THE GLORIOUS FOURTH.
“Plumes himself in Freedom’s pride
Tyrant stern to all beside.”
—BURNS.
ON an insignificant little village built on a narrow flat beside the
Savannah river, the sun had been pouring his red hot rays all day, with
even greater intensity than was usual at that season of the year.
The inhabitants, however, paid little heed to the extreme heat, and
only when the sun sank to the western horizon did they leave their
fields and workshops and wend their ways homewards.
Two railroad bridges, and another for the public highway, connected
this little village with the city of A——, on the opposite side of the
river, and in the neighboring State of Georgia.
A long low trestle carried one of those railroad tracks two or three
squares or streets back from the stream towards the hills a half-mile
away.
Not far from this trestle, on a broad street which ran parallel with
and along the brink of the stream, stood a strong, two-story brick
building. Its uses had been various; but at the time of which we write
it did service as an armory or drill room for Co. A of the Eighteenth
Regiment of National Guards of South Carolina; and also as a dwelling
for the Captain of the Company, who, having just returned from his
day’s work in the city, now sat with his chair tilted back against the
post of the open door, tossing his infant and conversing with his wife,
who was preparing their evening meal.
It might be mentioned that the parties in this little domestic scene
were of African descent.
“Howdy? Cap’n Doc, Howdy?” shouted a negro teamster, driving up to the
door with a great dash and rattling of wheels.
“Hello! That yo’, Dan?” replied the Captain, letting the front legs of
his chair down upon the floor with a bump that came near unseating him.
“Come in, won’t ye?”
“I’m obliged to yo’, but I couldn’t nohow. I just wants, to know what
sort of a combustification is we gwoine to hev to-morrow; and when does
de militia come out?”
The speaker was evidently “the worse for the drink,” which must account
for his forgetfulmess of what he had been well informed of, and he
wriggled and giggled as if greatly tickled.
“The militia,” said Captain Doc, “has got to faum (form) and march down
to the grounds, when the doings begin, and stand guard; and after the
speeches and all is ovah, we shall go through the usual everlutions,
accompanied with music and the flag. I’m sorry we didn’t get that
shooting-match I tried to have, so we could ha’ got some unifaum; but
I shall inspeck yo’s guns and accouterments mighty close, and put yo’
through mighty sharp on the drill.”
“But a nigger that don’t car’ ’nough ’bout the Centennial fo’th o’ July
to get to know all ’bout the doings fo’ the third o’ July, don’t ’zerve
to be baun free and ekil.”
“Wal, I wa’n’t baun free an’ ekil, an’ I don’t ’speck to be baun free
an’ ekil, nuther, but ’fo’ I done gone ovah to ’Gusta wid dis ere load
o’ truck, I knowed all ’bout it. But I met dat are _magnifishent_ young
gem’man, Tom Bakah, and, oh, laws!” (spreading his horny palms, with
fingers extended and rolling his head and eyes from side to side),
“‘mose put my eyes out o’ my head! All upsot my idees! His nose turned
up, ’pears like six feet high; no, six inches high; and he drove he
horse so scrumbunctious like, ’mose upset my little ambulancer,” and
Dan turned to his two little rats of donkeys in harness of knotted
raw-hides, which resembled old and assorted clothes lines.
The little creatures stood meekly before an indescribable vehicle, a
ridiculous cross between a rude hay-rick and a huge crockery-crate on
wheels. It was all out of proportion to the little team, whose backs
were scarcely as high as the waist-bands of stumpy Dan.
“Tough little fellahs, dese is,” said the teamster, patting them
affectionately, “but mighty feared o’ Mars’ Tom, a’n’t yo’,—Eigh,
Jack?”
“See dat nigh critter cock his eye now, and wag dat off ear,” continued
Dan, winking at Captain Doc, and giggling and wriggling as before.
“Don’t like Mars’ Tom, do yo’, Jack?” again addressing the intelligent
donkey, which not only wagged his off ear, but shook his head in a
most decided manner, to the great amusement of his owner.
