Chapter XII: Mission Work in New Orleans (2)

This was the sixth religious service we attended during the day, in four of which we had taken an active part. We retired to rest until the 6:30 o'clock meeting at the Methodist Episcopal Church, now turned over to Chaplain Brakeman, who was called away the previous day. He had left an urgent request for me to address the soldiers on Sabbath evening; but I told the chaplain who brought the word we could make no further engagements, as we were waiting hourly for a boat going up the river. Before six, a steamer stopped, and we took passage for Natchez, as we had business to see to concerning an orphan asylum. One of the chaplains said if we could realize the good it was doing the soldiers, we would visit them oftener; that there were more conversions during the week after we left than in many months previously. An exhortation from a mother reminded the soldiers of home and home influences.

We had a conversation with a colored captain, who had just resigned on account of the constant indignities heaped upon the colored troops. He was a man of wealth and intelligence, and gave us an account of a review by General Sherman, after General Butler left. When General Sherman came to him, he stopped to look at the bars on his shoulders, and gruffly asked, "Are you a captain?" "Yes, sir," was the reply. "O, you are too black for a captain," said the general. At Fort Hudson, when our troops were retreating under a galling fire, a colored captain, with his men, at the risk of his life, ran to bring out General Sherman, who was badly wounded, and would have died but for the daring feat of the colored soldiers. The colored captain lost his life, but General Sherman was rescued. Since then he has spoken highly of colored soldiers, and of the brave captains that led them. My informant said that after General Banks assumed command they hoped for better treatment, but their hopes were vain. As the men in December and January were in want of shoes and clothing, he told General Banks that they were not in a suitable condition to work on the fortifications where the detachment was ordered, but no attention was paid to him. He inquired why his men could not be supplied the same as the white soldiers. The reply he received was, "Don't you know you are niggers, and must not expect the same treatment?" "From that moment," he said, "I resolved to resign; but after waiting a little, and seeing no better prospects, I did so, and shall not resume arms until we can be treated as men."

In New Orleans two regiments of free colored men were raised in forty-eight hours. They were officered by men of their color in grades as high as major by General Butler, who said they were as good officers as he held under him. We arrived in Natchez on the 26th, where we met rejoicing friends. We found a number of the missionaries sick, among them sister Burlingame.

The day following we spent chiefly in writing, and distributing Testaments and tracts among soldiers. In the evening we attended a protracted meeting, conducted by two sisters. They acquitted themselves nobly, and had three conversions. They exhorted earnestly and prayed fervently. They invited us to take part with them. One of the ministers told me they had worked in this meeting until they were tired out, and then gave it over to these mothers in the Church, whose labors the Lord was blessing in the conversion of precious souls.

We made an effort to secure a house for an orphan asylum.

Rebel sympathizers were making trouble all along the line of our work. They tried every plan that could be devised to drive the refugees back to their old plantations. An infamous "health order" was issued, compelling every colored person, not employed by responsible parties in the city or suburbs, to go into the "corral," or colored camp. Many were employed by colored citizens, who were doing all they could to find work for them. But on the day this order took effect soldiers were sent to hunt them out of all such places, as no colored party was deemed responsible; and all who were not actual members of these colored families were driven out at the point of Union bayonets.

They gathered two hundred and fifty, mostly women and children, and drove them through the streets of Natchez on a chilly, rainy day, and marched them into the camp of four thousand in condemned tents. One of the colored citizens told me that she was paying her woman wages, and allowing her to have her three children with her, but the soldiers drove her out into the rain. Men and women tantalized them as they were marching through the streets, saying: "That's the way the Yankees treat you, is it? You'd better come back to us; we never treated you like that." Many of the women went into camp crying. Said an old colored man: "Never min', thar's a better day a comin'. 'Twould be strange if Uncle Sam hadn't a few naughty boys." He was one of the group that was driven in.

We heard, April 30th, that there was a skirmish near our lines the evening before. A party of scouts had shot into the pickets, and they retreated; but we did not learn whether any were killed. News came to us of Calvin Fairbanks's release from the Kentucky penitentiary. We trusted that the same Deliverer would open the prison-door for the three thousand soldiers on the two islands in the Gulf.

At nine o'clock A. M., May 1st, we attended the organization of the fifth colored Sabbath-school in the city. At eleven A. M. we went to Wall Street Church, and listened to an interesting discourse by Chaplain Trask, of the Fourth Illinois Regiment. At two P. M., at the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, we heard brother Burlingame. After a short exhortation by brother Fitzhugh, twelve came forward for prayer, and some were blessed with pardon. At six P. M. we attended a soldiers' meeting at Wall Street Church, in which we took a part; also a number of soldiers spoke and prayed. Between meetings I wrote a letter for a colored man to his wife, who is still a slave in Woodville, twenty miles distant.

