Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive Part 10

I think of three sweet birdlings, Left in the dear home-nest, And my soul is sick with longings, That will not be at rest.

O, when will the war be over, Alice?

O, when shall I behold Rose, with her pure white forehead, And Maud, with her curls of gold; And Will, so gay and sprightly, So merry and full of glee, And more than all, the dear wife Who bore my babes to me?

G.o.d guard and keep you all, Alice; G.o.d guard and keep me, too, For if only one were missing, What would the others do?

O, when will the war be over, And when shall I behold Those whom I love so dearly, Safe in the dear home-fold?

The Wife's Reply.

Dedicated to the Author of "The Soldier's Dream of Home."

You say you dream of us, Willie, When fall the shades of night, And you wrap your cloak around you By the camp-fire's flickering light; And you wonder if our little ones Have bowed their curly heads, And asked a blessing for you, Before they sought their beds!

It was but this very night, Willie, That our Willie came to me, And looking up into my face, As he stood beside my knee, He said, "Mamma, I wonder When will this war be o'er, For O, I long so much to see My dear papa once more."

My heart was full of tears, Willie, But I kept them from my eyes, And the answer that I made him Opened his with sad surprise-?

"Suppose he should never come, Willie!"

"But, mamma, I know he will, For I pray to Jesus every night To spare my father still."

I clasped him in my arms, Willie, I pressed him to my breast; His childish faith it shamed me, And my spirit's vague unrest; And I felt that our Heavenly Father, From his throne in the "City of Gold,"

Would watch you and guard you and bring you Safe back to the dear home-fold.

We think of you every night, Willie; We think of you every day; Our every prayer wafts to Heaven the name Of one who is far away.

And Rose, with her pure white forehead, And Maud, with her curls of gold, Are talking in whispers together, Of the time when they shall behold

The father they love so dearly; And Willie, with childish glee, Is bidding me "not to forget to tell Papa to remember me."

So we think of you every night, Willie By the camp-fire's fitful gleams, Until the war shall be over, Let us mingle still in your dreams.

A. L. Y.[]

CHAPTER XI.

The Atrocities of Slavery - The Beauties of the Peculiar Inst.i.tution - A few Well-substantiated Facts - Visit to Gallatin, Tennessee.

The Atrocities of Slavery.

A late number of the Atlantic Monthly gives the following in relation to General Butler and his administration in Louisiana:

Among the many personal anecdotes are the following, which are almost too horrible to be published, but for the impressive lesson they convey. One of the incidents was related more briefly by the General himself, when in New York, in January last. We quote from the writer in the Atlantic.

Just previous to the arrival of General Banks at New Orleans, I was appointed Deputy Provost-Marshal of the city, and held the office for some days after he had a.s.sumed command. One day, during the last week of our stay in the South, a young woman of about twenty years called upon me to complain that her landlord had ordered her out of her house, because she was unable longer to pay the rent, and she wished me to authorize her to take possession of one of her father's houses that had been confiscated, he being a wealthy rebel, then in the Confederacy, and actively engaged in the rebellion.

The girl was a perfect blonde in complexion; her hair was of a very pretty light shade of brown, and perfectly straight; her eyes a clear, honest gray; and her skin as delicate and fair as a child's. Her manner was modest and ingenuous, and her language indicated much intelligence.

Considering these circ.u.mstances, I think I was justified in wheeling around in my chair, and indulging in an unequivocal stare of incredulous amazement, when, in the course of conversation, she dropped a remark about having been born a slave.

"Do you mean to tell me," said I, "that you have negro blood in your veins?" And I was conscious of a feeling of embarra.s.sment at asking a question so apparently preposterous.

