storm came to
breaking over our heads, the more numerous grew the successful escapes
that were made. The frantic South still kept tying the strings tighter
and tighter; but instead of producing the effect she desired, the more
daring grew the soul of the intrepid slave, who seemed encouraged by the
very God of battles himself to strike for liberty and flee to the North.

Thus the grand storm went on, increased and grew. Fred. Douglass,
William Lloyd Garrison, and many other famous writers continued to issue
their papers week by week, or month by month. The agitation was kept at
fever heat by all sorts and conditions of men and women. Still the
Abolitionists did not have the entire field to themselves, for there
were thousands and thousands of people in the Northern states who
believed in slavery for the colored man as much as the Southern
slave-holder himself, away down in Louisiana and Georgia. But Henry Ward
Beecher, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others without number continued
to lay on with hard licks and steady blows; the public conscience of the
free States became more and more educated, and the people in general
came to take a sympathetic interest in the oppressed African they had
never done before. The presence of the poor, oppressed fugitive slaves
in their meetings, and seen streaming along the North towards the Great
Lakes and Canada, with the marks of the "peculiar institution" stamped
for life upon their backs, were proof positive that none could deny. The
furious quarrel was carried into the halls of Congress at Washington,
and the South was unable to keep it out, though they made the most
determined efforts to do so. The Quakers and all the friends of the
slaves were forever at it, ding-dong, hammer and tongs, and thus the
family quarrel went on. John Brown and free-soil men were in Kansas, and
so were the "Border Ruffians" who came pouring in from Missouri and the
South, being determined to carry Kansas and all other new States and
territories into slavery like the rest of the slave States in their
rear. And still the great American family quarrel went on, increased and
grew, and the Christian voice of the North declared, "Thus far shalt
thou come and no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." The
far-away Christian nations of the world watched the gathering of the
coming tempest from over the seas, and it was apparent to their
unobscured vision that a fearful judgment was coming upon America, and
that it would not be long in coming, either.

The escape of mother and Tom and myself from slavery caused no small
sensation in and around Buffalo. An endless tide of visitors came on to
see us, and they had a thousand questions to ask us about our early life
and experiences in Kentucky and Louisiana. As Lemuel Jackson had caused
us to be duly educated, so that we could even play the piano well, we
were rather more fortunate in the line of education than most of our
fugitive brothers and sisters. In those days, great anti-slavery
demonstrations were all the go. The announcement that some great
national abolitionist was to be on hand at the Hall, to address the
general public on the wrongs and crimes of slavery, would pack the whole
place, and sometimes the crowds that came could not find even standing
room. Then music was added at times, songs were sung, even brass and
stringed bands were brought into play, and everything was done to draw
the prohibition hosts of the great North, then to keep them there, and
finally to make them come again.

The Abolitionists took advantage of our presence in Buffalo to help one
grand meeting in the city for the purpose of making a demonstration in
force, to prove that colored people were just the very same as white
people when they were educated and polished, as we three had been.
Because the lie had been repeated ten thousand times in the South, and
reechoed by their abetting friends in the North, that we were unfitted
for civilization, and that the African was formed by God himself for
slavery, and for slavery alone, and was never intended by nature to be
the equal and companion of white men and women! It was considered that
our presence in a highly intelligent audience would knock that argument
completely on the head, and kill the abominable falsehood once for all.
Therefore they made a demonstration in force, and we ourselves were on
hand.

When the night and hour arrived, Tom, mother and myself proceeded to the
hall, which was already half full, though we were there early. We saw
that great things were expected of us all, and we braced ourselves up
for the occasion, determined that nobody should go away disappointed.
The music discoursed sweet tunes as the people were gathering, and in
due course of time the Rev. Doctor Henderson called the meeting to
order, and took the chair for the evening. He called on our pastor to
offer up prayer to the Giver of every good and perfect gift. The glee
club then sang "The Negro's Complaint," which was written by Mr. William
Cowper, of England. Then the chairman exclaimed,

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, the slave-holders tell us that the children
of African descent in these United States are unfitted for civilization,
and that they are nothing but goods and chattels. I will now call upon
one specimen of these goods and chattels to give us a rattling tune on
the grand piano, and to sing us 'The Mocking Bird,' and put some life in
it." (Great display of approbation, mingled with shouts of loud
laughter).

Then said the reverend speaker, turning to myself,

"Mrs. Lincoln, will you be so kind as to favor us with some of your warm
Southern music?"

Now, of course, the indulgent reader will readily understand that upon
this august occasion I was arrayed like a bride adorned for her husband.
So I arose, bowed to the audience, and put on one of my sweetest smiles,
and proceeded to play and sing with unusual vigor. When I came to the
chorus the whole audience joined in, and I thought they would have
brought down the roof of the hall on our heads. Nor was that the best
part of it, because they not only sang at the end of each verse, but
when I got through the entire audience arose upon their feet and shouted
their applause, calling for an encore, and would not be refused.

I gave them a Southern song with music, for which they gave me another
sounding cheer, when Dr. Henderson introduced my honored mother, Mrs.
Sutherland, in the following happy terms:

"Dear Friends: We are assembled here to-night, in our accustomed place
of meeting, to give the grand chariot of progress another push towards
the bottom of the hill. (Loud applause). The lesson we wish to teach
upon this special and most exceptional occasion is to show what the
colored race are capable of doing and becoming if they had simply an
open field and fair play. It is our desire to see them get an open field
and fair play! (More applause). But I will not detain this large and
splendid audience any longer, but at once introduce to you Mrs. John B.
Sutherland, formerly of Kentucky, but now of Buffalo, who will entertain
us for a time and address the house."

Loud applause followed the Doctor's remarks, when my honored mother came
to the front of the platform, and spoke as follows:

"My good friends, I consider myself most especially honored this night
to be permitted to come before you, to assist in driving another nail
into the coffin of the 'peculiar institution' from whose clutches I have
just been rescued by the kindness and daring of my own daughter. (Loud
cheers). The South has told you ten thousand times that we of the
colored race are only fit for hewers of wood and drawers of water, like
the Gibeonites. These drawers of water of our poor, oppressed race, that
they themselves may live in mansions more palatial than the lords, and
barons, and dukes of Continental Europe and the British Isles. Who ever
heard of such unmanliness and cowardice? Men who ape the aristocracy of
Europe, and even surpass them in brilliant, grand displays, wringing
their wealth from the oppressed African!

"I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that Almighty God is getting tired of
such refined badness, and that the day is coming, and will soon be here
when such a storm of wrath will be upon the South as will wipe out the
blood-red crime of slavery from Mason and Dixon's line to the Rio
Grande. The sooner that day of judgment comes the better!

"Just look abroad over all these far-spreading Northern and Western
States, and hear how they are ringing with the loud notes of freedom,
and the sounds of coming conflict! I am free to say that upon this
night, and at this very hour there are hundreds of meetings going on all
along the Northern States for the purpose of enlightening the nation as
to the real character, intentions and purposes of the South. The South
is not ignorant of these things. They have got Argus eyes for all we do,
both in Congress and out of it, and they will push things as fast and as
far as they dare. They will give us no rest till we are either all
slaves, or all free! (Loud applause). I look around me at the political
skies, and I see them growing blacker and blacker as the great national
storm is gathering. John Brown and the free-soil men are in Kansas; loud
and angry words are being bandied forth between the occupants of the two
ends of the house--between the powerful North and the passionate South.
From words they will most assuredly come to blows over that very
'peculiar institution,' and American slavery and all the evils that
follow in its train, will pass away. But of one thing rest assured. The
South will never consent to emancipate her slaves. They have been
throwing it up in the face of the North these past fifty years that they
can't get their own way; they will go out of the Union, and set up a
slave empire of their own. Then they will attempt a dissolution of these
glorious States. Then they will dare and defy you to force them back
into the Union by the sword. The day is coming, and what will you do
about it?" (Great cheering).




CHAPTER IV.


_Continuation and End of the Great Abolition Meeting at Buffalo._

"The determination of the slave-holding oligarchy is to keep our
persecuted race under a bushel--both soul and body--and to sit down on
the top of that bushel for all coming time. They are stone blind to the
fact that they are sitting on the top of a bushel of dynamite, which
will blow them sky-high one of these days, with terrible effect. They
have entirely forgotten that this world belongs to God; and they and the
devil between them have made up their minds to do as they please.
Between bloodhounds and cowhides they think they will do very well. My
own firm belief is that a war is coming upon us that will carry mourning
into every house in this great republic, both North and South. There are
thousands and ten thousands of the very same opinion as myself. The
South will never surrender their 'peculiar institution.' If it were
dogs, cows or horses that they were called upon to give up, they would
cheerfully give them up for a fair price. But the very 'Old Lad' himself
is in the business when it comes to claim property in men and women,
especially when those men and women happen to be better than themselves,
which is usually the case. (Loud laughter and cheering all over the
hall). When a dog, a horse or a cow runs away, they will let it go, but
if it be a man or a woman, they will pursue the fugitive over mountains,
lakes and rivers, and even die in the attempt to bring them back to
slavery. If this rising storm shall end in a war, the old lie that the
black man will not fight will certainly be exploded, for every slave
will go to the field, if necessary, and their strong arms will knock
down the 'peculiar institution.' (Great applause).


[Illustration: _ABRAHAM LINCOLN._]


"On my way down the Mississippi to New Orleans, they brought an old
colored man on board, having sold him to a family resident in the Queen
City of the South. I conversed much with that grand old hero, and it was
wonderful to see what an intuitive knowledge he had of human nature, and
what a vast amount of natural goodness there was still left in him,
after so much hard experience, labor and toil among the cane brakes and
cotton fields. Such a man as Judah--for that was his name--ought to have
been a bishop in the Church of God, instead of being reckoned among the
bales and bundles, and goods and chattels, of the Southern States. If
that good man (who left such a deep impression on the hearts and minds
of all Christian people who conversed with him)--if he had been free
according to the will of God, and been educated like white men, instead
of being robbed and plundered of his rights, he would have made a
splendid bishop, for I am perfectly positive that he had every
qualification for that office in the highest degree. That saintly
man--that Judah--should this very day be the right reverend and honored
bishop among his brethren in a nation where all are free, instead of
being no more than a favored spaniel or ornament to grace the pride of
some family in New Orleans. If that grand old man had only had the same
opportunities that the white bishops have had, he would at this hour be
gracing the churches and halls of this nation, the very same as white
men do. The day of judgment is at hand that will reverse all that!

"On the same voyage down the Mississippi to New Orleans, they brought on
board a fair and beautiful creature of seventeen, who, like Judah, was
also intended to grace a baronial hall in the Queen City of the South. A
more attractive woman I have never seen anywhere. It was pitiable to
think of her future. She was graceful in all her movements; most
handsome; had a musical voice, and was withal a splendid singer. Where
she was born I cannot tell, but they gave $2,500 for her! The more I
looked at poor Julia, the more mournful I became. What a glorious
ornament for society she would have been had she been free! Almost any
honorable man would have been proud to make her his wife. She could have
led the choir in the house of God, and could have sung with the
minstrels before Queen Victoria and all the crowned heads of Europe. She
might have been a bright and shining light in some way or other, under
the guiding hand of divine providence; her life and times might have
been written by some famous author, and read by millions of people in
this and other nations of the earth.

