In the month of August, 1620, a Dutch man-of-war from Guinea entered
James River and sold "twenty negars." Such is the brief record left by
John Rolfe, whose name is honorably associated with that of Pocahontas.
This was the first importation of the kind into the country, and the
source of existing strifes. It was fitting that the system which from
that slave-ship had been spreading over the continent for nearly two
centuries and a half should yield for the first time to the logic of
military law almost upon the spot of its origin. The coincidence may not
inappropriately introduce what of experience and reflection the writer
has to relate of a three-months' soldier's life in Virginia.
On the morning of the 22d of May last, Major-General Butler, welcomed
with a military salute, arrived at Fortress Monroe, and assumed the
command of the Department of Virginia. Hitherto we had been hemmed up in
the peninsula of which the fort occupies the main part, and cut off from
communication with the surrounding country. Until within a few days our
forces consisted of about one thousand men belonging to the Third and
Fourth Regiments of Massachusetts militia, and three hundred regulars.
The only movement since our arrival on the 20th of April had been
the expedition to Norfolk of the Third Regiment, in which it was
my privilege to serve as a private. The fort communicates with the
main-land by a dike or causeway about half a mile long, and a wooden
bridge, perhaps three hundred feet long, and then there spreads out a
tract of country, well wooded and dotted over with farms. Passing from
this bridge for a distance of two miles northwestward, you reach a creek
or arm of the bay spanned by another wooden bridge, and crossing it you
are at once in the ancient village of Hampton, having a population
of some fifteen hundred inhabitants. The peninsula on which the fort
stands, the causeway, and the first bridge described, are the property
of the United States. Nevertheless, a small picket-guard of the
Secessionists had been accustomed to occupy a part of the bridge,
sometimes coming even to the centre, and a Secession flag waved in sight
of the fort. On the 13th of May, the Rebel picket-guard was driven from
the bridge, and all the Government property was taken possession of by a
detachment of two companies from the Fourth Regiment, accompanied by a
dozen regulars with a field-piece, acting under the orders of Colonel
Dimick, the commander of the post. They retired, denouncing vengeance
on Massachusetts troops for the invasion of Virginia. Our pickets then
occupied the entire bridge and a small strip of the main-land beyond,
covering a valuable well; but still there was no occupation in force of
any but Government property. The creation of a new military department,
to the command of which a major-general was assigned, was soon to
terminate this isolation. On the 13th of May the First Vermont Regiment
arrived, on the 24th the Second New York, and two weeks later our forces
numbered nearly ten thousand.
On the 23d of May General Butler ordered the first reconnoitring
expedition, which consisted of a part of the Vermont Regiment, and
proceeded under the command of Colonel Phelps over the dike and bridge
towards Hampton. They were anticipated, and when in sight of the second
bridge saw that it had been set on fire, and, hastening forward,
extinguished the flames. The detachment then marched into the village. A
parley was held with a Secession officer, who represented that the men
in arms in Hampton were only a domestic police. Meanwhile the white
inhabitants, particularly the women, had generally disappeared. The
negroes gathered around our men, and their evident exhilaration was
particularly noted, some of them saying, "Glad to see you, Massa,"
and betraying the fact, that, on the approach of the detachment, a
field-piece stationed at the bridge had been thrown into the sea. This
was the first communication between our army and the negroes in this
department.
The reconnoissance of the day had more important results than were
anticipated. Three negroes, owned by Colonel Mallory, a lawyer of
Hampton and a Rebel officer, taking advantage of the terror prevailing
among the white inhabitants, escaped from their master, skulked during
the afternoon, and in the night came to our pickets. The next morning,
May 24th, they were brought to General Butler, and there, for the first
time, stood the Major-General and the fugitive slave face to face. Being
carefully interrogated, it appeared that they were field-hands, the
slaves of an officer in the Rebel service, who purposed taking them to
Carolina to be employed in military operations there. Two of them
had wives in Hampton, one a free colored woman, and they had several
children in the neighborhood. Here was a new question, and a grave one,
on which the Government had as yet developed no policy. In the absence
of precedents or instructions, an analogy drawn from international
law was applied. Under that law, contraband goods, which are directly
auxiliary to military operations, cannot in time of war be imported by
neutrals into an enemy's country, and may be seized as lawful prize when
the attempt is made so to import them. It will be seen, that, accurately
speaking, the term applies exclusively to the relation between a
belligerent and a neutral, and not to the relation between belligerents.
Under the strict law of nations, all the property of an enemy may be
seized. Under the Common Law, the property of traitors is forfeit. The
humaner usage of modern times favors the waiving of these strict rights,
but allows,--without question, the seizure and confiscation of all
such goods as are immediately auxiliary to military purposes. These
able-bodied negroes, held as slaves, were to be employed to build
breastworks, to transport or store provisions, to serve as cooks or
waiters, and even to bear arms. Regarded as property, according to their
master's claim, they could be efficiently used by the Rebels for the
purposes of the Rebellion, and most efficiently by the Government in
suppressing it. Regarded as persons, they had escaped from communities
where a triumphant rebellion had trampled on the laws, and only the
rights of human nature remained, and they now asked the protection of
the Government, to which, in prevailing treason, they were still loyal,
and which they were ready to serve as best they could.
The three negroes, being held contraband of war, were at once set to
work to aid the masons in constructing a new bakehouse within the fort.
Thenceforward the term "contraband" bore a new signification, with which
it will pass into history, designating the negroes who had been held as
slaves, now adopted under the protection of the Government. It was used
in official communications at the fort. It was applied familiarly to the
negroes, who stared somewhat, inquiring, "What d' ye call us that
for?" Not having Wheaton's "Elements" at hand, we did not attempt an
explanation. The contraband notion was adopted by Congress in the Act
of July 6th, which confiscates slaves used in aiding the Insurrection.
