University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
THE REORGANIZATION OF SOUTHERN LABOR IS CONTINUED
WITH VIGOR.

By six o'clock in the morning the Doctor was out visiting
the quarters of his sable dependants. Having on the
previous evening told Major Scott, the head man or overseer
of the gang, that he should expect the people to rise
by daybreak and get their breakfasts immediately, so as to
be ready for early work, he was a little astonished to find
half of them still asleep, and two or three absent. The
Major himself was just leaving the water-butt in rear of
the plantation house, where he had evidently been performing
his morning ablutions.

“Scott,” said the Doctor, “you shouldn't use that water.
The butt holds hardly enough for the family.”

“Yes sah,” answered with a reverential bow the Major.
“But the butt that we has is mighty dry.”

“But there is the bayou, close by.”

“Yes sah, so 'tis,” assented the Major, with another
bow. “I guess I'll think of that nex' time.”

“But what are you all about?” asked the Doctor. “I
understood that you were all to be up and ready for work
by this time.”

“I tole the boys so,” said the Major in a tone of indignant
virtue. “I tole 'em every one to be up an' about right

smart this mornin'. I tole 'em this was the fust mornin' an'
they orter be up right smart, cos everythin' 'pended on
how we took a start. 'Pears like they didn't mine much
about it some of 'em.”

“I'm afraid you didn't set them an example, Scott.
Have you had your breakfast?”

“No sah. 'Pears like the ole woman couldn't fetch nothin'
to pass this mornin'.”

“Well, Scott, you must set them an example, if you
want to influence them. Never enjoin any duty upon a
man without setting him an example.”

“Yes sah; that's the true way,” coincided the unabashed
Major. “That's the way Abraham an' Isaac an' Jacob
went at it,” he added, turning his large eyes upward with
a sanctimoniousness of effect which most men could not
have equalled without the aid of lifted hands, tonsures
and priestly gowns. “An' they was God's 'ticlar child'n,
an 'lightened by his holy sperrit.”

The Doctor studied him for a moment with the interest
of a philosopher in a moral curiosity, and said to himself,
rather sadly, that a monkey or a parrot might be educated
to very nearly the same show of piety.

“Are all the people here?” he inquired, reverting from
a consideration of the spiritual harvest to matters connected
with temporal agriculture.

“No sah. I'se feared not. Tom an' Jim is gone fo'
suah. Tom he went off las' night down to the fote.
'Pears like he's foun' a gal down thar that he's a co'ting.
Then Jim;—don' know whar Jim is nohow. Mighty
poor mean nigger he is, I specs. Sort o' no 'count nigger.”

“Is he?” said the Doctor, eyeing Scott with a suspicious
air, as if considering the possibility that he too might be a
negro of no account. “I must have a talk with these
people. Get them all together, every man, woman and
pickaninny.”

The Major's face was radiant at the prospect of a speech,
a scene, a spectacle, an excitement. He went at his subordinates

with a will, dragging them out of their slumbers
by the heels, jerking the little ones along by the shoulder,
and shouting in a grand bass voice, “Come, start 'long!
Pile out! Git away frum hyer. Mars Ravenel gwine to
make a speech.”

In a few minutes he had them drawn up in two ranks,
men in front, women in the rear, tallest on the right, younglings
on the left.

“I knows how to form 'em,” he said with a broad smile
of satisfied vanity. “I used to c'mand a comp'ny under
Gineral Phelps. I was head boss of his cullud 'campment.
He fus' give me the title of Major.”

He took his post on the right of the line, honored the
Doctor with a military salute, and commanded in a
hollow roar, “'Tention!”

“My friends,” said the Doctor, “we are all here to earn
our living.”

“That's so. Bress the Lawd! The good time am
a comin',” from the not unintelligent audience.

“Hear me patiently and don't interrupt,” continued the
Doctor. “I see that you understand and appreciate
your good fortune in being able at last to work for the
wages of freedom.”

