Гарриет Бичер-Стоу
Men of Our Times. Or, Leading Patriots of the Day
When Douglass was ten years old a great change took place in his circumstances. His old master sent him to Baltimore to be a family servant in the house of a family connection.
He speaks with great affection of his new mistress, Miss Sophia Auld. It is the southern custom for the slave to address a young married lady always by this maiden title. She had never before had to do with a slave child, and seemed to approach him with all the tender feelings of motherhood. He was to have the care of her own little son, some years younger, and she seemed to extend maternal tenderness to him. His clothing, lodging, food were all now those of a favored house boy, and his employment to run of errands and take care of his little charge, of whom he was very fond. The kindness and benignity of his mistress led the little boy to beg her to teach him to read, and the results are thus given:
"The dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her assistance, I was master of the alphabet, and could spell words of three or four letters. My mistress seemed almost as proud of my progress, as if I had been her own child; and supposing that her husband would be as well pleased, she made no secret of what she was doing for me. Indeed, she exultingly told him of the aptness of her pupil, of her intention to persevere in teaching me, and of the duty which she felt it to teach me at least to read the Bible. Here arose the first cloud over my Baltimore prospects, the precursor of drenching rains and chilling blasts.
"Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of their human chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade the continuance of her instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief. To use his own words, further, he said, 'If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell; he should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world; if you teach that nigger' – speaking of myself – 'how to read the Bible, there will be no keeping him; it would forever unfit him for the duties of a slave, and as to himself, learning would do him no good, but probably a great deal of harm – making him disconsolate and unhappy. If you learn him now to read, he'll want to know how to write; and this accomplished, he'll be running away with himself.' Such was the tenor of Master Hugh's oracular exposition of the true philosophy of training a human chattel; and it must be confessed that he very clearly comprehended the nature and the requirements of the relation of master and slave. His discourse was the first decidedly anti-slavery lecture to which it had been my lot to listen. Mrs. Auld evidently felt the force of his remarks; and, like an obedient wife, began to shape her course in the direction indicated by her husband. The effect of his words on me was neither slight nor transitory. His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk deep into my heart, and stirred up not only my feelings into a sort of rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital thought. It was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery, against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit: the white man's power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man. 'Very well,' thought I, 'knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.' I instinctively assented to the proposition; and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom."
But the desire of learning, once awakened, could not be hushed, and though Douglass' mistress forebore his teaching, and even became jealously anxious to prevent his making further progress, he found means to continue the instruction. With a spelling-book hid away in his bosom, and a few crackers in his pocket, he continued to get daily lessons from the street boys at intervals when he went back and forth on errands. Sometimes the tuition fee was a cracker, and sometimes the lesson was given in mere boyish good will. At last he made money enough to buy for himself, secretly, a reading book, "The Columbian Orator." This book was prepared for schools during the liberty-loving era succeeding the American revolution, when southern as well as northern men conspired to reprobate slavery. There consequently young Fred found most inspiring documents. There was a long conversation between a master and a slave where a slave defended himself for running away by quoting the language of the Declaration of Independence. Douglass also says of this book:
"This, however, was not all the fanaticism which I found in this Columbian Orator. I met there one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on the subject of Catholic Emancipation, Lord Chatham's speech on the American war, and speeches by the great William Pitt and by Fox. These were all choice documents to me, and I read them over and over again, with an interest that was ever increasing, because it was ever gaining in intelligence; for the more I read them the better I understood them. The reading of these speeches added much to my limited stock of language, and enabled me to give tongue to many interesting thoughts, which had frequently flashed through my soul, and died away for want of utterance."
All this knowledge and expansion of mind, of course produced at first intellectual gloom and misery. All the results of learning to read, predicted by the master, had come to pass. He was so morose, so changed, that his mistress noticed it, and showered reproaches upon him for his ingratitude. "Poor lady," he says, "she did not know my trouble and I dared not tell her – her abuse felt like the blows of Balaam on his poor ass, she did not know that an angel stood in the way."