I was sick with a chill and fever May 2d, and the nearest to being homesick since I left Michigan. The next day I was better. Here I met Joseph Warner, with whom I had been acquainted from his childhood. He was a lessee at Waterproof. He had a large plantation, and two hundred hands employed. He was twice taken by guerrillas. He told them they could hang or shoot him, but they might rest assured that forty of their men's lives would pay for his, and forty men stood ready to take his place; and they let him go each time. A distressed mother came to us to inquire for her two daughters, that her mistress had sent to Texas to elude the effects of the Proclamation of Emancipation. She had begged her mistress to allow them to remain in town, if she could not have them with her. The mistress said, "No you shall never have your girls with you again, not even to give you a drink of water if you are dying." This was at the retaking of Baton Rouge, when the mistress considered herself again in full power; but she was soon to suffer herself. When that city was retaken by Union men, the only son of the mistress was burned to death in the house at which he was boarding. Upon this she fell into fits. Yet, Pharaoh-like, she persisted in keeping the slave-girls in Texas.

A number of missionaries called on us, and urged me to remain with them a few weeks longer; but for two reasons I had to decline: First, those three thousand soldier prisoners were daily on my mind; and, second, my poor health made it a duty to return home.

Skirmishing four miles off took place May 5th, and we could see the blue smoke of battle. The shooting seemed near us. How little this terrible war was realized in our own free State homes!

I met on the street a mulatto girl seventeen years old, weeping, and inquired the cause of her grief. She said her owner, Mrs. Morehead, had been beating her.

"Why do you remain with her?" I asked.

"She keeps my baby locked up," was her reply; "and she says if I leave I shall never have him."

I told her that I could take her to the provost-marshal, who would give her an order for her child. At this she cheered up, and went with me, and received an order, in case she could not get it without. She said she would go back and pack her few things in her old trunk, and then watch her opportunity when the mistress was out to bring her baby to the freedmen's store. After the child was secured I sent a soldier with her, who brought her trunk, without letting any one in the hotel know of her movements. Only a short time elapsed before we saw Mrs. Morehead in front of the hotel, looking up and down the street for her Delphine, who kept herself hid in the freedmen's store with her little Charlie, about two years old. Just before the war Mr. Morehead had brought her away from her mother in St. Louis, Missouri, and the height of her ambition was to get back there. I secured transportation for herself and child to Cairo, and paid her fare to St. Louis. But she was in constant fear of her former owners.

Her history was a sad one. She was bought for their hotel fancy girl, and the father of her child was her own master. The child resembled his father so much that he was frequently taken by strangers to be the child of the mistress. The mother was two-thirds white; and the Roman, nose, straight hair, and white skin of the child would not give a stranger the least idea that he had even the sixteenth part of African blood in his veins.

As a boat was expected to arrive within an hour, we took leave of the many kind friends, and repaired to the wharf-boat. Soon Mrs. Morehead followed, and called for Delphine; but the trembling girl caught her babe and hid.

But as her mistress repeated the calls, she at length came to me with the child, asking, "What shall I do? I would rather throw myself and baby into the river than go back to her." Said her mistress, "I tell you, Del., I've got an officer to come and take you to jail for stealing." I told Delphine she could rest assured that none of the officers would trouble her, for they informed me they should not notice her mistress's complaints, let them be what they would, as they had had more trouble with that rebel family than a little ever since they occupied the city. I told her to leave Charlie on the boat, and go out on the levee and tell her mistress plainly that she was going to St. Louis to her mother, and not be so excited. She did so, and Mrs. Morehead kept her nearly an hour, trying to coax, hire, and frighten her, but without avail. Delphine all this while was trembling with fear. I believe if she had seen an officer coming with her mistress, she would have thrown herself and child into the river. Mrs. Morehead at length came upon the wharf-boat. When Delphine saw her coming she snatched up her child, and ran to the rear of the boat, and the mistress after her. Again she came to me with "What shall I do?" I replied, "Sit down here by me and hold your child, and she will not dare touch you." She trembled as if having an ague fit. Soon a her mistress stood before us in a rage, and turned to me:

"You came into my kitchen with an order, and took her, when she was doing better than you ever dare do."

"I never went into your kitchen," I said. "A soldier went with her for her trunk. I understood an officer called on you and called for her child, at her request, before she came to me."

"It's a lie. Delphine lied about me."

Said sister Backus, "I shouldn't think you would want such a person about you, if that is true."

"Well, the child seems so near to me. I've always had the care of it."

