The Iron Furnace; or, Slavery and Secession

When I had thus spoken, my inquisitor was nonplussed, and the laugh went against him.

When a candidate before the Presbytery of Chickasaw, in Mississippi, for licensure, one of the members of Presbytery, learning that I was a “Yankee,” asked me the following questions, and received the following answers:

“Mr. Aughey, when will the day of judgment take place?”

“The Millerites have stated that the 30th of June next will be the judgment-day. As for myself, I have had no revelation on the subject, and expect none.”

“Do you believe that any one can call the spirits?”

“I do, sir.”

“What! believe that the spirits can be called?”

“I do, sir.”

“I will vote, then, against your licensure, if you have fallen into this heresy of the land of your nativity.”

Another then said:

“Brother Aughey, please explain yourself. I know you do not believe in spirit-rapping.”

“I do not, sir, though I believe, as I stated, that any one may call the spirits; but I do not believe that they will come in answer to the call.”

A lady once remarked to me that she did not believe that a northern man would ever become fully reconciled to the institution of slavery, and that his influence and sentiments, whatever might be his profession of attachment to the peculiar institution, would be against it. The cause of the general opposition to northern men is their opposition to slavery. Their testimony is against its abominations and barbarities, and hence the wish to impair the credibility of the witnesses.

An illustration of the working of the institution may be found in the following letter:

Kosciusko, Attala County, Mississippi,December 25, 1861.

Mr. William Jackman:

Dear Sir – Your last kind and truly welcome letter came to hand in due course of mail. I owe you an apology for delaying an answer so long. My apparent neglect was occasioned by no want of respect for you; but in consequence of the disturbed state of the country, and difficulty of communication with the North, I feared my reply would never reach you. Now, however, by directing “via Norfolk and flag of truce,” letters are sent across the lines to the North. In your letter you desired me, from this stand-point, to give you my observations of the workings of the peculiar institution, and an expression of my views as to its consistency with the eternal principles of rectitude and justice. In reply, I will give you a plain narrative of facts.

On my advent to the South, I was at first struck with the fact that the busy hum of labour had in some measure ceased. What labour I did observe progressing, was done with little skill, and mainly by negroes. I called upon the Rev. Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, to whom I had a letter of introduction, who treated me with the greatest kindness, inviting me to make his house my home when I visited that section of country. On leaving his house, he gave me some directions as to the road I must travel to reach a certain point. “You will pass,” said he, “a blacksmith’s shop, where a one-eyed man is at work – my property.” The phrase, “my property,” I had never before heard applied to a human being, and though I had never been taught to regard the relation of master and slave as a sinful relation, yet it grated harshly upon my ears to hear a human being, a tradesman, called a chattel; but it grated much more harshly, a week after this, to hear the groans of two such chattels, as they underwent a severe flagellation, while chained to the whipping-post, because they had, by half an hour, overstayed their time with their families on an adjoining plantation.

The next peculiar abomination of the peculiar institution which I observed, was the licentiousness engendered by it. Mr. D. T – , of Madison county, Kentucky, had a white family of children, and a black, or rather mulatto family. As his white daughters married, he gave each a mulatto half-sister, as a waiting-girl, or body-servant. Mr. K. – , of Winchester, Kentucky, had a mulatto daughter, and he was also the father of her child, thus re-enacting Lot’s sin. Dr. C – , of Tishomingo county, Mississippi, has a negro concubine, and a white servant to wait on her. Mr. B. – , of Marshall county, Mississippi, lived with his white wife till he had grandchildren, some of whom came to school to me, when he repudiated his white wife, and attached himself to a very homely old African, who superintends his household, and rules his other slaves with rigour. Mr. S – , of Tishomingo county, Mississippi, has a negro concubine, and a large family of mulatto children. He once brought this woman to church in Rienzi, to the great indignation of the white ladies, who removed to a respectable distance from her.

