Chapter XLVIII: Time Discovers and Covers

“_Crito._ How and where shall we bury you?

”_Socrates._ Bury me in any way you please, if you can catch me to bury. Crito obstinately thinks, my friends, I am that which he shall shortly behold dead. Say rather, Crito,—say if you love me, ‘Where shall I bury your body’; and I will answer you, ‘Bury it in any manner and in any place you please.’”—_Plato._

On rolled the months, nor slackened their speed because of the sufferings and the sighings with which they went freighted. Almost every day brought its battle or its skirmish. Almost every day men,—sometimes many hundreds,—would be shot dead, or be wounded and borne away in ambulances or on stretchers, not grudging the sacrifices they had made.

O precious blood, not vainly shed! O bereaved hearts, not unprofitably stricken! Do not doubt there shall be compensation. Do not doubt that every smallest effort, though seemingly fruitless, rendered to the right, shall be an imperishable good both to yourselves and others.

On rolled the months, bringing alternate triumph and disaster, radiance and gloom, to souls waiting the salvation of the Lord. The summer of 1863 had come. There had been laurels for Murfreesboro’ and crape for Chancellorville. Vicksburg and Port Hudson yet trembled in the balance. Pennsylvania was threatened with a Rebel invasion. The Emancipation Proclamation, gradual as the great processes of nature, was working its way, though not in the earthquake nor in the fire. Black regiments had been enlisted, and were beginning to answer the question, Will the negro fight?

On the sixth of June, 1863, a cavalry force of Rebels made their appearance some four miles from Milliken’s Bend on the Mississippi, and attacked and drove a greatly inferior Union force, composed mainly of the Tenth Illinois cavalry.

Suddenly there rose up in their path, as if from the soil, two hundred and fifty black soldiers. They belonged to the Eleventh Louisiana African regiment, and were under the command of Colonel Lieb. They had never been in a fight before. The “chivalry” came on, expecting to see their former bondsmen crouch and tremble at the first imperious word; but, to the dismay of the Rebels, they were met with such splendid bravery, that they turned and fled, and the Illinois men were saved.

The next day nine hundred and forty-one troops of African descent had a hand-to-hand engagement with a Texan brigade, commanded by McCulloch, which numbered eighteen hundred and sixty-five. Three hundred and forty-five of the colored troops were killed or wounded, though not till they had put _hors de combat_ twice that number of Rebels. The gunboat Choctaw finally came up to drive off the enemy.

Conspicuous for intrepid conduct on both these occasions was a black man, slightly above the middle height, but broad-shouldered, well-formed, and athletic. Across his left cheek was a scar as if from a sabre-cut. This man had received the name of Peculiar Institution, but he was familiarly called Peek. On the second day his words and his example had inspired the men of his company with an almost superhuman courage. Bravely they stood their ground, and nowhere else on the field did so many of the enemy’s dead attest the valor of these undrilled Africans.

One youth, apparently not seventeen, had fought by Peek’s side and under his eye with heroic defiance of danger. At last, venturing too far from the ranks, he got engaged with two Rebel officers in a hand-to-hand encounter, and was wounded. Peek saw his danger, rushed to his aid, parried a blow aimed at the lad’s life, and shot one of the infuriate officers; but as he was bearing the youth back into the ranks, he was himself wounded in the side, and fell with his burden.

The boy’s wound was not serious. He and Peek were borne within the protection of the guns of the Choctaw. They lay in the shade cast by the Levee. The surgeon looked at Peek’s wound, and shook his head. Then turning to the boy he exclaimed, “Why, Sterling, is this you?”

At the name of Sterling, Peek had roused himself and turned a gaze, at once of awe and curiosity, on the youth; then sending the surgeon to another sufferer, had beckoned to the boy to draw near.

“Is your name Sterling?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where were you born?”

“In Montreal.”

“And your mother’s name was Flora Jacobs, and your father’s—Sterling! _I_ am your father!”

Profoundly overcome by the disclosure, the boy was speechless for a time with agitation. But Peek pressed him to tell of his mother. “And be quick, Sterling; for my time is short.”