"In this way we can go on to the end of the chapter. Our traducers and
slanderers say that we are unfit for this, that and the other thing,
which is a deliberate and willful falsehood. We are well qualified for
everything that any other race upon earth is qualified to perform, and
that is the very reason why our maligners say we are not; and they are
even unwilling to give us the chance to try. It is true that a few of us
are educated, but very few. We three, that is, myself and daughter and
her husband, were taught a little because we were favorably situated
under Mr. Jackson, but the slave-holders, as a general thing, make a
specialty of keeping us in the most complete ignorance, and it is a
crime for a slave to be taught to read, write and cast accounts, and it
is also a crime for any man to be found teaching him.

"But there is a better day coming, and will soon be here; only we will
have to pass through a time of the most tremendous affliction before the
better times arrive. When, by the predetermined will of God, all men and
women are free from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to
the Gulf, then, indeed, shall we arise and shine forth, for our light
will be come, and the glory of the Lord will be risen upon us. Then
shall new schools and colleges be established all over the land, into
which our sons and daughters will crowd, and they will also go to those
which have been long established. Then shall our professional men and
women go forth in their thousands and ten thousands, and spread to lands
and islands beyond the seas. Then shall our senators and representatives
enter the halls of Congress at Washington, and every state legislature.
Our surgeons and physicians shall then ride forth precisely the same as
their white brothers duly armed with the very same diplomas, authorizing
them to heal the sick, and alleviate the ailments of those that are
afflicted, instead of wearing their lives away in the cane brakes, the
cotton fields and the rice swamp of the South as slaves. They may labor
all over the far-extended lands as freemen toiling for themselves and
their families at useful trades, and laying up money against a rainy
day. Then shall children go forth in their hundreds and thousands to be
trained like others for the duties of life, and to become the ornaments
of society. Then shall our afflicted sons and daughters sit no longer in
the galleries of the churches of the land as so many 'goods and
chattels" thrust away up into the corner, but walk forth in freedom to
the house of the Lord on the Sabbath day--go forth in their thousands
and tens of thousands to our most Holy Communion in all that liberty of
soul and body wherein the Lord has made us all free. The time would fail
for me to tell, and for you to listen to all the good things that will
come with freedom, after every man, woman and child, now in slavery, are
at liberty."

When Mrs. Sutherland had done speaking as above, she resumed her seat
amidst a scene of great enthusiasm. Indeed the whole audience was worked
up to a pitch of great excitement. The glee club now advanced to the
front, and gave us one of their best songs, which was most heartily
enjoyed by every person present.

The reverend chairman now rose to his feet, and thus addressed the
immense assembly:

"Ladies and Gentlemen:--Just think upon the glorious speech to which we
have listened, and the unanswerable arguments of the beautiful and
accomplished speaker! There are wonderful changes in store for this
nation, and the end is not yet. I will now call upon Mrs. Thomas
Lincoln, of Kentucky, to address the house. Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs.
Lincoln."

Although this was my first appearance in public, and though that mighty
audience looked formidable enough to scare an African lion or royal
Indian tiger, still my own mind was firmly made up to brook no failure,
and I proceeded to speak as follows:

"My good Christian friends of the North: I bless and magnify the Lord
this famous night, not only because I am permitted to address you, but
because I am even free. It is very true that in yonder great slave land
my lines fell to me in pleasant places; but after all, though I figured
as 'The Flower-Girl of Riverside Hall,' I was no more in the eyes of the
'peculiar institution,' ridiculously so called, than a pampered and
favored greyhound with a gold chain around his neck! (Loud laughter.)
That golden chain marked me for a slave, although it was my privilege,
upon grand occasions, to become an ornament to grace my owner's triumph
among his visitors, just like any other fragile vase set upon a
mantelpiece. (More laughter). Upon those grand occasions our masters
used to bring out the finest wines, richest fruits and rarest delicacies
of the whole earth. The land and the sea were ransacked to find dainties
for the glorious lords and ladies of the South, to set before their
guests far more than the lords and dukes and barons of Europe and Asia
ever even attempted to display. At our grand banquets it was my duty to
pour out the wine, and assist in a general way in the dining-room, as
the necessity of the moment might require. Then nature has endowed me
with a voice for music, and as I am fond of singing, I had to obey,
whenever I was bid, by giving them some of our Southern songs to the
accompaniment of the grand piano, and even play for the company whenever
they wanted to dance. (Loud applause from the young people). But I am
bound to confess that often in the midst of these grand pastimes, when I
deemed it prudent to look pleasant, and even to smile sweetly for the
purpose of concealing my real thought, I was longing and praying for
freedom, and regarded myself as no more than that aforementioned chained
greyhound among other greyhounds that were free. (Cheers from the
audience). I could not forget that at that very hour there were good men
and women of color, down in the slave quarter, dressed in little more
than sackcloth, stretching their weary limbs for the night upon their
miserable beds, after a miserable meal of coarse cornbread, and a
swallow of tea or coffee, perfect dish water, besides other stuff not
fit for a horse or a dog to feed on! In the slave quarter there lay the
best of men and women, of whom this world is not worthy, and here we
were in the ball-room, abandoned to the dance as if there were no
suffering in the world, much less not many yards away from the place
where all our revelry was going on. Was it wonder, then, as my fingers
flew over the piano, that I internally prayed, 'O my Good Lord, set me
free! Set me free! and take me away from all this shallow and hollow
mockery!' I had a tremendous presentiment, which I could not keep down,
that the Lord God Almighty would yet visit the South for all this, and
give our great lords and masters, on some near future day, the field of
battle whereon they could show off their talents, instead of robbing and
murdering the oppressed African, and thus living at his expense. O my
God, it was too much! (Great cheering).

"I was still very young. It was only spring when I was seventeen, when
the Bishop and his wife were invited to our house. They were to be our
guests during a great religious gathering at Louisville. I felt a sudden
inspiration to make a rush for liberty, now or perhaps never. Besides,
slavery is so uncertain, and as it is usually the unexpected thing that
happens on their estates and plantations, if you don't take time by the
forelock when you can, you may never have so good a chance again. I will
leave it to my kind and gallant Tom to tell you how we got away; because
I think that was the luckiest day in my whole life--unless, indeed, I
consider also the day that my own dear mother and I sailed from New
Orleans on the Columbia. There are great days in the lives of
individuals as well as in the lives of nations, and I feel a heavenly
presentiment in my own heart and soul that a great war is impending upon
this nation, and that Almighty God will send it to set His people free.
We are the Lord's own people, and we pray to Him every day. He has
promised, many a time, in His holy word, to hear our prayers, and He
does hear our prayers, and there are thousands and millions of prayers
sent up to heaven every day to the throne of mercy that God would set
the captives free. The North and South between them, may pass 'Fugitive
Slave Bills,' and plan and scheme to keep the curse of slavery going
till the end of time, if they like; but at the same time this world
belongs to the great Lord of heaven and earth, and He will hear all the
prayers of the oppressed before much more time rolls over our heads, for
He is sure to set our people free.

"I have been studying what I can to help on the good cause of
emancipation, abolitionism, or by whatsoever name you may call it--I
mean in this campaign that is now raging and at fever heat all along the
Northern states, and from ocean to ocean. I am willing to do all I can
to help the cause of the oppressed and terribly down-trodden slave. I am
willing to place my services at the command of the managing committee in
these parts, and to speak, to play, and to sing, and do my best in every
way for the good cause. (Loud applause all over the hall). Fred.
Douglass, and William Lloyd Garrison, and Henry Ward Beecher, and many
others of the 'big guns' will be coming around; and perhaps even Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe herself. I think she, at least, ought to pay us a
visit, for if any free colored person in the South is detected with her
'Uncle Tom's Cabin' in his possession, that person may be sent to prison
for twelve months. Now I myself managed to read 'Uncle Tom,' even in
slavery. So did my honored mother and husband--all here present before
you--and Mr. Jackson, our owner, could have been fined so much apiece
for us three, had the State of Kentucky been made aware of the fact!
(Loud ironical cheers and great laughter by the whole house). In a
campaign like this, we must all put our shoulders to the wheel, and give
a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together; and each and every
one of us must do all we can to bring the abominations of slavery to an
end. 'There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we
will.' Such are the words of Shakespeare. We also are rough-hewing the
cause of freedom for the slave. The divinity of heaven will give the
proper shape and finish to these ends of ours.

"As I have myself already drunk so deeply of the fountain of liberty, I
think it is my bounden duty to do all I can to help on that good cause
that lies so near all our hearts. And yet I do not see that I can do
much more, when I have done my best, than to aid in heaping more fuel
upon the top of the fire now raging, and thus assist in firing the
Northern heart. Other weak women, besides me, have worked wonders in
forwarding the cause of freedom and of God. Several of the greatest
heroines of history are mentioned in both the Old and New Testament. One
of the very first who was mentioned is Miriam, who led forth the women
with timbrels and with dances at the Red Sea, for she commanded the
people 'to praise the Lord, because He had done gloriously; the horse
and the rider He had cast into the sea.' Then we come to the case of the
brave and valiant Deborah, the most conspicuous of all the heroines of
the Bible, for she led the Jewish nation to the war, and placed herself
at the head of her volunteers on the mountains of Israel. So long as
freedom and liberty are held sacred in this world, so long shall the
name of the victorious and intrepid Deborah be ever green. (Loud
applause). Another famous heroine of history was Boadicea, the Queen of
the Britons, who placed herself at the head of her army and fought with
the Romans. Then we have the burning and shining example of Joan d'Arc,
who led on the armies of France, and cleared that country of the English
invaders. Nor must we forget the intrepidity and courage of Her Majesty
Elizabeth, Queen of England, who placed herself at the head of her
troops when her native isle was threatened with invasion by the Spanish
Armada. Such women were--each one of them--worth a hundred thousand men,
not so much for what they could do in themselves, but because they
greatly assisted in firing the national heart, and urging on the hosts
of men to war.

"Now, I am not saying that I myself will make a Deborah, a Joan of Arc,
or an Elizabeth; but there are already in this campaign several heroic
American women, who are doing yeoman service on behalf of the
down-trodden and oppressed African, and if they can do something in this
good cause, so can I. (Loud shouts of 'Yes, yes! so you can! Hurrah for
Mrs. Lincoln!') I am at least willing to do my best in talking, in
singing and in striking the dulcet chords of music, and wherein I may
happen to fall short, others will atone for my deficiencies. Let the
work go on! Let us lay the axe to the roots of this deadly and devilish
upas tree! Let slavery be shaken to its lowest foundations, and be
driven into the Gulf of Mexico! Forward, ye brave! And even if war
itself must come, let it come, and even we women will go to the field!"

With the last exhortation, I resumed my seat, when the audience rose to
their feet and cheered, and almost made me blush at the results of my
own small efforts. When the excitement had abated, and the audience was
in readiness to hear the next speaker, the Rev. Dr. Henderson arose once
more and said:

"Ladies and gentlemen:--After the eloquent and stirring address we have
heard from the wife, we shall now look forward with much pleasure to an
address from that noble and gallant husband who safely piloted both
himself and her out of slavery, as we plainly see here before us
to-night. I beg to introduce to you Mr. Thomas Lincoln!"

