"'Den dat little man in black, dar, he say woman can't have as much right as man, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman. Whar did your Christ come from?'
"Rolling thunder could not have stilled that crowd as did those deep and wonderful tones, as she stood there with outstretched arm and eye of fire. Raising her voice she repeated, 'Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him.'
"O what a rebuke she gave the little man! Turning again to another objector, she took up the defence of Mother Eve. It was pointed, and witty, and solemn, and eliciting at almost every sentence deafening applause; and she ended by asserting that 'if de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down, all herself alone, all dese togeder,' and she glanced her eye over us, 'ought to be able to turn it back again and git it right side up again; and now dey is asking to, the men better let 'em. Bleeged to you for hearin' me, and now old Sojourner ha'n't got notin' more to say.'
"Amid roars of applause she turned to her corner, leaving more than one of us with streaming eyes and hearts beating with gratitude. She had taken us up in her great strong arms and carried us over the slough of difficulty, turning the whole tide in our favor. I have never in my life seen anything like the magical influence that subdued the mobbish spirit of the day and turned the jibes and sneers of an excited crowd into notes of respect and admiration. Hundreds rushed up to shake hands with the glorious old mother and bid her God speed."
The enlistment of negro troops began at Port Royal in the fall of 1862, and by midwinter the First South Carolina, commanded by Colonel Higginson, had its ranks nearly full. There was strong prejudice in the army against employing negroes. The New Jersey troops in the department of the South were bitterly hostile. Colonel Stevenson, of Massachusetts, a gallant officer, having imprudently given utterance to his feelings upon the subject, was arrested by General Hunter, which caused a great deal of excitement in the army, and which attracted the attention of the country to the whole subject.
The day after the arrest of Colonel Stevenson, a scene occurred in the cabin of the steamer Wyoming, plying between Beaufort and Hilton Head, which is given as a historical note. The party consisted of several ladies, one or two chaplains, fifteen or twenty officers, four newspaper correspondents, and several civilians.
A young captain in the Tenth New Jersey opened the conversation.
"I wish," said he, "that every negro was compelled to take off his hat to a white man. I consider him an inferior being."
"You differ from General Washington, who took off his hat and saluted a negro," said one of the correspondents.
"General Washington could afford to do it," said the captain, a little staggered.