Historical Romance of the American Negro

by Charles Henry Fowler

General T. J. Morgan gives a long and brilliant account of his connection with several colored regiments in the Department of Cumberland. He is also very jokey, and furnished us with a great many amusing anecdotes, which he loves to relate. He gives us some very good sketches of the Battle of Nashville, Tennessee, which occupied two days, in the middle of December, 1864. A thaw had set in; the ice and cold had given way, and General George T. Thomas now took advantage of the opportunity that presented itself to compel the rebel General Hood to raise the siege of Nashville. It was decided that General Morgan and his colored regiments should begin the attack on the Union left as soon as they could see their way in the dawn of that December morning. After an early breakfast, Morgan and his men advanced upon the rebel right with unbounded enthusiasm, and struck it with all their might. Their attacks were simply irresistible, and although the Southerners fought with their accustomed stubbornness and bravery they had to give way. General Hood was under the impression that this attack upon his left was to be the grand attack of the day's battle, but it was a feint to draw off his men from his right, where General Thomas struck him with awful force, doubled him up, and forced the whole rebel army, right, left and centre, to retreat for the space of two miles. Thus the first day's battle (which the colored troops began) was a complete success along the whole line, although we lost many a brave man. General Hood made haste to fortify himself, and threw up intrenchments on his line of battle—in short, he did everything that a prudent general upon the defensive could do. But the white and colored troops followed up their success by attacking his forces with unwonted vigor and enthusiasm on the morning of the second day. The Southerners not being gods, nor made even of iron, now turned and fled. A general pursuit of the rebels at once began; colored and white alike pressed on like hounds behind the hares. We followed them all the way to Franklin, Tennessee, followed them day and night, and traversed hundreds of miles, with mud and rains. The roads were in a dreadful condition. Many of our brave men lost their shoes in the deep and sticky mud, but still kept on, though their feet were cold, and bled into the bargain. At night they would take down fence-rails and such like to make fires to keep themselves warm. General Hood fled away, and returned no more. The Confederacy was now beginning to shake in every limb of its body. The North determined to hold on. Thus our own 200,000 colored men contributed to the grand result. As the songs of the day said, "The colored troops fought bravely!"

COTTON PICKING.

About the 20th of April, 1864, after I had given the children their breakfast, and sent them to school, the letter-carrier came up the steps with another missive from my own dear Tom, and just as I had opened it to begin to read it, who came into the room but dear mother! So to work we went and read the letter together:

"NEW ORLEANS, April, 1864.

"Mrs. Beulah Lincoln,

"My Dear Beulah:—With great pleasure I sit down to answer all the delightful letters I have received from yourself and the girls. Your letters have been a very great joy to me indeed all the time I have been in the hospital. They have actually helped me to mend by keeping up my spirits! At least that is what the doctors and nurses say, who have read some of your letters, and they liked them so much. They were greatly delighted over your letters on your trip to Canada! If it had not been for my wound, my residence at this beautiful hospital in the Sunny South would have been almost as great a treat to me as the month you and the girls spent at Richmond Hill. Because here comes neither frost nor snow, and the sun is always bright and genial, and the flowers scent the air all the year round, and the winds come through the open windows just laden with their fragrance. But, thank God, I shall soon be well now, and then I will go back to the war if it is not all over by the time I receive my discharge from this good hospital. If the war is not over then, I will go back to the field; but, if it is all over, then I am likely to get my discharge from the army and come home. I have taken 'notes' of all the active operations in which I was engaged in the field up to the time I was wounded; and I think I will write and publish a book when I come home! All the events, let things be going as they may, I am sure that they are going ten times better now that our glorious Grant has got the chief command over all the armies in the field throughout the far-extended seat of war in the South. Before he took command even a child could see how our own Northern generals and colonels themselves wrangled, and were jealous of one another, and carried on. It always appeared to me that before Grant took command they wasted as much strength and national resources as the rebels themselves did! Too many cooks spoil the broth; and they also resembled a balky team of cross-grained mules pulling, kicking and flinging against one another! Indeed they had a great deal to learn, and that was how to agree. But Grant put them all to rights with a few shuffles of national 'cards.' He made all things work aright, and those who were too anxious to be bosses, he either set off on one side by themselves, or else sent them home about their business. In this respect the rebels had been far wiser than we were. They had, of course, their quarrels and disagreements also, but never to the same extent as ourselves. But Grant ended all that, and I observe that secession has been ailing very much ever since!

