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




I was convinced from appearances that we had been victorious, so far,
though I could not suppose that this would be the last of it. We knew
neither the numbers of the enemy, nor their plans, nor their present
condition: whether they had surprised us or whether we had surprised
them was all a mystery. Corporal Sutton was urgent to go on and complete
the enterprise. All my impulses said the same thing; but then I had the
most explicit injunctions from General Saxton to risk as little as
possible in this first enterprise, because of the fatal effect on public
sentiment of even an honorable defeat. We had now an honorable victory,
so far as it went; the officers and men around me were in good spirits,
but the rest of the column might be nervous; and it seemed so important
to make the first fight an entire success, that I thought it wiser to
let well alone; nor have I ever changed this opinion. For one's self,
Montrose's verse may be well applied, "To win or lose it all." But one
has no right to deal thus lightly with the fortunes of a race, and that
was the weight which I always felt as resting on our action. If my raw
infantry force had stood unflinchingly a night-surprise from "de boss
cavalry," as they reverentially termed them, I felt that a good
beginning had been made. All hope of surprising the enemy's camp was now
at an end; I was willing and ready to fight the cavalry over again, but
it seemed wiser that we, not they, should select the ground.

Attending to the wounded, therefore, and making as we best could
stretchers for those who were to be carried, including the remains of
the man killed at the first discharge (Private William Parsons of
Company G), and others who seemed at the point of death, we marched
through the woods to the landing,--expecting at every moment to be
involved in another fight. This not occurring, I was more than ever
satisfied that we had won a victory; for it was obvious that a mounted
force would not allow a detachment of infantry to march two miles
through open woods by night without renewing the fight, unless they
themselves had suffered a good deal. On arrival at the landing, seeing
that there was to be no immediate affray, I sent most of the men on
board, and called for volunteers to remain on shore with me and hold the
plantation-house till morning. They eagerly offered; and I was glad to
see them, when posted as sentinels by Lieutenants Hyde and Jackson, who
stayed with me, pace their beats as steadily and challenge as coolly as
veterans, though of course there was some powder wasted on imaginary
foes. Greatly to my surprise, however, we had no other enemies to
encounter. We did not yet know that we had killed the first lieutenant
of the cavalry, and that our opponents had retreated to the woods in
dismay, without daring to return to their camp. This at least was the
account we heard from prisoners afterwards, and was evidently the tale
current in the neighborhood, though the statements published in Southern
newspapers did not correspond. Admitting the death of Lieutenant Jones,
the Tallahassee Floridian of February 14th stated that "Captain Clark,
finding the enemy in strong force, fell back with his command to camp,
and removed his ordnance and commissary and other stores, with twelve
negroes on their way to the enemy, captured on that day."

In the morning, my invaluable surgeon, Dr. Rogers, sent me his report
of killed and wounded; and I have been since permitted to make the
following extracts from his notes: "One man killed instantly by ball
through the heart, and seven wounded, one of whom will die. Braver men
never lived. One man with two bullet-holes through the large muscles
of the shoulders and neck brought off from the scene of action, two
miles distant, two muskets; and not a murmur has escaped his lips.
Another, Robert Sutton, with three wounds,--one of which, being on the
skull, may cost him his life,--would not report himself till compelled
to do so by his officers. While dressing his wounds, he quietly talked
of what they had done, and of what they yet could do. To-day I have
had the Colonel _order_ him to obey me. He is perfectly quiet and
cool, but takes this whole affair with the religious bearing of a man
who realizes that freedom is sweeter than life. Yet another soldier
did not report himself at all, but remained all night on guard, and
possibly I should not have known of his having had a buck-shot in his
shoulder, if some duty requiring a sound shoulder had not been
required of him to-day." This last, it may be added, had persuaded a
comrade to dig out the buck-shot, for fear of being ordered on the
sick-list. And one of those who were carried to the vessel--a man
wounded through the lungs--asked only if I were safe, the contrary
having been reported. An officer may be pardoned some enthusiasm for
such men as these.