Tom arose at once, and as he advanced towards the footlights, he pulled
down his vest and cleared his throat in the masculine fashion, the
audience in the meanwhile cheering loudly, after which he proceeded to
speak as follows:

"My right good Christian friends:--It is with no small pleasure that I
appear before you to-night to give you some of my sentiments, veins and
opinions on the coming war in this country. (Sensation). I firmly
believe that a war is impending over us, as I believe that there is a
God of vengeance and of justice. Look at the millions and billions of
money that the Southern chivalry have piled up, and they are piling it
up still, at the expense of the poor, oppressed and enslaved African!
And shall a sinful nation indeed escape from blood-red crimes like
these? I am neither a prophet by profession, nor the son of a prophet,
but even a child can understand that the funeral bell of slavery will be
tolled before long, and depend upon it, ye young men! both you and I
will be called into the field, and we will all be needed to pull down
that most abominable and 'peculiar institution!' (Loud applause).

"Though neither a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, I affirm that a day
is coming, and is now on the home stretch, indeed, when you young men
and I will not be permitted to stay at home and dally with the apron
strings of our mothers and sweethearts, but we will have to march to the
field. We will then make it manifest what we men of Africa can dare and
can do. I shall be quite willing to go for one, when the South, in her
frantic anger, will secede; I am willing to do all I can for my own
country, and if those who are soldiers themselves never come home, we,
at least, will clear the great national gangway for coming generations,
and the glories that are to follow! (Loud cheers).

"I suppose that some of our friends on the other side of the fence will
begin to tell us here that the colored man will not fight, and that
there is neither pluck nor courage in him. We shall certainly be told a
hundred thousand times that there is no fighting in him, and that he was
never intended for anything but a docile slave! Such persons who say so
have never read even the A B C of history; for colored men fought quite
as well as white men on many a hard-fought field, both in the War of the
Revolution, and in the War of 1812; and what we did once, and did well,
we can do again, and do better, and with a better motive, too, because
we will be fighting for our own complete emancipation, and to put an
end, once for all, to slavery in the United States, and purge the nation
of a great crime. (Loud applause throughout the hall).

"I need not go back in history to prove the bravery of the African race,
for this is a well-known fact, and the very school-books are full of it.
The bravery of the slave is one of the main reasons why the
slave-holders make such stringent laws in attempting to perpetuate their
iniquitous system. They know our prowess, and the risks they would run
in the case of a general rising, and therefore they exercise double
caution in order to keep down even the slightest attempts at
insurrection. But for all that, there is not the slightest doubt in my
own mind that they will go out of the Union, as they have been promising
us to do for the last fifty years, if they cannot get their own way! In
all their plans, schemes and calculations, this slave-holding oligarchy
have thrown the Almighty overboard, and every sacred right of the human
race. They have treated the wronged and oppressed African as if he had
neither rights nor feelings, and, indeed, as if he were not a human
being at all. But there is a day coming, and it will soon be here, when
the Great Creator of the entire human race will call an imperative halt
to all this, and go into this war as we may, we will come out with four
millions of people who will be redeemed from the yoke and curse of
Southern bondage. (Loud cheers).

"I did not intend to make a lengthy address. I only wished to point out
that we are drifting into war, and my own willingness to lend a hand to
liberate the oppressed slave."

Tom now resumed his seat amidst great applause. The audience, though
taken by surprise by his speech, were greatly delighted, because of his
willingness to go to the field.

The reverend chairman now called on the glee club to give us some more
of their musical compositions and campaign songs. These were given with
a hearty good will, so that the enthusiasm of the audience rose higher
and higher. The newspaper reporters were also kept busy, and a good
account of the proceedings of this very successful abolition meeting was
found in several of the papers next morning, and very extensively read.
Before we scattered for the night, the Rev. Doctor Henderson arose, and
made the following closing remarks to the audience:

"Ladies and gentlemen: We have all listened to a rare treat this night.
Just think of it! The South calls these two ladies and this gentleman
their 'goods and chattels,' and for the very life of me I do not see how
a war can be avoided, and then we shall know what their so-called goods
and chattels will do when the storm shall burst upon us in all its fury.
No, no! I do not see how a war is to be avoided, for the passions of
both the North and the South are being worked up in precisely the same
way as is usual in quarrels between individuals, and no doubt but it
will all end by coming to blows in a terrible conflict.

"In the meantime it is our duty to keep agitating as never before. It is
a perfect outrage on humanity to hold in bondage such refined persons as
these three here present to-night. We must agitate this great question,
night and day, till the sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in
his wings. I now call for a vote of thanks to Mrs. John B. Sutherland,
and to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Lincoln. Let three rousing cheers be given
for them!"

The audience rose to their feet, gave three cheers and a tiger, and the
great demonstration came to an end.




CHAPTER V.


_The Negro's Complaint--John Brown's Raid--The Secession of the Southern
States--Battle of Milliken's Bend--Battle at Fort Hudson--The Effect of
the Emancipation Proclamation on this Nation and the Entire Christian
World._

As my indulgent readers would perhaps like to know the lines of "The
Negro's Complaint," which were sung so beautifully by the campaign glee
club that night at the great meeting at Buffalo, I will here insert
them. They were written by the Honorable William Cowper, of England, and
directed against British slavery in the West Indies, and the slave trade
generally. They apply with such force and truth to that self-same
blood-red crime as carried on by the United States that they are worthy
of being committed to memory by every true lover of poetry in the
English language throughout the world.

    THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT.

    Forced from home and all its pleasures,
      Africa's coast I left forlorn,
    To increase a stranger's treasures
      O'er the raging billows borne.
    Men from England bought and sold me,
      Paid my price in paltry gold;
    But, though theirs they have enrolled me,
      Minds are never to be sold.

    Still in thought as free as ever,
      What are England's rights? I ask;
    Me from delights to sever,
      Me to torture, me to task?
    Fleecy locks and dark complexion
      Cannot forfeit nature's claim;
    Skins may differ, but affection
      Dwells in white and black the same.

    Why did all-creating nature
      Make the plant for which we toil?
    Sighs must fan it--tears must water,
      Sweat of ours must dress the soil.
    Hark! Ye masters, iron-hearted,
      Lolling at your jovial boards--
    Think how many backs have smarted
      For the sweets your cane affords!

    Hark! He answers. Wild tornadoes
      Strewing yonder seas with wrecks,
    Wasting towns, plantations, meadows,
      Are the voice with which he speaks;
    He, foreseeing what vexations
      Afric's sons should undergo,
    Fixed their tyrant's habitations
      Where his whirlwinds answer--No!

    By our blood in Afric wasted,
      Ere our necks received the chain,
    By the miseries we have tasted
      Crossing in your barks the main;
    By our sufferings since ye brought us
      To the man-degrading mart--
    All, sustained by patience, taught us,
      Only by a broken heart.

    Count our nation brutes no longer,
      Till some reason ye shall find
    Worthier of regard, and stronger
      Than the color of the kind;
    Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings
      Tarnish all your boasted powers,
    Prove that ye have human feelings
      Ere ye proudly question ours!


Time passed on, and Tom and I, and Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, still
continued to occupy the same house. The Lord blessed the entire
household, and none of us had ever cause to regret the steps we had
taken and carried out with such speed. We enlisted heart and soul in the
grand anti-slavery movement, and blew the bellows with all our might to
help on the good cause of liberty and perfect freedom. The border
ruffians in Kansas had been beaten back into the South, which was the
first open fight between the two high contending parties. That put the
angry South in no good humor. Like an ungovernable, high-strung virago,
her temper was up, and she threatened secession, and dreamed of
extending a new slave empire around the Gulf of Mexico. The
abolitionists of the North were unyielding, and the two sections were
drifting into war.

In the midst of so much combustion and heated temper, it would have been
remarkable, indeed, if there had been no "flame" that burst out here or
there. In all impending struggles and revolutions there is always
someone who voices the pent-up feelings of one party or the other, and
sometimes of both. On the impulse of the moment, as it were by an act of
inspiration, somebody steps out of the ranks, and becomes the leader on
his side. The man who led the way on the part of the anti-slavery party,
was the famous John Brown, who figured so largely in Kansas, and in 1859
seized upon the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, in Virginia,
while he was leading on a handful of white and colored men for the
purpose of effecting a general rising of the slaves throughout the
South. But the Virginians came pouring down upon him and his little
band. Some were killed and wounded; others were missing, and John Brown
himself and a few of his followers were hung. Still, John Brown was in
the right. He was simply an outgrowth of the times. He regarded the
slaves as prisoners, whom it was the duty of any man to set at liberty.
They or their forefathers, at least, had been taken captive in Africa,
and it--that is, American slavery--was the crying scandal of the entire
Christian world. John Brown was one of the abolitionists of the North,
and they were responsible for his actions. But the South was alarmed all
over its dark domain. From Mason and Dixon's Line to the Rio Grande the
news of John Brown's raid flew like wildfire, and the violent temper of
the South grew to a white heat. And all the world--both at home and
abroad--remarked,

"If one single spark like this can raise such a conflagration, what
shall we have when the anti-slavery party shall set their foot into the
whole 'business' on a grand scale? If one man at Harper's Ferry can
effect such a disturbance, what will ensue when the great overshadowing
North will arise in her might, and call for a settlement of the whole
question in favor of the oppressed African?"

The war, indeed, was now nearer than before. The South would listen to
no compromise nor reason of any kind. The haughty Southern lords would
brook no interference. The Northern intruders who touched her "peculiar
institution" touched "the apple of her eye." And now for war!

The war came at last, and South Carolina was the state that struck the
first blow. Then one state seceded after another, and they set up the
"Southern Confederacy," with slavery as its corner-stone. Then the
wildest and most tremendous excitement spread over all the great North,
and the interest reached even the ends of the earth. For the time being,
so great was the national delirium that the great masses of the
population seemed to have completely forgotten the glorious cause of
abolitionism, the grand doings of the underground railroad, and even the
eternal decree of the Most High God that one man should not own property
in another. But all the same the deep and thoughtful minds of all
thorough-going Christians all over the world could see that this war
should not close till every slave was set free. It was Pharaoh and the
captive Israelites over again, "Let my people go, that they may serve
me."

That which threw the great North into such a state of excitement and
alarm was not the slave question at all. The people were concerned over
the breaking up of this great united republic, because the establishment
of the Southern Confederacy cut the nation in two, and took away from us
the middle and lower Mississippi. If the hair is the glory of a woman,
as Paul says, the Mississippi river is the glory of the United States.
Uncle Sam, therefore, even yet did all he could to induce the seceded
states to come home again, and assured them in every possible way that
not a finger should be laid upon their slaves, but that they should keep
them all! But the haughty South had made up her mind to set up
house-keeping for herself, and she thought she could do so even if the
worst came to the worst. She had been getting ready for secession for
fifty years, and now the crisis had come.

There did not appear to be the slightest idea on either side that more
than four years would elapse before the dreadful business would be
settled. A call was made by President Lincoln for seventy-five thousand
men to serve for three months, but a far greater number offered
themselves. There were thousands, if not millions, of people who
believed that the small affair would be all over in a very little while,
and nothing was talked of but marching to Richmond, and winding things
up. Then the rebellious leaders would return to their duties, slavery
would go on as before, and the Mississippi river would once more flow
through our glorious republic--one and undivided, from the headwaters of
the same to the Gulf of Mexico.