"It will be old news to you to speak in this letter about the late massacre of white and colored officers and soldiers at Fort Pillow, where General Forrest and his men murdered hundreds of our own brave fellows in cold blood. I understand that although that massacre occurred only a few days ago, so to speak, that the war-cry 'Remember Fort Pillow!' has already been made in quite a number of the most recent engagements between colored troops and rebels on the seat of war. The wholesale murder of our own men and officers at Fort Pillow is the entire conversation throughout the hospital, the city of New Orleans and the entire South. Surely that murder was winked at by the rebel government at Richmond. From the very first day when a rebel was shot dead by a former servant (?) all the rebels of the South together have been more faint at heart than if they had got the leprosy! There has been a constant attempt from the first to treat colored troops not as soldiers under the United States Government, but as perfect outlaws or even as wild animals themselves. A certain kind of shudder, a horror,—a something that no man can describe—seems to have taken possession of the rebel breast at the very idea of letting loose their former slaves against their masters! They think that this is awful indeed, and hold up their hands in holy horror. And this horror of theirs holds good not only with regard to the colored troops themselves, but it is even more bitter if possible when directed against the white officers who trained them in the art of war, and who led them on the battle-field. It is true that we have officers chosen from among ourselves, but then we are all one army, and we must go shares hand in hand with the rest in the general conflict.

"It was not only a great crime in General Forrest and his rebels murdering hundreds of Union men at Fort Pillow, but it was the greatest blunder they have yet committed as they will themselves find out at once. Instead of making over 200,000 men afraid of them, or deterring them from the battle entirely, we shall only go into battle ten times more eagerly than before, and do fighting ten times more valiant than ever. A shudder has already run over the entire North that will do more to unite the whole Union than if we had gained one of the greatest victories of war. The Southern policy from Jeff. Davis downwards is to ignore us completely as men, and to treat us as 'goods and chattels' still. Jeff. even issued a proclamation against Benjamin F. Butler, at New Orleans, treating him as an outlaw for organizing regiments of colored troops, or, in fact, for pressing their former slaves into the war in any shape and form. At the same time, they themselves have made use of their slaves to throw up breastworks, and to do all kinds of labor, almost from the hour when they themselves at first rebelled. Their theory is that they have a perfect right to use their slaves to fight against the Union, and we, who own the whole nation must not indeed even touch them with our little fingers! This will never do, because it is a game that two of us at least cannot play at.

"It will never be known until the great Day of Judgment what became of all the colored soldiers who fell into the hands of the rebels. It is true that the rebel authorities directed them to be handed over to the States to which they belonged to be dealt with by the civil laws of those States, but even this is a subject upon which I can obtain no information whatever. I can only say that their path is unknown, and they have never been seen alive after their capture. Of other things we are more certain. The Southern soldiers have been seen killing their colored prisoners on the battle-field,—killing them in hospitals, and in many ways awarding to them the treatment we would give to any wild animal that we shot at a hunt. From the very first the rebels at Richmond have refused to exchange colored prisoners like white prisoners of war. They have never even exchanged a single man! There is an old saying that those whom the gods intend to destroy, they first make mad, that is insane. We do not thank the rebel crew for attempting to treat us as outlaws and wild beasts, but we will do one thing for them for all this,—we will now assist in pulling down their Confederacy far faster than we have done before.