A Woman's Life-Work-Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland Part 28

The next morning our colonel called again with a little joke: "You meet danger so coolly, I think we had better take you with us to Texas for a general."

I was thankful for the improvement in sister Backus's health by a good night's rest, and that we had escaped. Without further trouble we reached Vicksburg, but learned that the loudest cry for aid was in Natchez, and we hastened there with our supplies. We were offered a home with Lieutenant Thirds and family, who had been invited to occupy rooms at Judge Bullock's. The judge was too strong a secessionist to take the iron-clad oath of allegiance, though solicited by his wife; for she feared they might lose their property by confiscation. To save it, he very blandly offered his parlor and best rooms in his large three-story brick house, where we found very comfortable quarters.

Through Colonel Young, we obtained the use of a good-sized store on Main Street for our goods, and the surgeon of the freedmen's camp provided for us a small room near the camp, where were congregated four thousand freedmen in condemned tents. These tents were so leaky that, from exposure, after heavy rains and wind, we had from five to fifteen deaths in a day. Here we found constant work for head, heart, hands, and feet.

But few days elapsed at any time without hearing the roar of battle near by, and sometimes the cloud of blue smoke met our eye. One battle was fought within two miles by the negro soldiers, only a few days after the terrible Fort Pillow ma.s.sacre. They fought desperately. One of their officers told me they had to command their soldiers to stop, and they obeyed only at the point of the bayonet; for they mowed the enemy down like gra.s.s, although they lowered their colors and began to stack their arms. Their officers told them to stop firing; but a number of soldiers replied, while reloading, "They hear no cry for quarter at Fort Pillow," and fired again. But when the enemy stacked their arms they were peremptorily ordered to stop. I didn't blame the boys for feeling as they did over that awful ma.s.sacre. But strange as it seems, not one of our soldiers was killed, or even wounded. There was a white regiment in reserve, if needed; and the colored soldiers almost resented the idea that they needed any a.s.sistance whatever.

There was great excitement in the freedmen's camp that day over their victory. Said one woman, whose husband and two sons were soldiers in this battle:

"Why didn't you shoot away as long as one was lef'?"

"Our officers compelled us to stop."

"I don't care for that; they need killin', _every one_."

Said I, "You wouldn't kill the women, would you?"

"Yes, I would," she answered; "for they's wusser'n the men."

"Well, there are the innocent little children--you wouldn't kill them, would you?"

Hesitating a little, she said:

"Yes, I would, madam; for I tell you nits make vermin."

She and all her family had belonged to Judge Bullock's wife, and she was still living in her little cabin and doing the work for the family, as she had done heretofore, though she did not work so hard. She would take the time to do our washing for us. She said Judge Bullock was harder to please than her mistress; but he was afraid of our soldiers, and when Natchez was taken he kept hid in a thicket of bushes in the garden a number of days. They took his meals to him when no one was in sight, expecting the Yankees would kill every man they met; but as he found it otherwise he came into the house, and now he talked with us quite freely. Their slaves were mostly house-servants, and better treated than many others. Judge Bullock was formerly from the North, and married in the South, and his wife inherited the slaves. Their cook was a mulatto, of more than ordinary intelligence, and she told me of the most terrible scenes of barbarity that she had witnessed.

The marks of cruelty were in that camp so frequently seen--men with broken shoulders and limbs--that it was heart-sickening to listen to the recital of their wrongs.

