When Dick married Hetty, the Anderson house was next door. The two families agreed to sell either Dick or Hetty, whichever consented to be sold. Hetty refused outright, and the Andersons sold Dick that he might be with his wife. This was magnanimous on the Andersons’ part, for Hetty was only a lady’s-maid and Dick was a trained butler, on whom Mrs. Anderson had spent no end of pains in his dining-room education, and, of course, if they had refused to sell Dick, Hetty would have had to go to them. Mrs. Anderson was very much disgusted with Dick’s ingratitude when she found he was willing to leave them. As a butler he is a treasure; he is overwhelmed with dignity, but that does not interfere with his work at all.
My father had a body-servant, Simon, who could imitate his master’s voice perfectly. He would sometimes call out from the yard after my father had mounted his horse: “Dick, bring me my overcoat. I see you there, sir, hurry up.” When Dick hastened out, overcoat in hand, and only Simon was visible, after several obsequious “Yes, marster; just as marster pleases,” my mother had always to step out and prevent a fight. Dick never forgave her laughing.
Once in Sumter, when my father was very busy preparing a law case, the mob in the street annoyed him, and he grumbled about it as Simon was making up his fire. Suddenly he heard, as it were, himself speaking, “the Hon. S. D. Miller—Lawyer Miller,” as the colored gentleman announced himself in the dark—appeal to the gentlemen outside to go away and leave a lawyer in peace to prepare his case for the next day. My father said he could have sworn the sound was that of his own voice. The crowd dispersed, but some noisy negroes came along, and upon them Simon rushed with the sulky whip, slashing around in the dark, calling himself “Lawyer Miller,” who was determined to have peace.
Simon returned, complaining that “them niggers run so he never got in a hundred yards of one of them.”
At Portland, we met a man who said: “Is it not strange that in this poor, devoted land of ours, there are some men who are making money by blockade-running, cheating our embarrassed government, and skulking the fight?”
Montgomery, July 30th.—Coming on here from Portland there was no stateroom for me. My mother alone had one. My aunt and I sat nodding in armchairs, for the floors and sofas were covered with sleepers, too. On the floor that night, so hot that even a little covering of clothes could not be borne, lay a motley crew. Black, white, and yellow disported themselves in promiscuous array. Children and their nurses, bared to the view, were wrapped in the profoundest slumber. No caste prejudices were here. Neither Garrison, John Brown, nor Gerrit Smith ever dreamed of equality more untrammeled. A crow-black, enormously fat negro man waddled in every now and then to look after the lamps. The atmosphere of that cabin was stifling, and the sight of those figures on the floor did not make it more tolerable. So we soon escaped and sat out near the guards.
The next day was the very hottest I have ever known. One supreme consolation was the watermelons, the very finest, and the ice. A very handsome woman, whom I did not know, rehearsed all our disasters in the field. And then, as if she held me responsible, she faced me furiously, “And where are our big men?” “Whom do you mean?” “I mean our leaders, the men we have a right to look to to save us. They got us into this scrape. Let them get us out of it. Where are our big men?” I sympathized with her and understood her, but I answered lightly, “I do not know the exact size you want them.”
Here in Montgomery, we have been so hospitably received. Ye gods! how those women talked! and all at the same time! They put me under the care of General Dick Taylor’s brother-in-law, a Mr. Gordon, who married one of the Beranges. A very pleasant arrangement it was for me. He was kind and attentive and vastly agreeable with his New Orleans anecdotes. On the first of last January all his servants left him but four. To these faithful few he gave free papers at once, that they might lose naught by loyalty should the Confederates come into authority once more. He paid high wages and things worked smoothly for some weeks. One day his wife saw some Yankee officers’ cards on a table, and said to her maid, “I did not know any of these people had called?”
“Oh, Missis!” the maid replied, “they come to see me, and I have been waiting to tell you. It is too hard! I can not do it! I can not dance with those nice gentlemen at night at our Union Balls and then come here and be your servant the next day. I can’t!” “So,” said Mr. Gordon, “freedom must be followed by fraternity and equality.” One by one the faithful few slipped away and the family were left to their own devices. Why not?
When General Dick Taylor’s place was sacked his negroes moved down to Algiers, a village near New Orleans. An old woman came to Mr. Gordon to say that these negroes wanted him to get word to “Mars Dick” that they were dying of disease and starvation; thirty had died that day. Dick Taylor’s help being out of the question, Mr. Gordon applied to a Federal officer. He found this one not a philanthropist, but a cynic, who said: “All right; it is working out as I expected. Improve negroes and Indians off the continent. Their strong men we put in the army. The rest will disappear.”