CONCLUSION.
This is not a work of fiction. It is a record of facts, and therefore
the reader will not expect me to dispose of its various characters on
artistic principles--that is, lay them away in one of those final
receptacles for the creations of the romancer--the grave and matrimony.
Death has been among them, but nearly all are yet doing their work in
this breathing, busy world.
The characters I have introduced are real. They are not drawn with the
pencil of fancy, nor, I trust, colored with the tints of prejudice. The
scenes I have described are true. I have taken some liberties with the
names of persons and places, and, in a few instances, altered dates; but
the events themselves occurred under my own observation. No one
acquainted with the section of country I have described, or familiar
with the characters I have delineated, will question this statement.
Lest some one who has not seen the slave and the poor white man of the
South, as he actually is, should deem my picture overdrawn, I will say
that "the half has not been told!" If the whole were related--if the
Southern system, in all its naked ugliness, were fully exposed--the
truth would read like fiction, and the baldest relation of fact like
the wildest dream, of romance.
* * * * *
The overseer was never taken. A letter which I received from Colonel
J----, shortly prior to the stoppage of the mails, informed me that Moye
had succeeded in crossing the mountains into Tennessee, where, in an
interior town, he disposed of the horse, and then made his way by an
inland route to the free states. The horse the Colonel had recovered,
but the overseer he never expected to see. Moye is now, no doubt,
somewhere in the North, and is probably at this present writing a
zealous Union man, of somewhat the same "stripe" as the conductors of
the New York _Herald_ and the Boston _Courier_.
I have not heard directly from Scipio, but one day last July, after a
long search, I found on one of the wharves of South Street, a coasting
captain, who knew him well, and who had seen him the month previous at
Georgetown. He was at that time pursuing his usual avocations, and was
as much respected and trusted, as when I met him.
A few days after the tidings of the fall of Sumter were received in New
York, and when I had witnessed the spontaneous and universal uprising of
the North, which followed that event, I dispatched letters to several of
my Southern friends, giving them as near as I could an account of the
true state of feeling here, and representing the utter madness of the
course the South was pursuing. One of these letters went to my Union
acquaintance whom I have called, in the preceding pages, "Andy Jones."
He promptly replied, and a pretty regular correspondence ensued between
us, which has continued, at intervals, even since the suspension of
intercourse between the North and the South.
Andy has stood firmly and nobly by the old flag. At the risk of every
thing, he has boldly expressed his sentiments everywhere. With his life
in his hand, and--a revolver in each of his breeches-pockets, he walked
the streets of Wilmington when the secession fever was at its height,
openly proclaiming his undying loyalty to the Union, and "no man dared
gainsay him."
But with all his patriotism, Andy keeps a bright eye on the "main
chance." Like his brother, the Northern Yankee, whom he somewhat
resembles and greatly admires, he never omits an opportunity of "turning
an honest penny." In defiance of custom-house regulations, and of our
strict blockade, he has carried on a more or less regular traffic with
New York and Boston (_via_ Halifax and other neutral ports), ever since
North Carolina seceded. His turpentine--while it was still his
property--has been sold in the New York market, under the very eyes of
the government officials--and, honest reader, _I_ have known of it.
By various roundabout means, I have recently received letters from him.
His last, dated in April, and brought to a neutral port by a shipmaster
whom he implicitly trusts, has reached me since the previous chapters
were written. It covers six pages of foolscap, and is written in
defiance of all grammatical and orthographical principles; but as it
conveys important intelligence, in regard to some of the persons
mentioned in this narrative, I will transcribe a portion of it.
It gave me the melancholy tidings of the death of Colonel J----. He had
joined the Confederate army, and fell, bravely meeting a charge of the
Massachusetts troops, at Roanoke.
On receiving the news of his friend's death, Andy rode over to the
plantation, and found Madam P---- plunged in the deepest grief. While he
was there a letter arrived from Charleston, with intelligence of the
dangerous illness of her son. This second blow crushed her. For several
days she was delirious, and her life despaired of; but throughout the
whole the noble corn-cracker, neglecting every thing, remained beside
her.
When she returned to herself, and had in a measure recovered her
strength, she learned that the Colonel had left no will; that she was
still a slave; and soon to be sold, with the rest of the Colonel's
_personal property_, according to law.
This is what Andy writes about the affair. I give the letter as he wrote
it, merely correcting the punctuation, and enough of the spelling, to
make it intelligible.
"W'en I hard thet th' Cunel hadent leff no wil, I was hard put what ter
dew; but arter thinkin' on it over a spell, I knowed shede har on it
sumhow; so I 'cluded to tel har miseff. She tuk on d----d hard at
fust, but arter a bit, grew more calm like, and then she sed it war
God's wil, an' she wudent komplane. Ye nows I've got a wife, but wen the
ma'am sed thet, she luk'd so like an angel, thet d----d eff I cud help
puttin' my arms round har, an' hugin' on har, till she a'moste
screeched. Wal, I toled har, Id stan' by har eff evrithing went ter
h--l--an I wil, by ----.
