“I tell you, honey, I’ll mak ebery ding shine, an’ I’ll hab de tablecloth so slick a gnat’s heel would fly up on it.”
All the colored people were jubilant. It would be impossible to describe their antics. The little children danced a jubilee; jumping up and down, keeping up a chorus: “Ginnel Grant’s a-cummen! Ginnel Grant’s a-cummen! Ginnel Grant’s de bigest ginnel of dem all!”
It was not an hour till every colored man, woman, and child in that part of the town knew that at a certain hour the next day General Grant was to be at that house. The colored men searched every sutler’s shop for supplies, and Aunt Dinah did her best in the cooking line. The next morning I went out among the hospitals as usual, but came home before noon, so as to be there when my guests arrived. I found all the neighboring fences about the grounds lined with colored people.
Mrs. Stone said to me as soon as I came in,—
“Now, you must not laugh or object, but Aunt Dinah has sent and got two professional waiters; they are here now, dressed in broadcloth, with swallow-tailed coats and white vests and white gloves.”
Of course I did laugh, and she laughed quite as heartily as myself, at the incongruity of the arrangement. Here, in one of the deserted houses of Vicksburg, that a shell had crashed through, making it almost impossible to get into the dining-room, with nothing in the way of table-outfit but the most ordinary camping utensils, we had two professional waiters, rigged out in a style that could hardly be matched at a state dinner at the presidential mansion, we were to receive great generals. It was indeed laughable. Aunt Dinah felt she ought to explain the matter to me.
“Honey, I want to ’splain ’bout dese ’fessional watahs. Our common niggahs would never do to wait on fine gentlemen. You see, dey’s awkard an’ hain’t got no good close. So I just hir’d dese fashionable watahs case I wanted to have the thing done up right.”
Of course I made no objections. At the appointed hour, General Grant, dressed in military uniform, riding his little black horse that had carried him so often around the fiery lines of Vicksburg during the siege, and General McPherson, dressed in elegant military fashion, tall, stately, commanding, and splendidly mounted, rode up in front of our house.
General Stone, who had commanded the extreme right during the siege, and who had come up from his military camp to dine with us that day, went out and hitched their horses, as there were no orderlies with them.
General Rawlins, who was prevented at the last moment from coming, sent his regrets. Black faces were peeping out from the near houses, and the fences were black with colored people. It was perhaps the one chance of their lives to see their deliverer, the great captain who had opened the prison-house of Vicksburg, and given liberty to all the people.