"My feelings were not the result of any marked cruelty in the treatment I received; they sprung from the consideration of my being a slave at all. It was slavery– not its mere incidents– that I hated. I had been cheated. I saw through the attempt to keep me in ignorance; I saw that slaveholders would have gladly made me believe that they were merely acting under the authority of God, in making a slave of me, and in making slaves of others; and I treated them as robbers and deceivers. The feeding and clothing me well, could not atone for taking my liberty from me."
About this time Douglass became deeply awakened to religious things, by the prayers and exhortations of a pious old colored slave who was a drayman. He could read and his friend could not, but Douglass, now newly awakened to spiritual things, read the Bible to him, and received comfort from him. He says, "He fanned my already intense love of knowledge into a flame by assuring me that I was to be a useful man in the world. When I would say to him, how can these things be, his simple reply was, 'trust in the Lord.' When I told him that I was a slave FOR LIFE, he said: 'The Lord can make you free, my dear. All things are possible with him, only have faith in God. If you want your liberty, ask the Lord for it in faith, and HE WILL GIVE IT TO YOU.'" Cheered by this advice, Douglass began to offer daily and earnest prayers for liberty.
With reference to this he began to turn his thoughts towards acquiring the art of writing. He was employed as waiter in a ship yard, and watching the initial letters by which the carpenters marked the different parts of the ship, and thus in time acquired a large part of the written alphabet. This knowledge he supplemented by getting one and another boy of his acquaintance on one pretence or other, to write words or letters on fences or boards. Then he surreptitiously copied the examples in his little master's copy-book at home, when his mistress was safely out of the house, and finally acquired the dangerous and forbidden gift of writing a fluent, handsome current hand.
He had various reverses after this as he grew in age and developed in manliness. He was found difficult to manage, and changed from hand to hand like a vicious intractable horse. Once a celebrated negro breaker had a hand upon him, meaning to break his will and reduce him to the condition of a contented animal, but the old story of Pegasus in harness came to pass. The negro breaker gave him up as a bad case, and finally his master made a virtue of necessity, and allowed him to hire his own time. The bargain was that Douglass should pay him three dollars a week, and make his own bargains, find his own tools, board and clothe himself. The work was that of caulker in a ship yard. This, he says, was a hard bargain; for the wear and tear of clothing, the breakage of tools and expenses of board made it necessary to earn at least six dollars a week, to keep even with the world, and this per centage to the master left him nothing beyond a bare living.
But it was a freeman's experience to be able to come and go unwatched, and before long it enabled him to mature a plan of escape, and the time at last came when he found himself a free colored citizen of New Bedford, seeking employment, with the privilege of keeping his wages for himself. Here, it was that reading for the first time the Lady of the Lake, he gave himself the name of Douglass, and abandoned forever the family name of his old slaveholding employer. Instead of a lazy thriftless young man to be supported by his earnings, he took unto himself an affectionate and thrifty wife, and became a settled family man.
He describes the seeking for freeman's work as rapturous excitement. The thought "I can work, I can earn money, I have no master now to rob me of my earnings," was a perfect joyous stimulus whenever it arose, and he says, "I sawed wood, dug cellars, shoveled coal, rolled oil casks on the wharves, helped to load and unload vessels, worked in candle works and brass foundries, and thus supported myself for three years. I was, he says, now living in a new world, and wide awake to its advantages. I early began to attend meetings of the colored people, in New Bedford, and to take part in them, and was amazed to see colored men making speeches, drawing up resolutions, and offering them for consideration."
His enthusiasm for self-education was constantly stimulated. He appropriated some of his first earnings to subscribing for the Liberator, and was soon after introduced to Mr. Garrison. How Garrison appeared to a liberated slave may be a picture worth preserving, and we give it in Douglass' own words.
