The Boys of '61 Part 59

"Then you are glad the Yankees are here?"

"O chile! I can't bress de Lord enough; but I doesn't call you Yankees."

"What do you call us?"

"I call you Jesus's aids, and I call you head man de Messiah." She burst out into a rhapsody of hallelujah and thanksgivings. "I can't bress de Lord enough; and bress you, chile: I can't love you enough for comin."

"Were you not afraid, Aunty, when the sh.e.l.ls fell into the town?"

She straightened up, raised her eyes, and with a look of triumphant joy, exclaimed,-

"When Mr. Gillmore fired de big gun and I hear de sh.e.l.l a-rushin ober my head, I say, Come dear Jesus, and I feel nearer to Heaben dan I eber feel before!"

My laundress at Port Royal was Rosa, a young colored woman, who escaped from Charleston in 1862, with her husband and four other persons, in a small boat. On that occasion Rosa dressed herself in men's clothes, and the whole party early one morning rowed past Sumter, and made for the gunboats.

"If you go to Charleston I wish you would see if my mother is there," said Rosa. "Governor Aiken's head man knows where she lives."

We went up King Street to Governor Aiken's. We found his "head man" in the yard,-a courteous black, who, as soon as he learned that we were Yankees, and had a message from Rosa to her mother, dropped all work and started with us, eager to do anything for a Yankee. A walk to John Street, an entrance through a yard to the rear of a dwelling-house, brought us to the mother, in a small room, cluttered with pots, kettles, tables, and chairs. She was sitting on a stool before the fire, cooking her scanty breakfast of corn-cake. She had a little rice meal in a bag given her by a Rebel officer. She was past sixty years of age,-a large, strong woman, with a wide, high forehead and intellectual features. She was clothed in a skirt of dingy negro cloth, a sack of old red carpeting, and poor, thin canvas shoes of her own make. Such an introduction!

"Here comes de great Messiah, wid news of Rosa!" said my introducer, with an indescribable dramatic flourish.

The mother sprang from the stool with a cry of joy. "From Rosa? From Rosa? O, thank the Lord!" She took hold of my hands, looked at me with intense earnestness and joy, and yet with a shade of doubt, as if it could not be true.

"From Rosa?"

"Yes, Aunty."

She kneeled upon the floor and looked up to heaven. She saw not us, but G.o.d and Jesus. The tears streamed from her eyes. She recounted in prayer all her long years of slavery, of suffering, of unrequited toil, and achings of the heart. "You have heard me, dear Jesus! O blessed Lamb!"

It was a conversation between herself and the Saviour. She told him the story of her life, of all its sorrows, of his goodness, kindness, and love, the tears rolling down her cheeks the while and falling in great drops upon the floor. She wanted us to stay and partake of her humble fare, pressed my hands again and again; and when we told her we must go, she asked for G.o.d's best blessing and for Jesus' love to follow us. It was a prayer from the heart. We had carried to her the news that she was free, and that her Rosa was still alive. The long looked-for jubilee morning had dawned, and we were to her G.o.d's messengers, bringing the glad tidings. It was one of the most thrilling moments I ever experienced.

This woman had been a slave, had been sold, exposed to insult, had no rights which a white man was bound to respect. So said the Chief Justice of the United States, Roger B. Taney. G.o.d ordained her, in his beneficent goodness, to be a slave. So preached Rev. Dr. Thornwell, the great South Carolina theologian; so said the Southern Presbyteries, by solemn resolutions. Remembering these things, I went out from that humble dwelling with my convictions deepened that it was G.o.d's war, and that the nation was pa.s.sing through the fire in just punishment for its crimes against humanity.

The 22d of February, Washington's birthday, was celebrated in Charleston as never before. In the afternoon a small party of gentlemen from the North sat down to a dinner. Among them were Colonel Webster, Chief of General Sherman's staff, Colonel Markland of the Post-Office Department, several officers of the army and navy, and four journalists, all guests of a patriotic gentleman from Philadelphia, Mr. Getty.

Our table was spread in the house of a caterer who formerly had provided sumptuous dinners for the Charlestonians. He was a mulatto, and well understood his art; for, notwithstanding the scarcity of provisions in the city, he was able to provide an excellent entertainment, set off with canned fruits, which had been put up in England, and had run the gauntlet of the blockade.

"John Brown" in Charleston.

Sentiments were offered and speeches made, which in other days would have been called incendiary. Five years before if they had been uttered there the speakers would have made the acquaintance of Judge Lynch, and been treated to a gratuitous coat of tar and feathers, or received some such chivalric attention, if they had not dangled from a lamp-post or the nearest tree. Lloyd's Concert Band, colored musicians, were in attendance, and "Hail Columbia," the "Star-Spangled Banner," and "Yankee Doodle,"-songs which had not been heard for years in that city,-were sung with enthusiasm. To stand there, with open doors and windows, and speak freely without fear of mob violence, was worth all the precious boon had cost,-to feel that our words, our actions, our thoughts even, were not subject to the misinterpretation of irresponsible inquisitors,-that we were not under Venetian espionage, but in free America, answerable to G.o.d alone for our thoughts, and to no man for our actions, so long as they did not infringe the rights of others.

