Historical Romance of the American Negro

It never seemed to enter the minds of the great masses of the people then that the South was as terribly in earnest as she certainly was, nor how well-trained she was and ready for the fray. The skill of her leaders, the intrepidity of her sons, and fighting upon her own soil, were lost sight of to a very great extent in the wild delirium that seized on the great Northern heart over the breaking up of the Union. It did not seem to strike the national mind at the time that this was a war sent by God for the extirpation of slavery, and as an answer to the prayers of the oppressed millions in the South for freedom, and for the treatment of human beings. It did not then occur to the minds of the North that a day would come after nearly two years' indecisive fighting, when military necessity would compel the Federal government to free the slave by Act of Congress, and call upon him "to come to the help of the Lord against the mighty," and Shakespeare says, "There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will." and so it was even now.

I shall never forget that morning at Buffalo – it was in the month of June, 1863, when the letter-carrier brought me the first war letter from my gallant Tom. The date was not given, but it came from a place called Milliken's Bend, on the Lower Mississippi river, and a battle had been fought at that place, since called by the historians, "The Battle of Milliken's Bend." But I will here insert Tom's letter in its entirety, as there are some other things in it besides war and fighting.

"MILLIKEN'S BEND, June, 1863.

"My Dear Beulah: – No doubt but you have already received the letters I sent you from New Orleans, after that I myself and the rest of the Buffalonians had landed in the Crescent City. I send lots of warm love to the entire family, and be sure to keep our two daughters, Ella and Fannie, regularly at school. My best love to the church in a body. Tell them to pray for us.

"I have great pleasure in informing you that we have here completely settled the question whether colored men will not fight in America as well as their ancestors did in Africa. On the night of the 6th of June, about three thousand Texans came to our fortifications, and lay around our five hundred colored soldiers, besides a hundred white ones. Those three thousand rebels lay prowling around our men like so many cats, only waiting for the dawn of the 7th of June to gobble us up like so many poor, helpless mice. About three o'clock they came on with an awful rush, shouting, 'No quarter for niggers and their officers!' They got into our works, and the way that men fell on both sides was dreadful. It was really awful the way my poor comrades were shot down, or killed with the bayonet, though at the same time we mowed them down like grass before the scythe. Those strong arms of ours that had made the South the rich land that it lately was, now laid its defenders even with the ground. There was hardly a single officer, either black or white, among us who was not either killed or wounded. How I escaped myself without a scratch is more than I can tell, where there were so very few who came out of the battle as they went in. To God be all the praise!

"The gunboats Choctow and Lexington assisted us very much, for they kept throwing shells into the enemy, and made them fly in all directions, and even up into the air! The white men on our side – one hundred of them – also fought like lions. One division of the rebels hesitated about coming out of a redoubt they had got into their possession. They were not willing. But our brave black soldiers went in with a rush, and assisted them in making up their minds by taking the bayonet to them, and thrashing them with the butt ends of their guns, precisely like thrashing wheat! They reminded me of a lot of guilty cats when the dogs are on them. Having suffered the loss of hundreds of men, and been completely vanquished in the bargain, the rebels were forced to retreat, and this they did with as good a grace as they were able.

"No doubt but the telegraph has already carried the news all over the Union how our six hundred intrepid soldiers beat three thousand rebels. This will settle, once for all, the insulting question, 'Will the black man fight?' It will also secure for us more civil treatment from white soldiers, both North and South, and remind them that the Great Creator himself, and all foreign nations, make no difference whatsoever on account of the color of the skin. I would like to know what 'Old Massa' thinks of things now.

"I send my best love to all those who may enquire for me, and please write soon to your most affectionate husband,

"Tuesday night, 9 o'clock.

"THOMAS LINCOLN."

War surely is a terrible thing at its best estate. Nations have often waged war for mere conquest and ambition, which was the greatest crime that ever could have been committed. But here was a war for freedom – the freedom of millions of slaves. It was for this freedom that we had prayed for the assistance of the Most High God, and troubled the country, labored and toiled in all possible ways. It was for this freedom that all the chivalrous Christianity of the nation had put forth all its efforts; and now at times, many people began to doubt whether all these efforts had not been put forth in vain, because for the first two years of the war, our arms really made such small progress compared with what we had expected. And yet, for the very life of me, I am to this very day unable to see how we could have done much more than we did; for though the Northern troops were as brave as men could be, we had a foe to contend with who was quite as brave as ourselves – a foe manned by officers as good as our own, and fighting upon their own soil, where they knew every foot of the ground. Thus the war dragged slowly along, and the close of the second year found us with very little progress made.

