Chapter XIX: From the Rapidan to Cold Harbor (2)

The North Anna is a rapid stream, with high banks. East of Taylor's bridge, towards Sexton's Junction, there is an extensive swamp, but westward the country is rolling. It was supposed that Lee would make a stubborn resistance at the crossings, but at Jericho Warren found only a few pickets upon the southern bank. A pontoon was laid and two divisions sent over; but moving towards the railroad a mile, they encountered Hood's and Pickett's divisions of Ewell's corps. The cannonade was heavy and the musketry sharp, mainly between Cutler's command and Ewell's, lasting till dark.

It is about two miles from Jericho crossing to the railroad, the point for which the right wing was aiming.

"I reckon that our troops didn't expect you to come this way," said Mr. Quarles, a citizen residing on the north bank, with whom I found accommodation for the night.

"I suppose you didn't expect Grant to get this side of the Wilderness?"

"We heard that he was retreating towards Fredericksburg," was the response.

He was the owner of a saw-mill. Timber was wanted for the construction of a bridge. His mill was out of repair, but there were men in the Union army accustomed to run saw-mills, and an hour was sufficient to put the machinery in order for the manufacture of lumber. It was amusing to see the soldiers lay down their guns, take up the crowbar, roll the logs into the mill, adjust the saw, hoist the gate, and sit upon the log while the saw was cutting its way. The owner of the mill looked on in disgust, as his lumber was thus freely handled.

In the first advance from Jericho bridge, the force was repulsed. The Rebels of Ewell's command came on with confidence, to drive the retreating troops into the river; but Warren had taken the precaution to place his smooth-bore guns on a hillock, south of the stream, while his rifled pieces were on the north side, in position, to give a cross-fire with the smooth-bores. When the Rebels came within reach of this concentrated fire they were almost instantly checked. It was no time to rush on, or to stand still and deliberate; they fled, uncovering the railroad, to which the Sixth advanced, tearing up the track and burning the depot. In the centre, the Ninth Corps had a severe fight, resulting in considerable loss.

It is two miles from Jericho bridge to Carmel Church, which stands in a beautiful grove of oaks. While the troops were resting beneath the trees, waiting for the order to move, a chaplain entered the church and proposed to hold religious service.

The soldiers manifested their pleasure, kneeled reverently during the prayer, and listened with tearful eyes to the exhortations which followed.

It was inspiring to hear them sing,

"Come, sing to me of heaven,
When I'm about to die;
Sing songs of holy ecstasy,
To waft my soul on high."

At dark on the evening of the 25th of May, I rode along the lines of the Second Corps to take a look at the Rebels. There was a steady fire of artillery. One battery of the Rebels had full sweep of the plain, and the shells were flying merrily. A thunder-storm was rising. The lightning was vivid and incessant. My head-quarters for the night were to be with a surgeon attached to the First Division of the Ninth Corps, several miles distant. The dense black clouds rising in the west made the night intensely dark, except when the lightning-flashes gleamed along the sky. It was a scene of sublime grandeur: heaven's artillery in play,--the heavy peals of thunder, mingling with the roar of the battle-field! After an hour's ride through pine thickets, over old corn-fields, half-blinded by the lightning, I reached the quarters of my friend the surgeon, whose tent was just then being packed into the wagon for a night march to a new position. The storm was close at hand, and together we fled for shelter to a neighboring cabin. I had barely time to fasten my horse and enter the door before the storm was upon us.

The house was built of logs, chinked with mud, contained two rooms about fifteen feet square, and was occupied by a colored family.

Others had fled for shelter to the hospitable roof. I found congregated there for the night nine surgeons, three hospital nurses, a delegate of the Christian Commission, two soldiers, two colored women, a colored man, three children. The colored people had taken their only pig into the house, to save the animal from being killed by the soldiers, and had tied it to the bed-post. Their poultry--half a dozen fowls--was imprisoned under a basket. The rain fell in torrents throughout the night. Finding a place under the table for my head, with my overcoat for a pillow, and thrusting my legs under the bed which was occupied by three surgeons, I passed the night, and thought myself much more highly favored than the forty or fifty who came to the door, but only to find a full hotel.

Instead of trying to walk over the obstacle in his path, Grant decided to go round it. Stealing a march upon Lee, he moved suddenly southeast, crossed the Pamunkey at Hanover Town, opened a new base of supplies at White House, forcing Lee to fall back on the Chickahominy.

