His people are free'*! How did the slaves accept their freedom? Were they merely passive, insensate recipients of the boon of emancipation? Or did they comprehend the meaning of the war and take active steps to insure their freedom? There is no doubt that many, perhaps most, of the slaves had little realization of the great revolution going on around them during the Civil War. But on the other hand, hundreds of thousands of slaves had a distinct awareness of the course of the war and its meaning for their future. This chapter will examine the highlights of emancipation in the South as it affected those slaves who have left some record of their actions or feelings.
Northern and foreign observers in the South during the war punctured the myth of the contented, happy slave. William Howard Russell, correspondent of the London Times, a paper hostile to abolitionism and favorable to the South, traveled through the Confederate states in the early months of the war. He visited many plantations, and wrote from a large estate in Louisiana on June 2, 1861:
It struck me more and more … as I examined the expression on the faces of the slaves, that deep dejection is the prevailing, if not universal, characteristic of the race. Here there were abundant evidences that they were well treated; they had good clothing of its kind, food, and a master who wittingly could do them no injustice, as he is, I am sure, incapable of it. Still, they all looked sad, and even the old woman who boasted that she had held her old owner in her arms when he was an infant, did not smile cheerfully, as the nurse at home would have done at the sight of her ancient charge.1
George H. Hepworth, Chaplain of the Forty-seventh Massachusetts Regiment and Labor Superintendent of the Department of the Gulf wrote from Louisiana in 1863 that the slaves of the South are not a happy people. No one can travel from plantation to plantation, from county to county, as I have done, without being strangely impressed with the universal gloom of the negro character. You may talk of the light-hearted, merry slave as much as you will: it is all rhetoric, and has no foundation whatever in fact. They are a sombre race—a race who show that every effort has been made to crush them,— a race whose hearts have a chain and ball on them. Planters delight to tell you of the Saturday-afternoon dances, of the frolics when the day's work is over, and of the general hilarity which is noticed on a plantation. I have lived on plantations a week at a time; I have watched slaves under nearly all circumstances,—on the Saturday afternoon, in the evening, and at their balls; but I have been everywhere convinced that an unnatural gloom overspreads the negro's life. It is very seldom that you hear a good round laugh from a black man. He is timid and fearful, and seems like one walking in a dangerous place in the dark. But say, “Uncle, would you like to be free?” and notice the twinkle in his eye as he looks at you searchingly, and, after concluding that you are his friend, says, with an ominous shake of the head, “Yes master: all of us would like to be free; but we don't see the way yet.”2
One of the estimated 500,000 slaves who escaped or came within Union lines during the war3 was Susie King Taylor of Savannah, Georgia, who had been born a slave in 1848. In April 1862 she escaped with her uncle from Savannah to the Union lines at Fort Pulaski. Miss King (she later married a Negro soldier named Taylor) had secretly learned to read and write while a slave, and during the remainder of the war she served as a teacher of the freedmen and a laundress at the Union encampments on the South Carolina Sea Islands. Mrs. Taylor later recalled that in the early months of the war she had been reading so much about the “Yankees” I was very anxious to see them. The whites would tell their colored people not to go to the Yankees, for they would harness them to carts and make them pull the carts around, in place of horses. I asked grandmother, one day, if this was true. She replied, “Certainly not!” that the white people did not want slaves to go over to the Yankees, and told them these things to frighten them. … I wanted to see these wonderful “Yankees” so much, as I heard my parents say the Yankee was going to set all the slaves free. Oh, how those people prayed for freedom! I remember, one night, my grandmother went out into the suburbs of the city to a church meeting, and they were fervently singing this old hymn,—