The anxious night having passed away without an attack, another
problem opened with the morning. For the first time, my officers and
men found themselves in possession of an enemy's abode; and though
there was but little temptation to plunder, I knew that I must here
begin to draw the line. I had long since resolved to prohibit
absolutely all indiscriminate pilfering and wanton outrage, and to
allow nothing to be taken or destroyed but by proper authority. The
men, to my great satisfaction, entered into this view at once, and so
did (perhaps a shade less readily, in some cases) the officers. The
greatest trouble was with the steamboat hands, and I resolved to let
them go ashore as little as possible. Most articles of furniture were
already, however, before our visit, gone from the plantation-house,
which was now used only as a picket-station. The only valuable article
was a pianoforte, for which a regular packing-box lay invitingly ready
outside. I had made up my mind, in accordance with the orders given to
naval commanders in that department,* to burn all picket-stations, and
all villages from which I should be covertly attacked, and nothing
else; and as this house was destined to the flames, I should have left
the piano in it, but for the seductions of that box. With such a
receptacle all ready, even to the cover, it would have seemed like
flying in the face of Providence not to put the piano in. I ordered it
removed, therefore, and afterwards presented it to the school for
colored children at Fernandina. This I mention because it was the only
article of property I ever took, or knowingly suffered to be taken, in
the enemy's country, save for legitimate military uses, from first to
last; nor would I have taken this, but for the thought of the school,
and, as aforesaid, the temptation of the box. If any other officer has
been more rigid, with equal opportunities, let him cast the first
stone.

* "It is my desire to avoid the destruction of private property, unless
used for picket or guard-stations, or for other military
purposes, by the enemy. ... Of course, if fired upon from any place, it
is your duty, if possible, to destroy it." Letter of ADMIRAL DUPONT,
commanding South Atlantic Squadron, to LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER HUGHES of
United States Gunboat Mohawk, Fernandina Harbor.

I think the zest with which the men finally set fire to the house at my
order was enhanced by this previous abstemiousness; but there is a
fearful fascination in the use of fire, which every child knows in the
abstract, and which I found to hold true in the practice. On our way
down river we had opportunity to test this again.

The ruined town of St. Mary's had at that time a bad reputation, among
both naval and military men. Lying but a short distance above
Fernandina, on the Georgia side, it was occasionally visited by our
gunboats. I was informed that the only residents of the town were three
old women, who were apparently kept there as spies,--that, on our
approach, the aged crones would come out and wave white
handkerchiefs,--that they would receive us hospitably, profess to be
profoundly loyal, and exhibit a portrait of Washington,--that they would
solemnly assure us that no Rebel pickets had been there for many
weeks,--but that in the adjoining yard we should find fresh horse-tracks,
and that we should be fired upon by guerillas the moment we left
the wharf. My officers had been much excited by these tales; and I had
assured them that, if this programme were literally carried out, we
would straightway return and burn the town, or what was left of it, for
our share. It was essential to show my officers and men that, while
rigid against irregular outrage, we could still be inexorable against
the enemy.

We had previously planned to stop at this town, on our way down river,
for some valuable lumber which we had espied on a wharf; and gliding
down the swift current, shelling a few bluffs as we passed, we soon
reached it. Punctual as the figures in a panorama appeared the old
ladies with their white handkerchiefs. Taking possession of the town,
much of which had previously been destroyed by the gunboats, and
stationing the color-guard, to their infinite delight, in the cupola of
the most conspicuous house, I deployed skirmishers along the exposed
suburb, and set a detail of men at work on the lumber. After a stately
and decorous interview with the queens of society of St. Mary's,--is it
Scott who says that nothing improves the manners like piracy?--I
peacefully withdrew the men when the work was done. There were faces of
disappointment among the officers,--for all felt a spirit of mischief
after the last night's adventure,--when, just as we had fairly swung out
into the stream and were under way, there came, like the sudden burst of
a tropical tornado, a regular little hail-storm of bullets into the open
end of the boat, driving every gunner in an instant from his post, and
surprising even those who were looking to be surprised. The shock was
but for a second; and though the bullets had pattered precisely like the
sound of hail upon the iron cannon, yet nobody was hurt. With very
respectable promptness, order was restored, our own shells were flying
into the woods from which the attack proceeded, and we were steaming up
to the wharf again, according to promise.