“Oh, Dan, you musn’t mind the antics of that boy Tom,” said a voice
behind him; whereupon Dan wriggled and jumped, and whirled about, and
bowed himself double, and made grimaces, and giggled and wriggled, and
danced a jig; and finally, with another low bow and long scrape of his
right foot, he shook hands with the speaker, who was no other than
our friend Marmor. “Tom is only just home from school, you know, and
of course the man who knew more before he was born than could ever be
cudgeled into that knowledge-box of hissen, is _nothing_ to him! Let
him alone, and let him swell though, just as big as he can, he’ll bust
the quicker, and we’ll find out the quicker how big he really is when
the vacuum is gone, and what is left is packed down solid.”
“‘Pears like dis yere young Tom cat tinks he smell a mice, or a niggah
he’s huntin,” said Dan, “an’ he’s gwoine fo’ to _chaw ’im up_ mighty
quick!” (suiting his gesture to his words by a long sniff, and a quick
motion of his jaws.)
Dan’s buffoonery was irresistible, and the half dozen persons who
had gathered at the captain’s door manifested their appreciation by
hilarious applause.
“‘Pears like I couldn’t leave such ’stinguished comp’ny, nohow,” he
continued, “but dey is a panoramia fo’ my vishum which am decomrated by
hoe cakes an’ hominy, an’ lasses an’ bacon, an’ sich tings;” and with
his hands upon his empty stomach, Dan bowed very low and obsequiously,
and mounting his “ambulancer,” gathered up the ragged ends of his
raw-hide ribbons, touched Jack with his long green stick, and rattled
away, while Captain Doc shouted after him, “Two o’clock, and no tipsy
men on parade.”
The queer little turnout, which would have been a spectacle in any part
of the northern states, though common enough in the southern, crept
slowly up the steep hill in the rear of the village, where buildings of
curious and indescribable styles were scattered without order or taste,
and few indications of thrift. Stopping on the outskirts of the town,
and before a small cabin built of one thickness of rough boards, the
vertical cracks between which would nearly receive the fingers of an
adult, and the windows of which, without sash or glazing, were closed
only by clumsy wooden shutters—the usual style of cabin inhabited by
the southern negro—Dan leaped from his vehicle, and entering, sniffed
and looked about searchingly, till a tall, angular mulatto woman
entered from the back door with an armful of wood.
“Any suppah yet, Mira?”
“No, sah. Yo’ suppah ha’n’t ready yit, but I’s cookin’ it. I’s mighty
tired. I’s done done all dat whole big cotton field.”
“Good, chile! good, chile!” said the husband, approaching and
attempting to kiss her as she stooped to replenish the open fire.
No sooner had his breath touched her face than she turned, with a stick
of wood in one hand, and confronted him, while the smoke and flame
leaped out in alarming proximity to her dress.
“See here now, yo’ Dan; yo’ been drinkin’ gin,” fixing her dark eyes
reprovingly upon his silly face. “Dat’s de way yo’ been spendin’ yo’
money.”
“Mira Pipsie, yo’s de smartest woman in de whole worl’. Yo’s got ’em
zackly, I reckon” (wriggling and curveting about the room and back to
her side again). “I nebber boughtened me no finery o’ no kind; no new
bonnet, nor nuffin. Yo’ buys what yo’ wants, an’ so does I.”
“Yes; but yo’ comes home an’ wants suppah, an’ it’s de cotton o’ my
raisin’ as buys yo’ suppah.”
“Yah! yah! yah! I’s a lucky dog, shor!” and he executed a jig followed
by a double shuffle, knocking his heels upon the bare floor with what
vigor he could command, and at the same time improvising as follows:
“I’s de smartest little wife
Ebber seen in all yo’ life;
She marks her cotton-bag
Wid a little calico rag,
An’ gits de biggis’ price,
An’ as slick as any mice
She smiles, an’ bows, an’ flies aroun’,
An’ totes her cotton off to town.
Home she comes, an’ O my!
See de new bonnet! _Oh, my eye!_
Away to church she sing an’ pray,
Hallelujah! look dis way!
