family, on Walnut Avenue, Boston Highlands, where I remained until the
death of Mrs. Smith. I next lived with Mrs. Gorham Gray, Beacon Street,
where I remained until I was married, in 1879, to Russell L. Taylor.
In 1880 I had another experience in steamer accidents. Mr. Taylor and
I started for New York on the steamer Stonington. We were in bed when,
sometime in the night, the Narragansett collided with our boat. I was
awakened by the crash. I was in the ladies’ cabin. There were about
thirty-five or forty others in the cabin. I sprang out of my berth,
dressed as quickly as I could, and tried to reach the deck, but we
found the cabin door locked, and two men stood outside and would not
let us out. About twenty minutes after, they opened the doors and we
went up on deck, and a terrible scene was before us. The Narragansett
was on fire, in a bright blaze; the water was lighted as far as one
could see, the passengers shrieking, groaning, running about, leaping
into the water, panic-stricken. A steamer came to our assistance; they
put the life-rafts off and saved a great many from the burning steamer,
and picked a number up from the water. A colored man saved his wife
and child by giving each a chair and having them jump overboard. These
chairs kept them afloat until they were taken aboard by the life-raft.
The steamer was burned to the water’s edge. The passengers on board our
steamer were transferred to another one and got to New York at 9.30 the
next morning. A number of lives were lost in this accident, and the bow
of the Stonington was badly damaged. I was thankful for my escape, for
I had been in two similar experiences and got off safely, and I have
come to the conclusion I shall never have a watery grave.
XII
THE WOMEN’S RELIEF CORPS
All this time my interest in the boys in blue had not abated. I was
still loyal and true, whether they were black or white. My hands have
never left undone anything they could do towards their aid and comfort
in the twilight of their lives. In 1886 I helped to organize Corps
67, Women’s Relief Corps, auxiliary to the G. A. R., and it is a very
flourishing corps to-day. I have been Guard, Secretary, Treasurer for
three years, and in 1893 I was made President of this corps, Mrs. Emily
Clark being Department President this year. In 1896, in response to an
order sent out by the Department W. R. C. to take a census to secure a
complete roster of the Union Veterans of the war of the Rebellion now
residing in Massachusetts, I was allotted the West End district, which
(with the assistance of Mrs. Lizzie L. Johnson, a member of Corps 67,
and widow of a soldier of the 54th Mass. Volunteers) I canvassed with
splendid success, and found a great many comrades who were not attached
to any post in the city or State.
In 1898 the Department of Mass. W. R. C. gave a grand fair at Music
Hall. I made a large quilt of red, white, and blue ribbon that made
quite a sensation. The quilt was voted for and was awarded to the
Department President, Mrs. E. L. W. Waterman, of Boston.
XIII
THOUGHTS ON PRESENT CONDITIONS
Living here in Boston where the black man is given equal justice, I
must say a word on the general treatment of my race, both in the North
and South, in this twentieth century. I wonder if our white fellow
men realize the true sense or meaning of brotherhood? For two hundred
years we had toiled for them; the war of 1861 came and was ended, and
we thought our race was forever freed from bondage, and that the two
races could live in unity with each other, but when we read almost
every day of what is being done to my race by some whites in the South,
I sometimes ask, “Was the war in vain? Has it brought freedom, in the
full sense of the word, or has it not made our condition more hopeless?”
In this “land of the free” we are burned, tortured, and denied a fair
trial, murdered for any imaginary wrong conceived in the brain of the
negro-hating white man. There is no redress for us from a government
which promised to protect all under its flag. It seems a mystery to
me. They say, “One flag, one nation, one country indivisible.” Is
this true? Can we say this truthfully, when one race is allowed to
burn, hang, and inflict the most horrible torture weekly, monthly, on
another? No, we cannot sing, “My country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of
Liberty”! It is hollow mockery. The Southland laws are all on the side
of the white, and they do just as they like to the negro, whether in
the right or not.
I do not uphold my race when they do wrong. They ought to be punished,
but the innocent are made to suffer as well as the guilty, and I hope
the time will hasten when it will be stopped forever. Let us remember
God says, “He that sheds blood, his blood shall be required again.”
