"Here comes de great Messiah, wid news of Rosa!" said my introducer, with an indescribable dramatic flourish.
The mother sprang from the stool with a cry of joy. "From Rosa? From Rosa? O, thank the Lord!" She took hold of my hands, looked at me with intense earnestness and joy, and yet with a shade of doubt, as if it could not be true.
"From Rosa?"
"Yes, Aunty."
She kneeled upon the floor and looked up to heaven. She saw not us, but God and Jesus. The tears streamed from her eyes. She recounted in prayer all her long years of slavery, of suffering, of unrequited toil, and achings of the heart. "You have heard me, dear Jesus! O blessed Lamb!"
It was a conversation between herself and the Saviour. She told him the story of her life, of all its sorrows, of his goodness, kindness, and love, the tears rolling down her cheeks the while and falling in great drops upon the floor. She wanted us to stay and partake of her humble fare, pressed my hands again and again; and when we told her we must go, she asked for God's best blessing and for Jesus' love to follow us. It was a prayer from the heart. We had carried to her the news that she was free, and that her Rosa was still alive. The long looked-for jubilee morning had dawned, and we were to her God's messengers, bringing the glad tidings. It was one of the most thrilling moments I ever experienced.
This woman had been a slave, had been sold, exposed to insult, had no rights which a white man was bound to respect. So said the Chief Justice of the United States, Roger B. Taney. God ordained her, in his beneficent goodness, to be a slave. So preached Rev. Dr. Thornwell, the great South Carolina theologian; so said the Southern Presbyteries, by solemn resolutions. Remembering these things, I went out from that humble dwelling with my convictions deepened that it was God's war, and that the nation was passing through the fire in just punishment for its crimes against humanity.
The 22d of February, Washington's birthday, was celebrated in Charleston as never before. In the afternoon a small party of gentlemen from the North sat down to a dinner. Among them were Colonel Webster, Chief of General Sherman's staff, Colonel Markland of the Post-Office Department, several officers of the army and navy, and four journalists, all guests of a patriotic gentleman from Philadelphia, Mr. Getty.
Our table was spread in the house of a caterer who formerly had provided sumptuous dinners for the Charlestonians. He was a mulatto, and well understood his art; for, notwithstanding the scarcity of provisions in the city, he was able to provide an excellent entertainment, set off with canned fruits, which had been put up in England, and had run the gauntlet of the blockade.