Historical Romance of the American Negro Part 7

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

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

"Arise! Shine forth, for the light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee!" Thus saith the Prophet, and it was now fulfilled.

What a treat, to be sure, for men and women thus to learn to read the mighty word of G.o.d, many of them in their old age! Verily, the ways of the Lord are wonderful and past finding out! Much hardship was experienced at first in finding suitable buildings in which to teach the people, and many a church and school-house were burned to the ground both during the war and the first years that followed the entire collapse of the "peculiar inst.i.tution," but that has not stopped the triumphal march of the education of the colored race, for who, indeed, could stop the waves of the ocean?

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

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A SCENE ON THE JACKSON PLANTATION._]

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

Away down in Egypt's land We have gained the victory, Away down in Egypt's land We have gained the day!

Oh, children ain't you glad, The sea gave away?

When Moses smote the waters The children all pa.s.sed over,- O, glory, halleluia!

For we have gained the day!

Oh, children, ain't you glad, That Moses smote the waters,- Oh, children ain't you glad The sea gave away?

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

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

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

"My Dear Beulah:-

"I dare say that you and the children are looking for a letter from me once more. I duly received your own nice, kind and most welcome letters, with all the sweet home news, and I can a.s.sure you that they did me an immense deal of good whilst being confined here with my wound. I am, however, doing very well indeed, and in a short time expect to be discharged and in the ranks once more. It is impossible for me to tell you of the kindness and attention of these doctors and nurses in this hospital, it is really most astonishing to see strangers so kind. We are all loud in the praises of these good people, who are taking the best care in the world of us when we are so far from home and from our loved ones. n.o.body knows how much good there is in the world until he comes across good strangers like these. Of course there is always plenty of evil in it too; but it is at least a very great compensation to come across so much love and kindness among such strange people. We never looked for anything better than cuffs and blows!

"Although I was not in the very best mood, as I was brought down to New Orleans to enjoy the sights all around me, still I was tremendously impressed with the majesty and immensity of the ever-glorious Mississippi. Well, to be sure,-to be sure! What a grand factor of our national greatness is the Mississippi! I don't wonder at yourself and Mrs. John B. Sutherland always making such a fuss over our glorious river. Indeed too much can never be spoken in its praise, and, above all,-of the great Creator who made it. I have seen plenty of the 'Father of Waters' before on many a long day, as I went sweeping past the forts where I was located further up the river; but, as we came on, it received so many and such large rivers, into its swollen waters, till it was more like a sea than a river; and, although level and dest.i.tute of beautiful banks like the Ohio, it had ever an increasing majesty and grandeur about it that mightily impressed all who beheld it. I don't wonder at Uncle Sam fighting so hard for the restoration of the Union.

Such a river as the Mississippi alone,-if there were no other,-is the very joy and glory of the United States. But I shall have more to tell you about these things at another time, and I hope to be able to do so by word of mouth when the war is over.

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

"I have had a good deal of conversation with a soldier who served in the Red river campaign under General Banks, and where the rebels numbered three to our one. In that campaign we were unsuccessful, for they defeated our forces day after day. We were about ten thousand in number, as we fled before such overwhelming odds. It was at this crisis that the black soldier proved himself such 'a very present help in the time of trouble.' If it had not been for d.i.c.key's colored troops there would have been a regular slaughter of the Union forces at Pleasant Grove.

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

"Your most affectionate,

"THOMAS."

CHAPTER VII.

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

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

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

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: _SCENES AT NIAGARA FALLS._]

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

I have always looked back upon the coming of that book into my house as a real blessing.

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

As Niagara Falls were not more than twenty-two miles away, we all occasionally took a holiday and went down and spent the day there, crossing over to the Canadian sh.o.r.e by way of the Suspension Bridge, that we might stand on Table Rock and see the great "Horseshoe Fall."

Well, really, the Falls of Niagara are a wonderful sight. Even our own smaller American Fall is a splendid sight, though rather diminutive compared with the great Horseshoe Fall on the Canadian side of the river. I can never understand how a mere puny man can stand before the great Creator's works here, and say, "There is no G.o.d."