I may not live to see it, but the time is approaching when the South
will again have cause to repent for the blood it has shed of innocent
black men, for their blood cries out for vengeance. For the South still
cherishes a hatred toward the blacks, although there are some true
Southern gentlemen left who abhor the stigma brought upon them, and
feel it very keenly, and I hope the day is not far distant when the
two races will reside in peace in the Southland, and we will sing with
sincere and truthful hearts, “My country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of
Liberty, of thee I sing.”
I have been in many States and cities, and in each I have looked for
liberty and justice, equal for the black as for the white; but it
was not until I was within the borders of New England, and reached
old Massachusetts, that I found it. Here is found liberty in the
full sense of the word, liberty for the stranger within her gates,
irrespective of race or creed, liberty and justice for all.
We have before us still another problem to solve. With the close of
the Spanish war, and on the entrance of the Americans into Cuba, the
same conditions confront us as the war of 1861 left. The Cubans are
free, but it is a limited freedom, for prejudice, deep-rooted, has
been brought to them and a separation made between the white and black
Cubans, a thing that had never existed between them before; but to-day
there is the same intense hatred toward the negro in Cuba that there is
in some parts of this country.
I helped to furnish and pack boxes to be sent to the soldiers and
hospitals during the first part of the Spanish war; there were black
soldiers there too. At the battle of San Juan Hill, they were in
the front, just as brave, loyal, and true as those other black men
who fought for freedom and the right; and yet their bravery and
faithfulness were reluctantly acknowledged, and praise grudgingly
given. All we ask for is “equal justice,” the same that is accorded
to all other races who come to this country, of their free will (not
forced to, as we were), and are allowed to enjoy every privilege,
unrestricted, while we are denied what is rightfully our own in a
country which the labor of our forefathers helped to make what it is.
One thing I have noticed among my people in the South: they have
accumulated a large amount of real estate, far surpassing the colored
owners in the North, who seem to let their opportunity slip by them.
Nearly all of Brownsville (a suburb of Savannah) is owned by colored
people, and so it is in a great many other places throughout the State,
and all that is needed is the protection of the law as citizens.
In 1867, soon after the death of my father, who had served on a gunboat
during the war, my mother opened a grocery store, where she kept
general merchandise always on hand. These she traded for cash or would
exchange for crops of cotton, corn, or rice, which she would ship once
a month, to F. Lloyd & Co., or Johnson & Jackson, in Savannah. These
were colored merchants, doing business on Bay Street in that city.
Mother bought her first property, which contained ten acres. She next
purchased fifty acres of land. Then she had a chance to get a place
with seven hundred acres of land, and she bought this.
In 1870, Colonel Hamilton and Major Devendorft, of Oswego, N. Y., came
to the town and bought up a tract of land at a place called Doctortown,
and started a mill. Mrs. Devendorft heard of my mother and went to see
her, and persuaded her to come to live with her, assuring her she
would be as one of the family. Mother went with her, but after a few
months she went to Doctortown, where she has been since, and now owns
the largest settlement there. All trains going to Florida pass her
place, just across the Altamaha River. She is well known by both white
and black; the people are fond of her, and will not allow any one to
harm her.
Mr. Devendorft sold out his place in 1880 and went back to New York,
where later he died.
I read an article, which said the ex-Confederate Daughters had sent
a petition to the managers of the local theatres in Tennessee to
prohibit the performance of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” claiming it was
exaggerated (that is, the treatment of the slaves), and would have a
very bad effect on the children who might see the drama. I paused and
thought back a few years of the heart-rending scenes I have witnessed;
I have seen many times, when I was a mere girl, thirty or forty men,
handcuffed, and as many women and children, come every first Tuesday
of each month from Mr. Wiley’s trade office to the auction blocks, one
of them being situated on Drayton Street and Court Lane, the other on
Bryant Street, near the Pulaski House. The route was down our principal
street, Bull Street, to the court-house, which was only a block from
where I resided.
All people in those days got all their water from the city pumps,
which stood about a block apart throughout the city. The one we used
to get water from was opposite the court-house, on Bull Street. I
remember, as if it were yesterday, seeing droves of negroes going to be
sold, and I often went to look at them, and I could hear the auctioneer
very plainly from my house, auctioning these poor people off.
