The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862

'Oh yes, I am needed here,' he replied; 'but Madam's son is with my family.'

'Madam's son!' I exclaimed in astonishment, forgetting in my surprise that the lady was present.

'Yes, sir,' she remarked, 'my oldest boy is twenty.'

'Excuse me, Madam; I forgot that in your climate one never grows old.'

'There you are wrong, sir; I'm sure I feel old when I think how soon my boys will be men.'

'Not old yet, Alice,' said the Colonel, in a singularly familiar tone; 'you seem to me no older than when you were fifteen.'

'You have been long acquainted,' I remarked, not knowing exactly what to say.

'Oh yes,' replied my host, 'we were children together.'

'Your Southern country, Madam, affords a fine field for young men of enterprise.'

'My eldest son resides in Germany,' replied the lady. 'He expects to make that country his home. He would have passed his examination at Heidelberg this autumn had not circumstances called him here.'

'You are widely separated,' I replied.

'Yes, sir; his father thinks it best, and I suppose it is. Thomas, here, is to return with his brother, and I may live to see neither of them again.'

My curiosity was naturally much excited to learn more, but nothing further being volunteered, and the conversation turning to other topics, I left the table with it unsatisfied.

After enjoying a quiet hour with the Colonel in the smoking-room, he invited me to join him in a ride over the plantation. I gladly assented, and 'Jim' shortly announced the horses were ready. That darky, who invariably attended his master when the latter proceeded from home, accompanied us. As we were mounting I bethought me of Scip, and asked Jim where he was.

'He'm gwine to gwo, massa. He want to say good-by to you.'

It seemed madness for Scip to start on a journey of seventy miles without rest, so I requested the Colonel to let him remain till the next day. He cheerfully assented, and sent Jim to find him. While waiting for the darky, I spoke of how faithfully he had served me during my journey.

'He's a splendid nigger,' replied the Colonel; 'worth his weight in gold. If affairs were more settled I would buy him.'

'But Colonel A– tells me he is too intelligent. He objects to "knowing" niggers.'

'I do not,' replied my host, 'if they are honest, and I would trust Scip with uncounted gold. Look at him,' he continued, as the negro approached; 'were flesh and bones ever better put together?'

The darky was a fine specimen of sable humanity, and I readily understood why the practiced eye of the Colonel appreciated his physical developments.

'Scip,' I said, 'you must not think of going to-day; the Colonel will be glad to let you remain until you are fully rested.'

'Tank you, massa, tank you bery much, but de ole man will spec me, and I orter gwo.'

'Oh, never mind old –,' said the Colonel, 'I'll take care of him.'

'Tank you, Cunnel, den I'll stay har till de mornin.'

Taking a by-path which led through the forest in the rear of the mansion, we soon reached a small stream, and, following its course for a short distance, came upon a turpentine distillery, which the Colonel explained to me was one of three that prepared the product of his plantation for market, and provided for his family of two hundred souls.

It was enclosed, or rather roofed, by a rude structure of rough boards, open at the sides, and sustained on a number of pine poles about thirty feet in height, and bore a strong resemblance to the usual covering of a New England haystack.

Three stout negro men, divested of all clothing excepting a pair of coarse gray trowsers and a red shirt,—it was a raw, cold, wintry day,—and with cotton bandannas bound about their heads, were 'tending the still.' The foreman stood on a raised platform level with its top, but as we approached very quietly seated himself on a turpentine barrel which a moment before he had rolled over the mouth of the boiler. Another negro was below, feeding the fire with 'light wood,' and a third was tending the trough by which the liquid rosin found its way into the semi-circle of rough barrels intended for its reception.

'Hello, Junius, what in creation are you doing there?' asked the Colonel, as we approached, of the negro on the turpentine barrel.

'Holein' her down, Cunnel; de ole ting got a mine to blow up dis mornin; I'se got dis barrl up har to hole her down.'

'Why, you everlasting nigger, if the top leaks you'll be blown to eternity in half a second.'

'Reckon not, massa; de barrl and me kin hole her. We'll take de risk.'

'Perhaps you will,' said the Colonel, laughing, 'but I won't. Nigger property isn't of much account, but you're too good a darky, June, to be sent to the devil for a charge of turpentine.'

'Tank you, massa, but you dun kno' dis ole ting like I do. You cudn't blow her up nohow; I'se tried her afore dis way.'