She left us at length with a threat that she would bring the officers to take her to jail for stealing.

The _Kennet_ came in at 11 o'clock A. M., May 6th, bound for St. Louis, Missouri, and we went aboard. As we pushed out from shore, Delphine clapped her hands. "Now I know Mistress Morehead can trouble me no more; thank God, I've got my Charlie too! Nobody knows what I have gone through since I've been in this city." We arrived in Vicksburg May 7th, and took breakfast at the Soldiers' Home, where we met Ex-Governor Harvey, a soldiers' friend. Here was a lady who had charge of the body of her brother, killed up Red River, taking the remains back to Iowa.

After spending a little time in this large city of soldiers, whose tents whitened the adjoining fields, we left. On the day this city fell into Union hands, report said, there was an old man very confident of the success of the Confederate government, and he said that God could not let it fail; if he did, he would never believe there is a God. When, the gun-boats came in, and he was told the city was taken, he would not believe it, until he rose up from his chair and saw marching columns of soldiers, with their bayonets glistening in the Fourth of July sun. He immediately sank back in his chair in a faint, and soon died.

May 8th was a sort of a war Sabbath. The night before our boat ran aground, and it took three hours to get her off. Many of the passengers dressed, and made ready to escape at the first possible chance, in case she should become wrecked. We were told that at one time the water was three feet deep in her hull. By making great effort the men succeeded in pumping it out. She run slowly, being a very large boat. We had a variety of passengers on board, officers of various ranks, soldiers, missionaries, preachers, and a few secessionists. Major-general Hunter remained with us two days.

Quite an excitement arose over the arrest of a smuggler of goods through our lines. He was thought to be connected with the little steamer _Baltic_. There was a major and a provost-marshal, from Baton Rouge, who followed up the matter. When the prisoner was brought to the rear of the boat, with his hands tied, it created much feeling among a dozen colored people, until they heard the major ask him if he had taken the oath of allegiance. He answered gruffly, "No, and I never will."

This led the major to ask other questions concerning the trade of the _Baltic_.

"I will tell you nothing about it, if I stand here till I die, and you may go to--."

This brought the sympathy of the colored people, as well as of the rest of us, down below zero. Said one colored man, "Let him stand there, then, until he dies." But within an hour he consented to be sworn to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, and the major examined him in the presence of many witnesses, Major-general Hunter one of them.

On Monday I introduced myself to General Hunter, as usual, by my letters.

"How long have you been in the army," he asked, "and how far?"

In reply to his queries I gave him a sketch of our work. I mentioned General Tuttle's refusal to grant us transportation, the wrongs of the colored soldiers, and the history of the three thousand prisoners on Ship Island and Dry Tortugas, and stated the fact that some missionaries and missionary teachers had advised me to say nothing of these wrongs, however flagrant. I also called his attention to the printed order placed in our hands, that we were not to report any movements in the army, either verbally or by writing, and asked his advice whether it was wiser to report or to keep silent.

"Mrs. Haviland," he replied, "I am glad you have been in the army so long, and I am glad you went so far, and I will explain that order.

"You have observed movements of troops from one place to another just on the eve of battle. These are the matters you are not to report; but the wrongs you have met you may proclaim on your arrival at home from the house-tops."

I thanked him for this advice, for it was to me a great relief. It seemed to trouble him. After pacing the cabin to and fro a few minutes, he came to me and said:

"Mrs. Haviland, we have had a good deal of sifting done in the army, and more must be done yet. Did General Tuttle see those papers you gave me?"

"He did," I answered.

"Copperheads have no business in the army in the exercise of such authority as this. General Tuttle ran for governor on the Copperhead ticket in Iowa last year. What right has a copperhead to be lifted up here, where loyal men are needed? I have never seen the least cause to abandon my first conclusion, that the only way to crush this rebellion was to emancipate and arm the slaves; and if I could have been permitted to carry out my plan of taking Kentucky into my field, as my rank and position entitled me to do, I should have proclaimed freedom to the slaves as fast as I reached them. The strength I could have gathered from the slave population would soon have been two hundred thousand men, and that number of stand of arms was all I asked. But the vacillating policy of the government would not permit it. I saw clearly that this was the only policy that would prove successful, and I thought every body else must see it when I first proclaimed it in South Carolina. It seemed there were others who took a different view, and my order was superseded."

Said sister Backus, "You have the satisfaction of knowing that your policy had to be adopted before the nation could succeed."

"O, yes," replied he reluctantly; "but it is with regret that I think of the drafting of thousands, which might have been avoided just as well as not. There was no necessity for the draft."

Sister Backus remarked, "As a nation, we must suffer defeats until it reaches the right position, not only in arming colored men, but in paying them just wages; for they make as good soldiers as white men."

