The Boys of '61 Part 42

"Sisters, let us bless the Lord. Sisters, join in the chorus," he said, and led off with a kind of recitative, improvised as the excitement gave him utterance. From my note-book I select a few lines:-

RECITATIVE.

"We are going to the other side of Jordan."

CHORUS.

"So glad! so glad!

Bless the Lord for freedom, So glad! so glad!

We are going on our way, So glad! so glad!

To the other side of Jordan, So glad! so glad!

Sisters, won't you follow?

So glad! so glad!

Brothers, won't you follow?"

And so it went on for a half-hour, without cessation, all dancing, clapping their hands, tossing their heads. It was the ecstasy of action. It was a joy not to be uttered, but demonstrated. The old house partook of their rejoicing. It rang with their jubilant shouts, and shook in all its joints.

I stood an interested spectator. One woman, well dressed, intelligent, refined in her deportment, modest in her manner, said, "It is one way in which we wors.h.i.+p, sir. It is our first day of freedom."

The first day of freedom! Behind her were years of suffering, hards.h.i.+p, unrequited toil, heartaches, darkness, no hope of recompense or of light in this life, but a changeless future. Death, aforetime, was their only deliverer. For them there was hope only in the grave. But suddenly Hope had advanced from eternity into time. They need not wait for death; in life they could be free. Is it a wonder that they exhibited extravagant joy?

Apart from the dancers was a woman with light hair, hazel eyes, and fair complexion. She sat upon the broad steps of the piazza, and looked out upon the fields, or rather into the air, unmindful of the crowd, the dance, or the shouting. Her features were so nearly of the Anglo-Saxon type that it required a second look to a.s.sure one that there was African blood in her veins. She alone of all the crowd was sad in spirit. She evidently had no heart to join in the general jubilee.

"Where did you come from?" I asked.

"From Caroline County."

Almost every one else would have said, "From old Caroline." There was no trace of the negro dialect, more than you hear from all cla.s.ses in the South, for slavery has left its taint upon the language; it spares nothing, but is remorseless in its corrupting influences.

"You do not join in the song and dance," I said.

"No, sir."

Most of them would have said "master" or "boss."

"I should think you would want to dance on your first night of freedom, if ever."

"I don't dance, sir, in that way."

"Was your master kind to you?"

"Yes, sir; but he sold my husband and children down South."

The secret of her sadness was out.

"Where are you going? or where do you expect to go?"

"I don't know, sir, and I don't care where I go."

The conversation ran on for some minutes. She manifested no animation, and did not once raise her eyes, but kept them fixed on vacancy. Husband and children sold, gone forever,-there was nothing in life to charm her. Even the prospect of freedom, with its undefined joys and pleasures, its soul-stirring expectations, raising the hopes of those around her, moved her not.

Life was a blank. She had lived in her master's family, and was intelligent. She was the daughter of her master. She was high-toned in her feelings. The dancing and shouting of those around her were distasteful. It was to her more barbaric than Christian. She was alone among them. She felt her degradation. Freedom could not give her a birthright among the free. The daughter of her master! It was gall and wormwood; and he, her father, had sold her husband and his grandchildren!

I had read of such things. But one needs to come in contact with slavery, to feel how utterly loathsome and hateful it is. There was the broken-hearted victim, so bruised that not freedom itself, neither the ecstasy of those around her, could awaken an emotion of joy. Hour after hour the festivities went on, but there she sat upon the step, looking down the desolate years gone by, or into a dreamless, hopeless future.

It was late at night before the dancers ceased, and then they stopped, not because of a surfeit of joy, but because the time had come for silence in the camp. It was their first Sabbath of freedom, and like the great king of Israel, upon the recovery of the ark of G.o.d, they danced before the Lord with all their might.

We had a hard, dusty ride from the encampment at Mongohick to the Pamunkey. It was glorious, however, in the early morning to sweep along the winding forest-road, with the head-quarters' flag in advance. Wherever its silken folds were unfurled, there the two commanders might be found,-General Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, and General Grant, the commander of all the forces of the Union in the field. We pa.s.sed the long line of troops, crossed the Pamunkey upon a pontoon bridge, rode a mile or two across the verdant intervale, and halted beneath the oaks, magnolias, and b.u.t.tonwoods of an old Virginia mansion. The edifice was reared a century ago. It was of wood, stately and substantial. How luxurious the surrounding shade; the smooth lawn, the rolled pathways bordered by box, with moss-roses, honeysuckle, and jessamines scenting the air, and the daisies dotting the greensward! The sweep of open land,-viewing it from the wide portico; the long reach of cultivated grounds; acres of wheat rolling in the breeze, like waves of the ocean; meadow-lands, smooth and fair; distant groves and woodlands,-how magnificent! It was an old estate, inherited by successive generations,-by those whose pride it had been to keep the paternal acres in the family name. But the sons had all gone. A daughter was the last heir. She gave her hand, and heart, and the old homestead,-sheep, horses, a great stock of bovines, and a hundred negroes or more,-to her husband. The family name became extinct, and the homestead of seven or eight generations pa.s.sed into the hands of one bearing another name.

