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The Negro in the American Rebellion: His Heroism and His Fidelity

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Title: The Negro in the American Rebellion: His Heroism and His Fidelity

Author: William Wells Brown


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEGRO IN THE AMERICAN REBELLION: HIS HEROISM AND HIS FIDELITY ***

THE NEGRO IN THE AMERICAN REBELLION

_His Heroism and His Fidelity_

By William Wells Brown

_Author of “Sketches of Places and People Abroad,” “The Black Man,” Etc_

Lee & Shepard, 149 Washington Street

1867




PREFACE.

Feeling anxious to preserve for future reference an account of the part
which the Negro took in suppressing the Slaveholders’ Rebellion, I have
been induced to write this work. In doing so, it occurred to me that a
sketch of the condition of the race previous to the commencement of the
war would not be uninteresting to the reader.

For the information concerning the services which the blacks rendered
to the Government in the Revolutionary War, I am indebted to the late
George Livermore, Esq., whose “Historical Research” is the ablest work
ever published on the early history of the negroes of this country.

In collecting facts connected with the Rebellion, I have availed myself
of the most reliable information that could be obtained from newspaper
correspondents, as well as from those who were on the battle-field. To
officers and privates of several of the colored regiments I am under
many obligations for detailed accounts of engagements.

No doubt, errors in fact and in judgment will be discovered, which I
shall be ready to acknowledge, and correct in subsequent editions. The
work might have been swelled to double its present size; but I did not
feel bound to introduce an account of every little skirmish in which
colored men were engaged.

I waited patiently, before beginning this work, with the hope that
some one more competent would take the subject in hand; but, up to the
present, it has not been done, although many books have been written
upon the Rebellion.

WILLIAM WELLS BROWN.

Cambridgeport, Mass., Jan. 1, 1867.




THE NEGRO IN THE AMERICAN REBELLION




CHAPTER I--BLACKS IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR AND IN 1812.

_The First Cargo of Slaves landed in the Colonies in 1620.--Slave
Representation in Congress.--Opposition to the Slave-Trade.--Crispus
Attucks, the First Victim of the Revolutionary War.--Bancroft’s
Testimony.--Capture of Gen. Prescott.--Colored Men in the War of
1812.--Gen. Andrew Jackson on Negro Soldiers._


I now undertake to write a history of the part which the colored men
took in the great American Rebellion. Previous to entering upon that
subject, however, I may be pardoned for bringing before the reader the
condition of the blacks previous to the breaking out of the war.

The Declaration of American Independence, made July 4, 1776, had
scarcely been enunciated, and an organization of the government
commenced, ere the people found themselves surrounded by new and trying
difficulties, which, for a time, threatened to wreck the ship of state.

The forty-five slaves landed on the banks of the James River, in the
colony of Virginia, from the coast of Africa, in 1620, had multiplied
to several thousands, and were influencing the political, social,
and religious institution’s of the country. Brought into the colonies
against their will; made the “hewers of wood and the drawers of
water;” considered, in the light of law and public opinion, as mere
chattels,--things to be bought and sold at the will of the owner; driven
to their unrequited toil by unfeeling men, picked for the purpose from
the lowest and most degraded of the uneducated whites, whose moral,
social, and political degradation, by slavery, was equal to that of the
slave,--the condition of the negro was indeed a sad one.

The history of this people, full of sorrow, blood, and tears, is full
also of instruction for mankind. God has so ordered it that one class
shall not degrade another, without becoming themselves contaminated. So
with slavery in America. The institution bred in the master insulting
arrogance, deteriorating sloth, pampered the loathsome lust it inflamed,
until licentious luxury sapped the strength and rottened the virtue of
the slave-owners of the South. Never were the institutions of a people,
or the principles of liberty, put to such a severe test as those of
the American Republic. The convention to frame the Constitution for
the government of the United States had not organized before the
slave-masters began to press the claims of their system upon the
delegates. They wanted their property represented in the national
Congress, and undue guarantees thrown around it; they wanted the African
slave-trade made lawful, and their victims returned if they should
attempt to escape; they begged that an article might be inserted in the
Constitution, making it the duty of the General Government to put down
the slaves if they should imitate their masters in striking a blow
for freedom. They seemed afraid of the very evil they were clinging so
closely to. “Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

In all this early difficulty, South Carolina took the lead against
humanity, her delegates ever showing themselves the foes of freedom.
Both in the Federal Convention to frame the Constitution, and in the
State Conventions to ratify the same, it was admitted that the blacks
had fought bravely against the British, and in favor of the American
Republic; for the fact that a black man (Crispus Attucks) was the first
to give his life at the commencement of the Revolution was still fresh
in their minds. Eighteen years previous to the breaking out of the war,
Attucks was held as a slave by Mr. ‘William Brown of Framingham, Mass.,
and from whom he escaped about that time, taking up his residence in
Boston. The Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770, may be regarded as the first
act in the great drama of the American Revolution. “From that moment,”
 said Daniel Webster, “we may date the severance of the British Empire.”
 The presence of the British soldiers in King Street excited the
patriotic indignation of the people. The whole community was stirred,
and sage counsellors were deliberating and writing and talking about the
public grievances. But it was not for “the wise and prudent” to be the
first to _act_ against the encroachments of arbitrary power. “A
motley rabble of saucy boys? negroes and mulattoes, Irish Teagues,
and outlandish Jack tars” (as John Adams described them in his pica in
defence of the soldiers) could not restrain their emotion, or stop to
inquire if what they _must do_ was according to the letter of any law.
Led by Crispus Attucks, the mulatto slave, and shouting, “The way to get
rid of these soldiers is to attack the main guard; strike at the root;
this is the nest,” with more valor than discretion, they rushed to King
Street, and were fired upon by Capt. Preston’s Company. Crispins Attucks
was the first to fall: he and Samuel Gray and Jonas Caldwell were killed
on the spot. Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr were mortally wounded.

The excitement which followed was intense. The bells of the town were
rung. An impromptu town meeting was held, and an immense assembly was
gathered.

Three days after, on the 8th, a public funeral of the martyrs took
place. The shops in Boston were closed; and all the bells of Boston and
the neighboring towns were rung. It is said that a greater number of
persons assembled on this occasion than were ever before gathered on
this continent for a similar purpose. The body of Crispus Attucks, the
mulatto slave, had been placed in Faneuil Hall, with that of Caldwell,
both being strangers in the city. Maverick was buried from his mother’s
house, in Union Street; and Gray from his brother’s, in Royal Exchange
Lane. The four hearses formed a junction in King Street; and there the
procession marched in columns six deep, with a long file of
coaches belonging to the most distinguished citizens, to the Middle
Burying-ground, where the four victims were deposited in one grave, over
which a stone was placed with this inscription:--

               “Long as in Freedom’s cause the wise contend,

               Dear to your country shall your fame extend;

               While to the world the lettered stone shall tell

               Where Caldwell, Attucks, Gray, and Maverick fell.”

The anniversary of this event was publicly commemorated in Boston, by
an oration and other exercises, every year until after our national
independence was achieved, when the Fourth of July was substituted for
the Fifth of March, as the more proper day for a general celebration.
Not only was the event commemorated, but the martyrs who then gave up
their lives were remembered and honored.

For half a century after the close of the war, the name of Crispus
Attucks was honorably mentioned by the most noted men of the country
who were not blinded by foolish prejudice. At the battle of Bunker Hill,
Peter Salem, a negro, distinguished himself by shooting Major Pitcairn,
who, in the midst of the battle, having passed the storm of fire
without, mounting the redoubt, and waving his sword, cried to the
“rebels” to surrender. The fall of Pitcairn ended the battle in favor of
liberty.

A single passage from Mr. Bancroft’s history will give a succinct
and clear account of the condition of the army, in respect to colored
soldiers, at the time of the battle of Bunker Hill:--

“Nor should history forget to record, that, as in the army at Cambridge,
so also in this gallant band, the free negroes of the colony had their
representatives. For the right of free negroes to bear arms in the
public defence was, at that day, as little disputed in New England as
their other rights. They took their place, not in a separate corps,
but in the ranks with the white man; and their names may be read on the
pension-rolls of the country, side by side with those of other soldiers
of the Revolution.”--_Bancroft’s History of the United States_, vol.
vii. p. 421.

The capture of Major-Gen. Prescott, of the British army, on the 9th of
July, 1777, was an occasion of great joy throughout the country. Prince,
the valiant negro who seized that officer, ought always to be remembered
with honor for his important service. The exploit was much commended at
the time, as its results were highly important; and Col. Barton, very
properly, received from Congress the compliment of a sword for his
ingenuity and bravery. It seems, however, that it took more than one
head to plan and to execute the undertaking. The following account of
the capture is historical:--.

“They landed about five miles from Newport, and three-quarters of a
mile from the house, which they approached cautiously, avoiding the main
guard, which was at some distance. _The colonel went foremost, with a
stout, active negro close behind him, and another at a small distance:
the rest followed so as to be near, but not seen._

“A single sentinel at the door saw and hailed the colonel: he answered
by exclaiming against, and inquiring for, rebel prisoners, but kept
slowly advancing. The sentinel again challenged him, and required the
countersign. He said he had not the countersign, but amused the sentry
by talking about rebel prisoners, and still advancing till he came
within reach of the bayonet, which, he presenting, the colonel suddenly
struck aside, and seized him. He was immediately secured, and ordered
to be silent on pain of instant death. _Meanwhile, the rest of the men
surrounding the house, the negro, with his head, at the second stroke,
forced a passage into it, and then into the landlord’s apartment. The
landlord at first refused to give the necessary intelligence; but, on
the prospect of present death, he pointed to the general’s chamber,
which being instantly opened by the negro’s head, the colonel, calling
the general by name, told him he was a prisoner.”--Pennsylvania
Evening Post_, Aug. 7, 1777 (in Frank Moore’s “Diary of the American
Revolution,” vol. i. p. 468).

There is abundant evidence of the fidelity and bravery of the colored
patriots of Rhode Island during the whole war. Before they had been
formed into a separate regiment, they had fought valiantly with the
white soldiers at Red Bank and elsewhere. Their conduct at the “Battle
of’ Rhode Island,” on the 29th of August, 1778, entitles them to
perpetual honor. That battle has been pronounced by military authorities
to have been one of the best-fought battles of the Revolutionary War.
Its success was owing, in a great degree, to the good fighting of the
negro soldiers. Mr. Arnold, in his “History of Rhode Island,” thus
closes his account of it:--

“A third time the enemy, with desperate courage and increased strength,
attempted to assail the redoubt, and would have carried it, but for
the timely aid of two Continental battalions despatched by Sullivan to
support his almost exhausted troops. It was in repelling these furious
onsets, that the newly raised black regiment, under Col. Greene,
distinguished itself by deeds of desperate valor. Posted behind a
thicket in the valley, they three times drove back the Hessians, who
charged repeatedly down the hill to dislodge them: and so determined
were the enemy in these successive charges, that, the day after the
battle, the Hessian colonel, upon whom this duty had devolved, applied
to exchange his command, and go to New York, because he dared not lead
his regiment again to battle, lest his men should shoot him for having
caused them so much loss.”--_Arnold’s History of Rhode Island_, vol. ii.
pp. 427, 428.

Three years later, these soldiers are thus mentioned by the Marquis de
Chastellux:--

“The 5th [of January, 1781] I did not set out till eleven, although I
had thirty miles’ journey to Lebanon. At the passage to the ferry, I met
with a detachment of the Rhode-Island regiment,--the same corps we had
with us all the last summer; but they have since been recruited and
clothed. The greatest part of them are negroes or mulattoes: they
are strong, robust men; and those I have seen had a very good
appearance.”--_Chastellux’s Travels_, vol. i. p. 454; London, 1789.

When Col. Greene was surprised and murdered, near Points Bridge, New
York, on the 14th of May, 1781, his colored soldiers heroically defended
him till they were cut to pieces; and the enemy reached him over the
dead bodies of his faithful negroes.

That large numbers of negroes were enrolled in the army, and served
faithfully as soldiers during the whole period of the war of the
Revolution, may be regarded as a well-established historical fact. And
it should be borne in mind, that the enlistment was not confined, by any
means, to those who had before enjoyed the privileges of free citizens.
Very many slaves were offered to, and received by, the army, on the
condition that they were to be emancipated, either at the time of
enlisting, or when they had served out the term of their enlistment. The
inconsistency of keeping in slavery any person who had taken up arms for
the defence of our national liberty had led to the passing of an order
forbidding “slaves,” as such, to be received as soldiers.

That colored men were equally serviceable in the last war with Great
Britain is true, as the following historical document will show:--


GENERAL JACKSON’S PROCLAMATION TO THE NEGROES.

_Headquarters, Seventh Military District, Mobile, Sept. 21, 1814_.

To the Free Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana.

Through a mistaken policy, you have heretofore been deprived of a
participation in the glorious struggle for national rights in which our
country is engaged. This no longer shall exist.

As sons of freedom, you are now called upon to defend our most
inestimable blessing. As Americans, your country looks with confidence
to her adopted children for a valorous support, as a faithful return
for the advantages enjoyed under her mild and equitable government. As
fathers, husbands, and brothers, you are summoned to rally around the
standard of the Eagle to defend all which is dear in existence.

Your country, although calling for your exertions, does not wish you
to engage in her cause without amply remunerating you for the services
rendered. Your intelligent minds are not to be led away by false
representations. Your love of honor would cause you to despise the man
who should attempt to deceive you. In the sincerity of a soldier, and
the language of truth, I address you.

To every noble-hearted, generous freeman of color, volunteering to serve
during the present contest with Great Britain, and no longer, there will
be paid the same bounty, in money and lands, now received by the white
soldiers of the United States; viz., one hundred and twenty dollars in
money, and one hundred and sixty acres of land. The non-commissioned
officers and privates will also be entitled to the same monthly pay, and
daily rations, and clothes, furnished to any American soldier.

On enrolling yourselves in companies, the Major-General Commanding will
select officers for your government from your white fellow-citizens.
Your non-commissioned officers will be appointed from among yourselves.

Due regard will be paid to the feelings of freemen and soldiers. You
will not, by being associated with white men in the same corps, be
exposed to improper comparisons or unjust sarcasm. As a distinct,
independent battalion or regiment, pursuing the path of glory, you will,
undivided, receive the applause and gratitude of your countrymen.

To assure you of the sincerity of my intentions, and my anxiety to
engage your invaluable services to our country, I have communicated my
wishes to the Governor of Louisiana, who is fully informed as to the
manner of enrollment, and will give you every necessary information on
the subject of this address.

ANDREW JACKSON,

_Major-General Commanding._

[Niles’s Register, vol. vii. p. 205.]

Three months later, Gen. Jackson addressed the same troops as follows:--

“To the Men of Color. Soldiers! From the shores of Mobile I collected
you to arms. I invited you to share in the perils and to divide the
glory of your white countrymen. I expected much from you; for I was not
uninformed of those qualities which must render you so formidable to an
invading foe. I knew that you could endure hunger and thirst, and all
the hardships of war. I knew that you loved the land of your nativity,
and that, like ourselves, you had to defend all that is most dear to
man. But you surpass my hopes. I have found in you, united to these
qualities, that noble enthusiasm which impels to great deeds.

“Soldiers! The President of the United States shall be informed of your
conduct on the present occasion; and the voice of the Representatives
of the American nation shall applaud your valor, as your general now
praises your ardor. The enemy is near. His sails cover the lakes. But
the brave are united; and, if he finds us contending with ourselves, it
will be for the prize of valor, and fame its noblest reward.”--_Niles’s
Register,_ vol. vii. pp. 345, 346.

Black men served in the navy with great credit to themselves, receiving
the commendation of Com. Perry and other brave officers.

_Extract of a Letter from Nathaniel Shaler, Commander of the
private-armed Schooner Gen. Tompkins, to his Agent in New York,
dated_,--

“At Sea, Jan. 1, 1813.

“Before I could get our light sails in, and almost before I could
turn round, I was under the guns, not of a transport, but of a large
_frigate!_ and not more than a quarter of a mile from her.... Her first
broadside killed two men, and wounded six others....

“My officers conducted themselves in a way that would have done honor to
a more permanent service....

“The name of one of my poor fellows who was killed ought to be registered
in the book of fame, and remembered with reverence as long as bravery is
considered a virtue. He was a black man, by the name of John Johnson.
A twenty-four pound shot struck him in the hip, and took away all the
lower part of his body. In this state, the poor brave fellow lay on the
deck, and several times exclaimed to his shipmates, ‘_Fire away, my boy:
no haul a color down._’ The other was also a black man, by the name of
John Davis, and was struck in much the same way. He fell near me, and
several times requested to be thrown overboard, saying he was only in
the way of others.

“When America has such tars, she has little to fear from the tyrants of
the ocean.”--_Niles’s Weekly Register, Saturday_, Feb. 26, 1814.




CHAPTER II--THE SOUTH-CAROLINA FRIGHT.


_Denmark Vesey, Peter Poyas, and their Companions.--The
deep-laid Plans.--Religious Fanaticism.--The Discovery.--The
Trials.--Convictions.--Executions._


Human bondage is ever fruitful of insurrection, wherever it exists, and
under whatever circumstances it may be found.

An undeveloped discontent always pervaded the black population of the
South, bond and free. Many attempts at revolt were made: two only,
however, proved of a serious and alarming character. The first was in
1812, the leader of which was Denmark Vesey, a free colored man, who had
purchased his liberty in the year 1800, and who resided in Charleston,
S.C. A carpenter by trade, working among the blacks, Denmark gained
influence with them, and laid a plan of insurrection which showed
considerable generalship. Like most men who take the lead in revolts, he
was deeply imbued with a religious duty; and his friends claimed that
he had “a magnetism in his eye, of which his confederates stood in great
awe: if he once got his eye on a man, there was no resisting it.”

After resolving to incite the slaves to rebellion, Denmark began taking
into his confidence such persons as he could trust, and instructing them
to gain adherents from among the more reliable of both bond and free.

Peter Poyas, a slave of more than ordinary foresight and ability, was
selected by him as his lieutenant; and to him was committed the arduous
duty of arranging the mode of attack, and of acting as the military
leader. Poyas voluntarily undertook the management of the most difficult
part of the enterprise, the capture of the main guard-house, and had
pledged himself to advance alone, and surprise the sentinel. Gullah
Jack, Tom Russell, and Ned Bennett,--the last two were not less
valuable than Peter Poyas; for Tom was an ingenious mechanic, and made
battle-axes, pikes, and other instruments of death with which to carry
on the war,--all of the above were to be generals of brigades, and
were let into every secret of the intended rising. It had long been the
custom in Charleston for the country slaves to visit the city in great
numbers on Sunday, and return to their homes in time to commence work
on the following morning. It was, therefore, determined by Vesey to have
the rising take place on Sunday. The slaves of nearly every plantation
in the neighborhood were enlisted, and were to take part. The details
of the plan, however, were not rashly committed to the mass of the
confederates: they were known only to a few, and were finally to have
been announced after the evening prayer-meeting on the appointed Sunday.
But each leader had his own company enlisted, and his own work marked
out. When the clock struck twelve, all were to move. Poyas was to lead a
party ordered to assemble at South Bay, and to be joined by a force
from James’ Island: he was then to march up and seize the arsenal and
guard-house opposite St. Michael’s Church, and detach a sufficient
number to cut off all white citizens who should appear at the
alarm-posts. A second body of blacks, from the country and the Neck,
headed by Ned Bennett, was to assemble on the Neck, and seize the
arsenal there. A third was to meet at Governor Bennett’s Mills under the
command of Rolla, another leader, and, after putting the governor and
intendant to death, to march through the city, or be posted at Cannon’s
Bridge, thus preventing the inhabitants of Cannons-borough from entering
the city.

