CHAPTER XVIII.
DOCTOR RAVENEL COMMENCES THE ORGANIZATION OF SOUTHERN LABOR.
For some time previous to the marriage Doctor Ravenel had been plottingthe benefit of the human race. He was one of those philanthropicconspirators, those humanitarian Catilines, who, for the last thirtyyears have been rotten-egged and vilified at the North, tarred andfeathered and murdered at the South, under the name of abolitionists. Itis true that until lately he has been a silent one, as you may inferfrom the fact that he was still in the land of the living. If thehundred-headed hydra had preached abolition in New Orleans previous tothe advent of Farragut and Butler, he would have had every one of hisskulls fractured within twenty-four hours after he had commenced hisministry. Nobody could have met the demands of such a mission exceptthat gentleman of miraculous vitality mentioned by Ariosto, who, as fastas he was cut in pieces, picked himself up and grew together as good asnew.
The Doctor was chiefly intent at present upon inducing the negroes towork as freemen, now that they were no longer obliged to work as slaves.He talked a great deal about his plan to various influentialpersonages, and even pressed it at department headquarters in a lengthyprivate interview.
"You are right, sir," said Authority, with suave dignity. "It is amatter of great instant importance. It may become a military necessity.Suppose we should have a war with France, (I don't say, sir, that thereis any danger of it,) we might be cut off from the rest of the Union.Louisiana would then have to live on her own resources, and feed her ownarmy. These negroes _must_ be induced to work. They must be put at itimmediately; they must have their hoes in the soil before six weeks areover; otherwise we are in danger of a famine. I have arranged a plan,Doctor. The provost-marshals are to pick up every unemployed negro, givehim his choice as to what plantation he will work on, but see that heworks somewhere. There is to be a fixed rate of wages,--so much inclothes and so much in rations. Select your plantation, my dear sir, andI will see that it is assigned to you. You will then obtain yourlaborers by making written application to the Superintendent of NegroLabor."
The Doctor was honestly and intelligently delighted. He expressed hisadmiration of the commanding general's motives and wisdom in such termsthat the latter, high as he was in position and mighty in authority,felt flattered. You could not possibly talk with Ravenel for ten minuteswithout thinking better of yourself than before; for, perceiving thatyou had to do with a superior man, and that he treated you withdeference, you instinctively inferred that you were not only a personbut a personage. But the compliments and air of respect which heaccorded the commanding general were not mere empty civilities, norwell-bred courtesies, nor expressions of consideration for place andauthority. Ravenel's enthusiasm led him to believe that, in finding aman who sympathised with him in his pet project, he had found one of thegreatest minds of the age.
"At last," he said to his daughter when he reached home, "at last weare likely to see wise justice meted out to these poor blacks."
"Is the Major-General pleasant?" asked Lillie, with an inconsequencewhich was somewhat characteristic of her. She was more interested inlearning how a great dignitary looked and behaved than in hearing whatwere his opinions on the subject of freemen's labor.
"I don't know that a major general is obliged to be pleasant, at leastnot in war time," answered the Doctor, a little annoyed at theinterruption to the train of his ideas. "Yes, he is pleasant enough; infact something too much of deportment. He put me in mind of one of myadventures among the Georgia Crackers. I had to put up for the night inone of those miserable up-country log shanties where you can studyastronomy all night through the chinks in the roof, and where the manand wife sleep one side of you and the children and dogs on the other.The family, it seems, had had a quarrel with a neighboring family ofsuperior pretensions, which had not yet culminated in gouging orshooting. The eldest daughter, a ragged girl of seventeen, described tome with great gusto an encounter which had taken place between hermother and the female chieftain of the hostile tribe. Said she, "MissJones, she tried to come the dignerfied over mar. But thar she found herbeater. My mar is hell on dignerty."--Well, the Major-General runsrather too luxuriantly to dignity. But his ideas on the subject ofreorganizing labor are excellent, and have my earnest respect andapprobation. I believe that under his administration the negroes will beallowed and encouraged to take their first certain step towardcivilization. They are to receive some remuneration,--not for the bygonecenturies of forced labor and oppression,--but for what they will dohereafter."
"I don't see, papa, that they have been treated much worse than theymight expect," responds Lillie, who, although now a firm loyalist, hasby no means become an abolitionist.
