Loe raamatut: «The Negro in The American Rebellion», lehekülg 12

CHAPTER XXVI. – HE NORTHERN WING OF THE REBELLION

The New-York Mob. – Murder, Fire, and Robbery. – The City given up to the Rioters. – Whites and Blacks robbed in Open Day in the Great Thoroughfares. – Negroes murdered, burned, and their Bodies hung on Lamp-posts. – Southern Rebels at the Head of the Riot.

The partial successes which the rebels had achieved at Bull Run, Ball’s Bluff, and Big Bethel, together with the defiant position of Gen. Lee on the one hand, and the bad management of Gen. McClellan on the other, had emboldened the rebels, and made them feel their strength.

Those who had served out their terms of service in the Union army were not very anxious to re-enlist. The Conscript Act had been passed by Congress, and the copperhead press throughout the land was urging the people to resist the draft, when the welcome news of the surrender of Vicksburg and Port Hudson came over the wires. The agents of the Confederacy were at once despatched to New York to “let loose the dogs of war.”

As the blacks of the South had assisted in the capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, the colored people of the North must be made to suffer for it.

The mob was composed of the lowest and most degraded of the foreign population (mainly Irish), raked from the filthy cellars and dens of the city, steeped in crimes of the deepest dye, and ready for any act, no matter how dark and damnable; together with the worst type of onr native criminals, whose long service in the prisons of the country, and whose training in the Democratic party, had so demoralized their natures, that they were ever on the hunt for some deed of robbery or murder.

This conglomerated mass of human beings were under the leadership of men standing higher than themselves in the estimation of the public, but, if possible, really lower in moral degradation. Cheered on by men holding high political positions, and finding little or no opposition, they went on at a fearful rate.

Never, in the history of mob-violence, was crime carried to such an extent. Murder, arson, robbery, and cruelty reigned triumphant throughout the city, day and night, for more than a week.

Breaking into stores, hotels, and saloons, and helping themselves to strong drink, ad libitum, they became inebriated, and marched through every part of the city. Calling at places where large bodies of men were at work, and pressing them in, their numbers rapidly increased to thousands, and their fiendish depredations had no bounds. Having been taught by the leaders of the Democratic party to hate the negro, and having but a few weeks previous seen regiments of colored volunteers pass through New York on their way South, this infuriated band of drunken men, women, and children paid special visits to all localities inhabited by the blacks, and murdered all they could lay their hands on, without regard to age or sex. Every place known to employ negroes was searched: steamboats leaving the city, and railroad depots, were watched, lest some should escape their vengeance.

Hundreds of the blacks, driven from their homes, and hunted and chased through the streets, presented themselves at the doors of jails, prisons, and police-stations, and begged admission. Thus did they prowl about the city, committing crime after crime; indeed, in point of cruelty, the Rebellion was transferred from the South to the North.

These depredations were to offset the glorious triumphs of our arms in the rebel States.

 
Peaceful o’er the placid waters rose the radiant summer sun,
Loyal voices shouted anthems o’er the conquest bravely won;
For the walls of Vicksburg yielded to the Union shot and shell,
While Port Hudson, trembling, waited but a clearer tale to tell.
 
 
But, alas! day’s golden image scarce had left its impress there,
When above a Northern city rose the sounds of wild despair:
Fiends and demons yet unnumbered rallied forth in bold array;
Deeds of darkness, scenes of carnage, marked the traitors’ onward way.
 
 
Blind to feeling, deaf to mercy, who may judge the depth of crime?
None but God may know the misery traced upon the Book of Time.
 

The following account of the mob is from “The New-York Times” July 14, 1863: —

“The Orphan Asylum for Colored Children was visited by the mob about four o’clock. This institution is situated on Fifth Avenue; and the building, with the grounds and gardens adjoining, extends from Forty-third to Forty-fourth Street. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of the rioters, the majority of whom were women and children, entered the premises, and, in the most excited and violent manner, ransacked and plundered the building from cellar to garret. The building was located in the most healthy portion of the city. It was purely a charitable institution. In it there was an average of six or eight hundred homeless colored orphans. The building was a large four-story one, with two wings of three stories each.

