Reminiscences of my life in camp with the 33d United States colored troops, late 1st S.C. Volunteers

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Title: Reminiscences of my life in camp with the 33d United States colored troops, late 1st S.C. Volunteers
Author: Taylor, Susie King
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Reminiscences of my life in camp with the 33d United States colored troops, late 1st S.C. Volunteers" ***

[Illustration: _Susie King Taylor._]

REMINISCENCES OF
MY LIFE IN CAMP

WITH THE 33D UNITED STATES
COLORED TROOPS LATE 1ST
S. C. VOLUNTEERS

BY
SUSIE KING TAYLOR

_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_

[Illustration]

BOSTON
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR
1902

To
COLONEL T. W. HIGGINSON
THESE PAGES
ARE GRATEFULLY DEDICATED

PREFACE

I have been asked many times by my friends, and also by members of the
Grand Army of the Republic and Women’s Relief Corps, to write a book of
my army life, during the war of 1861-65, with the regiment of the 1st
South Carolina Colored Troops, later called 33d United States Colored
Infantry.

At first I did not think I would, but as the years rolled on and my
friends were still urging me to start with it, I wrote to Colonel C. T.
Trowbridge (who had command of this regiment), asking his opinion and
advice on the matter. His answer to me was, “Go ahead! write it; that
is just what I should do, were I in your place, and I will give you all
the assistance you may need, whenever you require it.” This inspired me
very much.

In 1900 I received a letter from a gentleman, sent from the Executive
Mansion at St. Paul, Minn., saying Colonel Trowbridge had told him I
was about to write a book, and when it was published he wanted one
of the first copies. This, coming from a total stranger, gave me more
confidence, so I now present these reminiscences to you, hoping they
may prove of some interest, and show how much service and good we can
do to each other, and what sacrifices we can make for our liberty and
rights, and that there were “loyal women,” as well as men, in those
days, who did not fear shell or shot, who cared for the sick and dying;
women who camped and fared as the boys did, and who are still caring
for the comrades in their declining years.

So, with the hope that the following pages will accomplish some good
and instruction for its readers, I shall proceed with my narrative.

SUSIE KING TAYLOR.

BOSTON, 1902.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION BY COL. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON xi

LETTER FROM LIEUT.-COL. C. T. TROWBRIDGE xiii

I. A BRIEF SKETCH OF MY ANCESTORS 1

II. MY CHILDHOOD 5

III. ON ST. SIMON’S ISLAND, 1862 11

IV. CAMP SAXTON--PROCLAMATION AND BARBECUE. 1863 18

V. MILITARY EXPEDITIONS, AND LIFE IN CAMP 22

VI. ON MORRIS AND OTHER ISLANDS 31

VII. CAST AWAY 37

VIII. A FLAG OF TRUCE 40

IX. CAPTURE OF CHARLESTON 42

X. MUSTERED OUT 45

XI. AFTER THE WAR 53

XII. THE WOMEN’S RELIEF CORPS 59

XIII. THOUGHTS ON PRESENT CONDITIONS 61

XIV. A VISIT TO LOUISIANA 69

APPENDIX.

Roster of Survivors of 33d Regiment United
States Colored Troops 79

A List of the Battles fought by the Regiment 82

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

MRS. SUSIE KING TAYLOR _Frontispiece_

GROUP: CAPT. A. W. HEASLEY, CAPT. WALKER, CAPT.
W. W. SAMPSON, CAPT. CHARLES E. PARKER 16

COLONEL THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON 24

GROUP: MAJOR H. A. WHITNEY, LIEUT. J. B. WEST,
HENRY BATCHLOTT 28

GROUP: LIEUT. JOHN A. TROWBRIDGE, LIEUT. ELI C.
MERRIAM, LIEUT. JAMES M. THOMPSON, LIEUT.
JEROME T. FURMAN 36

GROUP: CAPT. L. W. METCALF, CAPT. MIRON W. SAXTON,
CAPT. A. W. JACKSON, CORPORAL PETER WAGGALL 40

LIEUT.-COL. C. T. TROWBRIDGE 46

SCHOOLHOUSE IN SAVANNAH 54

INTRODUCTION

Actual military life is rarely described by a woman, and this is
especially true of a woman whose place was in the ranks, as the wife
of a soldier and herself a regimental laundress. No such description
has ever been given, I am sure, by one thus connected with a colored
regiment; so that the nearly 200,000 black soldiers (178,975) of our
Civil War have never before been delineated from the woman’s point of
view. All this gives peculiar interest to this little volume, relating
wholly to the career of the very earliest of these regiments,--the
one described by myself, from a wholly different point of view, in my
volume “Army Life in a Black Regiment,” long since translated into
French by the Comtesse de Gasparin under the title “Vie Militaire dans
un Régiment Noir.”

The writer of the present book was very exceptional among the colored
laundresses, in that she could read and write and had taught children
to do the same; and her whole life and career were most estimable,
both during the war and in the later period during which she has lived
in Boston and has made many friends. I may add that I did not see the
book until the sheets were in print, and have left it wholly untouched,
except as to a few errors in proper names. I commend the narrative to
those who love the plain record of simple lives, led in stormy periods.

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON,
_Former Colonel 1st S. C. Volunteers_
(_afterwards 33d U. S. Colored Infantry_).

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.,
November 3, 1902.

LETTER FROM COL. C. T. TROWBRIDGE

ST. PAUL, MINN., April 7, 1902.
MRS. SUSAN KING TAYLOR:

DEAR MADAM,--The manuscript of the story of your army life reached
me to-day. I have read it with much care and interest, and I most
willingly and cordially indorse it as a truthful account of your
unselfish devotion and service through more than three long years of
war in which the 33d Regiment bore a conspicuous part in the great
conflict for human liberty and the restoration of the Union. I most
sincerely regret that through a technicality you are debarred from
having your name placed on the roll of pensioners, as an Army Nurse;
for among all the number of heroic women whom the government is now
rewarding, I know of no one more deserving than yourself.

Yours in F. C. & L.,
C. T. TROWBRIDGE,
_Late Lt.-Col. 33d U. S. C. T._

REMINISCENCES

A BRIEF SKETCH OF MY ANCESTORS

My great-great-grandmother was 120 years old when she died. She had
seven children, and five of her boys were in the Revolutionary War. She
was from Virginia, and was half Indian. She was so old she had to be
held in the sun to help restore or prolong her vitality.

My great-grandmother, one of her daughters, named Susanna, was married
to Peter Simons, and was one hundred years old when she died, from a
stroke of paralysis in Savannah. She was the mother of twenty-four
children, twenty-three being girls. She was one of the noted midwives
of her day. In 1820 my grandmother was born, and named after her
grandmother, Dolly, and in 1833 she married Fortune Lambert Reed. Two
children blessed their union, James and Hagar Ann. James died at the
age of twelve years.

My mother was born in 1834. She married Raymond Baker in 1847. Nine
children were born to them, three dying in infancy. I was the first
born. I was born on the Grest Farm (which was on an island known as
Isle of Wight), Liberty County, about thirty-five miles from Savannah,
Ga., on August 6, 1848, my mother being waitress for the Grest family.
I have often been told by mother of the care Mrs. Grest took of me.
She was very fond of me, and I remember when my brother and I were
small children, and Mr. Grest would go away on business, Mrs. Grest
would place us at the foot of her bed to sleep and keep her company.
Sometimes he would return home earlier than he had expected to; then
she would put us on the floor.

When I was about seven years old, Mr. Grest allowed my grandmother to
take my brother and me to live with her in Savannah. There were no
railroad connections in those days between this place and Savannah; all
travel was by stagecoaches. I remember, as if it were yesterday, the
coach which ran in from Savannah, with its driver, whose beard nearly
reached his knees. His name was Shakespeare, and often I would go to
the stable where he kept his horses, on Barnard Street in front of the
old Arsenal, just to look at his wonderful beard.

My grandmother went every three months to see my mother. She would hire
a wagon to carry bacon, tobacco, flour, molasses, and sugar. These she
would trade with people in the neighboring places, for eggs, chickens,
or cash, if they had it. These, in turn, she carried back to the city
market, where she had a customer who sold them for her. The profit from
these, together with laundry work and care of some bachelors’ rooms,
made a good living for her.

The hardest blow to her was the failure of the Freedmen’s Savings Bank
in Savannah, for in that bank she had placed her savings, about three
thousand dollars, the result of her hard labor and self-denial before
the war, and which, by dint of shrewdness and care, she kept together
all through the war. She felt it more keenly, coming as it did in her
old age, when her life was too far spent to begin anew; but she took
a practical view of the matter, for she said, “I will leave it all in
God’s hand. If the Yankees did take all our money, they freed my race;
God will take care of us.”

In 1888 she wrote me here (Boston), asking me to visit her, as she was
getting very feeble and wanted to see me once before she passed away.
I made up my mind to leave at once, but about the time I planned to
go, in March, a fearful blizzard swept our country, and travel was at
a standstill for nearly two weeks; but March 15 I left on the first
through steamer from New York, en route for the South, where I again
saw my grandmother, and we felt thankful that we were spared to meet
each other once more. This was the last time I saw her, for in May,
1889, she died.

MY CHILDHOOD

I was born under the slave law in Georgia, in 1848, and was brought
up by my grandmother in Savannah. There were three of us with her, my
younger sister and brother. My brother and I being the two eldest, we
were sent to a friend of my grandmother, Mrs. Woodhouse, a widow, to
learn to read and write. She was a free woman and lived on Bay Lane,
between Habersham and Price streets, about half a mile from my house.
We went every day about nine o’clock, with our books wrapped in paper
to prevent the police or white persons from seeing them. We went in,
one at a time, through the gate, into the yard to the L kitchen, which
was the schoolroom. She had twenty-five or thirty children whom she
taught, assisted by her daughter, Mary Jane. The neighbors would see us
going in sometimes, but they supposed we were there learning trades, as
it was the custom to give children a trade of some kind. After school
we left the same way we entered, one by one, when we would go to a
square, about a block from the school, and wait for each other. We
would gather laurel leaves and pop them on our hands, on our way home.
I remained at her school for two years or more, when I was sent to a
Mrs. Mary Beasley, where I continued until May, 1860, when she told my
grandmother she had taught me all she knew, and grandmother had better
get some one else who could teach me more, so I stopped my studies for
a while.

I had a white playmate about this time, named Katie O’Connor, who
lived on the next corner of the street from my house, and who attended
a convent. One day she told me, if I would promise not to tell her
father, she would give me some lessons. On my promise not to do so, and
getting her mother’s consent, she gave me lessons about four months,
every evening. At the end of this time she was put into the convent
permanently, and I have never seen her since.

A month after this, James Blouis, our landlord’s son, was attending
the High School, and was very fond of grandmother, so she asked him
to give me a few lessons, which he did until the middle of 1861, when
the Savannah Volunteer Guards, to which he and his brother belonged,
were ordered to the front under General Barton. In the first battle of
Manassas, his brother Eugene was killed, and James deserted over to
the Union side, and at the close of the war went to Washington, D. C.,
where he has since resided.

