The Marrow of Tradition

by Charles W. Chesnutt

  XXXV

  "MINE ENEMY, O MINE ENEMY!"

  The proceedings of the day--planned originally as a "demonstration,"dignified subsequently as a "revolution," under any name the culminationof the conspiracy formed by Carteret and his colleagues--had by seveno'clock in the afternoon developed into a murderous riot. Crowds ofwhite men and half-grown boys, drunk with whiskey or with license, ragedthrough the streets, beating, chasing, or killing any negro sounfortunate as to fall into their hands. Why any particular negro wasassailed, no one stopped to inquire; it was merely a white mob thirstingfor black blood, with no more conscience or discrimination than would beexercised by a wolf in a sheepfold. It was race against race, the whitesagainst the negroes; and it was a one-sided affair, for until Josh Greengot together his body of armed men, no effective resistance had beenmade by any colored person, and the individuals who had been killed hadso far left no marks upon the enemy by which they might be remembered.

  "Kill the niggers!" rang out now and then through the dusk, and far downthe street and along the intersecting thoroughfares distant voices tookup the ominous refrain,--"Kill the niggers! Kill the damned niggers!"Now, not a dark face had been seen on the street for half an hour,until the group of men headed by Josh made their appearance in the negroquarter. Armed with guns and axes, they presented quite a formidableappearance as they made their way toward the new hospital, near whichstood a schoolhouse and a large church, both used by the colored people.They did not reach their destination without having met a number ofwhite men, singly or in twos or threes; and the rumor spread withincredible swiftness that the negroes in turn were up in arms,determined to massacre all the whites and burn the town. Some of thewhites became alarmed, and recognizing the power of the negroes, ifarmed and conscious of their strength, were impressed by the immediatenecessity of overpowering and overawing them. Others, with appetitesalready whetted by slaughter, saw a chance, welcome rather than not, ofshedding more black blood. Spontaneously the white mob flocked towardthe hospital, where rumor had it that a large body of desperate negroes,breathing threats of blood and fire, had taken a determined stand.

  It had been Josh's plan merely to remain quietly and peaceably in theneighborhood of the little group of public institutions, molesting noone, unless first attacked, and merely letting the white people see thatthey meant to protect their own; but so rapidly did the rumor spread,and so promptly did the white people act, that by the time Josh and hissupporters had reached the top of the rising ground where the hospitalstood, a crowd of white men much more numerous than their own party werefollowing them at a short distance.

  Josh, with the eye of a general, perceived that some of his party werebecoming a little nervous, and decided that they would feel safer behindshelter.

  "I reckon we better go inside de hospittle, boys," he exclaimed. "Denwe'll be behind brick walls, an' dem other fellows 'll be outside, an' efdere's any fightin', we'll have de bes' show. We ain' gwine ter do noshootin' till we're pestered, an' dey'll be less likely ter pester usef dey can't git at us widout runnin' some resk. Come along in! Be men!De gov'ner er de President is gwine ter sen' soldiers ter stop desegwines-on, an' meantime we kin keep dem white devils f'm bu'nin' downour hospittles an' chu'ch-houses. Wen dey comes an' fin's out dat wejes' means ter pertect ou' prope'ty, dey'll go 'long 'bout deir ownbusiness. Er, ef dey wants a scrap, dey kin have it! Come erlong, boys!"

  Jerry Letlow, who had kept out of sight during the day, had started out,after night had set in, to find Major Carteret. Jerry was very muchafraid. The events of the day had filled him with terror. Whatever thelimitations of Jerry's mind or character may have been, Jerry had a keenappreciation of the danger to the negroes when they came in conflictwith the whites, and he had no desire to imperil his own skin. He valuedhis life for his own sake, and not for any altruistic theory that itmight be of service to others. In other words, Jerry was something of acoward. He had kept in hiding all day, but finding, toward evening, thatthe riot did not abate, and fearing, from the rumors which came to hisears, that all the negroes would be exterminated, he had set out,somewhat desperately, to try to find his white patron and protector. Hehad been cautious to avoid meeting any white men, and, anticipating nodanger from those of his own race, went toward the party which he sawapproaching, whose path would cross his own. When they were only a fewyards apart, Josh took a step forward and caught Jerry by the arm.

  "Come along, Jerry, we need you! Here's another man, boys. Come on now,and fight fer yo' race!"

