Chapter XIV: Home Mission Work (2)

Sacred to the memory of James Nicholson, late stuard of William and
Mary College. Was born in the Town of Invenck, North Britton, ano
1711, died the 22nd of January, 1773. Frugality--industry, and
simplicity of manners and independence of Soul Adorned his character
and procured universal esteem.

READER,
Learn from this example as the most exalted Station may be
debased by vice, so there is no situation in life on which virtue will
not confer DIGNITY.

Mrs. Catharine Stephenson died April 22; born in Nottinghamshire,
1778.
Her body now slumbers along with the dead;

Her Savior hath called, to him she has gone,
Be ye also ready to follow her soon.

Under this marble lieth the body of Thomas Ludwell, Esq., Secretary of
Virginia, who was born at Britton in of Summerset in the kingdom of
England, and departed this life in the year 1678; and near this place
lye the bodies of Richard Kerdp, Esq, his predecessor in ye
Secretary's office and Sr.

Thomas Lunsford, Kt., in memory of whom this marble is placed by order
of Philip Ludwell, Esq., nephew of the said Thomas Ludwell, in the
year 1727.

As Yorktown was an important post, after three weeks' work in this section, I repaired to that ancient place. There I found two large camps. A few large freedmen's schools were established under the auspices of Philadelphia Friends, and of these Jacob Vining had supervision. Two others were under the supervision of the American Missionary Association. Both were doing a noble work for these people, who were like hungry children, grasping at the food handed them by these Christian teachers.

We had a very large meeting in the old barracks fitted up for school and meetings. There were more than could get inside, and groups stood at the door and outside the windows. Here I met two young men who had walked all the way from beyond Fort Magruder, eighteen miles, to attend this meeting. They were more intelligent than the larger portion of life-long slaves. They were encouraged in the future prospect of freedom. They said the white people declared they would soon have all their slaves back again, the same as they had before the war. Said one, "They talk it so strong it makes us trimble. For we-uns think they'd be harder on us than ever." I told them to look at that strong fort built by Confederates, which they had said "all the Yankees of the North could never take." "And where is it now?" I said. "You may rest assured it will be as I repeated to-day, 'Except the Lord keep the city the watchman walketh but in vain; except the Lord build the house they labor in vain who build it.' The Lord will never permit the house of bondage to be rebuilt, for the cup of our nation's wickedness has been filled to the brim. They will never again barter for paltry gold the bodies and souls of those whom Christ died to redeem with his own precious blood. No, never." They wept, while talking over the past, with new hopes before them of their future. They said they were well paid for their long walk, though they should work the next day with blistered feet. They were working for their old owner, as he had promised to pay them. They had sometimes felt fearful as to the final result of this war. If there were doubts, they would go as far North as they could while they were enjoying their present liberty.

A number lingered to talk with me on the prospect of freedom or slavery for them, telling me of the positive expressions of their former masters, and of their threats of having them all back again within a few months. They wanted to know what the prospect was in Washington.

"Do you think we are sure to come out of the wilderness?" said one.

"Will this sun of freedom, now peepin' troo de black cloud, come cl'ar out, an' make a bright day?" said another.

I found many of these people in trouble, because they saw plainly the old slave spirit reviving, and they were trembling with fear; but others had stronger faith. There was one poor woman, whose husband and four children were sold to a trader, to be taken down the river in a gang. When the news came to her master's home that Richmond had fallen, she said:

"Missus an' all was cryin', and say da catch Jeff. Davis. An' I hurried de supper on de table; an' I say, Missus, can Dilla wait on table till I go to de bush-spring an' git a bucket o' cool water?' She say, 'Hurry, Mill; an' I seed 'em all down to table afore I starts. Den I walks slow till I git out o' sight, when I runn'd wid all my might till I git to de spring, an' look all 'round, an' I jump up an' scream, 'Glory, glory, hallelujah to Jesus! I's free! I's free! Glory to God, you come down an' free us; no big man could do it.' An' I got sort o' scared, afeared somebody hear me, an' I takes another good look, an' fall on de groun', an' roll over, an' kiss de groun' fo' de Lord's sake, I's so full o' praise to Massar Jesus. He do all dis great work. De soul buyers can neber take my two chillen lef' me; no, neber can take 'em from me no mo';" and the tears fell thick and fast as she told me how she clung to her husband, then to her children, as the trader took them to the slave-pen to lock up till they were ready to start for the river. Her mistress ordered her to be whipped because she cried so long for her husband and children. I did not wonder at her ecstasy.