Dina Duncan’s in de shade,
Mira beats all on dress parade.
But jes’ see Dina’s _bran new shawl_!
Can’t heah no mo’ preachin’ af’er all.
Elder, I’m gone nex’ Sunday sho’,
Can’t wear dis here ole shawl o’ mine no mo’!”
Here the song abruptly terminated, for the “smartest little wife,”
who was some inches taller than her husband, and by no means slender,
took her liege lord by the damp, unstarched collar of his soiled blue
shirt, and marching him to the door, seated him upon the step, saying
in a low, decided, and well recognized tone, “Now yo’ jes’ set dar,
yo’ drunk niggah, yo’, an’ don’t yo’ open dat big red mouf o’ yo’n no
mo’ till I git some hominy to fill it up. I don’t want no niggah’s
heels scratchin’ roun’ on my flo’. Ef yo’d buy bettah finery ’n dem
ole trowsahs, an’ go to church, an’ let whiskey ’lone, yo’ cotton’d be
some good. Ef I didn’t mark my cotton o’ my raisin’, an’ toat de money
myself, I’d jes like t’ know whar yo’d git yo’ tea, an’ coffee, an’
flou’h, an’ all dem tings?”
With an admonitory shake of her finger, she entered the house, and
resumed her culinary operations; but soon reappeared, bearing a gun and
accoutrements, and sundry materials for polishing them; having first
dexterously examined it, and found it without charge.
“Heah now, yo’ Pipsie; yo’ got sense ’nough t’ clean dis ’ere gun?” she
asked. “Reckon you’ll be mighty proud o’ dis ’ere ‘finery,’ marchin’ up
an’ down long o’ de res’, an’ de folks all lookin’ on.”
“He, he! Didn’t I say ‘smartest little wife’? Reckon I kin do dat are.
Reckon I’ll p’rade on de fo’th, an’ yo’ll wait till Sunday.”
Two of his neighbors presently joined Mr. Pipsie, with whom he was soon
discussing the anticipated celebration, which was quite a novelty in
the locality. Suddenly a loud sound of wheels was heard.
“Hello!” cried Dan, springing from his seat. “Heah comes my friend
Bakah! Hello, Babe! Bett’ take car, dat team, else yo’ git toated clean
off, an gone to smash ’fo’ yo’ muddah knows nuffin ’bout it. Reckon yo’
didn’t ax her mout yo’ gwout alone?”
The sound of the jolting wagon rendered this speech inaudible to the
youthful driver, who was passing without a “Howdy!” (an offense in that
locality) but the loud, derisive “guffaw” of the three colored men,
which followed Dan’s sally, did not fail to reach him, and he paused
suddenly, just past the door.
He was tall and large, but unusually boyish for a youth of twenty
years. In an angry tone he shouted:
“Dan Pipsie, come out here! I want to see yer.”
That individual made his way, quite deliberately, to the side of the
vehicle, and with a strange mixture of timidity and bravado in his
manner.
“What do you mean by cursing me in that way? I ha’n’t done nothing to
you,” said the boy.
“Oh, laws! I’s jest in fun, an’ I’s shor’ yo’ didn’t heah yo’r name
mixin’ up in it. A man’s a right to talk or cuss on his own do’,”
(door) “an’ nothin’ to no man no’ his boy gwoine ’long de road.”
The youngster’s eyes flashed, and his face was pale with rage.
What! _he_ to be called a _boy_ by a “nigger?” He looked down upon
the diminutive black figure beside him, in whose hands was one of
Remington’s best rifles, and that alone restrained him from laying the
long lash of his driving-whip close about the “black biped,” as he
mentally called him. He did venture to retort with some asperity.
The altercation was brief, but heated, and soon the whip was cracked
decidedly closer to Pipsie’s left ear than was comfortable to its owner.