We were not in despair, but the South yet retained all her strength, and was proud and defiant. They were also determined to fight on, and did fight on with a valor worthy of a better cause. But how could we expect more success than we had under the circumstances? So great was the prejudice against color that white men were even unwilling to fight side by side with our own people; and then Lincoln and his cabinet were all afraid of affronting the tender and delicate susceptibilities of the South by putting even their little finger on the heinous institution called "Domestic slavery." Verily, they were carrying their squeamishness to a most tremendous length when lives had to be wasted in thousands, because white men were too proud even to fight side by side with colored men, and because we were so very timid about offending our "separate brethren," that the Northern officers even sent back the refugees from our armies – sent them back into slavery! And they even allowed their life-long oppressors to come into the camps, look around for their slaves, identify and claim their property, and carry them home again before our very eyes! Was it any wonder, then, that we had so little success in this war which God himself had sent, chiefly that the slaves should be freed?

But the spectacle of thousands and tens of thousands of men being mowed down like grass before the Southern scythes gradually changed all that. The South, indeed, had a comfortable time of it, sending all their sons to the war, whilst the black population were taking care of their families, working their fields, and even throwing up intrenchments, and making themselves useful in a thousand ways by command of their owners, and against the forces of the North! Not that the slaves wished to work in these ways for the South, but because our very armies were helping their masters to keep them in their present position, even by returning them to bondage whenever they tried to gain their freedom. The Southern lords knew all about our "tender feelings" for their own "property" – falsely so called – and they took advantage of it.

We had nobody but ourselves to blame for this state of things. Our men were mown down in thousands because we had such tender regard for the feelings of the rebels, and there was not the slightest sign that things would ever get any better. We whipped the South to-day and they whipped us to-morrow. In the meantime the strong, able-bodied African tilled the fields of the South, when he might have been fighting for freedom and the Union.

But to return to the year 1863. Some changes had been made in the rapidly-shifting scenes of the war. Tom had been removed from Milliken's Bend, and gone to Port Hudson, where a most terrible assault had been made on the rebel defences about the 23rd of May. But I will here let Tom speak for himself, because he wrote to me often, and my greatest pleasure was to sit down and send him all our domestic news.

"PORT HUDSON, on the Mississippi, July, 1863.

"My Dear Beulah: – I arrived at this place a few days ago, and have been out to see signs and marks of the recent siege. Everything seems to interest me, and war is indeed a terrible game. I have heard great and full accounts of the awful fighting down in this place, much of which I must reserve for your patient ears when I come, if God my life shall spare.

"You could not find a white man in all the Mississippi Valley to-day who will tell you that colored men wont fight. I don't know where such an idea ever arose, because it was the strong arm and perseverance of the slave in raising crops all over Dixie that created most of the wealth we found in the South, and I look upon it as a wilful and malicious falsehood in white soldiers, North and South alike, affirming over and over again that colored men would not fight. General Grant and every high officer in the Union army have given us most unstinted praise, and have affirmed that we fight nobly.

"The accounts of the terrible fighting done here almost surpass human belief. About the 23rd of May, the Northern armies invested this place, and made a most tremendous effort to carry it by storm. The rebels had a naturally strong position, and all the appliances of war at their command. They had batteries and masked batteries, mortars, and, in short, almost everything known for destruction and modern warfare. They had even felled trees in our path, and their very cannon balls mowed down trees three feet thick. The noise of their guns made more din and uproar than the loudest thunderstorm. Against those brave and terrible rebels white soldiers from the North and colored soldiers from Louisiana advanced again and again, but all of them failed, and they were mown down like grass before the scythe. O terrible, sanguinary war! It was horrible! The balls and other missiles flew through the air thicker than hailstones. Once more we terribly underrated the prowess of the South. All of us were shipped alike, though we fought like gods! Oh, my dear Beulah! This is the price the American nation is now paying for the crime of slavery! The South carried out the villainy, and the North winked at the whole devilish business, thus, in fact, helping the rebels to keep on our claims! Shall a guilty nation indeed escape for deeds like these? At all events, we proved one thing during that terrible assault in May, and the subsequent siege of Port Hudson, and that was that colored men are as much men as white men, red, brown, yellow or any other race that can be named. These things were all well known before by every man, woman and child, but then, 'None are so blind as those who don't want to see.' The cry now is, 'Yes, yes! Colored men will fight well.' It is some comfort to know all this, for now we can get a rest.