On Sunday, the 29th, a great cavalry engagement took place at Hawes's shop, west of Hanover Town, in which Sheridan drove the Rebels back upon Bethesda Church. The army came into position on the 30th, its right towards Hanover Court-House. Lee was already in position, and during the day there was firing all along the line. All the corps were engaged. The Second Corps by the Shelton House, by a bayonet-charge pushed the enemy from the outer line of works which he had thrown up, while the Fifth Corps rolled back, with terrible slaughter, the mass of men which came upon its flank and front at Bethesda Church. At Cold Harbor, the Sixth, joined by the Eighteenth Army Corps, under Major-General W. F. Smith, from Bermuda Hundred, met Longstreet and Breckenridge, and troops from Beauregard. Sheridan had seized this important point,--important because of the junction of roads,--and held it against cavalry and infantry till the arrival of the Fifth and Eighteenth. The point secured, a new line of battle was formed on the 1st of June. The Ninth held the right of Bethesda Church; the Fifth was south of the church, joining the Eighteenth; the Sixth held the road from Cold Harbor to Gaines's Mills; while the Second was thrown out on the left, on the road leading to Despatch Station and the Chickahominy.

[Sidenote: June, 1864.]

In the campaign of 1862, Cold Harbor was General McClellan's head-quarters while he was on the north bank of the Chickahominy, and Jackson, when he advanced to attack Fitz John Porter, marched down the road over which Grant moved, to that locality. It is a place of one house,--an old tavern standing at a crossing of roads, twelve miles from Richmond. The most direct route to the city runs past Gaines's Mills, where the first of the series of battles was fought before Richmond, in the seven days' contest. Jackson's head-quarters were at Cold Harbor during that engagement.

The general position of the two armies in Grant's battles at Cold Harbor is indicated by the accompanying diagram.

A huge catalpa stands in front of the old tavern, where in the peaceful days of the Old Dominion travellers rested their horses beneath the grateful shade, while they drank their toddy at the tavern bar. Two great battles were fought there by Grant, the first in the evening of the 1st of June, the second on the evening of the 3d.

There is a line of breastworks west of the house, a few rods distant, behind which Russell's division of the Sixth Corps is lying. The road to Despatch Station runs due south; the road to New Cold Harbor southwest, the road to Bethesda Church northwest. In the battle fought on the 1st instant, Neil was east of the road leading to Despatch Station, Russell west of the house, and Ricketts northwest.

Passing toward the right one mile, we come to the house of Daniel Woody, which is in rear of the right of the line of the Eighteenth. It is the head-quarters of General Martindale, who commands the right division of the line. Next is Brooks's division in the centre, with Devens on the left, connecting with Ricketts's on the right of the Sixth.

There is a clear space west of Woody's house, a cornfield lately planted, but now trodden by the feet of Martindale's men. In front of Brooks there is a gentle swell of land, wooded with pines. On the crest of the hill there is a line of Rebel rifle-pits. In front of Devens the swell is smoothed to a plain, or rather there is a depression, as if the hillock had been scooped out of the plain. This also is wooded. The belt of timber stretches over the plain, crossing the road to Gaines's Mill, about half a mile from the tavern,--a dark strip of green twenty or thirty rods in width. Beyond the belt toward Richmond is a smooth field, half a mile in width, bounded on the farther edge, under the shadow of another belt of green, by the line of Beauregard's breastworks. The line of Rebel defence runs diagonally to the road, the distance being less between Ricketts and the work than on the left in front of Neil. This plain is swept by Rebel cannon and thousands of rifles and muskets.

It was past six o'clock--nearly seven--before the troops were in position to move upon the enemy's works. They marched through the woods, emerged upon the open field The Rebel batteries opened with redoubled fury, but the line advanced steadily. Devens found the depression in front of him almost a marsh, with trees felled, forming an abatis; but his men passed through, and again came into line. Burnham's brigade, of Brooks's division, containing the Tenth and Thirteenth New Hampshire, Eighth Connecticut, and One Hundred and Eighteenth New York, charged up the hill in front, and took the rifle-pits above them. Ricketts, having less distance to advance than the other divisions of the Sixth, was soonest in the fight, sweeping all before him. Before the Rebels could reload their pieces after the first volley the bayonets of the advancing columns, gleaming in the light of the setting sun, were at their throats. Half a brigade was taken prisoners, while the rest of the Rebels in front of Ricketts fled in disorder.

