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(Previous
Page) of December, 1862, raised the
first colored troops of the present war. His efforts were successful beyond hope
; and after organizing and equipping two regiments of blacks, he was, at the
solicitation of General GRANT, appointed by the President Brigadier-General of
colored troops, and ordered by the Secretary of War to the command of all the
colored troops of the State of Tennessee, with head-quarters at Memphis. General
CHETLAIN'S command now numbers over 12,000 men, and is rapidly increasing. He
designs recruiting his command to 18,000 men, preparatory to taking an active
part in the coming campaign.
ISSUING RATIONS AT CHATTANOOGA.
THE view on
page 213 illustrates
an interesting feature of the war in
General GRANT'S late department. Government
rations are now issued daily to over five thousand inhabitants of the country
about
Chattanooga, hundreds of citizens who were formerly in comfortable
circumstances being now wholly dependent upon the bounty of the Government. Our
sketch shows the office of the Provost Marshal, where orders are given to the
hungry applicants for such army rations as can be conveniently dispensed.
GENERAL WILLIAM F. SMITH.
GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAN SMITH
(familiarly known throughout the army as " Baldy Smith"), whose portrait we give
on page 209, was born in Vermont, February 27, 1824. He entered West Point
Academy in 1841, graduating with distinguished honors in 1845, being fourth in a
class containing FITZ JOHN PORTER, CHARLES P. STONE, and JOHN W. DAVIDSON. He
was assigned to the Topographical Engineers as brevet Second-Lieutenant, and for
nearly two years, from November 1846 to August 1848, acted as Assistant
Professor of Mathematics at the Military Academy. In 1853 he was promoted to the
full grade of First-Lieutenant, and in 1859 became Captain. At various times he
was employed on surveys of the Lake Superior region, of the Rio Grande, Texas,
of the military road to California, and in the Mexican Boundary Commission. When
the war broke out he was Secretary of the Light-house Board at
Washington.
Obtaining leave of absence, he took command of the Third Vermont Volunteers, and
was appointed Brigadier-General in August, 1861. During the
Chickahominy
campaign he commanded a division in
General FRANKLIN'S corps, distinguishing
him-self greatly by his bravery and skill. For his services in that campaign he
was promoted to Major-General of Volunteers in July, 1862, but was not confirmed
by the Senate. He participated in the battle of Antietam in September of that
year, and commanded the Sixth Corps in
BURNSIDE'S unfortunate assault on
Fredericksburg, December 13. He was subsequently transferred with
General HOOKER
to GRANT'S department, then under
ROSECRANS. He planned the campaign which
resulted in the capture of
Lookout Mountain, personally directing some of the
important preliminary movements. On the 16th ult, he was a second time nominated
as Major-General by the President, to take the place of General GRANT in the
regular army.
General SMITH'S abilities as an
officer are of the very highest order, and it is believed that but for some
unfortunate circumstances he would have been placed a year ago in command of the
Army of the Potomac. He possesses considerable magnetism of character, and is
popular to the last degree in the army, both with officers and men. It is said
that the expedition now preparing to operate in the Red River country will be
under General SMITH'S command.
GENERAL HENRY E. DAVIES.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL HENRY E.
DAVIES, Jun., whose portrait we give on
page 209, was born in this city, July 2,
1836. In July, 1857, he graduated at Columbia College, and in the same month was
admitted to the Bar. He was acquiring reputation as a lawyer and a successful
business when the call of the President summoned the true friends of the Union
to rally, to avenge the insult to our flag at
Fort Sumter. On the 19th of April,
1861, he united with others in this city in the organization of time Duryea Zouaves, and on the 24th of April marched as Lieutenant of Company C with 800
men to Fort Schuyler. While there the regiment was fully organized, and he was
promoted to the Captaincy of the Company. Time regiment left for Fortress Monroe
on the 24th of May, and was in the fight at
Great Bethel, Captain Davies
receiving the commendations of his superior officers for his coolness and
bravery under fire. Immediately after the
battle of Bull Run the regiment was
ordered to Baltimore. On the 19th of July, 1861, the Secretary of War gave a
written authorization to J. Mansfield Davies, then Major, to Judson Kilpatrick,
then Captain, in the Zouaves, and to Captain Davies, to raise a regiment of
Cavalry, to be called the Harris Light Cavalry. The President immediately
commissioned the former as Colonel,
Kilpatrick as Lieutenant-Colonel, and
Captain Davies as Major of the new regiment.