Who shall describe the theatrical attitudes assumed by the old ladies
as they reappeared at the front-door,--being luckily out of direct
range,--and set the handkerchiefs in wilder motion than ever? They
brandished them, they twirled them after the manner of the domestic
mop, they clasped their hands, handkerchiefs included. Meanwhile their
friends in the wood popped away steadily at us, with small effect; and
occasionally an invisible field-piece thundered feebly from another
quarter, with equally invisible results. Reaching the wharf, one
company, under Lieutenant (now Captain) Danil-son, was promptly
deployed in search of our assailants, who soon grew silent. Not so the
old ladies, when I announced to them my purpose, and added, with
extreme regret, that, as the wind was high, I should burn only that
half of the town which lay to leeward of their house, which did not,
after all, amount to much. Between gratitude for this degree of
mercy, and imploring appeals for greater, the treacherous old ladies
manoeuvred with clasped hands and demonstrative handkerchiefs around
me, impairing the effect of their eloquence by constantly addressing
me as "Mr. Captain"; for I have observed, that, while the sternest
officer is greatly propitiated by attributing to him a rank a little
higher than his own, yet no one is ever mollified by an error in the
opposite direction. I tried, however, to disregard such low
considerations, and to strike the correct mean between the sublime
patriot and the unsanctified incendiary, while I could find no refuge
from weak contrition save in greater and greater depths of courtesy;
and so melodramatic became our interview that some of the soldiers
still maintain that "dem dar ole Secesh women been a-gwine for kiss de
Cunnel," before we ended. But of this monstrous accusation I wish to
register an explicit denial, once for all.

Dropping down to Fernandina unmolested after this affair, we were
kindly received by the military and naval commanders,--Colonel Hawley,
of the Seventh Connecticut (now Brigadier-General Hawley), and
Lieutenant-Commander Hughes, of the gunboat Mohawk. It turned out very
opportunely that both of these officers had special errands to suggest
still farther up the St. Mary's, and precisely in the region where I
wished to go. Colonel Hawley showed me a letter from the War
Department, requesting him to ascertain the possibility of obtaining a
supply of brick for Fort Clinch from the brickyard which had furnished
the original materials, but which had not been visited since the
perilous river-trip of the Ottawa. Lieutenant Hughes wished to obtain
information for the Admiral respecting a Rebel steamer,--the
Berosa,--said to be lying somewhere up the river, and awaiting her
chance to run the blockade. I jumped at the opportunity. Berosa and
brickyard,--both were near Wood-stock, the former home of Corporal
Sutton; he was ready and eager to pilot us up the river; the moon
would be just right that evening, setting at 3h. 19m. A.M.; and our
boat was precisely the one to undertake the expedition. Its
double-headed shape was just what was needed in that swift and crooked
stream; the exposed pilot-houses had been tolerably barricaded with
the thick planks from St. Simon's; and we further obtained some
sand-bags from Fort Clinch, through the aid of Captain Sears, the
officer in charge, who had originally suggested the expedition after
brick. In return for this aid, the Planter was sent back to the wharf
at St. Mary's, to bring away a considerable supply of the same
precious article, which we had observed near the wharf. Meanwhile the
John Adams was coaling from naval supplies, through the kindness of
Lieutenant Hughes; and the Ben De Ford was taking in the lumber which
we had yesterday brought down. It was a great disappointment to be
unable to take the latter vessel up the river; but I was unwillingly
convinced that, though the depth of water might be sufficient, yet her
length would be unmanageable in the swift current and sharp turns. The
Planter must also be sent on a separate cruise, as her weak and
disabled machinery made her useless for my purpose. Two hundred men
were therefore transferred, as before, to the narrow hold of the John
Adams, in addition to the company permanently stationed on board to
work the guns. At seven o'clock on the evening of January 29th,
beneath a lovely moon, we steamed up the river.

Never shall I forget the mystery and excitement of that night. I know
nothing in life more fascinating than the nocturnal ascent of an
unknown river, leading far into an enemy's country, where one glides
in the dim moonlight between dark hills and meadows, each turn of the
channel making it seem like an inland lake, and cutting you off as by
a barrier from all behind,--with no sign of human life, but an
occasional picket-fire left glimmering beneath the bank, or the yelp
of a dog from some low-lying plantation. On such occasions every nerve
is strained to its utmost tension; all dreams of romance appear to
promise immediate fulfilment; all lights on board the vessel are
obscured, loud voices are hushed; you fancy a thousand men on shore,
and yet see nothing; the lonely river, unaccustomed to furrowing
keels, lapses by the vessel with a treacherous sound; and all the
senses are merged in a sort of anxious trance. Three tunes I have had
in full perfection this fascinating experience; but that night was the
first, and its zest was the keenest. It will come back to me in
dreams, if I live a thousand years.