“Yes, Mars'r,” in a subdued hoarse whisper from Major
Scott, who immediately apologized for his liberty by a
particularly grand military salute.

“I want to impress upon you,” said Ravenel, “that the
true dignity of freedom does not consist in laziness. A
lazy man is sure to be a poor man, and a poor man is never
quite a free man. He is not free to buy what he would
like, because he has no money. He is not free to respect
himself, for a lazy man is not worthy even of his own respect.
We must all work to get any thing or deserve any
thing. In old times you used to work because you were
afraid of the overseer.” “Whip,” he was about to say,
but skipped the degrading word.

“Now you are to work from hope, and not from fear.

The good time has come when our nation has resolved to
declare that the laborer is worthy of his hire.”

“Oh, the blessed Scripter!” shouted Madam Scott in a
piercing pipe, whereupon her husband gave her a white-eyed
glare of reproof for daring to speak when he was
silent.

“Your future depends upon yourselves,” the Doctor
went on. “You can become useful and even influential
citizens, if you will. But you must be industrious and
honest, and faithful to your engagements. I want you to
understand this perfectly. I will talk more to you about
it some other time. Just now I wish chiefly to impress
upon you your immediate duties while you are on this
plantation. I shall expect you all to sleep in your quarters.
I shall expect you to be up at daybreak, get your
breakfasts as soon as possible, and be ready to go to work
at once. You must not leave the plantation during the
day without my permission. You will work ten hours a
day during the working season. You will be orderly,
honest, virtuous and respectable. In return I am to give
you rations, clothing, quarters, fuel, medical attendance,
and instruction for children. I am also to pay you as
wages eight dollars a month for first-class hands, and six
for second-class. Each of you will have his little plot of
land. Finally, I will endeavor to see that you are all, old
and young, taught to read.”

Here there was an unanimous shout of delight, followed
by articulate blessings and utterances of gratitude.

“Whenever any one gets dissatisfied,” concluded the
Doctor, “I will apply to find him another place. You
know that, if you go off alone and without authority, you
are exposed to be picked up by the provost-marshal, and
put in the army. Now then, get your breakfasts. Major
Scott, you will report to me when they are ready to go to
work.”

While the Major offered up a ponderous salute, the line
dispersed in gleesome confusion, which was a sore disappointment

to him, as he wanted to make it right face, clap
hands, and break ranks in military fashion. The Doctor
went to breakfast with the most cheerful confidence in his
retainers, notwithstanding the idle opening of this morning.
As soon as the poor fellows knew what he expected
of them, they would be sure to do it, if it was anything in
reason, he said to Lillie. The negroes were ignorant of
their duty, and often thoughtless of it, but they were at
bottom zealous to do right, and honestly disposed toward
people who paid them for their labor. And here the author
ventures to introduce the historical doubt as to whether
any other half-barbarous race was ever blessed and beautified
with such a lovingly grateful spirit as descended, like
the flames of the day of Pentecost, upon the bondsmen of
America when their chains were broken by the just hands
of the great Republic. Impure in life by reason of their
immemorial degradation, first as savages, and then as
slaves, they were pure in heart by reason of their fervent
joy and love.

Under no urgency but that of their own thankfulness
the Doctor's negroes did more work that summer than the
Robertsons had ever got from double their number by the
agency of a white overseer, drivers, whips and paddles.
On the second morning they were all present and up at
daybreak, including even Tom the lovelorn, and Jim the
“no 'count nigger.” In a couple of weeks they had split
out many wagon-loads of rails from the forest in rear of
the plantation, put the broken-down fences in order, and
prepared a sufficient tract of ground for planting. Not a
pig nor a chicken disappeared from the Doctor's flocks and
herds, if I may be allowed to apply such magnificent terms
to bristly and feathered creatures. On the contrary, his
small store of live-stock increased with a rapidity which
seemed miraculous, and which was inadequately explained
by the non-committal commentary of Major Scott, “Specs
it mebbe in answer to prayer.” Ravenel finally learned, to
his intense mortification, that his over-zealous henchmen

were in the habit of depredating nightly on the property
of adjacent planters of the old Secession stock, and adding
such of their spoils as they did not need, to his limited zoological
collection. Under the pangs of this discovery he
made a tour of apology and restitution through the neighborhood,
and on returning from it, called his hands together
and delivered them a lecture on the universal application
of the law of honesty. They heard him with
suppressed titters and hastily eclipsed grins, nudging each
other in the side, and exhibiting a keen perception of the
practical humor and poetical justice of their roguery.