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

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

"To Captain Thomas Lincoln,

"My Dear Husband.-The children and I took the train at Buffalo and came here two weeks ago, to pay a long-promised visit to the Gibsons at 'Richmond Hill' farm, which lies in the county of Oxford some ten or twelve miles from the nearest station on the railroad. We left Buffalo early in the morning, and thus had the whole day before us, and plenty of leisure to look at the highly cultivated country through which we pa.s.sed. The country was truly delightful all the way to Ingersoll, were we got out of the train, and where one of the Gibsons met us with a buggy. We all got in, and the children and I were greatly pleased with the charming country all around us, the farms being in such a high state of cultivation. But it was not all farming land that we pa.s.sed through, for our way in one place led us through the forest, where the squirrels were running in perfect freedom overhead in the branches, and we could hear the woodman's axe ringing both far and near and bringing down the tall trees. After we had come about ten miles, we saw 'Richmond Hill'

high up on the rising ground on the far side of a very narrow valley, that ran down to the cypress swamp away on our right hand. So we issued out of the woods on the top of the hill we were now descending, made our way along the creek at the bottom for a little distance to the right, and then we opened a big country gate and made our way up through the fields to the farm house door. While the girls and I were looking around at the grand view presented on all hands to our astonished eyes, the front house door opened, and out came Mrs. Gibson and her two daughters, and as many of the sons as were at home at the time of our arrival. They helped us out of the buggy, kissed and embraced us most rapturously, and gave us a very warm, hearty and enthusiastic welcome. (My whole soul fairly grows warm when I think of that welcome among the good Canadians). So they brought us into their nice house, which reminded me of the 'Palace Beautiful' in the Pilgrim's Progress. I had a little room for myself on a wing of the house. They called my room the 'Guest Chamber,' and it was a snug room with a pretty name I am sure. The girls slept in another small room near my own. Our things were all brought into the house and well disposed of within reach, and we felt most thoroughly at home among a kind people whose loving ways filled me and the girls with surprise. Mr. Gibson himself came home during the day, and gave us a warm welcome to Richmond Hill, and we saw the whole family with the exception of two who were not at home at that time.

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

"This glorious visit to Richmond Hill, where we have already been for two weeks, seems to the girls and me the essence of all enchantment, and the very ground we tread upon seems to be perfectly enchanted ground.

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

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

"We have little cause indeed to find fault with Southern sympathizers far, far away beyond the deep, blue seas, when they are swarming all over the North, and are found mixed up in every part of the Union,-East, West and South as well. There are tens of thousands of people, who, I firmly believe, would rather see the very Union itself broken up than that the curse of slavery should now come to an end! We here in Canada have nothing to do but look around us to see the proofs of all this. In these trying days, when Uncle Sam is compelled to resort to one draft after another draft, to fill up the depleted ranks of our armies, there are thousands and tens of thousands of men who have crossed over here into British America, and I have seen plenty of them with my own eyes.

One day I met quite a fine young doctor from Maine,-quite a fine medical man, and a good looking fellow to boot, who addressed me in these words, "I was at home in Maine with my newly married wife when the draft came, and I was taken. I have no hatred against Southern men who never did me any harm, and considered I had no right to throw my young life away on Southern bullets. I had also other conscientious objections to the whole business, and did not consider their war any interest of mine! The Canadian frontier, therefore, being near at hand, it was my own privilege to do just as I pleased-'to use force' as well as they! So I crossed the Canadian border, and here I am in good health and safety!

Upon that he drew a letter out of his inside vest pocket,-a letter just received from his wife, along with the photograph of her, which he showed me, and she looked most uncommonly pretty too.

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

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

"As we stood and looked we could see the long, fertile, southern plains under the noon-day sun; the woods and forest lay around them like a fringe in the distance; so minute and life-like did the very trees and bushes appear that I could almost tell what species they belonged to.

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