  In vain Jerry protested. "I don' wan' ter fight," he howled. "De w'itefolks ain' gwine ter pester me; dey're my frien's. Tu'n me loose,--tu'nme loose, er we all gwine ter git killed!"

  The party paid no attention to Jerry's protestations. Indeed, with thecrowd of whites following behind, they were simply considering thequestion of a position from which they could most effectively defendthemselves and the building which they imagined to be threatened. IfJosh had released his grip of Jerry, that worthy could easily haveescaped from the crowd; but Josh maintained his hold almostmechanically, and, in the confusion, Jerry found himself swept with therest into the hospital, the doors of which were promptly barricaded withthe heavier pieces of furniture, and the windows manned by several meneach, Josh, with the instinct of a born commander, posting his forces sothat they could cover with their guns all the approaches to thebuilding. Jerry still continuing to make himself troublesome, Josh, in amoment of impatience, gave him a terrific box on the ear, whichstretched him out upon the floor unconscious.

  "Shet up," he said; "ef you can't stan' up like a man, keep still, anddon't interfere wid men w'at will fight!" The hospital, when Josh andhis men took possession, had been found deserted. Fortunately there wereno patients for that day, except one or two convalescents, and these,with the attendants, had joined the exodus of the colored people fromthe town.

  A white man advanced from the crowd without toward the main entrance tothe hospital. Big Josh, looking out from a window, grasped his gun morefirmly, as his eyes fell upon the man who had murdered his father anddarkened his mother's life. Mechanically he raised his rifle, butlowered it as the white man lifted up his hand as a sign that he wishedto speak.

  "You niggers," called Captain McBane loudly,--it was that worthy,--"youniggers are courtin' death, an' you won't have to court her but a minuteer two mo' befo' she'll have you. If you surrender and give up yourarms, you'll be dealt with leniently,--you may get off with thechain-gang or the penitentiary. If you resist, you'll be shot likedogs."

  "Dat's no news, Mr. White Man," replied Josh, appearing boldly at thewindow. "We're use' ter bein' treated like dogs by men like you. If youw'ite people will go 'long an' ten' ter yo' own business an' let usalone, we'll ten' ter ou'n. You've got guns, an' we've got jest asmuch right ter carry 'em as you have. Lay down yo'n, an' we'll lay downou'n,--we didn' take 'em up fust; but we ain' gwine ter let you bu'ndown ou' chu'ches an' school'ouses, er dis hospittle, an' we ain' comin'out er dis house, where we ain' disturbin' nobody, fer you ter shoot usdown er sen' us ter jail. You hear me!"

  "All right," responded McBane. "You've had fair warning. Your blood beon your"--His speech was interrupted by a shot from the crowd, whichsplintered the window-casing close to Josh's head. This was followed byhalf a dozen other shots, which were replied to, almost simultaneously,by a volley from within, by which one of the attacking party was killedand another wounded.

  This roused the mob to frenzy.

  "Vengeance! vengeance!" they yelled. "Kill the niggers!"

  A negro had killed a white man,--the unpardonable sin, admitting neitherexcuse, justification, nor extenuation. From time immemorial it had beenbred in the Southern white consciousness, and in the negro consciousnessalso, for that matter, that the person of a white man was sacred fromthe touch of a negro, no matter what the provocation. A dozen coloredmen lay dead in the streets of Wellington, inoffensive people, slain incold blood because they had been bold enough to question the authorityof those who had
assailed them, or frightened enough to flee when theyhad been ordered to stand still; but their lives counted nothing againstthat of a riotous white man, who had courted death by attacking a bodyof armed men.

  The crowd, too, surrounding the hospital, had changed somewhat incharacter. The men who had acted as leaders in the early afternoon,having accomplished their purpose of overturning the localadministration and establishing a provisional government of their own,had withdrawn from active participation in the rioting, deeming thenegroes already sufficiently overawed to render unlikely any furthertrouble from that source. Several of the ringleaders had indeed begun toexert themselves to prevent further disorder, or any loss of property,the possibility of which had become apparent; but those who set inmotion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards. Thebaser element of the white population, recruited from the wharves andthe saloons, was now predominant.