Henceforth there shall be free speech in Charleston. A party of twenty gentlemen began the new era on the 22d of February, and to me it will ever be a pleasant reflection that I was one of the privileged number.

While dining we heard the sound of drums and a chorus of voices. Looking down the broad avenue we saw a column of troops advancing with steady step and even ranks. It was nearly sunset, and their bayonets were gleaming in the level rays. It was General Potter's brigade, led by the Fifty-Fifth Ma.s.sachusetts,-a regiment recruited from the ranks of slavery. Sharp and shrill the notes of the fife, stirring the drum-beat, deep and resonant the thousand voices singing their most soul-thrilling war-song,-

"John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave."

Mingling with the chorus were cheers for Governor Andrew and Abraham Lincoln!

They raised their caps, hung them upon their bayonets. Proud their bearing. They came as conquerors. Some of them had walked those streets before as slaves. Now they were freemen,-soldiers of the Union, defenders of its flag.

Around them gathered a dusky crowd of men, women, and children, dancing, shouting, mad with very joy. Mothers held up their little ones to see the men in blue, to catch a sight of the starry flag, with its crimson folds and ta.s.sels of gold.

"O dark, sad millions, patiently and dumb, Waiting for G.o.d, your hour at last has come, And freedom's song Breaks the long silence of your night of wrong."

Up the avenue, past the citadel, with unbroken ranks, they marched, offering no insult, uttering no epithet, manifesting no revenge, for all the wrongs of centuries heaped upon them by a people now humbled and at their mercy.

While walking down the street an hour later I inquired my way of a white woman. She was going in the same direction, and kindly volunteered to direct me.

"How do the Yankees behave?" I asked.

"O, they behave well enough, but the n.i.g.g.e.rs are dreadful sa.s.sy."

"They have not insulted you, I hope."

"O no, they haven't insulted me, but they have other folks. They don't turn out when we meet them; they smoke cigars and go right up to a gentleman and ask him for a light!"

The deepest humiliation to the Charlestonians was the presence of negro soldiers. They were the provost guard of the city, with their head-quarters in the citadel. Whoever desired protection papers or pa.s.ses, whoever had business with the marshal or the general commanding the city, rich or poor, high-born or low-born, white or black, man or woman, must meet a colored sentinel face to face and obtain from a colored sergeant permission to enter the gate. They were first in the city, and it was their privilege to guard it, their duty to maintain law and order.

A Rebel officer who had given his parole, but who was indiscreet enough to curse the Yankees, was quietly marched off to the guard-house by these colored soldiers. It was galling to his pride, and he walked with downcast eyes and subdued demeanor.

The gorgeous spectacle of the numerous war vessels in the harbor flaming with bunting from yardarm and topmast, and thundering forth a national salute in double honor of the day and the victory, deeply impressed the minds of the colored population with the invincibility of the Yankees.

"O gosh a mighty! It is no use for de Rebs to think of standing out against de Yankees any longer. I'll go home and bring Dinah down to see de sight!" cried an old freedman as he beheld the fleet. Bright colors are the delight of the African race, and a grand display of any kind has a wonderful effect on their imagination.

Neither the white nor the colored people comprehended the change which had taken place in their fortunes. The whites forgot that they were no longer slave-drivers. Pa.s.sing down Rutledge Street one morning I saw a crowd around the door of a building. A friend who was there in advance of me said that he heard an outcry, looked in, and found a white man whipping a colored woman. Her outcries brought a colored sergeant of the Provost Guard and a squad of men, who quietly took the woman away, told her to go where she pleased, and informed the man that that sort of thing was "played out." Two white women were pa.s.sing at the time. "O my G.o.d! To think that we should ever come to this!" was the exclamation of one. "Yes, madam, you have come to it, and will have to come to a good deal more," was the reply of my friend.

There were a few Union men in the city, who through the long struggle had been true to the old flag. They were mostly Germans. Many Union officers escaping from prison had been kindly cared for by these faithful friends, who had been subjected to such close surveillance that secretiveness had become a marked trait of character.

I saw a small flag waving from a window, and wishing to find out what sort of a Union man resided there, rang the bell. A man came to the door, of middle age, light hair, and an honest German face.

"I saw the stars and stripes thrown out from your window, and have called to shake hands with a Union man, for I am a Yankee."

He grasped my proffered hand and shook it till it ached.

"Come in, sir. G.o.d bless you, sir!"

Then suddenly checking himself, he lowered his voice, looked into the adjoining rooms, peeped behind doors, to see if there were a listener near.

"We have to be careful; spies all about us," said he, not fully realizing that the soldiers of the Union had possession of the city. He showed me a large flag.

"Since the fall of Sumter," said he, "my wife and I have slept on it every night. We have had it sewed into a feather-bed."

He gazed upon it as if it were the most blessed thing in the world.

He had aided several soldiers in escaping from prison; and on one occasion had kept two officers secreted several weeks, till an opportunity offered to send them out to the blockading fleet.