Climbing Up to Glory

by Wilbert L. Jenkins

  As concern for the suffering of black migrants rose, black men and women working through their own initiative or through northern freedmen’s aid societies worked tirelessly to alleviate the suffering. As early as 1862, Elizabeth Keckley, a confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln, helped start the Contraband Relief Association. This organization became the Freedmen and Soldiers Relief Association of Washington after black men were enrolled in the army. Owing to many contributions throughout the war, it was able to continue providing food, clothing, housing, and medical attention to the needy.43 Working on his own initiative, the Reverend Richard Cain, a future member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Charleston, played a leading role in obtaining health care for freedmen arriving in Washington, DC, and also helping them to secure employment.44 In addition, Harriet Jacobs and her daughter Elizabeth expended much time and energy to relieve the suffering of freedmen in Arlington, Virginia, and Savannah, Georgia, through the New York Society of Friends. Harriet Jacobs was so adamant in her determination to improve the status of freedmen that in 1868 she went to England to solicit funds for a home for orphans and aged blacks in Savannah. She hoped to eventually build an asylum on about fifteen acres of land, which would give the freed people the opportunity to grow their own vegetables and fruit and keep poultry. Jacobs thanked British friends for their contributions in an appeal published in the AntiSlavery Reporter. In her opinion, their support was “noble evidence of their joy at the downfall of American slavery and the advancement of human rights.”45

  SOJOURNER TRUTH, A RENOWNED ABOLITIONIST AND POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVIST.

  Library of Congress

  Both Sojourner Truth and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper were deeply concerned about the plight of black people and worked long hours for the benefit of their race. In an effort to assist freedmen in Washington, DC, Truth opened an employment office. She also sought to put pressure on city officials to stop spending huge sums on imprisoning vagrants. Instead, she noted, “officials could use the funds to provide adequate money and education for Freedmen.” 46 The intensity of Truth’s efforts to uplift her race was matched by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. While acting as an ambassador to the white South, Harper spent most of her time with freed blacks. She informed William Still that “I meet with a people eager to hear, ready to listen.”47 Sometimes Harper would speak twice per day at no charge, and part of her lectures were directed to women. She particularly preached against men who physically and emotionally abused their wives. It was necessary for black men to treat their women with the utmost respect and with sensitivity because they had been ill treated under slavery, Harper insisted. Perhaps the following statement expresses the sentiments of numerous blacks such as Elizabeth Keckley, Richard Cain, Harriet and Elizabeth Jacobs, and Sojourner Truth on the need to promote the interests of the race. Harper noted: “I belong to this race, and when it is down I belong to a down race, when it is up I belong to a risen race.”48 Indeed, this commitment represents long-standing traditions of solidarity and self-help among North American blacks. It also epitomizes a shining moment in the struggle of blacks in the post-Civil War period for dignity and self-respect.

  THE BLACK MIGRATION OF THE SOUTH

  Despite the efforts of blacks and Northern white Freedmen’s Aid societies, however, the mass sufferings of black migrants continued. The response of Federal officials to this migration often ran counter to the interests of blacks. In Richmond, for example, U.S. Army officers adopted the strategy of forcing freedmen to return to work on the plantations. In return the government would provide rations to the farmers who employed them. The ranking commander in the area, Major General J. Irvin Gregg, was instructed by his superior to “do all in your power to prevent the able-bodied men from deserting the women and children and old persons.” When practicable, migrants also should be sent back to plantations. Moreover, sentinels who were posted on the roads to Richmond were ordered to turn back all freedmen attempting to reach the city. The head of the Freedmen’s Bureau in Virginia directed “all destitute persons, white and colored, who have come in from the country... to return to their homes where there is abundance of work and where work will provide food.”49 Owing to the fact that the military controlled distribution of the rations, it was able not only to encourage but also to virtually compel blacks to reenter the workforce by returning to their families and former owners.

