"If we goes, Massa Kimball, will dey guv us guns?"
"Yes--you will have guns if you need them."
Upon this announcement they all came forward and offered to go, and
he had no easy task to select the thirty men required from the eager
crowd.
This was before Wild's brigade had an existence; but showed that the
negroes had manhood enough to fight for their freedom--which they
have since fully proved on many a bloody field.
* * * * *
My task is done--would I could think it well done; but as it is it
must go forth, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, with 'all its
imperfections on its head.' I might have made it better--but I did
not. The world moves on rapidly--things get jumbled up strangely in
these troublous times--and, I suppose, the minds of men get confused
and jumbled up also, for sympathy is a law of nature;--life is short,
and greater men than I have made mistakes; but no man who fights in
the cause of mankind--of universal freedom--can greatly err in its
advocacy. The soldier who braves the hardships and perils of the
campaign and suffers in a good cause, holds that cause dearer the
more he endures for it; and the remembrance of those scenes, filled
with glowing and startling pictures, often serves to renew that
patriotic fire which forever burns in a corner of his heart. The
armies of the rebellion have been flanked--the Confederacy will also
soon be flanked, and, like my book, must sooner or later come to an