'Don't you do it again; now mind; if you do I'll make a white man of you.' (This I suppose referred to a process of flaying with a switch; though the switch is generally thought to redden, not whiten, the darky.)

The negro did not seem at all alarmed, for he showed his ivories in a broad grin as he replied, 'Jess as you say, massa; you'se de boss in dis shanty.'

Directing the fire to be raked out, and the still to stand unused until it was repaired, the Colonel turned his horse to go, when he observed that the third negro was shoeless, and his feet chapped and swollen with the cold. 'Jake,' he said, 'where are your shoes?'

'Wored out, massa.'

'Worn out! Why haven't you been to me?'

''Cause, massa, I know'd you'd jaw; you tole me I wears 'em out mighty fass.'

'Well, you do, that's a fact; but go to Madam and get a pair; and you, June, you've been a decent nigger, you can ask for a dress for Rosey. How is little June?'

'Mighty pore, massa; de ma'am war dar lass night and dis mornin', and she reckun'd he's gwine to gwo sartain.'

'Sorry to hear that,' said the Colonel. I'll go and see him. Don't feel badly, June,' he continued, for the tears welled up to the eyes of the black man as he spoke of his child; 'we all must die.'

'I knows dat, massa, but it am hard to hab em gwo.'

'Yes, it is, June, but we may save him.'

'Ef you cud, massa! Oh, ef you cud!' and the poor darky covered his face with his great hands and sobbed like a child.

We rode on to another 'still,' and there dismounting, the Colonel explained to me the process of gathering and manufacturing turpentine. The trees are 'boxed' and 'tapped' early in the year, while the frost is still in the ground. 'Boxing' is the process of scooping a cavity in the trunk of the tree by means of a peculiarly shaped axe, made for the purpose; 'tapping' is scarifying the rind of the wood above the boxes. This is never done until the trees have been worked one season, but it is then repeated year after year, till on many plantations they present the marks of twenty and frequently thirty annual 'tappings,' and are often denuded of bark for a distance of thirty feet from the ground. The necessity for this annual tapping arises from the fact that the scar on the trunk heals at the end of a season, and the sap will no longer run from it; a fresh wound is therefore made each spring. The sap flows down the scarified surface and collects in the boxes, which are emptied six or eight times in a year, according to the length of the season. This is the process of 'dipping,' and it is done with a tin or iron vessel constructed to fit the cavity in the tree.

The turpentine gathered from the newly boxed or virgin tree is very valuable, on account of its producing a peculiarly clear and white rosin, which is used in the manufacture of the finer kinds of soap, and by 'Rosin the Bow,' and commands, ordinarily, nearly five times the price of the common article. When barreled, the turpentine is frequently sent to market in its crude state, but more often is distilled on the plantation, the gatherers generally possessing means sufficient to own a still.

In the process of distilling, the crude turpentine is 'dumped' into the boiler through an opening in the top,—the same as that on which we saw Junius composedly seated,—water is then poured upon it, the aperture made tight by screwing down the cover and packing it with clay, a fire built underneath, and when the heat reaches several hundred degrees Fahrenheit, the process of manufacture begins. The volatile and more valuable part of the turpentine, by the action of the heat, rises as vapor, then condensing flows off through a pipe in the top of the still, and comes out spirits of turpentine, while the heavier portion finds vent at a lower aperture, and comes out rosin.

No article of commerce is so liable to waste and leakage as turpentine. The spirits can only be preserved in tin cans, or in thoroughly seasoned oak barrels, made tight by a coating of glue on the inner side. Though the material for these barrels exists at the South in luxuriant abundance, they are all procured from the North, and the closing of the Southern ports has now entirely cut off the supply; for while the turpentine farmer may improvise coopers, he can by no process give the oak timber the seasoning which is needed to render the barrel spirit-tight. Hence it is certain that a large portion of the last crop of turpentine must have gone to waste. When it is remembered that the one State of North Carolina exports annually nearly twenty millions in value of this product, and employs fully three-fourths of its negroes in its production, it will be seen how dearly the South is paying for the mad freak of secession. Putting out of view his actual loss of produce, how does the turpentine farmer feed and employ his negroes? and, pressed as these blacks inevitably are by both hunger and idleness, those prolific breeders of sedition, what will keep them quiet?

'What effect would secession have on your business?' I asked the Colonel, after a while.

'A favorable one. I should ship my crop direct to Liverpool and London, instead of selling it to New York middlemen.'

