The Boys of '61 Part 27

"Because I felt I was a sinner."

"Did you pray, my son?"

"Yes, sir; and I feel that through the mercy of Jesus Christ my sins are pardoned."

It was a simple narrative, and expressed with evident consciousness of the solemnity of the declaration. It was plain that in spiritual things these people were further advanced than in business matters. The evidence was satisfactory, and the member received by an extension of right hand of fellowship on the part of the pastor. In the evening Rev. Mr. Murchison preached from the text, "And they shall call upon the rocks and mountains to fall upon them," &c.

It was a crude, disjointed discourse, having very little logic, a great many large words, some of them ludicrously misapplied, yet contained striking thoughts, and appropriate similes. This was a congregation standing on the lowest step of civilization. Minister and people were but a twelvemonth out of bondage. All behind them was barbarism. Before them was a future, unrevealed, but infinitely better than what their past had been. Their meeting was orderly, and I have seen grave legislative bodies in quite as much of a muddle over a simple question as that congregation of black men emerging from their long night of darkness.

On the following Sunday I was present at a service on Ladies' Island. The owner of the plantation where the meeting was held erected his house in full view of Beaufort, and near the bank of the stream where the tide ebbs and flows upon the sandy beach. It was a mean mansion, standing on posts, to give free circulation to the air underneath. In hot summer days the shade beneath the house was the resort of all the poultry of the premises. Thousands of hard-working New England mechanics live in better houses, yet from Beaufort the place made an imposing show, surrounded by orange and magnolia trees. The sandy acres of the plantation stretched towards St. Helena. A short distance from the planter's house were the weather-beaten cabins of the negroes, mere hovels, without window-panes, with mud chimneys,-the homes of generations who had gone from the darkness and hopelessness of a wearying life to the rest and quiet of the grave.

On that morning when Admiral Dupont sh.e.l.led the Rebels out of the forts at Hilton Head and Bay Point, the owner of these acres made a hasty exit from his house. He sent his overseer to the cabins to hurry up the negroes, but to his surprise not a negro was to be found. The colored people had heard the thundering down the bay. They knew its meaning. It set their hearts beating as they never had throbbed before. It was the sweetest music they ever had heard. A horseman came riding furiously up to the house, with terror in his countenance. The master hastened out to know how the battle was going.

"The Yankees have taken the forts!" said the messenger. The master became pale.

"You had better get your negroes together, and be ready for a move," said the messenger.

Sharp ears had heard all this,-the ears of Sam, a colored man, who, seeing the herald arrive in hot haste, had the curiosity to hear what he had to say, then bounded like a deer to the cabins, running from door to door, whispering to the inmates, "To the woods! to the woods! De Yankees hab taken de forts,-ma.s.sa is going to de mainland, and is going to take us wid him."

The cabins were deserted in an instant; and five minutes later, when the overseer came round to gather his drove of human cattle, he found empty hovels. The planter and his overseer were obliged to do their own hasty packing up.

The plantation was in the hands of a warm-hearted Christian gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts, Mr. Norton. The people of the estate gathered for worship in the large parlor of the house.

The room was eighteen or twenty feet square, and had a wide-mouthed fireplace, in which a cheerful fire of pitch knots was blazing. There was a settee, a mahogany sideboard, where the former owner was accustomed to quaff his wines and liquors. Seats and chairs were brought in. The big dinner-bell was rung, and the people, thirty or forty in number, came in, men, women, and children. Some of the women brought their infants. Uncle Jim, the patriarch of the plantation, was too feeble to attend. The superintendent, Mr. Norton, comforted his heart by reading to him a chapter in the Bible and offering prayers in the miserable cabin, where the old man was lying on a pile of rags. Uncle Jim was a sincere Christian. The word of G.o.d was sweet to him. His heart overflowed with thanks and praise, for the display of G.o.d's great goodness to him and his people.

