The Boys of '61 Part 58

But the "Swamp Angel" had splintered the pews of St. Michael's, demolished the pulpit, and made a record of its doings in the Registry building. At one stroke it opened the entire front of the Sunday-School Depository to the light of heaven. There was also a ma.s.s of evidence in the courtroom-several cart-loads of brick and plaster, introduced by General Gillmore-against the right of a State to secede.

I entered the Theological Library building through a window from which General Gillmore had removed the sash by a solid shot. A pile of old rubbish lay upon the floor,-sermons, tracts, magazines, books, papers, musty and mouldy, turning into pulp beneath the rain-drops which came down through the shattered roof.

Amid these surroundings was the Slave-Mart,-a building with a large iron gate in front, above which, in large gilt letters, was the word MART.

The outer iron gate opened into a hall about sixty feet long by twenty broad, flanked on one side by a long table running the entire length of the hall, and on the other by benches. At the farther end a door, opening through a brick wall, gave entrance to a yard. The door was locked. I tried my boot-heel, but it would not yield. I called a freedman to my aid. Unitedly we took up a great stone, and gave a blow. Another, and the door of the Bastile went into splinters. Across the yard was a four-story brick building, with grated windows and iron doors,-a prison. The yard was walled by high buildings. He who entered there left all hope behind. A small room adjoining the hall was the place where women were subjected to the lascivious gaze of brutal men. There were the steps, up which thousands of men, women, and children had walked to their places on the table, to be knocked off to the highest bidder. The thought occurred to me that perhaps Governor Andrew, or Wendell Phillips, or William Lloyd Garrison would like to make a speech from those steps. I determined to secure them. While there a colored woman came into the hall to see the two Yankees.

"I was sold there upon that table two years ago," said she.

"You never will be sold again; you are free now and forever!" I replied.

"Thank G.o.d! O the blessed Jesus, he has heard my prayer. I am so glad; only I wish I could see my husband. He was sold at the same time into the country, and has gone I don't know where."

Thus spake Dinah More.

In front of the mart was a gilt star. I climbed the post and wrenched it from its spike to secure it as a trophy. A freedman took down the gilt letters for me, and knocked off the great lock from the outer iron gate, and the smaller lock from the inner door. The key of the French Bastile hangs at Mount Vernon; and as relics of the American prison-house then being broken up, I secured these.

Entering the brokers' offices,-prisons rather,-we walked along the grated corridors, looked into the rooms where the slaves had been kept. In the cellar was the dungeon for the refractory,-bolts and staples in the floors, manacles for the hands and feet, chains to make all sure. There had evidently been a sudden evacuation of the premises. Books, letters, bills of sale, were lying on the floor.

Let us take our last look of the Divine missionary inst.i.tution. Thus writes James H. Whiteside to Z. B. Oakes:-

"I know of five very likely young negroes for sale. They are held at high prices, but I know the owner is compelled to sell next week, and they maybe bought low enough so as to pay. Four of the negroes are young men, about twenty years old, and the other a very likely young woman about twenty-two. I have never stripped them, but they seem to be all right."

C. A. Merrill writes from Franklin:-

"If I can I will come and buy some of your fancy girls and other negroes, if I can get them at a discount."

A. J. McElveen writes from Sumterville:-

"I send a woman, age twenty-two. She leaves two children, and her owner will not let her have them. She will run away. I pay for her in notes, $650. She is a house woman, handy with the needle, in fact she does nothing but sew and knit, and attend to house business."

Another letter from the same:-

"I met a man who offered me four negroes,-one woman and three girls, all likely and fine size for the ages,-thirty-six, thirteen, twelve, and nine. The two oldest girls are the same size; all right as to teeth and person."

I cannot transfer to these pages what follows; decency forbids.

Thomas Otey writes from Richmond:-

"This market is fine. They are selling from twenty-five to fifty per day, and at fine prices. A yellow girl sold this morning for $1,320. No qualifications; black ones at $1,150; men at $1,400. Small ones in the ratio."

There was no longer a manifestation of lordly insolence and a.s.sumed superiority over the Yankees on the part of the whites. They spoke respectfully, but were reticent except when questioned. Once they asked questions of Yankees: "What is your occupation? What brought you to the South? What are you doing here? I believe you are a --- Abolitionist, and the quicker you get out of this town the better." Such was formerly their language. So they talked to Judge h.o.a.r, a citizen of Ma.s.sachusetts. So they talked to Colonel Woodford in 1860.