"Yes," she replied, and then related the history of her life, which I shall repeat as briefly as possible:

"My father," she commenced, "is Mr. c.o.x, formerly a judge of one of the courts in this city. He was very rich, and owned a great many houses here. There is one of them over there," she remarked, naively, pointing to a handsome residence opposite my office in Ca.n.a.l Street. "My mother was one of his slaves. When I was sufficiently grown, he placed me at school, at the Mechanics' Inst.i.tute Seminary, on Broadway, New York. I remained there until I was about fifteen years of age, when Mr. c.o.x came on to New York and took me from the school to a hotel, where he obliged me to live with him as his mistress; and to-day, at the age of twenty-one, I am the mother of a boy five years old, who is my father's son. After remaining some time in New York, he took me to Cincinnati and other cities at the North, in all of which I continued to live with him as before. During this sojourn in the Free States I induced him to give me a deed of manumission; but on our return to New Orleans he obtained it from me and destroyed it. At this time I tried to break off the unnatural connection, whereupon he caused me to be publicly whipped in the streets of the city, and then obliged me to marry a colored man; and now he has run off, leaving me without the least provision against want or actual starvation, and I ask you to give me one of his houses, that I may have a home for myself and three little children."

Strange and improbable as this story appeared, I remembered, as it progressed, that I had heard it from Governor Shepley, who, as well as General Butler, had investigated it, and learned that it was not only true in every particular, but was perfectly familiar to the citizens of New Orleans, by whom Judge c.o.x had been elected to administer justice.

The clerks of my office, most of whom were old residents of the city, were well informed in the facts of the case, and attested the truth of the girl's story.

I was exceedingly perplexed, and knew not what to do in the matter; but, after some thought, I answered her thus:

"This department has changed rulers, and I know nothing of the policy of the new commander. If General Butler were still in authority, I should not hesitate a moment to grant your request; for, even if I should commit an error of judgment, I am perfectly certain he would overlook it, and applaud the humane impulse that prompted the act; but General Banks might be less indulgent, and make very serious trouble with me for taking a step he would perhaps regard as unwarrantable."

I still hesitated, undecided how to act, when suddenly a happy thought struck me, and, turning to the girl, I added-

"To-day is Thursday: next Tuesday I leave this city With General Butler for a land where, thank G.o.d! such wrongs as yours can not exist; and, as General Banks is deeply engrossed in the immediate business at head-quarters, he will hardly hear of my action before the s.h.i.+p leaves-so I am going to give you the house."

I am sure the kind-hearted reader will find no fault with me that I took particular pains to select one of the largest of her father's houses, (it contained forty rooms,) when she told me that she wanted to let the apartments as a means of support for herself and her children.

My only regret in the case was that Mr. c.o.x had not been considerate enough to leave a carriage and a pair of bays on my hands, that I might have had the satisfaction of enabling his daughter to disport herself about the city in a style corresponding to her importance as a member of so respectable and wealthy a family.

And this story, that I have just told, reminds me of another, similar in many respects.

One Sunday morning, late last summer, as I came down-stairs to the breakfast-room, I was surprised to find a large number of persons a.s.sembled in the library. When I reached the door, a member of the staff took me by the arm and drew me into the room toward a young and delicate mulatto girl, who was standing against the opposite wall, with the meek, patient bearing of her race, so expressive of the system of oppression to which they have been so long subjected. Drawing down the border of her dress, my conductor showed me a sight more revolting than I trust ever again to behold. The poor girl's back was flayed until the quivering flesh resembled a fresh beefsteak scorched on a gridiron. With a cold chill creeping through my veins, I turned away from the sickening spectacle, and, for an explanation of the affair, scanned the various persons about the room.

In the center of the group, at his writing-table, sat the General. His head rested on his hand, and he was evidently endeavoring to fix his attention upon the remarks of a tall, swarthy-looking man who stood opposite, and who, I soon discovered, was the owner of the girl, and was attempting a defense of the foul outrage he had committed upon the unresisting and helpless person of his unfortunate victim, who stood smarting, but silent, under the dreadful pain inflicted by the brutal lash.