“Yes, we all shall be free,
Yes, we all shall be free,
Yes, we all shall be free,
When the Lord shall appear,”—
when the police came in and arrested all who were there, saying they were planning freedom, and sang “the Lord,” in place of “Yankee,” to blind any one who might be listening.4
In November 1861 a Union fleet and Northern soldiers captured and occupied Port Royal Island and the adjacent South Carolina Sea Islands fifty miles southwest of Charleston. Most of the white people on the islands fled to the mainland, leaving behind scores of fertile long-staple cotton plantations and more than eight thousand slaves. Northern philanthropists soon recruited scores of missionaries, teachers, and plantation superintendents to go to the islands and help the Negroes in their transition from slavery to freedom. One of these plantation superintendents, Edward S. Philbrick, wrote of the Port Royal freedmen in 1862:
I am surprised to find how little most of these people appreciate their present prospects. Once in a while you find an intelligent man who does so, but the mass plod along in the beaten track with little thought about the future and no sort of feeling of responsibility. They feel a sense of relief that no one stands to force them to labor, and they fall back with a feeling of indifference as to whether they exert themselves beyond what is necessary to supply the demands of necessity.5
But such descriptions of the Negroes* apathy toward freedom were rare in the writings of Northerners who came to Port Royal. Most of them testified to the slaves' eagerness for freedom and their desire to make the best of their new opportunities. Miss Charlotte Forten, a Northern Negro who came as a teacher to Port Royal in 1862, had many conversations with the freedmen on the plantation where she taught, and they never tired of telling her how “Massa” ran away when the Yankees came. Harry, the foreman, told how “Massa” had tried to convince his slaves to come with him. Miss Porten asked Harry why they did not go. “Oh, Miss,” he replied, “it wasn't” cause Massa didn't try to ‘suade we. He tell we dat de Yankees would shoot we, or would sell we to Cuba, an’ do all de wüst tings to we, when dey come. (Bery well, Sar,' says I. ‘If I go wid you, I be good as dead. If I stay here, I can't be no wust; so if I got to dead, I might's well dead here as anywhere. So I'll stay here an’ wait for de “dam Yankees.” ‘Lor’, Miss, Iknowed he wasn't tellin' de truth all de time.”6
Harriet Tubman also came to the Sea Islands, where she served as a nurse and scout for the Union forces. She recounted the following story which had been told to her by one of the aged slaves on the islands: he said
I'd been yere seventy-three years, workin' for my master wid-out even a dime wages. I'd worked rain-wet sun dry. I'd worked wid my mouf full of dust, but would not stop to get a drink of water. I'd been whipped, an' starved, an' I was always prayin', 4Oh! Lord, come an' delibber us!” All dat time de birds had been fly in', and de rabens had been cry in', and de fish had been sunnin' in de waters. One day I look up, an' I see a big cloud; it didn't come up like as de clouds come out far yonder, but it ‘peared to be right ober head. Der was tunders out of day, an' der was lightnin's. Den I looked down on de water, an' I see, ‘peared to me a big house in de water, an' out of de big house came great big eggs, and de good eggs went on trou' de air, an' fell into de fort; an' de bad eggs burst before dey got dar…. Den I heard ‘twas the Yankee ship [the Wabash] firin' out de big egg$, and dey had come to set us free. Den I praise de Lord. He come an' put he little finger in de work, an' dey Sesh Buckra all go; and de birds stop fly in', and de rabens stop cry in', an' when I go to catch a fish to eat wid my rice, de's no fish dar. De Lord Almighty'd come and frightened ‘em all out of de waters. Oh! Praise de Lord! I'd prayed seventy-three years, an' now he's come an' we's all free.7
One of the Port Royal planters, a Mr. Cuthbert, was captured by the Federal forces, and while he was being rowed as a prisoner to a Union ship by his own slaves, the oarsmen burst into a song, making up the verses as they went along:
De Norfmen dey's got massa now,
De Norfmen dey's got massa now,
De Norfmen dey's got massa now,
Hallelujah.
Oh! massa a rebel; we row him to prison.
Hallelujah.
Massa no whip us any more.
Hallelujah.
We have no massa now, we free.
Hallelujah.