“When it became evident that the crowd designed to destroy it, a flag of truce appeared on the walk opposite, and the principals of the establishment made an appeal to the excited populace; but in vain.

“Here it was, that Chief-Engineer Decker showed himself one of the bravest of the brave. After the entire building had been ransacked, and every article deemed worth carrying had been taken, —and this included even the little garments for the orphans, which were contributed by the benevolent ladies of the city, – the premises were fired on the first floor. Mr. Decker did all he could to prevent the flames from being kindled; but, when he was overpowered by superior numbers, with his own hands he scattered the brands, and effectually extinguished the flames. A second attempt was made, and this time in three different parts of the house. Again he succeeded, with the aid of half a dozen of his men, in defeating the incendiaries. The mob became highly exasperated at his conduct, and threatened to take his life if he repeated the act. On the front steps of the building, he stood up amid an infuriated and half-drunken mob of two thousand, and begged of them to do nothing so disgraceful to humanity as to burn a benevolent institution, which had for its object nothing but good. He said it would be a lasting disgrace to them and to the city of New York.

“These remarks seemed to have no good effect upon them, and meantime the premises were again fired, – this time in all parts of the house. Mr. Decker, with his few brave men, again extinguished the flames. This last act brought down upon him the vengeance of all who were bent on the destruction of the asylum; and but for the fact that some firemen surrounded him, and boldly said that Mr. Decker could not be taken except over their bodies, he would have been despatched on the spot. The institution was destined to be burned; and, after an hour and a half of labor on the part of the mob, it was in flames in all parts. Three or four persons were horribly bruised by the falling walls; but the names we could not ascertain. There is now scarcely one brick left on another of the Orphan Asylum.

“At one o’clock yesterday, the garrison of the Seventh-avenue arsenal witnessed a sad and novel sight. Winding slowly along Thirty-fourth Street into Seventh Avenue, headed by a strong police force, came the little colored orphans, whose asylum had been burned down on Monday night. The boys, from two and three to fifteen years of age, followed by little girls of the same ages, to the number of about two hundred each, trotted along, and were halted in front of the arsenal.

“Then came a large number of men and women, several having babes in their arms, who had been forced to seek refuge in adjacent station-houses from the fury of the mob. Most of them carried small bundles of clothing and light articles of furniture, all they had been able to save from the wreck of their property. The negroes who had sought safety under the guns of the arsenal were then taken out, and ordered to join their friends outside. The procession was then re-formed, and, headed by the police, marched back again down Thirty-fifth Street to the North River.

“A strong detachment of Hawkins’s Zouaves guarded the flanks of the procession; while a company of the Tenth New-York Volunteers, and a squad of police, closed up the rear. Col. William Meyer had command of the escort; and on arriving at the pier, where a numerous crowd had followed them, he placed his men, with fixed bayonets, facing the people to keep them in check; and the negroes were all safely embarked, and conveyed to Ricker’s Island.

“The poor negroes have had a hard time. Finding they were to be slaughtered indiscriminately, they have hid themselves in cellars and garrets, and have endeavored, under cover of darkness, to flee to neighboring places. The Elysian Fields, over in Hoboken, has been a pretty safe refuge for them, as there are but few Irish living-in that city. They have a sort of improvised camp there, composed mainly of women and children.”

Blacks were chased to the docks, thrown into the river, and drowned; while some, after being murdered, were hung to lamp-posts. Between forty and fifty colored persons were killed, and nearly as many maimed for life. But space will not allow us to give any thing like a detailed account of this most barbarous outrage.

CHAPTER XXVII – ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER

The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment. – Col. Shaw. – March to the Island. – Preparation. – Speeches. – The Attack. – Storm of Shot, Shell, and Canister. – Heroism of Officers and Men. – Death of Col. Shaw. – The Color-sergeant. – The Retreat. – “Buried with his Niggers.” – Comments.

