"_Ye died to live._"
BOKER
The next day Jim was recounting this scene to some men in camp,
describing it with feeling and earnestness, and winding up the narration
by the declaration, "and the first man that says a nigger ain't as good
as a white man, and a damn'd sight better'n those graybacks over yonder,
well"--
"Well, suppose he does?"--interrupted one of the men.
"O, nothing, Billy Dodge,--only he and I'll have a few words to pass on
the subject, that's all"; doubling up his fist and examining the big
cords and muscles on it with curious and well-satisfied interest.
"See here, Billy!" put in one of his comrades, "don't you go to having
any argument with Jim,--he's a dabster with his tongue, Jim is."
"Yes, and a devil with his fist," growled a sullen-looking fellow.
"Just so,"--assented Jim,--"when a blackguard's round to feel it."
"Well, Given, do you like the darkies well enough to take off your cap
to them?" queried a sergeant standing near.
"What are you driving at now, hey?"
"O, not much; but you'll have to play second fiddle to them to-night.
The General thinks they're as good as the rest of us, and a little bit
better, and has sent over for the Fifty-fourth to lead the charge this
evening. What have you got to say to that?"
"Bull, for them! that's what I've got to say. Any objection?" looking
round him.
"Nary objec!" "They deserve it!" "They fought like tigers over on James
Island!" "I hope they'll pepper the rebs well!"--"It ought to be a free
fight, and no quarter, with them!" "Yes, for they get none if they're
taken!" "Go in, Fifty-fourth!" These and the like exclamations broke
from the men on all sides, with absolute heartiness and good will.
"It seems to me," sneered a dapper little officer who had been looking
and listening, "that the niggers have plenty of advocates here."
Two or three of the men looked at Jim. "You may bet your pile on that,
Major!" said he, with becoming gravity; "we love our friends, and we
hate our enemies, and it's the dark-complected fellows that are the
first down this way."
"Pretty-looking set of friends!"
"Well, they ain't much to look at, that's a fact; but I never heard of
anybody saying you was to turn a cold shoulder on a helper because he
was homely, except,"--this as the Major was walking away, "except a
secesh, or a fool, or one of little Mac's staff officers."
"Homely? what are you gassing about?" objected a little fellow from
Massachusetts; "the Fifty-fourth is as fine-looking a set of men as
shoulder rifles anywhere in the army."
"Jack's sensitive about the credit of his State," chaffed a big Ohioan.
"He wants to crack up these fellows, seeing they're his comrades. I say,
Johnny, are all the white men down your way such little shavers as you?"
"For a fellow that's all legs and no brains, you talk too much,"
answered Johnny. "Have any of you seen the Fifty-fourth?"
"I haven't." "Nor I." "Yes, I saw them at Port Royal." "And I." "And I."
"Well, the Twenty-third was at Beaufort while they were there, and I
used to go over to their camp and talk with them. I never saw fellows so
in earnest; they seemed ready to die on the instant, if they could help
their people, or walk into the slaveholders any, first. They were just
full of it; and yet it seemed absurd to call 'em a black regiment; they
were pretty much all colors, and some of 'em as white as I am."
"Lord," said Jim, "that's not saying much, you've got a smutty face."
The men laughed, Jack with the rest, as he dabbed at his heated,
powder-stained countenance. "Come," said he, "that's no fair,--they're
as white as I am, then, when I've just scrubbed; and some of them are
first-raters, too; none of your rag, tag, and bobtail. There's one I
remember, a man from Philadelphia, who walks round like a prince. He's a
gentleman, every inch,--and he's rich,--and about the handsomest-looking
specimen of humanity I've set eyes upon for an age."
"Rich, is he? how do you know he's rich?"
"I was over one night with Captain Ware, and he and this man got to
talking about the pay for the Fifty-fourth. The government promised them
regular pay, you see, and then when it got 'em refused to stick to its
agreement, and they would take no less, so they haven't seen a dime
since they enlisted; and it's a darned mean piece of business, that's my
opinion of the matter, and I don't care who knows it," looking round
belligerently.
"Come, Bantam, don't crow so loud," interrupted the big Ohioan;
"nobody's going to fight you on that statement; it's a shame, and no
mistake. But what about your paragon?"
