On landing at Columbus I called on the general, and secured transportation from Cairo to places of destination. Now I thought all was straight; but as I handed my paper to the captain he said:
"This is an order for transportation. The captain-quartermaster is to fill it out, to be good for any thing."
I confessed my ignorance of army red-tape, and took back the papers to have them finished. He inquired for my pass from the provost-marshal. That, too, I knew nothing about; but the army captain came to my relief, taking my papers and getting the transportation filled, with a pass from the provost-marshal. These lessons I found important in all my after work.
We soon landed at Island No. 10, the area of which was two hundred and fifty acres of available plow land, with an excellent orchard of three hundred bearing apple and peach trees. Upon this island were seven hundred freedmen, who were making good use of the rich donations of twenty-five plows, with harrows, hoes, axes, rakes, and garden and field seeds, from Indiana and Ohio. Their superintendent, Chaplain Thomas, told me that he never saw a more willing and obedient people. They mostly lived in tents. Government had furnished lumber to erect a few temporary buildings. An old dilapidated farmhouse, and a few log-huts formerly occupied by the overseer and slaves, were the homes of Captain Gordon and Surgeon Ransom, with their families, who seemed to enjoy camp life as well as any I had seen. They had in charge four companies of soldiers. Their hospital assumed an air of neatness and comfort.
We took a stroll over the battle-ground, and saw the deep furrows plowed by the terrible shells, in which a horse might be buried. Here and there were interspersed "rebel rat-holes," as they were called, dug seven or eight feet deep, and nearly covered with planks and two or three feet of earth, in which they dropped themselves, after firing, to reload and be secure from flying shot and shell. I picked up a couple of cannon-balls about the size of a small tea-cup, of which a peck is used for a load. An officer told me that he saw twenty-five rebels killed with one discharge of these balls. O, what slaughter of human life!
Government provided a physician and dispensary for the freed people. Their hospital was a tent, like the majority of the regimental hospitals in the army. The first tent I visited was occupied by an aged pair, with two grown children, who appeared quite intelligent. Hard treatment and cruel separations had filled the greater portion of their lives. As I was making remarks on the wickedness of slavery, said the old man, with tearful eyes, "Please stop till I bring in my daughter and family from the next tent." They soon entered. "Please go on," said the father. While tears were coursing down the old man's furrowed cheeks, in undertone he ejaculated, "O Lord, I did not expect to live to see this day."
At the close of my remarks he arose to his feet, and in the most pathetic manner addressed his family as follows:
"My wife and children, have you thought we should ever see this? I fear we are not thankful enough to God. Do we prize this precious privilege as we ought? That dear wife was sold from me nearly twenty years ago; soon after my children were sold, and I thought my heart was broke. They punished me because I grieved so much, and then sold me to be taken another way. O, how I prayed for death to hide me from my troubles, for I thought none could see as much as I did. Many gloomy nights and days of sorrow I spent. I could hear no word from my wife, and nothing from my children. My master told me I should never hear from them again, because I made so much trouble over it; he would send me as far as wind and water would carry me, so I would never hear from them again. I remembered the words of my poor old father upon his death-bed, when he gave me this Bible: 'My son, the same God that made that Bible learned me to read it, and learned me to endure hard trials patiently. Remember, my son, the same God will do the same for you if you go to him for help;' and so he has. Praise be to the Lord forever!" He took from a box a Bible, all spotted over with mold, without and within: "This Bible has been manna to my soul for many years. God has learned me to read, as he did my poor father. He has been my support. I have prayed these many years for deliverance from bondage, and my faith told me it would come; but I didn't know it would come in my time. O, what a Savior is our Jesus! That dear wife was compelled to marry another man in these long years of separation. He was taken into the rebel army, and she came to the Union camp. A few days ago we met at Fort Pillow; and there we met our two long lost children; and here we found this daughter and family. O, how wonderful are God's ways! O, my wife, my children! let us live nearer that Almighty Deliverer than ever before, and praise his holy name forever." And the tall figure sat down, amid sobs and tears. The spirit of that family sermon I can never forget.
This noble man, Uncle Stephen, was but a few days before a slave; yet with the dignity of a patriarch he assumed his new relation. He was evidently a self-taught man, more intelligent, and using more correct language, than any I had met on the island.
On leaving my tent, tickets were given with explanations of my mission, which was both new and strange to them. In another tent I found a young man who had attempted to escape to our lines more than a year before, but was overtaken and shot by his master, shivering the bones six inches above the ankle, making amputation necessary. He was beginning to use his wooden leg. His master was taken prisoner by our men a few days before, and he, with one hundred fellow-slaves, fell into the hands of the Union army. He was fitted with a whole suit. This was done in but few instances, the general destitution forbidding it. It would have pleased the donors to see me with open boxes, taking out garment after garment, measuring and delivering, upon presentation of tickets previously given, to fifty or a hundred at a time; and to listen to the many thanks and hearty "God bless you!" as each garment was taken.