Book: Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862

V >> Various >> Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862




'It is clear,' I replied, 'he could not bear freedom, but that does not
prove he might not have 'endured' it if he had never been a slave. His
overjoy at obtaining liberty, after so long a struggle for it, led to
his excesses and his ruin. According to your view, neither the black nor
the poor white is competent to take care of himself. The Almighty,
therefore, has laid upon _you_ a triple burden; you not only have to
provide for yourself and your children, but for two races beneath you,
the black and the clay-eating white man. The poor nigger has a hard
time, but it seems to me you have a harder one.'

'Well, it's a fact, we do. I often think that if it wasn't for the color
and the odor, I'd be glad to exchange places with my man Jim.'

The Colonel made this last remark in a half-serious, half-comic way,
that excited my risibilities amazingly, but before I could reply, the
carriage stopped, and Jim, opening the door, announced:

'We's h'ar, massa, and de prayin' am gwine on.'

Had we not been absorbed in conversation, we might have discovered the
latter fact some time previous to our arrival at the church-door, for
the preacher was shouting at the top of his lungs. He evidently thought
the good Lord either a long way off, or very hard of hearing. Not
wishing to disturb the congregation at their devotions, we loitered near
the doorway until the prayer was over, and in the mean time I glanced
around the premises.

The 'meeting-house,' of large unhewed logs, was a story and a half in
hight, and about large enough to seat comfortably a congregation of two
hundred persons. It was covered with shingles, with a roof projecting
some four feet over the wall, and was surmounted at the front gable by a
tower, about twelve feet square. This also was built of logs, and
contained a bell 'to call the erring to the house of prayer,' though,
unfortunately, all of that character thereabouts dwelt beyond the sound
of its voice. The building was located at a cross-roads about equally
distant from two little hamlets, (the nearest nine miles off,) neither
of which was populous enough to singly support a church and a preacher.
The trees in the vicinity had been thinned out, so that carriages could
drive into the woods, and find under the branches shelter from the rain
and the sun, and at the time of my visit, about twenty vehicles of all
sorts and descriptions, from the Colonel's magnificent barouche to the
rude cart drawn by a single two-horned quadruped, filled the openings.
There was a rustic simplicity about the whole scene that charmed me. The
low, rude church, the grand old pines that towered in leafy magnificence
around it, and the soft, low wind, that sung a morning hymn in the
green, wavy woods, seemed to lift the soul up to Him who inhabiteth
eternity, but who also visits the erring children of men.

The preacher was about to 'line out' one of Watts' psalms, when we
entered the church, but he stopped short on perceiving us, and, bowing
low, waited till we had taken our seats. This action, and the
sycophantic air which accompanied it, disgusted me, and turning to the
Colonel, I asked jocosely:

'Do the chivalry exact so much obsequiousness from the country clergy'?
Do you require to be bowed up to heaven?'

In a low voice, but high enough, I thought, for the preacher to hear,
for we sat very near, the Colonel replied:

'He's a renegade Yankee--the meanest thing on earth.'

I said no more, but entered into the services as seriously as the
strange gymnastic performances of the preacher would allow me to do, for
the truth is, he was quite as amusing as a circus clown.

With the exception of the Colonel's and a few other pews in the vicinity
of the pulpit, all of the seats were mere rough benches, without backs,
and placed so closely together as to interfere uncomfortably with the
knees of the sitters. The house was full, and the congregation as
attentive as any I ever saw. All classes were there; the black
serving-man away off by the doorway, the poor white a little higher up,
the small turpentine-farmer a little higher still, and the wealthy
planter, of the class to which the Colonel belonged, on 'the highest
seats of the synagogue,' and in close proximity to the preacher.

The 'man of prayer' was a tall, lean, raw-boned, angular-built
individual, with a thin, sharp, hatchet-face, a small sunken eye, and
long, loose hair, brushed back and falling over the collar of a seedy
black coat. He looked like nothing in the world I have ever seen, and
his pale, sallow face, and cracked, wheezy voice, were in comic keeping
with his discourse. His text was: 'Speak unto the children of Israel,
that they go forward.' And addressing the motley gathering of poor
whites and small-planters before him as the 'chosen people of God,' he
urged them to press on in the mad course their State had chosen. It was
a political harangue, a genuine stump-speech, but its frequent allusion
to the auditory as the legitimate children of the old patriarch, and the
rightful heirs of all the promises, struck me as out of place in a rural
district of South-Carolina, however appropriate it might have been in
one of the large towns, before an audience of merchants and traders, who
are, almost to a man, Jews.