We need not give the boy’s narrative in his own words, interrupted as it was by the inquiries put by Peek, while his life-blood was ebbing. The story which Clara Berwick had heard at school, and communicated to Mrs. Gentry, was the story of Flora Jacobs. Those who hate to think ill of slavery sneer at such reports as the exaggerations of romance; but the great heart of humanity will need no testimony to show that, in the nature of things, they must be too often true.

Flora and Sterling, mother and son, were held as slaves by one Floyd in Alabama. Flora had religiously kept her oath of fidelity to Peek, much to the chagrin and indignation of her master, who saw that he was losing at least fifty per cent on his investment, through her stubborn resistance to his demands that she should increase and multiply after the fashion of his Alderneys and Durhams. At last it happened that Sterling, who had been inspired by his mother with the desire to seek his father, ran away, was retaken, and tied up for a whipping. Ten lashes had been given, and had drawn blood. And there were to be one hundred and ninety more! The mother, in an agony, interceded. There was only one way by which she could save him. She must marry coachman George. She consented. But a month afterwards Floyd learnt that Flora had made the marriage practically null, and had not suffered coachman George to touch even the hem of her robe. Floyd was enraged. He wrought upon the evil passions of George. There were first threats, and then an attempt at violence. The attempt was baffled by Flora’s inflicting upon herself a mortal stab. As she fell on the floor she marked upon it with her own blood a cross, and kissed it with her last breath.

“’T is all right,—all just as it should be,” murmured Peek. “God knew best. Bless him always for this meeting, Sterling. Hold the napkin closer to the wound. There! I knew she would be true! So! Take the belt from under my vest. Easy! It contains a hundred dollars. ’T is yours. Take the watch from the pocket. So! A handsome gold one, you see. ’T was given me by Mr. Vance. The name’s engraved on it. Can you write? Good. Your mother taught you. Write by the next mail to William C. Vance, Washington, D. C. Tell him what has happened. Tell him how your mother died. He’ll be your friend. You fought bravely, my son. What sweetness God puts into this moment! Take no trouble about the body I leave behind. Any trench will do for it. Fight on for freedom and the right. Slavery must die. All wrong must die. You can’t wrong even a worm without wronging yourself more than it. Remember that. Holy living makes holy believing. Charity first. Think to shut out others from heaven, and the danger is great you’ll shut yourself out. Don’t strike for revenge. Slay because ’t is God’s cause on earth you defend; and don’t fight unless you see and believe that much, let who may command. Love life. ’T is God’s gift and opportunity. The more you suffer, the more, my dear boy, you can show you prize life, not for the world’s goods, but for that love of God, which is heaven,—Christ’s heaven. Think. Not to think is to be a brute. Learn something every day. Love all that’s good and fair. Love music. Love flowers. Don’t be so childish as to suppose that because you don’t hear or see spirits, they don’t hear and see _you_. Remember that your mother and I can watch you,—can know your every thought. You’ll grieve us if you do wrong. You’ll make us very happy if you do right. Ah! The napkin has slipped. No matter. There! Let the blood ooze. See! Sterling! Look! There! Do you not see? They come. The angels! _Your_ mother—_my_ mother—and beyond there, high up there—one—Ah, God! Tell Mr. Vance—tell him—his—his—”

Peek stood up erect, lifted his clasped hands above his head, looked beyond them as if watching some beatific vision, then dropped his mortal body dead upon the earth.

-----

Footnote 46:

See Mr. Jefferson Davis’s proclamation for a fast, March, 1863.

Footnote 47:

These quotations are genuine, as many newspaper readers will
recollect.

Footnote 48:

The case seems to have been precisely parallel to that of Spencer
Kellogg Brown, hung in Richmond, September 25th, 1863, as a spy. On
the 18th of that month, Brown told the Rev. William G. Scandlin of
Massachusetts (see the latter’s published letter), that they had kept
him there in prison “_until all his evidence had been sent away,
allowed him but fifteen hours to prepare for his defence, and denied
him the privilege of counsel_.” Brown was captured by guerillas, not
while he was acting as a spy, but while returning from destroying a
rebel ferry-boat near Port Hudson, which he had done under the order
of Captain Porter. The hanging of this man was as shameless a murder
as was ever perpetrated by Thugs. But Slavery, disappointed in the
hanging of Captains Sawyer and Flynn, was yelling lustily for a Yankee
to hang; and Jeff Davis was not man enough to say “No.”