The Great Stain

by Noel Rae

  So, was the Great Emancipator a racist? Here is what Frederick Douglass had to say on April 14, 1876—the eleventh anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination—at the ceremony unveiling the Freedmen’s Monument in Washington, D. C.: “He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people.”

  Nevertheless, Lincoln should be judged not by his attitudes but by what he achieved. “His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and second to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to the rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical and determined. Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery.”

  By the time the war ended, some 180,000 black soldiers had served in the Union army. Of these, about one in five came from the free states; one quarter, mostly slaves, from the border states; and the rest, the so-called “contrabands,” were slaves who escaped from the Confederate states. At first these were enlisted as cooks, servants, teamsters and laborers, thus freeing up white men to do the fighting; not until the middle of the war were they allowed to serve as fighting soldiers.

  In the meantime, there were many who did not wait for permission to act. Among these was William Tillman, whose story was written up by William Wells Brown, the prominent abolitionist.

  “In the month of June, 1861, the schooner S. J. Waring, from New York, bound to South America, was captured on the passage by the rebel privateer Jeff. Davis, a prize-crew put on board, consisting of a captain, mate, and four seamen; and the vessel set sail for the port of Charleston, S. C. Three of the original crew were retained on board, a German as steersman, a Yankee who was put in irons, and a black man named William Tillman, the steward and cook of the schooner. The latter was put to work at his usual business, and told that he was henceforth the property of the Confederate States, and would be sold, on his arrival at Charleston, as a slave.

  “Night comes on; darkness covers the sea; the vessel is gliding swiftly towards the South; the rebels, one after another, retire to their berths; the hour of midnight approaches; all is silent in the cabin; the captain is asleep; the mate, who has charge of the watch, takes his brandy toddy and reclines upon the quarter deck. The Negro thinks of home and all its endearments; he sees in the dim future chains and slavery.

  “He resolves, and determines to put the resolution into practice upon the instant. Armed with a heavy club, he proceeds to the captain’s room. He strikes the fatal blow; he feels the pulse, and all is still. He next goes to the adjoining room; another blow is struck, and the black man is master of the cabin. Cautiously he ascends to the deck, strikes the mate; the officer is wounded, but not killed. He draws his revolver, and calls of help. The crew are aroused; they are hastening to aid their commander. The Negro repeats his blow with the heavy club; the rebel falls dead at Tillman’s feet. The African seizes the revolver, drives the crew below deck, orders the release of the Yankee, puts the enemy in irons, and proclaims himself master of the vessel. The Waring’s head is turned towards New York, with the stars and stripes flying …”

  On arrival, Tillman was hailed as a hero, even by “those who are usually awkward in any other vernacular than derision of the colored man.” The New-York Tribune declared that “to this colored man was the nation indebted for the first vindication of its honor on the sea.” At Barnum’s Museum, which also featured “Tom Shows” (minstrel shows based on Uncle Tom’s Cabin), “he was the center of attractive gaze to daily increasing thousands.” Even better, “the Federal Government awarded to Tillman the sum of six thousand dollars as prize-money for the capture of the schooner.”

  Even more popular was the exploit of Robert Smalls, whose story was told in an official Congressional report: “On May 13, 1862, the Confederate steamboat Planter, the special dispatch boat of General Ripley, the Confederate post commander at Charleston, S. C., was taken by Robert Smalls under the following circumstances from the wharf at which she was lying, carried safely out of Charleston Harbor, and delivered to one of the vessels of the Federal fleet then blockading that port.

