Chapter XI: Sanitary Work (2)

I bade him good morning, and left his office, fully determined to bring him an order, although I knew he must have seen one. My purpose was to take the first boat to Vicksburg, as General Thomas was then in that city, to see whether his order was to be honored. Passing Colonel Young's office, I called to see if he could grant the favor, and found that he could give the transportation desired, consequently I left the general without troubling him further. On my return I called at the other mission store, and met brother Burlingame and Isaac Thorne, who also wished to go below, but were doubtful whether General Tuttle would give them transportation They said they were waiting to learn of my success, and were surprised to find that Colonel Young had the power to grant it.

We took the steamer "J. H. Russell" for Baton Rouge. On March 27th Sunday morning, we passed the mouth of Red River, where was a gun boat, from which a few prisoners were taken aboard of our boat. A woman named Crosly was also taken on board, to go to New Orleans for the purpose of exposing those who had run through our lines contraband goods. There was a woman of property and standing on the boat, who still held her household servants, and made her boast that no one could even hire her slaves to leave her.

"I'd like to see any one offer my niggers a book," she declared. "I reckon they'd take it as an insult. They'd tell you mighty quick they'd no use for books or schools. The niggers never will be as happy as they have been. They'll soon die out. It's fearful to see them die off as they do in these camps. They know nothing of taking care of themselves. They are cared for by us as tenderly as our own children. I tell you, they are the happiest people that live in this country. If they are sick the doctor is sent for, and they are cared for in every way, they know nothing of care."

"If they are such a happy class of people, how was it that you had such a time of punishing and hanging them within the last two years?" I asked.

"O, that had to be done to save our lives, because they were about to rise in an awful insurrection."

"But what would induce them to rise in insurrection, when they are so happy and contented as you have described?"

"O, there is always somebody ready to put the devil in their heads," was her ready reply.

But Mrs. Crosly's report was of a very different character. She said, "There has never been the half told of this hell upon earth--the awful wickedness on these Red River plantations, where I have lived ever since I was fifteen years old. If you knew what I have passed through, you would not wonder that there is nothing but a wreck left of me. I married a plantation blacksmith when a young girl of fifteen, and left my people in Indiana, as my husband was hired by a rich slave-holder, Mr. Samuel Lay, who lived on Red River. We lived on his plantation many years, though he used to do a great deal in ironing negroes for neighboring planters."

I told her of the slave-irons I had found on a deserted plantation, to take to my Michigan home.

"Don't let the people here know it," she said, "or they will take them from you and drop them in the river; for they bury them, or throw them in the river or creek, to put them out of sight of Yankees. When the city was taken they sent painters all over the city, with brushes and paint-buckets, to paint over all advertising signs of slaves for sale, and hid all slave-irons they could lay hands on."

I told her that was done in Natchez, when that city was taken.

"And that is just what they did," she went on, "in Vicksburg. Among the slave-irons you found, were there any of those new-fashioned gags?"

I told her that there were not.

