ROBERT AND HIS COMPANY.
"Good morning, gentlemen," said Robert Johnson, as he approached Colonel
Robinson, the commander of the post, who was standing at the door of his
tent, talking with Captain Sybil.
"Good morning," responded Colonel Robinson, "I am glad you have come. I
was just about to send for you. How is your company getting on?"
"First rate, sir," replied Robert.
"In good health?"
"Excellent. They are all in good health and spirits. Our boys are used
to hardship and exposure, and the hope of getting their freedom puts new
snap into them."
"I am glad of it," said Colonel Robinson. "They make good fighters and
very useful allies. Last night we received very valuable intelligence
from some fugitives who had escaped through the Rebel lines. I do not
think many of the Northern people realize the service they have been to
us in bringing information and helping our boys when escaping from Rebel
prisons. I never knew a full-blooded negro to betray us. A month ago,
when we were encamped near the Rebel lines, a colored woman managed
admirably to keep us posted as to the intended movements of the enemy.
She was engaged in laundry work, and by means of hanging her sheets in
different ways gave us the right signals."
"I hope," said Captain Sybil, "that the time will come when some
faithful historian will chronicle all the deeds of daring and-service
these people have performed during this struggle, and give them due
credit therefor."
"Our great mistake," said Colonel Robinson, "was our long delay in
granting them their freedom, and even what we have done is only partial.
The border States still retain their slaves. We ought to have made a
clean sweep of the whole affair. Slavery is a serpent which we nourished
in its weakness, and now it is stinging us in its strength."
"I think so, too," said Captain Sybil. "But in making his proclamation
of freedom, perhaps Mr. Lincoln went as far as he thought public opinion
would let him."
"It is remarkable," said Colonel Robinson, "how these Secesh hold out.
It surprises me to see how poor white men, who, like the negroes, are
victims of slavery, rally around the Stripes and Bars. These men, I
believe, have been looked down on by the aristocratic slaveholders, and
despised by the well-fed and comfortable slaves, yet they follow their
leaders into the very jaws of death; face hunger, cold, disease, and
danger; and all for what? What, under heaven, are they fighting for?
Now, the negro, ignorant as he is, has learned to regard our flag as a
banner of freedom, and to look forward to his deliverance as a
consequence of the overthrow of the Rebellion."
"I think," said Captain Sybil "that these ignorant white men have been
awfully deceived. They have had presented to their imaginations utterly
false ideas of the results of Secession, and have been taught that its
success would bring them advantages which they had never enjoyed in the
Union."
"And I think," said Colonel Robinson, "that the women and ministers have
largely fed and fanned the fires of this Rebellion, and have helped to
create a public opinion which has swept numbers of benighted men into
the conflict. Well might one of their own men say, 'This is a rich man's
war and a poor man's fight.' They were led into it through their
ignorance, and held in it by their fears."
"I think," said Captain Sybil, "that if the public school had been
common through the South this war would never have occurred. Now things
have reached such a pass that able-bodied men must report at
headquarters, or be treated as deserters. Their leaders are desperate
men, of whom it has been said: 'They have robbed the cradle and the
grave.'"
"They are fighting against fearful odds," said Colonel Robinson, "and
their defeat is only a question of time."
"As soon," said Robert, "as they fired on Fort Sumter, Uncle Daniel, a
dear old father who had been praying and hoping for freedom, said to me:
'Dey's fired on Fort Sumter, an' mark my words, Bob, de Norf's boun'
ter whip.'"
"Had we freed the slaves at the outset," said Captain Sybil, "we
wouldn't have given the Rebels so much opportunity to strengthen
themselves by means of slave labor in raising their crops, throwing up
their entrenchments, and building their fortifications. Slavery was a
deadly cancer eating into the life of the nation; but, somehow, it had
cast such a glamour over us that we have acted somewhat as if our
national safety were better preserved by sparing the cancer than by
cutting it out."
"Political and racial questions have sadly complicated this matter,"
said Colonel Robinson. "The North is not wholly made up of anti-slavery
people. At the beginning of this war we were not permeated with justice,
and so were not ripe for victory. The battle of Bull Run inaugurated the
war by a failure. Instead of glory we gathered shame, and defeat in
place of victory."