It never seemed to enter the minds of the great masses of the people
then that the South was as terribly in earnest as she certainly was, nor
how well-trained she was and ready for the fray. The skill of her
leaders, the intrepidity of her sons, and fighting upon her own soil,
were lost sight of to a very great extent in the wild delirium that
seized on the great Northern heart over the breaking up of the Union. It
did not seem to strike the national mind at the time that this was a war
sent by God for the extirpation of slavery, and as an answer to the
prayers of the oppressed millions in the South for freedom, and for the
treatment of human beings. It did not then occur to the minds of the
North that a day would come after nearly two years' indecisive fighting,
when military necessity would compel the Federal government to free the
slave by Act of Congress, and call upon him "to come to the help of the
Lord against the mighty," and Shakespeare says, "There is a divinity
that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will." and so it was even
now.


[Illustration: _BATTLE OF MILLIKEN'S BEND._]


I shall never forget that morning at Buffalo--it was in the month of
June, 1863, when the letter-carrier brought me the first war letter from
my gallant Tom. The date was not given, but it came from a place called
Milliken's Bend, on the Lower Mississippi river, and a battle had been
fought at that place, since called by the historians, "The Battle of
Milliken's Bend." But I will here insert Tom's letter in its entirety,
as there are some other things in it besides war and fighting.

"MILLIKEN'S BEND, June, 1863.

"My Dear Beulah:--No doubt but you have already received the letters I
sent you from New Orleans, after that I myself and the rest of the
Buffalonians had landed in the Crescent City. I send lots of warm love
to the entire family, and be sure to keep our two daughters, Ella and
Fannie, regularly at school. My best love to the church in a body. Tell
them to pray for us.

"I have great pleasure in informing you that we have here completely
settled the question whether colored men will not fight in America as
well as their ancestors did in Africa. On the night of the 6th of June,
about three thousand Texans came to our fortifications, and lay around
our five hundred colored soldiers, besides a hundred white ones. Those
three thousand rebels lay prowling around our men like so many cats,
only waiting for the dawn of the 7th of June to gobble us up like so
many poor, helpless mice. About three o'clock they came on with an awful
rush, shouting, 'No quarter for niggers and their officers!' They got
into our works, and the way that men fell on both sides was dreadful. It
was really awful the way my poor comrades were shot down, or killed with
the bayonet, though at the same time we mowed them down like grass
before the scythe. Those strong arms of ours that had made the South the
rich land that it lately was, now laid its defenders even with the
ground. There was hardly a single officer, either black or white, among
us who was not either killed or wounded. How I escaped myself without a
scratch is more than I can tell, where there were so very few who came
out of the battle as they went in. To God be all the praise!

"The gunboats Choctow and Lexington assisted us very much, for they kept
throwing shells into the enemy, and made them fly in all directions, and
even up into the air! The white men on our side--one hundred of
them--also fought like lions. One division of the rebels hesitated about
coming out of a redoubt they had got into their possession. They were
not willing. But our brave black soldiers went in with a rush, and
assisted them in making up their minds by taking the bayonet to them,
and thrashing them with the butt ends of their guns, precisely like
thrashing wheat! They reminded me of a lot of guilty cats when the dogs
are on them. Having suffered the loss of hundreds of men, and been
completely vanquished in the bargain, the rebels were forced to retreat,
and this they did with as good a grace as they were able.

"No doubt but the telegraph has already carried the news all over the
Union how our six hundred intrepid soldiers beat three thousand rebels.
This will settle, once for all, the insulting question, 'Will the black
man fight?' It will also secure for us more civil treatment from white
soldiers, both North and South, and remind them that the Great Creator
himself, and all foreign nations, make no difference whatsoever on
account of the color of the skin. I would like to know what 'Old Massa'
thinks of things now.

"I send my best love to all those who may enquire for me, and please
write soon to your most affectionate husband,

"Tuesday night, 9 o'clock.

"THOMAS LINCOLN."

War surely is a terrible thing at its best estate. Nations have often
waged war for mere conquest and ambition, which was the greatest crime
that ever could have been committed. But here was a war for freedom--the
freedom of millions of slaves. It was for this freedom that we had
prayed for the assistance of the Most High God, and troubled the
country, labored and toiled in all possible ways. It was for this
freedom that all the chivalrous Christianity of the nation had put forth
all its efforts; and now at times, many people began to doubt whether
all these efforts had not been put forth in vain, because for the first
two years of the war, our arms really made such small progress compared
with what we had expected. And yet, for the very life of me, I am to
this very day unable to see how we could have done much more than we
did; for though the Northern troops were as brave as men could be, we
had a foe to contend with who was quite as brave as ourselves--a foe
manned by officers as good as our own, and fighting upon their own soil,
where they knew every foot of the ground. Thus the war dragged slowly
along, and the close of the second year found us with very little
progress made.

We were not in despair, but the South yet retained all her strength, and
was proud and defiant. They were also determined to fight on, and did
fight on with a valor worthy of a better cause. But how could we expect
more success than we had under the circumstances? So great was the
prejudice against color that white men were even unwilling to fight side
by side with our own people; and then Lincoln and his cabinet were all
afraid of affronting the tender and delicate susceptibilities of the
South by putting even their little finger on the heinous institution
called "Domestic slavery." Verily, they were carrying their
squeamishness to a most tremendous length when lives had to be wasted in
thousands, because white men were too proud even to fight side by side
with colored men, and because we were so very timid about offending our
"separate brethren," that the Northern officers even sent back the
refugees from our armies--sent them back into slavery! And they even
allowed their life-long oppressors to come into the camps, look around
for their slaves, identify and claim their property, and carry them home
again before our very eyes! Was it any wonder, then, that we had so
little success in this war which God himself had sent, chiefly that the
slaves should be freed?

But the spectacle of thousands and tens of thousands of men being mowed
down like grass before the Southern scythes gradually changed all that.
The South, indeed, had a comfortable time of it, sending all their sons
to the war, whilst the black population were taking care of their
families, working their fields, and even throwing up intrenchments, and
making themselves useful in a thousand ways by command of their owners,
and against the forces of the North! Not that the slaves wished to work
in these ways for the South, but because our very armies were helping
their masters to keep them in their present position, even by returning
them to bondage whenever they tried to gain their freedom. The Southern
lords knew all about our "tender feelings" for their own
"property"--falsely so called--and they took advantage of it.

We had nobody but ourselves to blame for this state of things. Our men
were mown down in thousands because we had such tender regard for the
feelings of the rebels, and there was not the slightest sign that things
would ever get any better. We whipped the South to-day and they whipped
us to-morrow. In the meantime the strong, able-bodied African tilled the
fields of the South, when he might have been fighting for freedom and
the Union.


[Illustration: _BATTLE OF PORT HUDSON._]


But to return to the year 1863. Some changes had been made in the
rapidly-shifting scenes of the war. Tom had been removed from Milliken's
Bend, and gone to Port Hudson, where a most terrible assault had been
made on the rebel defences about the 23rd of May. But I will here let
Tom speak for himself, because he wrote to me often, and my greatest
pleasure was to sit down and send him all our domestic news.

"PORT HUDSON, on the Mississippi, July, 1863.

"My Dear Beulah:--I arrived at this place a few days ago, and have been
out to see signs and marks of the recent siege. Everything seems to
interest me, and war is indeed a terrible game. I have heard great and
full accounts of the awful fighting down in this place, much of which I
must reserve for your patient ears when I come, if God my life shall
spare.

"You could not find a white man in all the Mississippi Valley to-day who
will tell you that colored men wont fight. I don't know where such an
idea ever arose, because it was the strong arm and perseverance of the
slave in raising crops all over Dixie that created most of the wealth we
found in the South, and I look upon it as a wilful and malicious
falsehood in white soldiers, North and South alike, affirming over and
over again that colored men would not fight. General Grant and every
high officer in the Union army have given us most unstinted praise, and
have affirmed that we fight nobly.

"The accounts of the terrible fighting done here almost surpass human
belief. About the 23rd of May, the Northern armies invested this place,
and made a most tremendous effort to carry it by storm. The rebels had a
naturally strong position, and all the appliances of war at their
command. They had batteries and masked batteries, mortars, and, in
short, almost everything known for destruction and modern warfare. They
had even felled trees in our path, and their very cannon balls mowed
down trees three feet thick. The noise of their guns made more din and
uproar than the loudest thunderstorm. Against those brave and terrible
rebels white soldiers from the North and colored soldiers from Louisiana
advanced again and again, but all of them failed, and they were mown
down like grass before the scythe. O terrible, sanguinary war! It was
horrible! The balls and other missiles flew through the air thicker than
hailstones. Once more we terribly underrated the prowess of the South.
All of us were shipped alike, though we fought like gods! Oh, my dear
Beulah! This is the price the American nation is now paying for the
crime of slavery! The South carried out the villainy, and the North
winked at the whole devilish business, thus, in fact, helping the rebels
to keep on our claims! Shall a guilty nation indeed escape for deeds
like these? At all events, we proved one thing during that terrible
assault in May, and the subsequent siege of Port Hudson, and that was
that colored men are as much men as white men, red, brown, yellow or any
other race that can be named. These things were all well known before by
every man, woman and child, but then, 'None are so blind as those who
don't want to see.' The cry now is, 'Yes, yes! Colored men will fight
well.' It is some comfort to know all this, for now we can get a rest.

"I send a deal of love to yourself, the children, to Mr. and Mrs.
Sutherland, to the entire church on Vine street, and to all others. I
get all your letters.

"I am, my dear Beulah, your most loving

"THOMAS LINCOLN."

From the accounts contained in the two foregoing letters that I received
from my dear husband, my kind readers will see that it was a public
revelation made to the whole nation that the colored race not only made
first-rate soldiers, but that they were sorely needed by Uncle Sam in
the day of his distress. Lincoln's Proclamation on the first of January,
1863, completely broke down the dam from one end of the country to the
other and throughout the whole land. Now the patriotic governors and
many others bestirred themselves in raising colored regiments, getting
them drilled, and pushed to the front with rapidity, so that the tide of
war everywhere began to turn in favor of the Northern arms, and things
began to look as if the very God of Liberty Himself was smiling upon the
nation. Up to the end of 1862 the North had been fighting for nothing
more than the restoration of the Union, and surely this was a noble
thing to fight for, and especially for the possession of the glorious
Mississippi, flowing all the way from its remotest springs at its
farthest away branches in Montana, some 4,400 miles from the ocean. It
was indeed something to keep the great river and all the States one and
undivided. But what about slavery? Was it not, if possible, a ten times
greater sin to carry on slavery than for the Southern States to secede?
And yet there were thousands and tens of thousands of soldiers, officers
and citizens all over the land who made the most strenuous objections to
striking one blow for freedom--the very cause for which the war had been
sent! Who need wonder, indeed, that our arms had such small success for
almost two years after the rebels seceded? The only thing that surprises
me is that we had as much success as we did, but we were taught a
lesson, and we learned it well at last.