A fourth, partly from the country and partly from the neighboring
localities in the city, was to rendezvous on Gadsden’s Wharf, and attack
the upper guard-house. A fifth, composed of country and Neck blacks, was
to assemble at Bulkley’s Farm, two miles and a half from the city,
seize the upper powder magazine, and then march down; and a sixth was
to assemble at Vesey’s, and obey his orders. A seventh detachment, under
Gullah Jack, was to come together in Boundry Street, at the head of King
Street, to capture the arms of the Neck company of militia, and to take
an additional supply from Mr. Duguereron’s shop. The naval stores
on Meg’s Wharf were also to be attacked. Meanwhile a horse company,
consisting of many draymen, hostlers, and butcher boys, was to meet at
Lightwood’s Alley, and then scour the streets to prevent the whites from
assembling.

Every white man coming out of his own door was to be killed, and, if
necessary, the city was to be fired in several places; a slow match for
this purpose having been purloined from the public arsenal, and placed
in an accessible position. The secret and plan of attack, however,
were incautiously divulged to a slave named Devany, belonging to Col.
Prioleau; and he at once informed his master’s family. The mayor, on
getting possession of the facts, called the city council together for
consultation. The investigation elicited nothing new, for the slaves
persisted in their ignorance of the matter; and the authorities began to
feel that they had been imposed upon by Devany and his informants, when
another of the conspirators, being bribed, revealed what he knew. Arrest
after arrest was made, and the mayor’s court held daily examinations for
weeks. After several weeks of incarceration, the accused, one hundred
and twenty in number, were brought to trial: thirty-four were sentenced
to transportation, twenty-seven acquitted by the court, twenty-five
discharged without trial, and thirty-five condemned to death. With but
two or three exceptions, all of the conspirators went to the gallows
feeling that they had acted right, and died like men giving their lives
for the cause of freedom. A report of the trial, written soon after,
says of Denmark Vesey, “For several years before he disclosed
his intentions to any one, he appears to have been constantly and
assiduously engaged in endeavoring to imbitter the minds of the colored
population against the whites. He rendered himself perfectly familiar
with those parts of the Scriptures which he could use to show that
slavery was contrary to the laws of God; that slaves were bound to
attempt their emancipation, however shocking and bloody might be the
consequences; and that such efforts would not only be pleasing to the
Almighty, but were absolutely enjoined, and their success predicted, in
the Scriptures.

“His favorite texts, when he addressed those of his own color, were
Zech. xiv. 1-3, and Joshua vi. 21; and, in all his conversations, he
identified their situation with that of the Israelites. Even while
walking through the streets in company with another, he was not idle;
for, if his companion bowed to a white person, he would rebuke him, and
observe that all men were born equal, and that he was surprised that any
one would degrade himself by such conduct; that he would never cringe
to the whites, nor ought any one who had the feelings of a man. When
answered, ‘We are slaves,’ he would sarcastically and indignantly reply,
‘You deserve to remain slaves;’ and if he were further asked, ‘What can
we do?’ he would remark, ‘Go and buy a spelling-book, and read the fable
of Hercules and the wagoner,’ which he would then repeat, and apply it
to their situation.

“He sought every opportunity of entering into conversation with white
persons, when they could be overheard by slaves near by, especially in
grog-shops, during which conversation, he would artfully introduce some
bold remark on slavery; and sometimes, when from the character of the
person he was conversing with he found he might be still bolder, he
would go so far, that, had not his declarations in such situations been
clearly proved, they would scarcely have been credited. He continued
this course till some time after the commencement of the last winter; by
which time he had not only obtained incredible influence amongst persons
of color, but many feared him more than they did their masters, and one
of them declared, even more than his God.”

The excitement which the revelations of the trial occasioned, and
the continual fanning of the flame by the newspapers, was beyond
description. Double guard in the city, the country patrol on horseback
and on foot, the watchfulness that was observed on all plantations,
showed the deep feeling of fear pervading the hearts of the
slave-holders, not only in South Carolina, but the fever extended to the
other Southern States, and all seemed to feel that a great crisis had
been passed. And, indeed, their fears appear not to have been without
ground; for a more complicated plan for an insurrection could scarcely
have been conceived.

Many were of opinion, that, the rising once begun, they would have taken
the city, and held it, and might have sealed the fate of slavery in the
South. The best account of this whole matter is to be found in an able
article in the “Atlantic Monthly” for June, 1861, from the pen of Col.
T. W. Higginson, and to which I am indebted for the extracts contained
in this sketch.




CHAPTER III.--THE NAT TURNER INSURRECTION.


_Nat Turner.--His Associates.--Their Meetings.--Nat’s Religious
Enthusiasm.--Bloodshed.--Wide-spread Terror.--The Trials and
Executions._


The slave insurrection which occurred in Southampton County, Na., in
the year 1831, although not as well planned as the one portrayed in the
preceding chapter, was, nevertheless, more widely felt in the South. Its
leader was Nat Turner, a slave.

On one of the oldest and largest plantations in Southampton County,
Va., owned by Benjamin Turner, Esq., Nat was born a slave, on the 2d of
October, 1800. His parents were of unmixed African descent. Surrounded
as he was by the superstition of the slave-quarters, and being taught by
his mother that he was born for a prophet, a preacher, and a deliverer
of his race, it was not strange that the child should have imbibed
the principles which were afterwards developed in his career. Early
impressed with the belief that he had seen visions, and received
communications direct from God, he, like Napoleon, regarded himself as
a being of destiny. In his childhood, Nat was of an amiable disposition;
but circumstances in which he was placed as a slave brought out
incidents that created a change in his disposition, and turned his kind
and docile feeling into the most intense hatred to the white race.

The ill-treatment he experienced at the hands of the whites, and the
visions he claimed to have seen, caused Nat to avoid, as far as he
could, all intercourse with his fellow-slaves, and threw around him a
gloom and melancholy that disappeared only with his life.

Both the young slave and his friends averred that a full knowledge of
the alphabet came to him in a single night. Impressed with the belief
that his mission was a religious one, and this impression strengthened
by the advice of his grandmother, a pious but ignorant woman, Nat
commenced preaching when about twenty-five years of age, but never went
beyond his own master’s locality. In stature, he was under the middle
size, long-armed, round-shouldered, and strongly marked with the African
features. A gloomy fire burned in his looks, and he had a melancholy
expression of countenance. He never tasted a drop of ardent spirits in
his life, and was never known to smile. In the year 1828, new visions
appeared to Nat; and he claimed to have direct communication with God.
Unlike most of those born under the influence of slavery, he had no
faith in conjuring, fortunetelling, or dreams, and always spoke with
contempt of such things. Being hired out to a cruel master, he ran away,
and remained in the woods thirty days, and could have easily escaped to
the Free States, as did his father some years before; but he received,
as he says in his confession, a communication from the Spirit, which
said, “Return to your earthly master; for he who knoweth his Master’s
will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” It was not
the will of his earthly but his heavenly Master that he felt bound to
do; and therefore Nat returned. His fellow-slaves were greatly incensed
at him for coming back; for they knew well his ability to reach Canada,
or some other land of freedom, if he was so inclined. He says further,
“About this time I had a vision, and saw white spirits and black spirits
engaged in battle; and the sun was darkened, the thunder rolled in the
heavens, and blood flowed ‘in streams; and I heard a voice saying, ‘Such
is your luck, such are you called on to see; and let it come, rough or
smooth, you must surely bear it!’” Some time after this, Nat had, as
he says, another vision, in which the spirit appeared and said, “The
Serpent is loosened, and Christ has laid down the yoke he has borne for
the sins of men; and you must take it up, and fight against the Serpent,
for the time is fast approaching when the first shall be last, and the
last shall be first.” There is no doubt but that this last sentence
filled Nat with enthusiastic feeling in favor of the liberty of his
race, that he had so long dreamed of. “The last shall be first, and the
first shall be last,” seemed to him to mean something. He saw in it the
overthrow of the whites, and the establishing of the blacks in their
stead; and to this end he bent the energies of his mind. In February,
1881, Nat received his last communication, and beheld his last vision.
He said, “I was told I should arise and prepare myself, and slay my
enemies with their own weapons.” The plan of an insurrection was now
formed in his own mind, and the time had arrived for him to take others
into the secret; and he at once communicated his ideas to four of
his friends, in whom he had implicit confidence. Hark Travis, Nelson
Williams, Sam Edwards, and Henry Porter were slaves like himself, and,
like him, had taken their names from their masters. A meeting must be
held with these, and it must take place in some secluded place where
the whites would not disturb them; and a meeting was appointed. The spot
where they assembled was as wild and romantic as were the visions that
had been impressed upon the mind of their leader.

Three miles from where Nat lived was a dark swamp, filled with reptiles,
in the middle of which was a dry spot, reached by a narrow, winding
path, and upon which human feet seldom ever trod, on account of its
having been the place where a slave had been tortured to death by a slow
fire, for the crime of having flogged his cruel and inhuman master. The
night for the meeting arrived, and they came together. Hark brought
a pig, Sam bread, Nelson sweet potatoes, and Henry brandy; and the
gathering was turned into a feast. Others were taken in, and joined the
conspiracy. All partook heartily of the food, and drank freely, except
Nat. He fasted and prayed. It was agreed that the revolt should commence
that night, and in their own masters’ households, and that each slave
should give his oppressor the death-blow. Before they left the swamp,
Nat made a speech, in which he said, “Friends and brothers! We are
to commence a great work to-night. Our race is to be delivered from
slavery, and God has appointed us as the men to do his bidding; and
let us be worthy of our calling. I am told to slay all the whites we
encounter, without regard to age or sex. We have no arms or ammunition,
but we will find these in the houses of our oppressors; and, as we go
on, others can join us. Remember that we do not go forth for the sake
of blood and carnage; but it is necessary, that, in the commencement
of this revolution, all the whites we meet should die, until we have an
army strong enough to carry on the war upon a Christian basis. Remember
that ours is not a war for robbery, and to satisfy our passions: it is a
struggle for freedom. Ours must be deeds, and not words. Then let’s away
to the scene of action.”

Among those who had joined the conspirators was Will, a slave, who
scorned the idea of taking his master’s name. Though his soul longed to
be free, he evidently became one of the party as much to satisfy revenge
as for the liberty that he saw in the dim distance. Will had seen a dear
and beloved wife sold to the negro-trader, and taken away, never to be
beheld by him again in this life. His own back was covered with scars,
from his shoulders to his feet. A large scar, running from his right eye
down to his chin, showed that he had lived with a cruel master. Nearly
six feet in height, and one of the strongest and most athletic of his
race, he proved to be the most unfeeling of all the insurrectionists.
His only weapon was a broad-axe, sharp and heavy.

Nat and his accomplices at once started for the plantation of Joseph
Travis, with whom the four lived; and there the first blow was struck.
In his confession, just before his execution, Nat said,--

“On returning to the house, Hark went to the door with an axe, for the
purpose of breaking it open,--as we knew we were strong enough to murder
the family should they be awakened by the noise; but, reflecting that
it might create an alarm in the neighborhood, we determined to enter the
house secretly, and murder them whilst sleeping. Hark got a ladder, and
set it against the chimney, on which I ascended, and, hoisting a window,
entered and came down stairs, unbarred the doors, and removed the guns
from their places. It was then observed that I must spill the first
blood. On which, armed with a hatchet, and accompanied by Will,
I entered my master’s chamber. It being dark, I could not give a
death-blow. The hatchet, glanced from his head: he sprang from the bed,
and called his wife. It was his last word. Will laid him dead with a
blow of his axe.”

They went from plantation to plantation, until the whole neighborhood
was aroused; and the whites turned out in large numbers to suppress the
rebellion. Nat and his accomplices fought bravely, but to no purpose.

Reinforcements came to the whites; and the blacks were overpowered and
defeated by the superior numbers of the enemy. In this battle, many were
slain on both sides. Will, the blood-thirsty and revengeful slave, fell
with his broad-axe uplifted, after having laid three of the whites dead
at his feet with his own strong arm and his terrible weapon. His last
words were, “Bury my axe with me.” For he religiously believed, that,
in the next world, the blacks would have a contest with the whites, and
that he would need his axe. Nat Turner, after fighting to the last with
his short sword, escaped with some others to the woods near by, and was
not captured for nearly two months. When brought to trial, he pleaded
“not guilty,” feeling, as he said, that it was always right for one to
strike for his own liberty. After going through a mere form of trial,
he was convicted and executed at Jerusalem, the county-seat for
Southhampton County, Ya. Not a limb trembled, or a muscle was observed
to move. Thus died Nat Turner, at the early age of thirty-one years, a
martyr to the freedom of his race, and a victim to his own fanaticism.
He meditated upon the wrongs of his oppressed and injured people till
the idea of their deliverance excluded all other ideas from his mind;
and he devoted his life to its realization. Every thing appeared to
him a vision, and all favorable omens were signs from God. He foretold,
that, at his death, the sun would refuse to shine, and that there would
be signs of disapprobation given from Heaven. And it is true that the
sun was darkened, a storm gathered, and more boisterous weather had
never appeared in Southampton County than on the day of Nat’s execution.
The sheriff, warned by the prisoner, refused to cut the cord that held
the trap. No black man would touch the rope. A poor old white man,
long-besotted by drink, was brought forty miles to be the executioner.

Fifty-five whites and seventy-three blacks lost their lives in the
Southampton Rebellion. On the fatal night, when Nat and his companions
were dealing death to all they found, Capt. Harris, a wealthy planter,
had his life saved by the devotion and timely warning of his slave Jim,
said to have been half-brother to his master. After the revolt had been
put down, and parties of whites were out hunting the suspected blacks,
Capt. Harris, with his faithful slave, went into the woods in search of
the negroes. In saving his master’s life, Jim felt that he had done his
duty, and could not consent to become a betrayer of his race; and, on
reaching the woods, he handed his pistol to his master, and said, “I
cannot help you hunt down these men: they, like myself, want to be free.
Sir, I am tired of the life of a slave: please give me my freedom, or
shoot me on tire spot.” Capt. Harris took the weapon, and pointed it at
the slave. Jim, putting his right hand, upon his heart, said, “This is
the spot; aim here.” The captain fired, and the slave fell dead at his
feet.




CHAPTER IV.--SLAVE REVOLT AT SEA.


_Madison Washington.--His Escape from the South.--His Love of
Liberty.--His Return.--His Capture.--The Brig “Creole.”--The
Slave-traders.--Capture of the Vessel.--Freedom of the Oppressed._


The revolt on board of the brig “Creole,” on the high seas, by a number
of slaves who had been shipped for the Southern market, in the year
1841, created at the time a profound sensation throughout the country.
Before entering upon it, however, I will introduce to the reader the
hero of the occasion.

Among the great number of fugitive slaves who arrived in Canada towards
the close of the year 1840, was one whose tall figure, firm step, and
piercing eye attracted at once the attention of all who beheld him.
Nature had treated him as a favorite. His expressive countenance painted
and reflected every emotion of his soul. There was a fascination in the
gaze of his finely cut eyes that no one could withstand. Born of African
parentage, with no mixture in his blood, he was one of the handsomest
of his race. His dignified, calm, and unaffected features announced at
a glance that he was endowed with genius, and created to guide his
fellow-men. He called himself Madison Washington, and said that his
birthplace was in the “Old Dominion.” He might have been twenty-five
years; but very few slaves have any correct idea of their age. Madison
was not poorly dressed, and had some money at the end of his journey,
which showed that he was not from amongst the worst-used slaves of the
South. He immediately sought employment at a neighboring farm, where he
remained some months. A strong, able-bodied man, and a good worker, and
apparently satisfied with his situation, his employer felt that he had
a servant who would stay with him a long while. The farmer would
occasionally raise a conversation, and try to draw from Madison some
account of his former life, but in this he failed; for the fugitive was
a man of few words, and kept his own secrets. His leisure hours were
spent in learning to read and write; and in this he seemed to take
the utmost interest. He appeared to take no interest in the sports and
amusements that occupied the attention of others. Six months had not
passed ere Madison began to show signs of discontent. In vain his
employer tried to discover the cause.

“Do I not pay you enough, and treat you in a becoming manner?” asked Mr.
Dickson one day when the fugitive seemed in a very desponding mood.

“Yes, sir,” replied Madison.

“Then why do you appear so dissatisfied of late?”

“Well, sir,” said the fugitive, “since you have treated me with such
kindness, and seem to take so much interest in me, I will tell you the
reason why I have changed, and appear to you to be dissatisfied. I
was born in slavery, in the State of Virginia. From my earliest
recollections I hated slavery, and determined to be free. I have never
yet called any man master, though I have been held by three different
men who claimed me as their property. The birds in the trees and the
wild beasts of the forest made me feel that I, like them, ought to be
free. My feelings were all thus centred in the one idea of liberty, of
which I thought by day and dreamed by night. I had scarcely reached my
twentieth year, when I became acquainted with the angelic being who
has since become my wife. It was my intention to have escaped with her
before we were married, but circumstances prevented.

“I took her to my bosom as my wife, and then resolved to make the
attempt. But, unfortunately, my plans were discovered; and, to save
myself from being caught and sold off to the far South, I escaped to the
woods, where I remained during many weary months. As I could not bring
my wife away, I would not come without her. Another reason for remaining
was that I hoped to get up an insurrection of the slaves, and thereby
be the means of their liberation. In this, too, I failed. At last it
was agreed, between my wife and I, that I should escape to Canada, get
employment, save my earnings, and with it purchase her freedom. With
the hope of attaining this end, I came into your service. I am now
satisfied, that, with the wages I can command here, it will take me
not less than five years to obtain by my labor the amount sufficient to
purchase the liberty of my dear Susan. Five years will be too long for
me to wait; for she may die, or be sold away, ere I can raise the money.
This, sir, makes me feel low spirited; and I have come to the rash
determination to return to Virginia for my wife.”

The recital of the story had already brought tears to the eyes of the
farmer, ere the fugitive had concluded. In vain did Mr. Dickson try to
persuade Madison to give up the idea of going back into the very grasp
of the tyrant, and risking the loss of his own freedom without securing
that of his wife. The heroic man had made up his mind, and nothing
could move him. Receiving the amount of wages due him from his employer,
Madison turned his face once more towards the South. Supplied with
papers purporting to have been made out in Virginia, and certifying
to his being a freeman, the fugitive had no difficulty in reaching the
neighborhood of his wife. But these “free papers” were only calculated
to serve him where he was not known. Madison had also provided himself
with files, saws, and other implements, with which to cut his way out of
any prison into which he might be cast. These instruments were so small
as to be easily concealed in the lining of his clothing; and, armed
with them, the fugitive felt sure he should escape again were he ever
captured. On his return, Madison met, in the State of Ohio, many of
those whom he had seen on his journey to Canada; and all tried to
prevail upon him to give up the rash attempt. But to every one he would
reply, “Liberty is worth nothing to me while my wife is a slave.” When
near his former home, and unable to travel in open day without being
detected, Madison betook himself to the woods during the day, and
travelled by night. At last he arrived at the old farm at night, and hid
away in the nearest forest. Here he remained several days, filled with
hope and fear, without being able to obtain any information about his
wife. One evening, during this suspense, Madison heard the singing of a
company of slaves, the sound of which appeared nearer and nearer, until
he became convinced that it was a gang going to a corn-shucking; and
the fugitive resolved that he would join it, and see if he could get any
intelligence of his wife.

In Virginia, as well as in most of the other corn-raising slave-States,
there is a custom of having what is termed “a corn-shucking,” to which
slaves from the neighboring plantations, with the consent of their
masters, are invited. At the conclusion of the shucking, a supper is
provided by the owner of the corn; and thus, together with the bad
whiskey which is freely circulated on such occasions, the slaves are
made to feel very happy. Four or five companies of men may be heard in
different directions, and at the same time, approaching the place of
rendezvous; slaves joining the gangs along the roads as they pass their
masters’ farms. Madison came out upon the highway; and, as the company
came along singing, he fell into the ranks, and joined in the song.
Through the darkness of the night he was able to keep from being
recognized by the remainder of the company, while he learned from the
general conversation the most important news of the day.