"We have been slow," said Captain Sybil, "to see our danger and to do
our duty. Our delay has cost us thousands of lives and millions of
dollars. Yet it may be it is all for the best. Our national wound was
too deep to be lightly healed. When the President issued his
Emancipation Proclamation my heart overflowed with joy, and I said:
'This is the first bright rift in the war cloud.'"
"And did you really think that they would accept the terms of freedom
and lay down their arms?" asked Robert.
"I hardly thought they would," continued Captain Sybil. "I did not think
that their leaders would permit it. I believe the rank and file of their
army are largely composed of a mass of ignorance, led, manipulated, and
moulded by educated and ambitious wickedness. In attempting to overthrow
the Union, a despotism and reign of terror were created which
encompassed them as fetters of iron, and they will not accept the
conditions until they have reached the last extremity. I hardly think
they are yet willing to confess that such extremity has been reached."
"Captain," said Robert, as they left Colonel Robinson's tent, "I have
lived all my life where I have had a chance to hear the 'Secesh' talk,
and when they left their papers around I used to read everything I could
lay my hands on. It seemed to me that the big white men not only ruled
over the poor whites and made laws for them, but over the whole nation."
"That was so," replied Captain Sybil. "The North was strong but
forbearing. It was busy in trade and commerce, and permitted them to
make the Northern States hunting-grounds for their slaves. When we sent
back Simms and Burns from beneath the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument and
Faneuil Hall, they mistook us; looked upon us as a lot of
money-grabbers, who would be willing to purchase peace at any price. I
do not believe when they fired on the 'Star of the West' that they had
the least apprehension of the fearful results which were to follow their
madness and folly."
"Well, Captain," asked Robert, "if the free North would submit to be
called on to help them catch their slaves, what could be expected of us,
who all our lives had known no other condition than that of slavery? How
much braver would you have been, if your first recollections had been
those of seeing your mother maltreated, your father cruelly beaten, or
your fellow-servants brutally murdered? I wonder why they never enslaved
the Indians!"
"You are mistaken, Robert, if you think the Indians were never enslaved.
I have read that the Spaniards who visited the coasts of America
kidnapped thousands of Indians, whom they sent to Europe and the West
Indies as slaves. Columbus himself, we are informed, captured five
hundred natives, and sent them to Spain. The Indian had the lesser power
of endurance, and Las Cassas suggested the enslavement of the negro,
because he seemed to possess greater breadth of physical organization
and stronger power of endurance. Slavery was an old world's crime which,
I have heard, the Indians never practiced among themselves. Perhaps it
would have been harder to reduce them to slavery and hold them in
bondage when they had a vast continent before them, where they could
hide in the vastnesses of its mountains or the seclusion of its forests,
than it was for white men to visit the coasts of Africa and, with their
superior knowledge, obtain cargoes of slaves, bring them across the
ocean, hem them in on the plantations, and surround them with a pall of
dense ignorance."
"I remember," said Robert, "in reading a history I once came across at
our house, that when the Africans first came to this country they did
not all speak one language. Some had only met as mutual enemies. They
were not all one color, their complexions ranging from tawny yellow to
deep black."
"Yes," said Captain Sybil, "and in dealing with the negro we wanted his
labor; in dealing with the Indian we wanted his lands. For one we had
weapons of war; for the other we had real and invisible chains, the
coercion of force, and the terror of the unseen world."
"That's exactly so, Captain! When I was a boy I used to hear the old
folks tell what would happen to bad people in another world; about the
devil pouring hot lead down people's throats and stirring them up with a
pitch-fork; and I used to get so scared that I would be afraid to go to
bed at night. I don't suppose the Indians ever heard of such things,
or, if they had, I never heard of them being willing to give away all
their lands on earth, and quietly wait for a home in heaven."
"But, surely, Robert, you do not think religion has degraded the negro?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that. But a man is in a tight fix when he takes his
part, like Nat Turner or Denmark Veasy, and is made to fear that he will
be hanged in this world and be burned in the next. And, since I come to
think of it, we colored folks used to get mightily mixed up about our
religion. Mr. Gundover had on his plantation a real smart man. He was
religious, but he would steal."