Russell moving along the road received an enfilading fire from artillery and musketry. The Rebels having recovered from their panic, held on with stubbornness. The broad plain over which Russell moved was fringed with fire. From dark till past ten o'clock Breckenridge tried in vain to recover what he had lost.

The loss was severe to us in killed and wounded. But it was a victory, so signal that a congratulatory order was issued by General Meade to the Sixth Corps.

Lying beneath the ever-moaning pines, with the star-lit heavens for a tent, I listened to the sounds of the battle,--steady, monotonous, like the surf on the beach. An hour's sleep, and still it was rolling in. But all things must have an end. Near midnight it died away, and there was only the chirping of the cricket, the unvarying note of the whip-poor-will, and the wind swaying the stately trees around me. Peaceful all around; but ah! beyond those forest belts were the suffering heroes, parched with thirst, fevered with the fight, bleeding for their country. How shall we thank them? How shall we reward them? What estimate shall we place upon their work? O friends, as you recall this sacrifice, let your hearts warm with devotion to your country. Do honor to the noble dead, and forget not the living,--the widow and the fatherless.

The battle of the 3d of June was obstinate and bloody, and resulted in great loss to Grant. The artillery firing was constant through the forenoon, but Lee was too strongly entrenched to be driven.

As soon as there was a lull in the roar of battle, I improved the opportunity to visit the hospitals. There were long lines of ambulances bringing in the wounded, who were laid beneath the trees. Unconscious men were upon the tables, helpless in the hands of the surgeons,--to wake from a dreamless sleep with a limb gone, a bleeding stump of a leg or arm. Horrid the gashes where jagged iron had cut through the flesh, severing arteries and tendons in an instant. Heads, hands, legs, and arms mangled and dripping with blood,--human blood! There were moans, low murmurings, wrenched from the men against their wills. Men were babbling, in their delirium, of other scenes,--dim recollections, which were momentary realities. To be with them and not do for them,--to see suffering without power to alleviate,--gives painful tension to nerves, even though one may be familiar with scenes of carnage.

I turned from the scene all but ready to say, "Anything to stay this terrible destruction of human life." But there were other thoughts,--of retributive justice,--of sighs and groans, scourged backs, broken hearts, partings of mothers from their children,--the coffle train, and the various horrors of the accursed system of slavery, the cause of all this "wounding and hurt." I remembered that it was a contest between eternal right and infernal wrong; that He who is of infinite love and tenderness in His war against rebellion, spared not his only begotten Son;--and thus consoled and strengthened, I could wish the contest to go on till victory should crown our efforts, and a permanent peace be the inheritance of our children.

At Cold Harbor the abilities of Lee, McClellan, and Grant as commanders have been exhibited. Lee's head-quarters during the battle of Gaines's Mills were at New Cold Harbor, but during the afternoon he rode over to the old tavern and had a talk with Jackson. That battle was won by Lee after a hard struggle, not through any lack of courage on the part of the Union troops, but through McClellan's want of generalship. McClellan was ever taking counsel of his fears. He uniformly overestimated the numbers of the enemy. When Lee advanced to Munson's Hill, near Alexandria, in October, 1861, his army did not exceed sixty thousand, but McClellan estimated it at "one hundred and fifty thousand, well drilled, equipped, ably commanded, and strongly entrenched."[58] In March, 1862, when Lee evacuated Manassas, his estimate of the Rebel army was one hundred and fifteen thousand, while the actual strength was less than fifty thousand. "It seems clear that I shall have the whole force of the enemy on my hands, probably not less than one hundred thousand, and probably more," wrote McClellan to the Secretary of War upon his arrival at Yorktown.

[Footnote 58: McClellan's Report, p. 46.]

Magruder commanded the Rebels at Yorktown. "My whole force," says he, "was less than eleven thousand."[59]

[Footnote 59: Magruder's Report.]

The day before the battle of Cold Harbor, McClellan's estimate of Lee's army was two hundred thousand.[60] His own force, sick and well, on the 20th, was one hundred and seventeen thousand. He had present and fit for duty on the day of battle from one hundred to one hundred and five thousand. Lee's force was two or three thousand less.

[Footnote 60: McClellan's Report, p. 238.]