"Seventeen years ago, few men possessed a more heavenly countenance than William Lloyd Garrison, and few men evinced a more genuine or a more exalted piety. The Bible was his text book – held sacred, as the word of the Eternal Father – sinless perfection – complete submission to insults and injuries – literal obedience to the injunction, if smitten on one side to turn the other also. Not only was Sunday a Sabbath, but all days were Sabbaths, and to be kept holy. All sectarism false and mischievous – the regenerated, throughout the world, members of one body, and the Head Jesus Christ. Prejudice against color was rebellion against God. Of all men beneath the sky, the slaves, because most neglected and despised, were nearest and dearest to his great heart. Those ministers who defended slavery from the Bible, were of their 'father the devil;' and those churches which fellowshipped slaveholders as Christians, were synagogues of Satan, and our nation was a nation of liars. Never loud or noisy – calm and serene as a summer sky, and as pure. 'You are the man, the Moses, raised up by God, to deliver his modern Israel from bondage,' was the spontaneous feeling of my heart, as I sat away back in the hall and listened to his mighty words; mighty in truth – mighty in their simple earnestness."
From this time the course of Douglass is upward. The manifest talents which he possessed, led the friends of the Anti-Slavery cause to feel that he could serve it better in a literary career than by manual labor.
In the year 1841, a great anti-slavery convention was held at Nantucket, where Frederick Douglass appeared on the stage and before a great audience recounted his experiences. Mr. Garrison followed him, and an immense enthusiasm was excited – and Douglass says: "That night there were at least a thousand Garrisonians in Nantucket." After this the general agent of the Anti-Slavery Society came and offered to Douglass the position of an agent of that society, with a competent support to enable him to lecture through the country. Douglass, continually pursuing the work of self-education, became an accomplished speaker and writer. He visited England, and was received with great enthusiasm. The interest excited in him was so great that several English friends united and paid the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds sterling, for the purchase of his liberty. This enabled him to pursue his work of lecturer in the United States, to travel unmolested, and to make himself every way conspicuous without danger of recapture.
He settled himself in Rochester, and established an Anti-Slavery paper, called Frederick Douglass' Paper, which bore a creditable character for literary execution, and had a good number of subscribers in America and England.
Two of Frederick Douglass' sons were among the first to answer to the call for colored troops, and fought bravely in the good cause. Douglass has succeeded in rearing an intelligent and cultivated family, and in placing himself in the front rank among intelligent and cultivated men. Few orators among us surpass him, and his history from first to last, is a comment on the slavery system which speaks for itself.
CHAPTER XIII
PHILIP H. SHERIDAN
Sheridan a Full-Blooded Irishman – The Runaway Horse – Constitutional Fearlessness – Sheridan Goes to West Point – Sheridan's Apprenticeship to War – The Fight with the Apaches at Fort Duncan – He is Transferred to Oregon – Commands at Fort Yamhill in the Yokima Reservation – The Quarrel among the Yokimas – Sheridan Popular with Indians – He thinks he has a Chance to be Major Some Day – Sheridan's Shyness with Ladies – He Employs a Substitute in Waiting on a Lady – Sheridan's Kindness and Efficiency in Office Work – He Becomes a Colonel of Cavalry – His Shrewd Defeat of Gen. Chalmers – Becomes Brigadier – The Kentucky Campaign against Bragg – Sheridan Saves the Battle of Perrysville – Saves the Battle of Murfreesboro – Gen. Rousseau on Sheridan's Fighting – Sheridan at Missionary Ridge – Joins Grant as Chief of Cavalry – His Raids around Lee – His Campaign in the Valley of Virginia – He Moves across and Joins in the Final Operations – His Administration at New Orleans – Grant's Opinion of Sheridan.
Major-General Philip Henry Sheridan is a full-blooded Irishman by descent, though American by birth. He was born in poverty. So large a share of American eminent men have been born poor, that it might almost be said that in our country poverty in youth is the first requisite for success in life.