"I send a deal of love to yourself, the children, to Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, to the entire church on Vine street, and to all others. I get all your letters.

"I am, my dear Beulah, your most loving

"THOMAS LINCOLN."

From the accounts contained in the two foregoing letters that I received from my dear husband, my kind readers will see that it was a public revelation made to the whole nation that the colored race not only made first-rate soldiers, but that they were sorely needed by Uncle Sam in the day of his distress. Lincoln's Proclamation on the first of January, 1863, completely broke down the dam from one end of the country to the other and throughout the whole land. Now the patriotic governors and many others bestirred themselves in raising colored regiments, getting them drilled, and pushed to the front with rapidity, so that the tide of war everywhere began to turn in favor of the Northern arms, and things began to look as if the very God of Liberty Himself was smiling upon the nation. Up to the end of 1862 the North had been fighting for nothing more than the restoration of the Union, and surely this was a noble thing to fight for, and especially for the possession of the glorious Mississippi, flowing all the way from its remotest springs at its farthest away branches in Montana, some 4,400 miles from the ocean. It was indeed something to keep the great river and all the States one and undivided. But what about slavery? Was it not, if possible, a ten times greater sin to carry on slavery than for the Southern States to secede? And yet there were thousands and tens of thousands of soldiers, officers and citizens all over the land who made the most strenuous objections to striking one blow for freedom – the very cause for which the war had been sent! Who need wonder, indeed, that our arms had such small success for almost two years after the rebels seceded? The only thing that surprises me is that we had as much success as we did, but we were taught a lesson, and we learned it well at last.

It was not long before the fame of the colored soldiers of America was wafted over the whole world, and was everywhere received by all lovers of freedom with most hearty applause. All, excepting those who believed in keeping other people down, heard the news with the greatest of pleasure. Many of the aristocrats of England, France and elsewhere, who had made investments in Confederate bonds, and sympathized with the South from the beginning, had no joy when they learned how Uncle Sam had turned a new element of strength into the field; but the common people everywhere all the world over, who had read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in all the principal languages of the earth, and opposed the recognition of the Southern Confederacy from the first on account of slavery, rejoiced to hear that the Great North had at last turned over a new leaf, and brought the heroic sons of Africa into the field. It was a military necessity, of course; the nation was forced to do it; but all the same it was a matter of justice, and the right thing to do. Now the entire Christian world took ten times more interest in the war than before. They had been praying and often working in the interest of the American slave; and now they were delighted to hear of the self-same slave marching bravely to the field, and assisting white men in knocking the fetters off the whole race. Now, indeed, the scales began to turn in favor of the North, along the whole line. Before the first of January, 1863, it was as if there were eight pounds in the Northern scale, and eight pounds in the Southern scale, but now we throw in 200,000 colored men or more into the Northern scale, when the Southern end of the beam flies up as the lighter weight, and it becomes clear to the obtusest mind that the South is doomed, and domestic slavery with it also.

CHAPTER VI

Great Service of the Colored Race – Heroic Colored Women – Attack on Fort Wagner, 18th July, 1863 – The ex-Slaves go to School – The Freedman's Bureau – The Jubilee Minstrels – A Long Letter From Mr. Thomas Lincoln, Describing His Life in a New Orleans Hospital – The Mississippi River, and the Fight at Pleasant Grove in the Red River Expedition.

As I stated in the last chapter, recruiting went merrily on, and colored men came up "to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." The heavens now smiled upon the Northern arms, and "the sun of righteousness arose upon them with healing in his wings." It is glorious to think how willingly our people threw down the shovel and the hoe, and advanced to meet the Northern troops as they came within easy striking distance. Thousands and tens of thousands crossed the mountains, threaded the mountain passes, kept on their way day and night up the rivers and down the rivers till they beheld the Union armies encamped away in the valleys, and a few more willing, enthusiastic bounds, and they were free! It was most refreshing to read the letters from the white soldiers at the time, commending these colored men in every possible way. They took a perfect delight in relating the thousand and one acts of kindness and sympathy that colored men and women performed towards countless Union men in times of distress, disaster and danger; how they secreted them; how they fed them, gave them rest and shelter, and how faithfully and skilfully they guided the armies on their way, and even piloted the Union boats in safety up and down the rivers of the South. Never were fidelity and devotion more marked since the world began, and it was downright pleasant to read the letters from "the seat of war," and see how these good deeds of the African were appreciated by the Anglo-Saxons. "Skins may differ, but affection dwells in white and black the same," and although "Old Massa" and "Old Missus" did their best to keep Lincoln's proclamation from the knowledge of the slaves, somehow or other the truth became known; in fact, it seemed to be carried on the wings of the wind, and now all prayed more and more fervently that the Lord would send freedom.