I often wrote passes for my grandmother, for all colored persons, free
or slaves, were compelled to have a pass; free colored people having a
guardian in place of a master. These passes were good until 10 or 10.30
P. M. for one night or every night for one month. The pass read as
follows:--

SAVANNAH, GA., March 1st, 1860.

Pass the bearer ---- from 9 to 10.30. P. M.
VALENTINE GREST.

Every person had to have this pass, for at nine o’clock each night a
bell was rung, and any colored persons found on the street after this
hour were arrested by the watchman, and put in the guard-house until
next morning, when their owners would pay their fines and release them.
I knew a number of persons who went out at any time at night and were
never arrested, as the watchman knew them so well he never stopped
them, and seldom asked to see their passes, only stopping them long
enough, sometimes, to say “Howdy,” and then telling them to go along.

About this time I had been reading so much about the “Yankees” I was
very anxious to see them. The whites would tell their colored people
not to go to the Yankees, for they would harness them to carts and make
them pull the carts around, in place of horses. I asked grandmother,
one day, if this was true. She replied, “Certainly not!” that the
white people did not want slaves to go over to the Yankees, and told
them these things to frighten them. “Don’t you see those signs pasted
about the streets? one reading, ‘I am a rattlesnake; if you touch me
I will strike!’ Another reads, ‘I am a wild-cat! Beware,’ etc. These
are warnings to the North; so don’t mind what the white people say.” I
wanted to see these wonderful “Yankees” so much, as I heard my parents
say the Yankee was going to set all the slaves free. Oh, how those
people prayed for freedom! I remember, one night, my grandmother went
out into the suburbs of the city to a church meeting, and they were
fervently singing this old hymn,--

“Yes, we all shall be free,
Yes, we all shall be free,
Yes, we all shall be free,
When the Lord shall appear,”--

when the police came in and arrested all who were there, saying they
were planning freedom, and sang “the Lord,” in place of “Yankee,” to
blind any one who might be listening. Grandmother never forgot that
night, although she did not stay in the guard-house, as she sent to her
guardian, who came at once for her; but this was the last meeting she
ever attended out of the city proper.

On April 1, 1862, about the time the Union soldiers were firing on Fort
Pulaski, I was sent out into the country to my mother. I remember what
a roar and din the guns made. They jarred the earth for miles. The fort
was at last taken by them. Two days after the taking of Fort Pulaski,
my uncle took his family of seven and myself to St. Catherine Island.
We landed under the protection of the Union fleet, and remained there
two weeks, when about thirty of us were taken aboard the gunboat P----,
to be transferred to St. Simon’s Island; and at last, to my unbounded
joy, I saw the “Yankee.”

After we were all settled aboard and started on our journey, Captain
Whitmore, commanding the boat, asked me where I was from. I told
him Savannah, Ga. He asked if I could read; I said, “Yes!” “Can you
write?” he next asked. “Yes, I can do that also,” I replied, and as
if he had some doubts of my answers he handed me a book and a pencil
and told me to write my name and where I was from. I did this; when
he wanted to know if I could sew. On hearing I could, he asked me to
hem some napkins for him. He was surprised at my accomplishments (for
they were such in those days), for he said he did not know there were
any negroes in the South able to read or write. He said, “You seem to
be so different from the other colored people who came from the same
place you did.” “No!” I replied, “the only difference is, they were
reared in the country and I in the city, as was a man from Darien, Ga.,
named Edward King.” That seemed to satisfy him, and we had no further
conversation that day on the subject.

In the afternoon the captain spied a boat in the distance, and as it
drew nearer he noticed it had a white flag hoisted, but before it had
reached the Putumoka he ordered all passengers between decks, so we
could not be seen, for he thought they might be spies. The boat finally
drew alongside of our boat, and had Mr. Edward Donegall on board, who
wanted his two servants, Nick and Judith. He wanted these, as they were
his own children. Our captain told him he knew nothing of them, which
was true, for at the time they were on St. Simon’s, and not, as their
father supposed, on our boat. After the boat left, we were allowed to
come up on deck again.

III

ON ST. SIMON’S ISLAND

1862

Next morning we arrived at St. Simon’s, and the captain told Commodore
Goldsborough about this affair, and his reply was, “Captain Whitmore,
you should not have allowed them to return; you should have kept
them.” After I had been on St. Simon’s about three days, Commodore
Goldsborough heard of me, and came to Gaston Bluff to see me. I found
him very cordial. He said Captain Whitmore had spoken to him of me, and
that he was pleased to hear of my being so capable, etc., and wished
me to take charge of a school for the children on the island. I told
him I would gladly do so, if I could have some books. He said I should
have them, and in a week or two I received two large boxes of books and
testaments from the North. I had about forty children to teach, beside
a number of adults who came to me nights, all of them so eager to learn
to read, to read above anything else. Chaplain French, of Boston, would
come to the school, sometimes, and lecture to the pupils on Boston and
the North.

About the first of June we were told that there was going to be a
settlement of the war. Those who were on the Union side would remain
free, and those in bondage were to work three days for their masters
and three for themselves. It was a gloomy time for us all, and we were
to be sent to Liberia. Chaplain French asked me would I rather go back
to Savannah or go to Liberia. I told him the latter place by all means.
We did not know when this would be, but we were prepared in case this
settlement should be reached. However, the Confederates would not agree
to the arrangement, or else it was one of the many rumors flying about
at the time, as we heard nothing further of the matter. There were a
number of settlements on this island of St. Simon’s, just like little
villages, and we would go from one to the other on business, to call,
or only for a walk.

One Sunday, two men, Adam Miller and Daniel Spaulding, were chased by
some rebels as they were coming from Hope Place (which was between the
Beach and Gaston Bluff), but the latter were unable to catch them. When
they reached the Beach and told this, all the men on the place, about
ninety, armed themselves, and next day (Monday), with Charles O’Neal as
their leader, skirmished the island for the “rebs.” In a short while
they discovered them in the woods, hidden behind a large log, among
the thick underbrush. Charles O’Neal was the first to see them, and
he was killed; also John Brown, and their bodies were never found.
Charles O’Neal was an uncle of Edward King, who later was my husband
and a sergeant in Co. E., U. S. I. Another man was shot, but not found
for three days. On Tuesday, the second day, Captain Trowbridge and
some soldiers landed, and assisted the skirmishers. Word having been
sent by the mail-boat Uncas to Hilton Head, later in the day Commodore
Goldsborough, who was in command of the naval station, landed about
three hundred marines, and joined the others to oust the rebels. On
Wednesday, John Baker, the man shot on Monday, was found in a terrible
condition by Henry Batchlott, who carried him to the Beach, where he
was attended by the surgeon. He told us how, after being shot, he lay
quiet for a day. On the second day he managed to reach some wild grapes
growing near him. These he ate, to satisfy his hunger and intense
thirst, then he crawled slowly, every movement causing agony, until
he got to the side of the road. He lived only three months after they
found him.

On the second day of the skirmish the troops captured a boat which they
knew the Confederates had used to land in, and having this in their
possession, the “rebs” could not return; so pickets were stationed all
around the island. There was an old man, Henry Capers, who had been
left on one of the places by his old master, Mr. Hazzard, as he was
too old to carry away. These rebels went to his house in the night, and
he hid them up in the loft. On Tuesday all hands went to this man’s
house with a determination to burn it down, but Henry Batchlott pleaded
with the men to spare it. The rebels were in hiding, still, waiting a
chance to get off the island. They searched his house, but neglected to
go up into the loft, and in so doing missed the rebels concealed there.
Late in the night Henry Capers gave them his boat to escape in, and
they got off all right. This old man was allowed by the men in charge
of the island to cut grass for his horse, and to have a boat to carry
this grass to his home, and so they were not detected, our men thinking
it was Capers using the boat. After Commodore Goldsborough left the
island, Commodore Judon sent the old man over to the mainland and would
not allow him to remain on the island.

There were about six hundred men, women, and children on St. Simon’s,
the women and children being in the majority, and we were afraid to go
very far from our own quarters in the day-time, and at night even to go
out of the house for a long time, although the men were on the watch
all the time; for there were not any soldiers on the island, only the
marines who were on the gunboats along the coast. The rebels, knowing
this, could steal by them under cover of the night, and getting on the
island would capture any persons venturing out alone and carry them to
the mainland. Several of the men disappeared, and as they were never
heard from we came to the conclusion they had been carried off in this
way.

The latter part of August, 1862, Captain C. T. Trowbridge, with his
brother John and Lieutenant Walker, came to St. Simon’s Island from
Hilton Head, by order of General Hunter, to get all the men possible to
finish filling his regiment which he had organized in March, 1862. He
had heard of the skirmish on this island, and was very much pleased at
the bravery shown by these men. He found me at Gaston Bluff teaching my
little school, and was much interested in it. When I knew him better I
found him to be a thorough gentleman and a staunch friend to my race.

Captain Trowbridge remained with us until October, when the order was
received to evacuate, and so we boarded the Ben-De-Ford, a transport,
for Beaufort, S. C. When we arrived in Beaufort, Captain Trowbridge
and the men he had enlisted went to camp at Old Fort, which they named
“Camp Saxton.” I was enrolled as laundress.

The first suits worn by the boys were red coats and pants, which they
disliked very much, for, they said, “The rebels see us, miles away.”

The first colored troops did not receive any pay for eighteen months,
and the men had to depend wholly on what they received from the
commissary, established by General Saxton. A great many of these men
had large families, and as they had no money to give them, their wives
were obliged to support themselves and children by washing for the
officers of the gunboats and the soldiers, and making cakes and pies
which they sold to the boys in camp. Finally, in 1863, the government
decided to give them half pay, but the men would not accept this. They
wanted “full pay” or nothing. They preferred rather to give their
services to the state, which they did until 1864, when the government
granted them full pay, with all the back pay due.

I remember hearing Captain Heasley telling his company, one day,
“Boys, stand up for your full pay! I am with you, and so are all the
officers.” This captain was from Pennsylvania, and was a very good man;
all the men liked him. N. G. Parker, our first lieutenant, was from
Massachusetts. H. A. Beach was from New York. He was very delicate, and
had to resign in 1864 on account of ill health.

[Illustration:

CAPT. A. W. HEASLEY
CAPT. WALKER
CAPT. W. W. SAMPSON
CAPT. CHARLES E. PARKER]

I had a number of relatives in this regiment,--several uncles, some
cousins, and a husband in Company E, and a number of cousins in
other companies. Major Strong, of this regiment, started home on a
furlough, but the vessel he was aboard was lost, and he never reached
his home. He was one of the best officers we had. After his death,
Captain C. T. Trowbridge was promoted major, August, 1863, and filled
Major Strong’s place until December, 1864, when he was promoted
lieutenant-colonel, which he remained until he was mustered out,
February 6, 1866.