'But is not the larger portion of the turpentine crop consumed at the North?'

'Oh, yes. We should have to deal with the Yankees anyhow, but we should do as little with them as possible.'

'Suppose the Yankees object to your setting up by yourselves, and put your ports under lock and key?'

'They won't do that, and if they did England would break the blockade.'

'We might rap John Bull over the knuckles in that event,' I replied.

'Well, suppose you did, what then?'

'Merely, England would not have a ship in six months to carry your cotton. A war with her would ruin the shipping trade of the North. Our marine would seek employment at privateering, and soon sweep every British merchant ship from the ocean. We could afford to give up ten years' trade with you, and have to put down seccession by force, for the sake of a year's brush with John Bull.'

'But, my good friend, where would the British navy be all the while?'

'Asleep. The English haven't a steamer that can catch a Brookhaven schooner. The last war proved that vessels of war are no match for privateers.'

'Well, well! but the Yankees won't fight.'

'Suppose they do. Suppose they shut up your ports, and leave you with your cotton and turpentine unsold? You raise scarcely anything else—what would you eat?'

'We would turn our cotton-fields into corn and wheat. Turpentine-makers, of course, would suffer.'

'Then why are not you a Union man?'

'My friend, I have two hundred mouths to feed. I depend on the sale of my crop to give them food. If our ports are closed, I can not do it,—they will starve, and I be ruined. But sooner than submit to the domination of the cursed Yankees, I will see my negroes starving and my child a beggar.'

At this point in the conversation we arrived at the negro shanty where the sick child was. Dismounting, the Colonel and I entered.

The cabin was almost a counterpart of the 'Mills House,' described in my previous paper, but it had a plank flooring, and was scrupulously neat and clean. The logs were stripped of bark, and whitewashed. A bright, cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth, and an air of rude comfort pervaded the whole interior. On a low bed in the farther corner of the room lay the sick child. He was a boy of about twelve years, and evidently in the last stages of consumption. By his side, bending over him as if to catch his almost inaudible words, sat a tidy, youthful-looking colored woman, his mother, and the wife of the negro we had met at the 'still.' Playing on the floor, was a younger child, perhaps five years old, but while the faces of the mother and the sick lad were of the hue of charcoal, his skin, by a process well understood at the South, had been bleached to a bright yellow.

The woman took no notice of our entrance, but the little fellow ran to the Colonel and caught hold of the skirts of his coat in a free-and-easy way, saying, 'Ole massa, you got suffin' for Dickey?'

'No, you little nig,' replied the Colonel, patting his woolly head as I might have done a white child's, 'Dickey isn't a good boy.'

'Yas, I is,' said the little darky; 'you'se ugly ole massa, to gib nuffin' to Dickey.'

Aroused by the Colonel's voice, the woman turned towards us. Her eyes were swollen and her face bore traces of deep emotion.

'Oh massa!' she said, 'de chile am dyin'! It'm all along ob his workin' in de swamp,—no man orter work dar, let alone a chile like dis.'

'Do you think he is dying, Rosey?' asked the Colonel, approaching the bedside.

'Shore, massa, he'm gwine fass. Look at 'em.'

The boy had dwindled to a skeleton, and the skin lay on his face in crimpled folds, like a mask of black crape. His eyes were fixed, and he was evidently going.

'Don't you know massa, my boy?' said the Colonel, taking his hand tenderly in his.

The child's lips slightly moved, but I could hear no sound. The Colonel put his ear down to him for a moment, then, turning to me, said,—

'He is dying. Will you be so good as to step to the house and ask Madam P– here, and please tell Jim to go for Junius and the old man.'

I returned in a short while with the lady, but found the boy's father and 'the old man'—the darky preacher of the plantation—there before us. The preacher was a venerable old negro, much bowed by years, and with thin wool as white as snow. When we entered he was bending over the dying boy, but shortly turning to my host, said,—

'Massa, de blessed Lord am callin' for de chile,—shall we pray?'

The Colonel nodded assent, and we all, blacks and whites, knelt down on the floor, while the old preacher made a short, heart-touching prayer. It was a simple, humble acknowledgment of the dependence of the creature on the Creator,—of His right to give and to take away, and was uttered in a free, conversational tone, as if long communion with his Maker had placed the old negro on a footing of friendly familiarity with Him, and given the black slave the right to talk with the Deity as one man talks with another.

