“Why? George!” said one of our party.
“Kase my mother’s dar, and she’ll be free when de Linkum sogers gits Memphis.”
“George,” said I, “what do you know about freedom?”
“Why, Lor’ massa, I know’d if you’d whip ’em up dar, us colored folks ’ud all be free, an’ dat’s what makes dem rebels fight like de debel. God bless you massa, I knows why. When de war broke out, I was livin’ up in old Kentuck, and dey say now we’se got to take dis here nigger off, or else de Yankees will hab him. I hoped and prayed dat de Yankees would git me. God bless you, massa, I knows.”
From this time I began to be more than ever interested in the negroes. I discovered a latent talent in the despised race. I resolved to investigate this new field of inquiry. The older one of these waiters and myself, had afterward many a friendly interview. He told me that he had been reared in New Orleans. His father was a white man, who often comforted his innocent victim, by saying that her offspring should be sent North to freedom. But when hostilities began, he entered the army, forgetful alike of his promises and his crimes. This outraged woman was afterward hired to a planter, to work in a cotton-field, while her son was sent to Columbus, as a hotel waiter. Such, thought I, are some of the barbarities of this horrid system of enslavement.
About this time a Colonel was appointed as commandant of this post, vice ex-Governor Whitefield. Our boarding and location were now changed, and we were placed in a back room and fed on scanty rations of corn-bread minus salt, and an indifferent supply of tainted meat, which emitted a very disagreeable effluvia.
While in this condition, and lying on the bare floor, a citizen entered and informed us that his brother-in-law was then a prisoner in Columbus, Ohio. He said he had been taken at Fort Donelson, and that his wife had that day received a letter from him, and that he was walking the streets of Columbus, carrying his side-arms, and boarding at the American House!
This statement aroused my indignation. I never before felt so keenly my condition, and when he attributed the lenity of our government to cowardice and a disposition to admit the superiority of southern claims and dignity, and stigmatized us as “invaders” of their soil and suffering justly as such, I could not restrain the fiery wrath that burned within me. I have a faint recollection of seeing the man hurrying in greedy haste from the prison, doubtless impelled by the fear of something to come.
Again we were indebted to the kind services of our ever-faithful and unwavering friends of the race despised. One, who flourished under the sobriquet of “Tom,” rendered us efficient aid. Our object was to escape from the prison, and for this purpose Tom brought us a rope and chisel. With the chisel, I cut a hole through the prison floor, but after laboring faithfully for some time, I discovered that the room below was filled to the ceiling with boxes and bales containing commissary stores. I had arranged with Tom, who had brought me a desiderated map of Mississippi and Tennessee, to leave that night, he occupying a station on the outside, ready to aid me if necessary, and supplied with sufficient provisions for my contemplated flight.