In February, 1863, several cases of varioloid broke out among the boys,
which caused some anxiety in camp. Edward Davis, of Company E (the
company I was with), had it very badly. He was put into a tent apart
from the rest of the men, and only the doctor and camp steward, James
Cummings, were allowed to see or attend him; but I went to see this
man every day and nursed him. The last thing at night, I always went
in to see that he was comfortable, but in spite of the good care and
attention he received, he succumbed to the disease.

I was not in the least afraid of the small-pox. I had been vaccinated,
and I drank sassafras tea constantly, which kept my blood purged and
prevented me from contracting this dread scourge, and no one need fear
getting it if they will only keep their blood in good condition with
this sassafras tea, and take it before going where the patient is.

CAMP SAXTON--PROCLAMATION AND BARBECUE

1863

On the first of January, 1863, we held services for the purpose of
listening to the reading of President Lincoln’s proclamation by Dr. W.
H. Brisbane, and the presentation of two beautiful stands of colors,
one from a lady in Connecticut, and the other from Rev. Mr. Cheever.
The presentation speech was made by Chaplain French. It was a glorious
day for us all, and we enjoyed every minute of it, and as a fitting
close and the crowning event of this occasion we had a grand barbecue.
A number of oxen were roasted whole, and we had a fine feast. Although
not served as tastily or correctly as it would have been at home, yet
it was enjoyed with keen appetites and relish. The soldiers had a good
time. They sang or shouted “Hurrah!” all through the camp, and seemed
overflowing with fun and frolic until taps were sounded, when many, no
doubt, dreamt of this memorable day.

I had rather an amusing experience; that is, it seems amusing now, as
I look back, but at the time it occurred it was a most serious one to
me. When our regiment left Beaufort for Seabrooke, I left some of my
things with a neighbor who lived outside of the camp. After I had been
at Seabrooke about a week, I decided to return to Camp Saxton and get
them. So one morning, with Mary Shaw, a friend who was in the company
at that time, I started off. There was no way for us to get to Beaufort
other than to walk, except we rode on the commissary wagon. This we
did, and reached Beaufort about one o’clock. We then had more than two
miles to walk before reaching our old camp, and expected to be able to
accomplish this and return in time to meet the wagon again by three
o’clock that afternoon, and so be taken back. We failed to do this,
however, for when we got to Beaufort the wagon was gone. We did not
know what to do. I did not wish to remain overnight, neither did my
friend, although we might easily have stayed, as both had relatives in
the town.

It was in the springtime, and the days were long, and as the sun looked
so bright, we concluded to walk back, thinking we should reach camp
before dark. So off we started on our ten-mile tramp. We had not gone
many miles, however, before we were all tired out and began to regret
our undertaking. The sun was getting low, and we grew more frightened,
fearful of meeting some animal or of treading on a snake on our way.
We did not meet a person, and we were frightened almost to death. Our
feet were so sore we could hardly walk. Finally we took off our shoes
and tried walking in our stocking feet, but this made them worse. We
had gone about six miles when night overtook us. There we were, nothing
around us but dense woods, and as there was no house or any place to
stop at, there was nothing for us to do but continue on. We were afraid
to speak to each other.

Meantime at the camp, seeing no signs of us by dusk, they concluded we
had decided to remain over until next day, and so had no idea of our
plight. Imagine their surprise when we reached camp about eleven P. M.
The guard challenged us, “Who comes there?” My answer was, “A friend
without a countersign.” He approached and saw who it was, reported, and
we were admitted into the lines. They had the joke on us that night,
and for a long time after would tease us; and sometimes some of the
men who were on guard that night would call us deserters. They used
to laugh at us, but we joined with them too, especially when we would
tell them our experience on our way to camp. I did not undertake that
trip again, as there was no way of getting in or out except one took
the provision wagon, and there was not much dependence to be put in
that returning to camp. Perhaps the driver would say one hour and he
might be there earlier or later. Of course it was not his fault, as
it depended when the order was filled at the Commissary Department;
therefore I did not go any more until the regiment was ordered to our
new camp, which was named after our hero, Colonel Shaw, who at that
time was at Beaufort with his regiment, the 54th Massachusetts.

I taught a great many of the comrades in Company E to read and write,
when they were off duty. Nearly all were anxious to learn. My husband
taught some also when it was convenient for him. I was very happy to
know my efforts were successful in camp, and also felt grateful for
the appreciation of my services. I gave my services willingly for
four years and three months without receiving a dollar. I was glad,
however, to be allowed to go with the regiment, to care for the sick
and afflicted comrades.

MILITARY EXPEDITIONS, AND LIFE IN CAMP

In the latter part of 1862 the regiment made an expedition into Darien,
Georgia, and up the Ridge, and on January 23, 1863, another up St.
Mary’s River, capturing a number of stores for the government; then on
to Fernandina, Florida. They were gone ten or twelve days, at the end
of which time they returned to camp.

March 10, 1863, we were ordered to Jacksonville, Florida. Leaving Camp
Saxton between four and five o’clock, we arrived at Jacksonville about
eight o’clock next morning, accompanied by three or four gunboats. When
the rebels saw these boats, they ran out of the city, leaving the women
behind, and we found out afterwards that they thought we had a much
larger fleet than we really had. Our regiment was kept out of sight
until we made fast at the wharf where it landed, and while the gunboats
were shelling up the river and as far inland as possible, the regiment
landed and marched up the street, where they spied the rebels who had
fled from the city. They were hiding behind a house about a mile or so
away, their faces blackened to disguise themselves as negroes, and our
boys, as they advanced toward them, halted a second, saying, “They are
black men! Let them come to us, or we will make them know who we are.”
With this, the firing was opened and several of our men were wounded
and killed. The rebels had a number wounded and killed. It was through
this way the discovery was made that they were white men. Our men drove
them some distance in retreat and then threw out their pickets.

While the fighting was on, a friend, Lizzie Lancaster, and I stopped at
several of the rebel homes, and after talking with some of the women
and children we asked them if they had any food. They claimed to have
only some hard-tack, and evidently did not care to give us anything to
eat, but this was not surprising. They were bitterly against our people
and had no mercy or sympathy for us.

The second day, our boys were reinforced by a regiment of white
soldiers, a Maine regiment, and by cavalry, and had quite a fight. On
the third day, Edward Herron, who was a fine gunner on the steamer
John Adams, came on shore, bringing a small cannon, which the men
pulled along for more than five miles. This cannon was the only piece
for shelling. On coming upon the enemy, all secured their places, and
they had a lively fight, which lasted several hours, and our boys were
nearly captured by the Confederates; but the Union boys carried out
all their plans that day, and succeeded in driving the enemy back.
After this skirmish, every afternoon between four and five o’clock
the Confederate General Finegan would send a flag of truce to Colonel
Higginson, warning him to send all women and children out of the
city, and threatening to bombard it if this was not done. Our colonel
allowed all to go who wished, at first, but as General Finegan grew
more hostile and kept sending these communications for nearly a week,
Colonel Higginson thought it not best or necessary to send any more out
of the city, and so informed General Finegan. This angered the general,
for that night the rebels shelled directly toward Colonel Higginson’s
headquarters. The shelling was so heavy that the colonel told my
captain to have me taken up into the town to a hotel, which was used as
a hospital. As my quarters were just in the rear of the colonel’s, he
was compelled to leave his also before the night was over. I expected
every moment to be killed by a shell, but on arriving at the hospital
I knew I was safe, for the shells could not reach us there. It was
plainly to be seen now, the ruse of the flag of truce coming so often
to us. The bearer was evidently a spy getting the location of the
headquarters, etc., for the shells were sent too accurately to be at
random.

[Illustration: THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

COLONEL FIRST SOUTH CAROLINA VOLUNTEERS

_Afterwards 33d U. S. C. T._]

Next morning Colonel Higginson took the cavalry and a regiment on
another tramp after the rebels. They were gone several days and had the
hardest fight they had had, for they wanted to go as far as a station
which was some distance from the city. The gunboats were of little
assistance to them, yet notwithstanding this drawback our boys returned
with only a few killed and wounded, and after this we were not troubled
with General Finegan.

We remained here a few weeks longer, when, about April first, the
regiment was ordered back to Camp Saxton, where it stayed a week, when
the order came to go to Port Royal Ferry on picket duty. It was a
gay day for the boys. By seven o’clock all tents were down, and each
company, with a commissary wagon, marched up the shell road, which is
a beautiful avenue ten or twelve miles out of Beaufort. We arrived at
Seabrooke at about four o’clock, where our tents were pitched and the
men put on duty. We were here a few weeks, when Company E was ordered
to Barnwell plantation for picket duty.

Some mornings I would go along the picket line, and I could see the
rebels on the opposite side of the river. Sometimes as they were
changing pickets they would call over to our men and ask for something
to eat, or for tobacco, and our men would tell them to come over.
Sometimes one or two would desert to us, saying, they “had no negroes
to fight for.” Others would shoot across at our picket, but as the
river was so wide there was never any damage done, and the Confederates
never attempted to shell us while we were there.

I learned to handle a musket very well while in the regiment, and could
shoot straight and often hit the target. I assisted in cleaning the
guns and used to fire them off, to see if the cartridges were dry,
before cleaning and reloading, each day. I thought this great fun. I
was also able to take a gun all apart, and put it together again.

Between Barnwell and the mainland was Hall Island. I went over there
several times with Sergeant King and other comrades. One night there
was a stir in camp when it was found that the rebels were trying to
cross, and next morning Lieutenant Parker told me he thought they were
on Hall Island; so after that I did not go over again.

While planning for the expedition up the Edisto River, Colonel
Higginson was a whole night in the water, trying to locate the rebels
and where their picket lines were situated. About July the boys went
up the Edisto to destroy a bridge on the Charleston and Savannah road.
This expedition was twenty or more miles into the mainland. Colonel
Higginson was wounded in this fight and the regiment nearly captured.
The steamboat John Adams always assisted us, carrying soldiers,
provisions, etc. She carried several guns and a good gunner, Edward
Herron. Henry Batchlott, a relative of mine, was a steward on this
boat. There were two smaller boats, Governor Milton and the Enoch Dean,
in the fleet, as these could go up the river better than the larger
ones could. I often went aboard the John Adams. It went with us into
Jacksonville, to Cole and Folly Island, and Gunner Herron was always
ready to send a shell at the enemy.

One night, Companies K and E, on their way to Pocotaligo to destroy a
battery that was situated down the river, captured several prisoners.
The rebels nearly captured Sergeant King, who, as he sprang and caught
a “reb,” fell over an embankment. In falling he did not release his
hold on his prisoner. Although his hip was severely injured, he held
fast until some of his comrades came to his aid and pulled them up.
These expeditions were very dangerous. Sometimes the men had to go five
or ten miles during the night over on the rebel side and capture or
destroy whatever they could find.