  “On the day previous, May 12, the Planter, which had for two weeks been engaged in removing guns from Coles Island to James Island, returned to Charleston. That night all the officers went ashore and slept in the city, leaving on board a crew of eight men, all colored. Among them was Robert Smalls, who was virtually the pilot of the boat, although he was only called a wheelman, because at that time no colored man could have, in fact, been made a pilot. For some time previous he had been watching for an opportunity to carry into execution a plan he had conceived to take the Planter to the Federal fleet. This, he saw, was about as good a chance as he would ever have to do so, and therefore he determined not to lose it. Consulting with the balance of the crew, Smalls found that they were willing to cooperate with him, although two of them afterwards concluded to remain behind. The design was hazardous in the extreme. The boat would have to pass beneath the guns of the forts in the harbor. Failure and detection would have been certain death. Fearful was the venture, but it was made. The daring resolution had been formed, and under the command of Robert Smalls wood was taken aboard, steam was put on, and with her valuable cargo of guns and ammunition intended for Fort Ripley, a new fortification just constructed in the harbor, about two o’clock in the morning the Planter silently moved off from the dock, steamed up to North Atlantic Wharf, where Smalls’ wife and two children, together with four other women and one other child, and also three men, were waiting to embark. All these were taken on board, and then, at 3.25 a.m., May 13, the Planter started on her perilous adventure, carrying nine men, five women, and three children. Passing Fort Johnson, the Planter’s steam whistle blew the usual salute and she proceeded down the bay. Approaching Fort Sumter, Smalls stood in the pilot house leaning out of the window, with his arms folded across his breast after the manner of Captain Relay, the commander of the boat, and his head covered with the huge straw hat which Captain Relay commonly wore on such occasions.

  “The signal required to be given by all steamers passing out was blown as coolly as if General Ripley was on board, going out on a tour of inspection. Sumter answered by signal, ‘All right,’ and the Planter headed toward Morris Island, then occupied by Hatch’s light artillery, and passed beyond the range of Sumter’s guns before anyone suspected that anything was wrong. When at last the Planter was obviously going toward the Federal fleet off the bar, Sumter signaled toward Morris Island to stop her. But it was too late. As the Planter approached the Federal fleet, a white flag was displayed, but this was not at first discovered, and the Federal steamers, supposing the Confederate rams were coming to attack them, stood out to deep water. But the ship Onward, Captain Nichols, which was not a steamer, remained, opened her [gun] ports, and was about to fire into the Planter when she noticed the flag of truce. As soon as the vessels came within hailing distance of each other, the Planter’s errand was explained. Captain Nichols then boarded her, and Smalls delivered the Planter to him.”

  Hero of one of the most daring exploits of the war, Robert Smalls stole the Confederate gunboat Planter out from under the guns defending Charleston and handed her over to the Unio
n fleet blockading that city. After very active service during the war, he returned to Charleston in April, 1865, to witness the raising of the Union flag over Fort Sumter.

  Smalls’ exploit deservedly made him a hero overnight, and he and the Planter later played an important part in the river campaigns of the famous First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers. Less distinguished, but easier to sympathize with, were the wartime experiences of Thomas Cole, aged eighteen when the fighting started. For most of his life, Thomas had been relatively fortunate. His owner, “Massa Dr. Cole,” was “a smart man and a good man with it. He had respect for the slave’s feelings and didn’t treat them like dumb brutes, and allowed them more privileges than any other slaveholder round there. He was one of the best men I ever knows in my whole life, and his wife was just like him. Massa Cole allow us to read the Bible. He awful good about that. Most of the slave-owners wouldn’t allow no such.” Thomas’ mother was the family cook and “we lived in one room of the big house, and always had a good bed to sleep in and good things to eat at the same table, after the white folks get through.” But then “Massa get sick and the next summer he die. Missy Cole, she move to Huntsville, Alabama, but she leaves me on the plantation ’cause I’m big and stout then. She takes my mother to cook, and that’s the last time I ever seed my mother.” An overseer called Anderson, known for his brutality, was hired to run the plantation. “I thinks to myself, that Mr. Anderson, the overseer, he’ll give me that cat-o-nine-tails the first chance he gets, but make up my mind he won’t get the chance ’cause I’s gwine run off the first chance I gets.”

  Soon after, food being in short supply, he and some others were sent into the woods to hunt for deer or wild hogs. “This the chance I been wanting, so when we gets to the hunting ground the leader says to scatter out, and I tells him me and ’nother man goes north and make the circle round the river and meet ’bout sundown. I crosses the river and goes north. I’s gwine to the free country, where they ain’t no slaves. I travels all that day and night up the river and follows the north star. Several times I thunk the bloodhounds am trailing me, and I gets in the big hurry.”