“Yo’ jes be little mo’ ca’ful, yo’ young man!” said Pipsie, rubbing
the ear briskly. “Yo’ not got no runaway niggah slave heah now. I’se a
free man, an’ got as much rights as yo’, an’ mo’n dat, too, I’se got
a United States gun heah, an’ I knows how to shoot, too. Yo’ needn’t
’sult no National Guards fo’ nuffin’. Ef yo’ ha’n’t got no mo’ yo’
want say t’ me, yo’ bes’ jes’ git ’long ’bout yo’ business, or yo’ may
git hurt!” and he made a feint to raise the empty gun to his eye, when
young Tom Baker rode away in great haste.
Baconsville had never witnessed such a “celebration” as it enjoyed the
next day, which came bright and beautiful.
Though usually tardy in morning rising—possibly from dread of the
malaria, which the sun dissipates by nine o’clock, on this memorable
day, the inhabitants of the village were astir at an early hour, for,
through the heavy fog which crept up from the river, and shrouded the
whole valley, the red-haired and fair-skinned Marmor, and the largest,
strongest, and blackest citizen, with a few followers, were dimly
visible, dragging a blacksmith’s anvil along the principal streets.
They paused frequently in front of the residences and shops of the
chief citizens to salute them by an explosion of gunpowder upon the
anvil—the nearest approach to a cannonade possible in the impecuneous
little city. But not earlier than four o’clock in the afternoon was
the excitement at its height. At that time the brass band was playing
national airs under a great oak tree on a vacant plot of ground on
which a platform had been erected; and a few seats placed in front
of it for the accommodation of the gentler sex were rapidly filling;
for, at a safe distance, thirteen explosions upon the anvil, in
commemoration of the thirteen original colonies, were being followed by
thirty-seven, in honor of the then existing States of the Union.
These were the recognized signals for the commencement of the most
important exercises of the day; and the militia having formed at the
armory, marched to the rostrum, bearing the “Stars and Stripes,” and
were disposed on either side of the speaker’s stand, while other free
and patriotic citizens stood in compact groups near and about the
well-filled seats.
All being ready, a chairman elected, the glass of water and bouquet
of flowers placed before the speaker, and the band having duly
discoursed, a short, smooth-voiced negro—an accredited preacher of
the Methodist persuasion, and member of the State Legislature from
that district—was introduced. He made a long, peculiarly energetic,
interesting and instructive address, rich in metaphor and quaint
expressions, glowing with native eloquence, and abounding in graphic
description, wholesome counsel, and eulogy of the “United States.”
Not an allusion was made to the past relations of the races in the
South, unless an exhortation to gratitude towards the United States
be so construed, in view of the fact that the very few whites present
acknowledged no such debt.
After the address, music followed, and then Marmor was formally
introduced to his neighbors, and read in clear, loud tones the
inevitable “Preamble and Declaration of Independence,” to the manifest
disgust of a small group of men who stood in the rear of the crowd.
A tall, muscular man, with iron-gray hair and bushy beard, turned upon
his heel with an oath, saying: “Marmor, the contemptible radical, takes
too much pleasure in reading that preamble to me, and I’m a fool to
hear it any way. _All men created equal!_ It is a self-evident lie!”
and he strode away, followed by the boyish young man, Tom, to whom the
reader has already been introduced.
“Father,” said he, “that red-headed fool acts like a Yankee. You
wouldn’t suppose he fought for the Lost Cause.”
“It is the cursed German blood in him!” replied “the old man Baker,” as
his neighbors called him. “He hasn’t been in the State long enough to
get the Republican taint out of it. His father wasn’t born here.”
“It is a pity that a Yankee bullet hadn’t hit _him_, instead of brother
Will.” He’s a scalawag and a carpet-bagger, both in one.”
“Yes, I’d like to rid the State of his presence, and the niggers of
one leader. If it wasn’t for the leaders, we could manage the ignorant
ones.”
The exercises at “the stand” closed at five o’clock, and the Militia
soon formed, thirty or forty strong, and marched off up Market street;
which being over one hundred and fifty feet in width, afforded ample
space for the evolutions which the men performed with commendable
precision for nearly an hour.
At length they stood resting at the upper end of the street.