McClellan knew very little of Lee's army. He intrusted the management of the secret service to two French princes, who, however estimable they might be as individuals, had a superficial acquaintance with the English language, who knew but little of America or Americans,--whose geographical knowledge of the country in which the war was being carried on was less than that of the scholars of a New England grammar school,--who were wanting in the lawyer-like qualifications necessary to separating the true from the false in the stories of deserters, scouts, and spies. So inefficient was the secret service that McClellan had no information of Lee's movements or intentions till Jackson was at Ashland, within a few hours' march of Cold Harbor. When he saw that he was to be attacked, he moved his own head-quarters to the south side, making no effort to win the battle, thinking only of a retreat to the James.

A general who wins a battle through the blundering of an inefficient opponent cannot be called, on that account alone, a great commander. There must be genius in movements, in making use of positions and forces, so that victory is wrenched from a skilful foe, to entitle a commander to wear the bay leaves upon his brow.

McClellan's army was divided by the Chickahominy. He had about thirty thousand men on the north bank and seventy-five thousand on the south side. Lee submitted a plan to Jeff Davis, which was accepted, by which he hoped to destroy that portion of McClellan's force on the north bank. Whiting's and Ewell's divisions were put on board the cars and sent up the Virginia Central Railroad to Gordonsville, as if to join Jackson in the Shenandoah, or for a march on Washington, but Jackson was on his way towards Richmond. He commanded the united force, amounting to thirty thousand. He moved down to Ashland. A deserter informed McClellan at Cold Harbor that Jackson would attack him on the 28th.[61] Negroes came in on the next day who said that Jackson was at Hanover Court-House. McClellan's line was twenty miles long. His extreme right was north of Richmond, at Mechanicsville; his left was southeast of the city, resting on White Oak Swamp. McClellan could have reinforced Porter, and defeated Lee, or he could have withdrawn him to the south bank, and pushed into Richmond, but he left Porter to contend with Lee's entire army, except Magruder's command of about twenty thousand men,[62] while he burned his supplies, destroyed the railroad, and made ready to march to the James. Porter held his ground till nearly night, calling for reinforcements. Had a division been sent him at the right time, Lee would have suffered a terrible defeat. Slocum, of Franklin's corps, was sent over when too late to be of essential service. Jackson extended his left south from the old tavern, and fell upon Porter's right flank, and drove the Union troops, but everywhere else Lee was repulsed with great loss. His entire loss in that battle was about nine thousand and five hundred, McClellan's about four thousand.

[Footnote 61: McClellan's Report.]

[Footnote 62: Pollard, First Year, p. 329.]

Lee moved out from Richmond when Jackson was at Hanover Court-House. Branch's division marched up the Brooke turnpike, A. P. Hill moved over the Mechanicsville turnpike, Longstreet and D. H. Hill by the New Bridge road. McClellan was informed of the movement. Here was his golden opportunity. By throwing nearly his entire army north of the Chickahominy, he could have met Lee outside of his entrenchments, or he could have withdrawn Porter and made a rush upon the city. Lee expected to meet the whole Union army at Cold Harbor, and in the battle supposed he was fighting McClellan's main force.

"The principal part of the enemy was on the north side," says Lee in his report. It is evident that in his plan he calculated that McClellan would not risk a battle with a divided army, and he therefore left but a small force to hold Richmond. Magruder on the other hand, saw the danger to the city. Says Magruder:--

"From the time at which the enemy withdrew his forces to this
side of the Chickahominy, and destroyed the bridges, to the
moment of his evacuation,--that is, from Friday night until
Sunday morning,--I considered the situation of our army extremely
critical and perilous. The larger portion of it was on either
side of the Chickahominy, the bridges had all been destroyed, and
but one was rebuilt, the New Bridge, which was fully commanded by
the enemy's guns at Golding's; and there were but twenty-five
thousand men between his army and Richmond. I received repeated
instructions during Saturday night from General Lee's
head-quarters, enjoining upon my command the utmost vigilance,
directing the men to sleep on their arms, to be prepared for
whatever might occur. I passed the night without sleep, and in
the superintendence of their execution. Had McClellan massed his
whole force in column, and advanced it against any point of our
line of battle, as was done at Austerlitz by the greatest captain
of any age, though the head of his column would have suffered
greatly, its momentum would have insured him success, and the
occupation of our works about Richmond, and consequently the city
might have been his reward. Our relief was therefore great when
information reached us that the enemy had evacuated his works and
was retreating."[63]

[Footnote 63: Magruder's Report, p. 191.]