I preached recently to a large congregation of slaves, the third of whom were as white as myself. Some of them had red hair and blue eyes. If there are any marked characteristics of their masters’ families, the mulatto slaves are possessed of these characteristics. I refer to physical peculiarities, such as large mouths, humped shoulders, and peculiar expressions of countenance. I asked a gentleman how it happened that some of his slaves had red hair. He replied that he had a red-headed overseer for several years.

I never knew a pious overseer – never! There may be many, but I never saw one. Overseers, as a class, are worse than slaveholders themselves. They are cruel, brutal, licentious, dissipated, and profane. They always carry a loaded whip, a revolver, and a Bowie-knife. These men have the control of women, whom they often whip to death. Mr. P – , who resided near Holly Springs, had a negro woman whipped to death while I was at his house during a session of Presbytery. Mr. C – , of Waterford, Mississippi, had a woman whipped to death by his overseer. But such cruel scourgings are of daily occurrence. Colonel H – , a member of my church, told me yesterday that he ordered a boy, who he supposed was feigning sickness, to the whipping-post, but that he had not advanced ten steps toward it, when he fell dead! – and the servant was free from his master. During our conversation, a girl passed. “There is a girl,” said he, “who does not look very white in the face, owing to exposure; but when I strip her to whip her, I find that she has a skin as fair as my wife.” Mrs. F – recently whipped a boy to death within half a mile of my residence. A jury of inquest returned a verdict that he came to his death by cruelty; but nothing more was done. Mrs. M – and her daughter, of Holly Springs, abused a girl repeatedly. She showed her bruises to some of my acquaintances, and they believed them fatal. She soon after died. Mr. S – , a member of my church, has several maimed negroes from abuse on the part of the overseer.

I am residing on the banks of the Yock-a-nookany, which means “meandering,” when translated from the Indian tongue. In this vicinity there are large plantations, cultivated by hundreds of negroes. The white population is sparse. Every night the negroes are brought to a judgment-seat. The overseer presides. If they have not laboured to suit him, or if their task is unfulfilled, they are chained to a post, and severely whipped. The victims are invariably stripped; to what extent, is at the option of the overseer. In Louisiana, women, preparatory to whipping, are often stripped to a state of perfect nudity. Old Mr. C – , of Waterford, Mississippi, punished his negroes by slitting the soles of their feet with his Bowie-knife! One man he put into a cotton-press, and turned the screw till life was extinct. He stated that he only intended to alarm the man, but carried the joke too far. I have heard women thus plead, in piteous accents, when chained to the whipping-post, and stripped: “O, my God, master! don’t whip me! I was sick! indeed I was sick! I had a chill, and the fever is on me now! I haven’t tasted a morsel to-day! You know I works when I is well! O for God’s sake don’t whip a poor sick nigger! My poor chile’s sick too! Missis thinks it’s a dyin’! O master, for the love of God, don’t cut a poor distressed woman wid your whip! I’ll try to do better, ef you’ll only let me off this once!” These piteous plaints only rouse the ire of their cruel task-masters, who sometimes knock them down in the midst of their pleadings. I have known an instance of a woman giving birth to a child at the whipping-post. The fright and pain brought on premature labour.

One beautiful Sabbath morning I stood on the levee at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and counted twenty-seven sugar-houses in full blast. I found that the negroes were compelled to labour eighteen hours per day, and were not permitted to rest on the Sabbath during the rolling season. The negroes on most plantations have a truck-patch, which they cultivate on the Sabbath. I have pointed out the sin of thus labouring on the Sabbath, but they plead necessity; their children, they state, must suffer from hunger if they did not cultivate their truck-patch, and their masters would not give them time on any other day.

Negroes, by law, are prohibited from learning to read. This law was not strictly enforced in Tennessee and some other States till within a few years past. I had charge of a Sabbath-school for the instruction of blacks in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1853. This school was put down by the strong arm of the law in a short time after my connection with it ceased. In Mississippi, a man who taught slaves to read or write would be sent to the penitentiary instanter. The popular plea for this wickedness is, that if they were taught to read, they would read abolition documents; and if they were taught to write, they would write themselves passes, and pass northward to Canada.

Such advertisements as the following often greet the eye.