There is often great virtue in such technical phrases in shaping public
opinion. They commend practical action to a class of minds little
developed in the direction of the sentiments, which would be repelled by
formulas of a broader and nobler import. The venerable gentleman,
who wears gold spectacles and reads a conservative daily, prefers
confiscation to emancipation. He is reluctant to have slaves declared
freemen, but has no objection to their being declared contrabands. His
whole nature rises in insurrection when Beecher preaches in a sermon
that a thing ought to be done because it is a duty, but he yields
gracefully when Butler issues an order commanding it to be done because
it is a military necessity.
On the next day, Major John B. Cary, another Rebel officer, late
principal of an academy in Hampton, a delegate to the Charleston
Convention, and a seceder with General Butler from the Convention at
Baltimore, came to the fort with a flag of truce, and, claiming to act
as the representative of Colonel Mallory, demanded the fugitives.
He reminded General Butler of his obligations under the Federal
Constitution, under which he claimed to act. The ready reply was, that
the Fugitive-Slave Act could not be invoked for the reclamation of
fugitives from a foreign State, which Virginia claimed to be, and she
must count it among the infelicities of her position, if so far at least
she was taken at her word.
The three pioneer negroes were not long to be isolated from their race.
There was no known channel of communication between them and their old
comrades, and yet those comrades knew, or believed with the certainty of
knowledge, how they had been received. If inquired of whether more were
coming, their reply was, that, if they were not sent back, others would
understand that they were among friends, and more would come the next
day. Such is the mysterious spiritual telegraph which runs through the
slave population. Proclaim an edict of emancipation in the hearing of a
single slave on the Potomac, and in a few days it will be known by his
brethren on the Gulf. So, on the night of the Big Bethel affair, a squad
of negroes, meeting our soldiers, inquired anxiously the way to "the
freedom fort."
The means of communicating with the fort from the open country became
more easy, when, on the 24th of May, (the same day on which the first
movement was made from Washington into Virginia,) the Second New York
Regiment made its encampment on the Segar farm, lying near the bridge
which connected the fort with the main-land, an encampment soon enlarged
by the First Vermont and other New York regiments. On Sunday morning,
May 26th, eight negroes stood before the quarters of General Butler,
waiting for an audience.
They were examined in part by the Hon. Mr. Ashley, M.C. from Ohio, then
a visitor at the fort. On May 27th, forty-seven negroes of both sexes
and all ages, from three months to eighty-five years, among whom were
half a dozen entire families, came in one squad. Another lot of a dozen
good field-hands arrived the same day; and then they continued to come
by twenties, thirties, and forties. They were assigned buildings outside
of the fort or tents within. They were set to work as servants to
officers, or to store provisions landed from vessels,--thus relieving
us of the fatigue duty which we had previously done, except that of
dragging and mounting columbiads on the ramparts of the fort, a service
which some very warm days have impressed on my memory.
On the 27th of May, the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, the First
Vermont, and some New York regiments made an advance movement and
occupied Newport News, (a promontory named for Captain Christopher
Newport, the early explorer,) so as more effectually to enforce the
blockade of James River. There, too, negroes came in, who were employed
as servants to the officers. One of them, when we left the fort, more
fortunate than his comrades, and aided by a benevolent captain, eluded
the vigilance of the Provost Marshal, and is now the curiosity of a
village in the neighborhood of Boston.
It was now time to call upon the Government for a policy in dealing with
slave society thus disrupted and disorganized. Elsewhere, even under
the shadow of the Capitol, the action of military officers had been
irregular, and in some cases in palpable violation of personal rights.
An order of General McDowell excluded all slaves from the lines.
Sometimes officers assumed to decide the question whether a negro was a
slave, and deliver him to a claimant, when, certainly in the absence of
martial law, they had no authority in the premises, under the Act of
Congress,--that power being confided to commissioners and marshals. As
well might a member of Congress or a State sheriff usurp the function.
Worse yet, in defiance of the Common Law, they made color a presumptive
proof of bondage. In one case a free negro was delivered to a claimant
under this process, more summary than any which the Fugitive-Slave Act
provides. The colonel of a Massachusetts regiment showed some practical
humor in dealing with a pertinacious claimant who asserted title to a
negro found within his lines, and had brought a policeman along with
him to aid in enforcing it. The shrewd colonel, (a Democrat he is,)
retaining the policeman, put both the claimant and claimed outside of
the lines together to try their fleetness. The negro proved to be the
better gymnast and was heard of no more. This capricious treatment of
the subject was fraught with serious difficulties as well as personal
injuries, and it needed to be displaced by an authorized system.
On the 27th of May, General Butler, having in a previous communication
reported his interview with Major Cary, called the attention of the War
Department to the subject in a formal despatch,--indicating the hostile
purposes for which the negroes had been or might be successfully used,
stating the course he had pursued in employing them and recording
expenses and services, and suggesting pertinent military, political, and
humane considerations. The Secretary of War, under date of the 30th of
May, replied, cautiously approving the course of General Butler, and
intimating distinctions between interfering with the relations of
persons held to service and refusing to surrender them to their alleged
masters, which it is not easy to reconcile with well-defined views of
the new exigency, or at least with a desire to express them. The note
was characterized by diplomatic reserve which it will probably be found
difficult long to maintain.
The ever-recurring question continued to press for solution. On the 6th
of July the Act of Congress was approved, declaring that any person
claiming the labor of another to be due to him, and permitting such
party to be employed in any military or naval service whatsoever against
the Government of the United States, shall forfeit his claim to such
labor, and proof of such employment shall thereafter be a full answer
to the claim. This act was designed for the direction of the civil
magistrate, and not for the limitation of powers derived from military
law. That law, founded on _salus republicae_, transcends all codes,
and lies outside of forms and statutes. John Quincy Adams, almost
prophesying as he expounded, declared, in 1842, that under it slavery
might be abolished. Under it, therefore, Major-General Fremont, in a
recent proclamation, declared the slaves of all persons within his
department, who were in arms against the Government, to be freemen, and
under it has given title-deeds of manumission. Subsequently President
Lincoln limited the proclamation to such slaves as are included in the
Act of Congress, namely, the slaves of Rebels used in directly hostile
service. The country had called for Jacksonian courage, and its first
exhibition was promptly suppressed. If the revocation was made in
deference to protests from Kentucky, it seems, that, while the loyal
citizens of Missouri appeared to approve the decisive measure, they were
overruled by the more potential voice of other communities who professed
to understand their affairs better than they did themselves. But if, as
is admitted, the commanding officer, in the plenitude of military power,
was authorized to make the order within his department, all human beings
included in the proclamation thereby acquired a vested title to their
freedom, of which neither Congress nor President could dispossess them.