Although hungry and thirsty, the fugitive dared not go to the
supper-table for fear of recognition. However, before he left the
company that night, he gained information enough to satisfy him that
his wife was still with her old master; and he hoped to see her, if
possible, on the following night. The sun had scarcely set the next
evening, ere Madison was wending his way out of the forest, and going
towards the home of his loved one, if the slave can be said to have a
home. Susan, the object of his affections, was indeed a woman every way
worthy of his love. Madison knew well where to find the room usually
occupied by his wife, and to that spot he made his way on arriving
at the plantation; but, in his zeal and enthusiasm, and his being too
confident of success, he committed a blunder which nearly cost him
his life. Fearful that if he waited until a late hour, Susan would
be asleep, and in awakening her she would in her fright alarm the
household, Madison ventured to her room too early in the evening, before
the whites in the “great house” had retired. Observed by the overseer, a
sufficient number of whites were called in, and the fugitive secured ere
he could escape with his wife; but the heroic slave did not yield until
he with a club had laid three of his assailants upon the ground with his
manly blows; and not then until weakened by loss of blood. Madison was
at once taken to Richmond, and sold to a slave-trader, then making up a
gang of slaves for the New-Orleans market.

The brig “Creole,” owned by Johnson & Eperson of Richmond, and commanded
by Capt. Enson, lay at the Richmond dock, waiting for her cargo, which
usually consisted of tobacco, hemp, flax, and slaves. There were two
cabins for the slaves,--one for the men, the other for the women. The
men were generally kept in chains while on the voyage; but the women
were usually unchained, and allowed to roam at pleasure in their own
cabin. On the 27th of October, 1841, “The Creole” sailed from Hampton
Roads, bound for New Orleans, with her full load of freight, a hundred
and thirty-five slaves, and three passengers, besides the crew. Forty of
the slaves were owned by Thomas McCargo, nine belonged to Henry Hewell,
and the remainder were held by Johnson & Eperson. Hewell had once been
an overseer for McCargo, and on this occasion was acting as his agent.

Among the slaves owned by Johnson & Eperson, was Madison Washington. He
was heavily ironed, and chained down to the floor of the cabin occupied
by the men, which was in the forward hold. As it was known by Madison’s
purchasers that he had once escaped, and had been in Canada, they kept
a watchful eye over him. The two cabins were separated, so that the men
and women had no communication whatever during the passage.

Although rather gloomy at times, Madison on this occasion seemed very
cheerful, and his owners thought that he had repented of the experience
he had undergone as a runaway, and in the future would prove a more
easily-governed chattel. But, from the first hour that he had entered
the cabin of “The Creole,” Madison had been busily engaged in the
selection of men who were to act parts in the great drama. He picked out
each one as if by intuition. Every thing was done at night and in the
dark, as far as the preparation was concerned. The miniature saws and
files were faithfully used when the whites were asleep.

In the other cabin, among the slave-women, was one whose beauty at once
attracted attention. Though not tall, she yet had a majestic figure.
Her well-moulded shoulders, prominent bust, black hair which hung in
ringlets, mild blue eyes, finely-chiselled mouth, with a splendid set of
teeth, a turned and well-rounded chin, skin marbled with the animation
of life, and veined by blood given to her by her master, she stood as
the representative of two races. With only one-eighth of African blood,
she was what is called at the South an “octoroon.” It was said that her
grandfather had served his country in the Revolutionary War, as well
as in both Houses of Congress. This was Susan, the wife of Madison.
Few slaves, even among the best-used house-servants, had so good an
opportunity to gain general information as she.

Accustomed to travel with her mistress, Susan had often been to
Richmond, Norfolk, White-Sulphur Springs, and other places of resort for
the aristocracy of the Old Dominion. Her language was far more correct
than that of most slaves in her position. Susan was as devoted to
Madison as she was beautiful and accomplished.

After the arrest of her husband, and his confinement in Richmond jail,
it was suspected that Susan had long been in possession of the knowledge
of his whereabouts when in Canada, and knew of his being in the
neighborhood; and for this crime it was resolved that she should be
sold, and sent off to a Southern plantation, where all hope of escape
would be at an end. Each was not aware that the other was on board “The
Creole;” for Madison and Susan were taken to their respective cabins at
different times. On the ninth day out, “The Creole” encountered a rough
sea, and most of the slaves were sick, and therefore were not watched
with that vigilance that they had been since she first sailed. This was
the time for Madison and his accomplices to work, and nobly did they
perform their duty. Night came on, the first watch had just been
summoned, the wind blowing high, when Madison succeeded in reaching
the quarter-deck, followed by eighteen others, all of whom sprang to
different parts of the vessel, seizing whatever they could wield as
weapons. The crew were nearly all on deck. Capt. Enson and Mr. Merritt,
the first mate, were standing together, while Hewell was seated on the
companion, smoking a cigar. The appearance of the slaves all at
once, and the loud voice and commanding attitude of their leader, so
completely surprised the whites, that--

               “They spake not a word;

               But, like dumb statues or breathless stones,

               Stared at each other, and looked deadly pale.”

The officers were all armed; but so swift were the motions of Madison
that they had nearly lost command of the vessel before they attempted to
use them.

Hewell, the greater part of whose life had been spent on the plantation
in the capacity of a negro-driver, and who knew that the defiant looks
of these men meant something, was the first to start. Drawing his old
horse-pistol from under his coat, he fired at one of the blacks, and
killed him. The next moment Hewell lay dead upon the deck, for Madison
had struck him with a capstan bar. The fight now became general, the
white passengers, as well as all the crew, taking part. The battle was
Madison’s element, and he plunged into it without any care for his own
preservation or safety. He was an instrument of enthusiasm, whose value
and whose place was in his inspiration. “If the fire of heaven was in
my hands, I would throw it at those cowardly whites,” said he to his
companions, before leaving their cabin. But in this he did not
mean revenge, only the possession of his freedom and that of his
fellow-slaves. Merritt and Gifford, the first and second mates of the
vessel, both attacked the heroic slave at the same time. Both were
stretched out upon the deck with a single blow each, but were merely
wounded: they were disabled, and that was all that Madison cared for for
the time being. The sailors ran up the rigging for safety, and a moment
more he that had worn the fetters an hour before was master of the brig
“Creole.” His commanding attitude and daring orders, now that he was
free, and his perfect preparation for the grand alternative of liberty
or death which stood before him, are splendid exemplifications of
the true heroic. After his accomplices had covered the slaver’s deck,
Madison forbade the shedding of more blood, and ordered the sailors to
come down, which they did, and with his own hands dressed their wounds.
A guard was placed over all except Merritt, who was retained to navigate
the vessel. With a musket doubly charged, and pointed at Merritt’s
breast, the slaves made him swear that he would safely take the brig
into a British port. All things now secure, and the white men in chains
or under guard, Madison ordered that the fetters should be severed from
the limbs of those slaves who still wore them. The next morning “Capt.
Washington” (for such was the name he now bore) ordered the cook to
provide the best breakfast that the storeroom could furnish, intending
to surprise his fellow-slaves, and especially the females, whom he had
not yet seen. But little did he think that the woman for whom he had
risked his liberty and life would meet him at the breakfast-table. The
meeting of the hero and his beautiful and accomplished wife, the tears
of joy shed, and the hurrahs that followed from the men, can better be
imagined than described. Madison’s cup of joy was filled to the brim.
He had not only gained his own liberty, and that of one hundred and
thirty-four others, but his dear Susan was safe. Only one man, Howell,
had been killed. Capt. Enson, and others who were wounded, soon
recovered, and were kindly treated by Madison, and for which they proved
ungrateful; for, on the second night, Capt. Enson, Mr. Gilford, and
Merritt, took advantage of the absence of Madison from the deck,
and attempted to retake the vessel. The slaves, exasperated at this
treachery, fell upon the whites with deadly weapons. The captain and his
men fled to the cabin, pursued by the blacks. Nothing but the heroism of
the negro leader saved the lives of the white men on this occasion; for,
as the slaves were rushing into the cabin, Madison threw himself between
them and their victims, exclaiming, “Stop! no more blood. My life, that
was perilled for your liberty, I will lay down for the protection of
these men. They have proved themselves unworthy of life which we granted
them; still let us be magnanimous.” By the kind heart and noble bearing
of Madison, the vile slave-traders were again permitted to go unwhipped
of justice. This act of humanity raised the uncouth son of Africa far
above his Anglo-Saxon oppressors.

The next morning “The Creole” landed at Nassau, New Providence, where
the noble and heroic slaves were warmly greeted by the inhabitants, who
at once offered protection, and extended hospitality to them.

But the noble heroism of Madison Washington and his companions found
no applause from the Government, then in the hands of the slaveholders.
Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, demanded of the British
authorities the surrender of these men, claiming that they were
murderers and pirates: the English, however, could not see the point.

Had the “Creole” revolters been white, and committed their noble act of
heroism in another land, the people of the United States would have been
the first to recognize their claims. The efforts of Denmark Vesey, Nat
Turner, and Madison Washington to strike the chains of slavery from the
limbs of their enslaved race will live in, history, and will warn all
tyrants to beware of the wrath of God and the strong arm of man.

Every iniquity that society allows to subsist for the benefit of the
oppressor is a sword with which she herself arms the oppressed. Right is
the most dangerous of weapons: woe to him who leaves it to his enemies.




CHAPTER V--GROWTH OF THE SLAVE-POWER.


_Introduction of the Cotton-gin.--Its effect on Slavery.--Fugitive Slave
Law.--Anthony Burns.--The Dred Scott Decision.--Imprisonment for reading
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”--Struggles with Slavery._


The introduction of the cotton-gin into the South, by Whitney of
Connecticut, had materially enhanced the value of slave property; the
emancipation societies of Virginia and Maryland had ceased to petition
their Legislatures for the “Gradual Emancipation” of the slaves; and the
above two States had begun to make slave-raising a profitable business,
when the American Antislavery Society was formed in the city of
Philadelphia, in the year 1833. The agitation of the question in
Congress, the mobbing of William Lloyd Garrison in Boston, the murder
of the Rev. E. P. Lovejoy in Illinois, and the attempt to put down
free speech throughout the country, only hastened the downfall of the
institution.

In the earlier days of the Antislavery movement, not a year, sometimes
hardly a month, passed that did not bear upon its record the report
of mobs, almost always ferocious in spirit, and sometimes cruel and
blood-stained in act. It was the first instinctive and brutal response
of a proslavery people convicted of guilt and called to repentance; and
it was almost universal. Wherever antislavery was preached, honestly,
and effectually, there the mobocratic spirit followed it; so that, in
those times, he who escaped this ordeal was, with some justice, held to
be either inefficient or unfaithful. Hardly a town or city, from Alton
to Portland, where much antislavery labor was bestowed, in the first
fifteen years of this enterprise, that was not the scene of one of
these attempts to crush all free discussion of the subject of slavery by
violence or bloodshed. Hardly one of the earlier public advocates of the
cause that was not made to suffer, either in person or in property,
or in both, from popular violence,--the penalty of obedience to the
dictates of his own conscience. Nor was this all: official countenance
was often given to the mad proceedings of the mob; or, if not given,
its protection was withheld from those who were the objects of popular
hatred; and, as if this were not enough, legislation was invoked to the
same end. It was suggested to the Legislature of one of the Southern
States, that a large reward be offered for the head of a citizen of
Massachusetts who was the pioneer in the modern antislavery movement. A
similar reward was offered for the head of a citizen of New York. Yet so
foul an insult excited neither the popular indignation nor legislative
resentment in either of those States.

Great damage was done to the cause of Christianity by the position
assumed on the question of slavery by the American churches, and
especially those in the Southern States. Think of a religious kidnapper!
a Christian slave-breeder! a slave-trader, loving his neighbor as
himself, receiving the “sacraments” in some Protestant church from the
hand of a Christian apostle, then the next day selling babies by the
dozen, and tearing young women from the arms of their husbands to feed
the lust of lecherous New Orleans! Imagine a religious man selling
his own children into eternal bondage! Think of a Christian defending
slavery out of the Bible, and declaring there is no higher law, but
atheism is the first principle of Republican Government!

Yet this was the stand taken, and maintained, by the churches in the
slave States down to the day that Lee surrendered to Grant.

One of the bitterest fruits of slavery in our land is the cruel spirit
of caste, which makes the complexion even of the free negro a badge
of social inferiority, exposing him to insult in the steamboat and the
railcar, and in all places of public resort, not even excepting the
church; banishing him from remunerative occupations; expelling him from
the legislative hall, the magistrate’s bench, and the jury-box; and
crushing his noblest aspirations under a weight of prejudice and
proscription which he struggles in vain to throw off. Against this
unchristian and hateful spirit, every lover of liberty should enter his
solemn protest. This hateful prejudice caused the breaking up of the
school of Miss Prudence Crandall, in the State of Connecticut, in the
early days of the antislavery agitation.

Next came the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, one of the most beautiful
edifices in the City of Brotherly Love, simply because colored persons
were permitted to occupy seats by the side of whites.

The enactment by Congress of the Fugitive Slave Law caused the friends
of freedom, both at home and abroad, to feel that the General Government
was fast becoming the bulwark of slavery. The rendition of Thomas Sims,
and still later that of Anthony Burns, was, indeed, humiliating in the
extreme to the people of the Northern States.

On that occasion, the sons of free, enlightened, and Christian
Massachusetts, descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, bowed submissively to
the behests of a tyranny more cruel than Austrian despotism; yielded up
their dignity and self-respect; became the allies of slave-catchers, the
associates and companions of bloodhounds. At the bidding of slaveholders
and serviles, they seized the image of God, bound their fellow-man with
chains, and consigned him to torture and premature death under the lash
of a piratical overseer. God’s law and man’s rights were trampled upon;
the self-respect, the constitutional privileges, of the free States,
were ignominiously surrendered. A people who resisted a paltry tax upon
tea, at the cannon’s mouth, basely submitted to an imposition tenfold
greater, in favor of brutalizing their fellow-men. Soil which had
been moistened with the blood of American patriots was polluted by the
footsteps of slave-catchers and their allies.

The Boston Court House in chains, two hundred rowdies and thieves sworn
in as special policemen, respectable citizens shoved off the side-walks
by these slave-catchers; all for the purpose of satisfying “our brethren
of the South.” But this act did not appease the feelings, or satisfy the
demands, of the slave-holders, while it still further inflamed the fire
of abolitionism.

The “Dred Scott Decision” added fresh combustibles to the smouldering
heap. Dred Scott, a slave, taken by his master into free Illinois, and
then beyond the line of 36° 30’, and then back into Missouri, sued for
and obtained his freedom on the ground, that, having been taken where by
the Constitution slavery was illegal, his master had lost all claim.
But the Supreme Court, on appeal, reversed the judgment; and Dred
Scott, with his wife and children, was taken back into slavery. By this
decision in the highest court of American law, it was affirmed that no
free negro could claim to be a citizen of the United States, but was
only under the jurisdiction of the separate State in which he resided;
that the prohibition of slavery in any Territory of the Union was
unconstitutional; and that the slave-owner might go where he pleased
with his property, throughout the United States, and retain his right.

This decision created much discussion, both in America and in Europe,
and materially injured the otherwise good name of our country abroad.

The Constitution, thus interpreted by Judge Taney, became the emblem of
the tyrants and the winding sheet of liberty, and gave a boldness to
the people of the South, which soon showed itself, while good men at the
North felt ashamed of the Government under which they lived.

The slave-holders in the cotton, sugar, and rice growing States began to
urge the re-opening of the African slave-trade, and the driving out from
the Southern States of all free colored persons.

In the Southern Rights’ Convention, which assembled at Baltimore, June
8, 1800, a resolution was adopted, calling on the Legislature to pass
a law driving the free colored people out of the State. Nearly every
speaker took the ground that the free colored people must be driven out
to make the slave’s obedience more secure. Judge Mason, in his speech,
said, “It is the thrifty and well-to-do free negroes, that are seen by
our slaves, that make them dissatisfied.” A similar appeal was made to
the Legislature of Tennessee. Judge Catron, of the Supreme Court of
the United States, in a long and able letter to “The Nashville Union,”
 opposed the driving out of the colored people. He said they were among
the best mechanics, the best artisans, and the most industrious laborers
in the State, and that to drive them out would be an injury to the State
itself. This is certainly good evidence in their behalf.

The State of Arkansas passed a law driving the free colored people out
of the State, and they were driven out three years ago. The Democratic
press howled upon the heels of the free blacks until they had all been
expatriated; but, after they had been driven out, “The Little Rock
Gazette”--a Democratic paper--made a candid acknowledgment with regard
to the character of the free colored people. It said, “Most of the
exiled free negroes are industrious and respectable. One of them, Henry
King, we have known from our boyhood, and take the greatest pleasure in
testifying to his good character. The community in which he casts his
lot will be blessed with that noblest work of God, an honest man.”

Yet these free colored people were driven out of the State, and those
who were unable to go, as many of the women and children were, were
reduced to slavery.

“The New Orleans True Delta” opposed the passage of a similar law by the
State of Louisiana. Among other things, it said, “There are a large free
colored population here, correct in their general deportment, honorable
in their intercourse with society, and free from reproach so far as the
laws are concerned; not surpassed in the inoffensiveness of their lives
by any equal number of-persons in any place, North or South.”

And yet these free colored persons were not permitted by law to school
their children, or to read books that treated against the institution
of slavery. The Rev. Samuel Green, a colored Methodist preacher, was
convicted and sent to the Maryland penitentiary, in 1858, for the
offence of being found reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

The growth of the “Free-Soil” party, which had taken the place of the
“Liberty” party; and then the rapid increase of the “Republican” party;
the struggle in Kansas; the “Oberlin Rescue Trials;” and, lastly, the
“John Brown Raid,” carried the discussion of slavery to its highest
point.

All efforts, in Congress, in the proslavery political conventions,
and in the churches, only added fuel to the flame that was fast making
inroads upon the vitals of the monster.




CHAPTER VI.--THE JOHN BROWN RAID.


_John Brown.--His Religious Zeal.--His Hatred to Slavery.--Organization
of his Army.--Attack on Harper’s Ferry.--His Execution.--John Brown’s
Companions, Green and Copeland.--The Executions._


The year 1859 will long be memorable for the bold attempt of John Brown
and his companions to burst the bolted door of the Southern house of
bondage, and lead out the captives by a more effectual way than they had
yet known: an attempt in which, it is true, the little band of heroes
dashed themselves to bloody death, but, at the same time, shook the
prison-walls from summit to foundation, and shot wild alarm into every
tyrant-heart in all the slave-land. What were the plans and purposes
of the noble old man is not precisely known, and perhaps will never be;
but, whatever they were, there is reason to believe they had been
long maturing,--brooded over silently and secretly, with much earnest
thought, and under a solemn sense of religious duty. As early as the
fall of 1857, he began to organize his band, chiefly from among the
companions of his warfare against the “Border Ruffians” in Kansas. Nine
or ten of these spent the winter of 1857-8 in Iowa, where a Col. Forbes
was to have given them military instruction; but he, having-fallen out
with Brown, did not join them, and Aaron D. Stevens, one of the company,
took his place.

About the middle of April, 1858, they left Iowa, and went to Chatham,
Canada, where, on the 8th of May, was held a convention, called by
a written circular, which was sent to such persons only as could be
trusted. The convention was composed mostly of colored men, a few of
whom were from the States, but the greater part residents in Canada,
with no white men but the organized band already mentioned. A
“Provisional Constitution,” which Brown had previously prepared, was
adopted; and the members of the convention took an oath to support it.
Its manifest purpose was to insure a perfect organization of all who
should join the expedition, whether free men or insurgent slaves, and to
hold them under such strict control as to restrain them from every act
of wanton or vindictive violence, all waste or needless destruction of
life or property, all indignity or unnecessary severity to prisoners,
and all immoral practices; in short, to keep the meditated movement
free from every possibly avoidable evil ordinarily incident to the armed
uprising of a long-oppressed and degraded people.