"Oh, Robert," queried Sybil, "how could he be religious and steal?"
"He didn't think," retorted Robert, "it was any harm to steal from his
master. I guess he thought it was right to get from his master all he
could. He would have thought it wrong to steal from his fellow-servants.
He thought that downright mean, but I wouldn't have insured the lives of
Gundover's pigs and chickens, if Uncle Jack got them in a tight place.
One day there was a minister stopping with Mr. Gundover. As a matter of
course, in speaking of his servants, he gave Jack's sins an airing. He
would much rather confess Jack's sins than his own. Now Gundover wanted
to do two things, save his pigs and poultry, and save Jack's soul. He
told the minister that Jack was a liar and a thief, and gave the
minister a chance to talk with Uncle Jack about the state of his soul.
Uncle Jack listened very quietly, and when taxed with stealing his
master's wheat he was ready with an answer. 'Now Massa Parker,' said
Jack, 'lem'me tell yer jis' how it war 'bout dat wheat. Wen ole Jack
com'd down yere, dis place war all growed up in woods. He go ter work,
clared up de groun' an' plowed, an' planted, an' riz a crap, an' den wen
it war all done, he hadn't a dollar to buy his ole woman a gown; an' he
jis' took a bag ob wheat.'"
"What did Mr. Parker say?" asked Sybil.
"I don't know, though I reckon he didn't think it was a bad steal after
all, but I don't suppose he told Jack so. When he came to the next
point, about Jack's lying, I suppose he thought he had a clear case; but
Jack was equal to the occasion."
"How did he clear up that charge?" interrogated Captain Sybil.
"Finely. I think if he had been educated he would have made a first-rate
lawyer. He said, 'Marse Parker, dere's old Joe. His wife don't lib on
dis plantation. Old Joe go ober ter see her, but he stayed too long, an'
didn't git back in time fer his work. Massa's oberseer kotched him an'
cut him all up. When de oberseer went inter de house, pore old Joe war
all tired an' beat up, an' so he lay down by de fence corner and go ter
sleep. Bimeby Massa oberseer com'd an' axed, "all bin a workin' libely?"
I say "Yes, Massa."' Then said Mr. Parker, 'You were lying, Joe had been
sleeping, not working.' 'I know's dat, but ef I tole on Joe, Massa
oberseer cut him all up again, and Massa Jesus says, "Blessed am de
Peacemaker."' I heard, continued Robert, that Mr. Parker said to
Gundover, 'You seem to me like a man standing in a stream where the
blood of Jesus can reach you, but you are standing between it and your
slaves. How will you answer that in the Day of Judgment?'"
"What did Gundover say?" asked Captain Sybil.
"He turned pale, and said, 'For God's sake don't speak of the Day of
Judgment in connection with slavery.'"
Just then a messenger brought a communication to Captain Sybil. He read
it attentively, and, turning to Robert, said, "Here are orders for an
engagement at Five Forks to-morrow. Oh, this wasting of life and
scattering of treasure might have been saved had we only been wiser. But
the time is passing. Look after your company, and see that everything is
in readiness as soon as possible."
Carefully Robert superintended the arrangements for the coming battle of
a strife which for years had thrown its crimson shadows over the land.
The Rebels fought with a valor worthy of a better cause. The disaster of
Bull Run had been retrieved. Sherman had made his famous march to the
sea. Fighting Joe Hooker had scaled the stronghold of the storm king and
won a victory in the palace chamber of the clouds; the Union soldiers
had captured Columbia, replanted the Stars and Stripes in Charleston,
and changed that old sepulchre of slavery into the cradle of a new-born
freedom. Farragut had been as triumphant on water as the other generals
had been victorious on land, and New Orleans had been wrenched from the
hands of the Confederacy. The Rebel leaders were obstinate. Misguided
hordes had followed them to defeat and death. Grant was firm and
determined to fight it out if it took all summer. The closing battles
were fought with desperate courage and firm resistance, but at last the
South was forced to succumb. On the ninth day of April, 1865, General
Lee surrendered to General Grant. The lost cause went down in blood and
tears, and on the brows of a ransomed people God poured the chrism of a
new era, and they stood a race newly anointed with freedom.