“Have you noticed the clouds, Captain?” asked the tall
second-lieutenant, approaching his superior with raised cap, “That’s
so, Watta,” replied Captain Doc, glancing at the clouds, “We’ll march
down to the armory and dismiss. Attention, Company.”
The necessary orders being given, they proceeded by fours, interval
march, open order, with guns across their shoulders, and arms over
their guns; thus occupying little over one third of the width of the
street.
Soon after they had thus started, a single buggy occupied by two young
men, turned from Main street into Market street, entering it two or
three streets in front of them and approached the advancing Militia-men
at a slow trot. The horse was old and steady, and neither the
glittering guns, nor flag, nor fife and drum disturbed his equanimity;
and, urged by his driver, he did not pause nor turn aside till in the
very face of the soldiers, who had already halted.
The road was broad and level, but the travel had been confined mostly
to one track, and the remainder of the surface was overgrown with grass
and May weeds.
Just at the place of their meeting, a well occupied a few feet in the
centre of the street; and a shallow ditch crossed the half of the
street at the right of the vehicle. Yet fully fifteen feet of the level
highway was unoccupied at the right of the Militia, and the driver
could easily have passed around the Company, had he chosen to do so,
instead of urging his horse directly upon the advancing column.
The discourtesy of this act was aggravated by the fact that the young
men had, during a half-hour previously, been driving leisurely from
one bar-room to another, or sitting in their carriage and watching
the movements of the Company in common with a large number of
other citizens, both white and colored, during which time frequent
opportunities had occurred in which they might have driven up the then
totally unoccupied street.
These young men were Tom Baker and his sister’s husband, Harry Gaston,
who, like his father-in-law, had often expressed his aversion to “the
Nigger Militia Company.”
Captain Doc left his position, and approaching them said:
“Mr. Gaston, I do not know for what reason you treat me in this manner.”
“What manner?”
“Aiming to drive through my company when you have room enough on the
outside to drive in the road.”
“Well, this is the rut I always travel in,” was the contemptuous reply,
made with an oath.
“That may be true,” replied the Captain, “but if ever you had a company
out here, I should not have treated you in this kind of a manner. I
should have gone around, and showed some respect to you.”
“Well,” retorted Gaston, “this is the rut I always travel in, and I
don’t intend to get out of it for no niggers!”
“You don’t intend to break up our drill do you?” asked Lieutenant
Watta; his yellow face growing visibly pale.
“All I want is to pass through and go home.”
“But you want to drive through our ranks.”
“No! ——. He can’t go through here,” said another voice.
“We will stay here all night before we will give way to them,” said
Watta, the conversation with lawyer Elly and Uncle Jesse recurring to
his memory.
“Never mind,” said Gaston with an oath, “you won’t always be insulting
me. You had better stop now, for you’ll find you’ve got to.”
“Egh, Watta, don’t yos’ mind what Mann Harris said—tole that Hanson
Baker, Tom’s brother, said a month ago that there’s gwoine to be the
—— to pay in Baconsville pretty soon? Reckon the white folks is begun
that p’ogramme he tole ’bout,” said another militia man. “He said
fifteen hundred of ’em was ready to break us up, an’ of co’se Gasten’s
one of ’em.”
A volley of oaths and abusive epithets was rolling from Tommy Baker’s
lips; which was indeed their most familiar utterance when addressing
persons of color; and some members of the company began to return the
charge in kind.
“Attention, company!” shouted Capt. Doc. “It is going to rain, and we
had best house our guns. We won’t hold any contention with these men.
Now, yo’ hush up! I’ll settle this matter. Open order, and let them go
through.”
The command was obeyed, but not without murmurs of discontent, which,
however, were soon quieted, as a slight shower descended, and they
hastened off to the armory.
Marmor, with his two little children, had been standing a few rods
away, watching and praising the exercise.
When the altercation occurred, being a Warden of the town, he sent John
Carr, the Town Marshal, or Chief of Police, to ascertain its cause; but
it was passed before his arrival at the scene.