A poor old slave, called Aunt Sally, came to me April 15th; crippled with rheumatism, and walking as well as she could with two canes. She asked for a blanket or quilt, saying that one old blanket had been her only bed for seven years. I told her I should pass her home the next day, and would bring her some things. She said, "I mus' hurry back, or missus will fin' me out. You gib 'em to the man choppin' wood in de yard; he'll put 'em in de cellar for me. Missus is mighty hard on you alls;" and she hobbled back as fast as she could with two canes. But her mistress found out that she had been to see me, and told her she should never set her foot inside her yard again, neither should a Yankee. The day following I took a package for Aunt Sally, containing a straw bed-tick, quilt, blanket, and a good suit of clothes; for I had learned that Mrs. Pendleton, the daughter of ex-President Taylor, was a hard mistress. Aunt Sally had served her father, and helped bring up his children, and was now seventy-five or eighty years old. From the cold, damp cellar, with only one blanket to cover her, she had become badly crippled, and was left to die, like an old worn-out horse.

The colored man near the fence of the back yard told me I would find Aunt Sally in a little cabin he pointed out, with two old colored people. I found her crying. She said her mistress had turned her out, and told her she should never come inside her yard, nor eat a kernel of the corn that she had planted in ground all spaded by herself, and it was growing so nice. The old people very kindly offered to share with her. He was a cobbler, and made all he could, but he said they had but one bed. I furnished one for her, and gave the old people a quilt and a few needed garments for their kindness to Aunt Sally. They, too, had been stripped of all their large family, as well as Aunt Sally of hers.

As I passed Mrs. Pendleton's front yard I saw a large bloodhound on the door-step as sentinel. Even a look at him from the street brought a threatening growl.

Here, too, were William and Phillis Davis, over eighty years of age, they think. They had fourteen children, "all sold down the river," they said, "except those we's got in heaven. We's glad they's safe, an' we trus' de jubilee trumpet will retch their ears, way down Souf, we don't know whar. We's cried for freedom many years, an' it come at last," said the old, tottering man.

Eva Mercer, over seventy five years of age, had a large family. Her husband and all her children were sold twenty years ago. She has been left to perish alone, and had had no underclothes for seven years. She was supplied, and made more comfortable than she had been for years.

David Cary, one hundred years old, in great suffering, was relieved. He, too, had a large family. Three wives were sold from him, and his children, one, two, and three at a time, were sent down the river, never to be heard from again. He said he forgot a great many things every day, "but I can never forget the grief I passed through in parting with my good wives and chillens."

Pross Tabb, ninety years old, was turned out of his cabin, and came to the captain crying. He said, "Massar Tabb turn me out to die by de roadside. I begged him to let me build me a cabin in de woods, and he say if I cut a stick in his woods he'll shoot me." The captain informed J. P. Tabb that he would violate the martial law, and be fined and imprisoned, if he turned that old man out of his cabin, where he had lived and served him many years. The poor lone man was permitted to remain. J. P. Tabb owned twelve thousand acres of land, and had called himself master of one hundred and sixty slaves; now all had left him.

Sunday, May 3d, was a beautiful Sabbath. In the morning I attended service at the school-house, conducted by a Baptist minister, who examined nine new converts. Among them was a little girl, Susan Monroe, eight years old. The preacher asked her, "What have you got to say 'bout Jesus, sis?"

"He tuck de han' cuffs off my han's," she replied, "an' de spancels off my feet, an' Jesus made me free."

With a few other satisfactory answers he passed to the next, a man of forty, perhaps: "And what have you to tell us?"

"It 'peared," he said, "like I's so heavy here, on my heart. I could do nuffin but groan, 'Massar Jesus have pity on poor me;' an' as I was a walkin' 'long de road, he cum sure, an' poured hisself all over me, an' cover over my han's an' my feet, an' made me all over new. I say is dis me? Glory, hallalujah! dis is me. I went on an' met sis Molly. 'What's de matter o' me? it's all full tide here,' I says. 'Why honey,' she answered, 'you's got 'ligion; praise de Lord! Now keep de pure stuff, don't trade it off for de devil.' An' by de help o' de Lord, I don't do any sich tradin'."

The next was queried. "Ah, I's played de fool," he said, "in jist dat kind o' tradin'. I's an ole backslider. Ole Satan had me, sure, an' I cried, 'Massar Jesus, save me from dat horrible pit,' an' he fotch me out, an' put dese feet on de rock, and here I means to stan'."

Others were examined, and a season of prayer followed. Their prayers were marked for their originality and earnestness. Said one woman, "Oh Lord, do please hitch up your cheer a little nearer your winder--draw aside your curtain, an' look down 'pon us poor creturs, an' gib your table-cloth a good shake, dat we may pick up a few crumbs."