No conclusive behests of law necessitating the limitation, it cannot
rest on any safe reasons of military policy. The one slave who carries
his master's knapsack on a march contributes far less to the efficiency
of the Rebel army than the one hundred slaves who hoe corn on his
plantation with which to replenish its commissariat. We have not yet
emerged from the fine-drawn distinctions of peaceful times. We may
imprison or slaughter a Rebel, but we may not unloose his hold on a
person he has claimed as a slave. We may seize all his other property
without question, lands, houses, cattle, jewels; but his asserted
property in man is more sacred than the gold which overlay the Ark of
the Covenant, and we may not profane it. This reverence for things
assumed to be sacred, which are not so, cannot long continue. The
Government can well turn away from the enthusiast, however generous his
impulses, who asks the abolition of slavery on general principles of
philanthropy, for the reason that it already has work enough on its
hands. It may not change the objects of the war, but it must of
necessity at times shift its tactics and its instruments, as the
exigency demands. Its solemn and imperative duty is to look every
issue, however grave and transcendent, firmly in the face; and having
ascertained upon mature and conscientious reflection what is necessary
to suppress the Rebellion, it must then proceed with inexorable purpose
to inflict the blows where Rebellion is the weakest and under which it
must inevitably fall.
On the 30th of July, General Butler, being still unprovided with
adequate instructions,--the number of contrabands having now reached
nine hundred,--applied to the War Department for further directions. His
inquiries, inspired by good sense and humanity alike, were of the most
fundamental character, and when they shall have received a full answer
the war will be near its end. Assuming the slaves to have been the
property of masters, he considers them waifs abandoned by their
owners, in which the Government as a finder cannot, however, acquire a
proprietary interest, and they have therefore reverted to the normal
condition of those made in God's image, "if not free-born, yet
free-manumitted, sent forth from the hand that held them, never to
return." The author of that document may never win a victor's laurels
on any renowned field, but, depositing it in the archives of the
Government, he leaves a record in history which will outlast the
traditions of battle or siege. It is proper to add, that the answer of
the War Department, so far as its meaning is clear, leaves the General
uninstructed as to all slaves not confiscated by the Act of Congress.
The documentary history being now completed, the personal narrative of
affairs at Fortress Monroe is resumed.
The encampment of Federal troops beyond the peninsula of the fort and in
the vicinity of the village of Hampton was immediately followed by an
hegira of its white inhabitants, burning, as they fled, as much of the
bridge as they could. On the 28th of May, a detachment of troops entered
the village and hoisted the stars and stripes on the house of Colonel
Mallory. Picket-guards occupied it intermittently during the month of
June. It was not until the first day of July that a permanent encampment
was made there, consisting of the Third Massachusetts Regiment, which
moved from the fort, the Fourth, which moved from Newport News, and the
Naval Brigade, all under the command of Brigadier-General Pierce,--the
camp being informally called Camp Greble, in honor of the lieutenant of
that name who fell bravely in the disastrous affair of Big Bethel.
Here we remained until July 16th, when, our term of enlistment having
expired, we bade adieu to Hampton, its ancient relics, its deserted
houses, its venerable church, its trees and gardens, its contrabands,
all so soon to be wasted and scattered by the torch of Virginia Vandals.
We passed over the bridge, the rebuilding of which was completed the day
before, marched to the fort, exchanged our rifle muskets for an older
pattern, listened to a farewell address from General Butler, bade
good-bye to Colonel Dimick, and embarked for Boston. It was during this
encampment at Hampton, and two previous visits, somewhat hurried, while
as yet it was without a permanent guard, that my personal knowledge of
the negroes, of their feelings, desires, aspirations, capacities, and
habits of life was mainly obtained.
A few words of local history and description may illustrate the
narrative. Hampton is a town of considerable historic interest. First
among civilized men the illustrious adventurer Captain John Smith with
his comrades visited its site in 1607, while exploring the mouth of
James River to find a home for the first colonists. Here they smoked the
calumet of peace with an Indian tribe. To the neighboring promontory,
where they found good anchorage and hospitality, they gave the name of
Point Comfort, which it still bears. Hampton, though a settlement was
commenced there in 1610, did not become a town until 1705. Hostile
fleets have twice appeared before it. The first time was in October,
1775, when some tenders sent by Lord Dunmore to destroy it were repulsed
by the citizens, aided by the Culpepper riflemen. Then and there was the
first battle of the Revolution in Virginia. Again in June, 1813, it was
attacked by Admiral Cockburn and General Beckwith, and scenes of pillage
followed, dishonorable to the British soldiery. Jackson, in his address
to his army just before the Battle of New Orleans, conjured his soldiers
to remember Hampton. Until the recent conflagration, it abounded in
ancient relics. Among them was St. John's Church, the main body of which
was of imported brick, and built at the beginning of the eighteenth
century. The fury of Secession irreverently destroyed this memorial of
antiquity and religion, which even a foreign soldiery had spared. One
inscription in the graveyard surrounding the church is as early as 1701,
and even earlier dates are found on tombstones in the fields a mile
distant. The Court-House, a clumsy old structure, in which was the
law-office of Colonel Mallory, contained judicial records of a very
early colonial period. Some, which I examined, bore date of 1634.