"Perhaps not, my dear, perhaps not. They have no doubt been better offin the Dahomey of America than they would have been in the Dahomey ofAfrica; and certainly they couldn't expect much from a Christianitywhose chief corner-stone was a hogshead of slave-grown sugar. Thenegroes were not foolish enough to look for much good in such a moralatrocity as that. They have put their trust in the enemies of it; inFremont a while ago, and in Lincoln now. At present they do expectsomething. They believe that 'the year of jubilo am come.' And so it is.Before this year closes, many of these poor creatures will receive whatthey never did before--wages for their labor. For the first time intheir lives they will be led to realize the idea of justice. Justice,honesty, mercy, and nearly the whole list of Christian virtues, havehitherto been empty names to them, having no practical signification,and in fact utterly unknown to their minds except as words that for someunexplained purpose had been inserted in the Bible. How could theybelieve in the things themselves? They never saw them practiced; atleast they never felt their influence. Of course they were liars andhypocrites and thieves. All constituted society lied to them by callingthem men and treating them as beasts; it played the hypocrite to them bypreaching to them the Christian virtues, and never itself practisingthem; it played the thief by taking all the earnings of their labor,except just enough to keep soul and body together, so that they mightlabor more. Our consciences, the conscience of the nation, will not becleared when we have merely freed the negroes. We must civilize andChristianize them. And we must begin this by teaching them the greatelementary duty of man in life--that of working for his own subsistence.I am so interested in the problem that I have resolved to devote myselfpersonally to its solution."
"What! And give up your hospital?"
"Yes, my dear. I have already given it up, and got my plantationassigned to me."
"Oh, papa! Where?"
Of course Lillie feared that in her new home she might not be able tosee her husband; and of course the Doctor divined this charming anxiety,and hastened to relieve her from it.
"It is at Taylorsville, my dear. Taylorsville forms a part of ColonelCarter's military jurisdiction, and the fort there is garrisoned by adetachment from his brigade. He can come to see us without neglectinghis duties."
Lillie colored, and said nothing for a few minutes. She was so unused asyet to her husband, that the thought of being visited by him thrilledher nerves, and took temporary possession of all her mind.
"But, papa," she presently inquired, "will this support you as well asthe hospital?"
"I don't know, child. It is an experiment. It may be a failure, and itmay be a pecuniary success. We shall certainly be obliged to economizeuntil our autumn crops are gathered. But I am willing to do that, if Imeet with no other reward than my own consciousness that I enter uponthe task for the sake of a long oppressed race. I believe that by meansof kindness and justice I can give them such ideas of industry and othersocial virtues as they could not obtain, and have not obtained, fromcenturies of robbery and cruelty."
Lillie was lost in meditation, not concerning the good of the blacks,but concerning the probable visits of Colonel Carter at Taylorsville.Affectionately selfish woman as she was, she would not have given up thealarming joy of one of those anticipated interviews for the chance ofcivilizing a
capering wilderness of negroes.
Taylorsville, a flourishing village before the war, is situated on theMississippi just where it is tapped by Bayou Rouge, which is one of thedozen channels through which the Father of Waters finds the Gulf ofMexico. It is on the western bank of the river, and for the most part onthe southern bank of the bayou; and is protected from both by thatcontinuous system of levees which alone saves southern Louisiana fromyearly inundations. At the time of which I speak, a large portion of thetown consisted of charred and smoke-blackened ruins. Its citizens hadbeen mad enough to fire on our fleet, and Farragut had swept it with hisiron besoms of destruction. On the same bank of the Mississippi, but onthe northern bank of the bayou, at the apex of the angle formed by thediverging currents, is Fort Winthrop, a small star-shaped earth-work,faced in part with bricks, surrounded by a ditch except on the riverside, and provided with neither casemate nor bombproof. Ordered byButler and designed by Weitzel, it had been thrown up shortly after thelittle victory of Georgia Landing. It was to be within reach of thisfort in case of an attack from raiding rebels, that Ravenel had selecteda plantation for his philanthropic experiment in the neighborhood ofTaylorsville. Haste was necessary to success, for the planting seasonwas slipping away. Within a week or so after the marriage he had boughta stock of tools and provisions, obtained a ragged corps of negroes fromthe Superintendent of Colored Labor, shipped every thing on board aGovernment transport, and was on the spot where he proposed to initiatethe re-organization of southern industry.