Do these Confederate Daughters ever send petitions to prohibit the
atrocious lynchings and wholesale murdering and torture of the negro?
Do you ever hear of them fearing this would have a bad effect on
the children? Which of these two, the drama or the present state of
affairs, makes a degrading impression upon the minds of our young
generation? In my opinion it is not “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” but it should
be the one that has caused the world to cry “Shame!” It does not seem
as if our land is yet civilized. It is like times long past, when
rulers and high officers had to flee for their lives, and the negro
has been dealt with in the same way since the war by those he lived
with and toiled for two hundred years or more. I do not condemn all the
Caucasian race because the negro is badly treated by a few of the race.
No! for had it not been for the true whites, assisted by God and the
prayers of our forefathers, I should not be here to-day.
There are still good friends to the negro. Why, there are still
thousands that have not bowed to Baal. So it is with us. Man thinks two
hundred years is a long time, and it is, too; but it is only as a week
to God, and in his own time--I know I shall not live to see the day,
but it will come--the South will be like the North, and when it comes
it will be prized higher than we prize the North to-day. God is just;
when he created man he made him in his image, and never intended one
should misuse the other. All men are born free and equal in his sight.
I am pleased to know at this writing that the officers and comrades
of my regiment stand ready to render me assistance whenever required.
It seems like “bread cast upon the water,” and it has returned after
many days, when it is most needed. I have received letters from some of
the comrades, since we parted in 1866, with expressions of gratitude
and thanks to me for teaching them their first letters. One of them,
Peter Waggall, is a minister in Jacksonville, Fla. Another is in the
government service at Washington, D. C. Others are in Darien and
Savannah, Ga., and all are doing well.
There are many people who do not know what some of the colored women
did during the war. There were hundreds of them who assisted the Union
soldiers by hiding them and helping them to escape. Many were punished
for taking food to the prison stockades for the prisoners. When I went
into Savannah, in 1865, I was told of one of these stockades which was
in the suburbs of the city, and they said it was an awful place. The
Union soldiers were in it, worse than pigs, without any shelter from
sun or storm, and the colored women would take food there at night and
pass it to them, through the holes in the fence. The soldiers were
starving, and these women did all they could towards relieving those
men, although they knew the penalty, should they be caught giving them
aid. Others assisted in various ways the Union army. These things
should be kept in history before the people. There has never been a
greater war in the United States than the one of 1861, where so many
lives were lost,--not men alone but noble women as well.
Let us not forget that terrible war, or our brave soldiers who were
thrown into Andersonville and Libby prisons, the awful agony they went
through, and the most brutal treatment they received in those loathsome
dens, the worst ever given human beings; and if the white soldiers were
subjected to such treatment, what must have been the horrors inflicted
on the negro soldiers in their prison pens? Can we forget those
cruelties? No, though we try to forgive and say, “No North, no South,”
and hope to see it in reality before the last comrade passes away.
XIV
A VISIT TO LOUISIANA
The inevitable always happens. On February 3, 1898, I was called to
Shreveport, La., to the bedside of my son, who was very ill. He was
traveling with Nickens and Company, with “The Lion’s Bride,” when he
fell ill, and had been ill two weeks when they sent to me. I tried
to have him brought home to Boston, but they could not send him, as
he was not able to sit and ride this long distance; so on the sixth
of February I left Boston to go to him. I reached Cincinnati on the
eighth, where I took the train for the south. I asked a white man
standing near (before I got my train) what car I should take. “Take
that one,” he said, pointing to one. “But that is a smoking car!”
“Well,” he replied, “that is the car for colored people.” I went to
this car, and on entering it all my courage failed me. I have ridden
in many coaches, but I was never in such as these. I wanted to return
home again, but when I thought of my sick boy I said, “Well, others
ride in these cars and I must do likewise,” and tried to be resigned,
for I wanted to reach my boy, as I did not know whether I should find
him alive. I arrived in Chattanooga at eight o’clock in the evening,
where the porter took my baggage to the train which was to leave for
Marion, Miss. Soon after I was seated, just before the train pulled
out, two tall men with slouch hats on walked through the car, and on
through the train. Finally they came back to our car and stopping at
my seat said, “Where are those men who were with you?” I did not know
to whom they were speaking, as there was another woman in the car, so
I made no reply. Again they asked me, standing directly in front of my
seat, “Where are those men who came in with you?” “Are you speaking to
me?” I said. “Yes!” they said. “I have not seen any men,” I replied.