In 1860, in the month of December, Lieutenant-Colonel Woodford, of the One Hundred and Twenty-Seventh New York volunteers, was in Charleston on business. He was waited on one day by a committee of citizens and informed that he had better leave the city, inasmuch as he was a Northerner, and besides was suspected of being an Abolitionist. He was put on board a steamer, and compelled to go North. He was now Provost Marshal of the Department. On the morning of the 20th he visited the office of the Charleston Courier. The editors had fled the city, but the business man of the establishment remained to protect it. Colonel Woodford was received very graciously. The following conversation pa.s.sed between them:-

Colonel W. "Whom have I the pleasure of addressing?"

Business man. "Mr. L---, sir."

Col. W. "Will you do me the favor to loan me a piece of paper?"

Mr. L. "Certainly, certainly, sir."

Col. W. "Shall I also trouble you for a pen and ink?"

Mr. L. "With pleasure, sir."

The ink was muddy and the pen poor, but the business man, with great alacrity, obtained another bottle and a better pen. Colonel W. commenced writing again:-

"Office Provost Marshal, Charleston, February 20, 1865.

"Special Order, No. 1.

"The Charleston Courier establishment is hereby taken possession of by the United States."

Mr. L. had been overlooking the writing, forgetful of courtesy in his curiosity. He could hold in no longer.

"Colonel, surely you don't mean to confiscate my property! Why, I opposed nullification in 1830!"

"That may be, sir, but you have done what you could to oppose the United States since 1860. If you will show me by your files that you have uttered one loyal word since January 1, 1865, I will take your case into consideration."

He could not, and the Courier pa.s.sed into other hands.

The rich men of the city-those who had begun and sustained the Rebellion-fled when they saw that the place was to fall into the hands of the Yankees. But how bitter the humiliation! On the Sunday preceding, Rev. Dr. Porter, of the Church of the Holy Communion, preached upon the duty of fighting the Yankees to the last. "Fight! fight, my friends, till the streets run blood! Perish in the last ditch rather than permit the enemy to obtain possession of your homes!"

But on Monday morning Dr. Porter was hastening to Cheraw, to avoid being caught in Sherman's trap. The people of Charleston expected that Sherman would swing round upon Branchville, and come into the city, and therefore hastened to Columbia, Cheraw, and other northern towns of the interior, where not a few of them became acquainted with the "b.u.mmers."

Rev. Dr. Porter owned a fine residence, which he turned over to an English lady. As there were no hotel accommodations, my friend and I were obliged to find private lodgings, and were directed to the house of the Rev. Doctor. We were courteously received by Mrs. ---, a lady in middle life, still wearing the bloom of old England on her cheeks, although several years a resident of the sunny South. Rising early in the morning, for a stroll through the city before breakfast, I found the cook and chambermaid breaking out in boisterous laughter. The cook danced, clapped her hands, sat down in a chair, and reeled backward and forward in unrestrained ecstasy.

"What pleases you, Aunty?" I asked.

"O ma.s.sa! I's tickled to tink dat ma.s.sa Dr. Porter, who said dat no Yankee eber would set his foot in dis yar city, had to cut for his life, and dat a Yankee slept in his bed last night! Bless de Lord for dat!"

The white women manifested their hatred to the bitter end.

"I'll set fire to my house before the Yankees shall have possession of the city!" was the exclamation of one excited lady, when it was whispered that the place was to be evacuated; but her Rebel friends saved her the trouble by applying the torch themselves.

The colored people looked upon the Yankees as their deliverers from bondage. They spoke of their coming as the advent of the Messiah. Pa.s.sing along King Street, near the citadel, with my fellow-correspondent, we met an old negress with a basket on her arm, a broad-brimmed straw hat on her head, wearing a brown dress and roundabout. She saw that we were Yankees, and made a profound courtesy.

"How do you do, Aunty?"

"O bless de Lord, I's very well, tank you," grasping my hand, and dancing for joy. "I am sixty-nine years old, but I feel as if I wan't but sixteen." She broke into a chant-

"Ye's long been a-comin, Ye's long been a-comin, Ye's long been a-comin, For to take de land

"And now ye's a-comin, And now ye's a-comin, And now ye's a-comin, For to rule de land."

And then, clapping her hands, said, "Bless de Lord! Bless de dear Jesus!"