Angry looks and threats of violence on the part of the whites were recalled and anxiously discussed by the colored people, as were also the recent and frequently expressed determination to “carry the next election for the Democratic Party, if even through blood waist deep,” though the colored voters were largely in the majority, and almost without exception, if unintimidated, voted the Republican ticket.
These, with the oft-repeated boast that the illegal Rifle Clubs, trained cavalry companies, were ready to co-operate for the suppression and utter dispersion of this colored company of State militia, with the fact that similar acts of violence were by no means new experiences to the ex-slaves in the South, but were even then being perpetrated in the surrounding country, made the outlook for the colored population gloomy, indeed.
On the other hand, the officers of the town, with the single exception of our friend Marmor, were all of the colored race, and as he was a Republican native, he was even more repugnant to his white neighbors than a “nigger.”
On the other hand, during the two months preceding this encounter, these militia-men were known to have been drilling as often as once or twice a week, though the law required such practice but once a month. This alarmed the whites, with whom anticipations of “insurrections” are still either congenital or feigned.
In the days of slavery, and also by the South Carolina “Black Code” (the only exclusively white legislation in the State since reconstruction), arms were strictly forbidden to the negroes, and under heavy penalties; yet, through the subsequent Republican legislation, they rejoiced in being the “National Guards,” bearing the same flag which Sherman “carried down to the sea,” and under which Captain Doc learned tactics and heroism in the “Black Regiment,” which once swept over Fort Fisher, and closed the last port of the rebellious States.
What signified it to those conscience-accused whites that these were poor men maneuvering by the light of the moon to save the expense of lighting their drill room; and, unable to spare time from their toil, they took it from the hours of their rest, to prepare for a creditable performance on the Nation’s Centennial birthday? So much the worse. The Fourth of July was the birthday of the “national nonsense” that “all men are created equal;” and it was not the fault or credit of these white men that there was left a nation to celebrate its Centennial.
Now that the sole militia of the State was enrolled from this emancipated race (white men would not enlist under charters, because unassured that they should not be subordinated to colored officers, and they might be required to sustain a State government of the colored majority), how should one expect the former masters to be content and at ease, even though no concerted outbreak had ever occurred among the freedmen, whose temper is naturally peaceable and timid even to servility?
Undoubtedly, the fears of those once reputed hard masters, or who still find it difficult to conform to the new conditions, are often distressing. They are also nature’s incontrovertible testimony to the wisdom and divine origin of equal rights.
Great was the excitement of the Baker families when the young men arrived with the tale of their “narrow escape from the militia men.”
Early the next morning, the old slave-hunter and his three sons set out for the office of Trial Justice Rives, who, though a colored man, it was thought could be more easily induced to meet out punishment to those miserable offenders, than Louis Marmor, who was the only other competent magistrate in the town.