And let no one who glories in the revolutionary struggles of our fathers
for their freedom deny the right of the American bondsman to imitate
their high example. And those who rejoice in the deeds of a Wallace or a
Tell, a Washington or a Warren; who cherish with unbounded gratitude the
name of Lafayette for volunteering his aid in behalf of an oppressed
people in a desperate crisis, and at the darkest hour of their
fate,--cannot refuse equal merit to this strong, free, heroic man, who
freely consecrated all his powers, and the labors of his whole life, to
the help of the most needy, friendless, and unfortunate of mankind.

The picture of the Good Samaritan will live to all future ages, as the
model of human excellence, for helping one whom he chanced to find in
need.

John Brown did more: he went to _seek_ those who were lost that he might
save them.

On Sunday night, Oct. 16, John Brown, with twenty followers (five of
them colored), entered the town of Harper’s Ferry, in the State of
Virginia; captured the place, making the United-States Armory his
headquarters; sent his men in various directions in search of slaves
with which to increase his force.

The whole thing, though premature in its commencement, struck a blow
that rang on the fetters of the enslaved in every Southern State, and
caused the oppressor to tremble for his own safety, as well as for that
of the accursed institution.

John Brown’s trial, heroism, and execution, an excellent history of
which has been given to the public by Mr. James Redpath, saves me from
making any lengthened statement here. His life and acts are matters of
history, which will live with the language in which it is written. But
little can be said of his companions in the raid on slavery. They were
nearly all young men, unknown to fame, enthusiastic admirers of the old
Puritan, entering heartily into all of his plans, obeying his orders,
and dying bravely, with no reproach against their leader.

Of the five colored men, two only were captured alive,--Shields Green
and John A. Copeland. The former was a native of South Carolina, having
been born in the city of Charleston in the year 1832. Escaping to the
North in 1857, he resided in Rochester, N.Y., until attracted by the
unadorned eloquence and native magnetism of the hero of Harper’s Ferry.
The latter was from North Carolina, and was a mulatto of superior
abilities, and a genuine lover of liberty and justice. The following
letter, written a short time before his execution, needs no
explanation:--

“Charlestown, Va., Dec. 10, 1859.

“My dear Brother,--I now take my pen to write you a few lines to let you
know how I am, and in answer to your kind letter of the 5th inst. Dear
brother, I am, it is true, so situated at present as scarcely to know
how to commence writing: not that my mind is filled with fear, or that
it has become shattered in view of my near approach to death; not that I
am terrified by the gallows which I see staring me in the face, and
upon which I am so soon to stand and suffer death for doing what George
Washington, the so-called father of this great but slavery-cursed
country, was made a hero for doing while he lived, and when dead his
name was immortalized, and his great and noble deeds in behalf of
freedom taught by parents to their children. And now, brother, for
having lent my aid to a general no less brave, and engaged in a cause
no less honorable and glorious, I am to suffer death. Washington entered
the field to fight for the freedom of the American people,--not for the
white man alone, but for both black and white. Nor were they white men
alone who fought for the freedom of this country. The blood of black men
flowed as freely as that of white men. Yes, the _very first_ blood
that was spilt was that of a negro. It was the blood of that heroic
man (though black he was), Crispus Attucks. And some of the _very last_
blood shed was that of black men. To the truth of this, history, though
prejudiced, is compelled to attest. _It is true_ that black men did an
equal share of the fighting for American independence; and they were
assured by the whites that they should share equal benefits for so
doing. But, after having performed their part honorably, they were by
the whites most treacherously deceived,--they refusing to fulfil their
part of the contract. But this you know as well as I do; and I will
therefore say no more in reference to the claims which we, as colored
men, have on the American people....

“It was a sense of the wrongs which we have suffered that prompted the
noble but unfortunate Capt. Brown and his associates to attempt to give
freedom to a small number, at least, of those who are now held by cruel
and unjust laws, and by no less cruel and unjust men. To this freedom
they were entitled by every known principle of justice and humanity;
and, for the enjoyment of it, God created them. And now, dear brother,
could I die in a more noble cause? Could I, brother, die in a manner and
for a cause which would induce true and honest men more to honor me, and
the angels more readily to receive me to their happy home of everlasting
joy above? I imagine that I hear you, and all of you, mother, father,
sisters and brothers, say, ‘No, there is not a cause for which we, with
less sorrow, could see you die!’”

“Your affectionate brother,

“John A. Copeland.”

“The Baltimore Sun” says, “A few moments before leaving the jail,
Copeland said, ‘If I am dying for freedom, I could not die for a better
cause. _I had rather die than be a slave!_’ A military officer in charge
on the day of the execution says, ‘I had a position near the gallows,
and carefully observed all. I can truly say I never witnessed more firm
and unwavering: fortitude, more perfect composure, or more beautiful
propriety, than were manifested by young Copeland to the very last.’”

Shields Green behaved with equal heroism, ascending the scaffold with
a firm and unwavering step, and died, as he had lived, a brave man, and
expressing to the last his eternal hatred to human bondage, prophesying
that slavery would soon come to a bloody end.




CHAPTER VII--THE FIRST GUN OF THE REBELLION.


_Nomination of Fremont.--Nomination of Lincoln.--The Mob Spirit.--Spirit
of Slavery.--The Democracy.--Cotton.--Northern Promises to the
Rebels.--Assault on Fort Sumter.--Call for 75,000 Men.--Response of the
Colored Men._


The nomination of John C. Fremont by the Republican party in 1856, and
the large vote given him at the election that autumn, cleared away all
doubts, if any existed as to the future action of the Federal Government
on the spread and power of slavery. The Democratic party, which had
ruled the nation so long and so badly, saw that it had been weighed, and
found wanting; that it must prepare to give up the Government into the
hands of better men.

But the party determined to make the most of Mr. Buchanan’s
administration, both in the profuse expenditure of money among
themselves, and in getting ready to take the Southern States out of the
Union.

Surrounded by the men who believed that the Government was made for
them, and that their mission was to rule the people of the United
States, Mr. Buchanan was nothing more than a tool,--clay in the hands
of the potters; and he permitted them to prepare leisurely for disunion,
which culminated, in 1860, in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the
presidency.

The proslavery Democracy became furious at the prospect of losing the
control of the situation, and their hatred of free speech was revived.
From the nomination of Mr. Lincoln to his inauguration, mob-law ruled
in most of the cities and large villages. These disgraceful scenes,
the first of which commenced at the antislavery-meeting at the Tremont
Temple, Boston, was always gotten up by members of the Democratic party,
who usually passed a series of resolutions in favor of slavery. New
York, Philadelphia, Albany, Buffalo, Troy, Cincinnati, and Chicago, all
followed the example set by Boston.

These demonstrations were caused more by sympathy with the South, and
the long-accustomed subserviency of the Northern people to slaveholding
dictation, than to any real hatred to the negro.

During all this time the Abolitionists were laboring faithfully to widen
the gulf between the North and South.

Towards the close of the year 1860, the spirit of compromise began to
show itself in such unmistakable terms as to cause serious apprehension
on the part of the friends of freedom for the future of American
liberty. The subdued tone of the liberal portion of the press, the
humiliating offers of Northern political leaders of compromises, and the
numerous cases of fugitive slaves being returned to their masters, sent
a thrill of fear to all colored men in the land for their safety, and
nearly every train going North found more or less negroes fleeing to
Canada.

At the South, the people were in earnest, and would listen to no
proposals whatever in favor of their continuance in the Union.

The vast wealth realized by the slave-holder had made him feel that the
South was independent of the rest of the world.

Prosperity had made him giddy. Cotton was not merely king: it was God.
Moral considerations were nothing. The sentiment of right, he argued,
would have no influence over starving operatives; and England and
France, as well as the Eastern States of the Union, would stand aghast,
and yield to the masterstroke which should deprive them of the material
of their labor. Millions were dependent on it in all the great centres
of civilization; and the ramifications of its power extended into all
ranks of society and all departments of industry and commerce. It was
only necessary to wave this imperial sceptre over the nations; and all
of them would fall prostrate, and acknowledge the supremacy of the power
which wielded it. Nothing could be more plausible than this delusion.
Satan himself, when about to wage war in heaven, could not have invented
one better calculated to marshal his hosts, and give promise of success
in rebellion against the authority of the Most High. But, alas! the
supreme error of this anticipation lay in omitting from the calculation
all power of principle. The right still has authority over the minds of
men and in the counsels of nations. Factories may cease their din; men
and women may be thrown out of employment; the marts of commerce may be
silent and deserted: but truth and justice still command some respect
among men; and God yet remains the object of their adoration.

Drunk with power, and dazzled with prosperity, monopolizing cotton, and
raising it to the influence of a veritable fetich, the authors of the
Rebellion did not admit a doubt of the success of their attack on the
Federal Government. They dreamed of perpetuating slavery, though all
history shows the decline of the system as industry, commerce, and
knowledge advance. The slave-holders proposed nothing less than to
reverse the currents of humanity, and to make barbarism flourish in the
bosom of civilization.

Weak as were the Southern people in point of numbers and political
power, compared with those of the opposite section, the haughty
slave-holders easily persuaded themselves and their dependents that they
could successfully cope in arms with the Northern adversary, whom they
affected to despise for his cowardly and mercenary disposition. Proud
and confident, they indulged the belief that their great political
prestige would continue to serve them among their late party associates
in the North, and that the counsels of the adversary would be
distracted, and his power weakened, by the fatal effects of dissension.

The proslavery men in the North are very much to blame for the
encouragement that they gave the rebels before the breaking out of the
war. The Southerners had promises from their Northern friends, that,
in the event of a rebellion, civil war should reign in the free
States,--that men would not be permitted to leave the North to go South
to put down their rebellions brethren.

All legitimate revolutions are occasioned by the growth of society
beyond the growth of government; and they will be peaceful or violent
just in proportion as the people and government shall be wise and
virtuous or vicious and ignorant. Such revolutions or reforms are
generally of a peaceful nature in communities in which the government
has made provision for the gradual expansion of its institutions to
suit the onward march of society. No government is wise in overlooking,
whatever may be the strength of its own traditions, or however glorious
its history, that human institutions which have been adapted for a
barbarous age or state of society will cease to be adapted for more
civilized and intelligent times; and, unless government makes a
provision for the gradual expansion, nothing can prevent a storm,
either of an intellectual or a physical nature. Slavery was always the
barbarous institution of America; and the Rebellion was the result of
this incongruity between it and freedom.

The assault on Fort Sumter on the 12th of April, 1861, was the dawn of
a new era for the negro. The proclamation of President Lincoln, calling
for the first 75,000 men to put down the Rebellion, was responded to
by the colored people throughout the country. In Boston, at a public
meeting of the blacks, a large number came forward, put their names to
an agreement to form a brigade, and march at once to the seat of war.
A committee waited on the Governor three days later, and offered the
services of these men. His Excellency replied that he had no power to
receive them. This was the first wet blanket thrown over the negro’s
enthusiasm. “This is a white man’s war,” said most of the public
journals. “I will never fight by the side of a nigger,” was heard in
every quarter where men were seen in Uncle Sam’s uniform.

Wherever recruiting offices were opened, black men offered themselves,
and were rejected. Yet these people, feeling conscious that right would
eventually prevail, waited patiently for the coming time, pledging
themselves to go at their country’s call, as the following will show:--

“Resolved, That our feelings urge us to say to our countrymen that we
are ready to stand by and defend the Government as the equals of its
white defenders; to do so with our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred
honor, for the sake of freedom and as good citizens; and we ask you to
modify your laws, that we may enlist,--that full scope may be given to
the patriotic feelings burning in the colored man’s breast.”--_Colored
Men’s Meeting, Boston_.




CHAPTER VIII--THE UNION AND SLAVERY BOTH TO BE PRESERVED.


_Union Generals offer to suppress Slave Insurrections.--Return of Slaves
coming into our Army._


At the very commencement of the Rebellion, the proslavery generals
in the field took the earliest opportunity of offering their services,
together with those under their commands, to suppress any slave
insurrection that might grow out of the unsettled condition of the
country. Major-Gen. B. F. Butler led off, by tendering his services
to Gov. Hicks of Maryland. About the same time, Major-Gen. Geo.
B. McClellan issued the following, “_To the Union Men of Western
Virginia_,” on entering that portion of the State with his troops:--“The
General Government cannot close its ears to the demands you have made
for assistance. I have ordered troops to cross the river. They come as
Your friends and brothers,--as enemies only to the armed rebels who are
preying upon you. Your homes, your families, your property, are safe
under our protection. All your rights shall be religiously respected.
Notwithstanding all that has been said by the traitors to induce you to
believe our advent among you will be signalled by an interference with
your slaves, understand one thing clearly: not only will we abstain
from all such interference, but we shall, on the contrary, _with an iron
hand_, crush any attempt at insurrection on their part.”

Slaves escaping from their masters were promptly returned by the
officers of the army. Gen. W. S. Harney, commanding in Missouri, in
responding to the claims of slave-holders for their blacks, said,--

“Already, since the commencement of these unhappy disturbances, slaves
have escaped from their owners, and have sought refuge in the camps
of United-States troops from the Northern States, and commanded by a
Northern general. _They were carefully sent Back to their owners._”

The correspondent of “The New-York Herald” gave publicity to the
following:--

“The guard on the bridge across the Anacostia arrested a negro who
attempted to pass the sentries on the Maryland side. He seemed to feel
confident that he was among friends, for he made no concealment of his
character and purpose. He said he had walked sixty miles, and was going
North. He was very much surprised and disappointed when he was taken
into custody, and informed that he would be sent back to his master. He
is now in the guard-house, and answers freely all questions relating to
his weary march. Of course, such an arrest excites much comment
among the men. Nearly all are restive under the thought of acting
as slave-catchers. The Seventy-first made a forced march, and the
privations they endured have been honorably mentioned in the country’s
history. This poor negro made a forced march, twice the length--in
perils often, in fasting,--hurrying toward the North for his
liberty! And the Seventy-first catches him at the end of his painful
journey,--the goal in sight,--and sends him back to the master who even
now may be in arms against us, or may take the slave, sell him for a
rifle, and use it on his friends in the Seventy-first New-York Regiment.
Humanity speaks louder here than it does in a large city; and the
men who in New York would dismiss the subject with a few words about
‘constitutional obligations’ are now the loudest in denouncing the
abuse of power which changes a regiment of gentlemen into a regiment of
negro-catchers.” At Pensacola, Slemmer did even more, putting in irons
fugitives who fled to him for protection, and returning them to their
masters to be scourged to death. Col. Dimmick, at Fortress Monroe, told
the rebel Virginians that he had not an Abolitionist in his command, and
that no molestation of their slave-system would be suffered.

Gen. D. C. Buell, commanding in Tennessee, said, in reply to a committee
of slave-holders demanding the return of their fugitives,--

“It has come to my knowledge that slaves sometimes make their way
improperly into our lines, and in some instances they may be enticed
there; but I think the number has been magnified by report. Several
applications have been made to me by persons whose servants have been
found in our camps; and, in every instance that I know of, the master
has removed his servant, and taken him away.

“I need hardly remind you that there will always be found some lawless
and mischievous persons in every army; but I assure you that the mass of
this army is law-abiding, and that it is neither its disposition nor its
policy to violate law or the rights of individuals in any particular.”

Yet, while Union soldiers were returning escaped slaves to rebels,
it was a notorious fact that the enemy were using negroes to build
fortifications, drive teams, and raise food for the army.

Black hands piled up the Sand-bags, and raised the batteries, which
drove Anderson out of Sumter. At Montgomery, the capital of the
confederacy, negroes were being drilled and armed for military duty.




CHAPTER IX--INTELLIGENT CONTRABANDS


_James Lawson.--His Bravery.--Rescue of his Wife and Children.--He is
sent out on Important Business.--He fights his Way Back.--He is Admired
by Gens. Hooker and Sickles.--Rhett’s Servant.--“Foraging for Butter and
Eggs.”_


I spent three weeks at Liverpool Point, the outpost of Hooker’s
Division, almost directly opposite Aquia Creek, waiting patiently for
the advance of our left wing to follow up the army, becoming, if not
a participator against the dying struggles of rebeldom, at least a
chronicler of the triumphs in the march of the Union army.

During this time I was the guest of Col. Graham, of Mathias-Point
memory, who had brought over from that place (last November) some thirty
valuable chattels. A part of the camp was assigned to them. They built
log huts, and obtained from the soldiers many comforts, making their
quarters equal to any in the camp.

They had friends and relatives. Negroes feel as much sympathy for their
friends and kin as the whites; and, from November to the present time,
many a man in Virginia has lost a very likely slave, for the camp
contains now upwards of a hundred fat and healthy negroes, in addition
to its original number from Mathias Point.

One of the number deserves more honor than that accorded to Toussaint
L’Ouverture in the brilliant lecture delivered by Wendell Phillips. He
is unquestionably the hero of the Potomac, and deserves to be placed by
the side of his most renowned black brethren.

The name of this negro is James Lawson, born near Hempstead, Virginia,
and he belonged to a Mr. Taylor. He made his escape last December.
On hearing his praises spoken by the captains of the gunboats on the
Potomac, I was rather indisposed to admit the possession of all the
qualities they give him credit for, and thought possibly his exploits
had been exaggerated. His heroic courage, truthfulness, and exalted
Christian character seemed too romantic for their realization. However,
my doubts on that score were dispelled; and I am a witness of his last
crowning act.

Jim, after making his escape from Virginia, shipped on board of “The
Freeborn,” Flag-gunboat, Lieut. Samuel Ma-gaw commanding. He furnished
Capt. Magaw with much valuable intelligence concerning the rebel
movements, and, from his quiet, every-day behavior, soon won the esteem
of the commanding officer.

Capt. Magaw, shortly after Jim’s arrival on board “The Freeborn,” sent
him upon a scouting tour through the rebel fortifications, more to test
his reliability than anything else; and the mission, although fraught
with great danger, was executed by Jim in the most faithful manner.
Again Jim was sent into Virginia, landing at the White House,
below Mount Vernon, and going into the interior for several miles;
encountering the fire of picket-guards and posted sentries; returned in
safety to the shore; and was brought off in the captain’s gig, under the
fire of the rebel musketry.

Jim had a wife and four children at that time still in Virginia. They
belonged to the same man as Jim did. He was anxious to get them; yet it
seemed impossible.

One day in January, Jim came to the captain’s room, and asked for
permission to be landed that evening on the Virginia side, as he wished
to bring off his family. “Why, Jim,” said Capt. Magaw, “how will you be
able to pass the pickets?”

“I want to try, captain: I think I can get ‘em over safely,” meekly
replied Jim.

“Well, you have my permission;” and Capt. Magaw ordered one of the
gunboats to land Jim that night on whatever part of the shore he
designated, and return for him the following evening.

True to his appointment, Jim was at the spot with his wife and family,
and was taken on board the gunboat, and brought over to Liverpool Point,
where Col. Graham had given them a log-house to live in, just back of
his own quarters. Jim ran the gauntlet of the sentries unharmed, never
taking to the roads, but keeping in the woods, every foot-path of which,
and almost every tree, he knew from his boyhood up.

Several weeks afterwards another reconnoissance was planned, and Jim
sent on it. He returned in safety, and was highly complimented by Gens.
Hooker, Sickles, and the entire flotilla.

On Thursday, week ago, it became necessary to obtain correct information
of the enemy’s movements. Since then, batteries at Shipping and Cockpit
Points had been evacuated, and their troops moved to Fredericksburg.
Jim was the man picked out for the occasion, by Gen. Sickles and Capt.
Magaw. The general came down to Col. Graham’s quarters, about nine in
the evening, and sent for Jim. There were present, the general, Col.
Graham, and myself. Jim came into the colonel’s.

“Jim.” said the general, “I want you to go over to Virginia to-night,
and find out what forces they have at Aquia Creek and Fredericksburg. If
you want any men to accompany you, pick them out.”

“I know _two_ men that would like to go,” Jim answered.

“Well, get them, and be back as soon as possible.” Away went Jim over to
the contraband camp, and, returning almost immediately, brought into our
presence two very intelligent-looking darkies.

“Are you all ready?” inquired the general.

“All ready, sir,” the trio responded.

