Historical Romance of the American Negro. Fowler Charles Henry
batteries and masked batteries, mortars, and, in short, almost everything known for destruction and modern warfare. They had even felled trees in our path, and their very cannon balls mowed down trees three feet thick. The noise of their guns made more din and uproar than the loudest thunderstorm. Against those brave and terrible rebels white soldiers from the North and colored soldiers from Louisiana advanced again and again, but all of them failed, and they were mown down like grass before the scythe. O terrible, sanguinary war! It was horrible! The balls and other missiles flew through the air thicker than hailstones. Once more we terribly underrated the prowess of the South. All of us were shipped alike, though we fought like gods! Oh, my dear Beulah! This is the price the American nation is now paying for the crime of slavery! The South carried out the villainy, and the North winked at the whole devilish business, thus, in fact, helping the rebels to keep on our claims! Shall a guilty nation indeed escape for deeds like these? At all events, we proved one thing during that terrible assault in May, and the subsequent siege of Port Hudson, and that was that colored men are as much men as white men, red, brown, yellow or any other race that can be named. These things were all well known before by every man, woman and child, but then, 'None are so blind as those who don't want to see.' The cry now is, 'Yes, yes! Colored men will fight well.' It is some comfort to know all this, for now we can get a rest.
"I send a deal of love to yourself, the children, to Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, to the entire church on Vine street, and to all others. I get all your letters.
"I am, my dear Beulah, your most loving
From the accounts contained in the two foregoing letters that I received from my dear husband, my kind readers will see that it was a public revelation made to the whole nation that the colored race not only made first-rate soldiers, but that they were sorely needed by Uncle Sam in the day of his distress. Lincoln's Proclamation on the first of January, 1863, completely broke down the dam from one end of the country to the other and throughout the whole land. Now the patriotic governors and many others bestirred themselves in raising colored regiments, getting them drilled, and pushed to the front with rapidity, so that the tide of war everywhere began to turn in favor of the Northern arms, and things began to look as if the very God of Liberty Himself was smiling upon the nation. Up to the end of 1862 the North had been fighting for nothing more than the restoration of the Union, and surely this was a noble thing to fight for, and especially for the possession of the glorious Mississippi, flowing all the way from its remotest springs at its farthest away branches in Montana, some 4,400 miles from the ocean. It was indeed something to keep the great river and all the States one and undivided. But what about slavery? Was it not, if possible, a ten times greater sin to carry on slavery than for the Southern States to secede? And yet there were thousands and tens of thousands of soldiers, officers and citizens all over the land who made the most strenuous objections to striking one blow for freedom – the very cause for which the war had been sent! Who need wonder, indeed, that our arms had such small success for almost two years after the rebels seceded? The only thing that surprises me is that we had as much success as we did, but we were taught a lesson, and we learned it well at last.
It was not long before the fame of the colored soldiers of America was wafted over the whole world, and was everywhere received by all lovers of freedom with most hearty applause. All, excepting those who believed in keeping other people down, heard the news with the greatest of pleasure. Many of the aristocrats of England, France and elsewhere, who had made investments in Confederate bonds, and sympathized with the South from the beginning, had no joy when they learned how Uncle Sam had turned a new element of strength into the field; but the common people everywhere all the world over, who had read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in all the principal languages of the earth, and opposed the recognition of the Southern Confederacy from the first on account of slavery, rejoiced to hear that the Great North had at last turned over a new leaf, and brought the heroic sons of Africa into the field. It was a military necessity, of course; the nation was forced to do it; but all the same it was a matter of justice, and the right thing to do. Now the entire Christian world took ten times more interest in the war than before. They had been praying and often working in the interest of the American slave; and now they were delighted to hear of the self-same slave marching bravely to the field, and assisting white men in knocking the fetters off the whole race. Now, indeed, the scales began to turn in favor of the North, along the whole line. Before the first of January, 1863, it was as if there were eight pounds in the Northern scale, and eight pounds in the Southern scale, but now we throw in 200,000 colored men or more into the Northern scale, when the Southern end of the beam flies up as the lighter weight, and it becomes clear to the obtusest mind that the South is doomed, and domestic slavery with it also.
CHAPTER VI
Great Service of the Colored Race – Heroic Colored Women – Attack on Fort Wagner, 18th July, 1863 – The ex-Slaves go to School – The Freedman's Bureau – The Jubilee Minstrels – A Long Letter From Mr. Thomas Lincoln, Describing His Life in a New Orleans Hospital – The Mississippi River, and the Fight at Pleasant Grove in the Red River Expedition.
As I stated in the last chapter, recruiting went merrily on, and colored men came up "to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." The heavens now smiled upon the Northern arms, and "the sun of righteousness arose upon them with healing in his wings." It is glorious to think how willingly our people threw down the shovel and the hoe, and advanced to meet the Northern troops as they came within easy striking distance. Thousands and tens of thousands crossed the mountains, threaded the mountain passes, kept on their way day and night up the rivers and down the rivers till they beheld the Union armies encamped away in the valleys, and a few more willing, enthusiastic bounds, and they were free! It was most refreshing to read the letters from the white soldiers at the time, commending these colored men in every possible way. They took a perfect delight in relating the thousand and one acts of kindness and sympathy that colored men and women performed towards countless Union men in times of distress, disaster and danger; how they secreted them; how they fed them, gave them rest and shelter, and how faithfully and skilfully they guided the armies on their way, and even piloted the Union boats in safety up and down the rivers of the South. Never were fidelity and devotion more marked since the world began, and it was downright pleasant to read the letters from "the seat of war," and see how these good deeds of the African were appreciated by the Anglo-Saxons. "Skins may differ, but affection dwells in white and black the same," and although "Old Massa" and "Old Missus" did their best to keep Lincoln's proclamation from the knowledge of the slaves, somehow or other the truth became known; in fact, it seemed to be carried on the wings of the wind, and now all prayed more and more fervently that the Lord would send freedom.
It would be a pleasure for me to relate the deeds of devotion recorded of our people in behalf of the cause of God and liberty. There are two acts, those of heroic women, that I must not omit. We have all heard of General John Morgan, the Kentucky guerilla chief, who led a raid into Ohio, and worked so much wanton mischief on Union people and the Union in the Southern cause. We caught and imprisoned him in Ohio, but he escaped, and took to his tricks again, and was more fleet, and harder to catch than a long-legged greyhound. At last he was located one night in a far-away town or village of the South, and the nearest Union troops lay about twenty miles away. This devoted colored woman lost not a moment of time, but steered for the distant camp, gave them the most particular information, so that they rose at once, and upon arriving at John Morgan's rendezvous, they woke him up, and once for all put an end to his dreadful raidings on the Unionists.
I must next mention the case of a colored woman in Georgia, when General Sherman came riding through the woods on his famous march from Atlanta to the Sea. This woman was a regular heroine – "a mother in Israel" – and one who would have made a second Deborah, with a host of men, women and children at her back, all of whom the war had set free. This woman advanced upon the path of the troops, and having introduced herself to General Sherman and his men, gave glory to God and to the Union armies, whom the God of Hosts had there and then sent forth. Her language was worthy of a Shakespeare. On that day when Deborah, and Miriam, and Joan of Arc, and all the other heroines of history shall be gathered together in the Palace of God, I feel certain that this colored Deborah, this "mother in Israel," will be among them when the Lord of Heaven and Earth makes up His jewels.
Where