"Then you have seen the Southern army?"
"O yes, General Walker's division went down a week ago to-day, and Longstreet went down a week ago day before yesterday."
This was important information, for all of my previous inquiries of white residents upon the matter, had brought only unsatisfactory replies.
"Walker's division, you say, wasn't very well clothed?"
"No, sir; they was miserably clothed. Lots on 'em was barefoot. One on 'em offered me six dollars for these ere shoes I'se got on, and I pitied him so, I was a good mind to let him have 'em; then I thought may be I couldn't get another pair. I was 'fraid he would suffer."
"I should think, uncle, you would be lonesome here, nights."
"O, I'se got used to it. It was kind of lonesome, at first, but I don't have anybody to trouble me, and so I gets along first-rate."
While he shaped the shoes and fastened them upon the feet of the horse with a dexterity equal to that of any New England blacksmith, I fell into revery. There was the smith—stout, hale, hearty, earning a handsome fortune for his master—robbed of his wages, of his wife, his children, less cared for than the dumb beasts seeking the shelter of the stables in the storm,—a human being with a soul to be saved, with capabilities of immortal life, of glory unspeakable with the angels, with Jesus, God, and all the society of heaven, and yet, in the estimation of every white man in the slave states and one-half of the population of the free states, he has no rights which a white man is bound to respect! Men forget that justice is the mightiest power in the universe. There is judgment for every crime, and retribution for every wrong. The wheels of justice never stand still, but turn forever. Therefore there are vacant places by many firesides, and aching voids in many a heart, and wounds which time can never heal.