“Well, here, Jim, you take my pistol,” said Gen. Sickles, unbuckling it
from his belt; “and, if you are successful, I will give you $100.”

Jim hoped he would be, and, bidding us good-by, started off for the
gunboat “Satellite,” Capt. Foster, who landed them a short distance
below the Potomac-Creek Batteries. They were to return early in the
morning, but were unable, from the great distance they went in the
interior. Long before daylight on Saturday morning, the gunboat was
lying off at the appointed place. As the day dawned, Capt. Foster
discovered a mounted picket-guard near the beach, and almost at the same
instant saw Jim to the left of them, in the woods, sighting his gun at
the rebel cavalry. He ordered the “gig” to be manned, and rowed to the
shore. The rebels moved along slowly, thinking to intercept the boat,
when Foster gave them a shell, which scattered them. Jim, with only one
of his original companions, and two fresh contrabands, came on board.
Jim had _lost the other_. He had been challenged by a picket when some
distance in advance of Jim, and the negro, instead of answering the
summons, fired the contents of Sickles’s revolver at the picket. It
was an unfortunate occurrence; for at that time the entire picket-guard
rushed out of a small house near the spot, and fired the contents of
their muskets at Jim’s companion, killing him instantly. Jim and the
other three hid themselves in a hollow, near a fence, and, after the
pickets gave up pursuit, crept through the woods to the shore. From the
close proximity of the rebel pickets, Jim could not display a light,
which was the signal for Capt. Foster to send a boat.

Capt. Foster, after hearing Jim’s story of the shooting of his
companion, determined to avenge his death; so, steaming his vessel close
in to the shore, he sighted his guns for a barn, where the rebel cavalry
were hiding behind. He fired two shells: one went right through the
barn, killing four of the rebels, and seven of their horses. Capt.
Foster, seeing the effect of his shot, said to Jim, who stood by, “Well,
Jim, I’ve avenged the death of poor Cornelius” (the name of Jim’s lost
companion).

Gen. Hooker has transmitted to the War Department an account of Jim’s
reconnoissance to Fredericksburg, and unites with the army and navy
stationed on the left wing of the Potomac, in the hope that the
Government will present Jim with a fitting recompense for his gallant
services.--_War Correspondent of the New-York Times_.

On Thursday, beyond Charlestown, our pickets descried a solitary
horseman, with a bucket on his arm, jogging soberly towards them. He
proved to be a dark mulatto, of about thirty-five. As he approached,
they ordered a halt.

“Where are you from?”

“Southern Army, cap’n,” giving the military salute.

“Where are you going?”

“Coming to yous all.”

“What do you want?”

“Protection, boss. You won’t send me back, will you?”

“No, come in. Whose servant are you?”

“Cap’n Rhett’s, of South Carliny: you’s heard of Mr. Barnwell Rhett,
editor of ‘The Charleston Mercury’? His brother commands a battery.”

“How did you get away?”

“Cap’n gove me fifteen dollars this morning, and said,
‘John, go out, and forage for butter and eggs.’ So you see, boss (with a
broad grin), I’se out foraging! I pulled my hat over my eyes, and jogged
along on the cap’n’s horse (see the brand S.C. on him?) with this basket
on my arm, right by our guards and pickets. They never challenged me
once. If they had, though, I brought the cap’n’s pass. And the new
comer produced this document from his pocket-book, written in pencil,
and carefully folded. I send you the original:--

_“Pass my servant, John, on horseback, anywhere between Winchester and
Martinsburg, in search of butter, &c., &e._

_“A. BURNETT RHETT, Capt. Light Artillery, Lee’s Battalion.”_

“Are there many negroes in the rebel corps?”

“Heaps, boss.”

“Would the most of them come to us if they could?”

“All of them, cap’n. There isn’t a little pickanniny so high (waving his
hand two feet from the ground) that wouldn’t.”

“Why did _you_ expect protection?”

“Heard so in Maryland, before the Proclamation.”

“Where did you hear about the Proclamation?”

“Read it, air, in a Richmond paper.”

“What is it?”

“That every slave is to be emancipated on and after the thirteenth day
of January. I can’t state it, boss.”

“Something like it. When did you learn to read?”

“In ‘49, sir. I was head waiter at Mrs. Nevitt’s boarding-house in
Savannah, and Miss Walcott, a New-York lady, who was stopping there,
taught me.”

“Does your master know it?”

“Capt. Rhett doesn’t know it, sir; but he isn’t my master. He thinks I’m
free, and hired me at twenty five dollars a month; but he never paid
me any of it. I belong to Mrs. John Spring. She used to hire me out
summers, and have me wait on her every winter, when she came South.
After the war, she couldn’t come, and they were going to sell me for
Government because I belonged to a Northerner. Sold a great many negroes
in that way. But I slipped away to the army. Have tried to come to you
twice before in Maryland, but couldn’t pass our pickets.”

“Were you at Antietam?”

“Yes, boss. Mighty hard battle!”

“Who whipped?”

“Yous all, massa. They say you didn’t; but I saw it, and know. If you
had fought us that next day,--Thursday,--you would have captured our
whole army. They say so themselves.”

“Who?”

“Our officers, sir.”

“Did you ever hear of old John Brown?”

“Hear of _him?_ Lord bless you, yes, boss: I’ve read his life, and have
it now in my trunk in Charleston; sent to New York by the steward of
‘The James Adger,’ and got it. I’ve read it to heaps of the colored
folks. Lord, they think John Brown was almost a god. Just say you was a
friend of his, and any slave will almost kiss your feet, if you let
him. They sav, if he was only alive now, he would be king. How it did
frighten the white folks when he raised the insurrection! It was Sunday
when we heard of it. They wouldn’t let a negro go into the streets.
I was waiter at the Mills House in Charleston. There was a lady from
Massachusetts, who came down to breakfast that morning at my table.
‘John,’ she says, ‘I want to see a negro church; where is the principal
one?’ ‘Not any open to-day, mistress,’ I told her. ‘Why not?’ ‘Because a
Mr. John Brown has raised an insurrection in Virginny.’ ‘Ah!’ she says;
‘well, they’d better look out, or they’ll get the white churches shut
up in that way some of these days, too!’ Mr. Nicholson, one of the
proprietors, was listening from the office to hear what she said. Wasn’t
that lady watched after that? I have a History of San Domingo, too, and
a Life of Fred. Douglass, in my trunk, that I got in the same way.”

“What do the slaves think about the war?”

“Well, boss, they all wish the Yankee army would come. The white folks
tell them all sorts of bad stories about you all; but they don’t believe
them.”

John was taken to Gen. McClellan, to whom he gave all the information
he possessed about the position, numbers, and organization of the rebel
army. His knowledge was full and valuable, and is corroborated by all
the facts we have learned from other sources. The principal features of
it I have already transmitted to you by telegraph. At the close of the
interview, he asked anxiously,--

“General, you won’t send me back, will you?”

“Yes,” replied the general, with a smile, “I believe I will.”

“I hope you won’t, general. If you say so, I know I will have to go; but
I come to yous all for protection, and I hope you won’t.”

“Well, then, I suppose we will not. No, John, you are at liberty to go
where you please. Stay with the army, if you like. No one can ever take
you against your will.”

“May the Lord bless you, general. I _thought_ you wouldn’t drive me out.
You’s the best friend I ever had; I shall never forget you till I die.”
 And John made the salute, re-mounted his horse, and rode back to the
rear, his dusky face almost white with radiance.

An hour later, he was on duty as the servant of Capt. Batchelor,
Quartermaster of Couch’s Second Division; and I do not believe there
was another heart in our corps so light as his in the unwonted joy of
freedom.--_New York Tribune._




CHAPTER X--PROCLAMATIONS OF FREMONT AND HUNTER.


_Gen. Fremont’s Proclamation, and its Effect on the Public Mind.--Gen.
Hunter’s Proclamation; the Feeling it created._


While the country seemed drifting to destruction, and the
Administration without a policy, the heart of every loyal man was
made glad by the appearance of the proclamation of Major-Gen. John C.
Fremont, then in command at the West. The following extract from
that document, which at the time caused so much discussion, will bear
insertion here:--

“All persons who shall be taken with arms in their hands within these
lines shall be tried by court martial, and, if found guilty, will be
shot. The property, real and personal, of all persons in the State of
Missouri, who shall take up arms against the United States, or who shall
be directly proven to have taken active part with their enemies in
the field, is declared to be confiscated to the public use, and their
slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men.”

The above was the first official paper issued after the commencement of
the war, that appeared to have the ring of the right kind of mettle. But
while the public mind was being agitated upon its probable effect
upon the Rebellion, a gloom was thrown over the whole community by
the President’s removal of Gen. Fremont, and the annulling of the
proclamation. This act of Mr. Lincoln gave unintentional “aid and
comfort” to the enemy, and was another retrograde movement in the Way of
crushing out the Rebellion.

Gen. Fremont, before the arrival of the President’s letter, had given
freedom to a number of slaves, in accordance with his proclamation. His
mode of action may be seen in the following deed of manumission:--

“Whereas, Thomas L. Snead, of the city and county of St. Louis, State of
Missouri, has been taking an active part with the enemies of the United
States, in the present insurrectionary movement against the Government
of the United States; now, therefore, I, John Charles Fremont,
Major-General commanding the Western Department of the Army of the
United States, by authority of law, and the power vested in me as such
commanding general, declare Hiram Reed, heretofore held to service or
labor by Thomas L. Snead, to be free, and forever discharged from the
bonds of servitude, giving him full right and authority to have, use,
and control his own labor or service as to him may seem proper, without
any accountability whatever to said Thomas L. Snead, or any one to claim
by, through, or under him.

“And this deed of manumission shall be respected and treated by all
persons, and in all courts of justice, as the full and complete evidence
of the freedom of said Hiram Reed.

“In testimony whereof, this act is done at headquarters of the Western
Department of the Army of the United States, in the city of St. Louis,
State of Missouri, on this twelfth day of September, A.D. eighteen
hundred and sixty-one, as is evidenced by the Departmental Seal hereto
affixed by my order.

“J. C. FREMONT,

“_Major-General Commanding._”

“Done at the office of the Provost-Marshal, in the city of St. Louis,
the twelfth day of September, A.D. eighteen hundred and sixty-one, at
nine o’clock in the evening of said day.

“Witness my hand and seal of office-hereto affixed.

“J. McKINSTRY,

“_Brigadier-General, Provost-Marshal_.”

The agitation in the public mind on account of the proclamation and its
annulment, great as it was, was soon surpassed by one still more bold
and sweeping from Major-Gen. David Hunter, in the following language,
issued from his headquarters, at Hilton Head, S.C., on the 9th of
May:--

“Headquarters Department of the South, Hilton Head, S.C., May 9, 1802.

“General Orders, No. 11:

“The three States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, comprising
the Military Department of the South, having deliberately declared
themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of
America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it
became a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was
accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial
law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons in these
three States, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, heretofore held as
slaves, are therefore declared forever free.

“DAVID HUNTER,

“_Major-General Commanding._

“[Official.]

“_Ed. W. Smith, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General._”

But, before Mr. Lincoln was officially informed of the issuing of the
above order, he made haste to annul it in the terms following:
“That neither Gen. Hunter nor any other commander or person has been
authorized by the Government of the United States to make proclamation
declaring the slaves of any State free; and that the supposed
proclamation now in question, whether genuine or false, is altogether
void, so far as respects such declaration.

“I further make known, that, whether it be competent for me, as
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the slaves of any
State or States free, and whether at any time or in any case it
shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the
Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which,
under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel
justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field.”

These words of the President were hailed with cheers by the proslavery
press of the North, and carried comfort to the hearts of the rebels;
although the Chief-Magistrate did not intend either. However, before the
President’s proclamation reached Carolina, Gen. Hunter was furnishing
slaves with free papers, of which the succeeding is a copy:--


“DEED OF EMANCIPATION.

“It having been proven, to the entire satisfaction of the
general commanding the Department of the South, that the bearer,
named----------------, heretofore held in involuntary servitude, has
been directly employed to aid and assist those in rebellion against the
United States of America.

“Now, be it known to all, that, agreeably to the laws, I declare the
said person free, and forever absolved from all claims to his services.
Both he and his wife and children have full right to go North, East, or
West, as they may decide.

“Given under my hand, at the Headquarters of the Department of the
South, this nineteenth day of April, 1862.

“D. HUNTER,

“_Major-General Commanding._”

The words, “forever free,” sounded like a charm upon the ears of the
oppressed, and seemed to give hopes of a policy that would put down the
Rebellion, and leave the people untrammelled with slavery.

               “God’s law of compensation worketh sure,

               So we may know the right shall aye endure!

               ‘_Forever free!_’ God! how the pulse doth bound

               At the high, glorious, Heaven-prompted sound

               That greets our ears from Carolina’s shore!

               ‘_Forever free!_’ and slavery is no more!

               Ere time the hunter followed up the slave;

               But now a Hunter, noble, true, and brave,

               Proclaims the right, to each who draws a breath,

               To lift himself from out a living death,

               And plant his feet on Freedom’s happy soil,

               Content to take her wages for his toil,

               And look to God, the author of his days,

               For food and raiment, sounding forth His praise.”

Deep indeed was the impression left upon the public mind by the orders
of both Fremont and Hunter; and they hastened the policy which the
President eventually adopted, to the great gratification of the friends
of freedom everywhere.




CHAPTER XI--HEROISM OF NEGROES ON THE HIGH SEAS.


_Heroism of Negroes.--William Tillman re-captures “The S. G.
Waring.”--George Green.--Robert Small captures the Steamer
“Planter.”--Admiral Dupont’s Opinion on Negro Patriotism._


In the month of June, 1861, the schooner “S. J. Waring,” from New
York, bound to South America, was captured on the passage by the rebel
privateer “Jeff. Davis,” a prize-crew put on board, consisting of a
captain, mate, and four seamen; and the vessel set sail for the port of
Charleston, S.C. Three of the original crew were retained on board,
a German as steersman, a Yankee who was put in irons, and a black man
named William Tillman, the steward and cook of the schooner. The latter
was put to work at his usual business, and told that he was henceforth
the property of the Confederate States, and would be sold, on his
arrival at Charleston, as a slave. Night comes on; darkness covers the
sea; the vessel is gliding swiftly towards the South; the rebels, one
after another, retire to their berths; the hour of midnight approaches;
all is silent in the cabin; the captain is asleep; the mate, who has
charge of the watch, takes his brandy toddy, and reclines upon the
quarter-deck. The negro thinks of home and all its endearments: he sees
in the dim future chains and slavery.

He resolves, and determines to put the resolution into practice upon the
instant. Armed with a heavy club, he proceeds to the captain’s’room. He
strikes ‘the fatal blow: he feels the pulse, and all is still. He next
goes to the adjoining room: another blow is struck, and the black man
is master of the cabin. Cautiously he ascends to the deck, strikes the
mate: the officer is wounded but not killed. He draws his revolver, and
calls for help. The crew are aroused: they are hastening to aid their
commander. The negro repeats his blows with the heavy club: the rebel
falls dead at Tillman’s feet. The African seizes the revolver, drives
the crew below deck, orders the release of the Yankee, puts the enemy in
irons, and proclaims himself master of the vessel.

“The Waring’s” head is turned towards New York, with the stars and
stripes flying, a fair wind, and she rapidly retraces her steps. A
storm comes up: more men are needed to work the ship. Tillman orders the
rebels to be unchained, and brought on deck. The command is obeyed; and
they are put to work, but informed, that, if they show any disobedience,
they will be shot down. Five days more, and “The S. J. Waring” arrives
in the port of New York, under the command of William Tillman, the negro
patriot.

“The New-York Tribune” said of this event,--

“To this colored man was the nation indebted for the first vindication
of its honor on the sea.” Another public journal spoke of that
achievement alone as an offset to the defeat of the Federal arms at
Bull Run. Unstinted praise from all parties, even those who are usually
awkward in any other vernacular than derision of the colored man, has
been awarded to this colored man. At Barnum’s Museum he was the centre
of attractive gaze to daily increasing thousands. Pictorials vied with
each other in portraying his features, and in graphic delineations of
the scene on board the brig; while, in one of them, Tillman has been
sketched as an embodiment of black action on the sea, in contrast with
some delinquent Federal officer as white inaction on land.

The Federal Government awarded to Tillman the sum of six thousand
dollars as prize-money for the capture of the schooner. All loyal
journals joined in praise of the heroic act; and, even when the news
reached England, the negro’s bravery was applauded. A few weeks later,
and the same rebel privateer captured the schooner “Enchantress,” bound
from Boston to St. Jago, while off Nantucket Shoals. A prize-crew was
put on board, and, as in the case of “The Waring,” retaining the colored
steward; and the vessel set sail for a Southern port. When off Cape
Hatteras, she was overtaken by the Federal gunboat “Albatross,” Capt.
Prentice.

On speaking her, and demanding where from and whence bound, she replied,
“Boston, for St. Jago.” At this moment the negro rushed from the
galley, where the pirates had secreted him, _and jumped into the sea_,
exclaiming, “They are a privateer crew from The ‘Jeff. Davis,’ and
bound for Charleston!” The negro was picked up, and taken on board “The
Albatross.” The prize was ordered to heave to, which she did. Lieut.
Neville jumped aboard of her, and ordered the pirates into the boats,
and to pull for “The Albatross,” where they were secured in irons. “The
Enchantress” was then taken in tow by “The Albatross,” and arrived
in Hampton Loads. On the morning of the 13th of May, 1862, the rebel
gunboat “Planter” was captured by her colored crew, while lying in the
port of Charleston, S.C., and brought out, and delivered over to our
squadron then blockading the place. The following is the dispatch from
Com. Dupont to the Secretary of War, announcing the fact:--

“U. S. Steamship Augusta, off Charleston, May 13, 1862.

“Sir,--I have the honor to inform you that the rebel armed gunboat
‘Planter’ was brought out to us this morning from Charleston by eight
contrabands, and delivered up to the squadron. Five colored women
and three children are also on board. She was the armed despatch
and transportation steamer attached to the engineer department at
Charleston, under Brig.-Gen. Ripley. At four in the morning, in the
absence of the captain who was on shore, she left her wharf close to the
government office and head-quarters, with the Palmetto and confederate
flags flying, and passed the successive forts, saluting as usual, by
blowing the steam-whistle. After getting beyond the range of the last
gun, they hauled down the rebel flags, and hoisted a white one. ‘The
Onward’ was the inside ship of the blockading squadron in the main
channel, and was preparing to fire when her commander made out the white
flag.

“The armament of the steamer is a thirty-two pounder, on pivot, and a
fine twenty-four-pound howitzer. She has, besides, on her deck, four
other guns, one seven-inch, rifled, which were to be taken on the
following morning to a new fort on the middle ground. One of the four
belonged! to Fort Sumter, and had been struck, in the rebel attack, on
the muzzle. Robert Small, the intelligent slave; and pilot of the boat,
who performed this bold feat so skilfully, is a superior man to any who
have come into our lines; intelligent as many of them have been. His in
formation: has been most interesting, and portions of it of the utmost
importance. The steamer is quite a valuable acquisition to the squadron
by her good machinery and very light draught. The bringing out of this
steamer would have done credit to any one. I do not know whether, in the
view of the Government, the vessel will be considered a prize; but, if
so, I respectfully submit to the Department the claims of the man Small
and his associates. Very respectfully, Your obedient servant,

“S. F. DUPONT,

“_Flag-Officer Commanding._”

The New-York “Commercial Advertiser” said of the capture, “We are forced
to confess that this is a heroic act, and that the negroes deserve great
praise. Small is a middle-aged negro, and his features betray nothing of
the firmness of character he displayed. He is said to be one of the most
skilful pilots of Charleston, and to have a thorough knowledge of all
the ports and inlets of South Carolina.”

