"All right. I'd rather they'd shoot the Rebels than have the Rebels
shoot me"; and none of the by-standers dissented.
As one of the negro companies marched off the field to picket a station
at the Ferry, they passed within a few feet of some twenty of the
Pennsylvania soldiers, just formed into line preparatory to marching to
Beaufort. The countenances of the latter, which I watched, exhibited no
expression of disgust, dislike, or disapprobation, only of curiosity.
Other white soldiers gave to the weary negroes the hominy left from the
morning meal. The Major of the Fifty-Fifth, highest in command of the
relieved regiment, explained very courteously to Colonel Higginson the
stations and duties of the pickets, and proffered any further aid
desired. This was, it is true, an official duty, but there are more ways
than one in which to perform even an official duty. I rode back to
Beaufort, part of the way, in company with a captain of the First
Massachusetts Cavalry, who was the officer of the day. He said "he
wasn't much of a negro-man, but he had no objection to their doing our
fighting." He pronounced the word as spelled with two _g_s; but I prefer
to retain the good English. Colonel Montgomery, who had a partly filled
regiment, most of whom were conscripts, said that on his return from
Jacksonville he sent a squad of his men ashore in charge of some
prisoners he had taken. Some white soldiers seeing them approach from
the wharf, one said,--
"What are those coming?"
"Negro soldiers," (word pronounced as in the former case,) was the
answer.
"Damn 'em!" was the ejaculation.
But as they approached nearer, "What have they got with 'em?" was
inquired.
"Why, some Secesh prisoners."
"Bully for the negroes!" (the same pronunciation as before,) was then
the response from all.
So quick was the transition, when it was found that the negroes had
demonstrated their usefulness! It is, perhaps, humiliating to remember
that such an unreasonable and unpatriotic prejudice has at any time
existed; but it is never worth while to suppress the truth of history.
This prejudice has been effectually broken in the Free States; and one
of the pageants of this epoch was the triumphal march through Boston, on
the 28th of May, on its way to embark for Port Royal, of the
Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, the first regiment of
negro soldiers which the Free States have sent to the war. On the day
previous, May 27th, a far different scene transpired on the banks of the
Mississippi. Two black regiments, enlisted some months before in
Louisiana under the order of Major-General Butler, both with line and
one with field officers of their own lineage, made charge after charge
on the batteries of Port Hudson, and were mown down like summer's grass,
the survivors, many with mutilated limbs, closing up the thinned ranks
and pressing on again, careless of life, and mindful only of honor and
duty, with a sublimity of courage unsurpassed in the annals of war, and
leaving there to all mankind an immortal record for themselves and their
race.
I cannot here forbear a momentary tribute to Wentworth Higginson.
Devoting himself heroically to his great work, absorbed in its duties,
and bearing his oppressive responsibility as the leader of a regiment in
which to a great extent are now involved the fortunes of a race, he adds
another honorable name to the true chivalry of our time.
* * * * *
Homeward-bound, I stopped for two days at Fortress Monroe, and was again
among the familiar scenes of my soldier-life. It was there that
Major-General Butler, first of all the generals in the army of the
Republic, and anticipating even Republican statesmen, had clearly
pointed to the cause of the war. At Craney Island I met two accomplished
women of the Society of Friends, who, on a most cheerless spot, and with
every inconvenience, were teaching the children of the freedmen. Two
good men, one at the fort and the other at Norfolk, were distributing
the laborers on farms in the vicinity, and providing them with
implements and seeds which the benevolent societies had furnished.
Visiting Hampton, I recognized, in the shanties built upon the charred
ruins, the familiar faces of those who, in the early days of the war,
had been for a brief period under my charge. Their hearty greetings to
one whom they remembered as the first to point them to freedom and cheer
them with its prospect could hardly be received without emotion. But
there is no time to linger over these scenes.
* * * * *
Such are some of the leading features in the condition of the freedmen,
particularly at Port Royal. The enterprise for their aid, begun in
doubt, is no longer a bare hope or possibility. It is a fruition and a
consummation. The negroes will work for a living. They will fight for
their freedom. They are adapted to civil society. As a people, they are
not exempt from the frailties of our common humanity, nor from the vices
which hereditary bondage always superadds to these. As it is said to
take three generations to subdue a freeman completely to a slave, so it
may not be possible in a single generation to restore the pristine
manhood. One who expects to find in emancipated slaves perfect men and
women, or to realize in them some fair dream of an ideal race, will meet
disappointment; but there is nothing in their nature or condition to
daunt the Christian patriot; rather, there is everything to cheer and
fortify his faith. They have shown capacity for knowledge, for free
industry, for subordination to law and discipline, for soldierly
fortitude, for social and family relations, for religious culture and
aspirations; and these qualities, when stirred and sustained by the
incitements and rewards of a just society, and combining with the
currents of our continental civilization, will, under the guidance of a
benevolent Providence which forgets neither them nor us, make them a
constantly progressive race, and secure them ever after from the
calamity of another enslavement, and ourselves from the worse calamity
of being again their oppressors.
* * * * *