Sheridan's parents, after remaining a few years at the east, moved to Ohio, where their son grew up with very little schooling, and under the useful necessity of working for a living. There is a story current of his having been put upon a spirited horse when a boy of five, by some mischievous mates, and run away with to a tavern some miles off. He stuck fast to the horse, though without saddle or bridle, and without size or strength to use them if he had them. It was by a mere chance that he arrived safe, and when lifted off by the sympathizing family of the inn, the little fellow admitted that he was shaken and sore with his ride, but he added, "I'll be better to-morrow, and then I'll ride back home." The incident is of no great importance in itself, but it shows that even then the boy was already constitutionally destitute of fear. He seems to have been made without the peculiar faculty which makes people take danger into the account, and try to keep at a distance from it. The full possession of this deficiency (if the phrase is not too direct a contradiction in terms,) is quite uncommon. Admiral Nelson had it, as was shown, very much in Sheridan's own style, in his boyhood. The future victor of Trafalgar had strayed away from home, and got lost. When he had been found and taken home, a relative remarked, "I should have thought that fear would have kept you from going so far away." "Fear?" said the young gentleman quite innocently; "Fear? I don't know him!" He never afterwards made his acquaintance, either; nor, it would seem, has Sheridan.
When young Sheridan received his appointment to a cadetship at West Point, he was driving a water-cart in Zanesville, Ohio. The person who actually procured the appointment was Gen. Thomas P. Ritchey, member of Congress from Sheridan's district. The candidate was very young for the appointment, and very small of his age, insomuch that his friends considered it extremely doubtful whether he would be admitted. He was, however, and passed through the regular West Point course, in the same class with Generals McPherson, Scofield, Terrill, Sill and Tyler, and with the rebel general Hood, who was so fearfully beaten by Thomas at Nashville. His scholarship was not particularly remarkable, and as is often the case with pupils who have no particular want of courage, high health and spirits, or of the bodily and mental qualities for doing things rather than for thinking about it, he experienced various collisions of one and another kind, with the strict military discipline of the institution.
He graduated in June, 1853, and as there was at the moment no vacant second lieutenancy, he was given a brevet appointment, and sent out in the next autumn to Fort Duncan on the Rio Grande, at the western edge of Texas, and in the region haunted by two of the most ferocious and boldest of the tribes sometimes called on the frontier the "horse Indians" – the Apaches and Camanches.
From this time until the rebellion, Lieutenant Sheridan was serving, not exactly his apprenticeship to his trade of war, but what would in Germany be called his wanderjähre– his years as wandering journeyman. It was an eight years of training in hardships and dangers more incessant and more extreme than perhaps could be crowded into any life except this of the American Indian-fighter; and doubtless its wild experiences did much to develop the bodily and mental endurance and the coolness and swift energy which have characterized Sheridan as a commander.
For two years Sheridan was at Fort Duncan, and was then promoted to first lieutenant, transferred to the Fourth Regiment, and after some delay in New York waiting for some recruits, he accompanied them by sea to the Pacific coast, and immediately on reaching San Francisco was placed in command of the escort for a surveying expedition employed on a branch of the Pacific Railroad. On this duty, and afterwards in command of posts or on scouts and expeditions up and down those remote and wild regions, the time passed until the outbreak of the war in 1861.
In the fights and adventures of this rough life, Sheridan's soldierly qualities were often exhibited. While at Fort Duncan, being outside the fort with two men, the three were surprised by a gang of a dozen or more Apaches, whose chief, taking it for granted that the three had surrendered, jumped down from his horse, to tie them up and have them carried off. As he did so, Sheridan, quick as lightning, sprang up in his place, and goaded the wild mustang at full speed to the fort. On reaching it, he called instantly to arms, snatched a pair of pistols, and without dismounting or waiting to see who followed, wheeled and flew back as swiftly as he had come. His two men were fighting stoutly for their lives. Sheridan dashed up and shot the chief. The soldiers, following hard after him, charged the savages, and in a moment the discomfited Apaches were ridden down, dispersed and most of them killed.