A bill was introduced in Congress to give the prize to Robert Small and
his companions; and, while it was under consideration, the “New-York
Tribune” made the following timely remarks: “If we must still remember
with humiliation that the Confederate flag yet waves where our national
colors were struck, we should be all the more prompt to recognize the
merit that has put in our possession the first trophy from Fort Sumter.
And the country should feel doubly humbled if there is not magnanimity
enough to acknowledge a gallant action, because it was the head of a
black man that conceived, and the hand of a black man that executed it.
It would better, indeed, become us to remember that no small share of
the naval glory of the war belongs to the race which we have forbidden
to fight for us; that one negro has captured a vessel from a Southern
privateer, and another has brought away from under the very guns of the
enemy, where no fleet of ours has yet dared to venture, a prize whose
possession a commodore thinks worthy to be announced in a special
despatch.” The bill was taken up, passed both branches of Congress,
and Robert Small, together with his associates, received justice at the
hands of the American Government.

The “New-York Herald” gave the following account of the capture:--

“One of the most daring and heroic adventures since the war commenced
was undertaken and successfully accomplished by a party of negroes in
Charleston on Monday night last. Nine colored men, comprising the pilot,
engineers, and crew of the rebel gunboat ‘Planter,’ took the vessel
under their exclusive control, passed the batteries and forts in
Charleston Harbor, hoisted the white flag, ran out to the blockading
squadron, and thence to Port Royal, _via_ St. Helena Sound and Broad
River, reaching the flagship ‘Wabash’ shortly after ten o’clock last
evening.

“‘The Planter’ is just such a vessel as is needed to navigate the
shallow waters between Hilton Head and the adjacent islands, and will
prove almost invaluable to the Government. It is proposed, I hear, by
the commodore, to recommend the appropriation of $20,000 as a reward to
the plucky Africans who have distinguished themselves by this gallant
service, $5,000 to be given to the pilot, and the remainder to be
divided among his companions.

“‘The Planter’ is a high-pressure, side-wheel steamer, one hundred and
forty feet in length, and about fifty feet beam, and draws about five
feet of water. She was built in Charleston, was formerly used as a
cotton boat, and is capable of carrying about 1,400 bales. On the
organization of the Confederate navy, she was transformed into a
gunboat, and was the most valuable war-vessel the Confederates had at
Charleston. Her armament consisted of one thirty-two-pound rifle-gun
forward, and a twenty-four-pound howitzer aft. Besides, she had on
board, when she came into the harbor, one seven-inch rifle-gun, one
eight-inch columbiad, one eight-inch howitzer, one long thirty-two
pounder, and about two hundred rounds of ammunition, which had been
consigned to Fort Ripley, and which would have been delivered at that
fortification on Tuesday had not the designs of the rebel authorities
been frustrated. She was commanded by Capt. Relay, of the Confederate
Navy, all the other employees of the vessel, excepting the first and
second mates, being persons of color.

“Robert Small, with whom I had a brief interview at Gen. Benham’s
headquarters this morning, is an intelligent negro, born in Charleston,
and employed for many years as a pilot in and about that harbor. He
entered upon his duties on board ‘The Planter’ some six weeks since,
and, as he told me, adopted the idea of running the vessel to sea from
a joke which one of his companions perpetrated. He immediately cautioned
the crew against alluding to the matter in any way on board the boat;
but asked them, if they wanted to talk it up in sober earnestness, to
meet at his house, where they would devise and determine upon a plan to
place themselves under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, instead
of the stars and bars. Various plans were proposed; but finally the
whole arrangement of the escape was left to the discretion and sagacity
of Robert, his companions promising to obey him, and be ready at a
moment’s notice to accompany him. For three days he kept the provisions
of the party secreted in the hold, awaiting an opportunity to slip away.
At length, on Monday evening, the white officers of the vessel went on
shore to spend the night, Intending to start on the following morning
for Fort Ripley, and to be absent from the city for some days. The
families of the contrabands were notified, and came stealthily on board.
At about three o’clock, the fires were lit under the boilers, and the
vessel steamed quietly away down the harbor. The tide was against her,
and Fort Sumter was not reached till broad daylight. However, the boat
passed directly under its walls, giving the usual signal--two long pulls
and a jerk at the whistle-cord--as she passed the sentinel.

“Once out of range of the rebel guns, the white flag was raised, and
‘The Planter’ steamed directly for the blockading steamer ‘Augusta.’
Capt. Parrott, of the latter vessel, as you may imagine, received them
cordially, heard their report, placed Acting-Master Watson, of his ship,
in charge of ‘The Planter,’ and sent the Confederate gunboat and crew
forward to Commodore Dupont.”




CHAPTER XII--GENERAL BUTLER AT NEW ORLEANS.


_Recognition of Negro Soldiers with Officers of their own
Color.--Society in New Orleans.--The Inhuman Master.--Justice.--Change
of Opinion.--The Free Colored Population._


When Major-Gen. Butler found himself in possession of New Orleans, he
was soon satisfied of the fact that there were but few loyalists amongst
the whites, while the Union feeling of the colored people was apparent
from the hour of his landing; they having immediately called upon the
commander, and, through a committee, offered their services in behalf
of the Federal cause. Their offer was accepted, as the following will
show:--

“Headquarters Department of the Gulf, New Orleans, Aug. 22, 1862.

“General Order, No. 63:

“Whereas, on the twenty-third day of April, in the year eighteen hundred
and sixty-one, at a public meeting of the free colored population of
the city of New Orleans, a military organization, known as the ‘Native
Guards’ (colored), had its existence, which military organization was
duly and legally enrolled as a part of the military of the State, its
officers being commissioned by Thomas O. Moore, Governor, and Commander-
in-Chief of the Militia, of the State of Louisiana, in the form
following, that is to say:--

“‘The State of Louisiana.

[Seal of the State.]

“‘By Thomas Overton Moore, Governor of the State of Louisiana, and
Commander-in-Chief of the Militia thereof.

“‘In the name and by the authority of the State of Louisiana:

“‘Know ye that----------------, having been duly and legally elected
Captain of the “Native Guards” (colored), First Division of the Militia
of Louisiana, to serve for the term of the war,

“I do hereby appoint and commission him Captain as aforesaid, to take
rank as such, from the second day of May, 1861.

“‘He is, therefore, carefully and diligently to discharge the duties
of his office, by doing and performing all manner of things thereto
belonging. And I do strictly charge and require all officers,
non-commissioned officers, and privates under his command to be obedient
to his orders as Captain; and he is to observe and follow such orders
and directions, from time to time, as he shall receive from me, or the
future Governor of the State of Louisiana, or other superior officers,
according to the Rules and Articles of War, and in conformity to law.

“‘In testimony whereof, I have caused these letters to be made patent,
and the seal of the State to be hereunto annexed.

“‘Given under my hand, at the city of Baton Rouge, on the second day of
May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two.

“‘(Signed)

“‘THOMAS O. MOORE.

“‘By the Governor.

“‘P. D. HARDY, _Secretary of State_.”

[INDORSED.]

“‘I, Maurice Grivot, Adjutant and Inspector-General of the State of
Louisiana, do hereby certify that----------------, named in the within
commission, did, on the twenty-second day of May, in the year 1861,
deposit In my office his written acceptance of the office to which he is
commissioned, and his oath of office taken according to law.

“‘M. GRIVOT’”_Adjutant and Inspector-General La_.’

“And whereas such military organization elicited praise and respect, and
was complimented in general orders for its patriotism and loyalty, and
was ordered to continue during the war, in the words following:--

“‘Headquarters Louisiana Militia,

“‘Adjutant-General’s Office, Mardi 24, 1862.

“‘Order No. 426:

“‘I, The Governor and Commander-in-Chief, relying implicitly upon the
loyalty of the free colored population of the city and State, for the
protection of their homes, their property, and for Southern rights, from
the pollution of a ruthless invader, and believing that the military
organization which existed prior to the 15th February, 1862, and
elicited praise and respect for the patriotic motives which prompted it,
should exist for and during the war, calls upon them to maintain their
organization, and hold themselves prepared for such orders as may be
transmitted to them.

“‘II. The colonel commanding will report without delay to Major-Gen.
Lewis, commanding State Militia.

“’ By order of

“‘THOS. O. MOORE, _Governor_.

“‘31. GRIVOT, _Adjutant-General_.’

“And whereas said military organization, by the same order, was directed
to report to Major-Gen. Lewis for service, but did not leave the city of
New Orleans when he did:

“Now, therefore, the commanding-general, believing that a large portion
of this military force of the State of Louisiana are willing to take
service in the volunteer forces of the United States, and be enrolled
and organized to ‘defend their homes from ruthless invaders;’ to protect
their wives and children and kindred from wrongs and outrages; to shield
their property from being seized by bad men; and to defend the flag of
their native country as their fathers did under Jackson at Chalmette
against Packingham and his myrmidons, carrying the black flag of ‘beauty
and booty’.

“Appreciating their motives, relying upon their ‘well-known loyalty and
patriotism,’ and with ‘praise and respect’ for these brave men, it is
ordered that all the members of the ‘Native Guards’ aforesaid, and all
other free colored citizens recognized by the first and late governor
and authorities of the State of Louisiana as a portion of the militia
of the State, who shall enlist in the volunteer service of the United
States, shall be duly organized by the appointment of proper officers,
and accepted, paid, equipped, armed, and rationed as are other volunteer
corps of the United States, subject to the approval of the President of
the United States. All such persons are required to report themselves
at the Touro Charity Building, Front Levee Street, New Orleans, where
proper officers will muster them into the service of the United States.

“By command of

“R. S. DAVIS, _Captain and A.A.A.G._

“_Major-Gen. BUTLER_.”

The commanding general soon discovered that he was amongst a different
people from those with whom he had been accustomed to associate. New
Orleans, however, though captured was not subdued. The city had been for
years the headquarters and focus of all Southern rowdyism. An immense
crowd of “loafers,” many without regular occupation or means, infested
the streets, controlled the ballot-boxes, nominated the judges, selected
the police, and affected to rule every one except a few immensely
wealthy planters, who governed them by money. These rowdies had
gradually dissolved society, till New Orleans had become the most
blood-thirsty city in the world; a city where every man went armed,
where a sharp word was invariably answered by a stab, and where the
average of murdered men taken to one hospital was three a day. The mob
were bitter advocates of slavery, held all Yankees in abhorrence, and
guided by the astute brain of Pierre Soulé, whilom ambassador to Spain,
resolved to contest with Gen. Butler the right to control the city. They
might as well have contested it with Bonaparte. The first order issued
by the general indicated a policy from which he never swerved. The
mob had surrounded the St. Charles Hotel, threatening an attack on the
building, then the general’s headquarters; and Gen. Williams, commanding
the troops round it, reported that he would be unable to control the
mob. “Gen. Butler, in his serenest manner, replied, ‘Give my compliments
to Gen. Williams, and tell him, if he finds he cannot control the mob,
to open upon them with artillery.’” The mob did that day endeavor
to seize Judge Summers, the Recorder; and he was only saved by the
determined courage of Lieut. Kinsman, in command of an armed party. From
this moment the general assumed the attitude he never abandoned, that of
master of New Orleans, making his own will the law. He at first retained
the municipal organization; but, finding the officials incurably
hostile, he sent them to Fort Lafayette, and thenceforward ruled alone,
feeding the people, re-establishing trade, maintaining public order, and
seeing that negroes obtained some reasonable measure of security. Their
evidence was admitted, “Louisiana having, when she went out of the
Union, taken her black code with her;” the whipping-house was abolished,
and all forms of torture sternly prohibited.

The following interesting narrative, given by a correspondent of “The
Atlantic Monthly,” will show, to some extent, the scenes which Gen.
Butler had to pass through in connection with slavery:--

“One Sunday morning, late last summer, as I came down to the
breakfast-room, I was surprised to find a large number of persons
assembled in the library.

“When I reached the door, a member of the staff took me by the arm, and
drew me into a room toward a young and delicate mulatto girl, who was
standing against the opposite wall, with the meek, patient bearing of
her race, so expressive of the system of repression to which they have
been so long subjected.

“Drawing down the border of her dress, my conductor showed me a sight
more revolting than I trust ever again to behold.

“The poor girl’s back was flayed until the quivering flesh resembled
a fresh beefsteak scorched on a gridiron. With a cold chill creeping
through my veins, I turned away from the sickening spectacle, and, for
an explanation of the affair, scanned the various persons about the
room.

“In the centre of the group, at his writing-table, sat the general. His
head rested on his hand, and he was evidently endeavoring to fix his
attention upon the remarks of a tall, swarthy-looking man who stood
opposite, and who, I soon discovered, was the owner of the girl, and
was attempting a defence of the foul outrage he had committed upon the
unresisting and helpless person of his unfortunate victim, who stood
smarting, but silent, under the dreadful pain inflicted by the brutal
lash.

“By the side of the slave-holder stood our adjutant-general, his face
livid with almost irrepressible rage, and his fists tight clenched, as
if to violently restrain himself from visiting the guilty wretch with
summary and retributive justice. Disposed about the room, in various
attitudes, but all exhibiting in their countenances the same mingling of
horror and indignation, were other members of the staff; while near the
door stood three or four house-servants, who were witnesses in the case.

“To the charge of having administered the inhuman castigation, Landry
(the owner of the girl) pleaded guilty, but urged, in extenuation,
that the girl had dared to make an effort for that freedom which her
instincts, drawn from the veins of her abuser, had taught her was the
God-given right of all who possess the germ of immortality, no matter
what the color of the casket in which it is hidden.

“I say ‘drawn from the veins of her abuser,’ because she declared she
was his daughter; and everyone in the room, looking upon the man and
woman confronting each other, confessed that the resemblance justified
the assertion.

“At the conclusion of all the evidence in the case, the general
continued in the same position as before, and remained for some time
apparently lost in abstraction. I shall never forget the singular
expression on his face.

“I had been accustomed to see him in a storm of passion at any instance
of oppression or flagrant injustice; but, on this occasion, he was too
deeply affected to obtain relief in the usual way.

“His whole air was one of dejection, almost listlessness; his
indignation too intense, and his anger too stern, to find expression,
even in his countenance. After sitting in the mood which I have
described at such length, the general again turned to the prisoner, and
said, in a quiet, subdued tone of voice,--

“‘Mr. Landry, I dare not trust myself to decide to-day what punishment
would be meet for your offence; for I am in that state of mind that I
fear I might exceed the strict demands of justice. I shall therefore
place you under guard for the present, until I conclude upon your
sentence.’

“A few days after, a number of influential citizens having represented
to the general that Mr. Landry was not only a ‘high-toned gentleman,’
but a person of unusual ‘amiability’ of character, and was consequently
entitled to no small degree of leniency, he answered, that, in
consideration of the prisoner’s ‘high-toned’ character, and especially
of his ‘amiability,’ of which he had seen so remarkable a proof, he had
determined to meet their views; and therefore ordered that Landry give a
deed of manumission to the girl, and pay a fine of five hundred dollars,
to be placed in the hands of a trustee for her benefit.”

It was scenes like the above that changed Gen. Butler’s views upon the
question of slavery; for it cannot be denied, that, during the first
few weeks of his command in New Orleans, he had a controversy with Gen.
Phelps, owing to the latter’s real antislavery feelings. Soon after his
arrival, Gen. Butler gave orders that all negroes not needed for service
should be removed from the camps. The city was sealed against their
escape. Even secession masters were assured that their property, if not
employed, should be returned. It is said that pledges of reimbursement
for loss of labor were made to such. Gen. Phelps planted himself on the
side of the slave; would not exile them from his camp; branded as cruel
the policy that harbored, and then drove out the slave to the inhuman
revenge that awaited him.

Yet the latter part of Gen. Butler’s reign compensated for his earlier
faults. It must be remembered, that, when he landed in New Orleans, he
was fresh from Washington, where the jails were filled with fugitive
slaves, awaiting the claim of their masters; where the return of the
escaped bondman was considered a military duty. Then how could he be
expected to do better? The stream cannot rise higher than the spring.

His removal from the Department of the Gulf, on account of the crushing
blows which he gave the “peculiar institution,” at once endeared him to
the hearts of the friends of impartial freedom throughout the land.

The following imitation of Leigh Hunt’s celebrated poem is not out of
place here:--


“ABOU BEN BUTLER.”

               “Abou Ben Butler (may his tribe increase! )

               Awoke one night down by the old Balize,

               And saw, outside the comfort of his room,

               Making it warmer for the gathering gloom,

               A black man, shivering in the Winter’s cold.

               Exceeding courage made Ben Butler bold;

               And to the presence in the dark lie said,

               “What wantest thou?” The figure raised its head,

               And, with a look made of all sad accord,

               Answered, “The men who’ll serve the purpose of the Lord.”

               “And am I one?” said Butler. “Nay, not so,”

               Replied the black man. Butler spoke more low,

               But cheerly still, and said, “As _I am Ben_,

               You’ll not have cause to tell me that again!”

               The figure bowed and vanished. The next night

               It came once more, environed strong in light,

               And showed the names whom love of Freedom blessed;

               And, lo! Ben Butler’s name led all the rest.”

                        --_Boston Transcript._

It is probably well known that the free colored population of New
Orleans, in intelligence, public spirit, and material wealth, surpass
those of the same class in any other city of the Union. Many of these
gentlemen have been highly educated, have travelled extensively in this
and foreign countries, speak and read the French, Spanish, and English
languages fluently, and in the Exchange Rooms, or at the Stock Boards,
wield an influence at anytime fully equal to the same number of white
capitalists. Before the war, they represented in that city alone fifteen
millions of property, and were heavily taxed to support the schools of
the State, but were not allowed to claim the least benefit therefrom.

These gentlemen, representing so much intelligence, culture, and wealth,
and who would, notwithstanding the fact that they all have negro blood
in their veins, adorn any circle of society in the North, who would be
taken upon Broadway for educated and wealthy Cuban planters, rather than
free negroes, although many of them have themselves held slaves, have
always been loyal to the Union; and, when New Orleans seemed in danger
of being re-captured by the rebels under Gen. Magruder, these colored
men rose _en masse_, closed their offices and stores, armed and
organized themselves into six regiments, and for six weeks abandoned
their business, and stood ready to fight for the defence of New Orleans,
while, at the same time, not a single white regiment from the original
white inhabitants was raised.




CHAPTER XIII--THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FREE.


_Emancipation in the District.--Comments of the Press.--The Good
Result.--Recognition of Hayti and Liberia.--The Slave-trader Gordon._


For many years previous to the Rebellion, efforts had been made to
induce Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, without
success. The “negro-pens” which adorned that portion of the national
domain had long made Americans feel ashamed of the capital of their
country; because it was well known that those pens were more or less
connected with the American slave-trade, which, in its cruelty, was as
bad as that of the African slave-trade, if not worse. It was expected,
even by the democracy, that one of the first acts of the Republicans
on coming into office would be the emancipation of the slaves of the
District; and therefore no one was surprised at its being brought
forward in the earliest part of Mr. Lincoln’s administration. The bill
was introduced into the Senate by Hon. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts.
Its discussion caused considerable excitement among slave-holders,
who used every means to prevent its passage. Nevertheless, after going
through the Senate, it passed the House on the 11th of April, 1862, by
a large majority, and soon received the sanction of the President. The
Copperhead press howled over the doings of Congress, and appeared to
see the fate of the institution in this act. The “Louisville Journal”
 said,--

“The President, contrary to our most earnest hopes, has approved the
bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

“We need hardly say that the President’s reasons for approving the
bill are not, in our opinion, such as should have governed him at this
extraordinary juncture of the national history. They are not to us
sufficient reasons. On the contrary, we think they weigh as nothing
compared with the grave reasons in the opposite scale.

“The enemies of the country will no doubt attempt so to use the act by
representing it as the first step towards the abolition of slavery
in the States; but this representation, if made, will be a very gross
misrepresentation. The Republicans, as a body, our readers know full
well, always declared that Congress had the constitutional power to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and that Congress ought to
exercise the power. They, however, have always declared, with the same
unanimity, that Congress does not possess the constitutional power
to interfere with slavery in the States. And they now declare so with
especial distinctness and solemnity.