  He spent the next day hiding in a big thicket and then, “along evening, I hears guns shooting. I sure am scared this time, sure ’nough. I’s scared to come in and scared to go out, and while I’s standing there I hears two men say, ‘Stick your hands up, boy. What you doing?’ I says, ‘Uh-uh-uh, I dunno. You ain’t gwine take me back to the plantation, is you?’ They says, ‘No. Does you want to fight for the North?’ I says I will, ’cause they talks like Northern men. Us walk night and day and gets in General Rosecrans’ camp, and they thunk I’s the spy from the South. They asks me all sorts of questions and says they’ll whip me if I don’t tell them what I’s spying ’bout. Finally they ’lieves me and puts me to work helping with the cannons. I feels ’portant then, but I didn’t know what was in front of me, or I ’spects I’d run off ’gain.

  “I helps set them cannons on this Chickamauga Mountain, in hiding places. I has to go with a man and wait on him and that cannon. First thing I knows—Bang! Bang! Boom!—things has started, and guns am shooting faster than you can think, and I looks round for the way to run. But them guns am shooting down the hill in front of me, and shooting at me, and over me, and on both sides of me. I tries to dig me a hole and get in it. All this happens right now, and first thing I knows the man am kicking me and wanting me to help him keep that cannon loaded. Man, I didn’t want no cannon, but I has to help anyway. We fit till dark, and the Rebels got more men than us, so General Rosecrans sends the message to General Woods to come help us out. When the messenger slips off I sure wish it am me slipping off, but I didn’t want to see no General Woods, I just wants to get back to that old plantation and pick more cotton. I’d been willing to do ’most anything to get out of that mess, but I done told General Rosecrans I wants to fight the Rebels, and he sure was letting me do it. He wasn’t just letting me do it, he was making me do it. I done got in there, and he wouldn’t let me out.

  “There was men laying wanting help, wanting water, with blood running out of them and the top or sides of their heads gone, great big holes in them. I just promises the good Lord if He just let me get out that mess I wouldn’t run off no more, but I didn’t know then He wasn’t gwine let me out with just that battle. He gwine give me plenty more, but that battle ain’t over yet, for next morning the Rebels ’gin shooting and killing lots of our men, and General Woods ain’t come, so General Rosecrans orders us to ’treat, and didn’t have to tell me what he said neither. The Rebels comes after us, shooting, and we runs off and leaves that cannon what I was with setting on the hill, and I didn’t want that thing, nohow.

  “We kept hotfooting it till we gets to Chattanooga, and there is where we stops. Here comes one of them Rebel generals with the big bunch of men and gets right on top of Lookout Mountain, right close to Chattanooga, and wouldn’t let us out. I don’t know just how long, but a long time. Lots our hosses and mules starves to death, and we eats some of the hosses. We all like to starve to death ourselves. Chattanooga is in the bend of the Tennessee River, and on Lookout Mountain, on the east, am them Rebels and they could keep up with everything we done. After a long time General Thomas gets in some way. He finds the rough trail or wagon road round the mountain ’long the river, and supplies and men comes by boat up the river to this place and comes on into Chattanooga. More Union men kept coming, and I guess maybe six or eight generals, and they gets ready to fight.

  “They starts climbing this steep mountain, and when us gets three-fourths the way up it am foggy, and you couldn’t see no place. Everything wet, and the rocks am slick, and they ’gins fighting. I ‘spects some shoots their own men, ’cause you couldn’t see nothing, just men running and the guns roaring. Finally them Rebels fled, and we gets on Lookout Mountain, and takes it.