As we rose from our knees my host said to me, 'It is my duty to stay here, but I will not detain you. Jim will show you over the plantation. I will join you at the house when this is over.' The scene was a painful one, and I gladly availed myself of the Colonel's suggestion.

Mounting our horses, Jim and I rode off to the negro house where Scip was staying.

Scip was not at the cabin, and the old negro woman told us he had been away for several hours.

'Reckon he'll be 'way all day, sar,' said Jim, as we turned our horses to go.

'He ought to be resting against the ride of to-morrow. Where has he gone?'

'Dunno, sar, but reckon he'm gwine to fine Sam.'

'Sam? Oh, he's the runaway the Colonel has advertised.'

'Yas, sar, he'm 'way now more'n a monfh.'

'How can Scip find him?'

'Dunno, sar. Scipio know most ebery ting,—reckon he'll track him. He know him well, and Sam'll cum back ef he say he orter.'

'Where do you think Sam is?'

'P'raps in the swamp.'

'Where is the swamp?'

''Bout ten mile from har.'

'Oh, yes! the shingles are cut there. I should think a runaway would be discovered where so many men are at work.'

'No, massa, dar'm places dar whar de ole debil cudn't fine him, nor de dogs nudder.'

'I thought the bloodhounds would track a man anywhere.'

'Not t'ru de water, massa; dey lose de scent in de swamp.'

'But how can a negro live there,—how get food?'

'De darkies work dar and dey take 'em nuff.'

'Then the other negroes often know where the runaways are; don't they sometimes betray them?'

'Neber, massa; a darky neber tells on anoder. De Cunnel had a boy in dat swamp once, good many years.'

'Is it possible? Did he come back?'

'No, he died dar. Sum ob de hands found him dead one mornin' in de hut whar he lib'd, and dey buried him dar.'

'Why did Sam run away?'

''Cause de Oberseer flog him. He use him bery hard, massa.'

'What had Sam done?'

'Nuffin', massa.'

'Then why was he flogged? Did the Colonel know it?'

'Oh, yas; Moye cum de possum ober de Cunnel, and make him b'lieve Sam war bad. De Cunnel dunno de hull ob dat story.'

'Why didn't you tell him? The Colonel trusts you.'

'Twudn't hab dun no good; de Cunnel wud hab flogged me for tellin' on a wite man. Nigga's word ain't ob no account.'

'What is the story about Sam?'

'You won't tell dat I tole you, massa?'

'No, but I'll tell the Colonel the truth.'

'Wal den, sar, you see Sam's wife am bery good-lookin', her skin's most wite,—her mudder war a mulatter, her fader a wite man,—she lub'd Sam 'bout as well as de wimmin ginrally lub dar husbands,' (Jim was a bachelor, and his observation of plantation morals had given him but little faith in the sex), 'but most ob 'em, ef dey'm married or no, tink dey must smile on de wite men, so Jule she smiled on de Oberseer,—so Sam tought,—and it made him bery jealous. He war sort o' sassy, and de Oberseer strung him up and flog him bery hard. Den Sam took to de swamp, but he didn't know whar to gwo, and de dogs tracked him; he'd ha' got 'way dough ef de Oberseer hadn't shot him; den he cudn't run. Den Moye flogged him till he war 'most dead, and arter dat chained him up in de ole cabin and gabe him 'most nuffin' to eat. De Cunnel war gwine to take Sam to Charles'on and sell him, but sumhow he got a file and sawed fru de chain and got 'way in de night to de 'still.' When de Oberseer cum dar in de mornin', Sam jump on him and 'most kill him. He'd hab sent him whar dar ain't no niggas ef Junius hadn't a holed him. I'd a let de ole debil gwo.'

'Junius, then, is a friend of the Overseer.'

'No, sar; he hain't no friends, 'cep de debil; but June am a good nigga, and he said 'twarn't right to kill ole Moye so sudden, for den dar'd be no chance for de Lord forgibin' him.'

'Then Sam got away again?'

'O yas; nary one but darkies war round, and dey wouldn't hole him. Ef dey'd cotched him den, dey'd hung him, shore.'

'Why hung him?'

''Cause he'd struck a wite man; it 'm shore death to do dat.'

'Do you think Scip will bring him back?'

'Yas; 'cause he 'm gwine to tell massa de hull story. De Cunnel will b'lieve Scipio ef he am brack. Sam'll know dat, and he'll come back. De Cunnel'll make de State too hot to hole ole Moye, when he fine him out.'