“We, of course, except from the scope of the remarks we have now made
such abolitionists as Sumner and his scattered followers in Congress.
With the exception of these few _raving zealots, of whom most
Republicans are heartily ashamed,_ the men who voted to abolish slavery
in the District of Columbia avow themselves as resolutely opposed to
interfering with slavery in the States as the men who voted against the
measure are known to be. Their avowals are distinct and emphatic.

“We hope that the majority in Congress are at length through with
such tricks, and will henceforth leave in peace the myrtle of party
eye-sores, while they split the oak of the Rebellion.”

However, the predictions and hopes of the “Journal” were not to
avail any thing for the slavemongers. The Rebellion had sounded the
death-knell of the crime of crimes. Too many brave men had already
fallen by the hands of the upholders of the barbarous system to have it
stop there. The God of liberty had proclaimed that--

               “In this, the District where my Temple stands,

               I burst indignant every captive’s bands;

               Here in my home my glorious work begin;

               Then blush no more each day to see this sin.

               Thus finding room to freely breathe and stand,

               I’ll stretch my sceptre over all the land,

               Until, unfettered, leaps the waiting slave,

               And echoes back the blessings of the brave.”

The “Press,” Forney’s paper, spoke thus, a few days after slavery had
died in the District:--

“The emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia was one of
the most suggestive events of the age. It was an example and an
illustration. The great idea of the past century, the idea which had
associated and identified itself with our institutions, was at last
tried by a practical test. Good results came from it; none of the evils
dreaded and prophesied have been manifested. It was a simple measure
of legislative policy, and was established amid great opposition and
feeling. Yet it was succeeded by no agitation, no outbreaks of popular
prejudice. The District of Columbia is now a free Territory by the
easy operation of a statute law,--by what enemies of the measure called
forcible emancipation; and yet the District of Columbia is as pleasant
and as prosperous as at any period of its history. There has been no
negro saturnalia, no violent outbreak of social disorder, no attempt
to invade those barriers of social distinction that must forever exist
between the African and Anglo-Saxon [?]. It was said that property would
depreciate; that there would be excesses and violences; that the negro
would become insolent and unbearable; that the city of Washington would
become a desolated metropolis; that negro labor would become valueless;
that hundreds of the emancipated negroes would flock to the Northern
States. We have seen no such results as yet; we know that nothing of the
kind is anticipated. We have yet to hear of the first emancipated negro
coming to Philadelphia. Labor moves on in its accustomed way, with the
usual supply and demand. We do not think a white woman has been insulted
by an emancipated negro; we are confident that no emancipated negro has
sought the hand of any fair damsel of marriageable age and condition.

“Society is the same in Maryland and Kentucky. In accomplishing
emancipation in the District of Columbia, we have shown the timid
that their fears were but of the imagination, the mere prejudices of
education. Slavery has been the cancer of the Southern social system.
We employ an old metaphor, perhaps, but it is a forcible and appropriate
illustration. It rooted itself into the body of Southern society,
attacking the glands, terminating in an ill-conditioned and deep
disease, and causing the republic excruciating pain. It became schirrous
and indurated. It brought disaster and grief upon them, and the sorest
of evils upon us. It brought us blood and civil war, ruined commerce and
desolated fields, blockaded ports, and rivers that swarm with gunboats
instead of merchant vessels. It was tolerated as a necessary evil, until
its extent and virulence made it incumbent upon us to terminate it as
such, or to be terminated by it. The champions of this institution, not
content with submitting to the toleration and protection of our great
Northern free community, have made it the pretext for aggression and
insult, and by their own acts are accomplishing its downfall. The
emancipation of slavery in the District of Columbia was the necessary
and natural result of the Southern Rebellion. It is but the beginning of
the results the Rebellion must surely bring. The wedge has only entered
the log, and heavy blows are falling upon it day by day.”

Great was the rejoicing in Washington and throughout the Free States;
for every one saw “the end from the beginning.” Our own Whittier strung
his harp anew, and sung,--

               “I knew that truth would crush the lie,--

                   Somehow, sometime the end would be;

               Yet scarcely dared I hope to see

               The triumph with my mortal eye.


               But now I see it. In the sun

                   A free flag floats from yonder dome,

                   And at the nation’s hearth and home

               The justice long delayed is done.”

With the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, commenced a
new era at our country’s capital. The representatives of the Governments
of Hayti and Liberia had both long knocked in vain to be admitted
with the representatives of other nations. The slave power had always
succeeded in keeping them out. But a change had now come over the dreams
of the people, and Congress was but acting up to this new light in
passing the following bill:--

“_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_, That the President of the
United States be, and he hereby is, authorized, by and with the consent
of the Senate, to appoint diplomatic representatives of the United
States to the republics of Hayti and Liberia, respectively. Each of the
said representatives so appointed shall be accredited as commissioner
and consul general, and shall receive, out of any money in the treasury
not otherwise appropriated, the compensation of commissioners provided
for by the Act of Congress approved August 18, 1856: _Provided_ that the
compensation of the representative at Liberia shall not exceed $4,000.”

The above bill was before the Senate some time, and elicited much
discussion, and an able speech was made by Hon. Charles Sumner in favor
of the recognition of the independence of Hayti and Liberia. To use his
own expressive words, “Slavery in the national capital is now abolished:
it remains that this other triumph shall be achieved. Nothing but the
sway of a slave-holding despotism on the floor of Congress, hitherto,
has prevented the adoption of this righteous measure; and now that that
despotism has been exorcised, no time should be lost by Congress to see
it carried into immediate execution. All other civilized nations have
ceased to make complexion a badge of superiority or inferiority in the
matter of nationality; and we should make haste, therefore, to repair
the injury we have done, as a republic, in refusing to recognize
Liberian and Haytian independence.”

Even after all that had passed, the African slave-trade was still being
carried on between the Southern States and Africa. Ships were fitted out
in Northern ports for the purpose of carrying on this infernal traffic.
And, although it was prohibited by an act of Congress, none had ever
been convicted for dealing in slaves. The new order of things was to
give these traffickers a trial, and test the power by which they had
so long dealt in the bodies and souls of men whom they had stolen from
their native land. One Nathaniel Gordon was already in prison in New
York, and his trial was fast approaching: it came, and he was convicted
of piracy in the United States District Court in the city of New York;
the piracy consisting in having fitted out a slaver, and shipped nine
hundred Africans at Congo River, with a view to selling them as slaves.
The same man had been tried for the same offence before; but the jury
failed to agree, and he accordingly escaped punishment for the time.
Every effort was made which the ingenuity of able lawyers could invent,
or the power of money could enforce, to save this miscreant from the
gallows; but all in vain: for President Lincoln utterly refused to
interfere in any way whatever, and Gordon was executed on the 7th of
February.

This blow appeared to give more offence to the commercial Copperheads
than even the emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia;
for it struck an effectual blow at a very lucrative branch of commerce,
in which the New Yorkers were largely interested. Thus it will be seen
that the nation was steadily moving on to the goal of freedom.




CHAPTER XIV--THE BLACK BRIGADE OF CINCINNATI.


_The Great Fright.--Cruel Treatment of the Colored People by the Police.
--Bill Homer and his Roughs.--Military Training.--Col. Dickson.--The
Work.--Mustering Out.--The Thanks._


Hatred to the negro is characteristic of the people of Cincinnati; more
so, probably, than any other city in the West. Mobs in which the colored
citizens have been the victims have more than once occurred in that
place, to the utter disgrace of its white inhabitants,--mobs resulting
often in the loss of life, and always in the destruction of property.
The raid of John Morgan in the month of July, 1862, and, soon after, the
defeat of the Union troops in Kentucky, had given warning of impending
danger. This feeling of fear culminated on the first of September, in
the mayor of Cincinnati calling on the people to organize and prepare
for the defence of the city, in the following proclamation:--

“Mayor’s Office, _City of Cincinnati_.

“In accordance with a resolution passed by the City Council of
Cincinnati on the first instant, I hereby request that all business of
every kind or character be suspended at ten o’clock of this day, and
that all persons, employers and employees, assemble in their respective
wards, at the usual places of voting, and then and there organize
themselves in such manner as may be thought best for the defence of the
city. Every man, of every age, be he citizen or alien, who lives
under the protection of our laws, is expected to take part in the
organization.

“Witness my hand, and the corporate seal of the city of Cincinnati, this
second day of September, A.D. 1862.

“GEORGE HATCH, _Mayor._”

At two o’clock on the morning of the same day, the mayor issued another
proclamation, notifying the citizens that the police force would perform
the duty of a provost-guard, under the direction of Gen. Wallace.

The mayor’s proclamation, under ordinary circumstances, would be
explicit enough. “Every man, of every age, be he citizen or alien,”
 surely meant the colored people. A number thought themselves included
in the call; but, remembering the ill-will excited by former offers
for home defence, they feared to come forward for enrolment. The
proclamation ordered the people to assemble “in the respective wards, at
the usual places of voting.” The colored people had no places of voting.
Added to this, George Hatch was the same mayor who had broken up the
movement for home defence, before mentioned. Seeking to test the
matter, a policeman was approached, as he strutted in his new dignity of
provost-guard. To the question, humbly, almost tremblingly, put,
“Does the mayor desire colored men to report for service in the city’s
defence?” he replied, “You know d------d well he does’nt mean you.
Niggers ain’t citizens.”--“But he calls on all, citizens and aliens. If
he does not mean all, he should not say so.”--“The mayor knows as well
as you do what to write, and all he wants is for you niggers to keep
quiet.” This was at nine o’clock on the morning of the second. The
military authorities had determined, however, to impress the colored
men for work upon the fortifications. The privilege of volunteering,
extended to others, was to be denied to them. Permission to volunteer
would imply some freedom, some dignity, some independent manhood. For
this the commanding officer is alone chargeable.

If the guard appointed to the duty of collecting the colored people
had gone to their houses, and notified them to report for duty on the
fortifications, the order would have been cheerfully obeyed. But the
brutal ruffians who composed the regular and special police took every
opportunity to inflict abuse and insult upon the men whom they
arrested. The special police was entirely composed of that class of the
population, which, only a month before, had combined to massacre the
colored population, and were only prevented from committing great
excesses by the fact that John Morgan, with his rough riders, had
galloped to within forty miles of the river, when the respectable
citizens, fearing that the disloyal element within might combine with
the raiders without, and give the city over to pillage, called a meeting
on ‘Change, and demanded that the riot be stopped. The special police
was, in fact, composed of a class too cowardly or too traitorous to aid,
honestly and manfully, in the defence of the city. They went from
house to house, followed by a gang of rude, foul-mouthed boys. Closets,
cellars, and garrets were searched; bayonets were thrust into beds and
bedding; old and young, sick and well, were dragged out, and, amidst
shouts and jeers, marched like felons to the pen on Plum Street,
opposite the Cathedral. No time was given to prepare for camp-life; in
most cases no information was given of the purpose for which the men
were impressed. The only-answers to questions were curses, and a brutal
“Come along now; you will find out time enough.” Had the city been
captured by the Confederates, the colored people would have suffered no
more than they did at the hands of these defenders. Tuesday night, Sept.
2, was a sad night to the colored people of Cincinnati. The greater part
of the male population had been dragged from home, across the river, but
where, and for what, none could tell.

The captain of these conscripting squads was one William Homer, and in
him organized ruffianism had its fitting head. He exhibited the brutal
malignity of his nature in a continued series of petty tyrannies. Among
the first squads marched into the yard was one which had to wait several
hours before being ordered across the river. Seeking to make themselves
as comfortable as possible, they had collected blocks of wood, and piled
up bricks, upon which they seated themselves on the shaded side of the
yard. Coming into the yard, he ordered all to rise, marched them to
another part, then issued the order, “D----n you, squat.” Turning to the
guard, he added, “Shoot the first one who rises.” Reaching the opposite
side of the river, the same squad were marched from the sidewalk into
the middle of the dusty road, and again the order, “D--n you, squat,”
 and the command to shoot the first one who should rise.

The drill of this guard of white ruffians was unique, and not set down
in either Scott or Hardee. Calling up his men, he would address them
thus: “Now, you fellows, hold up your heads. Pat, hold your musket
straight; don’t put your tongue out so far; keep your eyes open: I
believe you are drunk. Now, then, I want you fellows to go out of this
pen, and bring all the niggers you can catch. Don’t come back here
without niggers: if you do, you shall not have a bit of grog. Now be
off, you shabby cusses, and come back in forty minutes, and bring me
niggers; that’s what I want.” This barbarous and inhuman treatment of
the colored citizens of Cincinnati continued for four days, without a
single word of remonstrance, except from the “Gazette.”

Finally, Col. Dickson, a humane man and gentlemanly officer, was
appointed to the command of the “Black Brigade,” and brutality gave way
to kind treatment. The men were permitted to return to their homes, to
allay the fears of their families, and to prepare themselves the better
for camp-life. The police were relieved of provost-guard duty, and on
Friday morning more men reported for duty than had been dragged together
by the police. Many had hidden too securely to be found; others had
escaped to the country. These now came forward to aid in the city’s
defence. With augmented numbers, and glowing with enthusiasm, the Black
Brigade marched to their duty. Receiving the treatment of men, they were
ready for any thing. Being in line of march, they were presented with
a national flag by Capt. Lupton, who accompanied it with the following
address:--

“I have the kind permission of your commandant, Col. Dickson, to hand
you, without formal speech or presentation, this national flag,--my
sole object to encourage and cheer you on to duty. On its broad folds is
inscribed, ‘_The Black Brigade of Cincinnati_.’ I am confident, that, in
your hands, it will not be dishonored.

“The duty of the hour is _work_,--hard, severe labor on the
fortifications of the city. In the emergency upon us, the highest and
the lowest alike owe this duty. Let it be cheerfully undertaken. He is
no _man_ who now, in defence of home and fireside, shirks duty.

“A flag is the emblem of sovereignty, a symbol and guaranty of
_protection_. Every nation and people are proud of the flag of their
country. England, for a thousand years, boasts her Red Flag and Cross
of St. George; France glories in her Tri-color and Imperial Eagle; ours,
the ‘Star-spangled Banner,’ far more beautiful than they,--_this dear
old flag!_--the sun in heaven never looked down on so proud a banner of
beauty and glory. Men of the Black Brigade, rally around it! Assert your
_manhood_; be loyal to duty; be obedient, hopeful, patient: Slavery will
soon die; the slave-holders’ rebellion, accursed of God and man, will
shortly and miserably perish. There will then be, through all the coming
ages, in very truth, a land of the free,--one country, one flag, one
destiny.

“I charge you, _men of the Black Brigade of Cincinnati_, remember
that for you, and for me, and for your children, and your children’s
children, there is but _one flag_, as there is but one Bible, and one
God, the Father of us all.”

For nearly three weeks the Black Brigade labored upon the
fortifications, their services beginning, as we have seen, Sept. 2, and
terminating Sept: 20.

When the brigade was mustered out, the commander thanked them in the
following eloquent terms:--

“_Soldiers of the Black Brigade!_ You have finished the work assigned to
you upon the fortifications for the defence of the city. You are now
to be discharged. You have labored faithfully; you have made miles of
military roads, miles of rifle-pits, felled hundreds of acres of the
largest and loftiest forest trees, built magazines and forts. The hills
across yonder river will be a perpetual monument of your labors. You
have, in no spirit of bravado, in no defiance of established prejudice,
but in submission to it, intimated to me your willingness to defend
with your lives the fortifications your hands have built. _Organized
companies of men of your race have tendered their services to aid in the
defence of the city_. In obedience to the policy of the Government, the
authorities have denied you this privilege. In the department of labor
permitted, you have, however, rendered a willing and cheerful service.
Nor has your zeal been dampened by the cruel treatment received. The
citizens, of both sexes, have encouraged you with their smiles and words
of approbation; the soldiers have welcomed you as co-laborers in the
same great cause. But a portion of the police, ruffians in character,
early learning that your services were accepted, and seeking to deprive
you of the honor of voluntary labor, before opportunity was given you to
proceed to the field, rudely seized you in the streets, in your places
of business, in your homes, everywhere, hurried you into filthy pens,
thence across the river to the fortifications, not permitting you
to make any preparation for camp-life. You have borne this with the
accustomed patience of your race; and when, under more favorable
auspices, you have received only the protection due to a common
humanity, you have labored cheerfully and effectively.

“Go to your homes with the consciousness of having performed your
duty,--of deserving, if you do not receive, the protection of the law,
and bearing with you the gratitude and respect of all honorable men.
You have learned to suffer and to wait; but, in your hours of adversity,
remember that the same God who has numbered the hairs of our heads, who
watches over even the fate of a sparrow, is the God of your race as well
as mine. The sweat-blood which the nation is now shedding at every pore
is an awful warning of how fearful a thing it is to oppress the humblest
being.”

A letter in “The Tribune,” dated Cincinnati, Sept. 7, giving an account
of the enthusiasm of the people in rallying for the city’s defence,
says, “While all have done well, the negroes, as a class, must bear away
the palm. When martial law was declared, a few prominent colored men
tendered their services in any capacity desired. As soon as it became
known that they would be accepted, Mayor Hatch’s police commenced
arresting them everywhere, dragging them away from their houses and
places of business without a moment’s notice, shutting them up in
negro-pens, and subjecting them to the grossest abuse and indignity. Mr.
Hatch is charged with secession proclivities. During the recent riots
against the negroes, the _animus_ of his police was entirely hostile
to them, and many outrages were committed upon that helpless and
unoffending class. On this occasion, the same course was pursued. No
opportunity was afforded the negro to volunteer; but they were treated
as public enemies. They were taken over the river, ostensibly to work
upon the fortification; but were scattered, detailed as cooks for white
regiments, some of them half-starved, and all so much abused that it
finally caused a great outcry. When Gen. Wallace’s attention was called
to the matter, he requested Judge William M. Dickson, a prominent
citizen, who is related by marriage to President Lincoln, to take the
whole matter in charge. Judge Dickson undertook the thankless task:
organized the negroes into two regiments of three hundred each, made
the proper provision for their comfort, and set them at work upon the
trenches. They have accomplished more than any other six hundred of the
whole eight thousand men upon the fortifications. Their work has been
entirely voluntary. Judge Dickson informed them at the outset that all
could go home who chose; that it must be entirely a labor of love with
them. _Only one man_ of the whole number has availed himself of the
privilege; the rest have all worked cheer, fully and efficiently. One of
the regiments is officered by white captains, the other by negroes. The
latter, proved so decidedly superior that both regiments will hereafter
be commanded by officers of their own race. They are not only working,
but drilling; and they already go through some of the simpler military
movements very creditably.. Wherever they appear, they are cheered by
our troops. Last night, one of the colored regiments, coming off duty
for twenty-four hours, was halted in front of headquarters, at the
Burnet House, front faced, and gave three rousing cheers for Gen.
Wallace, and three more for Judge Dickson.”




CHAPTER XV. PROCLAMATION OF FREEDOM.


_Emancipation Proclamation.--Copperhead View of It.--“Abraham Spare the
South.”--The Contrabands Rejoicing.--The Songs.--Enthusiasm.--Faith in
God.--Negro Wit.--“Forever Free.”_


On the 22d of September, 1862, President Lincoln sent forth his
proclamation, warning the rebel States that he would proclaim
emancipation to their slaves if such States did not return to the
Union before the first day of the following January. Loud were the
denunciations of the copperheads of the country; and all the stale
arguments against negro emancipation which had been used in the West
Indies thirty years before, and since then in our country, were newly
vamped, and put forward to frighten the President and his Cabinet.

The toleration of a great social wrong in any country is ever
accompanied by blindness of vision, hardness of heart, and cowardice
of mind, as well as moral deterioration and industrial impoverishment.
Hence, whenever an earnest attempt is made for the removal of the wrong,
those without eyes noisily declare that they see clearly that nothing
but disastrous consequences will follow; those who are dead to all
sensibility profess to be shocked beyond measure in contemplating the
terrible scenes that must result from the change; and those who have no
faith in justice are thrown into spasms at the mention of its impartial
administration. For a whole generation, covering the period of the
antislavery struggle in this country, have they not incessantly raised
their senseless clamors and indignant outcries against the simplest
claim of bleeding humanity to be released from its tortures, as though
it were a proposition to destroy all order, inaugurate universal ruin,
and “let chaos come again?”

