A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Army Life in a Black Regiment

T >> Thomas Wentworth Higginson >> Army Life in a Black Regiment




Among the songs not available for marching, but requiring the
concentrated enthusiasm of the camp, was "The Ship of Zion," of which
they had three wholly distinct versions, all quite exuberant and
tumultuous.

XXVHI. THE SHIP OF ZION.

"Come along, come along,
And let us go home,
O, glory, hallelujah?
Dis de ole ship o' Zion,
Halleloo! Halleloo!
Dis de ole ship o' Zion,
Hallelujah!

"She has landed many a tousand,
She can land as many more.
O, glory, hallelujah! &c.

"Do you tink she will be able
For to take us all home?
O, glory, hallelujah! &c.

"You can tell 'em I'm a comin',
Halleloo! Halleloo!
You can tell 'em I'm a comin',
Hallelujah!
Come along, come along," &c.

XXIX. THE SHIP OF ZION. _(Second version.)_

"Dis de good ole ship o' Zion,
Dis de good ole ship o' Zion,
Dis de good ole ship o' Zion,
And she's makin' for de Promise Land.
She hab angels for de sailors, _(Thrice.)_
And she's, &c.
And how you know dey's angels? _(Thrice.)_
And she's, &c.
Good Lord, Shall I be one? _(Thrice.)_
And she's, &c.

"Dat ship is out a-sailin', sailin', sailin',
And she's, &c.
She's a-sailin' mighty steady, steady, steady,
And she's, &c.
She'll neither reel nor totter, totter, totter,
And she's, &c.
She's a-sailin' away cold Jordan, Jordan, Jordan,
And she's, &c.
King Jesus is de captain, captain, captain,
And she's makin' for de Promise Land."


XXX. THE SHIP OF ZION. _(Third version.)_

"De Gospel ship is sailin',
Hosann--sann.
O, Jesus is de captain,
Hosann--sann.
De angels are de sailors,
Hosann--sann.
O, is your bundle ready?
Hosann--sann.
O, have you got your ticket?
Hosann--sann."

This abbreviated chorus is given with unspeakable unction.

The three just given are modifications of an old camp-meeting melody;
and the same may be true of the three following, although I cannot find
them in the Methodist hymn-books. Each, however, has its characteristic
modifications, which make it well worth giving. In the second verse of
this next, for instance, "Saviour" evidently has become "soldier."

XXXI. SWEET MUSIC

"Sweet music in heaven,
Just beginning for to roll.
Don't you love God?
Glory, hallelujah!

"Yes, late I heard my soldier say,
Come, heavy soul, I am de way.
Don't you love God?
Glory, hallelujah!

"I'll go and tell to sinners round
What a kind Saviour I have found.
Don't you love God?
Glory, hallelujah!

"My grief my burden long has been,
Because I was not cease from sin.
Don't you love God?
Glory, hallelujahl"

XXXII. GOOD NEWS.

"O, good news! O, good news!
De angels brought de tidings down,
Just comin' from de trone.

"As grief from out my soul shall fly,
Just comin' from de trone;
I'll shout salvation when I die,
Good news, O, good news!
Just comin' from de trone.

"Lord, I want to go to heaven when I die,
Good news, O, good news! &c.

"De white folks call us a noisy crew,
Good news, O, good news!
But dis I know, we are happy too,
Just comin' from de trone."

XXXIII. THE HEAVENLY ROAD.

"You may talk of my name as much as you please,
And carry my name abroad,
But I really do believe I'm a child of God
As I walk in de heavenly road.
O, won't you go wid me? _(Thrice.)_
For to keep our garments clean.

"O Satan is a mighty busy ole man,
And roll rocks in my way;
But Jesus is my bosom friend,
And roll 'em out of de way.
O, won't you go wid me? _(Thrice.)_
For to keep our garments clean.

"Come, my brudder, if you never did pray,
I hope you may pray to-night;
For I really believe I'm a child of God
As I walk in de heavenly road.
O, won't you," &c.

Some of the songs had played an historic part during the war. For
singing the next, for instance, the negroes had been put in jail in
Georgetown, S. C., at the outbreak of the Rebellion. "We'll soon be
free" was too dangerous an assertion; and though the chant was an old
one, it was no doubt sung with redoubled emphasis during the new events.
"De Lord will call us home," was evidently thought to be a symbolical
verse; for, as a little drummer-boy explained to me, showing all his
white teeth as he sat in the moonlight by the door of my tent, "Dey tink
_de Lord_ mean for say _de Yankees_."