“'Pears like you don' wan' to spile the 'Gyptians, Mars
Ravenel,” observed a smirking, shining darkey known as
Mr. Mo. “You's one o' God's chosen people, an' you's
been in slavery somethin' like we has, an' you has a right
to dese yere rebel chickins.”

“My good people,” replied the Doctor, “I don't say but
that you have a right to all the rebel chickens in Louisiana.
I deny that I have. I have always been well paid for my
labor. And even to you I would say, be forgiving,—be
magnanimous,—avoid even the appearance of evil. It is
your great business, your great duty toward yourselves,
to establish a character for perfect honesty and harmlessness.
If you haven't enough to eat, I don't mind adding
something to your rations.”

“We has 'nuff to eat,” thundered Major Scott. “Let
the man as says we hasn't step out yere.”

Nobody stepped out; everybody was full of nourishment
and content; and the interview terminated in a buzz
of satisfaction and suppressed laughter. Thenceforward
the Doctor had the virtuous pleasure of observing that his
legitimate pigs and chickens were left to their natural
means of increase.

Lillie's reading schools, held every evening in one of the
unfurnished rooms of the second story, were attended regularly
by both sexes, and all ages of this black population.
The rapidity of their progress at first astonished and

eventually delighted her, in proportion as she gradually
took her ignorant but zealous scholars to her heart. The
eagerness, the joy, the gratitude even to tears, with which
they accepted her tuition was touching. They pronounced
the words “Miss Lillie” with a tone and manner which
seemed to lay soul and body at her feet; and when the
Doctor entered the schoolroom on one of his visits of inspection
they gave him a dazzling welcome of grins and
rolling eyes; the spectacle reminded him vaguely of such
spiritual expressions crowns of glory and stars in the
firmament. If the gratitude of the humble is a benediction,
few people have ever been more blessed than were
the Ravenels at this period.

As a truthful historian I must admit that there were
some rotten specks in the social fruit which the Doctor
was trying to raise from this barbarous stock. Lillie was
annoyed, was even put out of all patience temporarily, by
occasional scandals which came to light among her sable
pupils and were referred to her or to her father for settlement.
That eminent dignitary and supposed exemplar of
purity, Major Scott, was the very first to be detected in
capital sin, the scandal being all the more grievous because
he was not only the appointed industrial manager, but the
self-elected spiritual overseer of the colored community.
He preached to them every Sunday afternoon, and secretly
plumed himself on being more fluent by many degrees
than Mars Ravenel, who conducted the morning exercises
chiefly through the agency of Bible and prayer-book.
His copiousness of language, and abundance of Scriptural
quotation was quite wonderful. In volume of sound his
praying was as if a bull of Bashan had had a gift in
prayer; and if Heaven could have been taken, like Jericho,
by mere noise, Major Scott was able to take it alone. Had
he been born white and decently educated, he would probably
have made a popular orator either of the pulpit or
forum. He had the lungs for it, the volubility and the
imagination. In pious conversation, venerable air, grand

physique, superb bass voice, musical ear, perfection of
teeth, and shining white of the eyes, he was a counterpart
of Mrs. Stowe's immortal idealism, Uncle Tom. But, like
some white Christians, this tolerably exemplary black had
not yet arrived at the ability to keep the whole decalogue.
He sometimes got a fall in his wrestlings with the sin of
lying, and in regard to the seventh commandment he was
even more liable to overthrow than King David. Ravenel
had much ado to heal some social heart-burnings caused
by the Major's want of illumination concerning the binding
nature of the marriage contract. He got him married
over again by the chaplain of the garrison at Fort Winthrop,
and then informed him that, in case of any more
scandals, he should report him to the provost-marshal as a
proper character to enter the army.