"I'll tell you. The Captain was trying to convince him that they had
better take what they could get till they got the whole, and that, after
all, it was but a paltry difference. 'But,' said the man, 'it's not the
money, though plenty of us are poor enough to make that an item. It's
the badge of disgrace, the stigma attached, the dishonor to the
government. If it were only two cents we wouldn't submit to it, for the
difference would be made because we are colored, and we're not going to
help degrade our own people, not if we starve for it. Besides, it's our
flag, and our government now, and we've got to defend the honor of both
against any assailants, North or South,--whether they're Republican
Congressmen or rebel soldiers.' The Captain looked puzzled at that, and
asked what he meant. 'Why,' said he, 'the United States government
enlisted us as soldiers. Being such, we don't intend to disgrace the
service by accepting the pay of servants.'"
"That's the kind of talk," bawled Jim from a fence-rail upon which he
was balancing. "I'd like to have a shake of that fellow's paw. What's
his name, d'ye know?"
"Ercildoune."
"Hey?"
"Ercildoune."
"Jemime! Ercildoune,--from Philadelphia, you say?"
"Yes,--do you know him?"
"Well, no,--I don't exactly know him, but I think I know something about
him. His pa's rich as a nob, if it's the one I mean,"--and then finished
sotto voce, "it's Mrs. Surrey's brother, sure as a gun!"
"Well, he ought to be rich, if he ain't. As we, that's the Captain and
me, were walking away, the Captain said to one of the officers of the
Fifty-fourth who'd been listening to the talk, 'It's easy for that man
to preach self-denial for a principle. He's rich, I've heard. It don't
hurt him any; but it's rather selfish to hold some of the rest up to
his standard; and I presume that such a man as he has no end of
influence with them!'
"'As he should,' said his officer. 'Ercildoune has brains enough to
stock a regiment, and refinement, and genius, and cultivation that would
assure him the highest position in society or professional life anywhere
out of America. He won't leave it though; for in spite of its wrongs to
him he sees its greatness and goodness,--says that it is _his_, and that
it is to be saved, it and all its benefits, for Americans,--no matter
what the color of their skin,--of whom he is one. He sees plain enough
that this war is going to break the slave's chain, and ultimately the
stronger chain of prejudice that binds his people to the grindstone, and
he's full of enthusiasm for it, accordingly; though I'm free to confess,
the magnanimity of these colored men from the North who fight, on faith,
for the government, is to me something amazing.'"
"'Why,' said the Captain,--'why, any more from the North than from the
South?'"
"Why? the blacks down here can at least fight their ex-masters, and pay
off some old scores; but for a man from the North who is free already,
and so has nothing to gain in that way,--whose rights as a man and a
citizen are denied,--for such a man to enlist and to fight, without
bounty, pay, honor, or promotion,--without the promise of gaining
anything whatever for himself,--condemned to a thankless task on the one
side,--to a merciless death or even worse fate on the other,--facing
all this because he has faith that the great republic will ultimately be
redeemed; that some hands will gather in the harvest of this bloody
sowing, though he be lying dead under it,--I tell you, the more I see of
these men, the more I know of them, the more am I filled with admiration
and astonishment.
"Now here's this one of whom we are talking, Ercildoune, born with a
silver spoon in his mouth: instead of eating with it, in peace and
elegance, in some European home, look at him here. You said something
about his lack of self-sacrifice. He's doing 'what he is from a
principle; and beyond that, it's no wonder the men care for him: he has
spent a small fortune on the most needy of them since they
enlisted,--finding out which of them have families, or any one dependent
on them, and helping them in the finest and most delicate way possible.
There are others like him here, and it's a fortunate circumstance, for
there's not a man but would suffer, himself,--and, what's more, let his
family suffer at home,--before he'd give up the idea for which they are
contending now."
"'Well, good luck to them!' said the Captain as we came away; and so say
I," finished Jack.
"And I,"--"And I," responded some of the men. "We must see this man when
they come over here."
"I'll bet you a shilling," said Jim, pulling out a bit of currency,
"that he'll make his mark to-night."
"Lend us the change, Given, and I'll take you up," said one of the men.
The others laughed. "He don't mean it," said Jim: which, indeed, he
didn't. Nobody seemed inclined to run any risks by betting on the other
side of so likely a proposition.