"You ought to get some of them. If I were at home I could get you two or three kinds; but you ought to see the new gags anyhow. They are made with barbs, as they make on fish-hooks, and they pierce the tongue if they attempt to speak or make a noise. They can't live many hours with one of them in their mouths, for the tongue swells up so. Mr. Lay had an old slave woman we called Aunt Hannah whipped, and gagged with that new gag, and left her all night in her cabin; and when I opened her door her tongue was swollen out of her mouth and looked so awful, I wouldn't have known her if she hadn't been in her own cabin. I told 'em she groaned so, I reckoned she was dying, and they sent for the doctor to come and cut the barbs out, and he told Mr. Lay she would have died in an hour longer. It was a long time before she recovered from it. But as near as she was to dying, the overseer left Ben all night with that kind of a gag; and they found him dead in the morning. You of the North have no idea of the perfect hell upon earth we've had down here. Mr. Lay brought Alice from Kentucky, and she'd been a kitchen-maid, and never worked in the cotton-field till she came here. The overseer was a mighty hard man, and he drew that long whip of his over her shoulders so often because she couldn't keep up with the other hands, that she ran away in the bush and was gone two days before they caught her. Then they whipped her awfully, and in two or three days they drove her out in the field. Within a week she ran away again, and was gone about two weeks. They caught her with the help of bloodhounds; and when she was brought in, her arms were torn by the dogs, and I trembled for the poor girl, for I knew they'd nearly kill her. Sure enough, the first I knew my husband had her at his shop, to iron her with a full set. There was a knee-stiffener, an iron collar with a bell, and a pair of handcuffs, with a chain between to allow her to use the hoe. When I saw the heavy irons I went to the shop and begged Mr. Crosly not to iron Alice like that, for it would kill her, as she was badly torn by the dogs. But he swore at me, and told me to go back into the house, were I belonged; this was his business. I went back and cried over it till it appeared I couldn't live; and I went out again and begged him not to put on all these irons; for he knew they were heavier than the law allowed, and he would commit murder, for she could not live in this way. But he only swore at me the more. At this Mrs. Lay came out in a rage, and said she would see whether any one could come in and interfere with the punishment of any of her slaves, and ordered another slave to cut across both of her feet with a pocket-knife, through the skin, so that blood was left in her tracks. I turned away, for I thought they would murder the poor girl before my eyes; and I cried myself sick and couldn't sleep, for I thought she must die before morning. The cotton-field was opposite my window, and after breakfast I watched to see the hands go to their work; and, sure enough, there was poor Alice hobbling out into the cotton-field. They had been at work but a little while when a heavy blow from the whip-handle on the back of her head brought her to the ground. 'O, my God!' I cried, to see that overseer hit her like that because she couldn't keep up her row. I prayed God that Alice might die at once and be out of her misery; and, sure enough, they brought her out of that field dead! I was glad of it. Poor girl! she could suffer no more under their hands."

"And did not her death call forth some action from the law?" I asked.

"Nothing of the kind was ever noticed on our plantation. I tell you it was a perfect hell on earth down here; you don't know anything about it; and yet, if these things are told, they'll deny it, and call them black abolition lies, when it's God's truth, and they know it. There was Uncle Jack, poor fellow! He ran away, and they brought him in with the bounds, after he'd been gone a week, and they made him strip and lie down on his face, and fastened his hands and feet to iron rings. Then a man sat on each side of him to do the whipping, alternating in their strokes from his feet to his head, then back to his feet, and so back and forth until they'd given him one hundred lashes. I passed by them, and saw his back cut up to a raw jelly, and the flesh twitched as you've seen newly killed beef. But this was not all. They took burning pitch-pine slivers and held them over his quivering flesh, dropping the melted blazing pitch from his head to his feet. After this awful torture, the two men carried him to his cabin, I thought, to die; and I had another all-night cry over Uncle Jack, He was not able to go out in the field again for two weeks."

Mrs. Crosly related many other incidents in her own experience, some of which are too shocking for the public eye or ear.

"My husband," she said, "bought two slave women, one of whom was the mother of two illegitimate children, that my children were compelled by their father to address as brother and sister. He also brought the mother to my apartments, and occupied my parlor bedroom with her for years--all to aggravate me. I didn't blame the woman Molly, for she couldn't help herself. She and I cried together over this state of things for hours, many a time. She often begged my husband to let her live a virtuous life, but it was of no use. He would only threaten to punish her. Poor thing! we felt sorry for each other, and she used to do all she could for me. I am so thankful she can now go where she pleases. She took her two children, and with the other woman went as soon as they could get through the lines. I am so glad all the slaves are free. Mr. Crosly has got our oldest boy with him in the army, and threatens to take my youngest boy of fourteen. But the Union officers say they will confiscate our property and make it over to me and my boys, so that Mr. Crosly can not take it from me."

The terrible scenes she had passed through, and witnessed, substantiated our oft expressed opinion that unlimited power on the part of slave-owners was equally degrading to the slave-holder and to the slave. Even more: it fostered the worst passions of a depraved nature. Her experience was no isolated one. Such cases in many localities were neither few nor far between.