They looked at me a moment, and one of them asked where I was from. I
told him Boston; he hesitated a minute and walked out of our car to the
other car.
When the conductor came around I told him what these men had said,
and asked him if they allowed persons to enter the car and insult
passengers. He only smiled. Later, when the porter came in, I mentioned
it to him. He said, “Lady, I see you do not belong here; where are
you from?” I told him. He said, “I have often heard of Massachusetts.
I want to see that place.” “Yes!” I said, “you can ride there on the
cars, and no person would be allowed to speak to you as those men
did to me.” He explained that those men were constables, who were
in search of a man who had eloped with another man’s wife. “That is
the way they do here. Each morning you can hear of some negro being
lynched;” and on seeing my surprise, he said, “Oh, that is nothing;
it is done all the time. We have no rights here. I have been on this
road for fifteen years and have seen some terrible things.” He wanted
to know what I was doing down there, and I told him it was only the
illness of my son that brought me there.
I was a little surprised at the way the poor whites were made to ride
on this road. They put them all together by themselves in a car,
between the colored people’s coach and the first-class coach, and it
looked like the “laborers’ car” used in Boston to carry the different
day laborers to and from their work.
I got to Marion, Miss., at two o’clock in the morning, arrived at
Vicksburg at noon, and at Shreveport about eight o’clock in the
evening, and found my son just recovering from a severe hemorrhage. He
was very anxious to come home, and I tried to secure a berth for him on
a sleeper, but they would not sell me one, and he was not strong enough
to travel otherwise. If I could only have gotten him to Cincinnati, I
might have brought him home, but as I could not I was forced to let him
remain where he was. It seemed very hard, when his father fought to
protect the Union and our flag, and yet his boy was denied, under this
same flag, a berth to carry him home to die, because he was a negro.
Shreveport is a little town, made up largely of Jews and Germans and a
few Southerners, the negroes being in the majority. Its sidewalks are
sand except on the main street. Almost all the stores are kept either
by the Jews or Germans. They know a stranger in a minute, as the town
is small and the citizens know each other; if not personally, their
faces are familiar.
I went into a jewelry store one day to have a crystal put in my watch,
and the attendant remarked, “You are a stranger.” I asked him how he
knew that. He said he had watched me for a week or so. I told him yes,
I was a stranger and from Boston. “Oh! I have heard of Boston,” he
said. “You will not find this place like it is there. How do you like
this town?” “Not very well,” I replied.
I found that the people who had lived in Massachusetts and were settled
in Shreveport were very cordial to me and glad to see me. There was
a man murdered in cold blood for nothing. He was a colored man and a
“porter” in a store in this town. A clerk had left his umbrella at
home. It had begun to rain when he started for home, and on looking
for the umbrella he could not, of course, find it. He asked the porter
if he had seen it. He said no, he had not. “You answer very saucy,”
said the clerk, and drawing his revolver, he shot the colored man dead.
He was taken up the street to an office where he was placed under one
thousand dollars bond for his appearance and released, and that was the
end of the case. I was surprised at this, but I was told by several
white and colored persons that this was a common occurrence, and the
persons were never punished if they were white, but no mercy was shown
to negroes.
I met several comrades, white and colored, there, and noticed that the
colored comrades did not wear their buttons. I asked one of them why
this was, and was told, should they wear it, they could not get work.
Still some would wear their buttons in spite of the feeling against it.
I met a newsman from New York on the train. He was a veteran, and said
that Sherman ought to come back and go into that part of the country.
Shreveport is a horrid place when it rains. The earth is red and sticks
to your shoes, and it is impossible to keep rubbers on, for the mud
pulls them off. Going across the Mississippi River, I was amazed to see
how the houses were built, so close to the shore, or else on low land;
and when the river rises, it flows into these houses and must make it
very disagreeable and unhealthy for the inmates.