[Illustration: _JOHN BROWN._]


It was not long before the fame of the colored soldiers of America was
wafted over the whole world, and was everywhere received by all lovers
of freedom with most hearty applause. All, excepting those who believed
in keeping other people down, heard the news with the greatest of
pleasure. Many of the aristocrats of England, France and elsewhere, who
had made investments in Confederate bonds, and sympathized with the
South from the beginning, had no joy when they learned how Uncle Sam had
turned a new element of strength into the field; but the common people
everywhere all the world over, who had read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in all
the principal languages of the earth, and opposed the recognition of the
Southern Confederacy from the first on account of slavery, rejoiced to
hear that the Great North had at last turned over a new leaf, and
brought the heroic sons of Africa into the field. It was a military
necessity, of course; the nation was forced to do it; but all the same
it was a matter of justice, and the right thing to do. Now the entire
Christian world took ten times more interest in the war than before.
They had been praying and often working in the interest of the American
slave; and now they were delighted to hear of the self-same slave
marching bravely to the field, and assisting white men in knocking the
fetters off the whole race. Now, indeed, the scales began to turn in
favor of the North, along the whole line. Before the first of January,
1863, it was as if there were eight pounds in the Northern scale, and
eight pounds in the Southern scale, but now we throw in 200,000 colored
men or more into the Northern scale, when the Southern end of the beam
flies up as the lighter weight, and it becomes clear to the obtusest
mind that the South is doomed, and domestic slavery with it also.




CHAPTER VI.


_Great Service of the Colored Race--Heroic Colored Women--Attack on Fort
Wagner, 18th July, 1863--The ex-Slaves go to School--The Freedman's
Bureau--The Jubilee Minstrels--A Long Letter From Mr. Thomas Lincoln,
Describing His Life in a New Orleans Hospital--The Mississippi River,
and the Fight at Pleasant Grove in the Red River Expedition._

As I stated in the last chapter, recruiting went merrily on, and colored
men came up "to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against
the mighty." The heavens now smiled upon the Northern arms, and "the sun
of righteousness arose upon them with healing in his wings." It is
glorious to think how willingly our people threw down the shovel and the
hoe, and advanced to meet the Northern troops as they came within easy
striking distance. Thousands and tens of thousands crossed the
mountains, threaded the mountain passes, kept on their way day and night
up the rivers and down the rivers till they beheld the Union armies
encamped away in the valleys, and a few more willing, enthusiastic
bounds, and they were free! It was most refreshing to read the letters
from the white soldiers at the time, commending these colored men in
every possible way. They took a perfect delight in relating the thousand
and one acts of kindness and sympathy that colored men and women
performed towards countless Union men in times of distress, disaster and
danger; how they secreted them; how they fed them, gave them rest and
shelter, and how faithfully and skilfully they guided the armies on
their way, and even piloted the Union boats in safety up and down the
rivers of the South. Never were fidelity and devotion more marked since
the world began, and it was downright pleasant to read the letters from
"the seat of war," and see how these good deeds of the African were
appreciated by the Anglo-Saxons. "Skins may differ, but affection dwells
in white and black the same," and although "Old Massa" and "Old Missus"
did their best to keep Lincoln's proclamation from the knowledge of the
slaves, somehow or other the truth became known; in fact, it seemed to
be carried on the wings of the wind, and now all prayed more and more
fervently that the Lord would send freedom.


[Illustration: _FREDERICK DOUGLASS._]


It would be a pleasure for me to relate the deeds of devotion recorded
of our people in behalf of the cause of God and liberty. There are two
acts, those of heroic women, that I must not omit. We have all heard of
General John Morgan, the Kentucky guerilla chief, who led a raid into
Ohio, and worked so much wanton mischief on Union people and the Union
in the Southern cause. We caught and imprisoned him in Ohio, but he
escaped, and took to his tricks again, and was more fleet, and harder to
catch than a long-legged greyhound. At last he was located one night in
a far-away town or village of the South, and the nearest Union troops
lay about twenty miles away. This devoted colored woman lost not a
moment of time, but steered for the distant camp, gave them the most
particular information, so that they rose at once, and upon arriving at
John Morgan's rendezvous, they woke him up, and once for all put an end
to his dreadful raidings on the Unionists.


[Illustration: _MISSISSIPPI RIVER STEAMER._]


I must next mention the case of a colored woman in Georgia, when General
Sherman came riding through the woods on his famous march from Atlanta
to the Sea. This woman was a regular heroine--"a mother in Israel"--and
one who would have made a second Deborah, with a host of men, women and
children at her back, all of whom the war had set free. This woman
advanced upon the path of the troops, and having introduced herself to
General Sherman and his men, gave glory to God and to the Union armies,
whom the God of Hosts had there and then sent forth. Her language was
worthy of a Shakespeare. On that day when Deborah, and Miriam, and Joan
of Arc, and all the other heroines of history shall be gathered together
in the Palace of God, I feel certain that this colored Deborah, this
"mother in Israel," will be among them when the Lord of Heaven and Earth
makes up His jewels.

Where all did so well, it would be in vain to single out any one
regiment that distinguished itself more than another. At the same time,
there were certain regiments that attracted a great deal of attention to
themselves because they were the first ones to break the spell as to
whether colored men would fight like white men, and thus render
effective service in the war. And such men were the colored troops that
had been well drilled and sent down from Massachusetts to South
Carolina, and who lent a hand in the investment of Charleston. It was on
the 18th of July, 1863, when a general bombardment of both land and sea
forces at once made a high-handed attempt to carry Fort Wagner--a rebel
fort which lay on the narrowest part of a mere strip of sandy land
called Morris Island, washed by the ocean on one side, and approachable
by low, swampy marshes in the rear. The entire morning and middle of the
day had been spent in bombarding the place till at last the extemporized
fort, composed of timber, and stone, and sand, seemed to have crumbled
away; for, as the day wore away, the rebels ceased entirely to reply to
the land and sea forces, and the Federal troops were under the
impression that the place was abandoned altogether, or at least
destroyed past all hope of remedy for the present. The Union forces
clamored loudly for an advance upon the fort, and to occupy the place
once for all. After some hesitation the commanders assented to their
wishes, and it was decided to advance just as the darkness of the night
was setting in on that long July day. Alas, alas! It was a fatal
resolution, for the rebels had been busy all the afternoon and early
night making swift preparations to give our men a terrible reception. By
the time that darkness had fully set in, Fort Wagner was almost as good
as ever, although it had such a terrible knocking about all the early
hours of the day. The Southern engineers were so clever, and their men
had wrought with such a will, that it needed the bravest of the brave to
fight with them; but as far as that was concerned we were all about
even-handed when we had a fair field. Four thousand men, therefore,
advanced along the sands of Morris Island with the intention of
investing and clearing out the fort of its defenders, if there were any
of them there. The colored Massachusetts troops led the way, and so they
all advanced along the sands--the white sands that had but lately been
washed by the ocean. Everything was as still as a stone till they came
to a ditch, when a fearful tempest of shot from the cannon and musket
assailed them, and the assailants were mowed down like grass before the
scythe. Still our troops bravely advanced across the ditch, climbed up
the bank, and pushed forward right into the fort, slaughtering the
gunners and clearing a path before them. But all this time our brave men
were being mowed down in rows. Many jumped into the fort and had to
surrender there, because, indeed, they could neither advance nor
retreat, being caught in a perfect trap. Thus we lost about half our men
in killed, wounded and prisoners, and had to retreat in the best way we
were able. It was a dreadful defeat that the Union forces sustained; but
the colored troops had the honor of leading all the rest, and the
foolish idea that colored men would not fight received another complete
quietus, and their bravery was published in all the papers from one end
of the Union to the other.

We now come to the glorious subject of education--that which lifts up
any nation from the bottom, and places it among the kings and queens of
the world. The colored men and women of the South before who could read
and write, were like angel visits--few and far between. You might search
the whole day long, and not find one who could sign his name. But the
government records show that in the year 1870, only five years after the
close of the war, taking the entire population of the United States in
the aggregate, there were two-tenths, which is twenty per cent., who
could read and write. Here, indeed, was one of the signs of the times
with a vengeance! Surely the colored race must have a great natural
thirst for knowledge. In the year 1880, that is, fifteen years after
freedom came, three-tenths, which is thirty per cent. of the whole
population, could read and write; and in 1890, or twenty-five years
after the end of the war, forty-three of every hundred. In other words,
forty-three per cent. of the colored population of the United States
could read and write--being ten years and over of age. At that time that
I am writing my book, that is, the year of grace, 1897, inasmuch as the
increase is going bravely on from day to day, I have no hesitation in
saying that fifty per cent., that is, one-half of the entire colored
population of the United States, North and South included, and--as usual
in such government statistics--ten years of age and over, are able to
read and write at least, and there are hundreds of thousands of them who
can do a hundred times more.

Now, since Adam and Eve walked hand in hand on the enchanting grounds of
Paradise, I would like to know where the people can be found who ever
came out of such Cimmerian darkness, who ever progressed at such a rate
as this? The present march of education among the colored race far
surpasses the march of the whites since freedom came, and it still keeps
ahead of them at the present time of writing. Indeed, in some parts of
the fair and Sunny South, we are in lead our white brethren; and it is
quite superfluous for me to say that whoever are in the lead in
education are the more intelligent of the two, be they black or white.

Behold the stupid-looking and ignorant hordes of Italians, Poles,
Bohemians, Chinese and others who are dumped down in shiploads upon our
shores! Even at home in their own lands they are very little more than
dumb-driven cattle! How much more, then, must their stupidity appear in
full blaze of daylight in a highly-intelligent nation like this! It is
like comparing the feeble light of midnight under the stars alone with
the full blaze of a day when the sun is shining at twelve at noon. Shall
we of the colored race, who may now safely count on fifty per cent. of
the entire population who can read and write compare ourselves with the
immigrants like these, or even with Spaniard or Portuguese, Turks or
Greeks, who have had the opportunities of acquiring education for
hundreds of years, while we, who were set free only thirty-two years
ago, have produced men and women who have stood in honor before
presidents and kings, and proved that we are able to climb to the
topmost rounds of the ladder that Almighty God Himself has set up? No,
indeed. Men and brethren, we are not going to come down and compare
ourselves with any such persons! That won't do at all!

As fast as ever the Northern armies cleared the way, benevolent and
devoted teachers sent down by the different churches followed, and
imparted to those who had never had a chance before the elements of
English education, teaching them to read, write and figure, and many
other useful things besides that accompany civilization and
enlightenment. The American Mission Association took the lead, but the
different churches and societies sent down their full quotas, and those
volunteer teachers did a splendid and most devoted work. And yet there
was some risk to run in this business, now being tried for the first
time, because the war was still going on, and sometimes the Southern
arms regained the territory they had lost, which brought the teachers
into danger on one hand, and the colored people on the other. It had
always been the policy of the Southern law-makers to keep the slaves in
darkness, and even the rank and file of the white people themselves were
purposely kept in a condition little better than the slaves. The
planters kept teachers in their own grand halls, or sent their sons and
daughters away from home for education. It was made a crime for a slave
to be found with a book in his possession, or for anybody to teach him,
whether he was white or a free person of color. A white man taught even
the celebrated Bishop Daniel E. Payne in a cellar at Charleston, S. C.,
of which city the bishop was a native. In short, the laws of slavery
warred upon nature, and even on God himself. The whole system was a
system of murder, robbery and adultery. Every human right was broken
down; but as the Northern armies cleared the way the teachers and their
colored pupils rushed in at once.