While at Camp Shaw, there was a deserter who came into Beaufort. He was
allowed his freedom about the city and was not molested. He remained
about the place a little while and returned to the rebels again. On
his return to Beaufort a second time, he was held as a spy, tried,
and sentenced to death, for he was a traitor. The day he was shot, he
was placed on a hearse with his coffin inside, a guard was placed
either side of the hearse, and he was driven through the town. All the
soldiers and people in town were out, as this was to be a warning to
the soldiers. Our regiment was in line on dress parade. They drove with
him to the rear of our camp, where he was shot. I shall never forget
this scene.

While at Camp Shaw, Chaplain Fowler, Robert Defoe, and several of our
boys were captured while tapping some telegraph wires. Robert Defoe was
confined in the jail at Walterborough, S. C., for about twenty months.
When Sherman’s army reached Pocotaligo he made his escape and joined
his company (Company G). He had not been paid, as he had refused the
reduced pay offered by the government. Before we got to camp, where the
pay-rolls could be made out, he sickened and died of small-pox, and was
buried at Savannah, never having been paid one cent for nearly three
years of service. He left no heirs and his account was never settled.

In winter, when it was very cold, I would take a mess-pan, put a little
earth in the bottom, and go to the cook-shed and fill it nearly full of
coals, carry it back to my tent and put another pan over it; so when
the provost guard went through camp after taps, they would not see the
light, as it was against the rules to have a light after taps. In this
way I was heated and kept very warm.

[Illustration:

MAJOR H. A. WHITNEY
LIEUT. J. B. WEST
HENRY BATCHLOTT
STEWARD OF THE JOHN ADAMS]

A mess-pan is made of sheet iron, something like our roasting pans,
only they are nearly as large round as a peck measure, but not so deep.
We had fresh beef once in a while, and we would have soup, and the
vegetables they put in this soup were dried and pressed. They looked
like hops. Salt beef was our stand-by. Sometimes the men would have
what we called slap-jacks. This was flour, made into bread and spread
thin on the bottom of the mess-pan to cook. Each man had one of them,
with a pint of tea, for his supper, or a pint of tea and five or six
hard-tack. I often got my own meals, and would fix some dishes for the
non-commissioned officers also.

Mrs. Chamberlain, our quartermaster’s wife, was with us here. She was
a beautiful woman; I can see her pleasant face before me now, as she,
with Captain Trowbridge, would sit and converse with me in my tent two
or three hours at a time. She was also with me on Cole Island, and I
think we were the only women with the regiment while there. I remember
well how, when she first came into camp, Captain Trowbridge brought her
to my tent and introduced her to me. I found her then, as she remained
ever after, a lovely person, and I always admired her cordial and
friendly ways.

Our boys would say to me sometimes, “Mrs. King, why is it you are so
kind to us? you treat us just as you do the boys in your own company.”
I replied, “Well, you know, all the boys in other companies are the
same to me as those in my Company E; you are all doing the same duty,
and I will do just the same for you.” “Yes,” they would say, “we know
that, because you were the first woman we saw when we came into camp,
and you took an interest in us boys ever since we have been here, and
we are very grateful for all you do for us.”

When at Camp Shaw, I visited the hospital in Beaufort, where I met
Clara Barton. There were a number of sick and wounded soldiers there,
and I went often to see the comrades. Miss Barton was always very
cordial toward me, and I honored her for her devotion and care of those
men.

There was a man, John Johnson, who with his family was taken by our
regiment at Edisto. This man afterwards worked in the hospital and was
well known to Miss Barton. I have been told since that when she went
South, in 1883, she tried to look this man up, but learned he was dead.
His son is living in Edisto, Rev. J. J. Johnson, and is the president
of an industrial school on that island and a very intelligent man.
He was a small child when his father and family were captured by our
regiment at Edisto.

ON MORRIS AND OTHER ISLANDS

Fort Wagner being only a mile from our camp, I went there two or three
times a week, and would go up on the ramparts to watch the gunners send
their shells into Charleston (which they did every fifteen minutes),
and had a full view of the city from that point. Outside of the fort
were many skulls lying about; I have often moved them one side out of
the path. The comrades and I would have quite a debate as to which
side the men fought on. Some thought they were the skulls of our boys;
others thought they were the enemy’s; but as there was no definite way
to know, it was never decided which could lay claim to them. They were
a gruesome sight, those fleshless heads and grinning jaws, but by this
time I had become accustomed to worse things and did not feel as I
might have earlier in my camp life.

It seems strange how our aversion to seeing suffering is overcome in
war,--how we are able to see the most sickening sights, such as men
with their limbs blown off and mangled by the deadly shells, without
a shudder; and instead of turning away, how we hurry to assist in
alleviating their pain, bind up their wounds, and press the cool water
to their parched lips, with feelings only of sympathy and pity.

About the first of June, 1864, the regiment was ordered to Folly
Island, staying there until the latter part of the month, when it was
ordered to Morris Island. We landed on Morris Island between June and
July, 1864. This island was a narrow strip of sandy soil, nothing
growing on it but a few bushes and shrubs. The camp was one mile from
the boat landing, called Pawnell Landing, and the landing one mile from
Fort Wagner.

Colonel Higginson had left us in May of this year, on account of wounds
received at Edisto. All the men were sorry to lose him. They did not
want him to go, they loved him so. He was kind and devoted to his men,
thoughtful for their comfort, and we missed his genial presence from
the camp.

The regiment under Colonel Trowbridge did garrison duty, but they had
troublesome times from Fort Gregg, on James Island, for the rebels
would throw a shell over on our island every now and then. Finally
orders were received for the boys to prepare to take Fort Gregg, each
man to take 150 rounds of cartridges, canteens of water, hard-tack, and
salt beef. This order was sent three days prior to starting, to allow
them to be in readiness. I helped as many as I could to pack haversacks
and cartridge boxes.

The fourth day, about five o’clock in the afternoon, the call was
sounded, and I heard the first sergeant say, “Fall in, boys, fall in,”
and they were not long obeying the command. Each company marched out of
its street, in front of their colonel’s headquarters, where they rested
for half an hour, as it was not dark enough, and they did not want the
enemy to have a chance to spy their movements. At the end of this time
the line was formed with the 103d New York (white) in the rear, and
off they started, eager to get to work. It was quite dark by the time
they reached Pawnell Landing. I have never forgotten the good-bys of
that day, as they left camp. Colonel Trowbridge said to me as he left,
“Good-by, Mrs. King, take care of yourself if you don’t see us again.”
I went with them as far as the landing, and watched them until they got
out of sight, and then I returned to the camp. There was no one at camp
but those left on picket and a few disabled soldiers, and one woman, a
friend of mine, Mary Shaw, and it was lonesome and sad, now that the
boys were gone, some never to return.

Mary Shaw shared my tent that night, and we went to bed, but not to
sleep, for the fleas nearly ate us alive. We caught a few, but it did
seem, now that the men were gone, that every flea in camp had located
my tent, and caused us to vacate. Sleep being out of the question, we
sat up the remainder of the night.

About four o’clock, July 2, the charge was made. The firing could be
plainly heard in camp. I hastened down to the landing and remained
there until eight o’clock that morning. When the wounded arrived, or
rather began to arrive, the first one brought in was Samuel Anderson of
our company. He was badly wounded. Then others of our boys, some with
their legs off, arm gone, foot off, and wounds of all kinds imaginable.
They had to wade through creeks and marshes, as they were discovered by
the enemy and shelled very badly. A number of the men were lost, some
got fastened in the mud and had to cut off the legs of their pants, to
free themselves. The 103d New York suffered the most, as their men were
very badly wounded.

My work now began. I gave my assistance to try to alleviate their
sufferings. I asked the doctor at the hospital what I could get for
them to eat. They wanted soup, but that I could not get; but I had a
few cans of condensed milk and some turtle eggs, so I thought I would
try to make some custard. I had doubts as to my success, for cooking
with turtle eggs was something new to me, but the adage has it,
“Nothing ventured, nothing done,” so I made a venture and the result
was a very delicious custard. This I carried to the men, who enjoyed
it very much. My services were given at all times for the comfort of
these men. I was on hand to assist whenever needed. I was enrolled as
company laundress, but I did very little of it, because I was always
busy doing other things through camp, and was employed all the time
doing something for the officers and comrades.

After this fight, the regiment did not return to the camp for one
month. They were ordered to Cole Island in September, where they
remained until October. About November 1, 1864, six companies were
detailed to go to Gregg Landing, Port Royal Ferry, and the rebels in
some way found out some of our forces had been removed and gave our
boys in camp a hard time of it, for several nights. In fact, one night
it was thought the boys would have to retreat. The colonel told me to
go down to the landing, and if they were obliged to retreat, I could go
aboard one of our gunboats. One of the gunboats got in the rear, and
began to shell General Beauregard’s force, which helped our boys retain
their possession.

About November 15, I received a letter from Sergeant King, saying the
boys were still lying three miles from Gregg Landing and had not had a
fight yet; that the rebels were waiting on them and they on the rebels,
and each were holding their own; also that General Sherman had taken
Fort McAllister, eight miles from Savannah. After receiving this letter
I wanted to get to Beaufort, so I could be near to them and so be able
to get news from my husband. November 23 I got a pass for Beaufort.
I arrived at Hilton Head about three o’clock next day, but there had
been a battle, and a steamer arrived with a number of wounded men; so
I could not get a transfer to Beaufort. The doctor wished me to remain
over until Monday. I did not want to stay. I was anxious to get off, as
I knew no one at Hilton Head.

I must mention a pet pig we had on Cole Island. Colonel Trowbridge
brought into camp, one day, a poor, thin little pig, which a German
soldier brought back with him on his return from a furlough. His
regiment, the 74th Pennsylvania, was just embarking for the North,
where it was ordered to join the 10th corps, and he could not take
the pig back with him, so he gave it to our colonel. That pig grew to
be the pet of the camp, and was the special care of the drummer boys,
who taught him many tricks; and so well did they train him that every
day at practice and dress parade, his pigship would march out with
them, keeping perfect time with their music. The drummers would often
disturb the devotions by riding this pig into the midst of evening
praise meeting, and many were the complaints made to the colonel, but
he was always very lenient towards the boys, for he knew they only did
this for mischief. I shall never forget the fun we had in camp with
“Piggie.”

