servative. It makes the absolute political equality of the white race everywhere practicable. It dispenses with the English order of nobility, and leaves every white man, North and South, owning slaves or owning none, the equal of every other white man. It has reconciled universal suffrage throughout the free States with the stability of government. I speak not now of its material benefits to the North and West, which are many and more obvious. But the South, too, has profited many ways by a union with the non-slaveholding States. Enterprise, industry, selfreliance, perseverance, and the other hardy virtues of a people living in a higher latitude and without hereditary servants, she has learned or received from the North. Sir, it is easy, I know, to denounce all this, and to revile him who utters it. Be it so. The English is, of all languages, the most copious in words of bitterness and reproach. "Pour on: I will endure." . . Whoever hates negro slavery more than he loves the Union, must demand separation at last. I think that you can never abolish slavery by fighting. Certainly you never can till you have first destroyed the South, and then, in the language, first of Mr. Douglas and afterwards of Mr. Seward, converted this Government into an imperial despotism. And, sir, whenever I am forced to a choice between the loss to my own country and race, of personal and political liberty with all its blessings, and the involuntary domestic servitude of the negro, I shall not hesitate one moment to choose the latter alternative. The sole question to-day is between the Union with slavery, or final disunion, and, I think, anarchy and despotism. I am for the Union. It was good enough for my fathers. It is good enough for us and our children after us. Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 37 Cong., 3 sess. (John C. Rives, Washington, 1863), 53-59 passim, January 14, 1863. 130. "The Black Regiment" (1863) BY GEORGE HENRY BOKER Boker was an author and poet, and a man of prominent social position in Philadelphia. He was one of the founders of the Union League of Philadelphia, and a moving spirit in the aid furnished to the Union cause by that notable organization, while his pen was active in writing patriotic lyrics and vigorous prose in behalf of his country. The action here described took place at Port Hudson, May 27, 1863. —— Bibliography as in No. 124 above. D ARK as the clouds of even, Ranked in the western heaven, Waiting the breath that lifts Arm to arm, knee to knee, Down the long dusky line "Now," the flag-sergeant cried, Though death and hell betide, Let the whole nation see If we are fit to be Free in this land; or bound "Charge!" Trump and drum awoke, Onward the bondmen broke; Bayonet and sabre-stroke Vainly opposed their rush. Through the wild battle's crush, With but one thought aflush, Driving their lords like chaff, Or at the slippery brands "Freedom!" their battle cry, Rolled in triumphant blood. Glad to breathe one free breath, So they could once more see This was what "freedom" lent To the black regiment. Hundreds on hundreds fell; Scorn the black regiment ! George H. Boker, Poems of the War (Boston, 1864), 99–103. 131. Contrabands (1864) BY CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN (1866) Coffin, as a war correspondent of the Boston Journal, witnessed many battles in both the eastern and the western campaigns. He wrote under the name of "Carleton," and after the war gathered his records into a series of books written under the same name. Many of these are for juvenile readers, for whom he has also written other books dealing with interesting periods of American history. — Bibliography as in No. 124 above. D URING the march the next day towards the North Anna, I halted at a farm-house. The owner had fled to Richmond in advance of the army, leaving his overseer, a stout, burly, red-faced, tobaccochewing man. There were a score of old buildings on the premises. It had been a notable plantation, yielding luxuriant harvests of wheat, but the proprietor had turned his attention to the culture of tobacco and the breeding of negroes. He sold annually a crop of human beings for the southern market. The day before our arrival, hearing that the Yankees were coming, he hurried forty or fifty souls to Richmond. He intended to take all, - forty or fifty more, but the negroes fled to the woods. The overseer did his best to collect them, but in vain. The proprietor raved, and stormed, and became violent in his language and behavior, threatening terrible punishment on all the runaways, but the appearance of a body of Union cavalry put an end to maledictions. He had a gang of men and women chained together, and hurried them toward Richmond. The runaways came out from their hiding-places when they saw the Yankees, and advanced fearlessly with open countenances. The first pleasure of the negroes was to smile from ear to ear, the second to give everybody a drink of water or a piece of hoe-cake, the third to pack up their bundles and be in readiness to join the army. "Are you not afraid of us?" "Afraid! Why, boss, I's been praying for yer to come; and now yer is here, thank de Lord." "Are you not afraid that we shall sell you?" "No, boss, I is n't. The overseer said you would sell us off to Cuba, to work in the sugar-mill, but we did n't believe him." Among the servants was a bright mulatto girl, who was dancing, singing, and manifesting her joy in violent demonstration. "What makes you so happy?" I asked. "Because you Yankees have come. I can go home now." "Is not this your home?" "No. I come from Williamsport in Maryland." "When did you come from there?" "Last year. Master sold me. army. He ran away last year. away, and he sold me." I spect my brother is 'long with the Master was afraid that I should run mere The negroes came from all the surrounding plantations. Old men with venerable beards, horny hands, crippled with hard work and harder usage; aged women, toothless, almost blind, steadying their steps with sticks; little negro boys, driving a team of skeleton steers, bones and tendons covered with hide, or wall-eyed horses, spavined, foundered, and lame, attached to rickety carts and wagons, piled with beds, tables, chairs, pots and kettles, hens, turkeys, ducks, women with infants in their arms, and a sable cloud of children trotting by their side. "Where are you going?" I said to a short, thick-set, gray-bearded old man, shuffling along the road; his toes bulging from his old boots, and a tattered straw hat on his head, his gray wool protruding from the crown. "I do'no, boss, where I's going, but I reckon I'll go where the army goes." "And leave your old home, your old master, and the place where you have lived all your days?" "Yes, boss; master, he 's gone. He went to Richmond. Reckon he went mighty sudden, boss, when he heard you was coming. Thought I'd like to go along with you." His face streamed with perspiration. He had been sorely afflicted with the rheumatism, and it was with difficulty that he kept up with the column; but it was not a hard matter to read the emotions of his heart. He was marching towards freedom. Suddenly a light had shined upon him. Hope had quickened in his soul. He had a vague idea of what was before him. He had broken loose from all which he had been accustomed to call his own,— his cabin, a mud-chinked structure, with the ground for a floor, his garden patch, to go out, in his old age, wholly unprovided for, yet trusting in God that there would be food and raiment on the other side of Jordan. It was a Jordan to them. It was the Sabbath-day, bright, clear, calm, and delightful. There was a crowd of several hundred colored people at a deserted farm-house. |