The services over, the congregation slowly left the church. Gathered in
groups in front of the 'meeting-house,' they were engaging in a general
discussion of the affairs of the day, when the Colonel and I emerged
from the doorway. The better class greeted my host with considerable
cordiality, but I noticed that the well-to-do, small planters, who
composed the greater part of the assemblage, received him with decided
coolness. These people were the 'North county folks' on whom the
overseer had invoked a hanging. Except that their clothing was more
uncouth and ill-fashioned, and their faces generally less 'cute' of
expression, they did not differ materially in appearance from the rustic
citizens who may be seen on any pleasant Sunday gathered around the
door-ways of the rural meeting-houses of New-England.

One of them, who was leaning against a tree, quietly lighting a pipe,
was a fair type of the whole, and as he took a part in the scene which
followed, I will describe him. He was tall and spare, with a swinging,
awkward gait, and a wiry, athletic frame. His hair, which he wore almost
as long as a woman's, was coarse and black, and his face strongly
marked, and of the precise color of two small rivulets of tobacco-juice
that escaped from the corners of his mouth. He had an easy,
self-possessed manner, and a careless, devil-may-care way about him,
that showed he had measured his powers, and was accustomed to 'rough it'
with the world. He wore a broadcloth coat of the fashion of some years
ago, but his waistcoat and nether garments of the common, reddish
homespun, were loose and ill-shaped, as if their owner did not waste
thought on such trifles. His hat, as shockingly bad as Horace Greeley's,
had the inevitable broad brim, and fell over his face like a
calash-awning over a shop-window. As I approached him he extended his
hand with a pleasant 'How are ye, stranger?.'

'Very well,' I replied, returning his grasp with equal warmth, 'how are
you?'

'Right smart, right smart, thank ye. You're--' the rest of the
sentence was cut short by a gleeful exclamation from Jim, who, mounted
on the box of the carriage, which was drawn up on the cleared plot in
front of the meeting-house, waved an open newspaper over his head, and
called out, as he caught sight of the Colonel:

'Great news, massa, great news from Charls'on!'

(The darky, while we were in church, had gone to the post-office, some
four miles away, and got the Colonel's mail, consisting of letters from
his New-York and Charleston factors, the Charleston _Courier_ and
_Mercury_ and the New-York _Journal of Commerce_. The latter sheet, at
the date of which I am writing, was in wide circulation at the South,
its piety (!) and its politics being then calculated with mathematical
precision for secession latitudes.)

'What is it, Jim?' shouted his master. 'Give it to us.'

The darky had somehow learned to read, but holding the paper at arm's
length, and throwing himself into a theatrical attitude, he belched out,
with any amount of gesticulation, the following:

'De news am, massa, and gemmen and ladies, dat de ole fort fore
Charls'on hab hen devacuated by Major Andersin and de sogers, and dat
dey hab stole 'way in de dark night and gone to Sumter, whar dey can't
be took; and dat de ole Gubner hab got out a procdemation dat all dat
don't lub de Aberlishen Yankees shill cum up dar and clar 'em out; and
de paper say dat lots ob sogers hab cum from Gorgia and Al'bama and 'way
down Souf, to help 'em. Dis am w'at de _Currer_ say,' he continued,
holding the paper up to his eyes and reading: 'Major Andersin, ob
United States army hab 'chieved de 'stinction ob op'ning de cibil war
'tween American citizens; he hab desarted Moulfrie, and by false
fretexts hab took de ole Garrison and all his millinery stores to Fort
Sumter.'

'Get down, you d----d nigger,' said the Colonel, laughing, and mounting
the carriage-box beside him. 'You can't read. Old Garrison isn't
there--he's the d----d Northern Abolitionist.'

'I knows dat, Cunnel, but see dar,' holding the paper out to his master,
'don't dat say he'm dar? It'm him dat make all de trubble. P'raps dis
nig' can't read, but ef dat ain't readin' I'd like to know it!'

'Clear out,' said the Colonel, now actually roaring with laughter; 'it's
the soldiers that the _Courier_ speaks of, not the Abolitionist.'

'Read it yoursef, den, massa, I don't seed it dat way.'

Jim was altogether wiser than he appeared, and while he was equally as
well pleased with the news as the Colonel, he was so for an entirely
different reason. In the crisis which these tidings announced, he saw
hope for his race.

The Colonel then read the paper to the assemblage. The news was received
with a variety of manifestations by the auditory, the larger portion, I
thought, hearing it, as I did, with sincere regret.

'Now is the time to stand by the State, my friends,' said my host as he
finished the reading. 'I hope every man here is ready to do his duty by
old South-Carolina.'