The plantation house was a large, plain wooden mansion, very much likethose which the country gentility of New England built about thebeginning of this century, except that the necessities of a southernclimate had dictated a spacious veranda covering the whole front, twostories in height, and supported by tall square wooden pillars. In therear was a one-storied wing, containing the kitchen, and rooms forservants. Farther back, at the extremity of a deep and slovenly yard,where pigs had been wont to wander without much opposition, was ahollow square of cabins for the field-hands, each consisting of tworooms, and all alike built of rough boards coarsely whitewashed. Neitherthe cabins nor the family mansion had a cellar, nor even a foundationwall; they stood on props of brick-work, leaving room underneath for thefree circulation of air, dogs, pigs and pickaninnies. On either side ofthe house the cleared lands ran a considerable distance up and down thebayou, closing in the rear, at a depth of three or four hundred yards,in a stretch of forest. An eighth of a mile away, not far from thewinding road which skirted the sinuous base of the levee, was the mostexpensive building of the plantation, the great brick sugar-house, withvast expanses of black roof and a gigantic chimney. No smoke of industryarose from it; the sound of the grinding of the costly steam machineryhad departed; the vats were empty and dry, or had been carried away forbunks and fire-wood by foraging soldiers and negroes.
There was not a soul in any of the buildings or about the grounds whenthe Ravenels arrived. The Secessionist family of Robertson had fledbefore Weitzel's advance into the Lafourche country, and its chief, aman of fifty, had fallen at the head of a company of militia at thefight at Georgia Landing. Then the field-hands, who had hid in theswamps to avoid being carried to Texas, came upon the house like locustsof destruction, broke down its doors, shattered its windows, plunderedit from parlor to garret, drank themselves drunk on the venerabletreasures of the wine closet, and diverted themselves with soiling thecarpets, breaking the chairs, ripping up the sofas, and defacing thefamily portraits. Some gentle sentiment, perhaps a feeble love for thedeparted young "missus," perhaps the passion of their race for music,had deterred them from injuring the piano, which was almost the onlyunharmed piece of furniture in the once handsome parlor. The singleliving creature about the place was a half-starved grimalkin, whocaterwauled dolefully at the visitors from a distance, and could not beenticed to approach by the blandishments of Lillie, an enthusiasticcat-fancier. To the merely sentimental observer it was sad to think thatthis house of desolation had not long since been the abode of thegenerous family life and prodigal hospitality of a southern planter.
"Oh, how doleful it looks!" sighed Lillie, as she wandered about thedeserted rooms.
"It _is_ doleful," said the Doctor. "As doleful as the ruins ofBabylon--of cities accursed of God, and smitten for their wickedness. Myold friend Elderkin used to say (before he went addled about southernrights) that he wondered God didn't strike all the sugar planters ofLouisiana dead. Well He _has_ stricken them with stark madness; andunder the influence of it they are getting themselves killed off as fastas possible. It was time. The world had got to be too intelligent forthem. They could not live without retarding the progress ofcivilization. They wanted to keep up the social systems of the middleages amidst railroads, steamboats, telegraphs, patent reapers, and underthe noses of Humboldt, Leverrier, Lyell, and Agassiz. Of course theymust go to the wall. They will be pinned up to it _in terrorem_, likeexterminated crows and chicken-hawks. The grand jury of future centurieswill bring in the verdict, 'Served them right!' At the same time onecannot help feeling a little human sympathy, or at any rate a littlepoetic melancholy, on stepping thus into the ruins of a family."
Lillie, however, was not very sentimental about the departed happinessof the Robertsons; she was planning how to get the house ready for theexpected visit of Colonel Carter; in that channel for the present ranher poesy.
"But really, papa, we must go to work," she said. "The nineteenthcentury has turned out the Robertsons, and put us in--but it has leftthese rooms awfully dirty, and the furniture in a dreadful condition."
In a few minutes she had her hat off, her dress pinned up to keep itout of the dust, her sleeves rolled back to her elbows, and was flyingabout with remarkable emphasis, dragging broken chairs, etc., to thegarret, and brooming up such whirlwinds of dust, that the Doctor flewabroad for refuge. What she could not do herself she set half a dozennegroes, male and female, to doing. She was wild with excitement andgayety, running about, ordering and laughing like a threefold creature.It was delightful to remember, in a sweet under-current of thought whichflowed gently beneath her external glee, that she was working to welcomeher husband, slaving for him, tiring herself out for his dear sake. In acouple of hours she was so weary that she had to fling herself on asettee in the veranda, and rest, while the negroes continued the labor.Women in general, I believe, love to work by spasms and deliriums,doing, or making believe do, a vast deal while they are at it, butdropping off presently into languor and headache.
"Papa, we shall have five whole chairs," she called. "You can sit inone, I in another, and that will leave three for Mr. Carter. Why don'tyou come and do something? I have fagged myself half to death, and youhaven't done a thing but mope about with your hands behind your back.Come in now, and go to work."