Several old houses, with spacious rooms and high ornamented ceilings,
gave evidence that at one time they had been occupied by citizens of
considerable taste and rank. A friend of mine found among the rubbish of
a deserted house an English illustrated edition of "Paradise Lost,"
of the date of 1725, and Boyle's Oxford edition of "The Epistles of
Phalaris," famous in classical controversy, printed in 1718. The
proximity of Fortress Monroe, of the fashionable watering-place of Old
Point, and of the anchorage of Hampton Roads, has contributed to the
interest of the town. To this region came in summer-time public men
weary of their cares, army and navy officers on furlough or retired, and
the gay daughters of Virginia. In front of the fort, looking seaward,
was the summer residence of Floyd; between the fort and the town was
that of John Tyler. President Jackson sought refuge from care and
solicitation at the Rip Raps, whither he was followed by his devoted
friend, Mr. Blair. So at least a contraband informed me, who said he had
often seen them both there.
Nevertheless, the town bore no evidence of thrift. It looked as though
it were sleepy and indolent in the best of times, having oysters for its
chief merchandise. The streets were paved, but the pavements were of
large irregular stones, and unevenly laid. Few houses were new, and,
excepting St. John's Church, the public edifices were mean. All these
have been swept away by the recent conflagration, a waste of property
indefensible on any military principles. The buildings might have
furnished winter-quarters for our troops, but in that climate they were
not necessary for that purpose, perhaps not desirable, or, if required,
could be easily replaced by temporary habitations constructed of
lumber imported from the North by sea. But the Rebel chiefs had thrown
themselves into heroic attitudes, and while playing the part of
incendiaries, they fancied their action to be as sublime as that of the
Russians at Moscow. With such a precedent of Vandalism, no ravages of
our own troops can hereafter be complained of.
The prevailing exodus, leaving less than a dozen white men behind,
testifies the political feelings of the people. Only two votes were
thrown against the ordinance of Secession. Whatever of Union sentiment
existed there had been swept away by such demagogues as Mallory, Cary,
Magruder, Shiels, and Hope. Hastily as they left, they removed in most
cases all their furniture, leaving only the old Virginia sideboard, too
heavy to be taken away. In a few exceptional cases, from the absence of
the owner or other cause, the house was still furnished; but generally
nothing but old letters, torn books, newspapers, cast-off clothing,
strewed the floors. Rarely have I enjoyed the hours more than when
roaming from cellar to garret these tenantless houses. A deserted
dwelling! How the imagination is fascinated by what may have there
transpired of human joy or sorrow,--the solitary struggles of the soul
for better things, the dawn and the fruition of love, the separations
and reunions of families, the hearth-stone consecrated by affection and
prayer, the bridal throng, the birth of new lives, the farewells to the
world, the funeral train.
But more interesting and instructive were the features of slave-life
which here opened to us. The negroes who remained, of whom there may
have been three hundred of all ages, lived in small wooden shanties,
generally in the rear of the master's house, rarely having more than one
room on the lower floor, and that containing an open fireplace where the
cooking for the master's family was done, tables, chairs, dishes, and
the miscellaneous utensils of household life. The masters had taken with
them, generally, their waiting-maids and house-servants, and had
desired to carry all their slaves with them. But in the hasty
preparations,--particularly where the slaves were living away from
their master's close, or had a family,--it was difficult to remove them
against their will, as they could skulk for a few hours and then go
where they pleased. Some voluntarily left their slaves behind, not
having the means to provide for them, or, anticipating a return at no
distant day, desired them to stay and guard the property. The slaves who
remained lived upon the little pork and corn-meal that were left and the
growing vegetables. They had but little to do. The women looked after
their meagre household concerns, but the men were generally idle,
standing in groups, or sitting in front of the shanties talking with the
women. Some began to serve our officers as soon as we were quartered in
the town,--while a few others set up cake-stands upon the street.
It was necessary for the protection of the post that some breastworks
should be thrown up, and a line was planned extending from the old
cemetery northward to the new one, a quarter of a mile distant. Our own
troops were disinclined to the labor, their time being nearly expired,
and they claiming that they had done their share of fatigue duty both
at the fort and at Newport News. A member of Brigadier-General Pierce's
staff--an efficient officer and a humane gentleman--suggested the
employment of the contrabands and the furnishing of them with rations,
an expedient best for them and agreeable to us. He at once dictated
a telegram to General Butler in these words:--"Shall we put the
contrabands to work on the intrenchments, and will you furnish them with
rations?" An affirmative answer was promptly received on Monday morning,
July 8th, and that was the first day in the course of the war in which
the negro was employed upon the military works of our army. It therefore
marks a distinct epoch in its progress and in its relations to the
colored population. The writer--and henceforth his narrative must
indulge in the frequent use of the first person--was specially detailed
from his post as private in Company L of the Third Regiment to collect
the contrabands, record their names, ages, and the names of their
masters, provide their tools, superintend their labor, and procure their
rations. My comrades smiled, as I undertook the novel duty, enjoying
the spectacle of a Massachusetts Republican converted into a Virginia
slave-master. To me it seemed rather an opportunity to lead them from
the house of bondage never to return. For, whatever may be the general
duty to this race, to all such as we have in any way employed to aid our
armies our national faith and our personal honor are pledged. The
code of a gentleman, to say nothing of a higher law of rectitude,
necessitates protection to this extent. Abandoning one of these faithful
allies, who, if delivered up, would be reduced to severer servitude
because of the education he had received and the services he had
performed, probably to be transported to the remotest slave region as
now too dangerous to remain near its borders, we should be accursed
among the nations of the earth. I felt assured that from that hour,
whatsoever the fortunes of the war, every one of those enrolled
defenders of the Union had vindicated beyond all future question, for
himself, his wife, and their issue, a title to American citizenship, and
become heir to all the immunities of Magna Charta, the Declaration of
Independence, and the Constitution of the United States.