'Yes, _sar!_ if she does _har_ duty by the Union. We'll go to the death
for har just so long as she's in the right, but not a d----d step if she
arn't,' said the long-legged native I have introduced to the reader.

'And what have _you_ to say about South-Carolina? What does, she owe to
_you?_' asked the Colonel, turning on the speaker with a proud and angry
look.

'More, a darned sight than she'll pay, if ye cursed 'ristocrats run her
to h---- as ye'r doing. She owes me, and 'bout ten as likely niggers as
ye ever seed, a living, and we've d----d hard work to get it out on her
_now_, let alone what's comin'.

'Don't talk to me, you ill-mannered cur,' said my host, turning his back
on his neighbor, and directing his attention to the remainder of the
assemblage.

'Look har, Cunnel,' replied the native, 'if ye'll jest come down from
thar and throw 'way yer shootin'-irons, I'll give ye the all-firedest
thrashing ye ever did get.'

The Colonel gave no further heed to him, but the speaker mounted the
steps of the meeting-house and harangued the natives in a strain of rude
and passionate declamation, in which my host, the aristocrats, and the
Secessionists came in for about equal shares of abuse. Seeing that the
native (who, it appeared, was quite popular as a stump-speaker) was
drawing away his audience, the Colonel descended from the driver's seat,
and motioning for me to follow, entered the carriage. Turning the horses
homeward, we rode off at a brisk pace.

'Not much Secession about that fellow, Colonel,' I remarked, after a
while.

'No,' he replied, 'he's a North-Carolina 'corn-cracker,' one of the
meanest specimens of humanity extant. They're as thick as fleas in this
part of the State, and about all of them are traitors.'

'Traitors to the State, but true to the Union. As far as I've seen, that
is the case with the middling class throughout the South.'

'Well, it may be, but they generally go with us, and I reckon they will
now, when it comes to the rub. Those in the towns--the traders and
mechanics--will, certain; it's only these half-way independent planters
that ever kick the traces. By the way,' continued my host, in a jocose
way, 'what did you think of the preaching?'

'I thought it very poor. I'd rather have heard the stump-speech, had it
not been a little too personal on you.'

'Well, it was the better of the two,' he replied, laughing, 'but the
old devil can't afford any thing good, he don't get enough pay.'

'Why, how much does he get?'

'Only a hundred dollars.'

'That is small. How does the man live?'

'Well, he teaches the daughter of my neighbor, Captain Randall, who
believes in praying, and gives him his board. Randall thinks that
enough. The rest of the parish can't afford to pay him, and I _won't_.'

'Why won't you?'

'Because he's a d----d old hypocrite. He believes in the Union with all
his heart--at least, so Randall, who's a sincere Union man, says--and
yet, he never sees me at meeting but he preaches a red-hot secession
sermon.'

'He wants to keep you in the faith,' I replied.

A few more miles of sandy road took us to the mansion, where we found
dinner in waiting. Meeting 'Massa Tommy'--who had staid at home with his
mother--as we entered the doorway, the Colonel asked after the overseer.

'He seems well enough, sir; I believe he's coming the possum over
mother.'

'Ill bet on it, Tommy; but he won't fool you and me, will he, my boy?'
said his father, slapping him affectionately on the back.

After dinner I went with my host to the room of the wounded man. His
head was still bound up, and he was groaning piteously, as if in great
pain; but I thought there was too fresh a color in his face to be
entirely natural in one who had lost so much blood, and been so severely
wounded as he affected to be.

The Colonel mentioned our suspicions to Madam P----, and suggested that
the shackles should be put on him.

'Oh! no, don't do that; it would be inhuman,' said the lady; 'the color
is the effect of fever. If you fear he is plotting to get away, let him
be watched.'

The Colonel consented, but with evident reluctance, to the arrangement,
and retired to his room to take a _siesta_, while I lit a cigar, and
strolled out to the negro-quarters.

Making my way through the woods to the scene of the morning's
jollification, I found about a hundred darkies gathered around Jim, on
the little plot in front of Old Lucy's cabin. Jim had evidently been
giving them the news. Pausing when I came near, he exclaimed:

'Har's Massa K----, he'll say dat I tells you de trufh;' then turning to
me, he said: 'Massa K----, dese darkies say dat Massa Andersin am an
ab'lisherner, and dat none but de ab'lisherners will fight for de Union;
am dat so, sar?'

'No, I reckon not, Jim; I think the whole North would fight for it if it
were necessary.'

'Am dat so, massa? am dat so?' eagerly inquired a dozen of the darkies;
'and am dar great many folks at de Norf--more dan dar am down har?'