[Illustration:

LIEUT. JOHN A. TROWBRIDGE
LIEUT. ELI C. MERRIAM
LIEUT. JAMES M. THOMPSON
LIEUT. JEROME T. FURMAN]

VII

CAST AWAY

There was a yacht that carried passengers from Hilton Head to Beaufort.
There were also five small boats which carried people over. The only
people here, beside the soldiers, were Mrs. Lizzie Brown, who came
over on a permit to see her husband, who was at this place, and was
very ill (he died while she was there), Corporal Walker’s wife, with
her two years old child, and Mrs. Seabrooke. As soon as we could get
the yacht, these persons I have mentioned, together with a comrade
just discharged, an officer’s boy, and myself, took passage on it for
Beaufort. It was nearly dark before we had gone any distance, and about
eight o’clock we were cast away and were only saved through the mercy
of God. I remember going down twice. As I rose the second time, I
caught hold of the sail and managed to hold fast. Mrs. Walker held on
to her child with one hand, while with the other she managed to hold
fast to some part of the boat, and we drifted and shouted as loud as
we could, trying to attract the attention of some of the government
boats which were going up and down the river. But it was in vain, we
could not make ourselves heard, and just when we gave up all hope,
and in the last moment (as we thought) gave one more despairing cry,
we were heard at Ladies’ Island. Two boats were put off and a search
was made, to locate our distressed boat. They found us at last, nearly
dead from exposure. In fact, the poor little baby was dead, although
her mother still held her by her clothing, with her teeth. The soldier
was drowned, having been caught under the sail and pinned down. The
rest of us were saved. I had to be carried bodily, as I was thoroughly
exhausted. We were given the best attention that we could get at this
place where we were picked up. The men who saved us were surprised when
they found me among the passengers, as one of them, William Geary, of
Darien, Georgia, was a friend of my husband. His mother lived about two
miles from where we were picked up, and she told me she had heard cries
for a long time that night, and was very uneasy about it. Finally, she
said to her son, “I think some poor souls are cast away.” “I don’t
think so, mother,” he replied; “I saw some people going down the river
to-day. You know this is Christmas, and they are having a good time.”
But she still persisted that these were cries of distress, and not
of joy, and begged him to go out and see. So to satisfy her, he went
outside and listened, and then he heard them also, and hastened to get
the boats off to find us. We were capsized about 8.15 P. M. and it was
near midnight when they found us. Next day, they kept a sharp lookout
on the beach for anything that might be washed in from the yacht, and
got a trunk and several other things. Had the tide been going out, we
should have been carried to sea and lost.

I was very ill and under the doctor’s care for some time, in Beaufort.
The doctor said I ought to have been rolled, as I had swallowed so much
water. In January, 1865, I went back to Cole Island, where I could be
attended by my doctor, Dr. Miner, who did all in his power to alleviate
my suffering, for I was swollen very much. This he reduced and I
recovered, but had a severe cough for a long time afterward.

VIII

A FLAG OF TRUCE

In October, 1864, six companies of the regiment were ordered to Gregg
Landing, S. C. Captain L. W. Metcalf, of Co. G, was appointed on
General Saxton’s staff as provost captain, Lieutenant James B. West
acting as assistant general. As in some way our mail had been sent
over to the Confederate side and their mail to us, Captain Metcalf and
Lieutenant West were detailed to exchange these letters under a flag
of truce. So, with an escort of six men of the companies at Port Royal
Ferry, the flag was unfurled and the message shouted across the river
to the Confederates. Captain Metcalf asked them to come over to our
side under the protection of our flag of truce. This the Confederates
refused to do, having for their excuse that their boat was too far up
the river and so they had no way to cross the river to us. They asked
Metcalf to cross to them. He at once ordered his men to “stack arms,”
the Confederates following suit, and his boys in blue rowed him over,
and he delivered the message, after having introduced himself to the
rebel officers. One of these officers was Major Jones, of Alabama,
the other Lieutenant Scott, of South Carolina. Major Jones was very
cordial to our captain, but Lieutenant Scott would not extend his hand,
and stood aside, in sullen silence, looking as if he would like to take
revenge then and there. Major Jones said to Captain Metcalf, “We have
no one to fight for. Should I meet you again, I shall not forget we
have met before.” With this he extended his hand to Metcalf and bade
him good-by, but Lieutenant Scott stood by and looked as cross as he
possibly could. The letters were exchanged, but it seemed a mystery
just how those letters got mis-sent to the opposite sides. Captain
Metcalf said he did not feel a mite comfortable while he was on the
Confederate soil; as for his men, you can imagine their thoughts. I
asked them how they felt on the other side, and they said, “We would
have felt much better if we had had our guns with us.” It was a little
risky, for sometimes the flag of truce is not regarded, but even among
the enemy there are some good and loyal persons.

[Illustration:

CAPT. L. W. METCALF
CAPT. MIRON W. SAXTON
CAPT. A. W. JACKSON
CORPORAL PETER WAGGALL]

Captain Metcalf is still living in Medford. He is 71 years old, and
just as loyal to the old flag and the G. A. R. as he was from 1861 to
1866, when he was mustered out. He was a brave captain, a good officer,
and was honored and beloved by all in the regiment.

CAPTURE OF CHARLESTON

On February 28, 1865, the remainder of the regiment were ordered to
Charleston, as there were signs of the rebels evacuating that city.
Leaving Cole Island, we arrived in Charleston between nine and ten
o’clock in the morning, and found the “rebs” had set fire to the city
and fled, leaving women and children behind to suffer and perish in the
flames. The fire had been burning fiercely for a day and night. When we
landed, under a flag of truce, our regiment went to work assisting the
citizens in subduing the flames. It was a terrible scene. For three or
four days the men fought the fire, saving the property and effects of
the people, yet these white men and women could not tolerate our black
Union soldiers, for many of them had formerly been their slaves; and
although these brave men risked life and limb to assist them in their
distress, men and even women would sneer and molest them whenever they
met them.

I had quarters assigned me at a residence on South Battery Street,
one of the most aristocratic parts of the city, where I assisted in
caring for the sick and injured comrades. After getting the fire
under control, the regiment marched out to the race track, where they
camped until March 12, when we were ordered to Savannah, Ga. We arrived
there on the 13th, about eight o’clock in the evening, and marched
out to Fairlong, near the A. & G. R. R., where we remained about ten
days, when we were ordered to Augusta, Ga., where Captain Alexander
Heasley, of Co. E, was shot and killed by a Confederate. After his
death Lieutenant Parker was made captain of the company, and was
with us until the regiment was mustered out. He often told me about
Massachusetts, but I had no thought at that time that I should ever see
that State, and stand in the “Cradle of Liberty.”

The regiment remained in Augusta for thirty days, when it was ordered
to Hamburg, S. C., and then on to Charleston. It was while on their
march through the country, to the latter city, that they came in
contact with the bushwhackers (as the rebels were called), who hid in
the bushes and would shoot the Union boys every chance they got. Other
times they would conceal themselves in the cars used to transfer our
soldiers, and when our boys, worn out and tired, would fall asleep,
these men would come out from their hiding places and cut their
throats. Several of our men were killed in this way, but it could not
be found out who was committing these murders until one night one
of the rebels was caught in the act, trying to cut the throat of a
sleeping soldier. He was put under guard, court-martialed, and shot at
Wall Hollow.

First Lieutenant Jerome T. Furman and a number of soldiers were killed
by these South Carolina bushwhackers at Wall Hollow. After this man was
shot, however, the regiment marched through unmolested to Charleston.

MUSTERED OUT

The regiment, under Colonel Trowbridge, reached Charleston in November,
1865, and camped on the race track until January, when they returned to
Morris Island, and on February 9, 1866, the following “General Orders”
were received and the regiment mustered out.

They were delighted to go home, but oh! how they hated to part from
their commanding chief, Colonel C. T. Trowbridge. He was the very first
officer to take charge of black soldiers. We thought there was no one
like him, for he was a “man” among his soldiers. All in the regiment
knew him personally, and many were the jokes he used to tell them. I
shall never forget his friendship and kindness toward me, from the
first time I met him to the end of the war. There was never any one
from the North who came into our camp but he would bring them to see me.

While on a visit South in 1888, I met a comrade of the regiment, who
often said to me, “You up North, Mrs. King, do you ever see Colonel
Trowbridge? How I should like to see him! I don’t see why he does not
come South sometime. Why, I would take a day off and look up all the
‘boys’ I could find, if I knew he was coming.” I knew this man meant
what he said, for the men of the regiment knew Colonel Trowbridge first
of all the other officers. He was with them on St. Simon and at Camp
Saxton. I remember when the company was being formed, we wished Captain
C. T. was our captain, because most of the men in Co. E were the men
he brought with him from St. Simon, and they were attached to him. He
was always jolly and pleasing with all. I remember, when going into
Savannah in 1865, he said that he had been there before the war, and
told me many things I did not know about the river. Although this was
my home, I had never been on it before. No officer in the army was more
beloved than our late lieutenant-colonel, C. T. Trowbridge.

[_Copy of General Orders._]

“GENERAL ORDERS.

“HEADQUARTERS 33D U. S. C. T.,
“LATE 1ST SO. CAROLINA VOLUNTEERS,
“MORRIS ISLAND, S. C., Feb. 9, 1866.

“_General Order_, }
“_No. 1._ }

“COMRADES: The hour is at hand when we must separate forever, and
nothing can take from us the pride we feel, when we look upon the
history of the ‘First South Carolina Volunteers,’ the first black
regiment that ever bore arms in defense of freedom on the continent
of America.

[Illustration: C. T. TROWBRIDGE

LIEUT. COL. 33D U. S. C. T.]

“On the 9th day of May, 1862, at which time there were nearly four
millions of your race in bondage, sanctioned by the laws of the land
and protected by our flag,--on that day, in the face of the floods
of prejudice that well-nigh deluged every avenue to manhood and true
liberty, you came forth to do battle for your country and kindred.

“For long and weary months, without pay or even the privilege of
being recognized as soldiers, you labored on, only to be disbanded
and sent to your homes without even a hope of reward, and when our
country, necessitated by the deadly struggle with armed traitors,
finally granted you the opportunity again to come forth in defense
of the nation’s life, the alacrity with which you responded to the
call gave abundant evidence of your readiness to strike a manly blow
for the liberty of your race. And from that little band of hopeful,
trusting, and brave men who gathered at Camp Saxton, on Port Royal
Island, in the fall of ’62, amidst the terrible prejudices that
surrounded us, has grown an army of a hundred and forty thousand
black soldiers, whose valor and heroism has won for your race a
name which will live as long as the undying pages of history shall
endure; and by whose efforts, united with those of the white man,
armed rebellion has been conquered, the millions of bondsmen have
been emancipated, and the fundamental law of the land has been so
altered as to remove forever the possibility of human slavery being
established within the borders of redeemed America. The flag of our
fathers, restored to its rightful significance, now floats over
every foot of our territory, from Maine to California, and beholds
only free men! The prejudices which formerly existed against you are
well-nigh rooted out.

“Soldiers, you have done your duty and acquitted yourselves like men
who, actuated by such ennobling motives, could not fail; and as the
result of your fidelity and obedience you have won your freedom, and
oh, how great the reward! It seems fitting to me that the last hours
of our existence as a regiment should be passed amidst the unmarked
graves of your comrades, at Fort Wagner. Near you rest the bones
of Colonel Shaw, buried by an enemy’s hand in the same grave with
his black soldiers who fell at his side; where in the future your
children’s children will come on pilgrimages to do homage to the
ashes of those who fell in this glorious struggle.