  Military officials repeated this strategy in cities throughout the South. For instance, in Charleston, freedmen were mistreated by those whose protection they had sought. Some were arbitrarily arrested and brutalized by occupation troops; others had their food rations suspended by the Freedmen’s Bureau. In June 1865 the commander of Charleston’s occupation force, Colonel William Gurney, issued a warning to the large number of freedmen who had congregated in the city: they must return to the farms. When they failed to take his advice, “he asked ward committees to report the names of all able-bodied idle-persons so that they might be put to work on the streets.” Any unemployed freedmen whom Bureau officials found at large were designated as vagrants, denied food rations, and removed from Charleston. In this way the Bureau hoped to stem the overwhelming tide of black migration to the city.50 Apparently, most officials considered this the most plausible way of dealing with an overabundance of urban labor coupled with massive hunger and disease. From their perspective, the government simply lacked the resources to materially provide for all the black migrants; and to do so ran against the basic tenets of capitalism. It would give rise to a lazy and dependent group of freedmen. Since, in the minds of many, most freedmen already possessed these deplorable characteristics, why should government policy make matters worse?

  If Federal officials thought that their efforts would lead to a significant reduction in the number of black migrants, they were badly mistaken. The exodus of blacks from rural areas to cities and towns continued unabated. After emancipation, the black population of Southern cities and towns increased substantially. For example, Memphis’s black population rose by 450 percent between 1860 and 1865. In addition, by 1866, Charleston had a black majority; and from 1860 to 1880, Savannah’s black population grew so substantially that it constituted 51 percent of the city’s total population. Other cities also experienced dramatic increases in their black populations. By 1870, Atlanta, Richmond, Montgomery, and Raleigh had black populations totaling close to 50 percent. Overall, during the 1860s, the urban black population increased by 75 percent, and the number of blacks in small rural towns grew as well. The case of Demopolis, Alabama, illustrates the latter trend. In 1860, Demopolis had only one black resident. However, at the conclusion of the war it became the site of a regional Freedmen’s Bureau office; as a result, blacks began to trickle into the town. They came in such large numbers that by 1870, Demopolis had a black population of nearly one thousand.51

  Although most freedmen migrated to either Southern cities or towns, some rejected the region entirely. Instead, they sought their fortunes in the North. While it is true that the North was not yet the beacon of Southern black hopes and aspirations that it would become in the first decades of the twentieth century, 68,000 blacks relocated to these states during the 1870s.52 Why did freed people not migrate to Northern cities in more significant numbers? Apparently, most of them regarded migration as neither feasible nor desirable. Regardless of acute white racism and racial discrimination, the South was home to most blacks, and they were determined to remain there. Furthermore, they were now free and no longer had to steal away to the North to achieve their freedom.

  While large numbers of rural blacks took to the road in pursuit of “real freedom,” many former slaves, such as Charlie Davenport and a woman named Adeline who was scolded by other blacks for not leaving, stayed at the homesteads of their former owners, often for several years after the war.53 For example, Daddy Henry proved faithful to his owner, Edward J. Thomas of Georgia. As he was getting ready to depart for battle, Thomas told Henry that everything was being placed in his care
. Daddy Henry replied, “Mas’ Ed, fore God I won’t betray you.” He protected Thomas’s family and helped them take refuge in Savannah when the fighting came too close. He lived with the Thomas family for several years after the war.54 In a similar case, Captain W. M. Davidson, leaving Savannah in the December evacuation, asked his slave, who would be free the next day, “Take care of my wife while I am gone, will you?” The slave agreed and resided with the Davidson family for many years after the war.55 Some of those who left eventually returned, but not out of affection for “Old Massa.” They may have been driven by “an instinctive feeling that the old cabin in which they had labored so long ought by right to belong to them,” or they hoped to find some means of livelihood among familiar people. Most who returned settled on neighboring plantations rather than on those of their former owners. Freedom was the major goal, and most did not believe that they could be free and still work under the supervision of their former owners. Freedom had to be held apart from them.