XXXIV. WE'LL SOON BE FREE.

"We'll soon be free,
We'll soon be free,
We'll soon be free,
When de Lord will call us home.
My brudder, how long,
My brudder, how long,
My brudder, how long,
'Fore we done sufferin' here?
It won't be long _(Thrice.)_
'Fore de Lord will call us home.
We'll walk de miry road _(Thrice.)_
Where pleasure never dies.
We'll walk de golden street _(Thrice.)_
Where pleasure never dies.
My brudder, how long _(Thrice.)_
'Fore we done sufferin' here?
We'll soon be free _(Thrice.)_
When Jesus sets me free.
We'll fight for liberty _(Thrice.)_
When de Lord will call us home."

The suspicion in this case was unfounded, but they had another song to
which the Rebellion had actually given rise. This was composed by nobody
knew whom,--though it was the most recent, doubtless, of all these
"spirituals,"--and had been sung in secret to avoid detection. It is
certainly plaintive enough. The peck of corn and pint of salt were
slavery's rations.

XXXV. MANY THOUSAND GO.

"No more peck o' corn for me,
No more, no more,--
No more peck o' corn for me,
Many tousand go.

"No more driver's lash for me, _(Twice.)_
No more, &c.

"No more pint o' salt for me, _(Twice_.)
No more, &c.

"No more hundred lash for me, _(Twice_.)
No more, &c.

"No more mistress' call for me,
No more, no more,--
No more mistress' call for me,
Many tousand go."

Even of this last composition, however, we have only the approximate
date and know nothing of the mode of composition. Allan Ramsay says of
the Scotch songs, that, no matter who made them, they were soon
attributed to the minister of the parish whence they sprang. And I
always wondered, about these, whether they had always a conscious and
definite origin in some leading mind, or whether they grew by gradual
accretion, in an almost unconscious way. On this point I could get no
information, though I asked many questions, until at last, one day
when I was being rowed across from Beaufort to Ladies' Island, I found
myself, with delight, on the actual trail of a song. One of the
oarsmen, a brisk young fellow, not a soldier, on being asked for his
theory of the matter, dropped out a coy confession. "Some good
sperituals," he said, "are start jess out o' curiosity. I been a-raise
a sing, myself, once."

My dream was fulfilled, and I had traced out, not the poem alone, but
the poet. I implored him to proceed.

"Once we boys," he said, "went for tote some rice and de nigger-driver
he keep a-callin' on us; and I say, 'O, de ole nigger-driver!' Den
anudder said, 'Fust ting my mammy tole me was, notin' so bad as
nigger-driver.' Den I made a sing, just puttin' a word, and den anudder
word."

Then he began singing, and the men, after listening a moment, joined in
the chorus, as if it were an old acquaintance, though they evidently had
never heard it before. I saw how easily a new "sing" took root among them.

XXXVI. THE DRIVER.

"O, de ole nigger-driver!
O, gwine away!
Fust ting my mammy tell me,
O, gwine away!
Tell me 'bout de nigger-driver,
O, gwine away!
Nigger-driver second devil,
O, gwine away!
Best ting for do he driver,
O, gwine away!
Knock he down and spoil he labor,
O, gwine away!"

It will be observed that, although this song is quite secular in its
character, yet its author called it a "spiritual." I heard but two songs
among them, at any time, to which they would not, perhaps, have given
this generic name. One of these consisted simply in the endless
repetition--after the manner of certain college songs--of the mysterious
line,--

"Rain fall and wet Becky Lawton."

But who Becky Lawton was, and why she should or should not be wet, and
whether the dryness was a reward or a penalty, none could say. I got the
impression that, in either case, the event was posthumous, and that
there was some tradition of grass not growing over the grave of a
sinner; but even this was vague, and all else vaguer.

The other song I heard but once, on a morning when a squad of men came
in from picket duty, and chanted it in the most rousing way. It had been
a stormy and comfortless night, and the picket station was very exposed.
It still rained in the morning when I strolled to the edge of the camp,
looking out for the men, and wondering how they had stood it. Presently
they came striding along the road, at a great pace, with their shining
rubber blankets worn as cloaks around them, the rain streaming from
these and from then- equally shining faces, which were almost all upon
the broad grin, as they pealed out this remarkable ditty:--

HANGMAN JOHNNY.

"O, dey call me Hangman Johnny!
O, ho! O, ho!
But I never hang nobody,
O, hang, boys, hang!
O dey, call me Hangman Johnny!
O, ho! O, ho!
But we'll all hang togedder,
O, hang, boys, hang!"