During Sheridan's stay in Oregon, his commanding officer, Major Rains, (afterwards the rebel General Rains,) made a campaign against the Yokima Indians, in which Sheridan did right good service, and so conspicuously at the affair of the Cascades on the Columbia, April 28, 1856, as to be mentioned in general orders with high praise. The Indians having been subdued, were placed on a tract called the Yokima Reservation, and Sheridan was appointed to command a detachment of troops posted among them, to act substantially as their governor. He erected a post called Fort Yamhill, and remained there for two or three years, ruling his wild subjects with a good deal of success, and being quite popular with them, as well as praised and trusted by his own superiors. An eye-witness has told the story of an occurrence at Fort Yamhill, a good deal like the affair of the Apaches at Fort Duncan, and which equally illustrates the swift and vehement courage with which Sheridan always does his soldier's work. One day a quarrel arose in the camp of the Yokimas, outside the fort. These turbulent savages have no more self-control than so many tigers, and in a moment their knives were out, and a bloody battle-royal was opened. Sheridan was near enough to see that there was a fight, but happened to be alone. He put spurs to his horse, hurried to the fort, ordered what few soldiers were in sight to follow him, turned, set spurs to his horse again, and dashed off for the Indian camp at the very top of his speed; bare headed, sword in hand, without once looking round to see if he were followed; and he charged headlong into the fray, riding through the desperate Indian knife-fight as though it were a field of standing grain. The soldiers felt the powerful magnetism of their leader, just as Sheridan's soldiers have always felt it; and, our informant said, every man of them drove on, just like his leader, without looking behind to see if anybody followed. In they went, striking right and left, and in a moment or two, they had charged once or twice through the fight, and it was quelled.
Sheridan was an efficient manager of these Indians, and was popular with them, too. Their wild, keen instincts appreciate courage and energy, sense and kindness, quite as readily as do civilized men.
When the rebellion broke out, Sheridan was ordered East, and on May 14, 1861, was commissioned captain in the Thirteenth Regular Infantry. He was soon sent to Missouri, where his first actual service in the war was a term of office as president of a board for auditing military claims. He was soon, however, sent into the field as chief quartermaster and commissary under Gen. Curtis, and in that capacity served through the brilliant and victorious, but terribly severe campaign in which the desperate battle of Pea Ridge was fought. At this time his professional ambition was not very high, for he observed one day that "he was the sixty-fourth captain on the list, and with the chances of war might soon be a major."
Sheridan is, however, thoroughly modest, and among ladies is – or was – even excessively bashful. There is an amusing story on this point about this very campaign. It is, that Sheridan, too bashful to seek for himself the company of a certain young lady near Springfield, used to furnish a horse and carriage to a smart young clerk of his, conditionally that the said clerk should take the young lady out to drive and entertain her – very much as Captain Miles Standish is said to have once deputed John Alden on a similar errand. The clerk did so, while Captain Sheridan stood in the door and experienced a shy delight in seeing how well the substitute did duty. No end is known for this story – except, indeed, that Captain Sheridan did not marry the lady.
There are on record some reminiscences of Sheridan's character as an officer in this campaign, which paint him in a very agreeable light, as at once energetic and thorough in duty, and kindly in feeling and manner. It was a fellow-officer who thus wrote:
"The enlisted men on duty at headquarters, or in his own bureau, remember him kindly. Not a clerk or orderly but treasures some act of kindness done by Captain Sheridan. Never forgetting, nor allowing others to forget, the respect due to him and his position, he was yet the most approachable officer at headquarters. His knowledge of the regulations and customs of the army, and of all professional minutiæ, were ever at the disposal of any proper inquirer. Private soldiers are seldom allowed to carry away as pleasant and kindly recollections of a superior as those with which Captain Sheridan endowed us. * * * No man has risen more rapidly with less jealousy, if the feelings entertained by his old associates of the Army of the Southwest are any criterion."