On March 28th we learned, with surprise, that the bright light we saw the evening before, as we came from the soldiers' meeting, was the steamer "J. H. Russell" burning to the water's edge. No lives were lost, but all the baggage of passengers and many mules, horses, cattle, and sheep and other government supplies were destroyed. O, how thankful we were that we exchanged boats when we did, and were safely landed here in Baton Rouge. "Bless the Lord, O my soul! and forget not all his benefits," was my first thought. How many favors are often bestowed in disguise!

At three o'clock, P. M., I attended a meeting of colored people at the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was built by themselves, and upon invitation addressed them. I spoke perhaps twenty minutes, taking for my theme Psalm cxi, 12: "I know the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor." At the close of the meeting the colored people gathered around us, and gave us such a hand-shaking and "God bless you" as we seldom find outside of this oppressed people.

In the evening more than a dozen came to our lodgings and spent two hours recounting the trials of their slave-life, which were of thrilling interest. O, what a bitter draught was theirs, even to the very dregs! One poor man named Henry, owned by John Reese, near Baton Rouge, for the crime of visiting his wife and children oftener than once a month against his master's command, was ordered to be nailed to a tree by his ear, and whipped until it tore out. But even more awful scenes of persecution and outrage these people passed through, which we can not record. We closed our interview, after listening to their sad recitals, with prayer, in which all took part. A solemn season it was, to mingle our tears and voices with those who had passed through such scenes of suffering and were now praising the Lord for freedom.

On Tuesday, 29th, we visited the general hospital in the noble asylum for the mute and blind. Of the latter there were thirty inmates. They played on the piano and sang very sweetly, and we were interested in seeing the mutes converse with each other in their sign language. One little fellow was asked by the matron to give us their name for Yankee. He quickly passed his fingers through each other, and we all laughed to see ourselves with such an unstable name. All seemed much pleased to receive our visit.

We found here our sick and wounded soldiers with nothing but army supplies, boiled fat pork and bread. Surgeon Pole told us they were out of other supplies. We sent immediately to New Orleans for dried fruit, crackers, etc., and within four days they came rolling in by the barrel. We left this marble-faced edifice to visit a few camps surrounding the city of Baton Rouge. By request I attended a six o'clock meeting in the chapel for soldiers at the general hospital, accompanied by Rev. Joel Burlingame and Rev. Mr. Merryfield.

On Wednesday, 30th, we spent some time in visiting and distributing tracts and Testaments, and conversing with soldiers. We also visited a colored school of two hundred and twenty-four pupils. All were much engaged in study. We were invited to address them. Sister Backus and myself complied, and it seemed gratifying to them and satisfactory to us. We returned to our pleasant boarding place, wrote a letter, and made a number of calls. We found a woman who used to sympathise with Eliza Wilson in her slave-trials previous to her escape to the North. Through her we heard from Eliza's little girl, whom she left with her old master Bissel. A few days before she had come to her aunt, in Plaquemine, about nine miles, in the night, she heard that Yankee soldiers were in possession of that town. She had been told that a certain road led to Plaquemine, and took it in a moonlight night and found her aunt. Although she was only about ten years of age, and could not remember her mother, yet this woman said the child had heard I was going to take her to her mother, and that she was nearly insane over it. I had previously sent word to them by a soldier who was a dispatch-bearer, that the mother was very anxious to get her child if she was within our lines; and when he returned to Plaquemine he found the child and helped her to escape from Bissel with much less trouble than her mother had had seven years before.

About the close of the month we took a long walk to Fort Williams, where were three thousand sick and wounded soldiers. The scenes here were indescribable. The mingled language of acute distress, in prayer, groans, and occasional oaths from the profane, could be heard. One young man seemed too near death's door to survive. Said he: "If I die it will be suddenly, upon the amputation of this arm. It is too late for me now; but if I am spared I will seek an interest in Christ." But we had heard the cry of despair before, and could not give him up. The arm was taken off without causing instant death, as he was fearing. He then became an eager listener, and said he could now pray for pardon, and believed that the merciful Redeemer would grant the earnest desire of his soul. We found a few men, whose lives were given up by the surgeon, who were trusting, and possessed the comforting assurance of a glorious future. As we were about to leave, another soldier attracted our attention, who said he was not a Christian, but wished to be, and after repeating a few promises and praying with him we left. In tears, he requested us to see him again.

