Among the Pines; or, South in Secession Time

by James R. Gilmore

  CHAPTER XX.

  CONCLUSION.

  This is not a work of fiction. It is a record of facts, and thereforethe reader will not expect me to dispose of its various characters onartistic principles--that is, lay them away in one of those finalreceptacles for the creations of the romancer--the grave and matrimony.Death has been among them, but nearly all are yet doing their work inthis breathing, busy world.

  The characters I have introduced are real. They are not drawn with thepencil of fancy, nor, I trust, colored with the tints of prejudice. Thescenes I have described are true. I have taken some liberties with thenames of persons and places, and, in a few instances, altered dates; butthe events themselves occurred under my own observation. No oneacquainted with the section of country I have described, or familiarwith the characters I have delineated, will question this statement.Lest some one who has not seen the slave and the poor white man of theSouth, as he actually is, should deem my picture overdrawn, I will saythat "the half has not been told!" If the whole were related--if theSouthern system, in all its naked ugliness, were fully exposed--thetruth would read like fiction, and the baldest relation of fact likethe wildest dream, of romance.

  * * * * *

  The overseer was never taken. A letter which I received from ColonelJ----, shortly prior to the stoppage of the mails, informed me that Moyehad succeeded in crossing the mountains into Tennessee, where, in aninterior town, he disposed of the horse, and then made his way by aninland route to the free states. The horse the Colonel had recovered,but the overseer he never expected to see. Moye is now, no doubt,somewhere in the North, and is probably at this present writing azealous Union man, of somewhat the same "stripe" as the conductors ofthe New York _Herald_ and the Boston _Courier_.

  I have not heard directly from Scipio, but one day last July, after along search, I found on one of the wharves of South Street, a coastingcaptain, who knew him well, and who had seen him the month previous atGeorgetown. He was at that time pursuing his usual avocations, and wasas much respected and trusted, as when I met him.

  A few days after the tidings of the fall of Sumter were received in NewYork, and when I had witnessed the spontaneous and universal uprising ofthe North, which followed that event, I dispatched letters to several ofmy Southern friends, giving them as near as I could an account of thetrue state of feeling here, and representing the utter madness of thecourse the South was pursuing. One of these letters went to my Unionacquaintance whom I have called, in the preceding pages, "Andy Jones."

  He promptly replied, and a pretty regular correspondence ensued betweenus, which has continued, at intervals, even since the suspension ofintercourse between the North and the South.

  Andy has stood firmly and nobly by the old flag. At the risk of everything, he has boldly expressed his sentiments everywhere. With his lifein his hand, and--a revolver in each of his breeches-pockets, he walkedthe streets of Wilmington when the secession fever was at its height,openly proclaiming his undying loyalty to the Union, and "no man daredgainsay him."

  But with all his patriotism, Andy keeps a bright eye on the "mainchance." Like his brother, the Northern Yankee, whom he somewhatresembles and greatly admires, he never omits an opportunity of "turningan honest penny." In defiance of custom-house regulations, and of ourstrict blockade, he has carried on a more or less regular traffic withNew York and Boston (_via_ Halifax and other neutral ports), ever sinceNorth Carolina seceded. His turpentine--while it was still hisproperty--has been sold in the New York market, under the very eyes ofthe government officials--and, honest reader, _I_ have known of it.

  By various roundabout means, I have recently received letters from him.His last, dated in April, and brought to a neutral port by a shipmasterwhom he implicitly trusts, has reached me since the previous chapterswere written. It covers six pages of foolscap, and is written indefiance of all grammatical and orthographical principles; but as itconveys important intelligence, in regard to some of the personsmentioned in this narrative, I will transcribe a portion of it.

  It gave me the melancholy tidings of the death of Colonel J----. He hadjoined the Confederate army, and fell, bravely meeting a charge of theMassachusetts troops, at Roanoke.

  On receiving the news of his friend's death, Andy rode over to theplantation, and found Madam P---- plunged in the deepest grief. While hewas there a letter arrived from Charleston, with intelligence of thedangerous illness of her son. This second blow crushed her. For severaldays she was delirious, and her life despaired of; but throughout thewhole the noble corn-cracker, neglecting every thing, remained besideher.

  When she returned to herself, and had in a measure recovered herstrength, she learned that the Colonel had left no will; that she wasstill a slave; and soon to be sold, with the rest of the Colonel's_personal property_, according to law.

  This is what Andy writes about the affair. I give the letter as he wroteit, merely correcting the punctuation, and enough of the spelling, tomake it intelligible.

  "W'en I hard thet th' Cunel hadent leff no wil, I was hard put what terdew; but arter thinkin' on it over a spell, I knowed shede har on itsumhow; so I 'cluded to tel har miseff. She tuk on d----d hard atfust, but arter a bit, grew more calm like, and then she sed it warGod's wil, an' she wudent komplane. Ye nows I've got a wife, but wen thema'am sed thet, she luk'd so like an angel, thet d----d eff I cud helpputtin' my arms round har, an' hugin' on har, till she a'mostescreeched. Wal, I toled har, Id stan' by har eff evrithing went terh--l--an I wil, by ----.

