Not even when his wife was very sick and dying could he be persuaded to go off and stay one night with her. He had long been too old to work, but his former owners indulged him by giving him his cabin, and taking care of him through all the poverty which has fallen upon our land since the war.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
O, bright winged peace! Long did’st thou rest o’er the homes of old Virginia; while cheerful wood fires blazed on hearthstones in parlor and cabin, reflecting contented faces with hearts full of “peace and good will towards men!” No thought entered there of harm to others; no fear of evil to ourselves. Whatsoever things were honest; whatsoever things were pure; whatsoever things were gentle; whatsoever things were of good report, we were accustomed to hear ’round these parlor firesides; and often would our grandmothers say:
“Children our’s is a blessed country! There never will be another war! The Indians have long ago been driven out, and it has been nearly a hundred years since the English yoke was broken!”
The history of our country was contained in two pictures: “The last battle with the Indians” and “The surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown.”
No enemies within or without our borders, and peace established among us forever! Such was our belief. And we wondered that men should get together and talk their dry politics, seeing that General Washington and Thomas Jefferson—two of our Virginia plantation men—had established a government to last as long as the earth, and which could not be improved. Yet they would talk—these politicians—around our parlor fire, where often our patience was exhausted hearing discussions, in which we could not take interest, about the “Protective Tariff;” the “Bankrupt Law;” the “Distribution of Public Lands;” the “Resolutions of ’98;” the “Missouri Compromise,” and the “Monroe Doctrine.” These topics seemed to afford them intense pleasure and satisfaction, for as the “sparks fly upward” the thoughts of men turn to politics.
Feeling no ill will towards any tribe, people or nation on the globe, and believing that all felt a friendly regard for us, how could we believe, when we heard it, that a nation not far off—to whom we had yearly “carried up” a tithe of all we possessed, and whose coffers we helped to fill—were subscribing large sums of money to destroy us? We could not, would not believe it. Yet we were told that this nation—towards whom we felt no animosity—brought up their children to believe that they would do God service by reviling and persecuting us. Nay more—that their ministers of the gospel preached unto them thus:
“Thou shalt carry fire and sword into the land that lieth South of you. Thou shalt make it a desolate waste. Thou shalt utterly root out and annihilate the people that they be no more a people. Thou shalt write books. Thou shalt form societies for the purpose of planning the best means of attacking secretly and destroying this people. Thou shalt send emissaries. Thou shalt stir up the nations abroad against them. Thou shalt prepare weapons of war, and in every way incite their negroes to rise at night and slay them.”