We have de Yankees, who no run away.
Hallelujah.
Oh! all our old massas run away.
Hallelujah.
Oh! massa going to prison now.
Hallelujah.8
Slaves began coming into Union lines in Virginia in the first month of the war, and they did not stop coming until the surrender at Appomattox four years later. The following report was written by T. Morris Chester, the only Negro war correspondent who wrote for a major Northern newspaper during the Civil War. Thirty years old in 1864 and a native of Pennsylvania, Chester had come to the attention of the managing editor of the Philadelphia Press through his excellent report of the proceedings of the A.M.E. General Conference in 1864. In August of that year Chester was assigned to the Army of the James in Virginia, where he remained as the official Press correspondent for the rest of the war. Chester wrote the following account in the winter of 1864-65, but it could have been written at any period of the war:
The underground railroad, from Richmond, seems to be thoroughly repaired, and is not only in running condition, but is doing an increasing business…. For some time past we have had an arrival from Richmond every day, and not unfrequently two or three times in the twenty-four hours. Notwithstanding this road is considered contraband by the rebel authorities, its officers thus far have been able to baffle the vigilance of their detectives, and fulfill the obligations which they have made to the public. Men, women, and children, of all colors, with their household effects, are daily coming into our lines and report at this place. … It is hardly necessary to inform our Southern brethren that what they consider as chattels, but what we regard as men, may be found industriously engaged about the quartermaster's department, or under the inspiration of martial air keeping step to the music of the Union.9
Not only on the Sea Islands and in Virginia, but in every part of the South penetrated by the Union armies, fugitive slaves flocked to the Federal lines and to freedom. On July 17, 1862, the Confederate Provost Marshal of Adams County, Mississippi, wrote to the governor of the state: “There is a great disposition among the Negroes to be insubordinate, and to run away and go to the federals. Within the last 12 months we have had to hang some 40 for plotting an insurrection, and there has been about that number put in irons.”10 In October 1862, Federal troops invaded the Lafourche district of south Louisiana. “What shall I do about the negroes?” wrote General Godrey Weitzel to Union Army headquarters on October 29.
You can form no idea of the vicinity of my camp, nor can you form an idea of the appearance of my brigade as it marched down the bayou. My train was larger than an army train for 25,000 men. Every soldier had a negro marching in the flanks, carrying his knapsack. Plantation carts, filled with negro women and children, with their effects; and of course compelled to pillage for their subsistence, as I have no rations to issue to them. I have a great many more negroes in my camp now than I have whites.11
Confederate General Joseph Finegan wrote in the spring of 1863 that there was a communications network between Negroes within Union lines in east Florida and the slaves behind Confederate lines. Many slaves escaped, because messages were ‘ ‘conducted through swamps and under cover of the night, and could not be prevented. A few weeks would suffice to corrupt the entire slave population of East Florida.” After a Union raid along the Combahee River in South Carolina, Confederate General W. S. Walker wrote that “the enemy burned four fine residences, and six mills, and took off with them about 700 negroes, who are believed to have gone with great alacrity and to some extent with pre-conceived arrangement.”12
Many Southern Negroes learned of the Emancipation Proclamation through the slave grapevine. Some literate slaves read about the Proclamation in Southern newspapers. In Louisiana, the newspaper L' Union, a bilingual journal (French and English) started by the free Negroes of New Orleans in September 1862, spread the news of the Proclamation and urged all black men in Lousiana to make the best of their new opportunities in freedom:
Brothers! The hour strikes for us; a new sun, similar to that of 1789, should surely appear on our horizon. May the cry which resounded through France at the seizure of the Bastille resonate today in our ears….