'Does Sam's wife "smile" on the Overseer now?'

'No; she see de trubble she bring on Sam, and she bery sorry. She won't look at a wite man now.'

During the conversation above recorded, we had ridden for several miles over the western half of the plantation, and were then again near the house. My limbs being decidedly stiff and sore from the effects of the previous day's journey, I decided to alight and rest at the house until the hour for dinner.

I mentioned my jaded condition to Jim, who said,—

'Dat's right, massa; come in de house. I'll cure de rumatics; I knows how to fix dem.'

Fastening the horses at the door, Jim accompanied me to my sleeping-room, where he lighted a pile of pine knots, and in a moment the fire blazed up on the hearth and sent a cheerful glow through the apartment; then, saying he would return after stabling the horses, the darky left me.

I took off my boots, drew the sofa near the fire, and stretched myself at full length upon it. If ever mortal was tired, 'I reckon' I was. It seemed as if every joint and bone in my body had lost the power of motion, and sharp, acute pains danced along my nerves, as I have seen lightning play along the telegraph wires. My entire system had the toothache.

Jim soon returned, bearing in one hand a decanter of 'Otard,' and in the other a mug of hot water and a crash towel.

'I'se got de stuff dat'll fix de rumatics, massa.'

'Thank you, Jim; a glass will do me good. Where did you get it?' I asked, thinking it strange the Colonel should leave his brandy-bottle within reach of the darkies, who have an universal weakness for spirits.

'Oh, I keeps de keys; de Cunnel hisself hab to come to me wen he want suffin' to warm hisself.'

It was the fact; Jim had exclusive charge of the wine-cellar; in short, was butler, barber, porter, footman, and body-servant, all combined.

'Now, massa, you lay right whar you is, and I'll make you ober new in less dan no time.'

And he did; but I emptied the brandy-bottle. Lest my temperance friends should be horror-stricken, I will mention, however, that I took the fluid by external absorption. For all rheumatic sufferers, I would prescribe, hot brandy in plentiful doses, a coarse towel, and an active Southern darky, and if on the first application the patient is not cured, the fault will not be the nigger's. Out of mercy to the chivalry, I hope our government, in saving the Union, will not annihilate the order of body-servants. They are the only perfect institution in the Southern country, and, so far as I have seen, about the only one worth saving.

The dinner-bell sounded a short while after Jim had finished the scrubbing operation, and I went to the table with an appetite I had not felt for a week. My whole system seemed rejuvenated, and I am not sure that I should, at that moment, have declined a wrestling match with Heenan himself.

I found at dinner only the Overseer and the young son of Madam P–, the Colonel and the lady being still at the cabin of the dying boy. The dinner, though a queer mixture of viands, would not have disgraced, except, perhaps, in the cooking, the best of our Northern hotels. Venison, bacon, wild fowl, hominy, poultry, corn-bread, French 'made-dishes,' and Southern 'common doin's,' with wines and brandies of the choicest brands, were placed on the table together.

'Dis, massa,' said Jim, 'am de raal juice; it hab ben in de cellar eber since de house war built. Massa tole me to gib you some, wid him complimen's.'

Passing it to my companions, we drank the Colonel's health in as fine wine as I ever tasted.

I had taken an instinctive dislike to the Overseer at the breakfast-table, and my aversion was not lessened by learning his treatment of Sam; curiosity to learn what manner of man he was, however, led me, towards the close of our meal, to 'draw him out,' as follows:—

'What is the political sentiment, sir, of this section of the State?'

'Wal, I reckon most of the folks 'bout har' is Union; they're from the "old North," and gin'rally pore trash.'

'I have heard that the majority of the turpentine getters are enterprising men and good citizens,—more enterprising, even, than the cotton and rice planters.'

'Wal, they is enterprisin', 'cause they don't keer for nuthin' 'cep' money.'

'The man who is absorbed in money-getting is generally a quiet citizen.'

'P'raps that's so. But I think a man sh'u'd hev a soul suthin' 'bove dollars. Them folks will take any sort o' sarce from the Yankees, ef they only buy thar truck.'

'What do you suffer from the Yankees?'

'Suffer from the Yankees? Don't they steal our niggers, and hain't they 'lected an ab'lishener for President?'

'I've been at the North lately, but I am not aware that is so.'

'So! it's damnably so, sir. I knows it. We don't mean to stand it eny longer.'

'What will you do?'