On the 16th of July, the Fifty-fourth Regiment (colored), Col. R. G. Shaw, was attacked by the enemy, on James Island, in which a fight of two hours’ duration took place, the Rebels largely outnumbering the Union forces. The Fifty-fourth, however, drove the enemy before them in confusion. The loss to our men was fourteen killed and eighteen wounded. During the same day, Col. Shaw received orders from Gen. Gillmore to evacuate the island. Preparations began at dusk. The night was dark and stormy, and made the movement both difficult and dangerous. The march was from James Island to Cole Island, across marshes, streams, and dikes, and part of the way upon narrow foot-bridges, along which it was necessary to proceed in single-file. The whole force reached Cole Island the next morning, July 17, and rested during the day on the beach opposite the south end of Folly Island. About ten o’clock in the evening, the colonel of the Fifty-fourth received orders directing him to report, with his command, to Gen. George C. Strong, at Morris Island, to whose brigade the regiment was transferred.

From eleven o’clock of Friday evening until four o’clock of Saturday, they were being put on the transport, “The Gen. Hunter,” in a boat which took about fifty at a time. There they breakfasted on the same fare, and had no other food before entering into the assault on Fort Wagner in the evening.

“The Gen. Hunter” left Cole Island for Folly Island at six, a.m.; and the troops landed at Pawnee Lauding about nine and a half, a.m., and thence marched to the point opposite Morris Island, reaching there about two o’clock in the afternoon. They were transported in a steamer across the inlet, and at four, p.m., began their march for Fort Wagner. They reached Brigadier-Gen. Strong’s quarters, about midway on the island, about six or six and a half o’clock, where they halted for five minutes.

Gen. Strong expressed a great desire to give them food and stimulants; but it was too late, as they had to lead the charge. They had been without tents during the pelting rains of Thursday and Friday nights. Gen. Strong had been impressed with the high character of the regiment and its officers; and he wished to assign them the post where the most severe work was to be done and the highest honor was to be won.

The march across Folly and Morris Islands was over a sandy road, and was very wearisome. The regiment went through the centre of the island, and not along the beach, where the marching was easier.

When they had come within six hundred yards of Fort Wagner, they formed in line of battle, the colonel heading the first, and the major the second battalion. This was within musket-shot of the enemy. There was little firing from the enemy; a solid shot falling between the battalions, and another falling to the right, but no musketry. At this point, the regiment, together with the next supporting regiment, the Sixth Connecticut, Ninth Maine, and others, remained half an hour. The regiment was addressed by Gen. Strong and by Col. Shaw. Then, at seven and a half or seven and three-quarters o’clock, the order for the charge was given. The regiment advanced at quick time, changed to double-quick when at some distance on.

The intervening distance between the place where the line was formed and the fort was run over in a few minutes.

When about one hundred yards from the fort, the rebel musketry opened with such terrible effect, that, for an instant, the first battalion hesitated, – but only for an instant; for Col. Shaw, springing to the front and waving his sword, shouted, “Forward, my brave boys!” and with another cheer and a shout they rushed through the ditch, gained the parapet on the right, and were soon engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with the enemy. Col. Shaw was one of the first to scale the walls. He stood erect to urge forward his men, and, while shouting for them to press on, was shot dead, and fell into the fort. His body was found, with twenty of his men lying dead around him; two lying on his own body.

The Fifty-fourth did well and nobly; only the fall of Col. Shaw prevented them from entering the fort. They moved up as gallantly as any troops could, and, with their enthusiasm, they deserved a better fate.