“I'se very sorry for what's come to pass, Mars Ravenel,”
said the alarmed and repentant culprit. “But now
I 'specs to go right forrad in the path of duty. I s'pose
now Mars Chaplain has done it strong. Ye see, afore it
wasn't done strong. I wasn't rightly married, like 'spectable
folks is, nohow. Ef I'd been married right strong,
like 'spectable white folks is, I wouldn't got into this muss
an fotched down shame on 'ligion, for which I'se mighty
sorry an' been about repentin in secret places with many
tears. That's so, Mars Ravenel, as true as I hopes to be
forgiven.”

Here the Major's manhood, what he had of it, broke
down, or, perhaps I ought to say, showed itself honorably,
and he wept copious tears of what I must charitably accept
as true compunction.

“I am a little disappointed, but not much astonished,”
said the Doctor, discussing this matter with the Chaplain.
“I was inclined to hope at one time that I had found an
actual Uncle Tom. I was anxious and even ready to believe
that the mere gift of freedom had exalted and purified
the negro character notwithstanding uncounted centuries
of barbarism or of oppression. But in hoping a

moral miracle I was hoping too much. I ought not to
have expected that a St. Vincent de Paul could be raised
under the injustice and dissoluteness of the sugar-planting
system. After all, the Major is no worse than David.
That is pretty well for a man whom the American Republic,
thirty millions strong, has repressed and kept brutish
with its whole power from his birth down to about a year
ago.”

“It seems to me,” answered the Chaplain,—“I beg your
pardon,—but it seems to me that you don't sufficiently
consider the enlightening power of divine grace. If this
man had ever been truly regenerated (which I fear is not
the case), I doubt whether he would have fallen into this
sin.”

“My dear sir,” said the Doctor warmly, “renewing a
man's heart is only a partial reformation, unless you illuminate
his mind. He wants to do right, but how is he to
know what is right? Suppose he can't read. Suppose
half of the Bible is not told him. Suppose he is misled by
half the teaching, and all the example of those whom he
looks up to as in every respect his superiors. I am disposed
to regard Scott as a very fair attempt at a Christian,
considering his chances. I am grieved over his error, but
I do not think it a case for righteous indignation, except
against men who brought this poor fellow up so badly.”

“But Uncle Tom,” instanced the Chaplain, who had not
been long in the South.

“My dear sir, Uncle Tom is a pure fiction. There never
was such a slave, and there never will be. A man educated
under the degrading influences of bondage must always
have some taint of uncommon grossness and lowness.
I don't believe that Onesimus was a pattern of piety. But
St. Paul had the moral sense, the Christianity, to make allowance
for his disadvantages, and he recommended him
to Philemon, no doubt as a weak brother who required
special charity and instruction.”

Injured husbands of the slave-grown breed are rarely

implacable in their anger; and before a fortnight had
passed, Major Scott was preaching and praying among his
colored brethren with as much confidence and acceptance
as ever.

The season opened delightfully with the Ravenels. Lillie
was occasionally doleful at not getting letters from her
husband, and sometimes depressed by the solitude and
monotony of plantation life. Her father, being more
steadily occupied, and having no affectionate worry on his
mind, was constantly and almost boyishly cheerful. It
was one of his characteristics to be contented under nearly
any circumstances. Wherever he happened to be he
thought it was a very nice place; and if he afterwards
found a spot with superior advantages, he simply liked it
better still. I can easily believe that, but for the stigma
of forced confinement, he would have been quite happy in
a prison, and that, on regaining his liberty, he would simply
have remarked, “Why, it is even pleasanter outside than
in.”