Passing through the principal streets, I told the contrabands that when
they heard the court-house bell, which would ring soon, they must go to
the court-house yard, where a communication would be made to them. In
the mean time I secured the valuable services of some fellow-privates,
one for a quarter-master, two others to aid in superintending at the
trenches, and the orderly-sergeant of my own company, whose expertness
in the drill was equalled only by his general good sense and business
capacity. Upon the ringing of the bell, about forty contrabands came to
the yard. A second exploration added to the number some twenty or
more, who had not heard the original summons. They then came into the
building, where they were called to order and addressed. I had argued to
judges and juries, but I had never spoken to such auditors before in a
court-room. I told them that the colored men had been employed on the
breastworks of the Rebels, and we needed their aid,--that they would
be required to do only such labor as we ourselves had done,--that they
should be treated kindly, and no one should be obliged to work beyond
his capacity, or if unwell,--and that they should be furnished in a day
or two with full soldiers' rations. I told them that their masters
had said they were an indolent people,--that I did not believe the
charge,--that I was going home to Massachusetts soon and should be glad
to report that they were as industrious as the whites. They generally
showed no displeasure, some even saying, that, not having done much for
some time, it was the best thing for them to be now employed. Four or
five men over fifty years old said that they suffered from rheumatism,
and could not work without injury. Being confirmed by the by-standers,
they were dismissed. Other old men said they would do what they could,
and they were assured that no more would be required of them. Two of
them, provided with a bucket and dipper, were detailed to carry water
all the time along the line of laborers. Two young men fretted a little,
and claimed to be disabled in some way. They were told to resume their
seats, and try first and see what they could do,--to the evident
amusement of the rest, who knew them to be indolent and disposed to
shirk. A few showed some sulkiness, but it all passed away after the
first day, when they found that they were to be used kindly. One
well-dressed young man, a carpenter, feeling a little better than his
associates, did not wear a pleasant face at first. Finding out his
trade, we set him to sawing the posts for the intrenchments, and he was
entirely reconciled. Free colored men were not required to work; but
one volunteered, wishing, as he said, to do his part. The contrabands
complained that the free colored men ought to be required to work on the
intrenchments as well as they. I thought so too, but followed my orders.
A few expressed some concern lest their masters should punish them for
serving us, if they ever returned. One inquired suspiciously why we took
the name of his master. My reply was, that it was taken in order to
identify them,--an explanation with which he was more satisfied than I
was myself. Several were without shoes, and said that they could not
drive the shovel into the earth. They were told to use the picks. The
rest of the forenoon being occupied in registering their names and ages,
and the names of their masters, they were dismissed to come together on
the ringing of the bell, at two, P.M.
It had been expressly understood that I was to have the exclusive
control and supervision of the negroes, directing their hours of labor
and their rests, without interference from any one. The work itself was
to be planned and superintended by the officers of the Third and Fourth
Regiments. This exclusive control of the men was necessarily confided
to one, as different lieutenants detailed each day could not feel a
responsibility for their welfare. One or two of these, when rests were
allowed the negroes, were somewhat disgusted, saying that negroes
could dig all the time as well as not. I had had some years before an
experience with the use of the shovel under a warm sun, and knew better,
and I wished I could superintend a corps of lieutenants and apply their
own theory to themselves.
At two, P.M., the contrabands came together, answered to their names,
and, each taking a shovel, a spade, or a pick, began to work upon the
breastworks farthest from the village and close to the new cemetery. The
afternoon was very warm, the warmest we had in Hampton. Some, used only
to household or other light work, wilted under the heat, and they were
told to go into the cemetery and lie down. I remember distinctly a
corpulent colored man, down whose cheeks the perspiration rolled and who
said he felt badly. He also was told to go away and rest until he was
better. He soon came back relieved, and there was no more faithful
laborer among them all during the rest of the time. Twice or three times
in the afternoon an intermission of fifteen minutes was allowed to all.
Thus they worked until six in the evening, when they were dismissed for
the day. They deposited their tools in the court-house, where each one
of his own accord carefully put his pick or shovel where he could find
it again,--sometimes behind a door and sometimes in a sly corner or
under a seat, preferring to keep his own tool. They were then informed
that they must come together on the ringing of the bell the next morning
at four o'clock. They thought that too early, but they were assured
that the system best for their health would be adopted, and they would
afterwards be consulted about changing it. The next morning we did not
rise quite so early as four, and the bell was not rung till some minutes
later. The contrabands were prompt, their names had been called, and
they had marched to the trenches, a quarter of a mile distant, and were
fairly at work by half-past four or a quarter before five. They did
excellent service during the morning hours, and at seven were dismissed
till eight. The roll was then called again, absences, if any, noted,
and by half-past eight they were at their post. They continued at the
trenches till eleven, being allowed rests, and were then dismissed until
three, P.M., being relieved four hours in the middle of the day, when,
the bell being rung and the roll called, they resumed their work and
continued till six, when they were dismissed for the day. Such were the
hours and usual course of their labor. Their number was increased some
half dozen by fugitives from the back-country, who came in and asked to
be allowed to serve on the intrenchments.
The contrabands worked well, and in no instance was it found necessary
for the superintendents to urge them. There was a public opinion among
them against idleness, which answered for discipline. Some days they
worked with our soldiers, and it was found that they did more work, and
did the nicer parts--the facings and dressings--better. Colonels Packard
and Wardrop, under whose direction the breastworks were constructed, and
General Butler, who visited them, expressed satisfaction at the work
which the contrabands had done. On the 14th of July, Mr. Russell, of the
London "Times," and Dr. Bellows, of the Sanitary Commission, came to
Hampton and manifested much interest at the success of the experiment.
The result was, indeed, pleasing. A subaltern officer, to whom I had
insisted that the contrabands should be treated with kindness, had
sneered at the idea of applying philanthropic notions in time of war. It
was found then, as always, that decent persons will accomplish more when
treated at least like human beings. The same principle, if we will but
credit our own experience and Mr. Rarey, too, may with advantage be
extended to our relations with the beasts that serve us.