Sheridan's next service was as General Halleck's chief quartermaster in the Corinth campaign. Halleck seems to have thought very well of Sheridan from the first, though apparently rather as a trustworthy organizer and manager, than as such a military son of thunder as he has turned out to be. After a time the nature of the war in those parts occasioned a great demand for cavalry officers, and Sheridan being pitched upon for one, was on May 27, 1862, commissioned colonel of the 2d Michigan Cavalry, and was at once sent into the field to help impede the retreat of the rebels when they should evacuate Corinth.
In this and other similar work of that campaign, Sheridan became at once known to the army and to his superiors as a splendid officer, and from that time forward he rose and rose, up to the very last scene of the Virginia campaign, where he wielded the troops that struck the most telling of the final blows against Lee.
His first important service was to take part in Elliott's Booneville expedition. In June he had a cavalry combat with the butcher Forrest, and beat him, and was made acting brigadier. In July, having two regiments with him, he was attacked by the rebel Chalmers with six thousand men. Sheridan's position was strong enough, but he saw that he would shortly be surrounded and starved out by mere weight of numbers. So he contrived a neat and effective surprise; risky, it is true; but it is exactly the character of an able commander to take risks at the right time, and not lose. Sheridan sent round to the enemy's rear, by a long detour, a force of about ninety troopers, with instructions to fall on at a given time, when he would attack in concert with them. This was done; the bold squad fired so fast from their repeating carbines that the rebels, startled and perplexed, could not estimate on the probable number attacking them, and were thrown into confusion. At this moment, Sheridan charged in front with his whole force, and in his own manner, and Chalmers' men, instantly breaking, fled in total rout, and were pursued twenty miles, leaving the whole road strewn with weapons, accoutrements and baggage thrown away in their flight. General Grant, at this time Sheridan's department commander, reported in strong commendation of Sheridan's conduct in this affair, and asked a brigadier's commission for him, which was accordingly given, dated July 15th, the day of Chalmers' first attack. Sheridan seems to like to be attacked. He is sure of himself and of his men, conscious of his own coolness, view of the field, recognition of the "critical five seconds," and promptness in moving, and he prepares a return stroke apparently quite as gladly as he administers a first assault.
When, in the summer of 1862, General Bragg advanced by a line far east of the Union forces in the valley of the Mississippi, with the idea of reaching the Ohio, and carrying the war into the North, Grant sent Sheridan to Buell, commanding in Kentucky, who gave him a division and placed him in command of Louisville. Here Sheridan in one night completed a tolerable line of defence, and waited with confidence for an attack, but Bragg never got so far. On Bragg's retreat was fought the battle of Perrysville, which was given by the rebel leader to gain time for his trains to escape from the rapid pursuit of the Union army. In this battle, Sheridan with his division held the key of the Union position, repulsed several desperate assaults, and twice, charging in his turn, drove the rebels from their positions before him. His division lost heavily, but he inflicted heavier losses on the rebels, and his prompt tactics and keen fighting saved the Union army from defeat.
In the terrible fight of Stone River, or Murfreesboro', Sheridan's part, instead of being merely creditable or handsome, was glorious and decisive. But for him, that great battle would have been a tremendous defeat. How desperate the need of the crisis that Sheridan met there, and how well he met it, may somewhat appear from the terms used by the best historian thus far of that battle, in prefacing the detailed account which he gives of the fighting of Sheridan and his men. Mr. Swinton says:
"The difference between troops is great; the difference between officers is immensely greater. While the two right divisions of McCook were being assailed and brushed away, an equal hostile pressure fell upon his left division (Sheridan's). But here a quite other result attended the enemy's efforts; for not only were the direct attacks repulsed with great slaughter, but when the flank of the division was uncovered by the withdrawal of the troops on its right, its commander effecting a skilful change of front, threw his men into position at right angles with his former line, and having thus made for himself a new flank, buffeted with such determined vigor and such rapid turns of offence, that for two hours he held the Confederates at bay —hours precious, priceless, wrenched from fate and an exultant foe by the skill and courage of this officer, and bought by the blood of his valiant men. This officer was Brigadier-General P. H. Sheridan."