“Kansas War.– The undersind taks this method of makkin it noan that he has got a pack of the best nigger hounds in the South. My hounds is well trand, and I has had much experience a huntin niggers, having follered it for the last fiften year. I will go anywhar that I’m sent for, and will ketch niggers at the follerin raits.

“My raits fur ketchin runaway niggers $10 per hed, ef they’s found in the beat whar thar master lives; $15 if they’s found in the county, and $50 if they’s tuck out on the county.

“N. B. – Pay is due when the nigger is tuck. Planters ort to send fur me as soon as thar niggers runs away, while thar trak is fresh.”

Every night the woods resound with the deep-mouthed baying of the bloodhounds. The slaves are said by some to love their masters; but it requires the terrors of bloodhounds and the fugitive slave law to keep them in bondage. You in the North are compelled to act the part of the bloodhounds here, and catch the fugitives for the planters of the South. Free negroes are sold into bondage for the most trivial offences. Slaveholders declare that the presence of free persons of colour exerts a pernicious influence upon their slaves, rendering them discontented with their condition, and inspiring a desire for freedom. They therefore are very desirous of getting rid of these persons, either by banishing them from the State or enslaving them. The legislature of Mississippi has passed a law for their expulsion, and other States have followed in the wake. The Governor of Missouri has vetoed the law for the expulsion of free persons of colour, passed by the legislature of that State because of its unconstitutionality.

Were I to recount all the abominations of the peculiar institution, and the wrongs inflicted upon the African race, that have come under my observation, they would fill a large volume. Slavery is guilty of six abominations; yea, seven may justly be charged upon it. It is said that the negro is lazy, and will not work except by compulsion. I have known negroes who have purchased their freedom by the payment of a large sum, and afterward made not only a good living, but a fortune beside. It is said Judge W – of South Carolina gave his servants the use of his plantation, upon condition that they would support his family; and that in three years he was compelled to take the management himself, as they did not make a comfortable living for themselves and the Judge’s family. In reply, it might be said that the negroes had not a fair trial, as no one had any property he could call his own, and they were thrown into a sort of Fourierite society, having all things in common. In this state of things, while some would work, others would be idle. White men do not succeed in such communities, and for this reason it was no fair test of the industrial energies of Judge W – ’s slaves.

The question is often asked, is slavery sinful in itself? My observation has been extensive, embracing eight slave States, and I have never yet seen any example of slavery that I did not deem sinful. If slavery is not sinful in itself, I must have always seen it out of itself. I have observed its workings during eleven years, amongst a professedly Christian people, and cannot do otherwise than pronounce it an unmitigated curse. It is a curse to the white man, it is a curse to the black man. That God will curse it, and blot it out of existence ere long, is my firm conviction. The elements of its abolition exist; God speed the time when they will be fully developed, and this mother of abominations driven from the land of the free! The development of the eternal principles of justice and rectitude will abolish this hoary monster of fraud and oppression. Slavery subverts all the rights of man. It divests him of citizenship, of liberty, of the pursuit of happiness, of his children, of his wife, of his property, of intellectual culture, reserving to him only the rights of the horse and ass, and reducing him to the same chattel condition with them. Not a single right does the State law grant him above that of the mule – no, not one. The chastity of the slave has no legal protection. The Methodist Church South is expunging from the discipline everything inimical to the peculiar institution, whilst I observe that the Church North is adding to her testimony and deliverances against the sin of slaveholding. The Church South refused to abide by the rules of the Church, and hence the guilt of the schism lies with her, and you are henceforth free from any guilt in conniving at the sin which the founder of your church, the illustrious Wesley, regarded as the “sum of all villany.”

Remember me kindly to Mrs. Jackman and family. Hoping to hear from you soon, I beg leave to subscribe myself,

Yours fraternally,John H. Aughey.

To Mr. William Jackman,

Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio.

CHAPTER VIII.

