Another illustration worthy of mention in connection with the others is
related here. A friend of mine named John J. Jordan, wounded at
Vicksburg, Miss., one of the cleverest and inoffensive beings, owned
several slaves by heritage. Among them was one John Foster, a mulatto.
He was an accomplished carpenter and very active. His master gave him
his own time and he was comparatively free all his life, he was devoted
to the Jordan family and was a very responsible negro, however, his
newly made friends the carpet baggers filled his brains with such
illusions that he became a leader among the negroes, making speeches and
made himself very obnoxious to those who were his friends from infancy.
All at once Foster disappeared. He was gone a couple of years when his
former master received a letter from him, dated New York, begging
assistance to enable him to return to Washington County. Notwithstanding
his master's impoverished condition, the money was sent him and Foster
came back entirely reformed. He had no more use for the Yankees, his
short stay among them cured him. What a pity the authoress of Uncle
Tom's Cabin did not take John Foster under her protecting wings. What a
lost opportunity! What a fine additional illustration that picture would
have made to her already fertile imagination as the sequel will show.
One day John Foster came to my house to see me. Good day, Marse Ike,
said he, I thought I'll come to see you it has been a long time since I
sawn you, and the following conversation took place: Where have you been
John? I've been to New York. How do you like New York? I don't like it
at all, let me tell you Mass Ike, those Yankees are no friends of the
negroes. Well John I could have told you so before you went. Mass Ike,
let me tell you what they've done. They told me I could make a fortune
in the North, that I could get four and five dollars a day by my trade
as a carpenter. Who told you so? Why John E. Bryant and his like of
carpet baggers. Well did you not get it? I got it in the neck, I tell
you what they did. I left here with right smart money, Marse John let me
pay him for my time and got nearly three hundred dollars that I saved. I
went to New York, and after looking around the city for a few days I
commenced hunting work, but wherever I went they shook their heads, for
no. I spent the whole winter there without striking a lick until I
spent all my money. I finally applied at a shop where a dutchman was
foreman, I was willing to work at any price for I had to live but do you
know what they did? No John, I don't. Well they every one of them, and
they worked twenty-five hands, laid down their tools and walked out of
the shop declaring that they would not work by the side of any damned
negro, and the boss had to discharge me. No, Marse Ike, the Yankees are
no friends to we colored people, only for what they can cheat us out of.
I worked all my life among white folks here at home and it made no
difference, I tell you Marse Ike, the people of the South are the
negroes friends. Well John, you did not say so before you left here. No,
I did not appreciate what the people here done for me until I went
North. Well, John, you ought to go among your people and disabuse their
minds and tell them what you know from personal experience. I am doing
that Marse Ike every day. I have not long to stay here below, I have
contracted consumption from exposure and am hardly able to do a day's
work. I am taking little jobs now and then. Well John, if you stand in
need of anything come to see me. You will always find something to eat
here and some clothes to wear. John died six months later.