The Harris Light Cavalry formed
General McClellan's body-guard in the advance on Manassas, and led the attack on
the enemy at Falmouth, under General M'Dowell. On the 5th of May, 1862, Major
Davies, as Provost Marshal, took possession of
Fredericksburg, and raised the
Stars and Stripes, over the town. The regiment was actively employed during the
summer and in Pope's campaign, and added to its reputation for dash and bravery.
On the resignation of Colonel Davies, in December, Kilpatrick was commissioned a
Colonel, and Major Davies a Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment. This regiment
was selected to make the raid to Richmond in May, 1863, which it did under the
command of Lieutenant-Colonel Davies. In June, 1863,
on Colonel Kilpatrick's promotion
to a Brigadier-General, Lieutenant-Colonel Davies was appointed Colonel. In
August he was assigned to the command of a Brigade, and led the gallant charge
at Culpepper, capturing two of the enemy's guns. For this he was recommended by
Generals
Meade and Pleasanton as a Brigadier-General, and was commissioned as
such by the President on the 16th of September last. He commanded the Cavalry,
under Kilpatrick, in the late raid on Richmond. He is popular with his command,
who follow with confidence wherever he leads.
THE
NATIONAL CEMETERY AT
GETTYSBURG,
WE give on
page 209 a view of the
NATIONAL SOLDIERS' CEMETERY AT
GETTYSBURG, which marks at once the terrors of
that bloody field, and a nation's gratitude to those who there gave their lives
to its defense. This Cemetery is pleasantly situated on the north and west sides
of the gently sloping Cemetery Hill, and comprises a part of the field over
which the battle so fearfully raged. It contains in all an area of seventeen and
one-fourth acres. It was purchased by the State of Pennsylvania, which presented
each State the lot occupied by its dead. Arrangements are making to inclose the
grounds with suitable and substantial iron fence and a stone wall. A general
commemorative monument will be erected in the centre of the design, in which the
fallen heroes are buried. An observatory, placed on time knoll in the back part
of the Cemetery, will give a very extended and comprehensive view of the whole
battle-field. The Evergreen Cemetery adjoining will be long remembered by our
soldiers who fought so gallantly on the memorable first days of July. Its
dilapidated fences, shattered head-stones, and broken grounds still tell of the
fearful conflict. About 3100 bodies have been raised from the field and reinterred in the Cemetery. Each grave (known and unknown) will be marked by a
stone, and the name, company, and regiment of the recognized will be
substantially and neatly engraved thereon.
TIPPOO SAIB.
ALL heroes are not heros de
romans. Not all prews, chevaliers would be attractive as cavaliers, and one
admires many things that one does not care to appropriate.
Tippoo Saib was neither handsome,
nor accomplished, nor gently bred. He was a middle-aged negro of Congo descent,
and formed after the ultra type of his race, with misshapen skull, immense lips,
close-curled wool, and a skin as nearly black as human skin was ever tinted. He
was heavy both of motion and intellect, and entirely ignorant of almost every
thing a man should know. But at the end of my story deny, if you dare, that he
was a hero, a preux chevalier, a man to be admired and revered.
When North Carolina joined the
rebellion and began to raise troops, Mr. John Fernald got him-self transformed
into Captain John Fernald. When, furthermore, he was requested to furnish one or
more negroes to labor upon the fortifications of Roanoke Island, he
magnificently replied, " Certainly," and went home to consider how it was to be
done. For John Fernald, the needy heir of a spendthrift sire and grandsire,
owned no lands save his heavily-mortgaged plantation of Mossmoor, no stock save
the fine horse who was destined to bear his master to the wars, a few cows and
pigs, Tippoo Saib, his wife Marcy, their child Scipio Africanus (Mr. Fernald had
a fine taste in nomenclature), and Aphrodite, commonly called Frite, a girl upon
whom devolved the house-labor while Marcy wrought with her husband in the
fields, except in some great domestic emergency, when she was summoned to the
assistance of Frite.