NOTORIOUS REBELS. – UNION OFFICERS

Colonel Jefferson Davis – His Speech at Holly Springs, Mississippi – His Opposition to Yankee Teachers and Ministers – A bid for the Presidency – His Ambition – Burr, Arnold, Davis – General Beauregard – Headquarters at Rienzi – Colonel Elliott’s Raid – Beauregard’s Consternation – Personal description – His illness – Popularity waning – Rev. Dr. Palmer of New Orleans – His influence – The Cincinnati Letter – His Personal Appearance – His Denunciations of General Butler – His Radicalism – Rev. Dr. Waddell of La Grange, Tennessee – His Prejudices against the North – President of Memphis Synodical College – His Talents prostituted – Union Officers – General Nelson – General Sherman.

COLONEL JEFFERSON DAVIS

In 1856 I heard Colonel Jefferson Davis deliver an address at Holly Springs, Mississippi. The Colonel is about a medium height, of slender frame, his nose aquiline, his hair dark, his manners polite. He is no orator. His speech was principally a tirade of abuse against the North, bitterly inveighing against the emigrant aid societies which had well-nigh put Kansas upon the list of free States. He advised the people to employ no more Yankee teachers. He had been educated in the North, and he regarded it as the greatest misfortune of his life. Soon after Colonel Davis visited New England, where he eulogized that section in an extravagant manner. He was pleased with everything he saw; even “Noah Webster’s Yankee spelling-book” received a share of the Colonel’s fulsome flattery. On his return to the South, “a change came o’er the spirit of his dream,” and his bile and bitterness against Yankee-land returned in all its pristine vigour. The Colonel was making a bid for the Presidency; but New England was not so easily gulled; his flimsy professions of friendship were too transparent to hide the hate which lay beneath, and his aspirations were doomed to disappointment.

Though Colonel Davis is often called Mississippi’s pet, yet he is not regarded as a truthful man, and his reports and messages are received with considerable abatement by “the chivalry.” His ambition knows no bounds. He would rather “reign in hell than serve in heaven.”

Had Jefferson Davis been elected President of the United States, he would have been among the last instead of the first to favour secession. Had he been slain on the bloody fields of Mexico, his memory would have been cherished. History will assign him a place among the infamous. Burr, Arnold, and Davis will be names for ever execrated by true patriots. The two former died a natural death, though the united voice of their countrymen would have approved of their execution on the gallows. The fate of the latter lies still in the womb of futurity, though his loyal countrymen, without a dissenting voice, declare that he deserves a felon’s doom. An announcement of his death would suffuse no patriot’s eye with tears. What loyalist would weep while he read the news-item – the arch traitor Jeff. Davis is dead.

GENERAL G. T. BEAUREGARD

I met General Beauregard under very peculiar circumstances. I had gone to Rienzi for the purpose of escaping to the Federal lines for protection from the rigorous and sweeping conscript law. When I arrived, I found the rebels evacuating Corinth, and their sick and wounded passing down the Mobile and Ohio railroad to the hospitals below. General Beauregard had just arrived in Rienzi, and had his headquarters at the house of Mr. Sutherland. A rumour had spread through Rienzi that General Beauregard had ordered the women and children to leave the town. Many of them, believing that the order had been issued, were hastening into the country. In order to confirm or refute the statement, I called upon General Beauregard, and asked him whether he had issued such an order. He replied, “I have issued no such order, sir.” Just at that moment a courier arrived with the information that the Yankees had attacked the advance of their retreating army at Boonville, that they had destroyed the depot, and taken many prisoners. The General told the courier that he must be mistaken; that it was impossible for the Yankees to pass around his army. While he was yet speaking a citizen arrived from Boonville, confirming the statement of the courier. Beauregard was still incredulous, replying that they must have mistaken the Confederates for the Yankees. In a few minutes the explosion of shells shook the building. The General then thought that it might be true that the Yankees had passed around the army; but on hearing the shells, he stated that General Green (of Missouri) was driving them away with his cannon. The truth was soon ascertained by the arrival of several couriers. Col. Elliott, of the Federal army, had made a raid upon Boonville, had fired the depot, and destroyed a large train of cars filled with ammunition. The explosions of the shells which we heard was occasioned by the fire reaching the ears in which these shells were stored. The Colonel also destroyed the railroad to such an extent that it required several days to repair the track.