While we were waiting for a boat for New Orleans we again visited the hospital, and found both of those who were anxious at our previous visit rejoicing Christians.

I went to the office to inquire for a steamer for New Orleans, and on leaving was accosted by a young man with the query whether I was looking for a boat. As he saw that I noticed the feather in his drab hat, and star, with stripes on the sleeves of his gray coat, he remarked that he was an exchanged prisoner, and was on his way to his home at Atlanta, Georgia. Said I:

"You appear like a young man of intelligence, and I hope by the time you reach your home you will conclude to cast your net on the right side."

"We've been fishing on the right side these three years," he replied; "and we'll fight three, ten, or twenty years longer, if we live so long, but what we will have our rights--the right to hold our slave property without interference from Northern abolitionists. You need not judge of our strength because you have a little strip of this river, and our folks are rather discouraged here, and tired of war. If you could see our troops in Virginia, you'd see as hopeful and jolly a set of fellows as you ever saw. Give up? No, never! I tell you, madam, we are determined to have our independence if we fight till we die."

"I am sorry," I answered, "you can not be induced to adopt a course worthy of your zeal. Young man, the worst wish I have for you is that you may be prepared to die, for the fiat of the Almighty is against you. The sword and the boys in blue are going to bring you to terms. You will never again buy and sell men, women, and children like horses, cattle, and sheep in the market. The judgments of the Lord are upon you for these things."

"You needn't think God is on your side, for you've made our niggers our masters. Look! within, four rods of us stand nigger pickets, with their bayonets, and we can't pass those bayonets without a pass--and our own niggers, too. I tell you, madam, if I could have my way, I'd have a rope around every nigger's neck, and hang 'em, or dam up this Mississippi River with them;" and his black eyes flashed with fury. "Only eight or ten miles from this river slaves are working for their masters as happily as ever."

"We know that they are remaining on many plantations; but we know of a number of plantations that are worked by their former slaves because their former masters are paying them wages. But if they are as happy and contented as you describe, why do we see them daily coming into these camps, frequently for twenty to fifty miles, wading swamps and creeks, with swollen and bleeding feet? Why all this painstaking to get away from their masters, if they are so attached to them?"

"They are poisoned by the Yankees. You talk about the justness of your cause--any thing but justice to put arms in the hands of these niggers, to be our masters--to set our slaves over us with gun and bayonet. God Almighty will never prosper you--never."

"I see I can say nothing that will avail with you. I perceive that it is beyond the power of man. Hoping that a Higher Power may reach you, I bid you farewell."

With these words, I turned away; but had not advanced five feet when he called out:

"Madam, I hope we'll get the same boat. I'd like to see you again; for I like to meet people who stand up for their own principles."

Widely differing from this captain's spirit was another, who was the owner of a large plantation, with numerous slaves, yet a strong Union man, and his wife and daughters sympathized with him. Before the fall of Vicksburg he called all his slaves together, and told them this war would result in the freedom of every slave in the United States, and he wanted now to make an arrangement with them to work for him as heretofore. He promised to pay all the grown hands eight dollars a month, and board them with their families as he had done before, and to pay them at the close of each month. With tears of gratitude, they accepted his proposition. He told them that this arrangement must be kept secret, for their safety as well as his own; for they all knew there had always been a prejudice against him because he allowed them privileges that other planters adjoining them did not. They said to him, "Your niggers think they are white," because he never would have an overseer on his plantation, and would not have whipping and punishing among his grown people, and the families among his slaves managed their own children. He came into our lines as soon as he could, to save his life; and he told us he had not visited his home for a long time, except at night, as his life had been threatened, and that his wife and daughters, for their own protection, kept loaded pistols at their bedside. He had also armed a number of his servants, as they were likewise exposed to an attack. He was a noble-appearing man, and said, in conversation: "Mrs. Haviland, I have always held the same views on the subject of slavery that you do; but it was against the law to free them and allow them to remain here, and we could not send them away without breaking up some of their families. But I rejoice that it has come to an end; and I know of others who rejoice, but they do so secretly." His wife came to see him while we were there, and seemed to be a woman of sterling principle. She said they had to watch day and night, fearing their buildings would be burned, and perhaps some of them murdered.