On the 3rd of March, 1865, Congress launched the Freedman's Bureau upon
the country for the purpose of assisting the freedman in any and every
way just as soon as they were set free from slavery, and required the
help of the national government. The Freedman's Bureau took education
under its fostering care, and did a good work during the few years that
it lasted, 1865 to 1872. The devoted teachers from the North had even
begun to follow the very armies themselves as early as the year 1862,
and we find them then on the Lower Mississippi. The colored soldiers
took to their lessons well, and owing to their great thirst for
learning, they learned with an eagerness and rapidity that filled their
willing teachers with the greatest surprise. And throughout the freed
zones did not only young girls and boys thus drink in--yea, literally
swallow up instruction, but smart men and women sixty and seventy years
of age and over learned to write, read, spell and cipher with a gusto
and an enthusiasm that was most inspiring!

"Arise! Shine forth, for the light has come, and the glory of the Lord
has risen upon thee!" Thus saith the Prophet, and it was now fulfilled.
What a treat, to be sure, for men and women thus to learn to read the
mighty word of God, many of them in their old age! Verily, the ways of
the Lord are wonderful and past finding out! Much hardship was
experienced at first in finding suitable buildings in which to teach the
people, and many a church and school-house were burned to the ground
both during the war and the first years that followed the entire
collapse of the "peculiar institution," but that has not stopped the
triumphal march of the education of the colored race, for who, indeed,
could stop the waves of the ocean?

It is indeed a joyous thing to look around us at this time and behold
even now how high the sun has ascended in the heavens. If we have
advanced so much in thirty-two years, how much farther shall we be in
thirty-two more? Behold all the schools, colleges and places of learning
of every name and nature thrown open in hundreds to our young people,
both male and female! What a glorious array of splendid seminaries all
over the great republic, besides hundreds belonging to the whites, to
which we can obtain admission! It is true that there are others still
barred against us on account of the prejudice still obtaining here and
there owing to the color of the skin, but that will give way in due
time, for there is nothing incapable of change but the Great Creator
Himself.

By way of illustrating the results of the great Civil War, let us look
back a little over twenty years, when Fisk University, at Nashville,
Tennessee, sent forth Miss Ella Shephard and the rest of the "Jubilee
Minstrels" to astonish the North with what even those who had been in
slavery could do, when once their God-given talents were brought to the
front. For the benefit of Fisk University they sang an immense sum of
money out of the country, and covered themselves with unfading glory for
all coming time. And where would those poor girls have been if it had
not been for their own fathers who assisted white men in the war to
knock off the chains of slavery? Why, to be sure, instead of being the
"Jubilee Minstrels" in the North, they would have been toiling among the
cotton, the sugar-cane and the rice fields of the South, wearing their
young lives away down there.


[Illustration: _A SCENE ON THE JACKSON PLANTATION._]


But the glories of the "Jubilee Singers" were by no means over. More
money was still needed, and those devoted people again took to the road,
and this time, with most laudable ambition; they even crossed the North
Atlantic, and sang with the most abundant success before the crowned
heads and grandees of Europe. These crowned heads and grandees knew full
well that if it had not been for the war for freedom and the union, the
singers would at this time have been in the cane, the cotton and the
rice fields singing:

    Away down in Egypt's land
      We have gained the victory,
    Away down in Egypt's land
      We have gained the day!
    Oh, children ain't you glad,
      The sea gave away?

    When Moses smote the waters
      The children all passed over,--
    O, glory, halleluia!
      For we have gained the day!
    Oh, children, ain't you glad,
      That Moses smote the waters,--
    Oh, children ain't you glad
      The sea gave away?


The Jubilee singers did sing the above song and many others before the
rich and great, and the general population of the British Isles and
continental Europe, but it was to let them hear what slaves used to sing
before the war to wile away the time before Uncle Sam came down from the
North to set them all free; in doing which he was assisted by 200,000
colored men, or more. Such are the fruits of war!

I here append a letter I received from Tom at New Orleans, whither he
had been carried and placed in a hospital on account of a wound he had
received in a skirmish with some of the rebel forces on the Lower
Mississippi:

"At the hospital, New Orleans, La., December, 1864.

"My Dear Beulah:--

"I dare say that you and the children are looking for a letter from me
once more. I duly received your own nice, kind and most welcome letters,
with all the sweet home news, and I can assure you that they did me an
immense deal of good whilst being confined here with my wound. I am,
however, doing very well indeed, and in a short time expect to be
discharged and in the ranks once more. It is impossible for me to tell
you of the kindness and attention of these doctors and nurses in this
hospital, it is really most astonishing to see strangers so kind. We are
all loud in the praises of these good people, who are taking the best
care in the world of us when we are so far from home and from our loved
ones. Nobody knows how much good there is in the world until he comes
across good strangers like these. Of course there is always plenty of
evil in it too; but it is at least a very great compensation to come
across so much love and kindness among such strange people. We never
looked for anything better than cuffs and blows!

"Although I was not in the very best mood, as I was brought down to New
Orleans to enjoy the sights all around me, still I was tremendously
impressed with the majesty and immensity of the ever-glorious
Mississippi. Well, to be sure,--to be sure! What a grand factor of our
national greatness is the Mississippi! I don't wonder at yourself and
Mrs. John B. Sutherland always making such a fuss over our glorious
river. Indeed too much can never be spoken in its praise, and, above
all,--of the great Creator who made it. I have seen plenty of the
'Father of Waters' before on many a long day, as I went sweeping past
the forts where I was located further up the river; but, as we came on,
it received so many and such large rivers, into its swollen waters, till
it was more like a sea than a river; and, although level and destitute
of beautiful banks like the Ohio, it had ever an increasing majesty and
grandeur about it that mightily impressed all who beheld it. I don't
wonder at Uncle Sam fighting so hard for the restoration of the Union.
Such a river as the Mississippi alone,--if there were no other,--is the
very joy and glory of the United States. But I shall have more to tell
you about these things at another time, and I hope to be able to do so
by word of mouth when the war is over.

"I very much regret to inform you that several of my wounded comrades
have died since we were all brought into this hospital, though the most
part of them, in common with myself, have recovered; and we now all
desire to go back to war as soon as we are well.

"I have had a good deal of conversation with a soldier who served in the
Red river campaign under General Banks, and where the rebels numbered
three to our one. In that campaign we were unsuccessful, for they
defeated our forces day after day. We were about ten thousand in number,
as we fled before such overwhelming odds. It was at this crisis that the
black soldier proved himself such 'a very present help in the time of
trouble.' If it had not been for Dickey's colored troops there would
have been a regular slaughter of the Union forces at Pleasant Grove.
These colored soldiers were attached to the first division of the 19th
corps. Our army under General Banks had been beaten both days at Sabine,
Cross Roads, below Mansfield, and they drove us for several hours before
them towards Pleasant Grove. And yet the ardor and spirit of the
combined Union forces under Banks and Franklin could not have been much
higher. But for all that, it was quite evident that unless the rebels
could be checked by the time we were pushed back to Pleasant Grove, all
would be lost. So General Emory prepared for the coming crisis on the
western edge of a wood, which had an open field before it that sloped
down towards Mansfield. It was at this point that General Dwight formed
a brigade of the colored troops right across the road in the face of the
rebels, who came rushing and hurrahing on, driving our ten thousand men
before them. They were charging at double quick time; but the black
brigade reserved their fire till the exultant rebels were close at hand,
when they all poured a deadly volley into them, arresting them at once,
and covered the ground with their dead and wounded. Now a regular fight
came on which lasted an hour and a half, and only ceased even then
because darkness put an end to the terrible combat. The foe made one
charge after another, and as he had plenty of men, he thought he would
wear us out at last; but the black soldiers and General Emory's brigade
successfully repulsed them every time, and thus saved the Union army
from being destroyed. Nor was this the only time that our own troops met
the rebels in the Red river campaign, and defied both them and their
repeated threats of 'the black flag;' for they always said that they
would not treat a black man like a white man if the former fell alive
into their hands. They said they would treat him like a wild beast, and
not like a human being at all! No doubt but that was done to keep our
soldiers from fighting for freedom and the Union; but the threat most
signally failed, because our brave men cared not a straw for their black
flag; indeed the threats, and even the practices of the rebels in
destroying some of our prisoners whom they took in the beginning
contributed a great deal in bringing about the downfall of the rebel
powers, at least up to the present time; and will no doubt contribute
more and more till the last rebel lays down his arms. Although a war
proclamation has been issued that we will shoot our rebel prisoners, if
they kill any of our men, I am unable to say what general effect it has
had so far. I only know that none of the men who have fallen alive into
their hands have ever since been heard of, and I fear the worst. But of
one thing I am sure, and that is, that the 'black soldiers' so far has
done as good fighting as the 'white soldiers,' and he has either won or
been defeated with the latter on many a hard fought field. He has had
his full share in disaster and victory alike; and thus he will still
assist in pulling down this terrible rebellion,--but I must lay down my
pen. With much love to yourself and all, I am,

"Your most affectionate,

"THOMAS."




CHAPTER VII.


_Tom's Letter From the Seat of War--The Pilgrim's Progress--Niagara
Falls--Visit to Canada--Letters From Richmond Hill--Great War Interest
in Canada--The Girl's Letter to Papa--Tom's Letter and Poem on the Great
Fight With the Bloodhounds in South Carolina._

I have always believed that it was because the Lord loved me that He
gave me so good a husband, who, by the bye, is preserved to me yet, and
for the same reason, that He allowed me to have my dear mother with me
again. She has been the very joy of my life, and is with me still. I
would have missed my gallant and devoted Tom in no small degree when he
went away to the war among so many others of the brave and true, only he
was so attentive about writing me letters during his absence. I have
kept all those missives of his, and laid them carefully away, and I have
always said they would make a good book if they were printed; and some
day I may put them in book form.

And Tom's numerous and well-written letters were not only a perpetual
treat and joy to myself, but the two sweet girls, and Mr. and Mrs. John
B. Sutherland, and a few select friends who came round the house seemed
never to tire of reading his letters. He also wrote each of them a
separate letter occasionally, but as a general thing, his long letters
to myself had to serve for all.

During all this time the girls were growing up finely, and every twelve
months I had their photographs taken and sent to him to let him see how
nicely they looked in their New Year's dresses. Tom sent up photographs
of himself in his plain soldier's dress, and also in his officer's
dress, after his promotion. Poor Tom! My eyes often filled with tears
when his letters came, and I sat down with an anxious heart to read
their contents. I knew, of course, that the children and I should be
provided for, should Tom be numbered with the slain, but we all longed
to see him, and prayed much to Almighty God that if it was His gracious
will our Tom might come home to us once more from the war.


