As she reached the shadowy places along the way, the child heard a rustling sound in the bushes that suggested snakes. She instinctively jumped to the other side of the path, at the same time looking over her shoulder in the direction of the sound. One glance was enough! The pallid ox loomed gigantic in her affrighted eyes, and, with a scream of terror, she fled homeward and was soon, wide-eyed and trembling, before her mother. Faithful to her trust, she had held on to bundle and tin bucket, but the molasses was spattered liberally over her bare legs and had soaked her homespun skirt and apron.
“Wuh ’smattuh, gal? You done t’row’way half de muhlassis! Wuh de debble mek you duh trimble?”
“Ma, w’en uh binnuh walk t’ru de branch, een da’ daa’k t’icket onduhneet’ dem gum tree, uh yeddy sump’nurruh duh shake de bush, en’ uh t’ink ’e duh snake, en’ uh jump en’ look ’roun’, en’ uh see uh sperrit, one big w’ite sump’n’ high mo’nuh dis house, en’ de t’ing groan’ at me, en’ uh dat ’f’aid’um, uh run’way, en’ ’e nebbuh ketch me, en’ uh mek de buckruh gimme twenty cent’ wut uh flour fuh de seb’npunce chickin, en’ ’e gimme uh gunjuh!”
“Tell yo’ bubbuh fuh git da’ hom’ny spoon en’ ’crape da’ muhlassis off yo’ two knee, en’ pit’um een da’ pan, en’ tek off yo’ ap’un, en’ you en’ yo’ bubbuh alltwo kin chaw’um, so de muhlassis ent fuh t’rowway.”
MINGO, THE DRILL MASTER
At the close of the war, thousands of disbanded negro troops, how many, only the Lord knows and the pension roll shows, swarmed over the Coast Counties comprising the South Carolina Black Belt. Swagger in their new-minted freedom, and resplendent in the light blue trousers and dark blue coats of the Federal uniform, with ridiculous little forage caps perched aslant upon the sides of their kinky heads, like chickens roosting on leaning poles, girdled with great brass-buckled U. S. Belts, and shouldering army muskets, full of insolence and of ribaldry, they took the highways and the by-ways for their own. Their former masters, however kindly they had been to them before and since freedom, were frequently spoken of behind their backs as “de rebel,” and the days of slavery were referred to as “rebel time” (times). Some of these soldiers had served for years, perhaps, others for months or weeks, few of them had smelt powder, all of them had smelt and fattened upon the bad—wickedly bad—bacon with which the loyal sutlers had supplied the invading army. (And, by the way, thousands of tierces of that same sutler’s bacon of the years ’64 and ’65 were still at large for full five years thereafter, supplied by the Charleston and Savannah factors to the low-country planters for their plantation commissaries.)
In addition to the disbanded troops, thousands of other negroes, who had never seen service, wore cheaply bought Federal uniforms and long, light blue overcoats, and sported caps and belts and condemned muskets, so that the whole countryside was black and blue, and they were constantly drilling, while the women, peahens that they were, worked for them and admired the strutting of their lordly peacocks. Often at night, from the quarters of a distant plantation, instead of the peaceful “tap, tap-a-tap, tap-a-tap, tap-a-tap,” of the sticks which the negroes beat on the floor to mark time for their dancing and “shouting,” there would come the rattle of a snaredrum, and one knew that an awkward squad was being put through awkward evolutions in the compound or “nigguhhouse yaa’d” for the edification of the quarters.
It was a psychological study to watch one of these squads or companies drilling or parading on the public highway, when a white man of a former slave-holding family approached. Neither stern disciplinary eye, nor sharp command, could keep the lines straight until after “de buckruh” had passed. There were sure to be some members of the squad whose hereditary respect—stronger far than the fear of the drill master—would impel them to scrape a foot or pull wool, till the alignment was as wabbly as a swimming moccasin.
One August day in the early ’70s, Prince Manigo, captain of the Adams Run Company, ordered his command out for drill, inspection and maneuvers. Sixty-five men reported; these were of all ages from 17 to 70. Some of them belonged around the village, but most of them came from about Toogoodoo, “down on de Salt,” as the inland negroes designate the sea coast and the contiguous lands lying along the salt rivers and creeks.
The place of assembly indicated by Captain Manigo was about a mile south of the village on the way to Toogoodoo. Once a member of Col Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s negro regiment, the “First South Carolina Volunteers,” organized at Beaufort in 1862, he had known picket duty about Port Royal Ferry during the war, and wished to familiarize his dusky outfit with service in the field. The road ran along the edge of a deep swamp, or bay. The growth on the rich lowlands was heavy, and beautiful magnolias, close-limbed and tall, as is their habit of growth in thick places, rose to a height of sometimes a hundred feet, the sunlight flashing from the curved backs of their dark and glossy leaves. Under these great trees, sweet bay, red bay, beech and maple grew in a tangle, and below these, tall canes and great sword ferns, with riotous vines of bamboo and wild grape, thickened into an almost impenetrable chaparral. In these woods, dimmed to a twilight darkness, Captain Manigo established his picket posts. Fifteen or twenty men were selected for this dangerous duty, for, at this season, the swamp was full of rattlesnakes and some of those picked for outpost duty objected. “Man, I cyan’ go een da’ t’icket. Snake dey dey tummuch.”