A hundred similar instances of partiality shown to the Rebels by the Ord and Patrick administration were related to me by eye-witnesses; coupled with accounts of insults and outrages heaped upon loyal men and Freedmen. Happily Ord and Patrick and their pro-slavery rule had passed away; but there were still complaints that it was not the true Union men who had the ear of the government, but those whose unionism had been put on as a matter of policy and convenience. This was no fault of General Terry, although he was blamed for it. When I told him what I had heard, he said warmly,—
“Why don’t these men come to me? They are the very men I wish to see.”
“The truth is, General, they were snubbed so often by your predecessors that they have not the heart to come.”
“But I have not snubbed them. I have not shown partiality to traitors. Everybody that knows me knows that I have no love for slavery or treason, and that every pulse of my heart throbs with sympathy for these men and the cause in which they have suffered.”
One evening I met by appointment, at the tent of the Union Commission, a number of the dauntless twenty-one, and accompanied them to a meeting of the Union League. It was a beautiful night, and as we walked by the rainy fountain, under the still trees, one remarked,—
“Many an evening, when there was as pretty a moon as this, I have wished that I might die and be out of my misery. That was when I was in prison for being loyal to my country.”
At the rooms of the League I was surrounded by these men, nearly every one of whom had been exiled or imprisoned for that cause. I witnessed the initiation of new-comers; but in the midst of the impressive solemnities I could not but reflect, “How faint a symbol is this of the real League to which the twenty-one were sworn in their hearts! To belong to this is now safe and easy enough; but to have been a true member of that, under the reign of terror,—how very different!”
CHAPTER XXIII.
MARKETS AND FARMING.
The negro population of Richmond gives to its streets a peculiarly picturesque and animated appearance. Colored faces predominate; but of these not more than one in five or six shows unmixed African blood; and you are reminded less of an American city than of some town of Southern Europe. More than once I could have fancied myself in Naples, but that I looked in vain for the crowds of importunate beggars, and the dark-skinned lazzaroni lying all day in the sunshine on the street corners. I saw no cases of mendicancy among the colored people of Richmond, and very little idleness. The people found at work everywhere belonged to the despised race; while the frequenters of bar-rooms, and loungers on tavern-steps, were white of skin. To get drunk, especially, appeared to be a prerogative of the chivalry.
The mules and curious vehicles one sees add to the picturesqueness of the streets. The market-carts are characteristically droll. A little way off you might fancy them dogcarts. Under their little ribbed canvas covers are carried little jags of such produce as the proprietor may have to sell,—a few cabbages, a few pecks of sweet potatoes, a pair of live chickens, tied together by the legs; a goose or a duck in a box, its head sticking out; with perhaps a few eggs and eggplants. These little carts, drawn by a mule or the poorest of ponies, have been driven perhaps a dozen or fifteen miles, bringing to market loads, a dozen of which would scarcely equal what a New-York farmer, or a New-England market-gardener often heaps upon a single wagon.