"I made up mi minde to onst, what ter dew. It war darned harde work tur
bee'way from hum jess then, but I war in fur it; soe I put ter
Charleston, ter see th' Cunel's 'oman. Wal, I seed har, an' I toled har
how th' ma'am felte, an' how mutch shede dun at makein' th' Cunel's
money--(she made nigh th' hul on it, 'case he war alers keerles, an' tuk
no 'count uv things; eff tadent ben fur thet, hede made a wil,) an' I
axed har ter see thet the ma'am had free papers ter onst. An' whot der
ye 'spoze she sed? Nuthin, by ---- 'cept she dident no nuthin' 'bout
bisniss, an' leff all uv sech things ter har loryer. Wal, then I went
ter him--he ar one on them slick, ily, seceshun houn's, who'd sell thar
soles fur a kountterfit dollar--an' he toled me, th' 'ministratur hadent
sot yit, an' he cudent dew nuthin til he hed. Ses I: 'ye mean th'
'ooman's got ter gwo ter th' hi'est bider?' 'Yas,' he sed, 'the Cunel's
got dets, an' the've got ter bee pade, an' th' persoonel prop'ty muste
bee sold ter dew it.' Then I sed, 'twud bee sum time fore thet war dun,
an' the 'ooman's 'most ded an' uv no use now; 'what'll ye _hire_ har tur
me fur.' He sed a hun'red for sicks months. I planked down the money
ter onst, an' put off.
"I war bilin' over, but it sumhow cum inter my hed thet the Cunnel's
'ooman cudn't bee _all_ stun; so I gose thar agin; an' I toled har what
the loryer sed, an' made a reg'lar stump-'peal tew har bettar natur. I
axed har eff she'd leff the 'ooman who'd made har husban's fortun, who
war the muther ov his chil'ren, who fur twenty yar, hed nussed him in
sickness, an' cheered him in healtf; ef shede let _thet 'ooman_, bee
auckyund off ter th' hi'est bider. I axed al thet, an' what der ye think
she sed, Why jest this. '_I_ doant no nuthin' bout it, Mister Jones. Ye
raily must talke ter mi loryer; them maters I leaves 'tirely ter him.'
Then, I sed, I 'spozed the niggers war ter bee advertist. 'O, yas!' she
sed, (an' ye see, she know'd a d----d site 'bout _thet_), 'all on 'em
muss be solde, 'case, ye knows, I never did luv the kuntry,--'sides _I_
cud'ent karry on the plantashun, no how.' Then, sed I: 'the Orlean's
traders 'ill be thar--an' she wunt sell fur but one use, fur she's
hansum yit; an' ma'am, ye wunt leff a 'ooman as white as you is, who fur
twenty yar, hes ben a tru an' fatheful _wife_ tar yer own ded husban,'
(I shudn't hev put thet in, but d----d ef I cud help it,) ye wunt put
_har_ up on the block, an' hev har struck down ter the hi'est bider, ter
bee made a d---- d---- on?'
"Wal, I s'pose she hadent forgot thet, fur more'n twelve yar, the Cunnel
hed _luv'd_ t'other 'ooman, an' onely _liked_ har; fur w'en I sed thet,
har ize snapped like h--l, an' she screetched eout thet she dident 'low
no sech wurds in har hous', an' ordurd me ter leave. Mi'tey sqeemish
thet, warn't it? bein' as shede ben fur so mony yar the Cunnel's ----,
an' th' tuther one his raal wife.
"Wal, I _did_ leav'; but I left a piece of mi mind a-hind. I toled har
I'de buy that ar 'ooman ef she cost all I war wuth and I had ter pawne
my sole ter git the money; an' I added, jess by way ov sweet'nin' the
pill, thet I ow'd all I hed ter har husband, an' dident furget _my_
debts ef she did _her'n_, an' ef his own wife disgraced him, I'd be
d----d ef _I_ wud.
"Wal, I've got th' ma'am an' har boy ter hum, an' my 'ooman hes tuk ter
har a heep. I doant no w'en the sale's ter cum off, but ye may bet hi'
on my beein' thar; an' I'll buy har ef I hev ter go my hull pile on har,
an' borrer th' money fur ole Pomp. But _he'll_ go cheap, 'case the
Cunnel's deth nigh dun him up. It clean killed Ante Lucey. She never
held her hed up arter she heerd 'Masser Davy' war dead, fur she sot har
vary life on him. Don't ye fele consarned 'bout the ma'am--I knows ye
sot hi' on har--_I'll buy har_, shore. Thet an' deth ar th' onely things
thet I knows on, in this wurld, jess now, that ar SARTIN."
Such is Andy's letter. Mis-spelled and profane though it be, I would not
alter a word or a syllable of it. It deserves to be written in
characters of gold, and hung up in the sky, where it might be read by
all the world. And it _is_ written in the sky--in the great
record-book--and it will be read when you and I, reader, meet the
assembled universe, to give account of what _we_ have done and written.
God grant that our record may show some such deed as that!