Both on the way down and on the retreat, we passed many fine farms or plantations. It was a new country to us, and no other Northern troops had passed through it. One consequence of this was that we were everywhere looked upon with wonder by the white inhabitants, and by the colored population as deliverers sent for their express benefit.
All along the line of march, both down and back, the overjoyed darkies flocked to us by hundreds, old and young, sick and well, men, women, and children. Whenever we came to a road or lane leading to a plantation, a crowd of darkies would be seen hurrying pell-mell down the lane toward us. And then they would take their places in the colored column that already tramped along the road in awe and wonderment beside "de sodjers." There were stout young darkies with bundles slung over their backs, old men hobbling along with canes, women in best bib and tucker with immense bundles on their heads, mothers with babes in their arms, and a barefooted brood trotting along at their heels; and now and then one would call out anxiously to some venturesome boy:
"Now, you Sam! Whar you goin' dar? You done gone git run ober by de sodjers yit, you will."
"Auntie, you've got a good many little folks to look after, haven't you?" some kindly soldier would say to one of the mothers.
"Ya-as, Cunnel, right smart o' chilluns I'se got yere; but I'se a-gwine up Norf, an' can't leabe enny on 'em behind, sah."
Fully persuaded that the year of jubilee had come at last, the poor things joined us, from every plantation along the road, many of them mayhap leaving good masters for bad, and comfortable homes for no homes at all. Occasionally, however, we met some who would not leave. I remember one old, gray-headed, stoop-shouldered uncle who stood leaning over a gate, looking wide-eyed at the blue-coats and the great exodus of his people.
"Come along, uncle," shouted one of the men. "Come along,—the year of jubilee is come!"
"No, sah. Dis yere chile's too ole. Reckon I better stay wid ole Mars'r."
When we halted at nightfall in a cotton-field, around us was gathered a great throng of colored people, houseless, homeless, well-nigh dead with fatigue, and with nothing to eat. Near where we pitched our tent, for instance, was a poor negro woman with six little children, of whom the oldest was apparently not more than eight or nine years of age. The whole forlorn family crouched shivering together in the rain and sleet. Andy and I thought, as we were driving in our tent-pins:
"That's pretty hard now, isn't it? Couldn't we somehow get a shelter and something to eat for the poor souls?"