[Illustration: _SCENES AT NIAGARA FALLS._]


It was at this time that one Christmas my two daughters were cojointly
presented with a large, splendid, and well-illustrated copy of "The
Pilgrim's Progress"--a book that attracted them so much that they have
been reading it ever since! This glorious book kindled up all the latent
enthusiasm of their souls, and in their excitement over "Doubting
Castle," "Vanity Fair," and a hundred other wonders, they even wrote
letters to their father about that wonderful book and its author--the
tinker and preacher of Bedford. Their youthful enthusiasm amused their
father very much, and he wrote back to them at once to read all in the
Pilgrim's Progress that they wanted. They used to take turns with the
book; one would read for an hour at a time, and the other would listen.
I have always looked back upon the coming of that book into my house as
a real blessing.

And still we always continued to attend the ordinances of our sweet
little Church on Vine street--attended them on the Sabbath and during
the week. The girls went to the Sunday School, and we adults assisted
all that we could.

As Niagara Falls were not more than twenty-two miles away, we all
occasionally took a holiday and went down and spent the day there,
crossing over to the Canadian shore by way of the Suspension Bridge,
that we might stand on Table Rock and see the great "Horseshoe Fall."
Well, really, the Falls of Niagara are a wonderful sight. Even our own
smaller American Fall is a splendid sight, though rather diminutive
compared with the great Horseshoe Fall on the Canadian side of the
river. I can never understand how a mere puny man can stand before the
great Creator's works here, and say, "There is no God."

During the fall of 1864, I took my two daughters and went as far as
Oxford county, Canada, to pay a visit to a dear family with whom I
became acquainted in Buffalo. The weather was most delightful, and we
enjoyed ourselves very much indeed during the month we remained on the
farm. At that time I wrote the following letter to Tom, and will here
introduce it, as it will speak for itself:

"RICHMOND HILL, Oxford Co., Canada, Sept., 1864.

"To Captain Thomas Lincoln,

"My Dear Husband.--The children and I took the train at Buffalo and came
here two weeks ago, to pay a long-promised visit to the Gibsons at
'Richmond Hill' farm, which lies in the county of Oxford some ten or
twelve miles from the nearest station on the railroad. We left Buffalo
early in the morning, and thus had the whole day before us, and plenty
of leisure to look at the highly cultivated country through which we
passed. The country was truly delightful all the way to Ingersoll, were
we got out of the train, and where one of the Gibsons met us with a
buggy. We all got in, and the children and I were greatly pleased with
the charming country all around us, the farms being in such a high state
of cultivation. But it was not all farming land that we passed through,
for our way in one place led us through the forest, where the squirrels
were running in perfect freedom overhead in the branches, and we could
hear the woodman's axe ringing both far and near and bringing down the
tall trees. After we had come about ten miles, we saw 'Richmond Hill'
high up on the rising ground on the far side of a very narrow valley,
that ran down to the cypress swamp away on our right hand. So we issued
out of the woods on the top of the hill we were now descending, made our
way along the creek at the bottom for a little distance to the right,
and then we opened a big country gate and made our way up through the
fields to the farm house door. While the girls and I were looking around
at the grand view presented on all hands to our astonished eyes, the
front house door opened, and out came Mrs. Gibson and her two daughters,
and as many of the sons as were at home at the time of our arrival. They
helped us out of the buggy, kissed and embraced us most rapturously, and
gave us a very warm, hearty and enthusiastic welcome. (My whole soul
fairly grows warm when I think of that welcome among the good
Canadians). So they brought us into their nice house, which reminded me
of the 'Palace Beautiful' in the Pilgrim's Progress. I had a little room
for myself on a wing of the house. They called my room the 'Guest
Chamber,' and it was a snug room with a pretty name I am sure. The girls
slept in another small room near my own. Our things were all brought
into the house and well disposed of within reach, and we felt most
thoroughly at home among a kind people whose loving ways filled me and
the girls with surprise. Mr. Gibson himself came home during the day,
and gave us a warm welcome to Richmond Hill, and we saw the whole family
with the exception of two who were not at home at that time.

"The friends and neighbors round about heard of our arrival and came to
see us, and to invite me and the girls to pay them a visit as soon as
ever we were able to do so. Indeed, had I known of the beauty and
enchantment of this place and such a kind family, I would have been here
long ago, never you fear!

"This glorious visit to Richmond Hill, where we have already been for
two weeks, seems to the girls and me the essence of all enchantment, and
the very ground we tread upon seems to be perfectly enchanted ground.
The weather is so fine, the Gibsons themselves are so refined and
polished, and there is so much beauty all around us, that life itself
seems to be one long day of joy. It is so delightful to climb the hill
behind the house, and look across the deep and narrow valley below us to
the primaeval forests through which we rode; then we can see the winding
creek away to our right, and the evergreen cypress swamp away upon our
left. After we have seen all that, there are still the farm houses and
cottages lying all round about us on the hill tops, and we often turn
into one of them and sit down for an hour after our walk.

"The Gibsons are neither Secesh, nor semi-Unionists, nor even
Copperheads! They are good Union people out and out, and they are for
the restoration of the American Union. You would be thunderstruck if you
were here and beheld the overwhelming interest that the Canadians take
in the Civil War in the States. They are mostly Unionists, but some few
would rather see the South win,--just the very same as they are in
England and France. But we need not blame these few Canadians, nor go
all the way across the North Atlantic to England, and Germany, and
France, for all the Northern States are honeycombed with Democrats and
semi-Unionists called 'Copperheads,' who are doing almost as much harm
to our arms as the rebels themselves; because they sympathize with the
South,--they desire them to retain their slaves, and would object to the
colored man being made a freeman and a citizen. They have no heart for
the Union with freedom.

"We have little cause indeed to find fault with Southern sympathizers
far, far away beyond the deep, blue seas, when they are swarming all
over the North, and are found mixed up in every part of the
Union,--East, West and South as well. There are tens of thousands of
people, who, I firmly believe, would rather see the very Union itself
broken up than that the curse of slavery should now come to an end! We
here in Canada have nothing to do but look around us to see the proofs
of all this. In these trying days, when Uncle Sam is compelled to resort
to one draft after another draft, to fill up the depleted ranks of our
armies, there are thousands and tens of thousands of men who have
crossed over here into British America, and I have seen plenty of them
with my own eyes. One day I met quite a fine young doctor from
Maine,--quite a fine medical man, and a good looking fellow to boot, who
addressed me in these words, "I was at home in Maine with my newly
married wife when the draft came, and I was taken. I have no hatred
against Southern men who never did me any harm, and considered I had no
right to throw my young life away on Southern bullets. I had also other
conscientious objections to the whole business, and did not consider
their war any interest of mine! The Canadian frontier, therefore, being
near at hand, it was my own privilege to do just as I pleased--'to use
force' as well as they! So I crossed the Canadian border, and here I am
in good health and safety! Upon that he drew a letter out of his inside
vest pocket,--a letter just received from his wife, along with the
photograph of her, which he showed me, and she looked most uncommonly
pretty too.

"One day the girls and I were walking along the high road when we met
six men who had come over from the Northern States, and all over the
length and breadth of Canada, they are everywhere, and indeed, the very
woods seem to be full of them!

"The first thing I do in the morning, and the last thing at night, is to
pray to our Father in Heaven for you, my own dear Tom,--that he may take
care of you; and, if it be his good will and pleasure, to bring you back
safe and sound to us at home. I no longer wonder at some people being
fond of travel. No wonder, for it has its charms and great ones too. It
seems to me so very strange that the children and I,--in a few hours
time, should be transported from the City of Buffalo to this romantic
and almost ethereal home upon the hills of Western Canada, and then for
me to turn around and think of you and the rest of the army battling
away for freedom and union in the Fair South! We get the papers here
every day. They are brought from the nearest post town which is three
miles away, and then we all have such a scramble to hear the latest news
from the seat of war, as they call it on their great headlines. It does
not surprise me so much that we at home should make such an ado over the
war news, but that these Canadians should also take so much interest as
ourselves seems to me most astonishing indeed. It is just three miles
from here to the post town, and one day we three went to spend the day
with some relatives of the Gibsons. On an open space at the entrance to
the town stood a large tent,--a kind of show called 'The War in the
South.' We paid the showman five cents apiece and went in to see the
pictures of the war set out on the canvas. We looked through the round,
bull-eye glasses, and the general effect was to magnify the whole scene
to a very great extent. I must confess that after all that I have read
and heard, this peep-show, or whatever else you may call it, gave me a
better idea of the field of war, and its far-spreading extent than all I
have ever learned from other sources,--all put together.

"As we stood and looked we could see the long, fertile, southern plains
under the noon-day sun; the woods and forest lay around them like a
fringe in the distance; so minute and life-like did the very trees and
bushes appear that I could almost tell what species they belonged to.
Other pictures, in which we were ten times more interested, showed us
the northern and southern armies on the march with flags flying, or else
they were encamped on the edge of a wood among the lofty trees. There
were also scenes of war and a battle which looked really too dreadful,
even to behold the pictures of them. At such times I felt quite inclined
to shut my eyes on such awful scenes. 'If such is the mere picture,' I
said to myself, 'what must the reality of actual war be.' When we had
thoroughly satisfied ourselves with this famous little peep-show, we
came out, considering that we had had a good five cents' worth,--I mean
five cents a piece! And so we moved on to our friend's house, where we
had a most uncommonly warm welcome, and where we spent the whole day,
some other friends coming in to see us during our pleasant visit.

"I must not forget to tell you that at the farm house at 'Richmond Hill'
they have quite a fine piano; and, as my experience during the great
Abolition campaign in the North made me quite an adept at speaking and
singing in public, I have been able to entertain these good Gibsons and
other Canadian friends with some of the music and songs I used to play
and sing. Our girls also have dome very well on the piano, to be so
young yet.

"We all send our warmest love to you; and if I see any good reason for
writing you again before we leave Richmond Hill, will send you another
Canadian letter before our return home, and I remain, my dear Tom, ever
your most affectionate wife,

"BEULAH LINCOLN."

When we had been a month at Richmond Hill, and were getting ready for
our departure on the following day, the girls had a great desire to
write their papa. So I furnished them with the writing materials, upon
which they put their heads and thoughts together, and wrote the letter
that follows:

"RICHMOND HILL, October, 1864.

"Our Dear Papa:--

"With great pleasure we send you this letter, we your daughters, who
love you. We are all quite well, and hope you are well also amidst the
dangers and toils of the war. All the letters and other things that you
sent us to Buffalo were forwarded to us to Richmond Hill, in Canada. We
have read your letters over and over again with great interest, and the
friends here have read some of them that told all about the military
operations in the fields, and they were very well pleased with their
contents, for the Gibsons are great union people too.

"As the weather here has been most delightfully sunny, and we have been
so much in the open air on these Canadian hills, both mama and our two
selves have gotten quite fat, and also look as people do when they come
from the bathing places on the sea shore. We also feel right good, all
three of us, for we have had a grand time, and been so very kindly used.
Thus our hearts and minds are content, and we are going home to Buffalo
to-morrow filled with pleasure, like heavily laden bees going humming to
their hives with plenty of sweet honey.

"We have been to church in the town every Sunday since we came here. The
Gibsons are Presbyterians, and so we went to the Presbyterian church,
and indeed it is very beautiful. We stood up to pray instead of kneeling
down as we do at Vine Street, in Buffalo, but Dr. Bell is a famous
preacher.