My presence apparently checked the performance of another verse,
beginning, "De buckra 'list for money," apparently in reference to the
controversy about the pay-question, then just beginning, and to the more
mercenary aims they attributed to the white soldiers. But "Hangman
Johnny" remained always a myth as inscrutable as "Becky Lawton."

As they learned all their songs by ear, they often strayed into wholly
new versions, which sometimes became popular, and entirely banished the
others. This was amusingly the case, for instance, with one phrase in
the popular camp-song of "Marching Along," which was entirely new to
them until our quartermaster taught it to them, at my request. The
words, "Gird on the armor," were to them a stumbling-block, and no
wonder, until some ingenious ear substituted, "Guide on de army," which
was at once accepted, and became universal.

"We'll guide on de army, and be marching along"

is now the established version on the Sea Islands.

These quaint religious songs were to the men more than a source of
relaxation; they were a stimulus to courage and a tie to heaven. I
never overheard in camp a profane or vulgar song. With the trifling
exceptions given, all had a religious motive, while the most secular
melody could not have been more exciting. A few youths from Savannah,
who were comparatively men of the world, had learned some of the
"Ethiopian Minstrel" ditties, imported from the North. These took no
hold upon the mass; and, on the other hand, they sang reluctantly,
even on Sunday, the long and short metres of the hymn-books, always
gladly yielding to the more potent excitement of their own
"spirituals." By these they could sing themselves, as had their
fathers before them, out of the contemplation of their own low estate,
into the sublime scenery of the Apocalypse. I remember that this
minor-keyed pathos used to seem to me almost too sad to dwell upon,
while slavery seemed destined to last for generations; but now that
their patience has had its perfect work, history cannot afford to lose
this portion of its record. There is no parallel instance of an
oppressed race thus sustained by the religious sentiment alone. These
songs are but the vocal expression of the simplicity of their faith
and the sublimity of their long resignation.




Chapter 10
Life at Camp Shaw


The Edisto expedition cost me the health and strength of several years.
I could say, long after, in the words of one of the men, "I'se been a
sickly person, eber since de expeditious." Justice to a strong
constitution and good habits compels me, however, to say that, up to the
time of my injury, I was almost the only officer in the regiment who had
not once been off duty from illness. But at last I had to yield, and
went North for a month.

We heard much said, during the war, of wounded officers who stayed
unreasonably long at home. I think there were more instances of those
who went back too soon. Such at least was my case. On returning to the
regiment I found a great accumulation of unfinished business; every
member of the field and staff was prostrated by illness or absent on
detailed service; two companies had been sent to Hilton Head on
fatigue duty, and kept there unexpectedly long: and there was a
visible demoralization among the rest, especially from the fact that
their pay had just been cut down, in violation of the express pledges
of the government. A few weeks of steady sway made all right again;
and during those weeks I felt a perfect exhilaration of health,
followed by a month or two of complete prostration, when the work was
done. This passing, I returned to duty, buoyed up by the fallacious
hope that the winter months would set me right again.

We had a new camp on Port Royal Island, very pleasantly situated, just
out of Beaufort. It stretched nearly to the edge of a shelving bluff,
fringed with pines and overlooking the river; below the bluff was a
hard, narrow beach, where one might gallop a mile and bathe at the
farther end. We could look up and down the curving stream, and watch the
few vessels that came and went. Our first encampment had been lower down
that same river, and we felt at home.

The new camp was named Camp Shaw, in honor of the noble young officer
who had lately fallen at Fort Wagner, under circumstances which had
endeared him to all the men. As it happened, they had never seen him,
nor was my regiment ever placed within immediate reach of the
Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts. This I always regretted, feeling very
desirous to compare the military qualities of the Northern and Southern
blacks. As it was, the Southern regiments with which the Massachusetts
troops were brigaded were hardly a fair specimen of their kind, having
been raised chiefly by drafting, and, for this and other causes, being
afflicted with perpetual discontent and desertion.

We had, of course, looked forward with great interest to the arrival of
these new colored regiments, and I had ridden in from the picket-station
to see the Fifty-Fourth. Apart from the peculiarity of its material, it
was fresh from my own State, and I had relatives and acquaintances among
its officers. Governor Andrew, who had formed it, was an old friend, and
had begged me, on departure from Massachusetts, to keep him informed as
to our experiment I had good reason to believe that my reports had
helped to prepare the way for this new battalion, and I had sent him, at
his request, some hints as to its formation.*

*COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, Executive Department,

Boston, February 5, 1863.