Compatriots! The epoch in which we live exhorts us in a loud voice to unite all our efforts for the cause of liberty and justice. Let us all be imbued with these noble sentiments which characterize all civilized people…. Let us be resolute. Let us rise up in all majesty and with the charity befitting Christians, let us preach by example to all men, so that they will follow the road which leads to liberty. …
Compatriots! May this new era fortify us, and be for us a rampart against persecution; and in sweet accord with our brothers, let us fill the air with these joyous cries: “vive la lib-erte! vive l'union! vive la justice pour tous les hommes!” …
Men of my blood! Shake off the contempt of your proud oppressors. Enough of shame and submission; the break is complete! Down with the craven behavior of bondage! Stand up under the noble flag of the Union and declare yourselves hardy champions of the right. Defend your rights against the barbarous and imbecile spirit of slavery; prove to the entire world that you have a heart noble enough to walk with civilization and to understand its benefits, and a spirit high enough to know and admire the imposing work of the Creator…. Fellow workers, plow in the vast field of the future the furrow of Frater-nite; plant there firmly the tree of Liberte, whose fruits, collected by future generations, will be shared with the most perfect Egalite by the children of the same God.13
Many freedmen flocked to Washington during the war. On the evening of December 31, 1862, a meeting was held in one of the contraband camps to celebrate the issuance of the final Emancipation Proclamation. George Payne, a former slave from Virginia, addressed his fellow freedmen:
Friends, don't you see de han' of God in dis? Haven't we a right to rejoice? You all know you couldn't have such a meetin' as dis down in Dixie! Dat you all knows. I have a right to rejoice; an' so have you; for we shall be free in jus' about five minutes. Dat's a fact. I shall rejoice that God has placed Mr. Lincum in de president's chair, and dat he wouldn't let de rebels make peace until after dis new year. De Lord has heard de groans of de people, and has come down to deliver! You all knows dat in Dixie you worked de day long, an' never got no satisfacshun. But here, what you make is yourn. I've worked six months; and what I've made is mine! Let me tell you, though, don't be too free! De lazy man can't go to heaven. You must be honest, an' work, an' show dat you is fit to be free; an' de Lord will bless you an' Abrum Lincum. Amen!14
Another ex-slave told his brethren:
Onst the time was, dat I cried all night. What's de matter? What's de matter? Matter enough. De nex mornin my child was to be sold, an she was sold, and I neber spec to see her no more till de day ob judgment. Now, no more dat! no more dat! no more dat! Wid my hands agin my breast I was gwine to my work, when de overseer used to whip me along. Now, no more dat! no more dat! no more dat! When I think what de Lord's done for us, an brot us thro' de trubbles, I feel dat I ought go inter His service. We'se free now, bress de Lord! (Amens! were vociferated all over the building.) Dey can't sell my wife and child any more, bress de Lord! (Glory! glory! from the audience.) No more dat! no more dat! no more dat, now! (Glory!) Preserdun Lincum have shot de gate!15
On the South Carolina Sea Islands the freedmen and their Northern teachers also held a celebration on January 1, 1863. Charlotte Forten wrote the following account:
New-Year's-Day—Emancipation-Day—was a glorious one to us. The morning was quite cold, the coldest we had experienced; but we were determined to go to the celebration at Camp Saxton … on this, “the greatest day in the nation's history.” We enjoyed perfectly the exciting scene on board the Flora. There was an eager, wondering crowd of the freed people in their holiday-attire, with the gayest of head-hankerchiefs, the whitest of aprons, and the happiest of faces. The band was playing, the flags streaming, everybody talking merrily and feeling strangely happy…. Long before we reached Camp Saxton we could see the beautiful grove, and the ruins of the old Huguenot fort near it. Some companies of the First Regiment* were drawn up in line under the trees, near the landing, to receive us. A fine, soldierly-looking set of men; their brilliant dress against the trees (they were then wearing red pantaloons) invested them with a semi-barbaric splendor….