"As the buggy could not hold everybody, mamma rode both ways and we
walked, and we never thought of getting tired.

"The horse is an awful quiet one, something little 'Gentle Annie' of the
song. We were not a bit afraid to drive on week days by our two selves,
and bring the mail from the postoffice; and then we learned how to drive
and manage a horse. But the Gibson horse would never make a war horse,
he is not strong enough, and the cannons would frighten him too much.

"We do not go to market here for fruit and vegetables. We just open the
gates to the garden and orchard, and bring in all the potatoes, cabbage,
turnips, pears, peaches, apples, and whatever else we may need. We have
been very busy paring apples; and besides that we have a lot of fruit in
jars that we are going to take home to Buffalo. The preserves will be
nice in winter.

"We met with a wonderful piece of good luck at Richmond Hill. The
Gibsons have got an enormous copy of the Pilgrim's Progress,--as big as
a family Bible, published in London, and all the pictures are quite
different from those in our own. O, what grand times we had looking at
all the pictures!

"When night came on, we girls took our turn and read 'The War in the
South' in the 'Daily Toronto Globe.' How our eyes did glisten as we read
many parts of the news!

"We will leave this house to-morrow after an early breakfast. One of the
sons will drive us to Ingersoll railway station. We have now seen the
whole family,--all the Gibsons. We never knew that there were such fine
people in Canada. We are all so very glad that the Lord directed our
young feet to this place.

"We must now close our letter with much love from everybody, and we are,
our dear papa, your most loving daughters,

"---- and ---- Lincoln."

We got home to Buffalo once more all right, but that grand visit made a
very great impression upon our hearts and minds. I have attempted to
place a few sketches of it before my kind and indulgent reader, but Oh,
dear me! if I were to write down all that I could write about that
famous visit it would fill up a whole book. Perhaps I may return to the
subject again.

Soon after our return to our happy and pleasant home in Buffalo, I
received the following letter from Tom:

"NEW ORLEANS, La., October, 1864.

"Mrs. Beulah Lincoln,

"My Dear Beulah:--Since I was promoted to the rank of captain, my duties
have varied a good deal more at different times than they did when I was
a private in the ranks. I have lately been away in the interior of this
State, but here I am back to the Crescent City once more, and ever
trying to attend most faithfully to my duties. I tell you, my dear
Beulah, it takes every one of us to do our very best,--with a long pull,
and a strong pull, and a pull altogether,--to pull down this terrible
and powerful rebellion. People can think, and talk, and even write all
they please; but I am firmly convinced that had Abraham Lincoln not
issued his famous emancipation proclamation on the 1st of January, 1863,
the war would go on for twenty years, and perhaps we would have to
compromise with the rebels even then. And then they are such fighters!
Why, they are worse than tigers! However that may be, I know one
thing,--since the issuing of that proclamation the rebellion has been
cut down in territory on all sides; and, as we have got hold of the
rebel ports, one by one, the blockade runners have been cut off by sea
to that extent. Thus we have cut off their supplies from foreign
nations; and right here I may notice that, as to the millions of silver
and gold that the South has piled and heaped from the toils and labors
of the oppressed slaves,--of all that ill-gotten coin, there is perhaps
not one dollar of it left now in the entire South. It has all gone to
buy the munition of war in Europe; and yet the cause for which the South
has expended it will all be lost!

"The rebellion is going down, and will come to an end by and by. I
suppose there are now about 200,000 colored troops in the field, many of
whom used to raise the crops for 'old Massa.' Now white men must stay at
home and raise the crops, and look after their own families into the
bargain, and all that is so much more cut off from their resources.

"I used to be of the opinion that after all the lickings we have given
them, and seeing that they had no prospect but ultimate defeat before
their eyes, they would come to terms and lay down their arms. But
no!--nothing of the sort indeed! They have still their pride left, and
that is something!--I don't think we will ever conquer them; but we will
just wear them away, one by one, till there is not another rebel left.
The armies of the nations of history have usually laid down their arms
when they saw that the struggle was quite hopeless; but so long as there
is even one Southern rebel left who can stand on his feet and hold up a
flag, I believe they will say that the South is still independent and
free! We will never conquer them; we shall have to wear them out!

"We here at the seat of war in the South are splendidly supplied with an
abundance of newspapers, magazines, and I know not what besides. Some
are illustrated with all sorts of pictures, and some are not
illustrated; and they appear to be sent to us poor fellows by all sorts
of good people from all the four winds of heaven. In one of these latest
magazines there is a very vivid representation of a terrible fight that
the First South Carolina Colored Regiment had with bloodhounds at
Pocataligo Bridge, on the 23rd of October, 1862. The rebels came
streaming on through the woods, with horse, foot and dragoons, and also
the bloodhounds. Our own brave men advanced boldly through among the
trees, and attacked dog, horse and man in a terrible hurry. The hounds
especially dashed against our men with great fierceness, but they were
shot down and bayoneted quicker than it takes me to tell the tale with
pen and ink. Then the gallant troops held them up aloft for joy on the
points of their bayonets and laughed. The dogs looked just like meat on
the point of a fork. I have turned the entire scene into a little poem
of my own. Here it is:

    "We met the bloodhounds at the bridge,
      They ran with all their might;
    Their open months cried bow, wow, wow!
      It was a glorious sight.
    We ran our bayonets through their backs,
      We shot them with the gun;
    It was all over with the dogs,
      And 'twas most glorious fun!

    "In former days those brutes were used
      To hunt the flying slave;
    They tracked them through their dismal swamps,
      And little quarter gave;
    But when they tried the game of war
      We knocked them on the head,
    We shot them quick, and ran them through,
      Until every hound was dead!

    "Thus perished those bad dogs at once,
      We tossed them high for fun;
    We held them on our bayonet tops,
      And finished the last one;
    Which was a flitting end for them,
      The brutes shall bark no more,
    Nor hunt the flying fugitive
      On Carolina's shore!

    "But slavery there has lost the day,
      They need bloodhounds no more;
    All men and women now are free
      On Carolina's shore;
    The white man now will learn to work
      Like other men I trow,
    Nor raise the bloodhounds for the chase,
      Big brutes that cry bow, wow!

"But I must lay down the pen, or else I am sure you will begin to get
tired of my long letter. I was very greatly interested, indeed, in your
glorious visit to Canada. I would like to go there myself. Perhaps we
will all visit them together some future day. With much warm love to
yourself, the girls, and all the rest. I am as ever,

"Your most loving husband,

"THOMAS LINCOLN."




CHAPTER VIII.


_The Fight at Marion, Tennessee--The Battle of Nashville--Success of the
Northern Armies--Massacre at Fort Pillow--The Rebels Refuse to Exchange
Colored Soldiers--Our Defeat at Olustee--Eighty Thousand Northern
Prisoners Perishing in Southern Prisons--The Mine at Petersburg--The
Wealth of the South--A Soldier's Song._

When we consider that there were 200,000 or more colored men in the
field, and that they were engaged in fights, large and small, somewhere
or other every day all over the far-spreading South, where all did so
well and received the praises of the brave and true, it seems to me
ridiculous at this time of day to look back and select particular
actions wherein they distinguished themselves. But I am not aware that I
can do any better than many worthy writers have done before me. There
was one circumstance, however, or rather course of similar circumstances
that struck those of us at home who closely followed the war as detailed
by private letters and dispatches in the public newspapers, which was
that on many memorable occasions the colored regiments saved the
defeated and flying white troops from complete destruction. And white
men were thankful enough to be saved by our men, and who could blame
them? They were both in the field to assist one another in every
possible way. I am not claiming more for the colored troops than belongs
to them; but let them have their rights. No just man will give them
less.

It was in the beginning of December, 1864, that a regular battle took
place near Marion, Tennessee, for the destruction of the Marion Salt
Works. The battle commenced in the morning, and fluctuated backwards and
forwards the greater part of the day. General Stoneman, who commanded
the Federals, at last found himself badly beaten by the Confederates,
under General Breckenridge. The national troops were in a desperate
condition, and nothing but destruction stared them in the face. There
was no time to be lost. The fate of the Northern army was trembling in
the scales. General Stoneman at once ordered up the black troops, whom
he divided into three columns. He placed General Burbridge at the head
of one column, gave another to Col. Wade, and the third to General
Brisbin.

Colonel Wade led the right column, General Burbridge the left, and
General Brisbin the centre. Wade got off first, and sailed into the
rebels in gallant style. Burbridge piled his overcoat on the ground,
drew his sword, and led his column forward like lions. Most of the
officers and all the men were on foot. Wade's horse was soon shot, after
which he led his men on foot, and they were the first to strike the
Confederate line, who fired time after time, but Wade's column advanced
rapidly for a hand-to-hand fight with the rebels. They went through the
Confederate lines like an iron wedge, when the enemy broke, turned and
ran. Burbridge hit with all his might on the left, and Brisbin's men in
the centre also covered themselves with glory. Men never did better in
this world. When their guns were empty, they clubbed their foes with the
butt ends, many of the latter jumping fully fifteen feet down the
opposite side of the hill to get out of the way of our infuriated men!
The night was now coming on! Sauve qui peut! The rebels fled in the
darkness, and ultimately took the North Carolina road, fleeing over the
mountains. Thus ended the grand struggle for the salt works at Marion,
Tennessee. Our troops now advanced, nor stopped till their destruction
was complete.

We all know that it must go very hard, indeed, with any people when they
have got no salt. Poor things! What could they do without salt? So these
coveted salt works at Marion were destroyed by the Union army, but not
till the army had been first rescued from destruction by the colored
troops who were attached to the service there.

I don't know how it happened, but somehow or other the Northern generals
had a great deal of confidence in colored men, whom they often put
aside, and held in reserve in case of the direst necessity in the end,
and when the worst might come to the worst. It was then that our
faithful fellows were called forwards to save the armies, and they saved
them, too, standing like walls of adamant between the white Unionists
and their terrible foes. Our brave boys often did as well elsewhere as
they did at Marion.

It used to be the grand hue and cry in the beginning of the war that if
colored men were enlisted into the armies of the Union, they would not
fight like their white brothers! Even we ladies, who surely were never
intended to fight in the ranks--we ladies living far away up in the
North at Buffalo, used to laugh at the whole thing as a joke, for
certainly everybody knew better. But that miserable parrot cry ceased
after a while, and was no more heard of.

Another grievance in the beginning of the enlistment of colored troops
was to offer them smaller pay than white men. Some of our regiments
absolutely refused to take less; others took what was offered. But as a
general thing, between Congress and the States themselves, all things
were put right at last, and justice was done by making things about
even. But whether right or wrong the troops never refused to do their
duty. It certainly was a shameful and shabby affair to offer them less,
because many of them certainly were superior to their white brothers in
the field. The color of the skin was a poor, miserable reason for giving
them less.

General T. J. Morgan gives a long and brilliant account of his
connection with several colored regiments in the Department of
Cumberland. He is also very jokey, and furnished us with a great many
amusing anecdotes, which he loves to relate. He gives us some very good
sketches of the Battle of Nashville, Tennessee, which occupied two days,
in the middle of December, 1864. A thaw had set in; the ice and cold had
given way, and General George T. Thomas now took advantage of the
opportunity that presented itself t

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