To COL. T. W. HIGGINSON,
Commanding 1st Regt. S. C. Vols.,

Port Royal Id., S. C.

COLONEL,--I am under obligations to you for your very interesting
letter of January 19th, which I considered to be too important in its
testimony to the efficiency of colored troops to be allowed to remain
hidden on my files. I therefore placed some portions of it in the
hands of Hon. Stephen M. Weld, of Jamaica Plain, for publication, and
you will find enclosed the newspaper slip from the "Journal" of
February 3d, in which it appeared. During a recent visit at Washington
I have obtained permission from the Department of War to enlist
colored troops as part of the Massachusetts quota, and I am about to
begin to organize a colored infantry regiment, to be numbered the
"54th Massachusetts Volunteers."

I shall be greatly obliged by any suggestions which your experience may
afford concerning it, and I am determined that it shall serve as a
model, in the high character of its officers and the thorough discipline
of its men, for all subsequent corps of the like material.

Please present to General Saxton the assurances of my respectful regard.

I have the honor to be, respectfuly and obediently yours,

JOHN A. ANDREW, Governor of Massachusetts.


In the streets of Beaufort I had met Colonel Shaw, riding with his
lieutenant-colonel and successor, Edward Hallowell, and had gone back
with them to share their first meal in camp. I should have known Shaw
anywhere by his resemblance to his kindred, nor did it take long to
perceive that he shared their habitual truthfulness and courage.
Moreover, he and Hallowell had already got beyond the commonplaces of
inexperience, in regard to colored troops, and, for a wonder, asked only
sensible questions. For instance, he admitted the mere matter of courage
to be settled, as regarded the colored troops, and his whole solicitude
bore on this point, Would they do as well in line-of-battle as they had
already done in more irregular service, and on picket and guard duty? Of
this I had, of course, no doubt, nor, I think, had he; though I remember
his saying something about the possibility of putting them between two
fires in case of need, and so cutting off their retreat. I should never
have thought of such a project, but I could not have expected bun to
trust them as I did, until he had been actually under fire with them.
That, doubtless, removed all his anxieties, if he really had any.

This interview had occurred on the 4th of June. Shaw and his regiment
had very soon been ordered to Georgia, then to Morris Island; Fort
Wagner had been assaulted, and he had been killed. Most of the men
knew about the circumstances of his death, and many of them had
subscribed towards a monument for him,--a project which originated
with General Saxton, and which was finally embodied in the "Shaw
School-house" at Charleston. So it gave us all pleasure to name this
camp for him, as its predecessor had been named for General Saxton.

The new camp was soon brought into good order. The men had great
ingenuity in building screens and shelters of light poles, filled in
with the gray moss from the live-oaks. The officers had vestibules built
in this way, before all their tents; the cooking-places were walled
round in the same fashion; and some of the wide company-streets had
sheltered sidewalks down the whole line of tents. The sergeant on duty
at the entrance of the camp had a similar bower, and the architecture
culminated in a "Praise-House" for school and prayer-meetings, some
thirty feet in diameter. As for chimneys and flooring, they were
provided with that magic and invisible facility which marks the second
year of a regiment's life.

That officer is happy who, besides a constitutional love of adventure,
has also a love for the details of camp life, and likes to bring them to
perfection. Nothing but a hen with her chickens about her can symbolize
the content I felt on getting my scattered companies together, after
some temporary separation on picket or fatigue duty. Then we went to
work upon the nest. The only way to keep a camp in order is to set about
everything as if you expected to stay there forever; if you stay, you
get the comfort of it; if ordered away in twenty-four hours, you forget
all wasted labor in the excitement of departure. Thus viewed, a camp is
a sort of model farm or bit of landscape gardening; there is always some
small improvement to be made, a trench, a well, more shade against the
sun, an increased vigilance in sweeping. Then it is pleasant to take
care of the men, to see them happy, to hear them purr.

Then the duties of inspection and drill, suspended during active
service, resume their importance with a month or two of quiet. It
really costs unceasing labor to keep a regiment in perfect condition
and ready for service. The work is made up of minute and endless
details, like a bird's pruning her feathers or a cat's licking her
kittens into their proper toilet. Here are eight hundred men, every
one of whom, every Sunday morning at farthest, must be perfectly
_soigne_ in all personal proprieties; he must exhibit himself provided
with every article of clothing, buttons, shoe-strings, hooks and eyes,
company letter, regimental number, rifle, bayonet, bayonet-scabbard,
cap-pouch, cartridge-box, cartridge-box belt, cartridge-box
belt-plate, gun-sling, canteen, haversack, knapsack, packed according
to rule, forty cartridges, forty percussion caps; and every one of
these articles polished to the highest brightness or blackness as the
case may be, and moreover hung or slung or tied or carried in
precisely the correct manner.