  Captain McBane was the only one of the revolutionary committee who hadremained with the mob, not with any purpose to restore or preserveorder, but because he found the company and the occasion entirelycongenial. He had had no opportunity, at least no tenable excuse, tokill or maim a negro since the termination of his contract with thestate for convicts, and this occasion had awakened a dormant appetitefor these diversions. We are all puppets in the hands of Fate, andseldom see the strings that move us. McBane had lived a life of violenceand cruelty. As a man sows, so shall he reap. In works of fiction, suchmen are sometimes converted. More often, in real life, they do notchange their natures until they are converted into dust. One does wellto distrust a tamed tiger.

  On the outskirts of the crowd a few of the better class, or at least ofthe better clad, were looking on. The double volley described hadalready been fired, when the number of these was augmented by thearrival of Major Carteret and Mr. Ellis, who had just come from theChronicle office, where the next day's paper had been in hastypreparation. They pushed their way towards the front of the crowd.

  "This must be stopped, Ellis," said Carteret. "They are burning housesand killing women and children. Old Jane, good old Mammy Jane, whonursed my wife at her bosom, and has waited on her and my child withina few weeks, was killed only a few rods from my house, to which she wasevidently fleeing for protection. It must have been by accident,--Icannot believe that any white man in town would be dastard enough tocommit such a deed intentionally! I would have defended her with my ownlife! We must try to stop this thing!"

  "Easier said than done," returned Ellis. "It is in the fever stage, andmust burn itself out. We shall be lucky if it does not burn the townout. Suppose the negroes should also take a hand at the burning? We haveadvised the people to put the negroes down, and they are doing the jobthoroughly."

  "My God!" replied the other, with a gesture of impatience, as hecontinued to elbow his way through the crowd; "I meant to keep them intheir places,--I did not intend wholesale murder and arson."

  Carteret, having reached the front of the mob, made an effort to gaintheir attention.

  "Gentlemen!" he cried in his loudest tones. His voice, unfortunately,was neither loud nor piercing.

  "Kill the niggers!" clamored the mob.

  "Gentlemen, I implore you"--

  The crash of a dozen windows, broken by stones and pistol shots, drownedhis voice.

  "Gentlemen!" he shouted; "this is murder, it is madness; it is adisgrace to our city, to our state, to our civilization!"

  "That's right!" replied several voices. The mob had recognized thespeaker. "It _is_ a disgrace, and we'll not put up with it a momentlonger. Burn 'em out! Hurrah for Major Carteret, the champion of 'whitesupremacy'! Three cheers for the Morning Chronicle and 'no niggerdomination'!"

  "Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!" yelled the crowd.

  In vain the baffled orator gesticulated and shrieked in the effort tocorrect the misapprehension. Their oracle had spoken; not hearing whathe said, they assumed it to mean encouragement and cooeperation. Theirpresent course was but the logical outcome of the crusade which theMorning Chronicle had preached, in season and out of season, for manymonths. When Carteret had spoken, and the crowd had cheered him, theyfelt that they had done all that courtesy required, and he wasgood-naturedly elbowed aside while they proceeded with the work in hand,which was now to drive out the negroes from the hospital and avenge thekilling of their comrade.

  Some brought hay, some kerosene, and others wood from a pile which hadbeen thrown into a vacant lot near by. Several safe ways of approach tothe building were discovered, and the combustibles placed and fired. Theflames, soon gaining a foothold, leaped upward, catching here and thereat the exposed woodwork, and licking the walls hungrily with longtongues of flame.

  Meanwhile a desultory firing was kept up from the outside, which wasreplied to scatteringly from within the hospital. Those inside wereeither not good marksmen, or excitement had spoiled their aim. If a faceappeared at a window, a dozen pistol shots from the crowd sought thespot immediately.

  Higher and higher leaped the flames. Suddenly from one of the windowssprang a black figure, waving a white handkerchief. It was Jerry Letlow.Regaining consciousness after the effect of Josh's blow had subsided,Jerry had kept quiet and watched his opportunity. From a safevantage-ground he had scanned the crowd without, in search of somewhite friend. When he saw Major Carteret moving disconsolately awayafter his futile effort to stem the torrent, Jerry made a dash for thewindow. He sprang forth, and, waving his handkerchief as a flag oftruce, ran toward Major Carteret, shouting frantically:--

  "Majah Carteret--_O_ majah! It's me, suh, Jerry, suh! I didn' go indere myse'f, suh--I wuz drag' in dere! I wouldn' do nothin' 'g'inst dew'ite folks, suh,--no, 'ndeed, I wouldn', suh!"