  JOY OVER THEIR NEWFOUND STATUS

  The arrival of Union soldiers in rural areas witnessed much excitement among freedmen. Colonel Thomas W. Higginson, a white officer in the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the United States, described the reaction of blacks on Edisto Island to the arrival of his regiment. “What a sight it was! With the wild faces, eager figures, and strange garments, it seemed, as one of the poor things reverently suggested, ‘like notin’ but de Judgment Day.’” Higginson noted that “presently they began to come from the houses also with bundles of all sizes on their heads.” Old women trotting down the narrow paths would kneel to say a little prayer “still balancing the bundle.... Then they would suddenly spring up, urged on by the accumulating procession behind.” Higginson continued: “They would move on till they were irresistibly compelled by thankfulness to dip down for another prayer.” But, as he perceived it, the most moving scene occurred when the freedmen reached the soldiers, for at this point “our hands were grasped and there were exclamations of ‘Bress you, masr’,’ and ‘Bress de Lord.’ ” Women brought children on their shoulders. “Small black boys came, carrying on their backs their little black brothers whom they gravely deposited on the ground, then turned to shake our hands.”56 Indeed, in the minds of these rural blacks, this was their long-awaited day of deliverance.

  Like former rural slaves, most former urban ones left the houses where they had been enslaved when they first received news of their freedom. They departed because these dwellings symbolized slavery and they wanted to remove themselves from any reminders of the institution. They were also motivated by the constant desire to assert and test their newfound freedom. One black cook, though satisfied in her position, resigned because “it look like old time to stay too long in one place.”57 A native white Charlestonian who lived in a household just north of the city reported incredulously in the spring of 1865 that most of the servants “say they are free and went off last night.” These even included “one Uncle Henry trusted most.”58 Widespread desertion by urban former slaves was particularly true of domestics, a group that had constituted the bulk of urban slaves prior to the Civil War. In fact, they deserted in such large numbers that one contemporary newspaper described domestics as “perfect nomads” who seldom remained in a family’s service for any appreciable time.59 White owners saw only that their former slaves were leaving material security for uncertainty. Apparently, most whites did not grasp the nature of the anger, frustration, and anxiety experienced by urban domestics. Their every move was watched by white owners, they often had to work long hours, and, in addition, they had to answer their master’s every beckon and call. They were essentially on the job for twenty-four hours per day. Moreover, despite the fact that their work was usually less arduous than that of the field hands and that close proximity to owners bred relationships based on genuine affection, there was a negative side. Domestics were often in a position to observe on a firsthand basis the huge discrepancies between slaves and whites in terms of food, shelter, clothing, and personal belongings. They knew the enemy all too well.

  Many of the former slaves who migrated to cities and towns arrived there with conquering Federal troops and shared in the excitement of the Union triumph with former urban slaves. On the morning of December 21,1864, soon after the Confederates evacuated Savannah, Union forces led by General William Tecumseh Sherman marched into the city accompanied by their corps of black laborers and followed by a long train of more than ten thousand former slaves. Most were cheering and dancing. The city’s blacks gave Sherman a welcome that was “singular and touching,” greeting his arrival, wrote George Ward Nichols, “with exclamations of unbounded joy.” One elated black woman grabbed the general’s hand and made a short thank-you speech.60 John Gould noted that when Sherman’s troops entered Savannah, “swarms of black children followed his troops through the city.” Another Union soldier spoke to a freed black woman who summed up her emotions by exclaiming, “It is a dream, sir—a dream!”61 Spotted outside the window of a white woman was a young black girl jumping up and down and singing as loudly as she could, “All de rebel gone to hell, now Pa Sherman come.”62

  Union troops liberating the city of Charleston inspired similar jubilation. Black soldiers were among the first Union units to enter Charleston after the Confederate evacuation, and their arrival ignited an explosion of adulation among the black population. As the all-black Fifty-fifth Massachusetts entered the city, “shouts, prayers, and blessings came from the former slave population,” according to a contemporary observer, who also noted a touching scene. One black soldier, holding aloft a banner proclaiming “Liberty,” rode a mule down Meeting Street at the head of an advancing column. A black woman shouting “Thank God! Thank God!” dashed over to hug him but missed her mark and hugged the mule instead. Several other blacks were so overcome with emotion that they wept.63

  BLACK UNION SOLDIERS LIBERATING SLAVES IN NORTH CAROLINA.