Sergeant-major Lewis H. Douglass, son of Frederick Douglass, the celebrated orator, sprang upon the parapet close behind Col. Shaw, and cried out, “Come, boys, come, let’s fight for God and Governor Andrew.” This brave young man was the last to leave the parapet. Before the regiment reached the parapet, the color-sergeant was wounded; and, while in the act of falling, the colors were seized by Sergt. William H. Carney, who bore them up, and mounted the parapet, where he, too, received three severe wounds. But, on orders being given to retire, the color-bearer, though almost disabled, still held the emblem of liberty in the air, and followed his regiment by the aid of his comrades, and succeeded in reaching the hospital, where he fell exhausted and almost lifeless on the floor, saying, “The old flag never touched the ground, boys.” Capt. Lewis F. Emilio, the junior captain, – all of his superiors having been killed or wounded, – took command, and brought the regiment into camp. In this battle, the total loss in officers and men, killed and wounded, was two hundred and sixty-one.

When John Brown was led out of the Charlestown jail, on his way to execution, he paused a moment, it will be remembered, in the passage-way, and, taking a little colored child in his arms, kissed and blessed it. The dying blessing of the martyr will descend from generation to generation; and a whole race will cherish for ages the memory of that simple caress, which, degrading as it seemed to the slaveholders around him, was as sublime and as touching a lesson, and as sure to do its work in the world’s history, as that of Him who said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.”

When inquiry was made at Fort Wagner, under flag of truce, for the body of Col. Shaw of the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth, the answer was, “We have buried him with his niggers!” It is the custom of savages to outrage the dead, and it was only natural that the natives of South Carolina should attempt to heap insult upon the remains of the brave young soldier; but that wide grave on Morris Island will be to a whole race a holy sepulchre. No more fitting burial-place, no grander obsequies, could have been given to him who cried, as he led that splendid charge, “On, my brave boys!” than to give to him and to them one common grave. As they clustered around him in the fight: as they rallied always to the clear ring of his loved voice; as they would have laid down their lives, each and all of them, to save his; as they honored and reverenced him, and lavished on him all the strong affections of a warm-hearted and impulsive people: so when the fight was over, and he was found with the faithful dead piled up like a bulwark around him, the poor savages did the only one fitting thing to be done when they buried them together. Neither death nor the grave has divided the young martyr and hero from the race for which he died; and a whole people will remember in the coming centuries, when its new part is to be played in the world’s history, that “he was buried with his niggers!”

 
They buried him with his niggers!”
Together they fought and died.
There was room for them all where they laid him
(The grave was deep and wide),
For his beauty and youth and valor,
Their patience and love and pain;
And at the last day together
They shall all be found again.
 
 
They buried him with his niggers!”
Earth holds no prouder grave:
There is not a mausoleum
In the world beyond the wave,
That a nobler tale has hallowed,
Or a purer glory crowned,
Than the nameless trench where they buried
The brave so faithful found.
 
 
“They buried him with his niggers!”
A wide grave should it be.
They buried more in that shallow trench
Than human eye could see.
Ay: all the shames and sorrows
Of more than a hundred years
Lie under the weight of that Southern soil
Despite those cruel sneers.
 
 
“They buried him with his niggers!”
But the glorious souls set free
Are leading the van of the army
That fights for liberty.
Brothers in death, in glory
The same palm-branches bear;
And the crown is as bright o’er the sable brows
As over the golden hair.
 

