“The South never was exhausted of men, sir; there were plenty of them everywhere. Disaffection, weariness, indisposition to the long strain of an effort that took more than four years to accomplish its purpose; that was what broke down the Confederacy. There were plenty of men all the time, but they dodged the conscripting officer, or deserted at the first chance they got. Of course, our losses by death and disabling wounds have been terribly great; but the race of arms-bearing men in South Carolina is not extinct.”[[14]]
On the afternoon of our last day’s stay in Charleston, a meeting, in one of the negro churches, afforded me the first opportunity of the trip to see large masses of negroes together. It was called a week or two ago by General Saxton, who stands in the light of a patron saint to all these people; but it was doubtless swelled by the hope that Chief Justice Chase, whom General Saxton had earnestly invited, might consent to be present. He had emphatically refused, the evening before, and had forbidden any announcement of his name; but had finally said that, if he could go unheralded, he would like to see the negroes together.
The church is of the largest size, and belongs exclusively to the negroes, who have their own negro pastor, occupy pews in the body of the building, and send the poor people to the galleries, very much after the fashion of their white brethren. The pavement in front was crowded, and the steps were almost impassable. A white-wooled old deacon saw my difficulty in forcing my way up the steaming aisle, and, crowding the negroes and negresses aside with little ceremony, led me to a seat almost under the pulpit, where I found, perhaps, a dozen whites, all told. Among them was Colonel Beecher—a brother of Henry Ward Beecher—and at the table sat the inevitable reporter. If the people of Timbuctoo were to have a great meeting to consider the subject of their rights, and were to give a week’s notice of it, I believe some gentleman with a pocket full of sharpened lead pencils, and a phonographic red-ruled note-book under his arm, would come walking up at the last moment and announce himself as the special reporter for some enterprising American journal.
A Major-General, in full uniform, occupied the desk and was addressing the crammed audience of negroes in a plain, nervous, forcible manner. It was an odd sight, but General Saxton certainly adorns the pulpit. Ladies would call him a handsome man; and his black hair and luxurious English whiskers and mustache would be their especial admiration. He looks—to judge of his intellect by his face and head—narrow, but intense; not very profound in seeing the right, but energetic in doing it when seen; given to practice, rather than theory; and, withal, good and true. He is the first regular army officer who was found willing to undertake this work of caring for and superintending the freedmen; and he has done it faithfully, under all manner of slights and obloquy from brother officers, who thought his work unworthy of West Point. And yet he undertook it, not from any special love of the negro, but because he was ordered. “I would have preferred being in the field,” he said simply, last night, “but I was ordered to do this thing, and I have tried to do it faithfully, till the Government gave me something else to do. I was educated in its school and for its service, and I thought it my business to do whatever it required.” The Government has rarely been so fortunate in selecting its agents for tasks that required peculiar adaptability.
The audience was a study. Near the pulpit sat a coal-black negro, in the full uniform of a Major of the army, with an enormous regulation hat—be sure there was no lack of flowing plume, or gilt cord and knots—disposed on the table beside him. At every emphatic sentence in the General’s speech he shouted, “Hear, hear,” and clapped his hands, with the unction and gravity of an old parliamentarian. Near him were two others in uniform, one a mulatto, the other scarcely more than a quadroon, and both with very intelligent faces, and very modest and graceful in their bearing. One was a First Lieutenant, the other a Major.
Around them was a group of certainly the blackest faces, with the flattest noses and the wooliest heads, I ever saw—the mouths now and then broadening into a grin or breaking out into that low, oily, chuckling gobble of a laugh which no white man can ever imitate. Beyond them ranged all colors and apparently all conditions. Some, black and stalwart, were dressed like quiet farm laborers, and had probably come in from the country, or had been field hands before the war. Others, lighter in color and slighter in build, were dressed in broadcloth, with flashy scarfs and gaudy pins, containing paste, or Cape May diamonds. Others looked like the more intelligent class of city laborers; and there were a few old patriarchs who might recollect the days of Denmark Vesey. On the other side of the church was a motley, but brilliant army of bright-colored turbans, wound around wooly heads, and tawdry bandanas, and hats of all the shapes that have prevailed within the memory of this generation, and bonnets of last year’s styles, with absolutely a few of the coquettish little triangular bits of lace and flowers which the New York milliners have this year decreed. Some of them wore kid gloves, all were gaudily dressed, and, a few, barring the questionable complexion, had the air and bearing of ladies.
They were all enthusiastic, the women even more than the men. Some of the ancient negresses sat swaying to and fro, with an air of happy resignation, only broken now and then by an emphatic nod of the head, and an exclamation, “Dat’s true, for shore.” The younger ones laughed and giggled, and when the great cheers went up, clapped with all their might, and looked across to see how the young men were doing, and whether their enthusiasm was observed. Ah, well! Who is there who doesn’t want to know whether his world, be it a big one or a little one, is noticing him?
But the noteworthy point in all this enthusiasm was, that it was intelligent. Bulwer makes Richelieu relent toward a young man who applauded his play at the proper places. General Saxton had equal occasion to be gratified with his auditors. On taking his seat, he was followed by the gorgeous Major (who turned out to be the same negro about whom Lord Brougham raised that beautiful little diplomatic muddle with United States Minister Dallas, at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in London). The Major was not happy in his remarks, and elicited very little applause, till, suddenly, he was astounded by a thundering burst of it. He began acknowledging the compliment, but the tumult burst out louder than ever; and the orator finally discovered that it was not for him, but for Major-General Gillmore, commanding the department, who was advancing up the aisle, escorting Chief Justice Chase.
Presently General Saxton introduced the Chief Justice, and the whole audience rose and burst out into cheer after cheer, that continued unintermittedly till we had counted at least nine, and possibly one or two more. The negroes may be very ignorant, but it is quite evident that they know, or think they know, who their friends are. The little “talk” that followed was like its author, simple, straightforward and weighty, till, at the close, it rose into a strain of unaffected eloquence that almost carried the excitable audience off their feet. “’Tisn’t only what he says,” whispered an enthusiastic negro behind me to his neighbor, “but it’s de man what says it. He don’t talk for nuffin, and his words hab weight.”[[15]]