Magruder, in the above statement, unintentionally exposes the faultiness of Lee's plan, which, had McClellan improved his opportunity, would have been the loss of the Rebel capital, the rout and disorganization of Lee's army, and a historic page wholly different from that now on record.

In contrast is Grant's plan of operations. His secret-service department was managed with rare ability, by men acquainted with the English language, who were adepts in the art of sifting truth from falsehood. Grant was well informed as to Lee's numbers, the reinforcements at his disposal, and his movements. He took counsel of his courage, never of his fear. In his plan of the Wilderness campaigns, the series of movements from the Rapidan to the James, were duly considered before the orders for the advance were given. When he saw that he could not reach Richmond from the north, he decided to sweep round to the James, but not till he had made it impossible for Lee to move upon Washington, by breaking up the Virginia Central and Fredericksburg Railroad. McClellan complained that he was deprived of the control of McDowell's force at Fredericksburg, which was retained by the President to cover Washington; but the railroad from Richmond to Manassas was then in running order, with the exception of the bridge across the Rappahannock. Grant's prudence in securing Washington was as marked as his tenacity of purpose to push on towards Richmond.

The transfer of the Eighteenth Corps from Bermuda Hundred to seize Cold Harbor,--the order for which was given before the army crossed the Pamunkey,--was a conception as brilliant as that of Lee's in the transfer of Jackson from the Shenandoah in '62. The march of the army to the south side of the James, which will be narrated in another chapter, was the most striking movement of the campaign, exhibiting the same quality of genius which had been exhibited at Vicksburg, and which has no parallel in the movements of any of the Rebel commanders during the war.

There was a season of rest while Grant was preparing for the march to the James. The army needed it. A month had passed, the most terrible of all the months of the war. There had been scarcely an hour of quiet from the moment when the army broke camp at Culpepper till it reached Cold Harbor. It never can be known how many were killed and wounded in that month of battle. The hospitals of Washington were crowded. Thousands of slightly wounded were granted leave of absence. Reinforcements were hurried on to fill up the wasted ranks. Lee's loss was nearly as heavy as Grant's. Richmond was overflowing with wounded; all central Virginia was a hospital. Both armies were becoming exhausted.

Lee was the attacking party at the Wilderness, but it was his last offensive movement, except as the gauge of battle was given by Grant.

The march from Spottsylvania to Cold Harbor was through a section never before visited by Union troops. At the crossing of the Ny I found quarters at a farm-house owned by a feeble, forceless, gray-bearded, black-eyed man. There was constitutionally a want of starch in his physical organization. He was free and frank, but shiftless. He owned eighty acres of land, two negroes, an old horse, and a rickety cart. His house was mean, but it was charmingly located, overlooking the broad valley of the Mattapony, and surrounded by locusts and magnolias. Nature had done a great deal towards making it a paradise, but the owner had been an indifferent steward. Lying upon the grass beneath the trees, I fell into conversation with the proprietor.

"This is Caroline County, I believe."

"Yes, sir, this is old Caroline,--a county which has sold more negroes down south than any other in Virginia."

"I was not aware of that; but I remember now a negro song which I used to hear. The burden of it was,

'I wish I was back in old Caroline.'"

"Quite likely, for the great business of the county has been nigger-raising, and it has been our curse. I never owned only old Peter and his wife. I wish I didn't own them, for they are old and I have got to support them; but how in the world I am to do it I don't know, for the soldiers have stripped me of everything."

"Do you mean the Union soldiers?"

"Yes, and ours (Rebels) also. First, my boys were conscripted. I kept them out as long as I could, but they were obliged to go. Then they took my horses. Then your cavalry came and took all my corn and stole my meat, ransacked the house, seized my flour, killed my pigs and chickens, and here I am, stripped of everything."

"It is pretty hard, but your leaders would have it so."

"I know it, sir, and we are getting our pay for it."

It was frankly spoken, and was the first admission I had heard from Southern lips that the South was suffering retribution for the crime of Secession. It probably did not enter his head that the selling of slaves, the breaking up of families, the sundering of heart-strings, the cries and tears and prayers of fathers and mothers, the outrages, the whippings, scourgings, branding with hot irons, were also crimes in the sight of Heaven. Broken hearts were nothing to him,--not that he was naturally worse than other men, but because slavery had blunted sensibility.