One man I saw with a shred of an ear, and I inquired how his ear became torn like that. He hesitated to tell me, but one of his fellow-slaves said it was done by order of their master; that he was stripped and fastened by a large nail driven through his ear to a tree, and the overseer was directed to whip him on his naked body until his writhings tore his ear out, and that only ended the punishment. One man by the name of Matthew Lasley, living within two miles of this city, owned one hundred slaves, and was his own overseer. He worked his slaves early and late, and was proverbial for cruelty to them. They were not half fed or clothed. A few days after he had sold the wife and child of his slave Jack, they were burning log heaps and clearing off a few acres of new ground. They had worked until about midnight, and were preparing to "turn in." Jack had split an armful of kindling-wood, and was now ready to go to his lonely hut. Then his utter desolation rolled in upon his mind. When his master stooped over to light his cigar, the thought came to him like a flash to kill him, and then he too would die, and so would end his bitter days. No sooner was the thought conceived than the act was done. The ax was buried in Lasley's head; and he sank, a dead man, without uttering a word. Jack came immediately to the city, tapped on the window of Dr. Smith's sleeping apartment, the son-in-law of Lasley, and told him he wanted him to go at once to the new clearing with him. When the doctor went out Jack told him that he had killed his master.

"What did you do it for?"

"Master sole my wife and chile, an' I don't want to live any longer.

Now, master, you may shoot me, or take me to jail, or do any thing you're a min' to."

"Well, Jack, I know you've had a hard time; but I shall have to take you to jail, any how, and see what the court will do."

After ordering Lasley's body to be taken care of, he returned to his wife and told her all, and added that he wondered he had not been killed long before, as it was what he had looked for. Dr. Smith employed one of the best lawyers in the city to plead Jack's case, and had all the Lasley slaves brought into court, not one of whom was without marks of cruelty--a broken arm or leg, an ear cut off, or an eye out. They were all in a nearly nude condition, three children under ten years of age entirely so. The daughter begged her husband to allow better clothes for them; but the doctor and the lawyer insisted upon their coming into court with just the clothing provided for them by their master The lawyer made an eloquent plea for Jack, and pointed to the hundred slaves, maimed and crippled and almost naked, and Jack was acquitted. Lasley's extreme cruelty had created a public sentiment in Jack's favor, so that unexpectedly to himself his life was saved. Jack was hunting for his wife and child among the mult.i.tude, but had not yet succeeded in finding them.

Week after week was spent in making personal investigations, measuring and preparing bundles for those nearly naked. As new refugees were daily coming in, the officers found it necessary to organize a new camp over the river, in the rear of Vidalia, Louisiana, on the Ralston plantation. As a few hundred were gathered there we went over and found them exceedingly dest.i.tute. There were twenty families, mostly of those recently enlisted as soldiers. Some of them were almost ready to desert. Said one, "They say we are free, and what sort of freedom is this, for us to see our families without a board, shingle, or canvas to cover their heads? We are concluding to leave our regiment and build something to shelter our wives and children. They haven't got a place to sleep at night except in the open field." We told them we would make their families our first care, and advised them not to leave. Upon this they became more calm, and concluded to wait armpits, as I chose to keep my arms out in case of tipping over. Here came brother Reed, one of the teachers, offering to aid me; but he had no pa.s.s or transportation, and no time to get it. I called the attention of a pa.s.sing general to my necessity for help, to be able to return before the firing of the sundown gun. He said if he was in command he would allow him to go with my load, and advised him to try it. On we hastened, but met an ambulance that Captain Howe had sent to the new camp for a sick woman with two small children. It was obliged to return, not being able to pa.s.s through the lines, as the provost marshal was not to be found. The supposition was very strong that the lines were closed, as it was the weakest point in the post, and the smoke of rebel fires was in sight on Lake Concordia. A battle had been fought a few days before, and another attack was-daily threatened. The driver and brother Reed were doubting the propriety of crossing the river. "For if the lines are closed," they said, "the President himself would not be permitted to pa.s.s." But I told them as they did not positively know that the lines were closed, we had better cross.

"It is your load, and if you say go we shall go," said brother Reed.

"I say go," was my decision.

Soon we were in front of the provost marshal's office. But he was not there, and no one knew where he was. After a long search, in accordance with my plea, some of the guards discovered and brought him back, reeling, with his head of long hair thoroughly decorated with feathers and straws. I met him in his office and read to him my papers, holding, them before his face as I would exhibit a picture to a two-year old baby. After explaining all, I made my request to pa.s.s his lines with my load of supplies.