Three days after the contrabands commenced their work, five days'
rations were served to them,--a soldier's ration for each laborer, and
half a ration for each dependant. The allowance was liberal,--as a
soldier's ration, if properly cooked, is more than he generally needs,
and the dependant for whom a half-ration was received might be a wife
or a half-grown child. It consisted of salt beef or pork, hard bread,
beans, rice, coffee, sugar, soap, and candles, and where the family was
large it made a considerable pile. The recipients went home, appearing
perfectly satisfied, and feeling assured that our promises to them would
be performed. On Sunday fresh meat was served to them in the same manner
as to the troops.
There was one striking feature in the contrabands which must not be
omitted. I did not hear a profane or vulgar word spoken by them during
my superintendence, a remark which it will be difficult to make of any
sixty-four white men taken together anywhere in our army. Indeed, the
greatest discomfort of a soldier, who desires to remain a gentleman in
the camp, is the perpetual reiteration of language which no decent lips
would utter in a sister's presence. But the negroes, so dogmatically
pronounced unfit for freedom, were in this respect models for those who
make high boasts of civility of manners and Christian culture. Out of
the sixty-four who worked for us, all but half a dozen were members of
the Church, generally the Baptist. Although without a pastor, they held
religious meetings on the Sundays which we passed in Hampton, which were
attended by about sixty colored persons and three hundred soldiers. The
devotions were decorously conducted, bating some loud shouting by one
or two excitable brethren, which the better sense of the rest could not
suppress. Their prayers and exhortations were fervent, and marked by a
simplicity which is not infrequently the richest eloquence. The soldiers
behaved with entire propriety, and two exhorted them with pious unction,
as children of one Father, ransomed by the same Redeemer.
To this general propriety of conduct among the contrabands intrusted to
me there was only one exception, and that was in the case of Joe ----;
his surname I have forgotten. He was of a vagrant disposition, and an
inveterate shirk. He had a plausible speech and a distorted imagination,
and might be called a demagogue among darkies. He bore an ill
physiognomy,--that of one "fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." He
was disliked by the other contrabands, and had been refused admission to
their Church, which he wished to join in order to get up a character.
Last, but not least, among his sins, he was accustomed to boat his wife,
of which she accused him in my presence; whereupon he justified himself
on the brazen assumption that all husbands did the same. There was no
good reason to believe that he had already been tampered with by Rebels;
but his price could not be more than five dollars. He would be a
disturbing element among the laborers on the breastworks, and he was a
dangerous person to be so near the lines; we therefore sent him to the
fort. The last I heard of him, he was at the Rip Raps, bemoaning his
isolation, and the butt of our soldiers there, who charged him with
being a "Secesh," and confounded him by gravely asserting that they were
such themselves and had seen him with the "Secesh" at Yorktown. This was
the single goat among the sheep.
On Monday evening, July 15th, when the contrabands deposited their tools
in the court-house, I requested them to stop a moment in the yard. I
made each a present of some tobacco, which all the men and most of the
women use. As they gathered in a circle around me, head peering over
head, I spoke to them briefly, thanking them for their cordial work and
complimenting their behavior, remarking that I had heard no profane or
vulgar word from them, in which they were an example to us,--adding that
it was the last time I should meet them, as we were to march homeward in
the morning, and that I should bear to my people a good report of their
industry and morals. There was another word that I could not leave
without speaking. Never before in our history had a Northern man,
believing in the divine right of all men to their liberty, had an
opportunity to address an audience of sixty-four slaves and say what the
Spirit moved him to utter,--and I should have been false to all that is
true and sacred, if I had let it pass. I said to them that there was one
more word for me to add, and that was, that every one of them was as
much entitled to his freedom as I was to mine, and I hoped they would
all now secure it. "Believe you, boss," was the general response, and
each one with his rough gravelly hand grasped mine, and with tearful
eyes and broken utterances said, "God bless you!" "May we meet in
Heaven!" "My name is Jack Allen, don't forget me!" "Remember me, Kent
Anderson!" and so on. No,--I may forget the playfellows of my childhood,
my college classmates, my professional associates, my comrades in arms,
but I will remember you and your benedictions until I cease to breathe!
Farewell, honest hearts, longing to be free! and may the kind Providence
which for-gets not the sparrow shelter and protect you!
During our encampment at Hampton, I occupied much of my leisure time
in conversations with the contrabands, both at their work and in their
shanties, endeavoring to collect their currents of thought and feeling.
It remains for me to give the results, so far as any could be arrived
at.
There were more negroes of unmixed African blood than we expected
to find. But many were entirely bleached. One man, working on the
breastworks, owned by his cousin, whose name he bore, was no darker than
white laborers exposed by their occupation to the sun, and could not be
distinguished as of negro descent. Opposite our quarters was a young
slave woman who had been three times a mother without ever having been
a wife. You could not discern in her three daughters, either in color,
feature, or texture of hair, the slightest trace of African lineage.
They were as light-faced and fair-haired as the Saxon slaves whom the
Roman Pontiff, Gregory the Great, met in the markets of Rome. If they
were to be brought here and their pedigree concealed, they could readily
mingle with our population and marry white men, who would never suspect
that they were not pure Caucasians.
From the best knowledge I could obtain, the negroes in Hampton had
rarely been severely whipped. A locust-tree in front of the jail had
been used for a whipping-post, and they were very desirous that it
should be cut down. It was used, however, only for what are known
there as flagrant offences, like running away. Their masters, when in
ill-temper, had used rough language and inflicted chance blows, but no
one ever told me that he had suffered from systematic cruelty or been
severely whipped, except Joe, whose character I have given. Many of them
bore testimony to the great kindness of their masters and mistresses.