During the march the next day towards the North Anna, I halted at a farm-house. The owner had fled to Richmond in advance of the army, leaving his overseer, a stout, burly, red-faced, tobacco-chewing man. There were a score of old buildings on the premises. It had been a notable plantation, yielding luxuriant harvests of wheat, but the proprietor had turned his attention to the culture of tobacco and the breeding of negroes. He sold annually a crop of human beings for the southern market. The day before our arrival, hearing that the Yankees were coming, he hurried forty or fifty souls to Richmond. He intended to take all,--forty or fifty more,--but the negroes fled to the woods. The overseer did his best to collect them, but in vain. The proprietor raved, and stormed, and became violent in his language and behavior, threatening terrible punishment on all the runaways, but the appearance of a body of Union cavalry put an end to maledictions. He had a gang of men and women chained together, and hurried them toward Richmond.

The runaways came out from their hiding-places when they saw the Yankees, and advanced fearlessly with open countenances. The first pleasure of the negroes was to smile from ear to ear, the second to give everybody a drink of water or a piece of hoe-cake, the third to pack up their bundles and be in readiness to join the army.

"Are you not afraid of us?"

"Afraid! Why, boss, I's been praying for yer to come; and now yer is here, thank de Lord."

"Are you not afraid that we shall sell you?"

"No, boss, I isn't. The overseer said you would sell us off to Cuba, to work in the sugar-mill, but we didn't believe him."

Among the servants was a bright mulatto girl, who was dancing, singing, and manifesting her joy in violent demonstration.

"What makes you so happy?" I asked.

"Because you Yankees have come. I can go home now."

"Is not this your home?"

"No. I come from Williamsport in Maryland."

"When did you come from there?"

"Last year. Master sold me. I spect my brother is 'long with the army. He ran away last year. Master was afraid that I should run away, and he sold me."

The negroes came from all the surrounding plantations. Old men with venerable beards, horny hands, crippled with hard work and harder usage; aged women, toothless, almost blind, steadying their steps with sticks; little negro boys, driving a team of skeleton steers,--mere bones and tendons covered with hide,--or wall-eyed horses, spavined, foundered, and lame, attached to rickety carts and wagons, piled with beds, tables, chairs, pots and kettles, hens, turkeys, ducks, women with infants in their arms, and a sable cloud of children trotting by their side.

"Where are you going?" I said to a short, thick-set, gray-bearded old man, shuffling along the road; his toes bulging from his old boots, and a tattered straw hat on his head,--his gray wool protruding from the crown.

"I do'no, boss, where I's going, but I reckon I'll go where the army goes."

"And leave your old home, your old master, and the place where you have lived all your days?"

"Yes, boss; master, he's gone. He went to Richmond. Reckon he went mighty sudden, boss, when he heard you was coming. Thought I'd like to go along with you."

His face streamed with perspiration. He had been sorely afflicted with the rheumatism, and it was with difficulty that he kept up with the column; but it was not a hard matter to read the emotions of his heart. He was marching towards freedom. Suddenly a light had shined upon him. Hope had quickened in his soul. He had a vague idea of what was before him. He had broken loose from all which he had been accustomed to call his own,--his cabin, a mud-chinked structure, with the ground for a floor, his garden patch,--to go out, in his old age, wholly unprovided for, yet trusting in God that there would be food and raiment on the other side of Jordan.

It was a Jordan to them. It was the Sabbath-day,--bright, clear, calm, and delightful. There was a crowd of several hundred colored people at a deserted farm-house.

"Will it disturb you if we have a little singing? You see we feel so happy to-day that we would like to praise the Lord."

It was the request of a middle-aged woman.

"Not in the least. I should like to hear you."

In a few moments a crowd had assembled in one of the rooms. A stout young man, black, bright-eyed, thick-wooled, took the centre of the room. The women and girls, dressed in their best clothes, which they had put on to make their exodus from bondage in the best possible manner, stood in circles round him. The young man began to dance. He jumped up, clapped his hands, slapped his thighs, whirled round, stamped upon the floor.

"Sisters, let us bless the Lord. Sisters, join in the chorus," he said, and led off with a kind of recitative, improvised as the excitement gave him utterance. From my note-book I select a few lines:--

RECITATIVE.

"We are going to the other side of Jordan."

CHORUS.