There were many of these much more intelligent than I supposed I should find them, and used as good language as the white people. House-servants and body-servants were more intelligent than those who lived only in the field. They were very imaginative, and talked with God. One woman in giving a sketch of slave life, said a young girl went to a night meeting contrary to orders, and for so doing was stripped naked and whipped in the presence of the other slaves, the master himself plying the lash. While she cried for mercy her master replied, "I'll give you mercy." "Good Lord do come and help me." "Yes, I'll help you" (and kept plying the lash). "Do, Lord, come now; if you ha'n't time send Jesus." "Yes, I'm your Jesus," retorted the inhuman persecutor, and he continued to ply the lash until thirty strokes were well laid on.

The colonel commanding this post called on me with a request to go to Gloucester Court-house, to look after the condition of the freedmen there. There were several very old, crippled people in Gloucester, in almost a nude condition. I agreed to go, and the colonel went to procure a buggy, as his own was broken; but he failed to get one, though more than a double price was offered, because he was a Yankee. He returned discouraged, as he was unwilling to send me in a Virginia cart, the only government conveyance. I told him I had frequently seen the wealthiest ladies sitting on straw, with no other seat in the cart. "O yes," he answered, "the F. F. V.'s ride in that way here. But you look too much like my mother to see you go in that style. I could not bear to have your children in Michigan know that I sent their mother out to ride thirty miles in that way;" and tears filled his eyes, as he referred to his own mother in his far off Northern home. I told him if I could accomplish any good by going, I was more than willing to take the cart-ride, as I could make a seat with my bale of clothing, and thus I went.

I crossed York River at Gloucester Point, and stepped into a store to wait for our soldier driver. Here a Southern brigadier-general addressed me in the following style:

"I reckon you are from the North, madam."

"I am from the State of Michigan," I said, "but more directly from Washington."

"You Northern people can not be satisfied with robbing us of millions of dollars in slaves, that were just as much our property as your horses and cattle, but you stole our sheep and horses, or any thing else you could get hands on; and yet that was not enough. Now you have a bill in Congress to rob us of our land, and of course it will pass. Then we'll go to work and mix up a little cake to bake for our families, and you'll come and snatch even that away from us."

"You probably refer," I said, "to the bill just introduced, to allow the _leaders_ in this Rebellion no more than twenty thousand dollars' worth of real estate, confiscating the balance, to sell in parcels to the soldiers and poor people, black or white, on liberal terms, to liquidate the _war debt_. This debt would never have been contracted, had not the South brought on the war. You fired upon Sumter; you determined to sever the Union. It was a bargain of your own making. You determined to make slavery the chief corner stone of the Republic, but another stone, _Liberty_, has ground it to powder. We had better accept the situation as we find it, and not call each other thieves and robbers because your chief corner-stone is no more. God never designed that we should make merchandise of human beings. In the written Word we find that God made of one blood all the nations of the earth. We find there no lines of distinction because of color or condition. Now let us drop slavery and hold it no longer as the bone of contention, and live henceforward a united nation."

With flushed face and flashing eyes he said, "_Never_, NEVER shall we give up our rights. We acknowledge you have overpowered us, but you have not, and _never will_, conquer us; we shall yet in some way secure our _rights_ as Southerners, notwithstanding all your Northern preaching."

"If you carry out your position," I rejoined, "you will unite with some foreign power to break up our government, or to grind its republican form into powder and scatter it to the four winds."

"Of course we should, and you can't blame us for doing that. It is just exactly what we shall do if we have the chance."

After a few minutes unpleasant talk of this sort our soldier drove in front of the door for me. We borrowed a little box, upon which a coffee sack of clothing was laid, and we thus made a comparatively comfortable seat.

We reached Gloucester, and, on May 10th, went to the office of Captain McConnell. He was engaged all the morning in hearing complaints on the part of the freedmen and in adjusting their wrongs. Some of them were pitiable cases of outrage, but we can not report them here. There were eight difficulties settled within the few hours that I remained in the office. I resumed visiting and supplying the wants of the destitute as far as my means would allow. There were some old and crippled people here in the same condition as those whom I had relieved in other places in this part of the State. As usual, I took with me my Bible, for these colored people had none, because they had never been permitted to learn to read. Many of them gave thrilling sketches of their experiences in slave-life.

On May 13th, at four o'clock P. M., I found myself back at Old Yorktown. Here I visited the cave in which General Cornwallis was found. The old wood house in which the treaty was signed is covered with thick moss. A two-story brick building was Washington's head-quarters after he took possession of Yorktown. It was also the head-quarters of the Union generals after it fell into their hands. Here was the stamping-ground of two great armies. The contention was not now with British red-coats, as in the Revolution, but with our brethren in gray. Richard Lee, an ex-slave-holder, undertook to whip a colored man with the help of his overseer, after the old style, but in the struggle he found himself cut in two or three places, and the blood was flowing pretty freely from the overseer. The colored man told them whipping days were past, and he came out of the affray with but few scratches. His offense was refusing to work on Sunday afternoon. They entered no complaint at the office of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the colored man went about his business unmolested.