But I am running ahead of some important events in
my story. Lillie received a letter from her husband saying
that he should visit the family soon, and then another
informing her that in consequence of an unforeseen press
of business, he should be obliged to postpone the visit for
a few days. His two next letters were written from
Brashear City on the Atchafalaya river, but contained no
explanation of his presence there. Then came a silence of
three days, which caused her to torture herself with all
sorts of gloomy doubts and fears, and made her fly for
forgetfulness or comfort to her housekeeping, her school,
and her now frequent private devotions. The riddle was
explained when the Doctor procured a New Orleans paper
at the fort, with the news that Banks had crossed the
Atchafalaya and beaten the enemy at Camp Beasland.

“It's all right,” he said, as he entered the house. He
waved the paper triumphantly, and smiled with a counterfeit
delight, anxious to forestall her alarm.

“Oh! what is it?” asked Lillie with a choking sensation,
fearful that it might not be quite as right as she wanted.

“Banks has defeated the enemy in a great battle.
Colonel Carter is unhurt, and honorably mentioned for
bravery and ability.”

“Oh, papa!”

She had turned very white at the thought of the peril
through which her husband had passed, and the possibility,
instantaneously foreseen, that he might be called to encounter
yet other dangers.

“We ought to be very grateful, my darling.”

“Oh! why has he gone? Why didn't he tell me that
he was going? Why did he leave me so in the dark?”
was all that Lillie could say in the way of thankfulness.

“My child, don't be unreasonable. He wished of
course to save you from unnecessary anxiety. It was
very kind and wise in him.”

Lillie snatched the paper, ran to her own room and
read the official bulletin over and over, dropping her tears
upon it and kissing the place where her husband was
praised and recommended for promotion. Then she
thought how generous and grand he was to go forth to
battle in silence, without uttering a word to alarm her,
without making an appeal for her sympathy. The greatest
men of history have not seemed so great to the world
as did this almost unknown colonel of volunteers to his
wife. She was in a passion, an almost unearthly ecstasy
of grief, terror, admiration and love. It is well that we
cannot always feel thus strongly; if we did, we should
not average twenty years of life; if we did, the human
race would perish.

Next day came two letters from Carter, one written before
and one after the battle. In his description of the
fighting he was as professional, brief and unenthusiastic
as usual, merely mentioning the fact of success, narrating
in two sentences the part which his brigade had taken in
the action, and saying nothing of his own dangers or performances.

But there was another subject on which he
was more copious, and this part of the letter Lillie
prized most of all. “I am afraid I sicken you with such
fondness,” he concluded. “It seems to me that you must
get tired of reading over and over again the same endearing
phrases and pet names.”

“Oh, never imagine that I can sicken of hearing or
reading that you love me,” she answered. “You must
not cheat me of a single pet name; you must call me by
such names over and over in every letter. I always skim
through your letters to read those dear words first. I
should be utterly and forever miserable if I did not believe
that you love me, and did not hear so from you constantly.”

At this time Lillie knew by heart all her husband's
letters. Let her eye rest on the envelope of one which
she had received a week or a fortnight previous, and she
could repeat its contents almost verbatim, certainly not
missing one of the loving phrases aforesaid. Through the
New Orleans papers and these same wonderful epistles
she followed the victorious army in its onward march,
now at Franklin, now at Opelousas, and now at Alexandria.
It was all good news, except that her husband
was forever going farther away; the Rebels were always
flying, the triumphant Unionists were always pursuing,
and there were no more battles. She flattered herself that
the summer campaign was over, and that Carter would
soon get a leave of absence and come to his own home to
be petted and worshipped.

From Alexandria arrived a letter of Colburne's to the
Doctor. The young man had needed all this time and
these events to fortify him for the task of writing to the
Ravenels. For a while after that marriage it seemed to
him as if he never could have the courage to meet them,
nor even call to their attention the fact of his continued
existence. His congratulations were written with labored
care, and the rest of the letter in a style of affected

gayety. I shall copy from it a single extract, because it
bears some relation to the grand reconstruction experiment
of the Doctor.