What a vast and formidable housekeeping is here, my patriotic sisters!
Consider, too, that every corner of the camp is to be kept absolutely
clean and ready for exhibition at the shortest notice; hospital,
stables, guard-house, cook-houses, company tents, must all be brought to
perfection, and every square inch of this "farm of four acres" must look
as smooth as an English lawn, twice a day. All this, beside the
discipline and the drill and the regimental and company books, which
must keep rigid account of all these details; consider all this, and
then wonder no more that officers and men rejoice in being ordered on
active service, where a few strokes of the pen will dispose of all this
multiplicity of trappings as "expended in action" or "lost in service."

For one, the longer I remained in service, the better I appreciated the
good sense of most of the regular army niceties. True, these things must
all vanish when the time of action comes, but it is these things that
have prepared you for action. Of course, if you dwell on them only,
military life becomes millinery life alone. Kinglake says that the
Russian Grand-Duke Constantine, contemplating his beautiful
toy-regiments, said that he dreaded war, for he knew that it would spoil
the troops. The simple fact is, that a soldier is like the weapon he
carries; service implies soiling, but you must have it clean in advance,
that when soiled it may be of some use.

The men had that year a Christmas present which they enjoyed to the
utmost,--furnishing the detail, every other day, for provost-guard
duty in Beaufort. It was the only military service which they had ever
shared within the town, and it moreover gave a sense of self-respect
to be keeping the peace of their own streets. I enjoyed seeing them
put on duty those mornings; there was such a twinkle of delight in
their eyes, though their features were immovable. As the "reliefs"
went round, posting the guard, under charge of a corporal, one could
watch the black sentinels successively dropped and the whites picked
up,--gradually changing the complexion, like Lord Somebody's black
stockings which became white stockings,--till at last there was only a
squad of white soldiers obeying the "Support Arms! Forward, March!" of
a black corporal.

Then, when once posted, they glorified their office, you may be sure.
Discipline had grown rather free-and-easy in the town about that time,
and it is said that the guard-house never was so full within human
memory as after their first tour of duty. I remember hearing that one
young reprobate, son of a leading Northern philanthropist in those
parts, was much aggrieved at being taken to the lock-up merely because
he was found drunk in the streets. "Why," said he, "the white corporals
always showed me the way home." And I can testify that, after an evening
party, some weeks later, I beard with pleasure the officers asking
eagerly for the countersign. "Who has the countersign?" said they. "The
darkeys are on guard to-night, and we must look out for our lives." Even
after a Christmas party at General Saxton's, the guard at the door very
properly refused to let the ambulance be brought round from the stable
for the ladies because the driver had not the countersign.

One of the sergeants of the guard, on one of these occasions, made to
one who questioned his authority an answer that could hardly have been
improved. The questioner had just been arrested for some offence.

"Know what dat mean?" said the indignant sergeant, pointing to the
chevrons on his own sleeve. "Dat mean _Guv'ment_." Volumes could not
have said more, and the victim collapsed. The thing soon settled
itself, and nobody remembered to notice whether the face beside the
musket of a sentinel were white or black. It meant Government, all the
same.

The men were also indulged with several raids on the mainland, under the
direction of Captain J. E. Bryant, of the Eighth Maine, the most
experienced scout in that region, who was endeavoring to raise by
enlistment a regiment of colored troops. On one occasion Captains
Whitney and Heasley, with their companies, penetrated nearly to
Pocataligo, capturing some pickets and bringing away all the slaves of a
plantation,--the latter operation being entirely under the charge of
Sergeant Harry Williams (Co. K), without the presence of any white man.
The whole command was attacked on the return by a rebel force, which
turned out to be what was called in those regions a "dog-company,"
consisting of mounted riflemen with half a dozen trained bloodhounds.
The men met these dogs with their bayonets, killed four or five of their
old tormentors with great relish, and brought away the carcass of one. I
had the creature skinned, and sent the skin to New York to be stuffed
and mounted, meaning to exhibit it at the Sanitary Commission Fair hi
Boston; but it spoiled on the passage. These quadruped allies were not
originally intended as "dogs of war," but simply to detect fugitive
slaves, and the men were delighted at this confirmation of their tales
of dog-companies, which some of the officers had always disbelieved.

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