“The flag which was presented to us by the Rev. George B. Cheever and
his congregation, of New York city, on the 1st of January, 1863,--the
day when Lincoln’s immortal proclamation of freedom was given to
the world,--and which you have borne so nobly through the war, is
now to be rolled up forever and deposited in our nation’s capital.
And while there it shall rest, with the battles in which you have
participated inscribed upon its folds, it will be a source of pride
to us all to remember that it has never been disgraced by a cowardly
faltering in the hour of danger, or polluted by a traitor’s touch.

“Now that you are to lay aside your arms, I adjure you, by the
associations and history of the past, and the love you bear for
your liberties, to harbor no feelings of hatred toward your former
masters, but to seek in the paths of honesty, virtue, sobriety, and
industry, and by a willing obedience to the laws of the land, to
grow up to the full stature of American citizens. The church, the
school-house, and the right forever to be free are now secured to
you, and every prospect before you is full of hope and encouragement.
The nation guarantees to you full protection and justice, and will
require from you in return that respect for the laws and orderly
deportment which will prove to every one your right to all the
privileges of freemen. To the officers of the regiment I would say,
your toils are ended, your mission is fulfilled, and we separate
forever. The fidelity, patience, and patriotism with which you have
discharged your duties to your men and to your country entitle you to
a far higher tribute than any words of thankfulness which I can give
you from the bottom of my heart. You will find your reward in the
proud conviction that the cause for which you have battled so nobly
has been crowned with abundant success.

“Officers and soldiers of the 33d U. S. Colored Troops, once the
First So. Carolina Volunteers, I bid you all farewell!

“By order of
“LT. COLONEL C. T. TROWBRIDGE,
“_Commanding regiment_.

“E. W. HYDE,
“1st Lieut. 33d U. S. C. T. and acting adjutant.”

I have one of the original copies of these orders still in my
possession.

My dear friends! do we understand the meaning of war? Do we know or
think of that war of ’61? No, we do not, only those brave soldiers, and
those who had occasion to be in it, can realize what it was. I can and
shall never forget that terrible war until my eyes close in death. The
scenes are just as fresh in my mind to-day as in ’61. I see now each
scene,--the roll-call, the drum tap, “lights out,” the call at night
when there was danger from the enemy, the double force of pickets, the
cold and rain. How anxious I would be, not knowing what would happen
before morning! Many times I would dress, not sure but all would be
captured. Other times I would stand at my tent door and try to see what
was going on, because night was the time the rebels would try to get
into our lines and capture some of the boys. It was mostly at night
that our men went out for their scouts, and often had a hand to hand
fight with the rebels, and although our men came out sometimes with a
few killed or wounded, none of them ever were captured.

We do not, as the black race, properly appreciate the old veterans,
white or black, as we ought to. I know what they went through,
especially those black men, for the Confederates had no mercy on them;
neither did they show any toward the white Union soldiers. I have seen
the terrors of that war. I was the wife of one of those men who did not
get a penny for eighteen months for their services, only their rations
and clothing.

I cannot praise General David Hunter too highly, for he was the first
man to arm the black man, in the beginning of 1862. He had a hard
struggle to hold all the southern division, with so few men, so he
applied to Congress; but the answer to him was, “Do not bother us,”
which was very discouraging. As the general needed more men to protect
the islands and do garrison duty, he organized two companies.

I look around now and see the comforts that our younger generation
enjoy, and think of the blood that was shed to make these comforts
possible for them, and see how little some of them appreciate the old
soldiers. My heart burns within me, at this want of appreciation.
There are only a few of them left now, so let us all, as the ranks
close, take a deeper interest in them. Let the younger generation take
an interest also, and remember that it was through the efforts of these
veterans that they and we older ones enjoy our liberty to-day.

AFTER THE WAR

In 1866, the steamers which ran from Savannah to Darien would not take
colored people unless they stayed in a certain part of the boat, away
from the white people; so some of the colored citizens and ex-soldiers
decided to form a syndicate and buy a steamer of their own. They
finally bought a large one of a New York company. It arrived in fine
shape, apparently, and made its first trip to Darien. The next trip
was to Beaufort. I went on this trip, as the pilot, James Cook, was a
friend of my family, and I thought I would enjoy the trip; and I did,
getting back in safety. The next trip was to go to Florida, but it
never reached there, for on the way down the boat ran upon St. John
bar and went entirely to pieces. They found out afterwards that they
had been swindled, as the boat was a condemned one, and the company
took advantage of them; and as they carried no insurance on the boat
they lost all the money they had invested in it. The best people of the
city expressed great sympathy for them in their loss, as it promised to
prove a great investment at first.

At the close of the war, my husband and I returned to Savannah, a
number of the comrades returning at the same time. A new life was
before us now, all the old life left behind. After getting settled, I
opened a school at my home on South Broad Street, now called Oglethorpe
Avenue, as there was not any public school for negro children. I had
twenty children at my school, and received one dollar a month for
each pupil. I also had a few older ones who came at night. There were
several other private schools besides mine. Mrs. Lucinda Jackson had
one on the same street I lived on.

I taught almost a year, when the Beach Institute opened, which took
a number of my scholars, as this was a free school. On September 16,
1866, my husband, Sergeant King, died, leaving me soon to welcome a
little stranger alone. He was a boss carpenter, but being just mustered
out of the army, and the prejudice against his race being still too
strong to insure him much work at his trade, he took contracts for
unloading vessels, and hired a number of men to assist him. He was
much respected by the citizens, and was a general favorite with his
associates.

In December, 1866, I was obliged to give up teaching, but in April,
1867, I opened a school in Liberty County, Georgia, and taught there
one year; but country life did not agree with me, so I returned to the
city, and Mrs. Susie Carrier took charge of my school.

[Illustration: MY SCHOOLHOUSE IN SAVANNAH]

On my return to Savannah, I found that the free school had taken all
my former pupils, so I opened a night school, where I taught a number
of adults. This, together with other things I could get to do and the
assistance of my brother-in-law, supported me. I taught this school
until the fall of 1868, when a free night school opened at the Beach
Institute, and again my scholars left me to attend this free school. So
I had to close my school. I put my baby with my mother and entered in
the employ of a family, where I lived quite a while, but had to leave,
as the work was too hard.

In 1872 I put in a claim for my husband’s bounty and received one
hundred dollars, some of which I put in the Freedmen’s Savings Bank. In
the fall of 1872 I went to work for a very wealthy lady, Mrs. Charles
Green, as laundress. In the spring of 1873, Mr. and Mrs. Green came
North to Rye Beach for the summer, and as their cook did not care to
go so far from home, I went with them in her place. While there, I
won a prize for excellent cooking at a fair which the ladies who were
summering there had held to raise funds to build an Episcopal Church,
and Mrs. Green was one of the energetic workers to make this fair a
success; and it was a success in every respect and a tidy sum was
netted.

I returned South with Mrs. Green, and soon after, she went to Europe.
I returned to Boston again in 1874, through the kindness of Mrs.
Barnard, a daughter of ex-Mayor Otis of Boston. She was accompanied
by her husband, Mr. James Barnard (who was an agent for the line of
steamers), her six children, the nurse, and myself. We left Savannah on
the steamship Seminole, under Captain Matthews, and when we had passed
Hatteras some distance, she broke her shaft. The captain had the sails
hoisted and we drifted along, there being a stiff breeze, which was
greatly in our favor. Captain Matthews said the nearest point he could
make was Cape Henry Light. About noon, Mr. Barnard spied the light and
told the captain if he would give him a boat and some of the crew, he
would row to the light for help. This was done, the boat was manned and
they put off. They made the light, then they made for Norfolk, which
was eight miles from the light, and did not reach the city until eight
o’clock that night.

Next morning he returned with a tug, to tow us into Norfolk for
repairs; but the tug was too small to move the steamer, so it went
back for more help, but before it returned, a Norfolk steamer, on its
way to Boston, stopped to see what was the matter with our steamer.
Our trouble was explained to them, and almost all the passengers were
transferred to this steamer. Mr. Barnard remained on the steamer, and
Mrs. Barnard deciding to remain with him, I went aboard this other
steamer with the rest of the passengers. We left them at anchor,
waiting for the tugs to return.

This accident brought back very vividly the time previous to this, when
I was in that other wreck in 1864, and I wondered if they would reach
port safe, for it is a terrible thing to be cast away; but on arriving
in Boston, about two days later, I was delighted to hear of the arrival
of their steamer at T Wharf, with all on board safe.

Soon after I got to Boston, I entered the service of Mr. Thomas Smith’s
family, on Walnut Avenue, Boston Highlands, where I remained until the
death of Mrs. Smith. I next lived with Mrs. Gorham Gray, Beacon Street,
where I remained until I was married, in 1879, to Russell L. Taylor.

In 1880 I had another experience in steamer accidents. Mr. Taylor and
I started for New York on the steamer Stonington. We were in bed when,
sometime in the night, the Narragansett collided with our boat. I was
awakened by the crash. I was in the ladies’ cabin. There were about
thirty-five or forty others in the cabin. I sprang out of my berth,
dressed as quickly as I could, and tried to reach the deck, but we
found the cabin door locked, and two men stood outside and would not
let us out. About twenty minutes after, they opened the doors and we
went up on deck, and a terrible scene was before us. The Narragansett
was on fire, in a bright blaze; the water was lighted as far as one
could see, the passengers shrieking, groaning, running about, leaping
into the water, panic-stricken. A steamer came to our assistance; they
put the life-rafts off and saved a great many from the burning steamer,
and picked a number up from the water. A colored man saved his wife
and child by giving each a chair and having them jump overboard. These
chairs kept them afloat until they were taken aboard by the life-raft.
The steamer was burned to the water’s edge. The passengers on board our
steamer were transferred to another one and got to New York at 9.30 the
next morning. A number of lives were lost in this accident, and the bow
of the Stonington was badly damaged. I was thankful for my escape, for
I had been in two similar experiences and got off safely, and I have
come to the conclusion I shall never have a watery grave.

XII

THE WOMEN’S RELIEF CORPS

All this time my interest in the boys in blue had not abated. I was
still loyal and true, whether they were black or white. My hands have
never left undone anything they could do towards their aid and comfort
in the twilight of their lives. In 1886 I helped to organize Corps
67, Women’s Relief Corps, auxiliary to the G. A. R., and it is a very
flourishing corps to-day. I have been Guard, Secretary, Treasurer for
three years, and in 1893 I was made President of this corps, Mrs. Emily
Clark being Department President this year. In 1896, in response to an
order sent out by the Department W. R. C. to take a census to secure a
complete roster of the Union Veterans of the war of the Rebellion now
residing in Massachusetts, I was allotted the West End district, which
(with the assistance of Mrs. Lizzie L. Johnson, a member of Corps 67,
and widow of a soldier of the 54th Mass. Volunteers) I canvassed with
splendid success, and found a great many comrades who were not attached
to any post in the city or State.

In 1898 the Department of Mass. W. R. C. gave a grand fair at Music
Hall. I made a large quilt of red, white, and blue ribbon that made
quite a sensation. The quilt was voted for and was awarded to the
Department President, Mrs. E. L. W. Waterman, of Boston.