A bystander said, "I don't know that they make as good soldiers as white men, from the fact that they are not so intelligent. Here is General Hunter, and I presume he will say the same thing"--turning to him for an answer.

In a decided tone the general said, "I shall say no such thing. They make the best of soldiers; for, first, they are kind and docile; and, second, they are apt to learn. They learn military tactics very readily, and ought to have the same wages as any other soldier. All along this river I find one continued series of wrongs inflicted upon the negro."

We told him of the infamous order by Dr. Kelley, sanctioned by General Tuttle, and published under the specious guise of "Health Order," to drive the slaves back to their masters. He shook his head in disgust.

"Why does the head of this serpent rise up at almost every point? When it appeared in the department under my command I crushed it at once."

At the mouth of Red River three women came aboard, by permission of the gunboat officers stationed there. Their object was to hire men, whom they wanted to gather cane for working up into weaving reeds. One of them reported to Dr. Long that she had been watching a couple of ladies on our boat, and she believed them spies, for they seemed to have a great deal of writing to do. Dr. Long happened to know enough about the ladies reported as spies to allow sister Backus and myself to pass unmolested. But these ladies were themselves suspected of being spies.

We reached the city of Memphis May 10th. Sister Backus had been quite sick for three days, but was now a little better. We called at the Christian Commission Rooms, and got a market-basket full of reading matter for distribution.

The next day was quite cold and freezing. We stopped at Columbus a short time. Here we secured a paper giving an account of the terrible slaughter at Fredericksburg. Rumor had it that fifteen thousand were killed and wounded; that Lee was driven back thirty miles; Grant and Butler were said to be pushing on to Richmond, and were now within a short day's march of the rebel capital. General Hunter was quite sanguine in hope that Richmond would soon fall.

On May 13th we arrived at Cairo, and took leave of the friends whom our few days' acquaintance had made dear. We reached home on the 18th, amid the rejoicing of dear children and friends. It is no wonder the soldiers we met were delighted to see a Northern face, for it reminded them of their home associations. Intercession unceasing went up for the three thousand soldier prisoners banished to the Gulf Islands. The mail had brought nothing from New Orleans. By this I was to understand that nothing could be done for them there. Congress was still in session, and I immediately wrote a full account of their wrongs to congressman Beaman, and urged the presentation of the case to the war department.

Without giving myself time to rest, I hastened to Detroit, to report our work and give an account of the unjust sentences of those prisoners at Ship Island and the Tortugas. While making my statements in Captain E. B. Ward's office, he took them down to forward them to B. F. Wade, chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War; but he said, "You must go to Washington and report these facts to the committee in person." I told him I had written the full details to my friend, F. C. Beaman, member of Congress, and I thought he would do all that could be done. He answered, "I shall send these items to B. F. Wade, and our letters will make good entering wedges; but the living tongue will do more than the pen." I told him I was ready to go or do any thing I could for their release, but still hoped to hear from New Orleans. I would wait a week longer and rest. Then, if I had means, I would go. He said he would see to that, and I returned to my home.

Within a week I received a note from him, stating that he had just received a letter from B. F. Wade, requesting me to come at once and bring my extracts from the record I had examined on Ship Island. I was soon on my way to Detroit, and at nine o'clock, A. M., on the following day, I was in Captain Ward's office, ready to take the boat for Cleveland on my way to Washington. I waited but a few minutes when the captain came in with a letter, which he threw in my lap, saying, "There is a letter for you to read." The first sentence was, "The exhibition of these letters before Secretary Stanton has proved sufficient. Judge Attocha was dismissed immediately, and a committee is to be appointed to investigate and release those prisoners at once. There is therefore no necessity for Mrs. Haviland's presence on that score. General Tuttle is already relieved." On reading these glad words, I remarked that I never had been a shouting Methodist, but I felt more like shouting over these glad tidings than I ever had done in all my life. If I had not been spoiled for singing by being raised a Quaker, I would have sung the doxology.

I wrote an article for the Detroit _Tribune_ containing these facts, and stating the prospects of the immediate release of the three thousand prisoners on Ship Island and Dry Tortugas. I sent the paper to Captain J. Noyce, and very soon received a reply that my letter, with the _Tribune_, was the first intimation they had received of any thing being done in their behalf. He said, "I sent the letter and paper to the prisoners, and they eagerly read them in all their companies, until I doubt whether a whole sentence can be found together." A few weeks later I received another letter from Captain Noyce, in which he stated that the committee was investigating, and that but one person in seventy-five was found unworthy of being released at once; but that very soon all would be restored to their regiments.