'Yas, you fools, didn't I tell you dat?' said Jim, as I, not exactly
relishing the idea of preaching treason, in the Colonel's absence, to
his slaves, hesitated to reply. 'Hain't I tole you,' he continued, 'dat
in de big city ob New-York dar'm more folks dan dar am in all Car'lina?
I'se been dar, and I knows; and Massa K----'ll tell you dat dey--'most
on 'em--feel mighty sorry for de brack man.'

'No he won't,' I replied, 'and besides, Jim, you should not talk in this
way before me; I might tell your master.'

'No! you won't do dat; I knows you won't, massa. Scipio tole us he'd
trust his bery life wid _you_.'

'Well, perhaps he might; it's true I would not injure _you_.' Saying
that, I turned away, though my curiosity was greatly excited to hear
more.

I wandered farther into the woods, and a half-hour found me near one of
the turpentine distilleries. Seating myself on a rosin barrel, I quietly
finished my cigar, and was about lighting another, when Jim made his
appearance.

'Beg pardon, Massa K----,' said the negro, bowing very low, 'but I
wants to ax you one or two tings, ef you please, sar.'

'Well,' I replied, 'I'll answer any thing that I ought to.'

'Der yer tink, den, massa, dat dey'll git to fightin' at Charls'on?'

'Yes, judging by the tone of the Charleston papers you've read to-day, I
think they will.'

'And der yer tink dat de rest ob de Souf will jine wid Souf Car'lina, if
she go at it fust?'

'Yes, Jim, I'm inclined to think so.'

'I hard you say to massa, dat ef dey goes to war,'twill free all de
niggers--der you raily b'lieve dat, sar?'

'_You_ heard me say that; how did you hear it?' I exclaimed, in
surprise.

'Why, sar, de front winder ob de carriage war down jess a crack, and I
hard all you said.'

'Did you let it down on purpose?'

'P'r'aps so, massa. Whot's de use ob habin' ears, ef you don't h'ar?'

'Well, I suppose not much; and you tell all you hear to the other
negroes?'

'I reckon so, massa,' said the darky, looking very demure.

'That's the use of having a tongue, eh?' I replied, laughing.

'Dat's it 'zaxly, massa.'

'Well, Jim, I do think the slaves will be finally freed; but it will
cost more white blood to do it than all the niggers in creation are
worth. Do you think the darkies would fight for their freedom?'

'Fight, sar!' exclaimed the negro, straightening up his fine form, while
his usual good-natured look--passed from his face and gave way to an
expression that made him seem more like an incarnate fiend than a human
being; 'FIGHT, sar; gib dem de chance, and den see.'

'Why are you discontented? You have been at the North, and you know the
blacks are as well off as the majority of the poor laboring men there.'

'You say dat to me, Massa K----; you don't say it to de _Cunnel_. We are
not so well off as de pore man at de Norf! You knows dat, sar. He hab
his wife and children, and his own home; what hab we, sar? No wife, no
children, no home; all am de white man's. Der yer tink we wouldn't fight
to be free?' and he pressed his teeth together, and there passed again
over his face the same look it wore the moment before.

'Come, come, Jim, this may be true of your race; but it don't apply to
yourself. Your master is kind and indulgent to _you_.'

'He am kind to me, sar; he orter be,' said the negro, the savage
expression coming again into his eyes. For a moment he hesitated; then,
taking a step toward me, he placed his face down to mine, and hissed out
these words, every syllable seeming to come from the very bottom of his
being. 'I tell you he orter be, sar, FUR I AM HIS OWN FATHER'S SON!'

'Your brother!' I exclaimed, springing to my feet, and looking at him in
blank amazement. 'It can't be true.'

'It am true, sar--as true as there's a hell! His father had my mother:
when he got tired of her, he sold her Souf. _I was too young den eben to
know her_!'

'This is horrible, too horrible!' I said.

'It am slavery, sar! Shouldn't we be contented?' replied the negro with
a grim smile. Drawing, then, a large spring-knife from his pocket, he
waved it above his head, adding: 'Ef I had all de white race dar--right
dar under dat knife, don't yer tink I'd take all dar lives--all at one
blow--to be FREE!'

'And yet you refused to run away when the Abolitionists tempted you, at
the North. Why didn't you go then?'

''Cause I had promised, massa.'

'Promised the Colonel before you went?'

'No, sar, he neber axed me; but _I_ can't tell you no more. P'raps
Scipio will, ef you ax him.'

'Oh! I see; you're in that league, of which Scip is a leader. You'll get
into trouble, _sure_,' I replied, in a quick, decided tone, which
startled him.

'You tole Scipio dat, sar, and what did _he_ tell you?'

'That he didn't care for his life.'

'No more do I, sar,' said the negro, as he turned on his heel with a
proud, almost defiant gesture, and started to go.

