After reciting the recollections of his youth, his father’s active interest concerning, and his own sympathy for, the “Underground railroad”, and his efforts to educate himself, Thomas asserts that at the outbreak of hostilities he tendered his services in 1861 to the Government, but was refused admission to the army on account of color. In a civil capacity, however, he entered the 42d. Ohio Infantry Regiment, and—
“was in the Big Sandy campaign with General Garfield, and during the summer of 1863, with the Union forces at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee.”
In the fall of that year he joined the 95th. regiment, with which he remained, until the capture of Vicksburg, when, returning to Ohio, he enlisted in the 5th United States colored troops, and was appointed sergeant, and after service in the Department of the James, was in the assault on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, and lost an arm in the capture of the city of Wilmington.
Going South to teach, he took up his residence first in Georgia, later in Newberry, South Carolina, in 1873, and was appointed a trial justice. In 1876 he was elected a member of the legislature, and after the fall of the radical governments of the South, “gave up the practice of law and withdrew from active participation in politics” to devote his attention to the educational advancement of the freedmen, in pursuit of which, he “visited every Southern State and community.”[267]
Certainly such a one would seem admirably equipped for the task of discussing most interestingly and instructively the Negro question, as a perusal of his book clearly indicates. Why then, is the book not more popular in the North, where is to be found the great reading public of the United States?
Despite the advanced civilization of that section, its enlightenment, and its assimilation of British ideals, with the growth of the material prosperity of its people, there has grown a belief that money, if given with sufficient liberality, can cure any trouble. This is more than hinted at in “The Souls of Black Folk.”[268] How then can it be other than extremely distasteful to those, so conscious of their great generosity, to read in place of the encomiums with which the assisted writings of Washington abound, the following audacious criticism:
“Our Northern philanthropists, with no trustworthy knowledge of the conditions of the freedmen, have neither sought nor acquired capable insight into the needs and wants of Negro life. Having been influenced by the special pleading of interested advocates, and their own imperious convictions, it is consequently small wonder that they have hitherto failed to deal with the problem in the most satisfactory manner.”[269]
It is true that in considering:
“The two antagonistic forces which germinated at about the same period in the Western world at Jamestown and Plymouth,”
Thomas thinks the product, as well as the seed, of the latter is far superior; but, to the residents of that portion of our common country, that has long been axiomatic and does not wipe away the offense of making admissions with regard to the moral qualities of his fellow Negroes, which have been widely taken up and quoted by anti-Negro writers.