"Can you read and write?" I asked.
"A little, sir. I never had any one to show me, but I used to sit down here in the pews and take up the hymn-book, and spell out the words, and one day master Bob set me a copy in writing, and so I have learned a little. I can read the newspapers, sir, and have kept track of the war."
Upon the first battle of Manassas, the Peninsular campaigns, the blowing up of the Merrimac, the battles of Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, New Orleans, and Sherman's campaign, he was well informed. He had a brother who was fighting for the Union.
"He is a brave fellow, and I know he won't show the white feather," said he.
We talked upon the prospects of the colored people now that they were free.
"I reckon, sir," said he, "that a good many of 'em will be disappointed. They don't know what freedom is. But they will find that they have got to work, or else they won't get anything to eat. They are poor, ignorant creatures; but I reckon, sir, that after a while, when things get settled, they will learn how to take care of themselves. But I think they are mighty foolish to clear out and leave their old masters, when they can have good situations, and good pay, and little to do. Then, sir, it is kind of ungrateful like, to go away and leave their old masters when the day of calamity comes. I could not do it, sir; besides, I reckon I will be better off to stay here for the present, sir."
I informed him that I was from Massachusetts.
"I know something about Massachusetts, and I reckon it is a mighty fine State, sir. I have heard you abused, and the people of Boston also. Savannah people said hard things about you: that you were abolitionists, and wanted the negroes to have equal privileges with the white men. My father, when I was in Norfolk, undertook to get to Massachusetts, but he was hunted down in the swamps and sold South, away down to Alabama, and that is the last I have heard of him. I have always liked Massachusetts. I reckon you are a liberal people up there. I hear you have sent a ship-load of provisions to us poor people."
I gave him information upon the subject, and spoke of Mr. Everett, who made a speech at the meeting in Faneuil Hall.
"Mr. Everett! I reckon I heard him talk about General Washington once here, five or six years ago. He was a mighty fine speaker, sir. The house was crowded."