  “There a long range of hills leading ‘way from Lookout Mountain, nearly to Missionary Ridge. This ridge ’longside the Chickamauga River, what am the Indian name meaning ‘River of Death.’ They fights the Rebels on Orchard Knob Hill, and I wasn’t in that, but I’s in the Missionary Ridge battle. We has to come out the timber and run ‘cross a strip or opening up the hill. They sure killed lots our men when we runs ‘cross that opening. We runs for all we’s worth and uses guns or anything we could. The Rebels turns and runs off, and our soldiers turned the cannons round what we’s captured and killed some the Rebels with their own guns.

  “I never did get to where I wasn’t scared when we goes into the battle. This the last one I’s in, and I’s sure glad, for I never seed the like of dead and wounded men. We picks them up, the Rebels like the Unions, and doctors them the best we could. When I seed all that suffering, I hope I never lives to see ’nother war. I sure wished lots of times I never run off from the plantation. I begs the General not to send me on any more battles, and he says I’s the coward and sympathizes with the South. But I tells him I just couldn’t stand to see all them men lying there dying and hollering and begging for help and a drink of water, and blood everywhere you looks.” After that “when they wants to battle, General Thomas always leaves me in camp to tend to supplies. He calls me a coward, and I sure glad he thunk I was. I wasn’t no coward, I just couldn’t stand to see to all them people tore to pieces.”

  During the first part of the war, many Union generals were opposed to recruiting or even freeing slaves. “Any attempt at insurrection,” McClellan told Unionist slaveholders in West Virginia, would be crushed “with an iron hand.” In Florida, General Slemmer shackled runaways before returning them. In St. Louis, in November, 1861, General Halleck issued Order No. 3 directing that no fugitive “be hereafter permitted to enter the lines of any camp or of any forces on the march, and that any now within such lines be immediately excluded therefrom.”

  But others took a different line. General Fremont, who commanded in the West, proclaimed that “the property, real and personal, of all persons in the State of Missouri, who shal
l take up arms against the United States … is declared to be confiscated to the public use, and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men.” The following year, 1862, General Hunter, in the South, proclaimed that all persons in “Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free.” However, both proclamations were canceled by Lincoln, who was anxious not to offend slave-owners in the border states which had sided with the Union. Also, such powers “I reserve to myself.” In the meantime, however, Congress had passed two Confiscation Acts allowing the seizure of property, including slaves, of those in rebellion.

  Soon after declaring that all slaves in his command were free, General Hunter decided to recruit a regiment from among them. When Lincoln countermanded Hunter’s proclamation, most of the recruits were discharged. Then there was a change of policy, and those who remained became the nucleus of the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers. Their camp was an abandoned plantation near Beaufort. As usual, all the officers were white. Their colonel was Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a longtime abolitionist and one of the leaders in the attempt to free Thomas Sims from prison in Boston. In February he reported to General Saxton on a raid up the St. Mary’s River, “the most dangerous in the department,” carried out by two and hundred and fifty of his troops on board the John Adams, an armor-plated riverboat:

  “The stream is narrow, swift, winding, and bordered at many places with high bluffs, which blazed with rifle shots. With our glasses, as we approached these points, we could see mounted men by the hundreds galloping through the woods, from point to point, to await us; and though fearful of our shot and shell, they were so daring against musketry that one rebel actually sprang from the shore upon the large boat which was towed at our stern, where he was shot down by one of my sergeants. We could see our shells scatter the rebels as they fell among them, and some terrible execution must have been done; but not a man of this regiment was killed or wounded, though the steamer is covered with bullet-marks … The secret of our safety was in keeping the regiment below, except the gunners; but this required the utmost energy of the officers, as the men were wild to come on deck, and even implored to be landed on shore and charge on the enemy. Nobody knows anything about these men who has not seen them in battle. I find that I myself knew nothing. There is a fiery energy about them beyond any thing of which I have ever read … During our first attack on the river, before I got them all penned below, they crowded at the open end of the steamer, loading and firing with inconceivable rapidity, and shouting to each other, ‘Never give it up!’ When collected in the hold they actually fought each other for places at the few port-holes from which they could fire on the enemy.” In conclusion: “No officer in this regiment now doubts that the key to the successful prosecution of this war lies in the unlimited employment of black troops.”