It would be a pleasure for me to relate the deeds of devotion recorded of our people in behalf of the cause of God and liberty. There are two acts, those of heroic women, that I must not omit. We have all heard of General John Morgan, the Kentucky guerilla chief, who led a raid into Ohio, and worked so much wanton mischief on Union people and the Union in the Southern cause. We caught and imprisoned him in Ohio, but he escaped, and took to his tricks again, and was more fleet, and harder to catch than a long-legged greyhound. At last he was located one night in a far-away town or village of the South, and the nearest Union troops lay about twenty miles away. This devoted colored woman lost not a moment of time, but steered for the distant camp, gave them the most particular information, so that they rose at once, and upon arriving at John Morgan's rendezvous, they woke him up, and once for all put an end to his dreadful raidings on the Unionists.

I must next mention the case of a colored woman in Georgia, when General Sherman came riding through the woods on his famous march from Atlanta to the Sea. This woman was a regular heroine – "a mother in Israel" – and one who would have made a second Deborah, with a host of men, women and children at her back, all of whom the war had set free. This woman advanced upon the path of the troops, and having introduced herself to General Sherman and his men, gave glory to God and to the Union armies, whom the God of Hosts had there and then sent forth. Her language was worthy of a Shakespeare. On that day when Deborah, and Miriam, and Joan of Arc, and all the other heroines of history shall be gathered together in the Palace of God, I feel certain that this colored Deborah, this "mother in Israel," will be among them when the Lord of Heaven and Earth makes up His jewels.

Where all did so well, it would be in vain to single out any one regiment that distinguished itself more than another. At the same time, there were certain regiments that attracted a great deal of attention to themselves because they were the first ones to break the spell as to whether colored men would fight like white men, and thus render effective service in the war. And such men were the colored troops that had been well drilled and sent down from Massachusetts to South Carolina, and who lent a hand in the investment of Charleston. It was on the 18th of July, 1863, when a general bombardment of both land and sea forces at once made a high-handed attempt to carry Fort Wagner – a rebel fort which lay on the narrowest part of a mere strip of sandy land called Morris Island, washed by the ocean on one side, and approachable by low, swampy marshes in the rear. The entire morning and middle of the day had been spent in bombarding the place till at last the extemporized fort, composed of timber, and stone, and sand, seemed to have crumbled away; for, as the day wore away, the rebels ceased entirely to reply to the land and sea forces, and the Federal troops were under the impression that the place was abandoned altogether, or at least destroyed past all hope of remedy for the present. The Union forces clamored loudly for an advance upon the fort, and to occupy the place once for all. After some hesitation the commanders assented to their wishes, and it was decided to advance just as the darkness of the night was setting in on that long July day. Alas, alas! It was a fatal resolution, for the rebels had been busy all the afternoon and early night making swift preparations to give our men a terrible reception. By the time that darkness had fully set in, Fort Wagner was almost as good as ever, although it had such a terrible knocking about all the early hours of the day. The Southern engineers were so clever, and their men had wrought with such a will, that it needed the bravest of the brave to fight with them; but as far as that was concerned we were all about even-handed when we had a fair field. Four thousand men, therefore, advanced along the sands of Morris Island with the intention of investing and clearing out the fort of its defenders, if there were any of them there. The colored Massachusetts troops led the way, and so they all advanced along the sands – the white sands that had but lately been washed by the ocean. Everything was as still as a stone till they came to a ditch, when a fearful tempest of shot from the cannon and musket assailed them, and the assailants were mowed down like grass before the scythe. Still our troops bravely advanced across the ditch, climbed up the bank, and pushed forward right into the fort, slaughtering the gunners and clearing a path before them. But all this time our brave men were being mowed down in rows. Many jumped into the fort and had to surrender there, because, indeed, they could neither advance nor retreat, being caught in a perfect trap. Thus we lost about half our men in killed, wounded and prisoners, and had to retreat in the best way we were able. It was a dreadful defeat that the Union forces sustained; but the colored troops had the honor of leading all the rest, and the foolish idea that colored men would not fight received another complete quietus, and their bravery was published in all the papers from one end of the Union to the other.

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