I feared no attack during our ascent,--that danger was for our return;
but I feared the intricate navigation of the river, though I did not
fully know, till the actual experience, how dangerous it was. We passed
without trouble far above the scene of our first fight,--the Battle of
the Hundred Pines, as my officers had baptized it; and ever, as we
ascended, the banks grew steeper, the current swifter, the channel more
tortuous and more encumbered with projecting branches and drifting wood.
No piloting less skilful than that of Corporal Sutton and his mate,
James Bezzard, could have carried us through, I thought; and no
side-wheel steamer less strong than a ferry-boat could have borne the
crash and force with which we struck the wooded banks of the river. But
the powerful paddles, built to break the Northern ice, could crush the
Southern pine as well; and we came safely out of entanglements that at
first seemed formidable. We had the tide with us, which makes steering
far more difficult; and, in the sharp angles of the river, there was
often no resource but to run the bow boldly on shore, let the stern
swing round, and then reverse the motion. As the reversing machinery was
generally out of order, the engineer stupid or frightened, and the
captain excited, this involved moments of tolerably concentrated
anxiety. Eight times we grounded in the upper waters, and once lay
aground for half an hour; but at last we dropped anchor before the
little town of Woodstock, after moonset and an hour before daybreak,
just as I had planned, and so quietly that scarcely a dog barked, and
not a soul in the town, as we afterwards found, knew of our arrival.

As silently as possible, the great flat-boat which we had brought from
St. Simon's was filled with men. Major Strong was sent on shore with two
companies,--those of Captain James and Captain Metcalf,--with instructions
to surround the town quietly, allow no one to leave it, molest no one,
and hold as temporary prisoners every man whom he found. I watched them
push off into the darkness, got the remaining force ready to land, and
then paced the deck for an hour in silent watchfulness, waiting for
rifle-shots. Not a sound came from the shore, save the barking of dogs
and the morning crow of cocks; the time seemed interminable; but when
daylight came, I landed, and found a pair of scarlet trousers pacing on
their beat before every house in the village, and a small squad of
prisoners, stunted and forlorn as Falstaff's ragged regiment, already hi
hand. I observed with delight the good demeanor of my men towards these
forlorn Anglo-Saxons, and towards the more tumultuous women. Even one
soldier, who threatened to throw an old termagant into the river, took
care to append the courteous epithet "Madam."

I took a survey of the premises. The chief house, a pretty one with
picturesque outbuildings, was that of Mrs. A., who owned the mills and
lumber-wharves adjoining. The wealth of these wharves had not been
exaggerated. There was lumber enough to freight half a dozen steamers,
and I half regretted that I had agreed to take down a freight of bricks
instead. Further researches made me grateful that I had already
explained to my men the difference between public foraging and private
plunder. Along the river-bank I found building after building crowded
with costly furniture, all neatly packed, just as it was sent up from
St. Mary's when that town was abandoned. Pianos were a drug; china,
glass-ware, mahogany, pictures, all were here. And here were my men, who
knew that their own labor had earned for their masters these luxuries,
or such as these; their own wives and children were still sleeping on
the floor, perhaps, at Beaufort or Fernandina; and yet they submitted,
almost without a murmur, to the enforced abstinence. Bed and bedding for
our hospitals they might take from those store-rooms,--such as the
surgeon selected,--also an old flag which we found in a corner, and
an old field-piece (which the regiment still possesses),--but after this
the doors were closed and left unmolested. It cost a struggle to some of
the men, whose wives were destitute, I know; but their pride was very
easily touched, and when this abstinence was once recognized as a rule,
they claimed it as an honor, in this and all succeeding expeditions. I
flatter myself that, if they had once been set upon wholesale
plundering, they would have done it as thoroughly as their betters; but
I have always been infinitely grateful, both for the credit and for the
discipline of the regiment,--as well as for the men's subsequent
lives,--that the opposite method was adopted.

When the morning was a little advanced, I called on Mrs. A., who
received me in quite a stately way at her own door with "To what am I
indebted for the honor of this visit, Sir?" The foreign name of the
family, and the tropical look of the buildings, made it seem (as,
indeed, did all the rest of the adventure) like a chapter out of "Amyas
Leigh"; but as I had happened to hear that the lady herself was a
Philadel-phian, and her deceased husband a New-Yorker, I could not feel
even that modicum of reverence due to sincere Southerners. However, I
wished to present my credentials; so, calling up my companion, I said
that I believed she had been previously acquainted with Corporal Robert
Sutton? I never saw a finer bit of unutterable indignation than came
over the face of my hostess, as she slowly recognized him. She drew
herself up, and dropped out the monosyllables of her answer as if they
were so many drops of nitric acid. "Ah," quoth my lady, "we called him
Bob!"