By the side of the slaveholder stood our Adjutant-General, his face livid with almost irrepressible rage, and his fists tight-clenched, as if to violently restrain himself from visiting the guilty wretch with summary and retributive justice. Disposed about the room, in various att.i.tudes, but all exhibiting in their countenances the same mingling of horror and indignation, were other members of the staff-while near the door stood three or four house-servants, who were witnesses in the case.

To the charge of having administered the inhuman castigation, Landry (the owner of the girl) pleaded guilty, but urged, in extenuation, that the girl had dared to make an effort for that freedom which her instincts, drawn from the veins of her abuser, had taught her was the G.o.d-given right of all who possess the germ of immortality,-no matter what the color of the casket in which it is hidden. I say "drawn from the veins of her abuser," because she declared she was his daughter; and every one in the room, looking upon the man and woman confronting each other, confessed that the resemblance justified the a.s.sertion.

After the conclusion of all the evidence in the case, the General continued in the same position as before, and remained for some time apparently lost in abstraction. I shall never forget the singular expression on his face. I had been accustomed to see him in a storm of pa.s.sion at any instance of oppression or flagrant injustice; but on this occasion he was too deeply affected to obtain relief in the usual way. His whole air was one of dejection, almost listlessness; his indignation too intense, and his anger too stern, to find expression even in his countenance.

Never have I seen that peculiar look but on three or four occasions similar to the one I am narrating, when I knew he was pondering upon the fatal curse that had cast its withering blight upon all around, until the manhood and humanity were crushed out of the people, and outrages such as the above were looked upon with complacency, and the perpetrators treated as respected and worthy citizens, and that he was realizing the great truth, that, however man might endeavor to guide this war to the advantage of a favorite idea or a sagacious policy, the Almighty was directing it surely and steadily for the purification of our country from this greatest of national sins.

But to return to my story. After sitting in the mood which I have described at such length, the General again turned to the prisoner, and said, in a quiet, subdued tone of voice-

"Mr. Landry, I dare not trust myself to decide to-day what punishment would be meet for your offense, for I am in that state of mind that I fear I might exceed the strict demands of justice. I shall, therefore, place you under guard for the present, until I conclude upon your sentence."

A few days after, a number of influential citizens having represented to the General that Mr. Landry was not only a "high-toned gentleman," but a person of unusual "AMIABILITY" of character, and was, consequently, ent.i.tled to no small degree of leniency, he answered that, in consideration of the prisoner's "high-toned" character, and especially of his "amiability," of which he had seen so remarkable a proof, he had determined to meet their views, and therefore ordered that Landry give a deed of manumission to the girl, and pay a fine of five hundred dollars, to be placed in the hands of a trustee for her benefit.

Beauties of the Peculiar Inst.i.tution-A Few Well-substantiated Facts.

A Mr. P--, deceased, of Gallatin, Tenn., for years a slave-trader, had children both by his wife and her body-servant, a beautiful mulatto woman-thus making, generally, the additions to his family in duplicate. One of his illegitimate daughters-a beautiful, hazel-eyed mulatto girl-is now the waiting-maid of his widow. This bright mulatto girl is married to a slave belonging to a prominent member of Congress from Tennessee, and has a son, a particularly apt and intelligent boy, whom the rebel women used to send around the camps, head-quarters, and street corners, to obtain the latest news, and report the same to them. Although but eight years old, he was too shrewd to remain quietly a slave. When the daughter of a Federal officer opened a little school, to teach a few contrabands, he came, and learned very rapidly. But his intellectual growth was suddenly stopped by the interference of his grandmother, who followed him to the school one day, and dragged him from the room in a perfect rage, threatening to kill him if he ever dared enter a free-school again, at the same time declaring to him that "he was not President Lincoln yet."