"My dear, there are so many negroes in there that I can't get in."
"Then come up and talk to me," commanded the young lady, who had meantthat all the while. "You needn't think you can find any Smithites orRobinsonites. There isn't a mineral in Louisiana, unless it is abrickbat. Do come up here and talk to me. I can't scream to you all theafternoon."
"I am so glad you can't," grinned papa, and strolled obstinately away inthe direction of the sugar-house. He was studying the nature of thesoil, and proposing to subject it to a chemical analysis, in order tosee if it could not be made to produce as much corn to the acre as thebottom lands of Ohio. Indian corn and sweet potatoes, with a littleseasoning of onions, beets, squashes, and other kitchen gardenvegetables, should be his only crop that season. Also he would raisepigs and chickens by the hundred, and perhaps three or four cows, ifpromising calves could be obtained in the country. What New Orleanswanted, and what the whole department would stand in desperate need of,should a war break out with France, was, not sugar, but corn and pork.All that summer the possibility of a war with France was a prominenttopic of conversation in Louisiana, so that even the soldiers talked intheir rough way of "revelling in the halls of the Montez
umas, andfilling their pockets with little gold Jesuses." As for making sugar,unless it might be a hogshead or so for family consumption, it was outof the question. It would cost twenty thousand dollars merely to put thesugar-house and its machinery to rights--and the Doctor had no suchriches, nor any thing approaching to it, this side of heaven.Nevertheless he was perfectly happy in strolling about his unplantedestate, and revolving his unfulfilled plans, agricultural andhumanitarian. He proposed to produce, not only a crop of corn andpotatoes, but a race of intelligent, industrious and virtuous laborers.He would make himself analytically acquainted, not only with theelements and possibilities of the soil, but with those of the negrosoul. By the way, I ought to mention that he was not proprietor of theplantation, but only a tenant of it to the United States, paying a rentwhich for the first year was merely nominal, so anxious was Authority toinitiate successfully the grand experiment of freedmen's labor.
When he returned to the house from a stroll of two hours Lillie favoredhim with a good imitation of a sound scolding. What did he mean byleaving her alone so, without anybody to speak a word to? If he wasgoing to be always out in this way, they might as well live in NewOrleans where he would be fussing around his hospital from morning tillnight. She was tired with overseeing those stupid negroes and trying tomake them set the chairs and tables right side up.
"My dear, don't reproach them for being stupid," said Ravenel. "Fornearly a century the whole power of our great Republic, north and south,has been devoted to keeping them stupid. Your own State has taken ademoniac interest in this infernal labor. We mustn't quarrel with ourown deliberate productions. We wanted stupidity, we have got it, and wemust be contented with it. At least for a while. It is your duty andmine to work patiently, courteously and faithfully to undo the horridresults of a century of selfishness. I shall expect you to teach allthese poor people to read."
"Teach them to read! what, set up a nigger school!"
"Yes, you born barbarian,--and daughter of a born barbarian,--for I feltthat way myself once. I want you in the first place to teach them, andyourself too, how to spell negro with only one _g_. You must not addyour efforts to keep this abused race under a stigma of social contempt.You must do what you can to elevate them in sentiment, and inknowledge."
"But oh, what a labor! I would rather clean house every day."
"Not so very much of a labor--not so very much of a labor," insisted theDoctor. "Negro children are just as intelligent as white children untilthey find out that they are black. Now we will never tell them that theyare black; we will never hint to them that they are born our inferiors.You will find them bright enough if you won't knock them on the head.Why, you couldn't read yourself till you were seven years old."
"Because you didn't care to have me. I learned quick enough when I setabout it."
"Just so. And that proves that it is not too late for our people here tocommence their education. Adults can beat children at the alphabet."
"But it is against the law, teaching them to read."
The Doctor burst into a hearty laugh.
"The laws of Dahomey are abrogated," said he. "What a fossil you are!You remind me of my poor doting old friend, Elderkin, who persists indeclaring that the invasion of Louisiana was a violation of theConstitution."
By this time the dozen or so of negroes had brought the neglectedmansion to a habitable degree of cleanliness, and decked out two orthree rooms with what tags and amputated fragments remained of the oncefine furniture. A chamber had been prepared for Lillie, and another forthe Doctor. A tea-table was set in a picnic sort of style, and crownedwith corn cake, fried pork, and roasted sweet potatoes.
"Are you not going to ask in our colored friends?" inquired Lillie,mischievously.