"So glad! so glad!
Bless the Lord for freedom,
So glad! so glad!
We are going on our way,
So glad! so glad!
To the other side of Jordan,
So glad! so glad!
Sisters, won't you follow?
So glad! so glad!
Brothers, won't you follow?"

And so it went on for a half-hour, without cessation, all dancing, clapping their hands, tossing their heads. It was the ecstasy of action. It was a joy not to be uttered, but demonstrated. The old house partook of their rejoicing. It rang with their jubilant shouts, and shook in all its joints.

I stood an interested spectator. One woman, well dressed, intelligent, refined in her deportment, modest in her manner, said, "It is one way in which we worship, sir. It is our first day of freedom."

The first day of freedom! Behind her were years of suffering, hardship, unrequited toil, heartaches, darkness, no hope of recompense or of light in this life, but a changeless future. Death, aforetime, was their only deliverer. For them there was hope only in the grave. But suddenly Hope had advanced from eternity into time. They need not wait for death; in life they could be free. Is it a wonder that they exhibited extravagant joy?

Apart from the dancers was a woman with light hair, hazel eyes, and fair complexion. She sat upon the broad steps of the piazza, and looked out upon the fields, or rather into the air, unmindful of the crowd, the dance, or the shouting. Her features were so nearly of the Anglo-Saxon type that it required a second look to assure one that there was African blood in her veins. She alone of all the crowd was sad in spirit. She evidently had no heart to join in the general jubilee.

"Where did you come from?" I asked.

"From Caroline County."

Almost every one else would have said, "From old Caroline." There was no trace of the negro dialect, more than you hear from all classes in the South, for slavery has left its taint upon the language; it spares nothing, but is remorseless in its corrupting influences.

"You do not join in the song and dance," I said.

"No, sir."

Most of them would have said "master" or "boss."

"I should think you would want to dance on your first night of freedom, if ever."

"I don't dance, sir, in that way."

"Was your master kind to you?"

"Yes, sir; but he sold my husband and children down South."

The secret of her sadness was out.

"Where are you going? or where do you expect to go?"

"I don't know, sir, and I don't care where I go."

The conversation ran on for some minutes. She manifested no animation, and did not once raise her eyes, but kept them fixed on vacancy. Husband and children sold, gone forever,--there was nothing in life to charm her. Even the prospect of freedom, with its undefined joys and pleasures, its soul-stirring expectations, raising the hopes of those around her, moved her not.

Life was a blank. She had lived in her master's family, and was intelligent. She was the daughter of her master. She was high-toned in her feelings. The dancing and shouting of those around her were distasteful. It was to her more barbaric than Christian. She was alone among them. She felt her degradation. Freedom could not give her a birthright among the free. The daughter of her master! It was gall and wormwood; and he, her father, had sold her husband and his grandchildren!

I had read of such things. But one needs to come in contact with slavery, to feel how utterly loathsome and hateful it is. There was the broken-hearted victim, so bruised that not freedom itself, neither the ecstasy of those around her, could awaken an emotion of joy. Hour after hour the festivities went on, but there she sat upon the step, looking down the desolate years gone by, or into a dreamless, hopeless future.

It was late at night before the dancers ceased, and then they stopped, not because of a surfeit of joy, but because the time had come for silence in the camp. It was their first Sabbath of freedom, and like the great king of Israel, upon the recovery of the ark of God, they danced before the Lord with all their might.

We had a hard, dusty ride from the encampment at Mongohick to the Pamunkey. It was glorious, however, in the early morning to sweep along the winding forest-road, with the head-quarters' flag in advance. Wherever its silken folds were unfurled, there the two commanders might be found,--General Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, and General Grant, the commander of all the forces of the Union in the field. We passed the long line of troops, crossed the Pamunkey upon a pontoon bridge, rode a mile or two across the verdant intervale, and halted beneath the oaks, magnolias, and buttonwoods of an old Virginia mansion. The edifice was reared a century ago. It was of wood, stately and substantial. How luxurious the surrounding shade; the smooth lawn, the rolled pathways bordered by box, with moss-roses, honeysuckle, and jessamines scenting the air, and the daisies dotting the greensward! The sweep of open land,--viewing it from the wide portico; the long reach of cultivated grounds; acres of wheat rolling in the breeze, like waves of the ocean; meadow-lands, smooth and fair; distant groves and woodlands,--how magnificent! It was an old estate, inherited by successive generations,--by those whose pride it had been to keep the paternal acres in the family name. But the sons had all gone. A daughter was the last heir. She gave her hand, and heart, and the old homestead,--sheep, horses, a great stock of bovines, and a hundred negroes or more,--to her husband. The family name became extinct, and the homestead of seven or eight generations passed into the hands of one bearing another name.