After taking leave of many dear friends at this place, through the kindness of sister Ailsgood, the matron of the Teachers' Home, I was conveyed to the boat in Lieutenant Massy's carriage. We enjoyed a beautiful run on the Chesapeake. Among our passengers for Norfolk was a young lady who seemed bright and gay, but had nearly spoiled herself with affectation. She was going to visit her aunt previous to entering upon her new duties in teaching a school.

"I never did do any thing of the kind," she told me; "but pa says I must; now that we have lost all our servants by this awful war. But I don't know how I'll do. Do you think I can teach a small school?"

Receiving a word of encouragement, she went on:

"I reckon I'll have to try. We've always had a lady preceptress at our house, besides the nurse, to take care of us."

A few minutes after I saw her weeping bitterly, as if her heart was nearly broken. Placing my hand upon her shoulder I inquired if she had heard bad news that was grieving her? She sobbed and sighed with quite an effort in commanding her feelings to speak.

"No; do you see that man yonder with a light hat on?"

"Yes."

"Well, he winked at me, and I was never so insulted in my life."

And she burst again into tears.

"Don't grieve over that," I said; "I wouldn't look at him."

"But I never was so insulted. I'm so glad my brother ain't here; I tell you there'd be trouble."

"Never mind; don't notice him."

"Won't you stand by me?"

"Yes; I'll stand here," I answered. And she soon became calm, when I thought it safe to leave. But a few moments later I saw her weeping as hard as ever. I went across the cabin to her relief the third time and inquired, "What is the trouble now?"

"He winked at me again, and I never, never was so insulted. I know if my brother was here he'd shoot him, for he'd never stand this."

I stood by her this time till I saw her in the ladies' dressing-room, by her request remaining between her and the object of her fears, who was at least fifteen feet from us, sitting in the farthest end of the cabin. After she had washed and combed her hair she asked, "How does my hair look? I never combed my hair myself. Our nurse did that always, until six months ago our last servant left us, I don't know if it looks well anyhow, for I don't know how to dress it. And do my eyes look as if I'd been crying?"

"Not to be noticed," I said. "You look all right."

"Will you see if that fellow has gone out?"

On the report that he had left she returned. I inquired if she was alone.

"O, no, not entirely; pa put me under the care of a splendid man; I reckon he's on deck; O, he's such a beautiful gentleman; he was pa's overseer a good many years; pa thought he couldn't carry on our plantation without him; when I see him I'll be all right. I reckon you've heard of my pa. Everybody knows him--Mr. Hampton--in Gloucester County, one of the most splendid counties in the State. Were you ever in Gloucester County?"

"I was there last week," I answered.

"Isn't it the most beautiful county you ever saw?"

I replied, "Nature has done enough to make it so."

"It was a grand county before the war," she said. "Everybody thinks it's the best county in the State of Virginia."

But my opinion widely differed from hers. It seemed to me one of the darkest and most God-forsaken corners of the earth. But the influence of slavery had its deleterious effects upon whites as well as blacks.

Laura Hampton knew nothing of self-reliance. All she knew was to be a consequential young lady of distinction, full of exalted qualifying adjectives in the superlative degree. But she was not so much to blame as her parents for her simpering and tossing the head with overstocked affectation. She was to be pitied for her unfortunate surroundings. Her "splendid man," a "beautiful gentleman," was a coarse, burly headed "Legree" in appearance.

I arrived at Norfolk at four o'clock P. M., and found a pleasant home at the Tyler House. Here, I met eighteen teachers, with whom I enjoyed a refreshing prayer-meeting, led by S. J. Whiting, a missionary, who gave an interesting sketch of his experience in the Meudi Mission in Africa. I gave an account of the work accomplished through the blessing of God in the Mississippi Valley, while I was accompanied by my dear sister Backus, and spoke of trials I had recently passed through. Here were kindred spirits, with whom we held sweet communion, and with our Heavenly Father, who is ever near at hand.

While in this part of the State, I saw a white woman who had been cruelly assaulted and beaten with a raw-hide by her sister and niece for associating with the teachers of our freedmen's schools. They thought she had disgraced the family; but she said she would not turn away from those Christian ladies, however her own kindred might treat her. O the wrongs and outrages which the spirit of slavery inflicted not only on the blacks, but also on the white people of the South!