We called on a widow and her two daughters who were in deep affliction on account of the bitterness of feeling toward them in consequence of their Union principles. They were a Christian family, and owned some property in the country, besides their residence in town. A number of our officers boarded with her. I was in her family a day or two, and as I left I took out my purse to pay her. "Don't open that," she cried; "I can't take a farthing. You don't know what we have to endure. I have two brothers in the rebel army, and when they came home, because I told them they were fighting against God in fighting against the Union, they swore at me and threatened to take my life; they said I was a Southern Yankee, and they were the worst of all. I expect they'll burn my house some night or get some one else to do it; and I know there are enough that would gladly do it. O, you can't tell how much good your prayer did us this morning. I do feel a daily necessity of looking to God to keep us. I want to make a request of you to remember us at God's throne, for we know not what a day may bring forth. Do plead for us in prayer, my sister." I left her and her daughters bathed in tears. We the took steamer _Niagara_ for New Orleans, April 2d. It being dark, the captain concluded to wait till moonlight, when an order came to go up the river, near Port Hudson, for twenty soldiers and thirty thousand dollars in contraband goods with two men prisoners, who had been in charge of these goods for the rebels. While they were loading the goods sister Backus and myself took a long walk to the residence of John Buhler, aged seventy-five years, who lost a few weeks before one hundred and thirty slaves. The old man and his wife took us into their flower-garden, where were one hundred and twenty-five varieties of roses and many kinds of shrubbery, and the greatest variety of cactus I ever saw; many of them were six and eight feet high. One large pecan-tree was almost covered with a small yellow rose-climber in full bloom, presenting a beautiful appearance. They gathered nearly an armful of flowers for us, and took us into the room in which a bursting shell made sad havoc. They made many excuses for the weedy flower-beds in the yard and garden, as they now had no servants to keep them. Two drunken women came aboard the boat and were put off by our captain, but through the influence of their friends came on again. We turned from this scene, and took a stroll to another residence, where we found the former slaves of the owner the sole occupants. They had a hearty laugh when I asked if the "smoke-house key was frowed in de well?" "Yes, yes, missus," they answered; "we's got de managin'."

We returned to Baton Rouge (the place where we halted some time is called West Baton Rouge), arriving late in the afternoon. We walked up to our old boarding-place, and took supper with our dear friends.

On April 3d we arrived at New Orleans at nine A. M., in time to attend a colored Sunday-school. At its close I gave them a little talk. From thence we were piloted to the Bethel Methodist Church (colored) and found a quarterly meeting being held. Here we listened to a very interesting and intelligent discourse by Rev. William Dove. I made a few remarks on the comparison of present times with the former. At the close of the service many came forward to shake hands and tell us of the time when ministers and people were hauled out of this church of their own building and taken to jail. The free people were compelled to pay twenty-five dollars' fine, and slaves were punished with twenty-five lashes on the bare back, well laid on. This persecution the authorities deemed necessary in order to keep these poor people from rising in insurrection. They locked up their churches two years and a half, until the Union soldiers unlocked them. Though the authorities forbade their meeting at all, they often stole away two and three miles and held little meetings in deep ravines and in clumps of bushes and trees, to hide from their cruel pursuers; but they could not even there long escape their vigilant enemies. "_Insurrection_! INSURRECTION!" was constantly inflaming the guilty multitude. Imprisoning, putting into stocks, and all sorts of punishments seemed to be the order of the day.

A few months after the closing of their church the spotted fever broke out, slaying its thousands. An old pious colored woman said to one who was losing all his family, and called upon her to assist them: "Now, who is plotting insurrection? Who you gwine to take to jail now? Who you gwine to whip an' hang now? You can't take God out to jail." They heard that their enemies had concluded to stop their praying, for it was thought to be through the prayers of the colored people that all this trouble was sent upon them; for the plague was almost entirely confined to the white people. This class of accusers became even more bitter than before.

No one can look at this volume of history without calling to mind the hardness of heart of the ancient Egyptians.