Only those who knew Col. Shaw can understand how fitting it seems, when the purpose of outrage is put aside and forgotten, that he should have been laid in a common grave with his black soldiers. The relations between colored troops and their officers – if these are good for any thing, and fit for their places – must need be, from the circumstances of the case, very close and peculiar. They were especially so with Col. Shaw and his regiment. His was one of those natures which attract first through the affections. Most gentle tempered, genial as a warm winter’s sun, sympathetic, full of kindliness, unselfish, unobtrusive, and gifted with a manly beauty and a noble bearing, he was sure to win the love, in a very marked degree, of men of a race peculiarly susceptible to influence from such traits of character as these. First, they loved him with a devotion which could hardly exist anywhere else than in the peculiar relation he held to them as commander of the first regiment of free colored men permitted to fling out a military banner in this country, – a banner that, so raised, meant to them so much! But, then, came closer ties; they found that this young man, with education and habits that would naturally lead him to choose a life of ease, with wealth at his command, with peculiarly happy social relations (one most tender one just formed), accepted the position offered him in consideration of his soldierly as well as moral fitness, because he recognized a solemn duty to the black man; because he was ready to throw down all that he had, all that he was, all that this world could give him, for the negro race! Beneath that gentle and courtly bearing which so won upon the colored people of Boston when the Fifty-fourth was in camp, beneath that kindly but unswerving discipline of the commanding officer, beneath that stern but always cool and cheerful courage of the leader in the fight, was a clear and deep conviction of a duty to the blacks. He hoped to lead them, as one of the roads to social equality, to fight their way to true freedom; and herein he saw his path of duty. Of the battle two days before that in which he fell, and in which his regiment, by their bravery, won the right to lead the attack on Fort Wagner, he said, “I wanted my men to fight by the side of whites, and they have done it;” thinking of others, not of himself; thinking of that great struggle for equality in which the race had now a chance to gain a step forward, and to which he was ready to devote his life. Could it have been for him to choose his last resting-place, he would, no doubt, have said, “Bury me with my men if I earn that distinction.”

 
Buried with a band of brothers
Who for him would fain have died;
Buried with the gallant fellows
Who fell fighting by his side;
Buried with the men God gave him,
Those whom he was sent to save;
Buried with the martyred heroes,
He has found an honored grave.
 
 
Buried where his dust so precious
Makes the soil a hallowed spot;
Buried where, by Christian patriot,
He shall never be forgot;
 
 
Buried in the ground accursed,
Which man’s fettered feet have trod;
Buried where his voice still speaketh,
Appealing for the slave to God;
 
 
Fare thee well, thou noble warrior,
Who in youthful beauty went
On a high and holy mission,
By the God of battles sent.
 
 
Chosen of Him, “elect and precious,”
Well didst thou fulfil thy part:
When thy country “counts her jewels,”
She shall wear thee on her heart.
 

One who was present, speaking of the incidents before the battle, says of Col. Shaw, —

“The last day with us, or, I may say, the ending of it, as we lay flat on the ground before the assault, his manner was more unbending than I had ever noticed before in the presence of his men. He sat on the ground, and was talking to the men very familiarly and kindly. He told them how the eyes of thousands would look upon the night’s work they were about to enter on; and he said, ‘Now, boys, I want you to be men!’ He would walk along the line, and speak words of cheer to his men.

“We could see that he was a man who had counted the cost of the undertaking before him; for his words were spoken ominously, his lips were compressed, and now and then there was visible a slight twitching of the corners of the month, like one bent on accomplishing or dying. One poor fellow, struck no doubt by the colonel’s determined bearing, exclaimed, as he was passing him, ‘Colonel, I will stay by you till I die;’ and he kept his word: he has never been seen since. For one so young, Col. Shaw showed a well-trained mind, and an ability of governing men not possessed by many older or more experienced men. In him the regiment has lost one of its best and most devoted friends. Col. Shaw was only about twenty-seven years of age, and was married a few weeks before he joined the army of the South.”

The following correspondence between the father of Col. Shaw and Gen. Gillmore needs no comment, but is characteristic of the family: —

“Brig-Gen. Gillmore, commanding Department of the South.

“Sir, – I take the liberty to address you, because I am informed that efforts are to be made to recover the body of my son, Col. Shaw, of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, which was buried at Fort Wagner. My object in writing is to say that such efforts are not authorized by me, or any of my family, and that they are not approved by us. We hold that a soldier’s most appropriate burial-place is on the field where he has fallen. I shall, therefore, be much obliged, general, if, in case the matter is brought to your cognizance, you will forbid the desecration of my son’s grave, and prevent the disturbance of his remains or of those buried with him. With most earnest wishes for your success, I am, sir, with respect and esteem,

“Your most obedient servant,