"John Brown" in Charleston.
Sentiments were offered and speeches made, which in other days would have been called incendiary. Five years before if they had been uttered there the speakers would have made the acquaintance of Judge Lynch, and been treated to a gratuitous coat of tar and feathers, or received some such chivalric attention, if they had not dangled from a lamp-post or the nearest tree. Lloyd's Concert Band, colored musicians, were in attendance, and "Hail Columbia," the "Star-Spangled Banner," and "Yankee Doodle,"—songs which had not been heard for years in that city,—were sung with enthusiasm. To stand there, with open doors and windows, and speak freely without fear of mob violence, was worth all the precious boon had cost,—to feel that our words, our actions, our thoughts even, were not subject to the misinterpretation of irresponsible inquisitors,—that we were not under Venetian espionage, but in free America, answerable to God alone for our thoughts, and to no man for our actions, so long as they did not infringe the rights of others.
Henceforth there shall be free speech in Charleston. A party of twenty gentlemen began the new era on the 22d of February, and to me it will ever be a pleasant reflection that I was one of the privileged number.
While dining we heard the sound of drums and a chorus of voices. Looking down the broad avenue we saw a column of troops advancing with steady step and even ranks. It was nearly sunset, and their bayonets were gleaming in the level rays. It was General Potter's brigade, led by the Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts,—a regiment recruited from the ranks of slavery. Sharp and shrill the notes of the fife, stirring the drum-beat, deep and resonant the thousand voices singing their most soul-thrilling war-song,—
"John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave."
Mingling with the chorus were cheers for Governor Andrew and Abraham Lincoln!
They raised their caps, hung them upon their bayonets. Proud their bearing. They came as conquerors. Some of them had walked those streets before as slaves. Now they were freemen,—soldiers of the Union, defenders of its flag.
Around them gathered a dusky crowd of men, women, and children, dancing, shouting, mad with very joy. Mothers held up their little ones to see the men in blue, to catch a sight of the starry flag, with its crimson folds and tassels of gold.
"O dark, sad millions, patiently and dumb,
Waiting for God, your hour at last has come,
And freedom's song
Breaks the long silence of your night of wrong."