"Who--who's there?"

I told him who he was that so kindly offered to aid me in disbursing these supplies just as I was starting; and that a general advised me to take him with my load, as he would pa.s.s him, if in command.

"Well, well, I don'--don't--li-like--this--whole--whole-sa-sale business."

But I pleaded for those suffering women and children with all the politeness I was capable of mastering, with disgust boiling over. With stuttering and mumbling his dislikes, and shaking his head, with the feathers and straws waving and nodding in every direction, he took his pen and scribbled a pa.s.s that was difficult to decipher. The next line of guards hardly knew what to do with it until I told them the provost marshal was drunk.

"O, yes, and it's no new trick; go on."

And without further difficulty we reached the group of sufferers, who were shivering as if in an ague fit. I threw to each family two blankets or quilts, and more than forty children were crawling between them within three minutes. I gave to each of those twenty women a suit of men's clothing that day to help them out of this intense suffering.

I gave them also three rag-carpet blankets out of the four that were sent me by a woman who took up a new rag-carpet she had just put down, and cut it into four pieces after listening to the recital of the great suffering in these camps. She said she should put no more carpets on her floor as long as the war lasted.

Although I had seen so many marks of cruelty among these people, yet I said to myself, O that these poor people had remained in their old homes a little longer! Surely they can not suffer there like this. A little girl came for me to go to the old blacksmith-shop used as a temporary hospital, as her mother thought her brother was dying, and another brother was very sick. I entered that shop, and listened to the groans of the dying. I repeated to myself, O that they had waited a little longer! Four men and the little son of the distressed mother that sent for me were evidently dying, and four others were sick with pneumonia. The mother of these two sick boys was doing all she could for them all. I gave her ground mustard to make poultices, and ginger for those who had chills, and told her how to use them. I had a few pounds of each, and generally took a little package with me, especially after a storm. This miserable shelter leaked but little, but one side and one end were so open that we could throw a hat through the wall.

I saw a pile of irons by the door. Placing my foot on a queer double jointed ring, I said:

"I wonder what that queer sort of a ring could have been used for,"

looking toward the old dilapidated cotton-gin near by.

"That's a neck iron," said an old woman standing near me.

"A neck-iron! What do you mean?"

"Why, it's an iron collar to wear on the neck."

"But you are certainly mistaken," said I, picking it up; "you see these joints are riveted with iron as large as my finger, and it could never be taken off over one's head."

"But we knows; dat's Uncle Tim's collar. An' he crawled off in dat fence-corner," pointing to the spot, "an' died thar, an' Ma.s.sa George had his head cut off to get de iron off."

"Is it possible for a human being to become so brutal as to cut a man's head off when he is dead?"

She looked as if she thought I doubted her word, and said: "It didn't hurt Uncle Tim when he was dead as it did when de iron wore big sores way down to de bone, and da got full o' worms afore he died. His neck an' head all swell up, an' he prayed many, many prayers to G.o.d to come and take him out his misery."

"How long did he wear it?"

"'Bout two years."

"Two years! It is impossible for any one to live that length of time with this rough heavy iron."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SLAVE IRONS IN POSSESSION OF THE AUTHOR]

"We work two seasons, any how, over in dat cotton-fiel'," pointing to the two-hundred-acre cotton-field at our right.

I took up another iron, and inquired, "What sort of an iron is this?"

"A knee-stiffener, to w'ar on de leg to keep 'em from runnin' off in dat swamp," pointing to the dark swamp bordering Lake Concordia, so fully draped with long Southern moss that in many places in it nothing could be discovered three feet in the thicket.

I went to the rear of the shop, with the ring under my shawl. Here stood a dozen or more of old and crippled men and women.

"Did any of this company," I asked, "live on this plantation before the war?"