Separations of families had been frequent. Of this I obtained definite
knowledge. When I was registering the number of dependants, preparatory
to the requisition for rations, the answer occasionally was, "Yes, I
have a wife, but she is not here." "Where is she?" "She was sold off two
years ago, and I have not heard of her since." The husband of the woman
who took care of the quarters of General Pierce had been sold away from
her some years before. Such separations are regarded as death, and the
slaves re-marry. In some cases the bereft one--so an intelligent negro
assured me--pines under his bereavement and loses his value; but so
elastic is human nature that this did not appear to be generally the
case. The same answer was given about children,--that they had been sold
away. This, in a slave-breeding country, is done when they are about
eight years old. Can that be a mild system of servitude which permits
such enforced separations? Providence may, indeed, sunder forever those
dearest to each other, and the stricken soul accepts the blow as the
righteous discipline of a Higher Power; but when the bereavement is
the arbitrary dictate of human will, there are no such consolations to
sanctify grief and assuage agony.
There is a universal desire among the slaves to be free. Upon this point
my inquiries were particular, and always with the same result. When
we said to them, "You don't want to be free,--your masters say you
don't,"--they manifested much indignation, answering, "We do want to be
free,--we want to be for ourselves." We inquired further, "Do the house
slaves who wear their master's clothes want to be free?" "We never heard
of one who did not," was the instant reply. There might be, they said,
some half-crazy one who did not care to be free, but they had never seen
one. Even old men and women, with crooked backs, who could hardly walk
or see, shared the same feeling. An intelligent Secessionist, Lowry by
name, who was examined at head-quarters, admitted that a majority of the
slaves wanted to be free. The more intelligent the slave and the better
he had been used, the stronger this desire seemed to be. I remember one
such particularly, the most intelligent one in Hampton, known as "an,
influential darky" ("darky" being the familiar term applied by the
contrabands to themselves). He could read, was an exhorter in the
Church, and officiated in the absence of the minister. He would have
made a competent juryman. His mistress, he said, had been kind to him,
and had never spoken so harshly to him as a captain's orderly in the
Naval Brigade had done, who assumed one day to give him orders. She had
let him work where he pleased, and he was to bring her a fixed sum, and
appropriate the surplus to his own use. She pleaded with him to go away
with her from Hampton at the time of the exodus, but she would not force
him to leave his family. Still he hated to be a slave, and he talked
like a philosopher about his rights. No captive in the galleys of
Algiers, not Lafayette in an Austrian dungeon, ever pined more for free
air. He had saved eighteen hundred dollars of his surplus earnings in
attending on visitors at Old Point, and had spent it all in litigation
to secure the freedom of his wife and children, belonging to another
master, whose will had emancipated them, but was contested on the ground
of the insanity of the testator. He had won a verdict, but his lawyers
told him they could not obtain a judgment upon it, as the judge was
unfavorable to freedom.
The most frequent question asked of one who has had any means of
communication with the contrabands during the war is in relation to
their knowledge of its cause and purposes, and their interest in it. One
thing was evident,--indeed, you could not talk with a slave who did not
without prompting give the same testimony,--that their masters had been
most industrious in their attempts to persuade them that the Yankees
were coming down there only to get the land,--that they would kill the
negroes and manure the ground with them, or carry them off to Cuba or
Hayti and sell them. An intelligent man who had belonged to Colonel
Joseph Segar--almost the only Union man at heart in that region, and who
for that reason, being in Washington at the time the war began, had not
dared to return to Hampton--served the staff of General Pierce. He bore
the highest testimony to the kindness of his master, who, he said, told
him to remain,--that the Yankees were the friends of his people, and
would use them well. "But," said David,--for that was his name,--"I
never heard of any other master who talked that way, but they all told
the worst stories about the Yankees, and the mistresses were more
furious even than the masters." David, I may add, spite of his good
master, longed to be free.
The masters, in their desperation, had within a few months resorted
to another device to secure the loyalty of their slaves. The colored
Baptist minister had been something of a pet among the whites, and had
obtained subscriptions from some benevolent citizens to secure the
freedom of a handsome daughter of his who was exposed to sale on an
auction block, where her beauty inspired competition. Some leading
Secessionists, Lawyer Hope for one, working somewhat upon his gratitude
and somewhat upon his vanity, persuaded him to offer the services of
himself and his sons, in a published communication, to the cause of
Virginia and the Confederate States. The artifice did not succeed. He
lost his hold on his congregation, and could not have safely remained
after the whites left. He felt uneasy about his betrayal, and tried to
restore himself to favor by saying that he meant no harm to his people;
but his protestations were in vain. His was the deserved fate of those
in all ages who, victims of folly or bribes, turn their backs on their
fellows.
Notwithstanding all these attempts, the negroes, with rare exceptions,
still believed that the Yankees were their friends. They had learned
something in Presidential elections, and they thought their masters
could not hate us as they did, unless we were their friends. They
believed that the troubles would somehow or other help them, although
they did not understand all that was going on. They may be pardoned
for their want of apprehension, when some of our public men, almost
venerable, and reputed to be very wise and philosophical, are bewildered
and grope blindly. They were somewhat perplexed by the contradictory
statements of our soldiers, some of whom, according to their wishes,
said the contest was for them, and others that it did not concern them
at all and they would remain as before. If it was explained to them,
that Lincoln was chosen by a party who were opposed to extending
slavery, but who were also opposed to interfering with it in
Virginia,--that Virginia and the South had rebelled, and we had come to
suppress the rebellion,--and although the object of the war was not to
emancipate them, yet that might be its result,--they answered, that they
understood the statement perfectly. They did not seem inclined to fight,
although willing to work. More could not be expected of them while
nothing is promised to them. What latent inspirations they may have
remains to be seen. They had at first a mysterious dread of fire-arms,
but familiarity is rapidly removing that.
The religious element of their life has been noticed. They said they
had prayed for this day, and God had sent Lincoln in answer to their
prayers. We used to overhear their family devotions, somewhat loud
according to their manner, in which they prayed earnestly for our
troops. They built their hopes of freedom on Scriptural examples,
regarding the deliverance of Daniel from the lions' den, and of the
Three Children from the furnace, as symbolic of their coming freedom.