"Why no. I don't see the logical necessity of it. I always have claimedthe right of selecting my own intimates. I admit, however, that I havesat at table with less respectable people in some of the mostaristocratic houses of New Orleans. Please to drop the satire and putsome sugar in my tea."
"Mercy! there is no sugar on the table. The stupid creatures! How canyou wonder, papa, that I allow myself to look down on them a little?"
"I don't believe it is possible to get all the virtues and all thetalents for nothing a year, or even for ten dollars a month. I will tryto induce the Major-General commanding to come and wait on table for us.But I am really afraid I sha'n't succeed. He is very busy. Meantimesuppose you should hint to one of the handmaidens, as politely as youcan, that I am accustomed to take sugar in my tea."
"Julia!" called Lillie to a mulatto girl of eighteen, who just thenentered from the kitchen. "You have given us no sugar. How could you beso silly?"
"Don't!" expostulated the Doctor. "I never knew a woman but scolded herservants, and I never knew a servant but waited the worse for it. Allthat the good-natured creature desired was to know what you wanted. Itdidn't clear her head nor soften her heart a bit to call her silly; norwould it have helped matters at all if you had gone on to pelt her withall the hard names in the English language. Be courteous, my dear, toeverything that is human. We owe that much of respect to the fact thatman is made in the image of his Maker. Politeness is a part of piety."
"When would Mr. Carter be able to visit them?" was Lillie's next spokenidea. Papa really could not say, but hoped very soon--whereupon he wasimmediately questioned as to the reasons of his hope. Having no specialreason to allege, and being driven to admit that, after all, the visitcould not positively be counted upon, he was sharply catechised as to_why_ he thought Mr. Carter would not come, to which he could only replyby denying he had entertained such a thought. Then followed in rapidsuccession, "Suppose the brigade leaves Thibodeaux, where will it go to?Suppose General Banks attacks Port Hudson, won't he be obliged to leaveColonel Carter to defend the Lafourche Interior? Suppose the brigade isordered into the field, will it not, being the best brigade, be alwayskept in reserve, out of the range of fire?"
"My dear child," deprecated the hunted Doctor, "what happy people thoseearly Greeks must have been who were descended from the immortal gods!They could ask their papas all sorts of questions about the future, andget reliable answers."
"But I am _so_ anxious!" said Lillie, dropping back in her chair with asob, and wiping away her tears with her napkin.
"My poor dear little girl, you must try to keep up a better courage,"urged papa in a compassionate tone which only made the drops fallfaster, so affecting is pity.
"Nothing has happened to him yet, and we have a right to hope and praythat nothing will."
"But something _may_," was the persevering answer of anxiety.
As soon as supper was over she hurried to her room, locked the door,knelt on the bit of carpet by the bedside, buried her face in thebed-clothes, and prayed a long time with tears and sobs, that herhusband, her own and dear husband, might be kept from danger. She didnot even ask that he might be brought to her; it was enough if he mightonly be delivered from the awful perils of battle; in the humility ofher earnestness and terror she had not the face to require more. After awhile she went down stairs again with an expression of placidexhaustion, rendered sweeter by a soft glory of religious trust, as thesunset mellowness of our earthly atmosphere is rayed by beams from amightier world. Sitting on a stool at her father's feet, and laying herhead on his knee, she talked in more cheerful tones of Carter, of theirown prospects, and then again of Carter--for ever of Carter.
"I _will_ teach the negroes to read," she said. "I will try to dogood--and to be good."
She was thinking how she could best win the favor and protection ofHeaven for her husband. She would teach the negroes for Carter's sake;she had not yet learned to do it for Jesus Christ's sake. She was not aheathen; she had received the same evangelical instruction that mostyoung Americans receive; she was perfectly well aware of the doctrine ofsalvation by faith and not by works. But no profound sorrow, no awfulsense of helplessness under the threatening of dangers to those whom shedearly loved, had ever made these thi
ngs matters of personal experienceand realizing belief.
When the Doctor called in the negroes at nine o'clock, and read to thema chapter from the Bible, and a prayer, Lillie joined in the devotionswith an unusual sense of humility and earnestness. In her own room,before going to bed, she prayed again for Carter, and not for him only,but for herself. Then she quickly fell asleep, for she was young andvery tired. How some elderly people, who have learned to toss and countthe hours till near morning, envy these infants, whether of twentymonths or twenty years, who can so readily cast their sorrows into theprofound and tranquil ocean of slumber!
Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Page 21