  "I made up mi minde to onst, what ter dew. It war darned harde work turbee'way from hum jess then, but I war in fur it; soe I put terCharleston, ter see th' Cunel's 'oman. Wal, I seed har, an' I toled harhow th' ma'am felte, an' how mutch shede dun at makein' th' Cunel'smoney--(she made nigh th' hul on it, 'case he war alers keerles, an' tukno 'count uv things; eff tadent ben fur thet, hede made a wil,) an' Iaxed har ter see thet the ma'am had free papers ter onst. An' whot derye 'spoze she sed? Nuthin, by ---- 'cept she dident no nuthin' 'boutbisniss, an' leff all uv sech things ter har loryer. Wal, then I wentter him--he ar one on them slick, ily, seceshun houn's, who'd sell tharsoles fur a kountterfit dollar--an' he toled me, th' 'ministratur hadentsot yit, an' he cudent dew nuthin til he hed. Ses I: 'ye mean th''ooman's got ter gwo ter th' hi'est bider?' 'Yas,' he sed, 'the Cunel'sgot dets, an' the've got ter bee pade, an' th' persoonel prop'ty mustebee sold ter dew it.' Then I sed, 'twud bee sum time fore thet war dun,an' the 'ooman's 'most ded an' uv no use now; 'what'll ye _hire_ har turme fur.' He sed a hun'red for sicks months. I planked down the moneyter onst, an' put off.

  "I war bilin' over, but it sumhow cum inter my hed thet the Cunnel's'ooman cudn't bee _all_ stun; so I gose thar agin; an' I toled har whatthe loryer sed, an' made a reg'lar stump-'peal tew har bettar natur. Iaxed har eff she'd leff the 'ooman who'd made har husban's fortun, whowar the muther ov his chil'ren, who fur twenty yar, hed nussed him insickness, an' cheered him in healtf; ef shede let _thet 'ooman_, beeauckyund off ter th' hi'est bider. I axed al thet, an' what der ye thinkshe sed, Why jest this. '_I_ doant no nuthin' bout it, Mister Jones. Yeraily must talke ter mi loryer; them maters I leaves 'tirely ter him.'Then, I sed, I 'spozed the niggers war ter bee advertist. 'O, yas!' shesed, (an' ye see, she know'd a d----d site 'bout _thet_), 'all on 'emmuss be solde, 'case, ye knows, I never did luv the kuntry,--'sides _I_cud'ent karry on the plantashun, no how.' Then, sed I: 'the Orlean'straders 'ill be thar--an' she wunt sell fur but one use, fur she'shansum yit; an' ma'am, ye wunt leff a 'ooman as white as you is, who furtwenty yar, hes ben a tru an' fatheful _wife_ tar yer own ded husban,'(I shudn't hev put thet in, but d----d ef I cud help it,) ye wunt put_har_ up on the block, an' hev har struck down ter the hi'est bider, terbee made a d---- d---- on?'

  "Wal, I s'pose she hadent forgot thet, fur more'n twelve yar, the Cunnelhed _luv'd_ t'other 'ooman, an' onely _liked_ har; fur w'en I sed thet,har ize snapped like h--l, an' she screetched eout thet she dident 'lowno sech wurds in har
hous', an' ordurd me ter leave. Mi'tey sqeemishthet, warn't it? bein' as shede ben fur so mony yar the Cunnel's ----,an' th' tuther one his raal wife.

  "Wal, I _did_ leav'; but I left a piece of mi mind a-hind. I toled harI'de buy that ar 'ooman ef she cost all I war wuth and I had ter pawnemy sole ter git the money; an' I added, jess by way ov sweet'nin' thepill, thet I ow'd all I hed ter har husband, an' dident furget _my_debts ef she did _her'n_, an' ef his own wife disgraced him, I'd bed----d ef _I_ wud.

  "Wal, I've got th' ma'am an' har boy ter hum, an' my 'ooman hes tuk terhar a heep. I doant no w'en the sale's ter cum off, but ye may bet hi'on my beein' thar; an' I'll buy har ef I hev ter go my hull pile on har,an' borrer th' money fur ole Pomp. But _he'll_ go cheap, 'case theCunnel's deth nigh dun him up. It clean killed Ante Lucey. She neverheld her hed up arter she heerd 'Masser Davy' war dead, fur she sot harvary life on him. Don't ye fele consarned 'bout the ma'am--I knows yesot hi' on har--_I'll buy har_, shore. Thet an' deth ar th' onely thingsthet I knows on, in this wurld, jess now, that ar SARTIN."

  Such is Andy's letter. Mis-spelled and profane though it be, I would notalter a word or a syllable of it. It deserves to be written incharacters of gold, and hung up in the sky, where it might be read byall the world. And it _is_ written in the sky--in the greatrecord-book--and it will be read when you and I, reader, meet theassembled universe, to give account of what _we_ have done and written.God grant that our record may show some such deed as that!