This talk took place late in the afternoon, near the head-quarters of
the commanding General; and the men directly scattered to prepare for
the work of the evening: some to clean a bayonet, or furbish up a rifle;
others to chat and laugh over the chances and to lay plans for the
morrow,--the morrow which was for them never to dawn on earth; and yet
others to sit down in their tents and write letters to the dear ones at
home, making what might, they knew, be a final-farewell,--for the fight
impending was to be a fierce one,--or to read a chapter in a little book
carried from some quiet fireside, balancing accounts perchance, in
anticipation of the call of the Great Captain to come up higher.
Through the whole afternoon there had been a tremendous cannonading of
the fort from the gunboats and the land forces: the smooth, regular
engineer lines were broken, and the fresh-sodded embankments torn and
roughened by the unceasing rain of shot and shell.
About six o'clock there came moving up the island, over the burning
sands and under the burning sky, a stalwart, splendid-appearing set of
men, who looked equal to any daring, and capable of any heroism; men
whom nothing could daunt and few things subdue. Now, weary,
travel-stained, with the mire and the rain of a two days' tramp;
weakened by the incessant strain and lack of food, having taken nothing
for forty-eight hours save some crackers and cold coffee; with gaps in
their ranks made by the death of comrades who had fallen in battle but a
little time before,--under all these disadvantages, it was plain to be
seen of what stuff these men were made, and for what work they were
ready.
As this regiment, the famous Fifty-fourth, came up the island to take
its place at the head of the storming party in the assault on Wagner, it
was cheered from all sides by the white soldiers, who recognized and
honored the heroism which it had already shown, and of which it was soon
to give such new and sublime proof.
The evening, or rather the afternoon, was a lurid and sultry one. Great
masses of clouds, heavy and black, were piled in the western sky,
fringed here and there by an angry red, and torn by vivid streams of
lightning. Not a breath of wind shook the leaves or stirred the high,
rank grass by the water-side; a portentous and awful stillness filled
the air,--the stillness felt by nature before a devastating storm.
Quiet, with the like awful and portentous calm, the black regiment,
headed by its young, fair-haired, knightly colonel, marched to its
destined place and action.
When within about six hundred yards of the fort it was halted at the
head of the regiments already stationed, and the line of battle formed.
The prospect was such as might daunt the courage of old and well-tried
veterans, but these soldiers of a few weeks seemed but impatient to take
the odds, and to make light of impossibilities. A slightly rising
ground, raked by a murderous fire, to within a little distance of the
battery; a ditch holding three feet of water; a straight lift of
parapet, thirty feet high; an impregnable position, held by a desperate
and invincible foe.
Here the men were addressed in a few brief and burning words by their
heroic commander. Here they were besought to glorify their whole race by
the lustre of their deeds; here their faces shone with a look which
said, "Though men, we are ready to do deeds, to achieve triumphs, worthy
the gods!" here the word of command was given:--
"We are ordered and expected to take Battery Wagner at the point of the
bayonet. Are you ready?"
"Ay, ay, sir! ready!" was the answer.
And the order went pealing down the line, "Ready! Close ranks! Charge
bayonets! Forward! Double-quick, march!"--and away they went, under a
scattering fire, in one compact line till within one hundred feet of the
fort, when the storm of death broke upon them. Every gun belched forth
its great shot and shell; every rifle whizzed out its sharp-singing,
death-freighted messenger. The men wavered not for an
instant;--forward,--forward they went; plunged into the ditch; waded
through the deep water, no longer of muddy hue, but stained crimson with
their blood; and commenced to climb the parapet. The foremost line fell,
and then the next, and the next. The ground was strewn with the wrecks
of humanity, scattered prostrate, silent, where they fell,--or rolling
under the very feet of the living comrades who swept onward to fill
their places. On, over the piled-up mounds of dead and dying, of wounded
and slain, to the mouth of the battery; seizing the guns; bayoneting the
gunners at their posts; planting their flag and struggling around it;
their leader on the walls, sword in hand, his blue eyes blazing, his
fair face aflame, his clear voice calling out, "Forward, my brave
boys!"--then plunging into the hell of battle before him. Forward it
was. They followed him, gathered about him, gained an angle of the fort,
and fought where he fell, around his prostrate body, over his peaceful
heart,--shielding its dead silence by their living, pulsating
ones,--till they, too, were stricken down; then hacked, hewn, battered,
mangled, heroic, yet overcome, the remnant was beaten back.