After the death of my son, while on my way back to Boston, I came to
Clarksdale, one of the stations on the road from Vicksburg. In this
town a Mr. Hancock, of New York, had a large cotton plantation, and the
Chinese intermarry with the blacks.
At Clarksdale, I saw a man hanged. It was a terrible sight, and I felt
alarmed for my own safety down there. When I reached Memphis I found
conditions of travel much better. The people were mostly Western and
Northern here; the cars were nice, but separate for colored persons
until we reached the Ohio River, when the door was opened and the
porter passed through, saying, “The Ohio River! change to the other
car.” I thought, “What does he mean? We have been riding all this
distance in separate cars, and now we are all to sit together.” It
certainly seemed a peculiar arrangement. Why not let the negroes, if
their appearance and respectability warrant it, be allowed to ride as
they do in the North, East, or West?
There are others beside the blacks, in the South and North, that should
be put in separate cars while traveling, just as they put my race. Many
black people in the South do not wish to be thrown into a car because
all are colored, as there are many of their race very objectionable
to them, being of an entirely different class; but they have to adapt
themselves to the circumstances and ride with them, because they are
all negroes. There is no such division with the whites. Except in
one place I saw, the workingman and the millionaire ride in the same
coaches together. Why not allow the respectable, law-abiding classes
of the blacks the same privilege? We hope for better conditions in the
future, and feel sure they will come in time, surely if slowly.
While in Shreveport, I visited ex-Senator Harper’s house. He is a
colored man and owns a large business block, besides a fine residence
on Cado Street and several good building lots. Another family, the
Pages, living on the same street, were quite wealthy, and a large
number of colored families owned their homes, and were industrious,
refined people; and if they were only allowed justice, the South would
be the only place for our people to live.
We are similar to the children of Israel, who, after many weary years
in bondage, were led into that land of promise, there to thrive and be
forever free from persecution; and I don’t despair, for the Book which
is our guide through life declares, “Ethiopia shall stretch forth her
hand.”
What a wonderful revolution! In 1861 the Southern papers were full of
advertisements for “slaves,” but now, despite all the hindrances and
“race problems,” my people are striving to attain the full standard
of all other races born free in the sight of God, and in a number of
instances have succeeded. Justice we ask,--to be citizens of these
United States, where so many of our people have shed their blood with
their white comrades, that the stars and stripes should never be
polluted.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
ROSTER OF SURVIVORS OF THIRTY-THIRD UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS
The following are the names of officers and men as near as I have been
able to reach.
Colonel T. W. Higginson.
Lieut.-Col. C. T. Trowbridge.
COMPANY A.
Capt. Charles E. Parker,
Lieut. John A. Trowbridge,
Lieut. J. B. West,
O.-Sergt. Joseph Holden,
1st Sergt. ---- Hattent,
2d Sergt. Wm. Jackson,
Thomas Smith,
George Green,
Manly Gater,
Paul Jones,
Sancho Jenkins,
London Bailey,
Edmund Mack,
Andrew Perry,
Morris Williams,
James Dorsen,
Abel Haywood.
COMPANY B.
Capt. Wm. James,
O.-Sergt. Bob Bowling,
2d Sergt. Nathan Hagans,
3d Sergt. Cato Wright,
4th Sergt. Frederick Parker,
5th Sergt. Wm. Simmons,
Corp. Monday Stewart,
Corp. Allick Seymore,
Corp. Lazarus Fields,
Corp. Boson Green,
Corp. Steven Wright,
Corp. Carolina Hagans,
Corp. Richard Robinson,
David Hall,
Edward Houston,
Smart Givins,
John Mills,
Jacob Riley,
Frederick Procter,
Benj. Gordon,
Benj. Mason,
Sabe Natteal,
Joseph Noyels,
Benj. Mackwell,
Thos. Hernandes,
Israel Choen,
Steplight Gordon,
Chas. Talbert,
Isaac Jenkins,
Morris Polite,
Robert Freeman,
Jacob Watson,
Benj. Managualt,
Richard Adams,
Mingo Singleton,
Toney Chapman,
Jos. Knowell,
Benj. Gardner.
COMPANY C.