'A moment, Jim. You are very imprudent; never say these things to any
other mortal; promise me that.'

'You'se bery good, massa, bery good. Scipio say you's true, and he'm
allers right. I ortent to hab said what I hab; but sumhow, sar, dat news
brought it all up _har_,' (laying his hand on his breast,) 'and it wud
come out.'

The tears filled his eyes as he said this, and turning away without
another word, he passed from my sight behind the trees.

I was almost stunned by this strange revelation, but the more I
reflected on it, the more probable it appeared. Now, too, that my
thoughts were turned in that direction, I called to mind a certain
resemblance between the Colonel and the negro that I had not heeded
before. Though one was a high-bred Southern gentleman, claiming an old
and proud descent, and the other a poor African slave, they had some
striking peculiarities which might indicate a common origin. The
likeness was not in their features, for Jim's face was of the
unmistakable negro type, and his skin of a hue so dark that it seemed
impossible he could be the son of a white man, (I afterward learned that
his mother was a black of the deepest dye,) but it was in their form and
general bearing. They had the same closely-knit and sinewy frame, the
same erect, elastic step, the same rare blending of good-natured ease
and dignity--to which I have already alluded as characteristic of the
Colonel--and in the wild burst of passion that accompanied the negro's
disclosure of their relationship, I saw the same fierce, unbridled
temper, whose outbreaks I had witnessed in my host.

What a strange fate was theirs! Two brothers--the one the owner of three
hundred slaves, and the first man of his district--the other, a bonded
menial, and so poor that the very bread he ate, the clothes he wore,
were another's! How terribly on him had fallen the curse pronounced on
his race!

I passed the remainder of the afternoon in my room, and did not again
meet my host until the family assembled at the tea-table. Jim then
occupied his accustomed seat behind the Colonel's chair, and my host was
in more than his usual spirits, though Madam P----, I thought, wore a
sad and absent look.

The conversation rambled over a wide range of subjects, and was carried
on mainly by the Colonel and myself; but toward the close of the meal
the lady said to me:

'Mr. K----, Sam and young Junius are to be buried this evening. If you
have never seen a negro funeral, perhaps you'd like to attend.'

'I will be happy to accompany you, Madam, if you go,' I replied.

'Thank you,' said the lady.

'Pshaw! Alice, you'll not go into the woods on so cold a night as this!'

'Yes, I think I ought to. Our people will expect me.'

* * * * *

It was about an hour after nightfall when we took our way to the
burial-ground. The moon had risen, but the clouds which gathered when
the sun went down, covered its face, and were fast spreading their
thick, black shadows over the little collection of negro-houses. Near
two new-made graves were gathered some two hundred men and women, as
dark as the night that was setting around them. As we entered the circle
the old preacher pointed to the seats reserved for us, and the sable
crowd fell back a few paces, as if, even in the presence of death, they
did not forget the difference between their race and ours.

Scattered here and there among the trees, torches of lightwood threw a
wild and fitful light over the little cluster of graves, and revealed
the long, straight boxes of rough pine that held the remains of the two
negroes, and lit up the score of russet mounds beneath which slept the
dusky kinsmen who had gone before them.

The simple head-boards that marked these humble graves chronicled no
bad biography or senseless rhyme, and told no false tales of lives that
had better not have been, but 'SAM, AGE 22;' 'POMPEY;' 'JAKE'S ELIZA;;
'AUNT SUE;' 'AUNT LUCY'S TOM;' 'JOE;' and other like inscriptions,
scratched in rough characters on those unplaned boards, were all the
records there. The rude tenants had passed away and 'left no sign;'
their birth, their age, their deeds, were alike unknown--unknown, but
not forgotten; for are they not written in the book of His
remembrance--and when He counteth up his jewels, may not some of them be
there?

The queer, grotesque dress, and sad, earnest looks of the black group;
the red, fitful glare of the blazing pine, and the white faces of the
tapped trees, gleaming through the gloom like so many sheeted-ghosts
gathered to some death-carnival, made up a strange, wild scene--the
strangest and the wildest I had ever witnessed.

The covers of the rude coffins were not yet nailed down, and when we
arrived, the blacks were one by one passing before them, taking a last
look at the faces of the dead. Soon, Junius, holding his weeping wife by
the hand, approached the smaller of the two boxes, which held all that
was left of their first-born. The mother kneeling by its side, kissed
again and again the cold, shrunken lips, and sobbed as if her heart
would break; while the strong frame of the father shook convulsively,
as, choking down the great sorrow which welled up in his throat, he
turned away from his boy forever. As he did so, old Pompey said:

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