One said to me, that masters, before they died, by their wills sometimes
freed their slaves, and he thought that a _type_ that they should become
free.
One Saturday evening one of them asked me to call and see him at his
home the next morning. I did so, and he handed me a Bible belonging
to his mistress, who had died a few days before, and whose bier I had
helped to carry to the family vault. He wanted me to read to him the
eleventh chapter of Daniel. It seemed, that, as one of the means of
keeping them quiet, the white clergymen during the winter and spring
had read them some verses from it to show that the South would prevail,
enforcing passages which ascribed great dominion to "the king of the
South," and suppressing those which subsequently give the supremacy to
"the king of the North." A colored man who could read had found the
latter passages and made them known. The chapter is dark with mystery,
and my auditor, quite perplexed as I read on, remarked, "The Bible is a
very mysterious book." I read to him also the thirty-fourth chapter of
Jeremiah, wherein the sad prophet of Israel records the denunciations
by Jehovah of sword, pestilence, and famine against the Jews for not
proclaiming liberty to their servants and handmaids. He had not known
before that there were such passages in the Bible.
The conversations of the contrabands on their title to be regarded as
freemen showed reflection. When asked if they thought themselves fit for
freedom, and if the darkies were not lazy, their answer was, "Who
but the darkies cleared all the land round here? Yes, there are lazy
darkies, but there are more lazy whites." When told that the free blacks
had not succeeded, they answered that the free blacks have not had a
fair chance under the laws,--that they don't dare to enforce their
claims against white men,--that a free colored blacksmith had a thousand
dollars due to him from white men, but he was afraid to sue for any
portion of it. One man, when asked why he ought to be free, replied,--"I
feed and clothe myself and pay my master one hundred and twenty dollars
a year; and the one hundred and twenty dollars is just so much taken
from me, which ought to be used to make me and my children comfortable."
Indeed, broken as was their speech and limited as was their knowledge,
they reasoned abstractly on their rights as well as white men. Locke or
Channing might have fortified the argument for universal liberty from
their simple talk. So true is it that the best thoughts which the human
intellect has produced have come, not from affluent learning or ornate
speech, but from the original elements of our nature, common to all
races of men and all conditions in life; and genius the highest and most
cultured may bend with profit to catch the lowliest of human utterances.
There was a very general desire among the contrabands to know how to
read. A few had learned; and these, in every instance where we inquired
as to their teacher, had been taught on the sly in their childhood by
their white playmates. Others knew their letters, but could not "put
them together," as they said. I remember of a summer's afternoon seeing
a young married woman, perhaps twenty-five years old, seated on a
door-step with her primer before her, trying to make progress.
In natural tact and the faculty of getting a livelihood the contrabands
are inferior to the Yankees, but quite equal to the mass of the Southern
population. It is not easy to see why they would be less industrious, if
free, than the whites, particularly as they would have the encouragement
of wages. There would be transient difficulties at the outset, but no
more than a bad system lasting for ages might be expected to leave
behind. The first generation might be unfitted for the active duties and
responsibilities of citizenship; but this difficulty, under generous
provisions for education, would not pass to the next. Even now they are
not so much behind the masses of the whites. Of the Virginians who took
the oath of allegiance at Hampton, not more than one in fifteen could
write his name, and the rolls captured at Hatteras disclose an equally
deplorable ignorance. The contrabands might be less addicted than the
now dominant race to bowie-knives and duels, think less of the value
of bludgeons as forensic arguments, be less inhospitable to innocent
sojourners from Free States, and have far inferior skill in robbing
forts and arsenals, plundering the Treasury, and betraying the country
at whose crib they had fattened; but mankind would forgive them for not
acquiring these accomplishments of modern treason. As a race, they may
be less vigorous and thrifty than the Saxon, but they are more social,
docile, and affectionate, fulfilling the theory which Channing held in
relation to them, if advanced to freedom and civilization.
If in the progress of the war they should be called to bear arms, there
need be no reasonable apprehension that they would exhibit the ferocity
of savage races. Unlike such, they have been subordinated to civilized
life. They are by nature a religious people. They have received an
education in the Christian faith from devout teachers of their own and
of the dominant race. Some have been taught (let us believe it) by
the precepts of Christian masters, and some by the children of those
masters, repeating the lessons of the Sabbath-school. The slaveholders
assure us that they have all been well treated. If that be so, they have
no wrongs to avenge. Associated with our army, they would conform to
the stronger and more disciplined race. Nor is this view disproved by
servile insurrections. In those cases, the insurgents, without arms,
without allies, without discipline, but throwing themselves against
society, against government, against everything, saw no other escape
than to devastate and destroy without mercy in order to get a foothold.
If they exterminated, it was because extermination was threatened
against them. In the Revolution, in the army at Cambridge, from the
beginning to the close of the war, against the protests of South
Carolina by the voice of Edward Rutledge, but with the express sanction
of Washington,--ever just, ever grateful for patriotism, whencesoever
it came,--the negroes fought in the ranks with the white men, and they
never dishonored the patriot cause. So also at the defence of New
Orleans they received from General Jackson a noble tribute to their
fidelity and soldier-like bearing. Weighing the question historically
and reflectively, and anticipating the capture of Richmond and New
Orleans, there need be more serious apprehension of the conduct of
some of our own troops recruited in large cities than of a regiment of
contrabands officered and disciplined by white men.
But as events travel faster than laws or proclamations, already in
this war with Rebellion the two races have served together. The same
breastworks have been built by their common toil. True and valiant, they
stood side by side in the din of cannonade, and they shared as comrades
in the victory of Hatteras. History will not fail to record that on the
28th day of August, 1861, when the Rebel forts were bombarded by the
Federal army and navy, under the command of Major-General Butler and
Commodore Stringham, fourteen negroes, lately Virginia slaves, now
contraband of war, faithfully and without panic worked the after-gun of
the upper deck of the Minnesota, and hailed with a victor's pride the
Stars and Stripes as they again waved on the soil of the Carolinas.