When McClellan was on the Peninsula, the shadow of the war-cloud swept past the place. One or two negroes ran away, but at that time they were not tolerated in camp. The campaign of 1862 left the estate unharmed. But Sheridan's cavalry, followed by the Sixth Corps, in its magnificent march from the North Anna, had suddenly and unexpectedly disturbed the security of the old plantation. There was a rattling fire from carbines, a fierce fight, men wounded and dead, broken fences, trodden fields of wheat and clover; ransacked stables, corn-bins, meat-houses, and a swift disappearing of live stock of every description.

But to go back a little. The proprietor of this estate ardently espoused Secession. His wife was as earnest as he. They hated the North. They loved the institutions and principles of the South. They sold their surplus negroes in the Richmond market. They parted husbands and wives, tore children from the arms of their mothers, and separated them forever. They lived on unrequited labor, and grew rich through the breeding of human flesh for the market.

When the war commenced, the owner of this magnificent estate enlisted in the army and was made a Colonel of cavalry. He furnished supplies and kept open house for his comrades in arms; but he fell in a cavalry engagement on the Rappahannock, in October, 1863, leaving a wife and three young children. The advance of the army, its sudden appearance on the Pamunkey, left Mrs. ---- no time to remove her personal estate, or to send her negroes to Richmond for safe keeping. Fitz-Hugh Lee disputed Sheridan's advance. The fighting began on this estate. Charges by squadrons and regiments were made through the corn-fields. Horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, were seized by the cavalrymen. The garden, filled with young vegetables, was spoiled. In an hour there was complete desolation. The hundred negroes--cook, steward, chambermaid, house and field hands, old and young--all left their work and followed the army. Mrs. ---- was left to do her own work. The parlors of the stately mansion were taken by the surgeons for a hospital. The change which Mrs. ---- experienced was from affluence to abject poverty, from power to sudden helplessness.

Passing by one of the negro cabins on the estate, I saw a middle-aged colored woman packing a bundle.

"Are you going to move?" I asked.

"Yes, sir; I am going to follow the army."

"What for? Where will you go?"

"I want to go to Washington, to find my husband. He ran away awhile ago, and is at work in Washington."

"Do you think it right, auntie, to leave your mistress, who has taken care of you so long?"

She had been busy with her bundle, but stopped now and stood erect before me, her hands on her hips. Her black eyes flashed.

"Taken care of me! What did she ever do for me? Haven't I been her cook for more than thirty years? Haven't I cooked every meal she ever ate in that house? What has she done for me in return? She has sold my children down South, one after another. She has whipped me when I cried for them. She has treated me like a hog, sir! Yes, sir, like a hog!"

She resumed her work of preparation for leaving. That night she and her remaining children joined the thousands of colored people who had already taken sudden leave of their masters.

Returning to the mansion to see the wounded, I met Mrs. ---- in the hall. She was tall, robust, dignified. She evidently did not fully realize the great change which had taken place in her affairs. The change was not complete at that moment. The colored steward was there, hat in hand; obsequious, bowing politely, and obeying all commands. A half-hour before I had seen him in the cook's cabin, making arrangements for leaving the premises, and a half-hour later he was on his way toward freedom.

"I wish I had gone to Richmond," said the lady. "This is terrible, terrible! They have taken all my provisions, all my horses and cattle. My servants are going. What shall I do?" She sank upon the sofa, and for a moment gave way to her feelings.

"You are better off here than you would be there, with the city full of wounded, and scant supplies in the market," I remarked.

"You are right, sir. What could I do with my three little children there? Yet how I am to live here I don't know. When will this terrible war come to an end?"

But enough of this scene. I have introduced it because it is real, and because it is but one of many. There are hundreds of Southern homes where the change has been equally great. Secession is not what they who started it thought it would be. The penalties for crime always come, sooner or later. God's scales are correctly balanced. He makes all things even. For every tear wrung from the slave by injustice, for every broken heart, for the weeping and wailing of mothers for their babes sold to the far-off South, for every wrong there is retribution

"Though the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting,
With exactness grinds he all."