It was a group for a painter. The whole drama of the war seemed to
reverse itself in an instant, and my tall, well-dressed, imposing,
philosophic Corporal dropped down the immeasurable depth into a mere
plantation "Bob" again. So at least in my imagination; not to that
person himself. Too essentially dignified in his nature to be moved by
words where substantial realities were in question, he simply turned
from the lady, touched his hat to me, and asked if I would wish to see
the slave-jail, as he had the keys in his possession.

If he fancied that I was in danger of being overcome by
blandishments, and needed to be recalled to realities, it was a
master-stroke.

I must say that, when the door of that villanous edifice was thrown open
before me, I felt glad that my main interview with its lady proprietor
had passed before I saw it. It was a small building, like a Northern
corn-barn, and seemed to have as prominent and as legitimate a place
among the outbuildings of the establishment. In the middle of the door
was a large staple with a rusty chain, like an ox-chain, for fastening a
victim down. When the door had been opened after the death of the late
proprietor, my informant said, a man was found padlocked in that chain.
We found also three pairs of stocks of various construction, two of
which had smaller as well as larger holes, evidently for the feet of
women or children. In a building near by we found something far more
complicated, which was perfectly unintelligible till the men explained
all its parts: a machine so contrived that a person once imprisoned in
it could neither sit, stand, nor lie, but must support the body half
raised, in a position scarcely endurable. I have since bitterly
reproached myself for leaving this piece of ingenuity behind; but it
would have cost much labor to remove it, and to bring away the other
trophies seemed then enough. I remember the unutterable loathing with
which I leaned against the door of that prison-house; I had thought
myself seasoned to any conceivable horrors of Slavery, but it seemed as
if the visible presence of that den of sin would choke me. Of course it
would have been burned to the ground by us, but that this would have
involved the sacrifice of every other building and all the piles of
lumber, and for the moment it seemed as if the sacrifice would be
righteous. But I forbore, and only took as trophies the instruments of
torture and the keys of the jail.

We found but few colored people in this vicinity; some we brought away
with us, and an old man and woman preferred to remain. All the white
males whom we found I took as hostages, in order to shield us, if
possible, from attack on our way down river, explaining to them that
they would be put on shore when the dangerous points were passed. I knew
that their wives could easily send notice of this fact to the
Rebel forces along the river. My hostages were a forlorn-looking set of
"crackers," far inferior to our soldiers in _physique_, and yet quite
equal, the latter declared, to the average material of the Southern
armies. None were in uniform, but this proved nothing as to their being
soldiers. One of them, a mere boy, was captured at his own door, with
gun in hand. It was a fowling-piece, which he used only, as his mother
plaintively assured me, "to shoot little birds with." As the guileless
youth had for this purpose loaded the gun with eighteen buck-shot, we
thought it justifiable to confiscate both the weapon and the owner, in
mercy to the birds.

We took from this place, for the use of the army, a flock of some thirty
sheep, forty bushels of rice, some other provisions, tools, oars, and a
little lumber, leaving all possible space for the bricks which we
expected to obtain just below. I should have gone farther up the river,
but for a dangerous boom which kept back a great number of logs in a
large brook that here fell into the St. Mary's; the stream ran with
force, and if the Rebels had wit enough to do it, they might in ten
minutes so choke the river with drift-wood as infinitely to enhance our
troubles. So we dropped down stream a mile or two, found the very
brickyard from which Fort Clinch had been constructed,--still stored with
bricks, and seemingly unprotected. Here Sergeant Rivers again planted
his standard, and the men toiled eagerly, for several hours, in loading
our boat to the utmost with the bricks. Meanwhile we questioned black
and white witnesses, and learned for the first tune that the Rebels
admitted a repulse at Township Landing, and that Lieutenant Jones and
ten of their number were killed,--though this I fancy to have been an
exaggeration. They also declared that the mysterious steamer Berosa was
lying at the head of the river, but was a broken-down and worthless
affair, and would never get to sea. The result has since proved this;
for the vessel subsequently ran the blockade and foundered near shore,
the crew barely escaping with their lives. I had the pleasure, as it
happened, of being the first person to forward this information to
Admiral Dupont, when it came through the pickets, many months
after,--thus concluding my report on the Berosa.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.