XIII

THOUGHTS ON PRESENT CONDITIONS

Living here in Boston where the black man is given equal justice, I
must say a word on the general treatment of my race, both in the North
and South, in this twentieth century. I wonder if our white fellow
men realize the true sense or meaning of brotherhood? For two hundred
years we had toiled for them; the war of 1861 came and was ended, and
we thought our race was forever freed from bondage, and that the two
races could live in unity with each other, but when we read almost
every day of what is being done to my race by some whites in the South,
I sometimes ask, “Was the war in vain? Has it brought freedom, in the
full sense of the word, or has it not made our condition more hopeless?”

In this “land of the free” we are burned, tortured, and denied a fair
trial, murdered for any imaginary wrong conceived in the brain of the
negro-hating white man. There is no redress for us from a government
which promised to protect all under its flag. It seems a mystery to
me. They say, “One flag, one nation, one country indivisible.” Is
this true? Can we say this truthfully, when one race is allowed to
burn, hang, and inflict the most horrible torture weekly, monthly, on
another? No, we cannot sing, “My country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of
Liberty”! It is hollow mockery. The Southland laws are all on the side
of the white, and they do just as they like to the negro, whether in
the right or not.

I do not uphold my race when they do wrong. They ought to be punished,
but the innocent are made to suffer as well as the guilty, and I hope
the time will hasten when it will be stopped forever. Let us remember
God says, “He that sheds blood, his blood shall be required again.”
I may not live to see it, but the time is approaching when the South
will again have cause to repent for the blood it has shed of innocent
black men, for their blood cries out for vengeance. For the South still
cherishes a hatred toward the blacks, although there are some true
Southern gentlemen left who abhor the stigma brought upon them, and
feel it very keenly, and I hope the day is not far distant when the
two races will reside in peace in the Southland, and we will sing with
sincere and truthful hearts, “My country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of
Liberty, of thee I sing.”

I have been in many States and cities, and in each I have looked for
liberty and justice, equal for the black as for the white; but it
was not until I was within the borders of New England, and reached
old Massachusetts, that I found it. Here is found liberty in the
full sense of the word, liberty for the stranger within her gates,
irrespective of race or creed, liberty and justice for all.

We have before us still another problem to solve. With the close of
the Spanish war, and on the entrance of the Americans into Cuba, the
same conditions confront us as the war of 1861 left. The Cubans are
free, but it is a limited freedom, for prejudice, deep-rooted, has
been brought to them and a separation made between the white and black
Cubans, a thing that had never existed between them before; but to-day
there is the same intense hatred toward the negro in Cuba that there is
in some parts of this country.

I helped to furnish and pack boxes to be sent to the soldiers and
hospitals during the first part of the Spanish war; there were black
soldiers there too. At the battle of San Juan Hill, they were in
the front, just as brave, loyal, and true as those other black men
who fought for freedom and the right; and yet their bravery and
faithfulness were reluctantly acknowledged, and praise grudgingly
given. All we ask for is “equal justice,” the same that is accorded
to all other races who come to this country, of their free will (not
forced to, as we were), and are allowed to enjoy every privilege,
unrestricted, while we are denied what is rightfully our own in a
country which the labor of our forefathers helped to make what it is.

One thing I have noticed among my people in the South: they have
accumulated a large amount of real estate, far surpassing the colored
owners in the North, who seem to let their opportunity slip by them.
Nearly all of Brownsville (a suburb of Savannah) is owned by colored
people, and so it is in a great many other places throughout the State,
and all that is needed is the protection of the law as citizens.

In 1867, soon after the death of my father, who had served on a gunboat
during the war, my mother opened a grocery store, where she kept
general merchandise always on hand. These she traded for cash or would
exchange for crops of cotton, corn, or rice, which she would ship once
a month, to F. Lloyd & Co., or Johnson & Jackson, in Savannah. These
were colored merchants, doing business on Bay Street in that city.
Mother bought her first property, which contained ten acres. She next
purchased fifty acres of land. Then she had a chance to get a place
with seven hundred acres of land, and she bought this.

In 1870, Colonel Hamilton and Major Devendorft, of Oswego, N. Y., came
to the town and bought up a tract of land at a place called Doctortown,
and started a mill. Mrs. Devendorft heard of my mother and went to see
her, and persuaded her to come to live with her, assuring her she
would be as one of the family. Mother went with her, but after a few
months she went to Doctortown, where she has been since, and now owns
the largest settlement there. All trains going to Florida pass her
place, just across the Altamaha River. She is well known by both white
and black; the people are fond of her, and will not allow any one to
harm her.

Mr. Devendorft sold out his place in 1880 and went back to New York,
where later he died.

I read an article, which said the ex-Confederate Daughters had sent
a petition to the managers of the local theatres in Tennessee to
prohibit the performance of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” claiming it was
exaggerated (that is, the treatment of the slaves), and would have a
very bad effect on the children who might see the drama. I paused and
thought back a few years of the heart-rending scenes I have witnessed;
I have seen many times, when I was a mere girl, thirty or forty men,
handcuffed, and as many women and children, come every first Tuesday
of each month from Mr. Wiley’s trade office to the auction blocks, one
of them being situated on Drayton Street and Court Lane, the other on
Bryant Street, near the Pulaski House. The route was down our principal
street, Bull Street, to the court-house, which was only a block from
where I resided.

All people in those days got all their water from the city pumps,
which stood about a block apart throughout the city. The one we used
to get water from was opposite the court-house, on Bull Street. I
remember, as if it were yesterday, seeing droves of negroes going to be
sold, and I often went to look at them, and I could hear the auctioneer
very plainly from my house, auctioning these poor people off.

Do these Confederate Daughters ever send petitions to prohibit the
atrocious lynchings and wholesale murdering and torture of the negro?
Do you ever hear of them fearing this would have a bad effect on
the children? Which of these two, the drama or the present state of
affairs, makes a degrading impression upon the minds of our young
generation? In my opinion it is not “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” but it should
be the one that has caused the world to cry “Shame!” It does not seem
as if our land is yet civilized. It is like times long past, when
rulers and high officers had to flee for their lives, and the negro
has been dealt with in the same way since the war by those he lived
with and toiled for two hundred years or more. I do not condemn all the
Caucasian race because the negro is badly treated by a few of the race.
No! for had it not been for the true whites, assisted by God and the
prayers of our forefathers, I should not be here to-day.

There are still good friends to the negro. Why, there are still
thousands that have not bowed to Baal. So it is with us. Man thinks two
hundred years is a long time, and it is, too; but it is only as a week
to God, and in his own time--I know I shall not live to see the day,
but it will come--the South will be like the North, and when it comes
it will be prized higher than we prize the North to-day. God is just;
when he created man he made him in his image, and never intended one
should misuse the other. All men are born free and equal in his sight.

I am pleased to know at this writing that the officers and comrades
of my regiment stand ready to render me assistance whenever required.
It seems like “bread cast upon the water,” and it has returned after
many days, when it is most needed. I have received letters from some of
the comrades, since we parted in 1866, with expressions of gratitude
and thanks to me for teaching them their first letters. One of them,
Peter Waggall, is a minister in Jacksonville, Fla. Another is in the
government service at Washington, D. C. Others are in Darien and
Savannah, Ga., and all are doing well.

There are many people who do not know what some of the colored women
did during the war. There were hundreds of them who assisted the Union
soldiers by hiding them and helping them to escape. Many were punished
for taking food to the prison stockades for the prisoners. When I went
into Savannah, in 1865, I was told of one of these stockades which was
in the suburbs of the city, and they said it was an awful place. The
Union soldiers were in it, worse than pigs, without any shelter from
sun or storm, and the colored women would take food there at night and
pass it to them, through the holes in the fence. The soldiers were
starving, and these women did all they could towards relieving those
men, although they knew the penalty, should they be caught giving them
aid. Others assisted in various ways the Union army. These things
should be kept in history before the people. There has never been a
greater war in the United States than the one of 1861, where so many
lives were lost,--not men alone but noble women as well.

Let us not forget that terrible war, or our brave soldiers who were
thrown into Andersonville and Libby prisons, the awful agony they went
through, and the most brutal treatment they received in those loathsome
dens, the worst ever given human beings; and if the white soldiers were
subjected to such treatment, what must have been the horrors inflicted
on the negro soldiers in their prison pens? Can we forget those
cruelties? No, though we try to forgive and say, “No North, no South,”
and hope to see it in reality before the last comrade passes away.

XIV

A VISIT TO LOUISIANA

The inevitable always happens. On February 3, 1898, I was called to
Shreveport, La., to the bedside of my son, who was very ill. He was
traveling with Nickens and Company, with “The Lion’s Bride,” when he
fell ill, and had been ill two weeks when they sent to me. I tried
to have him brought home to Boston, but they could not send him, as
he was not able to sit and ride this long distance; so on the sixth
of February I left Boston to go to him. I reached Cincinnati on the
eighth, where I took the train for the south. I asked a white man
standing near (before I got my train) what car I should take. “Take
that one,” he said, pointing to one. “But that is a smoking car!”
“Well,” he replied, “that is the car for colored people.” I went to
this car, and on entering it all my courage failed me. I have ridden
in many coaches, but I was never in such as these. I wanted to return
home again, but when I thought of my sick boy I said, “Well, others
ride in these cars and I must do likewise,” and tried to be resigned,
for I wanted to reach my boy, as I did not know whether I should find
him alive. I arrived in Chattanooga at eight o’clock in the evening,
where the porter took my baggage to the train which was to leave for
Marion, Miss. Soon after I was seated, just before the train pulled
out, two tall men with slouch hats on walked through the car, and on
through the train. Finally they came back to our car and stopping at
my seat said, “Where are those men who were with you?” I did not know
to whom they were speaking, as there was another woman in the car, so
I made no reply. Again they asked me, standing directly in front of my
seat, “Where are those men who came in with you?” “Are you speaking to
me?” I said. “Yes!” they said. “I have not seen any men,” I replied.
They looked at me a moment, and one of them asked where I was from. I
told him Boston; he hesitated a minute and walked out of our car to the
other car.

When the conductor came around I told him what these men had said,
and asked him if they allowed persons to enter the car and insult
passengers. He only smiled. Later, when the porter came in, I mentioned
it to him. He said, “Lady, I see you do not belong here; where are
you from?” I told him. He said, “I have often heard of Massachusetts.
I want to see that place.” “Yes!” I said, “you can ride there on the
cars, and no person would be allowed to speak to you as those men
did to me.” He explained that those men were constables, who were
in search of a man who had eloped with another man’s wife. “That is
the way they do here. Each morning you can hear of some negro being
lynched;” and on seeing my surprise, he said, “Oh, that is nothing;
it is done all the time. We have no rights here. I have been on this
road for fifteen years and have seen some terrible things.” He wanted
to know what I was doing down there, and I told him it was only the
illness of my son that brought me there.

