Historical Romance of the American Negro

tates-Battle of Milliken's Bend-Battle at Fort Hudson-The Effect of the

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nti-slavery movement, and blew the bellows with all our might to help on the good cause of liberty and perfect freedom. The border ruffians in Kansas had been beaten back into the South, which was the first open fight between the two high contending parties. That put the angry

ely in Kansas, and in 1859 seized upon the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, in Virginia, while he was leading on a handful of white and colored men for the purpose of effecting a general rising of the slaves throughout the South. But the Virginians came pouring down upon him and his little band. Some were killed and wounded; others were missing, and John Brown himself and a few of his followers were hung. Still, John Brown was in the right. He was simply an outgrowth of the times. He regarded the slaves as prisoners, whom it was the

into the whole 'business' on a grand scale? If one man at Harper's Ferry can effect such a disturbance, what will ensue when the gr

ason of any kind. The haughty Southern lords would brook no interference. The Northern intr

even the ends of the earth. For the time being, so great was the national delirium that the great masses of the population seemed to have completely forgotten the glorious cause of abolitionism, the grand doings of the underground railroad, and even the eternal decree of the Most High God that one man

e and lower Mississippi. If the hair is the glory of a woman, as Paul says, the Mississippi river is the glory of the United States. Uncle Sam, therefore, even yet did all he could to induce the seceded states to come home again, and assured them in every possible way that not a finger should be

ut a far greater number offered themselves. There were thousands, if not millions, of people who believed that the small affair would be all over in a very little while, and nothing was talked of but marching to Richmond, and winding things u

on the great Northern heart over the breaking up of the Union. It did not seem to strike the national mind at the time that this was a war sent by God for the extirpation of slavery, and as an answer to the prayers of the oppressed millions in the South for freedom, and for the treatment of human beings. It did not then occur to the minds of the North

F MILLIK

ate was not given, but it came from a place called Milliken's Bend, on the Lower Mississippi river, and a battle had been fought at that place, since called by th

'S BEND,

e rest of the Buffalonians had landed in the Crescent City. I send lots of warm love to the entire family, and be sure to k

, only waiting for the dawn of the 7th of June to gobble us up like so many poor, helpless mice. About three o'clock they came on with an awful rush, shouting, 'No quarter for niggers and their officers!' They got into our works, and the way that men fell on both sides was dreadful. It was really awful the way my poor comrades were shot down, or killed with the bayonet, though at the same time we mowed them down like

about coming out of a redoubt they had got into their possession. They were not willing. But our brave black soldiers went in with a rush, and assisted them in making up their minds by taking the bayonet to them, and thrashing them with the butt ends of their guns, precisely

, the insulting question, 'Will the black man fight?' It will also secure for us more civil treatment from white soldiers, both North and South, and remind them that the Gr

may enquire for me, and please write s

night,

AS LI

as for this freedom that all the chivalrous Christianity of the nation had put forth all its efforts; and now at times, many people began to doubt whether all these efforts had not been put forth in vain, because for the first two years of the war, our arms really made such small progress compared with what we had expected. And yet, for the very life of me, I am to this very day unable to see how

fraid of affronting the tender and delicate susceptibilities of the South by putting even their little finger on the heinous institution called "Domestic slavery." Verily, they were carrying their squeamishness to a most tremendous length when lives had to be wasted in thousands, because white men were too proud even to fight side by side with colored men, and because we were so very timid about offending our "separate bret

their families, working their fields, and even throwing up intrenchments, and making themselves useful in a thousand ways by command of their owners, and against the forces of the North! Not that the slaves wished to work in these ways for the South, but because our very armi

ngs of the rebels, and there was not the slightest sign that things would ever get any better. We whipped the South to-day and they whipped us to-

OF PORT

's Bend, and gone to Port Hudson, where a most terrible assault had been made on the rebel defences about the 23rd of May. But I will he

n the Mississip

Everything seems to interest me, and war is indeed a terrible game. I have heard great and full accounts of the awful f

verance of the slave in raising crops all over Dixie that created most of the wealth we found in the South, and I look upon it as a wilful and malicious falsehood in white soldiers, North and South a

se brave and terrible rebels white soldiers from the North and colored soldiers from Louisiana advanced again and again, but all of them failed, and they were mown down like grass before the scythe. O terrible, sanguinary war! It was horrible! The balls and other missiles flew through the air thicker than hailstones. Once more we terribly underrated the prowess of the South. All of us were shipped alike, though we fought like gods! Oh, my dear Beulah! This is the price the American nation is now paying for the crime of slavery! The South carried out the villainy, and the North winked at the whole devil

Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, to the entire church on Vi

r Beulah, you

AS LI

with rapidity, so that the tide of war everywhere began to turn in favor of the Northern arms, and things began to look as if the very God of Liberty Himself was smiling upon the nation. Up to the end of 1862 the North had been fighting for nothing more than the restoration of the Union, and surely this was a noble thing to fight for, and especially for the possession of the glorious Mississippi, flowing all the way from its remotest springs at its farthest away branches in Montana, some 4,400 miles from the ocean. It was indeed something to keep the great river and all the States one and undivid

N B

d "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in all the principal languages of the earth, and opposed the recognition of the Southern Confederacy from the first on account of slavery, rejoiced to hear that the Great North had at last turned over a new leaf, and brought the heroic sons of Africa into the field. It was a military necessity, of course; the nation was forced to do it; but all the same it was a matter of justice, and the right thing to do. Now the entire Christian world took ten times more interest in the war than before. They had been praying and often working in the interest of the American slave; and now th