  Harper’s Weekly, January 23,1864

  To white Charlestonians the presence of black troops was unsettling, particularly since the Third and Fourth South Carolina regiments that joined the Twenty-first U.S. Colored Troops and the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts black regiments in liberating the city were made up of former slaves from the Charleston area. The liberation by black troops of Charleston, the bastion of the secession movement, was a deliberate ploy by the Federal government to psychologically and emotionally wreak as much havoc as possible. Indeed, the city had to pay a heavy price for its role in bringing on the Civil War. Wendell Phillips, a white abolitionist from Massachusetts, captured the sorrow felt by most white Charlestonians when he asked: “Can you conceive a bitterer drop that God’s chemistry could mix for a son of the Palmetto State, than that a Massachusetts flag and a colored regiment should take possession of Charleston?”64

  For whites in Charleston it was a novel experience to have blacks not give them “the inside of the [side]walk” and to have a black man address them without first doffing his hat. The sight of black sentinels stationed at public buildings to examine the passes of all who would enter was especially depressing to whites. Black soldiers made up the provost guards, charged with maintaining law and order and quartered at the Citadel, and “whoever desired protection papers or passes, whoever had business with the marshal or the general commanding the city, rich or poor, high-born or low-born, white or black, man or woman,” wrote Charles Coffin, “must first meet a colored sentinel face to face, and obtain from the colored sergeant permission to enter the gate.”65 Having lost the war, it now appeared to injured white Charlestonians that the North was rubbing salt in the wound.

  Mrs. Frances J. Porcher, a prominent white South Carolinian, described the changed situation in a wry letter to a friend: “Nat Fuller, a Negro caterer, provided munificently for a miscegenat dinner, at which blacks and whites sat on an equality, and gave toasts and sang songs for Lincoln and Freedom. Miss Middleln and Miss Alst
on, young ladies of colour, presented a coloured regiment with a flag on the Citadel green, and nicely dressed black sentinels turn back white citizens, reprimanding them for their passes not being correct.”66 To freedmen, it was a day that they had prayed for and long awaited.

  As in Charleston, black troops were among the first Union soldiers to enter the city of Richmond. The gallant 36th U.S. Colored Troops, under Lieutenant Colonel B. F. Pratt, was the first to arrive. The regiment’s drum corps played “Yankee Doodle” and “Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom” amid the cheers of the boys and the white soldiers who filed by them.67 The all-black Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry next rode in with two white regiments, followed by Companies C and G of the Twenty-ninth Connecticut Colored Volunteers and Ninth U.S. Colored Troops. And here, too, the black residents of the city were ecstatic, running along the sidewalks to keep up with the troops, while other residents stood gasping in wonder as the Union soldiers marched through the streets.68 Thomas Morris Chester, the Northern black war correspondent, captured the moment: “Some waved their hats and women their hands in token of gladness.” According to Chester, newly freed blacks in Richmond expressed their joy and appreciation to the Union army in such phrases as: “You’ve come at last,” “We’ve been looking for you these many days,” “Jesus has opened the way,” “God bless you,” “I’ve not seen that old flag for four years,” “It does my eyes good,” “Have you come to stay?” and “Thank God.”69 Shortly before this electrifying scene took place, however, another emotional scene transpired. Chaplain Garland H. White, who had been born and raised nearby as a slave, was among the first troops entering Richmond. He was asked to make a speech, to which he complied. As he wrote, “I was aroused amid the shouts of ten thousand voices, and proclaimed for the first time in that city freedom to all mankind.”70