Another instance: The wealthy and prominent Colonel G--, of Gallatin, Tenn., a very respectable and high-toned gentleman, who is reputed a kind-hearted and benevolent man, remarkably lenient toward his slaves, whose praise is in the mouths of our Northern soldiers for his kind hospitalities, finding that his slaves, in view of the coming difficulties, did not increase fast enough for profit, called them all together on the 1st of January, 1862, and said to them: "Now, wenches, mind, every one of you that aint 'big' in three or four months, I intend to sell to the slave-trader." He afterward chuckled over it, adding that it "brought them to terms." Comment needless.

In the fall of 1861, in Piketon, Ky., at the headwaters of the Big Sandy, were two families-one known as the Slone family, the other as the Johnson family. The slaves of the former were all liberated about seventeen years before, by a will, stipulating that they should remain with his wife and work the plantation while she lived. Mrs. Slone died about two years after her husband, and not only emanc.i.p.ated these slaves, according to the last will and testament of her deceased husband, but, as they had taken more care of the old lady in her declining years than her sons, she thought it but equitable and right to disinherit the sons and leave the remnant of a once large estate, reduced to $9,000, to the slaves. But the gloating avarice of her gambling sons, backed by a vile public sentiment, prompted these unnatural sons to attempt to break the wills of their father and mother. After litigating the case about twelve years, and having been defeated in the highest courts in Kentucky, they went back and set up a claim of $2,000 against their father's estate, when these despoiled slaves had to deposit the last of their estate as security, having been for more than twelve years thus hara.s.sed and perplexed by vexatious lawsuits. When the Union army under General Nelson came into that country, and had that trumpeted battle at Ivy Mountain, and our troops reached Pres...o...b..rg, twenty-five miles from Piketon, these hunted and plundered ones concluded that now was the time for them to escape to the "promised land." They gathered together their little all, cut fifty or sixty saw-logs, made a raft, loaded their worldly goods on it, and floated down the river. When they reached Pres...o...b..rg, General Nelson had them arrested, cut their raft to pieces, and sent them back to Piketon. Afterward, when our troops, under the intrepid Garfield, moved up the river, and made their head-quarters at Piketon, these tormented and persecuted ones were told that now they might avail themselves of the Government boats to go down the river and leave the land of their tormentors.

The Johnson family slaves were liberated, at the death of their owner, by a will, the writer and executor of which had run off into the rebel army, carrying it with him. A distant relative of Mr. Johnson, a worthless, s.h.i.+ftless, ignorant fellow, moved upon the plantation, and claimed not only the property, but the slaves. "When our troops were about leaving Piketon, the most intelligent of the Slone family asked of Captain H--, A. A. Q. M., the privilege of using a push-boat to transport the family down the river. Consent was given them, and, the next morning, the two families gathered together, the old and young, men and women and children, numbering fifty-nine souls, and started down the river. Colonel C--, commanding the post, had them arrested, and ordered them back. One of his own officers represented to him that these people had an order for the boat from General Garfield, and, becoming alarmed, he let them go upon their way. Soon, however, the biped hounds were on their track, in hot pursuit. Two slaves, married into these families, had escaped and followed this boat-load. Although their villainous masters had fought in the rebel army, they were furnished with pa.s.ses to pursue their fleeing slaves, under the protection of the United States arms. These pursuers, weary and exhausted, stopped at a slave-trader's above Paintsville, where a large bend in the river enabled them to gain several miles by a cross cut, took horses, and arrived at foot of Buffalo Shoals just as the boat-load of fifty-nine frightened souls were going over it. They at once leveled their rifles, and ordered the boat to lie-to, supposing their slaves were aboard. They did so, and occupied a small vacant hut on the bank of the river, awaiting a Government boat that would be down on the following morning. Early the next morning, (Sunday,) two lewd fellows of the baser sort, pursuing them in a skiff, landed at the place of rendezvous, and were about to rush into the cabin, when the leader of the negroes stopped them, saying:

"Porter and Radcliff, you can't enter here; we have none of your slaves."