General Beauregard is below the medium height, and has a decidedly French expression of countenance. His hair is quite gray, though a glance at his face will convince the observer that it is prematurely so. The General is regarded as taciturn. His countenance is careworn and haggard. During the winter of 1861-2, he was attacked with bronchitis and typhoid pneumonia, and came near dying; and had not, at my interview, by any means recovered his pristine health and vigour. His prestige as an able commander is rapidly waning. For some time his military talents were considered of the first order; now a third-rate position is assigned him. He is still regarded as a first-class engineer. When General Sterling Price arrived at Corinth, General Beauregard conducted him around all the fortifications, explaining their nature and unfolding their strength; but no word of approval could he elicit from the Missouri General. At length he ventured to ask what he thought of their capacity for resisting an attack. General Price replied, “They may prove effective in resisting an attack. These are the second fortifications I ever saw; the first I captured.” He had reference to Colonel Mulligan’s, at Lexington, Missouri. Sumter and Manassas gave Beauregard fame. Since the latter battle his star has declined steadily; and if the Federal generals prove themselves competent, it will soon go out in total darkness, and the world’s verdict will be, it was a misfortune that Beauregard lived.

REV. DR. B. M. PALMER

Dr. Palmer has done more than any non-combatant in the South to promote the rebellion. He was accessory both before and after the fact. His sermons are nearly all abusive of the North. The mudsills of Yankeedom and the scum of Europe are phrases of frequent use in his public addresses, and they are meant to include all living north of what is more familiarly than elegantly termed in the South the “nigger line,” although the North is the land of his parental nativity.

A few years ago, Dr. Palmer wrote to a friend in Cincinnati respecting a vacant church, in which he gave as one reason, among others, for desiring to come North, that he wished to remove his family from the baleful influences of slavery. That letter still exists, and ought to be published.

Dr. Palmer’s personal appearance is by no means prepossessing. He is small of stature, of very dark complexion, dish-faced. His nose is said to have been broken when a child; at all events, it is a deformity. He is fluent in speech, has a vivid imagination, and has a great influence over a promiscuous congregation.

After the reduction of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, and the capture of New Orleans, Dr. Palmer came to Corinth, where he preached to the rebel army. His text was invariably General Butler’s “women-of-the-town order,” which we fully believe he intentionally misconstrued. The conservation and extension of slavery is a matter which lies near the Doctor’s heart. He urged secession for the purpose of extending and perpetuating for ever the peculiar institution. His views, however, must have undergone a radical change since the writing of the Cincinnati letter, as he then regarded slavery with little favour. Love of public favour may have much to do with his recently expressed views, for no true Christian and patriot can wish to perpetuate and extend an institution founded on the total subversion of the rights of man.

REV. DR. JOHN N. WADDELL

Dr. Waddell is a man of considerable talent, but his prejudices are very strong against the North. He cordially hates a Yankee, and his poor distressed wife, who was a native of New England, was compelled to return to her home, where she mourns in virtual widowhood her unfortunate connection with a man who detests her land and people. Dr. Waddell’s sermons are very abusive. The North is the theme of animadversion in all the published sermons and addresses I have seen from his prolific pen. He has prostituted his fine talents, and his writings are full of cursing and bitterness. As President of La Grange College, Tennessee, he might wield a great influence for good – an influence which would tend to calm the storm aroused by demagogues, rather than increase its power. His memory will rot, for the evil which he has done will live after him.

MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM NELSON

I met General Nelson frequently at his head-quarters at Iuka Springs, Mississippi. Though the General was quite brusque in his manners, yet he always treated me with kindness and marked attention. Once while seated at the table with him, several guests being present, the following colloquy ensued.

“Parson Aughey, I suppose you are well versed in the Scriptures, and in order to test your knowledge, permit me to ask a question, which doubtless you are able to answer.”

“Certainly, General, you have permission to ask the question you propose. I am not so sure, however, about my ability to answer it.”

“The question I desire to propose is this – How many preceded Noah in leaving the ark?”