I was a little surprised at the way the poor whites were made to ride
on this road. They put them all together by themselves in a car,
between the colored people’s coach and the first-class coach, and it
looked like the “laborers’ car” used in Boston to carry the different
day laborers to and from their work.

I got to Marion, Miss., at two o’clock in the morning, arrived at
Vicksburg at noon, and at Shreveport about eight o’clock in the
evening, and found my son just recovering from a severe hemorrhage. He
was very anxious to come home, and I tried to secure a berth for him on
a sleeper, but they would not sell me one, and he was not strong enough
to travel otherwise. If I could only have gotten him to Cincinnati, I
might have brought him home, but as I could not I was forced to let him
remain where he was. It seemed very hard, when his father fought to
protect the Union and our flag, and yet his boy was denied, under this
same flag, a berth to carry him home to die, because he was a negro.

Shreveport is a little town, made up largely of Jews and Germans and a
few Southerners, the negroes being in the majority. Its sidewalks are
sand except on the main street. Almost all the stores are kept either
by the Jews or Germans. They know a stranger in a minute, as the town
is small and the citizens know each other; if not personally, their
faces are familiar.

I went into a jewelry store one day to have a crystal put in my watch,
and the attendant remarked, “You are a stranger.” I asked him how he
knew that. He said he had watched me for a week or so. I told him yes,
I was a stranger and from Boston. “Oh! I have heard of Boston,” he
said. “You will not find this place like it is there. How do you like
this town?” “Not very well,” I replied.

I found that the people who had lived in Massachusetts and were settled
in Shreveport were very cordial to me and glad to see me. There was
a man murdered in cold blood for nothing. He was a colored man and a
“porter” in a store in this town. A clerk had left his umbrella at
home. It had begun to rain when he started for home, and on looking
for the umbrella he could not, of course, find it. He asked the porter
if he had seen it. He said no, he had not. “You answer very saucy,”
said the clerk, and drawing his revolver, he shot the colored man dead.
He was taken up the street to an office where he was placed under one
thousand dollars bond for his appearance and released, and that was the
end of the case. I was surprised at this, but I was told by several
white and colored persons that this was a common occurrence, and the
persons were never punished if they were white, but no mercy was shown
to negroes.

I met several comrades, white and colored, there, and noticed that the
colored comrades did not wear their buttons. I asked one of them why
this was, and was told, should they wear it, they could not get work.
Still some would wear their buttons in spite of the feeling against it.
I met a newsman from New York on the train. He was a veteran, and said
that Sherman ought to come back and go into that part of the country.

Shreveport is a horrid place when it rains. The earth is red and sticks
to your shoes, and it is impossible to keep rubbers on, for the mud
pulls them off. Going across the Mississippi River, I was amazed to see
how the houses were built, so close to the shore, or else on low land;
and when the river rises, it flows into these houses and must make it
very disagreeable and unhealthy for the inmates.

After the death of my son, while on my way back to Boston, I came to
Clarksdale, one of the stations on the road from Vicksburg. In this
town a Mr. Hancock, of New York, had a large cotton plantation, and the
Chinese intermarry with the blacks.

At Clarksdale, I saw a man hanged. It was a terrible sight, and I felt
alarmed for my own safety down there. When I reached Memphis I found
conditions of travel much better. The people were mostly Western and
Northern here; the cars were nice, but separate for colored persons
until we reached the Ohio River, when the door was opened and the
porter passed through, saying, “The Ohio River! change to the other
car.” I thought, “What does he mean? We have been riding all this
distance in separate cars, and now we are all to sit together.” It
certainly seemed a peculiar arrangement. Why not let the negroes, if
their appearance and respectability warrant it, be allowed to ride as
they do in the North, East, or West?

There are others beside the blacks, in the South and North, that should
be put in separate cars while traveling, just as they put my race. Many
black people in the South do not wish to be thrown into a car because
all are colored, as there are many of their race very objectionable
to them, being of an entirely different class; but they have to adapt
themselves to the circumstances and ride with them, because they are
all negroes. There is no such division with the whites. Except in
one place I saw, the workingman and the millionaire ride in the same
coaches together. Why not allow the respectable, law-abiding classes
of the blacks the same privilege? We hope for better conditions in the
future, and feel sure they will come in time, surely if slowly.

While in Shreveport, I visited ex-Senator Harper’s house. He is a
colored man and owns a large business block, besides a fine residence
on Cado Street and several good building lots. Another family, the
Pages, living on the same street, were quite wealthy, and a large
number of colored families owned their homes, and were industrious,
refined people; and if they were only allowed justice, the South would
be the only place for our people to live.

We are similar to the children of Israel, who, after many weary years
in bondage, were led into that land of promise, there to thrive and be
forever free from persecution; and I don’t despair, for the Book which
is our guide through life declares, “Ethiopia shall stretch forth her
hand.”

What a wonderful revolution! In 1861 the Southern papers were full of
advertisements for “slaves,” but now, despite all the hindrances and
“race problems,” my people are striving to attain the full standard
of all other races born free in the sight of God, and in a number of
instances have succeeded. Justice we ask,--to be citizens of these
United States, where so many of our people have shed their blood with
their white comrades, that the stars and stripes should never be
polluted.

APPENDIX

ROSTER OF SURVIVORS OF THIRTY-THIRD UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS

The following are the names of officers and men as near as I have been
able to reach.

Colonel T. W. Higginson.
Lieut.-Col. C. T. Trowbridge.

COMPANY A.

Capt. Charles E. Parker,
Lieut. John A. Trowbridge,
Lieut. J. B. West,
O.-Sergt. Joseph Holden,
1st Sergt. ---- Hattent,
2d Sergt. Wm. Jackson,
Thomas Smith,
George Green,
Manly Gater,
Paul Jones,
Sancho Jenkins,
London Bailey,
Edmund Mack,
Andrew Perry,
Morris Williams,
James Dorsen,
Abel Haywood.

COMPANY B.

Capt. Wm. James,
O.-Sergt. Bob Bowling,
2d Sergt. Nathan Hagans,
3d Sergt. Cato Wright,
4th Sergt. Frederick Parker,
5th Sergt. Wm. Simmons,
Corp. Monday Stewart,
Corp. Allick Seymore,
Corp. Lazarus Fields,
Corp. Boson Green,
Corp. Steven Wright,
Corp. Carolina Hagans,
Corp. Richard Robinson,
David Hall,
Edward Houston,
Smart Givins,
John Mills,
Jacob Riley,
Frederick Procter,
Benj. Gordon,
Benj. Mason,
Sabe Natteal,
Joseph Noyels,
Benj. Mackwell,
Thos. Hernandes,
Israel Choen,
Steplight Gordon,
Chas. Talbert,
Isaac Jenkins,
Morris Polite,
Robert Freeman,
Jacob Watson,
Benj. Managualt,
Richard Adams,
Mingo Singleton,
Toney Chapman,
Jos. Knowell,
Benj. Gardner.

COMPANY C.

Capt. A. W. Jackson,
2d Sergt. Billy Milton,
Corp. Peter Waggall,
Corp. Henry Abrams,
Martin Dickson, Drummer,
Roddrick Langs, Fifer,
Joseph Smith,
Solomon Major,
John Brown,
Bram Strowbridge,
Robert Trewell,
Jerry Fields,
Paul Fields,
William Johnson,
Bram Stoved,
Robert Mack,
Samuel Mack,
Jack Mack,
Simon Gatson,
Bob Bolden,
James Long,
O.-S. Frederick Brown.

COMPANY D.

Sergt. Isaiah Brown,
Luke Wright,
Dick Haywood,
Stephen Murrel,
Jos. Halsley,
Nathan Hazeby,
O.-Sergt. Robert Godwen,
Peter Johnson,
Cæsar Johnson,
Sampson Cuthbert.

COMPANY E.

Capt. N. G. Parker,
Corp. Jack Sallens,
Quaker Green,
Abram Fuller,
Levan Watkins,
Peter Chisholm,
Scipio Haywood,
Paul King,
Richard Howard,
Esau Kellison,
Chas. Armstrong,
Washington Demry,
Benj. King,
Luke Harris,
William Cummings.

COMPANY F.

Capt. John Thompson,
Sergt. Robert Vandross,
Sergt. Cæsar Alston,
2d Sergt. Moses Green,
Corp. Samuel Mack,
Edmund Washington,
Isaac Jenkins,
Chas. Seymore,
Frank Grayson,
Bristow Eddy,
Abram Fields,
Joseph Richardson,
James Brown,
Frederick Tripp,
Frost Coleman,
Paul Coleman,
Robert Edward,
Milton Edward.

COMPANY G.

Capt. L. W. Metcalf,
Sergt. T. W. Long,
Corp. Prince Logan,
Corp. Mark Clark,
Corp. James Ash,
Corp. Henry Hamilton,
Roddrick Long,
Benjamin Turner,
David Wanton,
Benjamin Martin,
John Ryals,
Charles Williams,
Hogarth Williams,
Benjamin Wright,
Henry Harker.

COMPANY H.

Capt. W. W. Sampson,
1st Sergt. Jacob Jones,
2d Sergt. Thomas Fields,
Corp. A. Brown,
Corp. Emmanuel Washington,
Jackson Danner,
Joseph Wright,
Phillips Brown,
Luke Harris,
Lazarus Aikens,
Jonah Aikens,
Jacob Jones,
Thomas Howard,
William Williams,
Jack Parker,
Jack Ladson,
Poll McKee,
Lucius Baker.

COMPANY I.

2d Sergt. Daniel Spaulding,
Corp. Uandickpe,
Corp. Floward,
Corp. Thompson.

COMPANY K.

O.-Sergt. Harry Williams,
2d Sergt. Billy Coleman,
3d Sergt. Cæsar Oston,
Jacob Lance,
Jack Burns,
Wm. McLean,
Geo. Washington,
David Wright,
Jerry Mitchell,
Jackson Green,
David Putnam,
B. Lance,
Ward McKen,
Edmond Cloud,
Chance Mitchel,
Leon Simmons,
Prince White,
Stephen Jenkins.

Quarter-Master Harry West.
Quarter-Master’s Sergt., Edward Colvin.

A LIST OF THE BATTLES FOUGHT BY THE THIRTY-THIRD U. S. COLORED
TROOPS, FORMERLY FIRST S. C. VOLUNTEERS.

Darien, Ga., and Ridge 1862
St. Mary’s River and Hundred Pines 1862
Pocotaligo Bridge[1] 1862
Jacksonville, Fla. 1863
Township 1863
Mill Town Bluff[2] 1863
Hall Island 1863
Johns Island 1863
Coosaw River 1863
Combahee and Edisto[3] 1863
James Island[4] 1864
Honey Hill 1864

[1] Many prisoners and stores captured.

[2] Four prisoners captured.

[3] 300 prisoners captured.

[4] Fort Gregg captured.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Reminiscences of my life in camp with the 33d United States colored troops, late 1st S.C. Volunteers" ***

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