  Jerry's cries were drowned in a roar of rage and a volley of shots fromthe mob. Carteret, who had turned away with Ellis, did not even hear hisservant's voice. Jerry's poor flag of truce, his explanations, hisreliance upon his white friends, all failed him in the moment of supremeneed. In that hour, as in any hour when the depths of race hatred arestirred, a negro was no more than a brute beast, set upon by other brutebeasts whose only instinct was to kill and destroy.

  "Let us leave this inferno, Ellis," said Carteret, sick with anger anddisgust. He had just become aware that a negro was being killed, thoughhe did not know whom. "We can do nothing. The negroes have themselves toblame,--they tempted us beyond endurance. I counseled firmness, and firmmeasures were taken, and our purpose was accomplished. I am notresponsible for these subsequent horrors,--I wash my hands of them. Letus go!"

  The flames gained headway and gradually enveloped the burning building,until it became evident to those within as well as those without thatthe position of the defenders was no longer tenable. Would they die inthe flames, or would they be driven out? The uncertainty soon came to anend.

  The besieged had been willing to fight, so long as there seemed a hopeof successfully defending themselves and their property; for theirpurpose was purely one of defense. When they saw the case was hopeless,inspired by Josh Green's reckless courage, they were still willing tosell their lives dearly. One or two of them had already been killed, andas many more disabled. The fate of Jerry Letlow had struck terror to thehearts of several others, who could scarcely hide their fear. After thebuilding had been fired, Josh's exhortations were no longer able to keepthem in the hospital. They preferred to fight and be killed in the open,rather than to be smothered like rats in a hole.

  "Boys!" exclaimed Josh,--"men!--fer nobody but men would do w'at youhave done,--the day has gone 'g'inst us. We kin see ou' finish; but fermy part, I ain' gwine ter leave dis worl' widout takin' a w'ite man'long wid me, an' I sees my man right out yonder waitin',--I be'nwaitin' fer him twenty years, but he won' have ter wait fer me mo' 'n'bout twenty seconds. Eve'y one er you pick yo' man! We'll open de do',an' we'll give some w'ite men a chance ter be sorry dey ever starteddis fuss!"

  The door was thrown open suddenly, and through it rushed a dozen or moreblack figures, armed with knives, pistols, or club
bed muskets. Taken bysudden surprise, the white people stood motionless for a moment, but theapproaching negroes had scarcely covered half the distance to which theheat of the flames had driven back the mob, before they were greetedwith a volley that laid them all low but two. One of these, dazed bythe fate of his companions, turned instinctively to flee, but hadscarcely faced around before he fell, pierced in the back by a dozenbullets.

  Josh Green, the tallest and biggest of them all, had not apparently beentouched. Some of the crowd paused in involuntary admiration of thisblack giant, famed on the wharves for his strength, sweeping down uponthem, a smile upon his face, his eyes lit up with a rapt expressionwhich seemed to take him out of mortal ken. This impression washeightened by his apparent immunity from the shower of lead which lesssusceptible persons had continued to pour at him.

  Armed with a huge bowie-knife, a relic of the civil war, which he hadcarried on his person for many years for a definite purpose, and whichhe had kept sharpened to a razor edge, he reached the line of the crowd.All but the bravest shrank back. Like a wedge he dashed through the mob,which parted instinctively before him, and all oblivious of the rain oflead which fell around him, reached the point where Captain McBane, thebravest man in the party, stood waiting to meet him. A pistol-flameflashed in his face, but he went on, and raising his powerful right arm,buried his knife to the hilt in the heart of his enemy. When the crowddashed forward to wreak vengeance on his dead body, they found him witha smile still upon his face.

  One of the two died as the fool dieth. Which was it, or was it both?"Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord, and it had not been left to Him.But they that do violence must expect to suffer violence. McBane's deathwas merciful, compared with the nameless horrors he had heaped upon thehundreds of helpless mortals who had fallen into his hands during hiscareer as a contractor of convict labor.

  Sobered by this culminating tragedy, the mob shortly afterwardsdispersed. The flames soon completed their work, and this handsomestructure, the fruit of old Adam Miller's industry, the monument of hisson's philanthropy, a promise of good things for the future of the city,lay smouldering in ruins, a melancholy witness to the fact that ourboasted civilization is but a thin veneer, which cracks and scales offat the first impact of primal passions.