“I hear that you are doing your part towards organizing
free labor in Louisiana. I fear that you will find it an
up-hill business, not only from the nature of your surroundings
but from that of your material. I am as much of an
abolitionist as ever, but not so much of a `nigger-worshipper.'
I don't know but that I shall yet become an
advocate of slavery. I frequently think that my boy
Henry will fetch me to it. He is an awful boy. He dances
and gambles all night, and then wants to sleep all day.
If the nights and days were a thousand years long apiece,
he would keep it up in the same fashion. In order that he
may not be disturbed in his rest by my voice, he goes
away from camp and curls up in some refuge which I have
not yet discovered. I pass hours every day in shouting
for Henry. Of course his labors are small and far between.
He brushes my boots in the morning because he
doesn't go to bed till after I get up; but if I want them
polished during the day,—at dress-parade, for instance,—
it is not Henry who polishes them. When I scold him
for his worthlessness, he laughs most obstropolously (I
value myself on this word, because to my ear it describes
Henry's laughter exactly). For his services, or rather
for what he ought to do and doesn't, I pay him ten dollars
a month, with rations and clothing. He might earn
two or three times as much on the levee at New Orleans;
but the lazy creature would rather not earn anything; he
likes to get his living gratis, as he does with me. This is
the way he came to join me. When I was last in New
Orleans, Henry, whom I had previously known as the body
servant of one of my sergeants, paid me a visit. Said I,
`What are you doing?”'

“`Workin 'on 'ee levee.'

“`How much do you get?'

“`It's 'cordin' to what I doos. Ef I totes a big stent,
I gits two dollars; an' ef I totes 'nuff to kill a hoss, I gits
two dollars 'n 'aff a day.'

“`Why, that is grand pay. That is a great deal better
than hanging around camp for nothing but your board
and clothes. I am glad you have gone at some profitable
and manly labor. Stick to it, and make a man of yourself.
Get some money in the bank, and then give yourself a
little schooling. You can make yourself as truly respectable
as any white man, Henry.'

“`Ya-as,' he said hesitatingly, as if he thought the result
hardly worth the trouble; for which opinion I hardly
blame him, considering the nature of a great many white
men of this country. `But it am right hard work,
Cap'm.'—Here he chuckled causelessly and absurdly.—
`Sometimes I thinks I'd like to come and do chores for
you, Cap'm.'

“`Oh no,' I remonstrated. `Don't think of giving up
your respectable and profitable industry. I couldn't afford
to pay you more than ten dollars a month.”

Here he laughed in his obstropolous and irrational fashion,
signifying thereby, I think, that he was embarrassed
by my arguments.

“Well, I kinder likes dem terms,” he said. “'Pears like
I wants to have a good time better'n to have a heap o'
money.”

And so here he is with me, having a good time, and
getting more money than he deserves. Now when you
have freed with your own right hand as many of these
lazy bumpkins as I have, you will feel at liberty to speak
of them with the same disrespectful levity. Wendell Phillips
says that the negro is the only man in America who can
afford to fold his arms and quietly await his future. That
is just what the critter is doing, and just what puts me
out of patience with him. Moreover, he can't afford it; if
he doesn't fall to work pretty soon, we shall cease to be
negrophilists; we shall kick him out of doors and get in

somebody who is not satisfied with folding his arms and
waiting his future.”

“He is too impatient,” said the Doctor, after he had
finished reading the letter to Lillie. “Just like all young
people—and some old ones. God has chosen to allow himself
a hundred years to free the negro. We must not
grumble if He chooses to use up a hundred more in civilizing
him. I can answer that letter, to my own satisfaction.
What right has Captain Colburne to demand roses or potatoes
of land which has been sown for centuries with nothing
but thistles? We ought to be thankful if it merely
lies barren for a while.”