A hymn was lined off by Mr. Norton, after the fashion of our fathers. William, a stout, middle-aged man, struck into St. Martin's, and the congregation joined, not reading the music exactly as good old Tansur composed it, for there were crooks, turns, slurs, and appoggiaturas, not to be found in any printed copy. It was sung harshly, nasally, and dragged out in long, slow notes.

A pure-blooded negro, Sancho, offered prayer. He had seen great hardship in life and had suffered more than his namesake, the squire, who was once unceremoniously tossed in a blanket. His prayer was the free utterance of a warm heart. It was a familiar talk with Jesus, his best friend. He improved the opportunity to mingle an exhortation with his supplication. He thus addressed the unconverted:-

"O, my poor, impenitent fellow-sinner, what you think you are doing? Where you think you are going? Death will ride up soon in a big black carriage and take you wid him down to de regions of deep darkness. Why don't you repent now, and den he will carry you up into de light of paradise!"

Looking forward to the hour of the Christian's release from the bondage of this life, he said, in conclusion, "And now, good Lord, when we have done chaw all de hard bones and swallowed all de bitter pills, we trust de good Lord will take us to himself."

After an address from the superintendent, Sancho rose.

"My belobed friends," said he, "I neber 'spected to see such a day as dis yere. For twenty years, I hired my time of old ma.s.sa, I was 'bleeged to pay him twelve dollars a month in advance, and if I didn't hab de money ready, he wollopped me. But I's a free man now. De good Lord hab done it all. I can't read. It is de great desire ob my heart to learn to read, so dat I can read de Bible all my own self; but I's too old to learn. But I rejoice dat my chillen can hab de opportunity to study de precious word. De Lord is doin great tings for us in dese yere days. Ole ma.s.sa, was a purty good ma.s.sa, and I prays de Lord to make him lay down his weapons ob rebellion and become a good Union man and a disciple ob de Lord Jesus, for Jesus tells us dat we must lub our enemies."

After the exercises of the religious meeting were concluded, the chairs were set aside, and they began a "praise meeting," or singing meeting. Most of their music is plaintive. The piece frequently commences with a recitative by one voice, and at the end of the first line the chorus joins. The words are often improvised to suit the occasion.

A favorite song is "Roll, Jordan, roll," in which the progression of the melody is very descriptive of the rolling of waves upon the beach. There are many variations of the melody, but that here given is as I heard it sung by the negroes of Bythewood.

Listen | See musical notation

ROLL JORDAN.

Little children sitting on the tree of life. To hear the Jordan roll; O roll, Jordan roll, Jordan roll, Jordan roll. We march the angel march, O march the angel march, O my soul is rising heavenward To hear the Jordan roll.

The verses vary only in recitation. If Mr. Jones is present he will hear, "Mr. Jones is sitting on the tree of life." There is no pause, and before the last roll is ended the one giving the recitative places another personage on the tree, and thus Jordan rolls along.

As the song goes on the enthusiasm rises. They sing louder and stronger. The recitative is given with increased vigor, and the chorus swells with increasing volume. They beat time, at first, with their hands, then their feet. They rise from their seats. William begins to shuffle his feet. Anna, a short, thick-set woman, wearing a checkered dress, and an ap.r.o.n, which once was a window-curtain, claps her hands, makes a short, quick jerk of her body, stamps her feet on the unaccented part of the measure, keeping exact syncopation. Catherine and Sancho catch the inspiration. They go round in a circle, shuffling, jerking, shouting louder and louder, while those outside of the circle respond with increasing vigor, all stamping, clapping their hands, and rolling out the chorus. William seems to be in a trance, his eyes are fixed, yet he goes on with a double-shuffle, till the perspiration stands in beads upon his face. Every joint seems hung on wires. Feet, legs, arms, head, body, and hands swing and jump like a child's dancing Dandy Jim. Sancho enters into it with all his heart, soul, mind, and might, clapping his hands, rolling his eyes, looking upward in ecstasy and outward upon the crowd, as if he were their spiritual father and guardian.

Thus it went on till nature was exhausted. When the meeting broke up, they all came round in procession, shaking hands with the superintendent and the strangers present, and singing a parting song,

"There's a meeting here to-night!"

