A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland

by Laura S. Haviland

This he uttered with a change from a flushed to a blanched countenance. We afterwards learned he was a captain of a guerrilla band, and had been sentenced to be shot, but the sentence had been commuted. A Union man who was a citizen here knew him, and said he ordered a Union man out of his buggy, and shot him dead; then he bayoneted him through and through, in the presence of his wife and child; then ordered them out, took the horse and buggy, and left the distracted wife and child to wait by the mangled body, until a passer by hastened to the city and sent a hearse for the body. On the way to town for burial, the same band of guerrillas captured the team and hearse, and left again the distressed mother and child to get the mutilated body of the husband and father taken to burial as best they could. "Such horrible deeds," said a Union man of this city, "will continue until government takes a more decided policy."

On Sunday morning, April 24th, we attended the sunrise prayer-meeting among the colored people, and more earnest prayers I never heard for Union soldiers: never heard more earnest pleading for the triumph of liberty. God was truly overshadowing his own. Before the rising of the sun, there was a large congregation. At nine o'clock we were invited to make some opening remarks in brother Tucker's Sabbath-school of three hundred children. Then we were conducted to another Sabbath-school, where we were invited to make a few closing remarks. At 11 o'clock we attended a meeting led by Chaplain Berge. On returning to our boarding-place, we were called upon by brother Merrifield, who accompanied us into the fort to address the colored troops. Sister Backus referred to the importance of making themselves intelligent, so that when their rights were established as citizens, they would be prepared to vote understandingly. This brought smiles from the officers, and frowns from a few of the white soldiers. We also attended a meeting conducted by the chaplain of the general hospital, who preached a very appropriate sermon for officers as well as soldiers. He warned against the truckling, time-serving, and cotton-speculating manifestations in this war, and also the influence of Southern women in sympathy with the rebellion.

This was the sixth religious service we attended during the day, in four of which we had taken an active part. We retired to rest until the 6:30 o'clock meeting at the Methodist Episcopal Church, now turned over to Chaplain Brakeman, who was called away the previous day. He had left an urgent request for me to address the soldiers on Sabbath evening; but I told the chaplain who brought the word we could make no further engagements, as we were waiting hourly for a boat going up the river. Before six, a steamer stopped, and we took passage for Natchez, as we had business to see to concerning an orphan asylum. One of the chaplains said if we could realize the good it was doing the soldiers, we would visit them oftener; that there were more conversions during the week after we left than in many months previously. An exhortation from a mother reminded the soldiers of home and home influences.

We had a conversation with a colored captain, who had just resigned on account of the constant indignities heaped upon the colored troops. He was a man of wealth and intelligence, and gave us an account of a review by General Sherman, after General Butler left. When General Sherman came to him, he stopped to look at the bars on his shoulders, and gruffly asked, "Are you a captain?" "Yes, sir," was the reply. "O, you are too black for a captain," said the general. At Fort Hudson, when our troops were retreating under a galling fire, a colored captain, with his men, at the risk of his life, ran to bring out General Sherman, who was badly wounded, and would have died but for the daring feat of the colored soldiers. The colored captain lost his life, but General Sherman was rescued. Since then he has spoken highly of colored soldiers, and of the brave captains that led them. My informant said that after General Banks assumed command they hoped for better treatment, but their hopes were vain. As the men in December and January were in want of shoes and clothing, he told General Banks that they were not in a suitable condition to work on the fortifications where the detachment was ordered, but no attention was paid to him. He inquired why his men could not be supplied the same as the white soldiers. The reply he received was, "Don't you know you are niggers, and must not expect the same treatment?" "From that moment," he said, "I resolved to resign; but after waiting a little, and seeing no better prospects, I did so, and shall not resume arms until we can be treated as men."

In New Orleans two regiments of free colored men were raised in forty-eight hours. They were officered by men of their color in grades as high as major by General Butler, who said they were as good officers as he held under him. We arrived in Natchez on the 26th, where we met rejoicing friends. We found a number of the missionaries sick, among them sister Burlingame.

The day following we spent chiefly in writing, and distributing Testaments and tracts among soldiers. In the evening we attended a protracted meeting, conducted by two sisters. They acquitted themselves nobly, and had three conversions. They exhorted earnestly and prayed fervently. They invited us to take part with them. One of the ministers told me they had worked in this meeting until they were tired out, and then gave it over to these mothers in the Church, whose labors the Lord was blessing in the conversion of precious souls.

We made an effort to secure a house for an orphan asylum.

Rebel sympathizers were making trouble all along the line of our work. They tried every plan that could be devised to drive the refugees back to their old plantations. An infamous "health order" was issued, compelling every colored person, not employed by responsible parties in the city or suburbs, to go into the "corral," or colored camp. Many were employed by colored citizens, who were doing all they could to find work for them. But on the day this order took effect soldiers were sent to hunt them out of all such places, as no colored party was deemed responsible; and all who were not actual members of these colored families were driven out at the point of Union bayonets.

They gathered two hundred and fifty, mostly women and children, and drove them through the streets of Natchez on a chilly, rainy day, and marched them into the camp of four thousand in condemned tents. One of the colored citizens told me that she was paying her woman wages, and allowing her to have her three children with her, but the soldiers drove her out into the rain. Men and women tantalized them as they were marching through the streets, saying: "That's the way the Yankees treat you, is it? You'd better come back to us; we never treated you like that." Many of the women went into camp crying. Said an old colored man: "Never min', thar's a better day a comin'. 'Twould be strange if Uncle Sam hadn't a few naughty boys." He was one of the group that was driven in.

We heard, April 30th, that there was a skirmish near our lines the evening before. A party of scouts had shot into the pickets, and they retreated; but we did not learn whether any were killed. News came to us of Calvin Fairbanks's release from the Kentucky penitentiary. We trusted that the same Deliverer would open the prison-door for the three thousand soldiers on the two islands in the Gulf.