Historical Romance of the American Negro. Fowler Charles Henry
divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will." and so it was even now.
I shall never forget that morning at Buffalo – it was in the month of June, 1863, when the letter-carrier brought me the first war letter from my gallant Tom. The date was not given, but it came from a place called Milliken's Bend, on the Lower Mississippi river, and a battle had been fought at that place, since called by the historians, "The Battle of Milliken's Bend." But I will here insert Tom's letter in its entirety, as there are some other things in it besides war and fighting.
"My Dear Beulah: – No doubt but you have already received the letters I sent you from New Orleans, after that I myself and the rest of the Buffalonians had landed in the Crescent City. I send lots of warm love to the entire family, and be sure to keep our two daughters, Ella and Fannie, regularly at school. My best love to the church in a body. Tell them to pray for us.
"I have great pleasure in informing you that we have here completely settled the question whether colored men will not fight in America as well as their ancestors did in Africa. On the night of the 6th of June, about three thousand Texans came to our fortifications, and lay around our five hundred colored soldiers, besides a hundred white ones. Those three thousand rebels lay prowling around our men like so many cats, only waiting for the dawn of the 7th of June to gobble us up like so many poor, helpless mice. About three o'clock they came on with an awful rush, shouting, 'No quarter for niggers and their officers!' They got into our works, and the way that men fell on both sides was dreadful. It was really awful the way my poor comrades were shot down, or killed with the bayonet, though at the same time we mowed them down like grass before the scythe. Those strong arms of ours that had made the South the rich land that it lately was, now laid its defenders even with the ground. There was hardly a single officer, either black or white, among us who was not either killed or wounded. How I escaped myself without a scratch is more than I can tell, where there were so very few who came out of the battle as they went in. To God be all the praise!
"The gunboats Choctow and Lexington assisted us very much, for they kept throwing shells into the enemy, and made them fly in all directions, and even up into the air! The white men on our side – one hundred of them – also fought like lions. One division of the rebels hesitated about coming out of a redoubt they had got into their possession. They were not willing. But our brave black soldiers went in with a rush, and assisted them in making up their minds by taking the bayonet to them, and thrashing them with the butt ends of their guns, precisely like thrashing wheat! They reminded me of a lot of guilty cats when the dogs are on them. Having suffered the loss of hundreds of men, and been completely vanquished in the bargain, the rebels were forced to retreat, and this they did with as good a grace as they were able.
"No doubt but the telegraph has already carried the news all over the Union how our six hundred intrepid soldiers beat three thousand rebels. This will settle, once for all, the insulting question, 'Will the black man fight?' It will also secure for us more civil treatment from white soldiers, both North and South, and remind them that the Great Creator himself, and all foreign nations, make no difference whatsoever on account of the color of the skin. I would like to know what 'Old Massa' thinks of things now.
"I send my best love to all those who may enquire for me, and please write soon to your most affectionate husband,
"Tuesday night, 9 o'clock.
War surely is a terrible thing at its best estate. Nations have often waged war for mere conquest and ambition, which was the greatest crime that ever could have been committed. But here was a war for freedom – the freedom of millions of slaves. It was for this freedom that we had prayed for the assistance of the Most High God, and troubled the country, labored and toiled in all possible ways. It was for this freedom that all the chivalrous Christianity of the nation had put forth all its efforts; and now at times, many people began to doubt whether all these efforts had not been put forth in vain, because for the first two years of the war, our arms really made such small progress compared with what we had expected. And yet, for the very life of me, I am to this very day unable to see how we could have done much more than we did; for though the Northern troops were as brave as men could be, we had a foe to contend with who was quite as brave as ourselves – a foe manned by officers as good as our own, and fighting upon their own soil, where they knew every foot of the ground. Thus the war dragged slowly along, and the close of the second year found us with very little progress made.
We were not in despair, but the South yet retained all her strength, and was proud and defiant. They were also determined to fight on, and did fight on with a valor worthy of a better cause. But how could we expect more success than we had under the circumstances? So great was the prejudice against color that white men were even unwilling to fight side by side with our own people; and then Lincoln and his cabinet were all afraid of affronting the tender and delicate susceptibilities of the South by putting even their little finger on the heinous institution called "Domestic slavery." Verily, they were carrying their squeamishness to a most tremendous length when lives had to be wasted in thousands, because white men were too proud even to fight side by side with colored men, and because we were so very timid about offending our "separate brethren," that the Northern officers even sent back the refugees from our armies – sent them back into slavery! And they even allowed their life-long oppressors to come into the camps, look around for their slaves, identify and claim their property, and carry them home again before our very eyes! Was it any wonder, then, that we had so little success in this war which God himself had sent, chiefly that the slaves should be freed?
But the spectacle of thousands and tens of thousands of men being mowed down like grass before the Southern scythes gradually changed all that. The South, indeed, had a comfortable time of it, sending all their sons to the war, whilst the black population were taking care of their families, working their fields, and even throwing up intrenchments, and making themselves useful in a thousand ways by command of their owners, and against the forces of the North! Not that the slaves wished to work in these ways for the South, but because our very armies were helping their masters to keep them in their present position, even by returning them to bondage whenever they tried to gain their freedom. The Southern lords knew all about our "tender feelings" for their own "property" – falsely so called – and they took advantage of it.
We had nobody but ourselves to blame for this state of things. Our men were mown down in thousands because we had such tender regard for the feelings of the rebels, and there was not the slightest sign that things would ever get any better. We whipped the South to-day and they whipped us to-morrow. In the meantime the strong, able-bodied African tilled the fields of the South, when he might have been fighting for freedom and the Union.
But to return to the year 1863. Some changes had been made in the rapidly-shifting scenes of the war. Tom had been removed from Milliken's Bend, and gone to Port Hudson, where a most terrible assault had been made on the rebel defences about the 23rd of May. But I will here let Tom speak for himself, because he wrote to me often, and my greatest pleasure was to sit down and send him all our domestic news.
"My Dear Beulah: – I arrived at this place a few days ago, and have been out to see signs and marks of the recent siege. Everything seems to interest me, and war is indeed a terrible game. I have heard great and full accounts of the awful fighting down in this place, much of which I must reserve for your patient ears when I come, if God my life shall spare.
"You could not find a white man in all the Mississippi Valley to-day who will tell you that colored men wont fight. I don't know where such an idea ever arose, because it was the strong arm and perseverance of the slave in raising crops all over Dixie that created most of the wealth we found in the South, and I look upon it as a wilful and malicious falsehood in white soldiers, North and South alike, affirming over and over again that colored men would not fight. General Grant and every high officer in the Union army have given us most unstinted praise, and have affirmed that we fight nobly.
"The accounts of the terrible fighting done here almost surpass human belief. About the 23rd of May, the Northern armies invested this place, and made a most tremendous effort to carry it by storm. The rebels had a naturally strong position, and all the appliances of war at their