The celebration took place in the beautiful grove of live-oaks adjoining the camp. … I wish it were possible to describe fitly the scene which met our eyes as we sat upon the stand, and looked down on the crowd before us. There were the black soldiers in their blue coats and scarlet pantaloons, the officers of this and other regiments in their handsome uniforms, and crowds of lookers-on,—men, women, and children, of every complexion, grouped in various attitudes under the moss-hung trees. The faces of all wore a happy, interested look. The exercises commenced with a prayer by the chaplain of the regiment…. Colonel Higginson then introduced Dr. Brisbane, who read the President's Proclamation, which was enthusiastically cheered. Rev. Mr. French presented to the Colonel two very elegant flags, a gift to the regiment from the Church of the Puritans, accompanying them by an appropriate and enthusiastic speech. At its conclusion, before Colonel Higginson could reply, and while he still stood holding the flags in his hand, some of the colored people, of their own accord, commenced singing, “My Country, ‘tis of thee.” It was a touching and beautiful incident, and sent a thrill through all our hearts. The Colonel was deeply moved by it. He said that that reply was far more effective than any speech he could make.
After the meeting we saw the dress-parade, a brilliant and beautiful sight. An officer told us that the men went through the drill remarkably well,—that the ease and rapidity with which they learned the movements were wonderful. To us it seemed strange as a miracle,—this black regiment, the first mustered into the service of the United States, doing itself honor in the sight of the officers of other regiments, many of whom, doubt less, “came to scoff.” The men afterwards had a great feast, ten oxen having been roasted whole for their especial benefit….
It was the softest, loveliest moonlight; we seated ourselves on the ruined wall of the old fort; and when the boat had got a short distance from the shore the band in it commenced playing “Sweet Home.” The moonlight on the water, the perfect stillness around, the wildness and solitude of the ruins, all seemed to give new pathos to that ever dear and beautiful old song. It came very near to all of us,—strangers in that strange Southern land…. Very unwilling were we to go home; for, besides the attractive society, we knew that the soldiers were to have grand shouts and a general jubilee that night. But the Flora was coming, and we were obliged to say a reluctant farewell to Camp Saxton and the hospitable dwellers therein, and hasten to the landing. We promenaded the deck of the steamer, sang patriotic songs, and agreed that moonlight and water had never looked so beautiful as on that night. At Beaufort we took the row-boat for St. Helena; and the boatmen, as they rowed, sang some of their sweetest, wildest hymns. It was a fitting close to such a day. Our hearts were filled with an exceeding great gladness; for, although the Government had left much undone, we knew that Freedom was surely born in our land that day.16
Negroes continued to pour into Union lines in growing numbers after the Proclamation. In September 1863, the venerable industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper wrote:
I learn direct from Mr. Dean, the provost-marshal of St. Louis, that the Proclamation of Freedom has done more to weaken the rebellion … than any other measure that could have been adopted. On his late visit to my house he informed me that he had brought on a large number of rebel officers and men to be exchanged at Fortress Monroe. During their passage he took the opportunity to ask the officers in a body what effect the President's Proclamation of Freedom had produced in the South. Their reply was … that “it had played hell with them.” Mr. Dean then asked them how that could be possible, since the negroes cannot read. To which one of them replied that one of his negroes had told him of the proclamation five days before he heard it in any other way. Others said thfeir negroes gave them their first information of the proclamation.17
The choice between remaining in slavery and escaping to freedom was not an easy one for some Negroes. The following story was told by an ex-slave who during the war had lived on a plantation near Dardanelle, Arkansas:
Them folks [Yankee soldiers] stood round there all day. Killed hogs and cooked them. Killed cows and cooked them. Took all kinds of sugar and preserves and things like that. Tore all the feathers out of the mattress looking for money. Then they put Old Miss and her daughter in the kitchen to cooking.
Ma got scared and went to bed. Directly the lieutenant come on down there and said, “Auntie, get up from there. We ain't a-going to do you no hurt. We're after helping you. We are freeing you. Aunt Dinah, you can do as you please now. You're free.”
She was free!
