As for the homesick soldiers in their distant camps, certainly the approach of the time for the giving of thanks was not specially welcomed, for they did not know what a day might bring forth of new horror and disaster. They, too, together with statesmen and citizens everywhere, were beginning to realize distinctly that the war was no little quarrel to be lightly settled, but a fierce interlocking of stubborn wills. That it was the wills of brothers thus conflicting added to the poignancy of their grief.
Under circumstances so depressing as these, what could the governors of states think of to say in their Thanksgiving Day proclamations? Yet in the midst of the national dismay they had the courage and faith to send out their appeals. They called upon the people to come away and praise God even in the midst of the gloom. They found heart to be glad for something. The war, for instance, had not been followed by pestilence—that they could say; they begged the people to reflect that these national chastisements might possibly be blessings in disguise; they besought them not to think of the vacant chairs and the silent voices by the home firesides, but instead to remember that strength was being given to endure; they pointed out that if the people would give thanks in the right spirit, it would be for the exalted patriotism, the heroic courage, the fortitude and humanity, of the soldiers. “Let the high praises of God be in our mouth,” they quoted, “and—the two-edged sword in our hand!”
In the Stone Cabin at Andover there was one in whose heart the whole terrible drama was being enacted as if it were an oppressive and unbearable nightmare. “It is our agony,” she said. “We tread the wine press alone. We are in the throes and ravings of the exorcism.” The heart of Mrs. Stowe had been broken by the loss of her eldest son by the accident of drowning. Now she was called upon to make another supreme sacrifice in giving up a son to the service of her country. Could she rejoice and give thanks?
With a sad patience she accepted an invitation to come to Washington and join in helping people even more stricken than herself to a little Thanksgiving cheer. The response in the capital city to the appeal for Thanksgiving testimonials had been as generous as the limited and disastrous circumstances would allow. For the city itself was at this time one great hospital of wounded soldiers; the churches and public buildings were all filled with the maimed, the sick and the suffering, who had been brought there after the battles of the summer and fall. Not every one, however, was in hospital and those that were well made the sufferers have a happy day. There were banquets for the convalescents, and banquets for the men in temporary hospitals in the Patent Office, the Church of the Ascension, the Armory, the Marine Barracks and elsewhere.
The regiments of Union soldiers were not the only special guests of the season that were gathered in large numbers in and near the city. Many hundreds of negroes who had heard the call of freedom on the plantations of the south and had managed to escape from their masters and to make their way through the military cordons had come to the city as to a harbor of refuge. When the last Thursday in November drew near good friends planned to give to those desolate people a homelike Thanksgiving dinner that would gladden their hearts and give them a foretaste of what freedom was to mean to them. Encouraging speeches were to be made and distinguished people from various parts of the country were invited to come. It was to this sorrowful-happy banquet that Mrs. Stowe had been asked, and she was the more willing to make the journey, since she hoped to have an opportunity to see her son, Frederick, who was staying near the city with his regiment, the First Massachusetts Infantry. She had also another great purpose in coming, as will soon appear.
The Contraband Dinner, as the dinner of the freed men was called, was held on November 27, 1862, in the church that had been used as a hospital and place of rendezvous for the freedmen’s camp at the end of Twelfth Street East. As Mrs. Stowe entered the room she saw that a great deal of affectionate pains had been spent in decorating it for the occasion. Garlands of evergreen had been hung all about, and wreaths encircled the portraits of great people who had been working for the cause of the down-trodden. Back of the platform were the picture of the President with the mottoes, “God bless Abraham Lincoln,” and “Liberty to the Captive.” Upon the walls were arranged the portraits of various sympathizers and philanthropists: Senator Pomeroy and Professor Stowe, Horace Greeley and General Wadsworth were in one group, and the professors from Oberlin—Finney, Morgan, Dascomb and Coles, with Thomas Clarkson and Horace Mann were in another circle. Another group, whose connection will perhaps be a puzzle, contained Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Queen Hortense, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles V, General Cavaignac and General Havelock. Elsewhere on the walls were also Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, John Bunyon, John Knox, Hugh Miller, Peter Melanchthon, Mozart and Haydn. Under this array of inspiring portraits tables with a comfortable supply of good things to eat were spread for some hundreds of guests.
Mrs. Stowe was accompanied by a daughter and by her little son, Charles Edward. To greet them at the foot of the platform stood the Rev. John Pierpont with Bishop Payne, Senator Pomeroy, Dr. Channing and other celebrities. Mrs. Stowe’s thoughts, however, were more with the wonderful audience that was beginning to gather than with the speakers who were to make the addresses. It was a marvelous sight that greeted her eyes as she took her seat and looked out over the white expanse of the tables that filled the audience room of the church. Already the long procession of strange guests was filing in; from the platform they looked like rivers of inky blackness flowing through the aisles and around the table. To the eyes of Mrs. Stowe it was a tragic scene, for she knew that these poor people had made their escape with untold sufferings. She saw that many were still in the tattered garments they had worn as they crept through the swamp; some had no jacket or coat at all but only a hempen sack with holes cut through for head and arms. But the look in their eyes was something wonderful to see!
The guests took their places at the tables which were loaded with meat, cake and fruits. One table also held a great pyramidal cake with an inscription that read, “To the Contrabands, from the Contraband Relief Association,” and the banquet began. At the beginning prayer was offered by Bishop Payne and then the contrabands were invited to fall in, and the food began to disappear rapidly. When one tableful had been well supplied the Superintendent said, “Men, you who have been eating, take something in your hands and give place to others. There,” he added, “don’t take the plates!” At this point the disappearance of drumsticks, et cetera, was marvelous to behold.
After some two thousand contrabands had been fed the company on the platform adjourned to an improvised speakers’ stand where the addresses were made. Dr. Channing presided and Senator Pomeroy repeated once more to these poor freedmen the heavenly news that they had a good right to be where they were, and that universal freedom was at hand. This was a story that they could not hear told too often; it made every swarthy face in the room glow with broad delight and every voice break forth into shouts of joy. No wonder that from every throat burst that one great song, that psalm of their modern exodus, “Go Down, Moses.”
When Israel was in Egypt Land—