“The proclamation won’t reach the slaves,” said one. “They wont heed
it,” said another.

“This proclamation is an invitation to the blacks to murder their
masters,” remarked a Boston copperhead newspaper. “The slaves will fight
for their masters,” said the same journal, the following day.

“It will destroy the Union.”--“It is harmless and impotent.”--“It will
excite slave insurrection.”--“The slaves will never hear of it.”--“It
will excite the South to desperation.”--“The rebels will laugh it to
scorn.” Delegation after delegation waited on the President, and urged a
postponement of emancipation. The Kentucky Congressional delegation did
all in their power to put back the glorious event. Conservative old-line
Whigs and backsliding antislavery men were afraid to witness the coming
day.

                   “Abraham, spare the South,

                        Touch not a single slave,

                   Nor e’en by word of mouth

                        Disturb the thing, we crave.

                   ‘Twas our forefathers’ hand

                        That slavery begot:

                   There, Abraham, let it stand;

                        Thine acts shall harm it not,”

cried thousands who called at the White House. Washington, Alexandria,
and Georgetown were crowded with “contrabands;” and hundreds were
forwarded to the Sea Islands, to be occupied in cultivating the deserted
plantations. As the day drew near, reports were circulated that the
President would re-call the pledge. The friends of the negro were
frightened; the negro himself trembled for fear that the cause would be
lost. The blacks in all the Southern departments were behaving well, as
if to deepen the already good impression made by them on the Government
officials. Rejoicing meetings were advertised at the Tremont
Temple, Boston, Cooper Institute, New York, and the largest hall in
Philadelphia, and in nearly every-city and large town in the north.
Great preparation was made at the “Contraband Camp,” in the District of
Columbia. At the latter place, they met on the last night in December,
1862, in the camp, and waited patiently for’ the coming day, when they
should become free. The fore part of the night was spent in singing and
prayer, the following being sung several times:--

                   “Oh, go down, Moses,

                   Way down into Egypt’s land;

                   Tell king Pharaoh

                   To let my people go.

               Oh, Pharaoh said he would go cross,

                   Let my people go.

               But Pharaoh and his host was lost,

                   Let my people go.

                        _Chorus_--Oh, go down, Moses, &c.


               O Moses, stretch your hands across,

                   Let my people go.

               And don’t get lost in the wilderness,

                   Let my people go.

                        _Chorus_--Oh, go down, Moses, &c.


               You may hinder me here, but you can’t up there,

                   Let my people go.

               He sits in heaven, and answers prayer,

                   Let my people go.

                        _Chorus_--Oh, go down, Moses, &c.”

After this an old man struck up, in a clear and powerful voice, “I am
a free man now: Jesus Christ has made me free!” the company gradually
joining in; and, before the close, the whole assemblage was singing in
chorus.

It was quite evident, through the exercises of the day and night, that
the negroes regard the condition of the Israelites in Egypt as typical
of their own condition in slavery; and the allusions to Moses, Pharaoh,
the Egyptian task-masters, and the unhappy condition of the captive
Israelites, were continuous; and any reference to the triumphant escape
of the Israelites across the Red Sea, and the destruction of their
pursuing masters, was certain to bring out a strong “Amen!”

An old colored preacher, who displays many of the most marked
peculiarities of his race, calling himself “John de Baptis,” and known
as such by his companions,-from his habit of always taking his text, as
he expresses it, from the “regulations ob de 2d chapter of Matthew, ‘And
in those days came John de Baptis,’” came forward, and, taking his
usual text, went on to show the necessity of following good advice, and
rebuked his hearers for being more lawless than they were in Dixie.

Then came another contraband brother, who said,--

“Onst, the time was dat I cried all night. What’s de matter? What’s de
matter? Matter enough. De nex mornin’ my child was to be sold, an’ she
was sold; an’ I neber spec to see her no more till de day ob judgment.
Now, no more dat! no more dat! no more dat! Wid my hands agin my breast
I was gwine to my work, when de overseer used to whip me along. Now, no
more dat! no more dat! no more dat! When I tink what de Lord’s done
for us, an’ brot us thro’ de trubbles, I feel dat I ought go inter his
service. We’se free now, bress de Lord! (Amens! were vociferated all
over the building.) Dey can’t sell my wife an’ child any more, bress de
Lord! (Glory, glory! from the audience.) No more dat! no more dat! no
more dat, now! (Glory!) Presurdund Lincum hav shot de gate! Dat’s what
de matter!” and there was a prolonged response of Amens!

A woman on her knees exclaimed at the top of her voice,--

                   “If de Debble do not ketch

                   Jeff. Davis, dat infernal retch,

                   An roast and frigazee dat rebble,

                   Wat is de use ob any Debble?”

“Amen! amen! amen!” cried many voices.

At this juncture of the meeting, an intelligent contraband broke out in
the following strain:--

               “The first of January next, eighteen sixty-three,--

               So says the Proclamation,--the slaves will all be free!

               To every kindly heart ‘twill be the day of jubilee;

                        For the bond shall all go free!


               John Brown, the dauntless hero, with joy is looking on;

               From his home among the angels he sees the coming dawn;

               Then up with Freedom’s banners, and hail the glorious mom

                        When the slaves shall all go free!


               We’ve made a strike for liberty; the Lord is on our side;

               And Christ, the friend of bondmen, shall ever be our guide;

               And soon the cry will ring, throughout this glorious land so wide,

                        ‘Let the bondmen all go free!’


               No more from crushed and bleeding hearts we hear the broken sigh;

               No more from brothers bound in chains we’ll hear the pleading cry;

               For the happy day, the glorious day, is coming by and by,

                        When the slaves shall all go free!


               We’re bound to make our glorious flag the banner of the free,

               The first of January next, eighteen sixty-three;

               Of every loyal Northern heart the glad cry then shall be,

                        ‘Let the bondmen all go free!’

‘No Compromise with Slavery!’ we hear the cheering sound, The road to
peace and happiness ‘Old Abe’ at last has found:

With earnest hearts and willing hands to stand by him we’re hound, While
he sets the bondmen free!

The morning light is breaking: we see its cheering ray,--

The light of Truth and Justice, that can never fade away;

And soon the light will brighten to a great and glorious day,

When the slaves shall all go free!

And when we on the ‘other side’ do all together stand,

As children of one family we’ll clasp the friendly hand:

We’ll be a band of brothers in that brighter, better land,--

Where the bond shall all be free!

After several others had spoken, George Payne, another contraband, made
a few sensible remarks, somewhat in these words: “Friends, don’t you see
de han’ of God in dis? Haven’t we a right to rejoice? You all know you
couldn’t have such a meetin’ as dis down in Dixie! Dat you all knows.
have a right to rejoice; an’ so have you; for we shall be free in jus’
about five minutes. Dat’s a fact. I shall rejoice that God has placed
Mr. Lincum in de president’s chair, and dat he wouldn’t let de rebels
make peace until after dis new year. De Lord has heard de groans of de
people, and has come down to deliver! You all knows dat in Dixie you
worked de day long, an’ never got no satisfacshun. But here, what you
make is yourn. I’ve worked six months; and what I’ve made is mine! Let
me tell you, though, don’t be too free! De lazy man can’t go to heaven.
You must be honest, an’ work, an’ show dat you is fit to be free; an’ de
Lord will bless you an’ Abrum Lincum. Amen!”

A small black man, with a rather cracking voice, appearing by his
jestures to be inwardly on fire, began jumping, and singing the
following:--

               “Massa gone, missy too;

                   Cry! niggers, cry!

               Tink I’ll see de bressed Norf,

                   ‘Fore de day I die..

                        Hi! hi! Yankee shot’im;

                        Now I tink dc debbil’s got’im.”

The whole company then joined in singing the annexed song, which made
the welkin ring, and was heard far beyond the camp.

                        I.

               “Oh! we all longed for freedom,

               Oh! we all longed for freedom,

               Oh! we all longed for freedom,

                   Ah! we prayed to be free;

                   Yes, we prayed to be free,

                   Oh! we prayed to be free,

               Though the day was long in coming,

               Though the day was long in coming,

               Though the day was long in coming,

                   That we so longed to see,

                   That we so longed to see,

                   That we so longed to see,

               Though the day was long in coming

                   That we so longed to see.


                        II.

               But bless the great Jehovah,

               But bless the great Jehovah,

               But bless the great Jehovah,

                   At last the glad day’s come,

                   At last the glad day’s come,

                   At last the glad day’s come.

               By fire and sword he brought us,

               By fire and sword he brought us,

               By fire and sword he brought us,

                   From slavery into freedom.

                   From slavery into freedom,

                   From slavery into Freedom;

               By fire and sword he brought us

                   Front slavery into freedom.


                        III.

               We’ll bless the great Redeemer,

               We’ll bless the great Redeemer,

               We’ll bless the great Redeemer,

                   And glorify his name,

                   And glorify his name,

                   And glorify his name,

               And all who helped to bring us,

               And all who helped to bring us,

               And all who helped to bring us

                   From sorrow, grief, and shame,

                   From sorrow, grief, and shame,

                   From sorrow, grief, and shame,

               And all who helped to bring us

                   From sorrow, grief, and shame.

                        IV.

               And blessed be Abraham Lincoln,

               And blessed be Abraham Lincoln,

               And blessed be Abraham Lincoln,

                   And the Union army too,

                   And the Union army too.

               May the choicest of earth’s blessings,

               May the choicest of earth’s blessings,

               May the choicest of earth’s blessings,

                   Their pathways ever strew,

                   Their pathways ever strew,

                   Their pathways ever strew!

               May the choicest of earth’s blessings

                   Their pathways ever strew!

                        V.

               We’ll strive to learn our duty,

               We’ll strive to learn our duty,

               We’ll strive to learn our duty,

                   That all our friends may see,

                   That all our friends may see,

                   That all our friends may see,

               Though so long oppressed in bondage,

               Though so long oppressed in bondage,

               Though so long oppressed in bondage,

                   We were worthy to be free,

                   We were worthy to be free,

                   We were worthy to be free:

               Though so long oppressed in bondage,

                   We were worthy to be free.”

Just before midnight, Dr. Nichols requested all present to kneel, and
to silently invoke the blessing of the Almighty. The silence was almost
deadly when the clock announced the new year; and Dr. Nichols said, “Men
and women (for you are this day to be declared free, and I can address
you as men and women), I wish you a happy new year!” An eloquent prayer
was then offered by an aged negro; after which, all rose, and joined in
singing their version of “Glory! glory! hallelujah!” shaking each
other by the hand, and indulging in joyous demonstrations. They then
promenaded the grounds, singing hymns, and finally serenaded the
superintendent, in whose honor a sable improvisatore carolled forth an
original ode, the chorus of which was, “Free forever! Forever free!”

               “Ring, ring! O Bell of Freedom, ring!

               And to the ears of bondmen bring

               Thy sweet and freeman-thrilling tone.

               On Autumn’s blast, from zone to zone,

               The joyful tidings go proclaim,

               In Liberty’s hallowed name:

               Emancipation to the slave,

               The rights which his Creator gave,

               To live with chains asunder riven,

               To live free as the birds of heaven,

               To live free as the air he breathes,

               Entirely free from galling greaves;

               The right to act, to know, to feel,

               That bands of iron and links of steel

               Were never wrought to chain the mind,

               Nor human flesh in bondage bind;

               That Heaven, in its generous plan,

               Gave like and equal rights to man.

               Go send thy notes from shore to shore,

               Above the deep-voiced cannon’s roar;

               Go send Emancipation’s peal

               Where clashes North with Southern steel,

               And nerve the Southern bondmen now

               To rise and strike the final blow,

               To lay Oppression’s minions low.

               Oh! rouse the mind and nerve the arm

               To brave the blast and face the storm;

               And, ere the war-cloud passes by,

               We’ll have a land of liberty.


               Our God has said, “Let there be light

               Where Error palls the land with night.”

               Then send forth now, O Freedom’s bell,

               Foul Slavery’s last and fatal knell!

               Oh! speed the tidings o’er the land,

               That tells that stern Oppression’s hand

               Has yielded to the power of Right:

               That Wrong is weak, that Truth is might!

               Then Union shall again return,

                   And Freedom’s fires shall brightly burn;

               And peace and jot, sweet guests, shall come,

               And dwell in every heart and home.”

“Free forever! Forever free!”

No pen can fitly portray the scene that followed this announcement.
Every heart seemed to leap for joy: some were singing, some praying,
some weeping, some dancing, husbands embracing Wives, friends shaking
hands, and appearing to feel that the Day of Jubilee had come. A sister
broke out in the following strain, which was heartily joined in by the
vast assembly:--

               “Go down, Abraham, away down in Dixie’s land,

               Tell Jeff. Davis to let my people go.


          Our bitter tasks are ended, all onr unpaid labor done;

          Our galling chains are broken, and our onward march begun:

               Go down, Abraham, away down in Dixie’s land,

               Tell Jeff. Davis to let my people go.


          Down in the house of bondage we have watched and waited long;

          The oppressor’s heel was heavy, the oppressor’s arm was strong:

               Go down, Abraham, away down in Dixie’s land,

               Tell Jeff. Davis to let my people go.


          Not vainly have we waited through the long and darkened years;

          Not vain the patient watching, ‘mid our sweat and blood and tears:

               Go down, Abraham, away down in Dixie’s land,

               Tell Jeff. Davis to let my people go.


          Now God is with Grant, and he’ll surely whip Lee;

          For the Proclamation says that the niggers must be free:

               Go down, Abraham, away down in Dixie’s land,

               Tell Jeff. Davis to let my people go.”

Thus ended the last night of slavery in the contraband camp at
Washington.

The morning of Jan. 1, 1863, was anxiously looked for by the friends of
freedom throughout the United States; and, during the entire day, the
telegraph offices in the various places were beset by crowds, waiting to
hear the news from the Nation’s capital. Late in the day the following
proclamation made its appearance:--

_Washington_, Jan. 1, 1863.--I Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States of America, do issue this my Proclamation:--

Whereas, On the 22d day of September, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, a proclamation was issued by
the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the
following, to wit:--

“That, on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord,
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as
slaves within any State or any designated part of a State, the people
whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be
then, henceforward, and forever, free; and the Executive Government of
the United States, including the military and naval force thereof, will
recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act
or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any effort they may
make for their actual freedom; that the Executive will, on the first day
of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of
States, if any in which the people therein respectively shall then be
in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State or
people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the
Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto, at elections
wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have
participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony,
be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are
not then in rebellion against the United States.

“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by
virtue of the power in me vested, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army
and Navy of the United States in times of actual rebellion against
the authorities and Government of the United States, and as a fit and
necessary war measure for suppressing this rebellion, do on this, the
first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred
and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly
proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the date of the
first above-mentioned order, do designate as the States and parts
of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in
rebellion against the United States. The following, to wit:--

“Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.

“Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Placquemines,
Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption,
Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including
the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South
Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, except the forty-eight counties
designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac,
Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including
the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, which excepted parts are for the
present left precisely as if this proclamation were not made.

“And by virtue of the power, for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and
declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States
and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and the
Executive Government of the United States, including the military and
naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of
such persons.

“And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain
from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend
to them, that, in all cases where allowed, they labor faithfully for
reasonable wages.

“And I further declare and make known, that such persons, if in suitable
condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States,
to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man
vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this, sincerely believed
to be an act of justice warranted by the Constitution, and upon military
necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious
favor of Almighty God.

“In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

“Done at the city of Washington, this first day of January, in the
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the
independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

[L. S.] (Signed) “_ABRAHAM LINCOLN_.

“By the President.

“Wm. H. Seward, _Secretary of State_.”

This was the beginning of a new era: the word had gone forth, and a
policy was adopted.

               “The deed is done. Millions have yearned

                   To see the spear of Freedom cast:

               The dragon writhed and roared and burned;

                   You’ve smote him full and square at last.”

The proclamation gave new life and vigor to our men on the battle-field.
The bondmen everywhere caught up the magic word, and went with it from
farm to farm, and from town to town. Black men flocked to recruiting
stations, and offered themselves for the war. Everybody saw light in
the distance. What newspapers and orators had failed to do in months was
done by the proclamation in a single week. Frances Ellen Harper, herself
colored, cheered in the following strain:--

               “It shall flash through coming ages;

                   It shall light the distant years;

               And eyes now dim with sorrow

                   Shall be brighter through their tears.


               It shall flush the mountain ranges,

                   And the valleys shall grow bright;

               It shall bathe the hills in radiance,

                   And crown their brows with light.


                   It shall flood with golden splendor

                   All the huts of Caroline;

               And the sun-kissed brow of labor

                   With lustre new shall shine.


               It shall gild the gloomy prison,

                   Darkened with the age’s crime,

               Where the dumb and patient millions

                   Wait the better coming time.


               By the light that gilds their prison,

                   They shall seize its mouldering key;

               And the bolts and bars shall vibrate

                   With the triumphs of the free.


               Like the dim and ancient Chaos,

                   Shuddering at Creation’s light,

               Oppression grim and hoary

                   Shall cower at the sight.

               And her spawn of lies and malice

                   Shall grovel in the dust;

               While joy shall thrill the bosoms

                   Of the merciful and just.


               Though the morning seems to linger

                   O’er the hilltops far away,

               The shadows bear the promise

                   Of the quickly coming day.

               Soon the mists and murky shadows

                   Shall be fringed with crimson light,

               And the glorious dawn of freedom

                   Break resplendent on the sight.”




CHAPTER XVI.--THE NEW POLICY.


_A New Policy announced.--Adjutant-Gen. Thomas.--Major-Gen.
Prentiss.--Negro Wit and Humor.--Proslavery Correspondents.--Feeling in
the Army.--Let the Blacks fight._


Attorney-Gen. Bates had already given his opinion with regard to the
citizenship of the negro, and that opinion was in the black man’s favor.
The Emancipation Proclamation was only a prelude to calling on the
colored men to take up arms, and the one soon followed the other;
for the word “Emancipation” had scarcely gone over the wires,
ere Adjutant-Gen. Thomas made his appearance in the valley of the
Mississippi. At Lake Providence, La., he met a large wing of the army,
composed of volunteers from all parts of the country, and proclaimed to
them the new policy of the administration; and he did it in very plain
words, as will be seen:--

“_Fellow-Soldiers_,--Your commanding general has so fully stated the
object of my mission, that it is almost unnecessary for me to say
any thing to you in reference to it. Still, as I come here with full
authority from the President of the United States to announce the
policy, which, after mature deliberation, has been determined upon by
the wisdom of the nation, it is my duty to make known to you clearly and
fully the features of that policy.

“It is a source of extreme gratification to me to come before you
this day, knowing, as I do full well, how glorious have been your
achievements on the field of battle. No soldier can come before soldiers
of tried valor, without having the deepest emotions of his soul stirred
within him. These emotions I feel on the present occasion; and I beg you
will listen to what I have to say, as soldiers receiving from a soldier
the commands of the President of the United States.

“I came from Washington clothed with the fullest power in this matter.
With this power, I can act as if the President of the United States were
himself present. I am directed to refer nothing to Washington, but
to act promptly,--what I have to do to do at once; to strike down the
unworthy and to elevate the deserving.

“Look along the river, and see the multitude of deserted plantations
upon its banks. These are the places for these freedmen, where they can
be self-sustaining and self-supporting. All of you will some day be on
picket-duty; and I charge you all, if any of this unfortunate race come
within your lines, that you do not turn them away, but receive them
kindly and cordially. They are to be encouraged to come to us; they are
to be received with open arms; they are to be fed and clothed; _they are
to be armed._

“This is the policy that has been fully determined upon. I am here to
say that I am authorized to raise as many regiments of blacks as I can.
I am authorized to give commissions, from the highest to the lowest; and
I de

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