Ably sustained by their supporters, Anglo-African and Anglo-Saxon vied
together to carry off the palm of courage and glory. All the world knows
the last fought with heroism sublime: all the world forgets this and
them in contemplating the deeds and the death of their compatriots. Said
Napoleon at Austerlitz to a young Russian officer, overwhelmed with
shame at yielding his sword, "Young man, be consoled: those who are
conquered by my soldiers may still have titles to glory." To say that on
that memorable night the last were surpassed by the first is still to
leave ample margin on which to write in glowing characters the record of
their deeds.
As the men were clambering up the parapet their color-sergeant was shot
dead, the colors trailing stained and wet in the dust beside him.
Ercildoune, who was just behind, sprang forward, seized the staff from
his dying hand, and mounted with it upward. A ball struck his right arm,
yet ere it could fall shattered by his side, his left hand caught the
flag and carried it onward. Even in the mad sweep of assault and death
the men around him found breath and time to hurrah, and those behind him
pressed more gallantly forward to follow such a lead. He kept in his
place, the colors flying,--though faint with loss of blood and wrung
with agony,--up the slippery steep; up to the walls of the fort; on the
wall itself, planting the flag where the men made that brief, splendid
stand, and melted away like snow before furnace-heat. Here a bayonet
thrust met him and brought him down, a great wound in his brave breast,
but he did not yield; dropping to his knees, pressing his unbroken arm
upon the gaping wound,--bracing himself against a dead comrade,--the
colors still flew; an inspiration to the men about him; a defiance to
the foe.
At last when the shattered ranks fell back, sullenly and slowly
retreating, it was seen by those who watched him,--men lying for three
hundred rods around in every form of wounded suffering,--that he was
painfully working his way downward, still holding aloft the flag, bent
evidently on saving it, and saving it as flag had rarely, if ever, been
saved before.
Some of the men had crawled, some had been carried, some hastily caught
up and helped by comrades to a sheltered tent out of range of the fire;
a hospital tent, they called it, if anything could bear that name which
was but a place where men could lie to suffer and expire, without a
bandage, a surgeon, or even a drop of cooling water to moisten parched
and dying lips. Among these was Jim. He had a small field-glass in his
pocket, and forgot or ignored his pain in his eager interest of watching
through this the progress of the man and the flag, and reporting
accounts to his no less eager companions. Black soldiers and white were
alike mad with excitement over the deed; and fear lest the colors which
had not yet dipped should at last bite the ground.
Now and then he paused at some impediment: it was where the dead and
dying were piled so thickly as to compel him to make a detour. Now and
then he rested a moment to press his arm tighter against his torn and
open breast. The rain fell in such torrents, the evening shadows were
gathering so thickly, that they could scarcely trace his course, long
before it was ended.
Slowly, painfully, he dragged himself onward,--step by step down the
hill, inch by inch across the ground,--to the door of the hospital; and
then, while dying eyes brightened,--dying hands and even shattered
stumps were thrown into the air,--in brief, while dying men held back
their souls from the eternities to cheer him,--gasped out, "I did--but
do--my duty, boys,--and the dear--old flag--never once--touched the
ground,"--and then, away from the reach and sight of its foes, in the
midst of its defenders, who loved and were dying for it, the flag at
last fell.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, other troops had gone up to the encounter; other regiments
strove to win what these men had failed to gain; and through the night,
and the storm, and the terrific reception, did their gallant
endeavor--in vain.
* * * * *
The next day a flag of truce went up to beg the body of the heroic young
chief who had so led that marvellous assault. It came back without him.
A ditch, deep and wide, had been dug; his body, and those of twenty-two
of his men found dead upon and about him, flung into it in one common
heap and the word sent back was, "We have buried him with his niggers."
It was well done. The fair, sweet face and gallant breast lie peacefully
enough under their stately monument of ebony.
It was well done. What more fitting close of such a life,--what fate
more welcome to him who had fought with them, had loved, and believed in
them, had led them to death,--than to lie with them when they died?
It was well done. Slavery buried these men, black and white,
together,--black and white in a common grave. Let Liberty see to it,
then, that black and white be raised together in a life better than the
old.