The superintendent informed me that the children who attended school could not be coaxed to take part in those praise meetings. They had learned to sing Sunday-school songs, and evidently looked upon the plantation songs of their fathers and mothers as belonging to their bondage and not worthy to be sung now that they were free.

A short distance from Hilton Head is the town of Mitchelville, laid out by the lamented astronomer, General Mitch.e.l.l, who fell a victim to the yellow-fever in the summer of 1862. The town is on a broad sandy plain, bordered by groves and thickets of live-oak, palmetto, and the coast pine.

At that time there were about seventy houses,-or cabins rather,-of the rudest description, built of logs, c.h.i.n.ked with clay brought up from the beach, roofs of long split shingles, board floors, windows with shutters,-plain board blinds, without sash or gla.s.s. Each house had a quarter of an acre of land attached. There was no paint or lime, not even whitewash, about them. It was just such a place as might be expected in a new country, where there were no saw-mills or brick-kilns,-a step in advance of a hole in the ground or a bark wigwam. It was the beginning of the experiment of civilization on the part of a semi-barbarous people just released from abject bondage, and far from being free men.

I looked into the first cabin, and seeing an old man sitting before the fire, greeted him with "How do you do, Uncle?" the sobriquet of all middle-aged negro men.

"'Pears how I'm rather poorly,-I's got de chills, boss."

He was a slave in Florida, made his escape from his master's plantation fifty miles inland, reached Fernandina, and entered the lines of the Union army. He was dressed in pants made of old sailcloth, and the tattered cast-off blouse of a Union soldier. The room was twelve feet square. I could see through the c.h.i.n.king in a hundred places. At the coping of the roof, where it should have joined the wall, there was a wide opening all around, which allowed all the warmth to escape. The furniture consisted of three tables, four chairs, a mahogany wash-stand, all of which once stood in the mansion of some island planter. There was a Dutch-oven on the hearth, the sight of which made my mouth water for the delicious tea-cakes of childhood. There were pots, kettles, baskets, and bags, and a pile of rags, old blankets which the soldiers had thrown aside. It required but a few words to thaw out Uncle Jacob, who at once commenced fumbling in his pockets, producing, after a studious search, a brown paper, carefully folded, enclosing the name of a gentleman in New York who had taken home Uncle Jacob's nephew. He wanted me to read it to him,-the name, the street, the number,-that he might learn it by heart.

"He is learning to write, boss, and I shall have a letter from him by and by," said the old man, in glee. He handed me three letters, all from men who once were slaves, not written by them individually, but by amanuenses. One was a sailor on the gunboat Ottawa, off Charleston; one was in New York city, and the third in Ohio.

"Please, boss, I should like to hab you read 'em," he said.

It was a pleasure to gratify the kind-hearted man, who listened with satisfaction beaming from every line of his countenance.

Uncle Jacob had been five months in the employ of the United States, unloading vessels at Hilton Head, and had received only his rations and a little clothing.

"Well, Uncle Jacob, which would you rather be, a freeman or a slave?" I asked.

"O, Lor' bless you, boss, I wouldn't like to be a slave again."

"Do you think you can take care of yourself?"

"Jes let gubberment pay me, boss, and see if I can't."

It was spoken with great earnestness.

In the next cabin I found Peter, who had taken the name of Brown, that of his former master. Slavery gave its victims but one name. General Mitch.e.l.l said that they were ent.i.tled to another name, and he ordered that they should take that of their former masters; hence there are Peter Beauregards, James Trenholms, Susan Rhetts, Julia Barnwells, on the plantations of the Sea Islands.

"Mr. Brown, did you ever hear about the Abolitionists?" I asked.

"Yes, sir, tank you, I's he'd of 'em."

"What did you hear about them?"

"O, dey is a werry bad sort of people, sir. Old ma.s.sa said dat if dey could get a chance dey would take all our pickaninnies and smash der brains out agin de trees!"

"Did you ever see an Abolitionist?"

"No, sir, tank you, nebber saw one."