They stayed round there all night cooking and eating and carrying on. They sent some of the meat in there to us colored folks.
Next morning they all dropped off going to take Dardanelle. You could hear the cannons roaring next day. They was all night getting away. They went on and took Dardanelle. Had all them white folks running and hiding.
The Secesh wouldn't go far. They would just hide. One night there'd be a gang of Secesh, and the next one, there'd come along a gang of Yankees. Pa was ‘fraid of both of ‘em. Secesh said they'd kill him if he left his white folks. Yankees said they'd kill him if he didn't leave ‘em. He would hide out in the cotton patch and keep we children out there with him.18
But most slaves were happy to see the Yankee soldiers. Thousands of Negroes left their homes and joined Sherman's army on its march from Atlanta to the sea. General Sherman wrote in his memoirs:
The next day [November 17, 1864, one day out of Atlanta on his march to the sea] we passed through the handsome town of Covington, the soldiers closing up their ranks, the color-bearers unfurling their flags, and the bands striking up patriotic airs. The white people came out of their houses to behold the sight, spite of their deep hatred of the invaders, and the negroes were simply frantic with joy. Whenever they heard my name, they clustered about my horse, shouted and prayed in their peculiar style, which had a natural eloquence that would have moved a stone. I have witnessed hundreds, if not thousands, of such scenes; and can now see a poor girl, in the very ecstasy of the Methodist “shout,” hugging the banner of one of the regiments, and jumping up to the “feet of Jesus.”19
One of the climactic events of the war was the fall of Richmond and President Lincoln's visit to the city on April 4, 1865. T. Morris Chester, Negro correspondent of the Philadelphia Press, entered Richmond soon after its evacuation by the Confederates, and wrote the following dispatches to his paper:
Nothing can exceed the rejoicings of the negroes since the occupation of this city. They declare that they cannot realize the change; though they have long prayed for it, yet it seems impossible that it has come. Old men and women weep and shout for joy, and praise God for their deliverance through means of the Union army….
The great event after the capture of the city was the arrival of President Lincoln in it…. There is no describing the scene along the route. The colored population was wild with enthusiasm. Old men thanked God in a very boisterous manner, and old women shouted upon the pavement as high as they had ever done at a religious revival….
Everyone declares that Richmond never before presented such a spectacle of jubilee. It must be confessed that those who participated in the informal reception of the President were mainly negroes. There were many whites in the crowd, but they were lost in the great concourse of American citizens of African descent. …
I visited yesterday several of the slave jails, where men, women, and children were confined, or herded, for the examination of purchasers. The jailers were in all cases slaves, and had been left in undisputed possession of the buildings. The owners, as soon as they were aware that we were coming, opened wide the doors and told the confined inmates they were free. The poor souls could not realize it until they saw the Union army. Even then they thought it must be a pleasant dream, but when they saw Abraham Lincoln they were satisfied that their freedom was perpetual. One enthusiastic old negro woman exclaimed: “I know that I am free, for I have seen Father Abraham and felt him.”
When the President returned to the flag-ship of Admiral Porter, in the evening, he was taken from the wharf in a cutter. Just as he pushed off, amid the cheering of the crowd, another good old colored female shouted out, “Don't drown Massa Abe, for God's sake!” …
The highest degree of happiness attainable upon earth is now being enjoyed by the colored people of this city. They all declare that they are abundantly able to take care of themselves. Nothing can be more amusing than the efforts of some of the most violent rebels, who in other days never let an opportunity pass to show their love for Jeff Davis, or manifest their vindictive feelings against the negroes in every conceivable manner, to cultivate the friendship of the colored people, with the hope that the forgiving nature of the race may induce them to forget the wrongs of the past…. What a wonderful change has come over the spirit of Southern dreams.20
The “First South Carolina Volunteers,” a regiment of ex-slaves raised on the Sea Islands in the fall of 1862. It was commanded by Colonel Thomas Went worth Higginson. See below, Chapter XI.