But the boldest of these desperadoes, tiger-like, crouched on his hands and knees, and got in the rear of the cabin. Then, suddenly rushing upon the old man, said, "Damn you, I'll shoot you any way," and fired, the ball lodging in the abdomen. He continued to fire, indiscriminately, into the group of women and children, hitting one girl in the knee, and a younger child on the side of the head. Then these cowardly miscreants rushed away, but not until a ball from the rifle of one of these freedmen took effect in the thigh of Radcliff. These men seemed to love the negro so well that they were not willing to let even freedmen leave the State, if they have but the least taint of African blood in their veins; and now they stand as sentinels around the tottering bastile, lest some of the victims escape.
Another instance: In Hospital No. 2, in Gallatin, there is now at work a girl eighteen years of age, of pure Anglo-Saxon blood. This girl's reputed mother says, that when her own child was born, it was taken away from her, and this white child put in its place. She is satisfied it was the illegitimate child of her master's daughter, which she had by her own father.
In September, 1862, at Stevenson, Alabama, in collecting contrabands to work on the fortifications, we found a white man, sixty-three years old, who had all his life been compelled to herd with negroes. He had been forced to live with four different black women as his wives, by whom he had twenty-eight children. Colonel Straight, of the 51st Indiana Regiment, saw one of the old man's daughters, and said she was as white and had as beautiful blue eyes as any girl he ever saw in his own State. His was the same sad story—that he was an illegitimate son of his master's daughter, in Virginia; was taken to the slave-pen, where, with one hundred and twenty-seven others, he was raised for the market. We started him to Governor Morton, of Indiana, as a specimen of the men made chattels, and for which the South was fighting. He was captured on his way North. This is wickedness, "naked, but not ashamed."
We copy the following from the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser:
One Hundred Dollars Reward—Or Fifty Dollars if arrested in the State, will be paid for the arrest and confinement in jail, so that I may get him, of my boy Lewis, who left home on Sunday, the 14th inst. Lewis is about five feet, seven inches high, light complexion, nearly white, spare made, well dressed, wore mustache and goatee, quick to reply when spoken to, has "traveled," and may attempt to pass for a white person; he may endeavor to get to Richmond, where his mother and family reside.
William Foster.
Tuskegee, Ala., June 14, 1863.
We suppose that this "nearly white" slave, who, it is suspected, will try to "pass for a white person," is William Foster's grandson, or perhaps his own offspring. Foster, no doubt, thinks that the negro is indebted to slavery for his moral and religious training. We advise the conservative journals to copy the above advertisement, and comment indignantly on the practice of amalgamation. The occasion will be a good one; and we assure them that the instances are as plenty as blackberries in Dixie.
At Athens, Alabama, in the summer of 1862, when that noble, earnest, and efficient officer, General Turchin, was court-martialed because he hurt the rebels of that State, General G—— was invited to make his head-quarters at Dr. Nicklin's, one of the largest slaveholders in that part of the State, a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and really a highly cultivated and courteous gentleman. One day he charged the General with being radical. The General said, "No, I'm only a Republican; but I have a most radical commissary on my staff." The next day the radical commissary was invited to the house by Mrs. N——, who said she "wanted to see a Yankee who would not deny being an Abolitionist." While at dinner the Doctor proposed to investigate the causes of our wide differences. Captain H—— remarked at the same time:
"Would it not be better, while enjoying your hospitalities, to talk upon subjects of agreement?"