The secret was out. Slavery made labor dishonorable.
Conversing with another farmer about the negroes, he said: "They steal all they can lay their hands on; and since the Yankee troops have been in camp round here, they are ten times as bad as they used to be. My chickens are fast disappearing. The officers buy them, I reckon."
We thought it quite likely; for having passed several days in General Hooker's division, we could bear testimony to the excellent fare of the officers' mess,—chickens served in all the various forms known to culinary art. It was convenient for officers thus to supply themselves with poultry. Of course the slave would say that he was the lawful owner of the poultry. Why should he have any compunctions of conscience about disposing of the chickens roosting on his master's apple-trees, when his labor, his life, his happiness, his children,—all his rights were stolen from him by his master? If the sword cut in one direction, why not in another?
A few days later, in November, we visited Annapolis, a quaint old city. The streets all centre at the State-House and St. John's Church. There are antiquated houses with mossy roofs, brass knockers on the doors, which were built two hundred years ago. We were carried back to the time of the Revolution, when Annapolis was in its glory.
One would suppose, in walking past the substantial stone mansions, that the owners were living at ease, in quiet and seclusion; that they had notes, mortgages, and bonds laid by for a rainy day: but a fair outside does not always indicate health within. In many of those old mansions, grand in proportion, elaborate with cornice, there was nothing but famine. How strong is aristocratic pride! Poverty cannot subdue it. Men and women lived there sorely pressed to keep up even a threadbare appearance, who, before the war, held soul and body together by raising negroes for the Southern market, and by waiting upon the Assembly when in session. They would have deemed it degrading to hold social intercourse with a mason or a blacksmith, or with any one compelled to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. In poverty they nursed their pride. The castes of Hindostan were hardly more distinct. It is easy to see how a community can become lifeless under such a state of society. The laboring men had gone away,—to the West, to Baltimore, or to localities where it is not a crime to work for a livelihood. In consequence, enterprise had died, property had depreciated, and the entire place had become poverty-stricken.
Nov., 1861.
On the succeeding Sunday I was in Washington, where a superintendent of one of the Sabbath schools was spending a portion of the hour in singing. Among other songs was Rev. S. F. Smith's national hymn,—
"My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty."
Among the persons present were three ladies, members of a family sympathizing with secession. With unmistakable signs of disgust, they at once left the house!
Not only at church, but in the army, the spirit of slavery was rampant. The Hutchinson family visited Washington. They solicited permission from the Secretary of War, Mr. Cameron, to visit the camps in Virginia and sing songs to the soldiers, to relieve the tedious monotony of camp life. Their request was granted, and their intentions cordially commended by the Secretary; and, being thus indorsed, received General McClellan's pass. Their songs have ever been of freedom. They were welcomed by the soldiers. But there were officers in the service who believed in slavery, who had been taught in Northern pulpits that it was a divinely appointed, beneficent institution of Almighty God. Information was given to General McClellan that the Hutchinsons were poisoning the minds of the troops by singing Abolition songs; and their career as free concert givers to the patriotic soldiers was suddenly ended by the following order from head-quarters:—