When McClellan was on the Peninsula, the shadow of the war-cloud swept past the place. One or two negroes ran away, but at that time they were not tolerated in camp. The campaign of 1862 left the estate unharmed. But Sheridan's cavalry, followed by the Sixth Corps, in its magnificent march from the North Anna, had suddenly and unexpectedly disturbed the security of the old plantation. There was a rattling fire from carbines, a fierce fight, men wounded and dead, broken fences, trodden fields of wheat and clover; ransacked stables, corn-bins, meat-houses, and a swift disappearing of live stock of every description.

Foraging.

But to go back a little. The proprietor of this estate ardently espoused Secession. His wife was as earnest as he. They hated the North. They loved the inst.i.tutions and principles of the South. They sold their surplus negroes in the Richmond market. They parted husbands and wives, tore children from the arms of their mothers, and separated them forever. They lived on unrequited labor, and grew rich through the breeding of human flesh for the market.

When the war commenced, the owner of this magnificent estate enlisted in the army and was made a Colonel of cavalry. He furnished supplies and kept open house for his comrades in arms; but he fell in a cavalry engagement on the Rappahannock, in October, 1863, leaving a wife and three young children. The advance of the army, its sudden appearance on the Pamunkey, left Mrs. --- no time to remove her personal estate, or to send her negroes to Richmond for safe keeping. Fitz-Hugh Lee disputed Sheridan's advance. The fighting began on this estate. Charges by squadrons and regiments were made through the corn-fields. Horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, were seized by the cavalrymen. The garden, filled with young vegetables, was spoiled. In an hour there was complete desolation. The hundred negroes-cook, steward, chambermaid, house and field hands, old and young-all left their work and followed the army. Mrs. --- was left to do her own work. The parlors of the stately mansion were taken by the surgeons for a hospital. The change which Mrs. --- experienced was from affluence to abject poverty, from power to sudden helplessness.

Pa.s.sing by one of the negro cabins on the estate, I saw a middle-aged colored woman packing a bundle.

"Are you going to move?" I asked.

"Yes, sir; I am going to follow the army."

"What for? Where will you go?"

"I want to go to Was.h.i.+ngton, to find my husband. He ran away awhile ago, and is at work in Was.h.i.+ngton."

"Do you think it right, auntie, to leave your mistress, who has taken care of you so long?"

She had been busy with her bundle, but stopped now and stood erect before me, her hands on her hips. Her black eyes flashed.

"Taken care of me! What did she ever do for me? Haven't I been her cook for more than thirty years? Haven't I cooked every meal she ever ate in that house? What has she done for me in return? She has sold my children down South, one after another. She has whipped me when I cried for them. She has treated me like a hog, sir! Yes, sir, like a hog!"

She resumed her work of preparation for leaving. That night she and her remaining children joined the thousands of colored people who had already taken sudden leave of their masters.

Returning to the mansion to see the wounded, I met Mrs. --- in the hall. She was tall, robust, dignified. She evidently did not fully realize the great change which had taken place in her affairs. The change was not complete at that moment. The colored steward was there, hat in hand; obsequious, bowing politely, and obeying all commands. A half-hour before I had seen him in the cook's cabin, making arrangements for leaving the premises, and a half-hour later he was on his way toward freedom.

"I wish I had gone to Richmond," said the lady. "This is terrible, terrible! They have taken all my provisions, all my horses and cattle. My servants are going. What shall I do?" She sank upon the sofa, and for a moment gave way to her feelings.

"You are better off here than you would be there, with the city full of wounded, and scant supplies in the market," I remarked.

"You are right, sir. What could I do with my three little children there? Yet how I am to live here I don't know. When will this terrible war come to an end?"

But enough of this scene. I have introduced it because it is real, and because it is but one of many. There are hundreds of Southern homes where the change has been equally great. Secession is not what they who started it thought it would be. The penalties for crime always come, sooner or later. G.o.d's scales are correctly balanced. He makes all things even. For every tear wrung from the slave by injustice, for every broken heart, for the weeping and wailing of mothers for their babes sold to the far-off South, for every wrong there is retribution

"Though the mills of G.o.d grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, With exactness grinds he all."