The household was a meagre one,
and its affairs administered in a spirit of fretful economy, inculcated upon
Frite by her master with oaths, by her mistress with peevish complaints as to
its necessity.
Such scanty revenue as the farm
still yielded was to be credited to Tippoo, who, with Marcy and the occasional
help of hired service, both directed and executed all its operations.
This trusty auxiliary was not
then to be lightly parted with, and yet he was time only chattel in Captain
Fernald's possession answering to the description of the contribution he was
called upon to make ; nor had he funds or available property of any kind for the
purchase of a substitute. One course was left, and but one. Marcy and Scipio
Africanus must be bartered for a laborer ; and Frite, who was retained as being
less valuable as a piece of merchandise, and more so as a household drudge, must
be urged to redoubled exertions in her own province, as Tippoo in his, to make
good her place.
The plan, once resolved on, was
soon executed, and Marcy and her child were attached to a coffle of slaves
traveling south.
And what did Tippoo feel or say
at being thus in a day bereft of wife and child, and such poor ties to home and
love as a slave may know ?
What he felt the God who made him
only knows. What he said was this:
" Maser, you loves lilly Missy ?"
" Of course I do, Tip."
"An' what way would you fix it to
'pear de right ting, Mas'r, dat lilly Missy should be toted off where woudn't
nebber see her no more?"
"Oh well, Tip—I know, of course.
But then you see, boy, it is different. You know such things are a matter of
course. My child—why it is altogether another thing."
" Don' see it, Mas'r," replied
Tippoo, with a slow shake of his poor, bewildered head. " Scip he brack, I know,
and lilly Missy she white as an egg; but den I's brack myself, an' don'tink de
wuss of my - chile fer bein' like his daddy. Don' see it nohow, Mas'r."
He stood leaning on his hoe and
looking gloomily at the ground, not sullen or vindictive, only
sorrowfully seeking a solution to
the terrible in-justice of his lot, dimly felt.
Captain Fernald, confusedly
switching the weeds and the flowers about him, found no reply to make ; and
after standing for a few moments, presenting a remarkable contrast by his
nervous irritability of manner to the solemn calm of Tippoo's mood, he muttered
some incoherent words of vague consolation, and sauntered away.
Nothing more was ever said
between them on the subject ; but in the week intervening between that day and
the one when the volunteer Captain joined his regiment he treated his silent
slave with not only unwonted kindness, but in a certain apologetic and
deprecatory manner, involuntary on his part, and unperceived by Tippoo's dim and
preoccupied mind, but yet not without its effect on each.
The Captain joined his regiment.
Tippoo Saib toiled early and late at his thankless tasks. Frite groaned and
drudged unaided. And poor, feeble Mrs. Fernald took to her bed, with a
complication of nervous disorders and distresses.
Only bright little Alice remained
untouched by sorrow or wrong, to illuminate with the sunshine of her three
summers some portion of the gloom of that dreary household.
"How's Mist's?" asked Tippoo Saib,
one evening, about a month after his master's departure, as he entered the
kitchen for his milking-pail.
"Wuss," responded Frite, sulkily
; and after an embarrassed pause, added, " I'se comin' out to help you milk,
Tip, quick's I put lilly Missy to bed."
" You don't need to, Frite. I'd
as good be (loin' as restin'," said Tippoo, heavily, as he went out. But
Aphrodite, who had her own purposes to further, soon followed him, and after a
little preliminary complaint of the hardships she endured, said, suddenly :
"Fs gwine off, Tip."
" Off! Whar's you gwine, Frite?"
"W'y to de Norf, or somewhere
'bout dere. You see, old Tip, Mist's she gettin' woes berry fas', an' to-night
she tole' me sen' you for de doctor." "Whar's he?"
"Dere ain't none short o' Weston,
an' Mist's said w'en you was dar you mout go tell her brudder's folks how she
sick and not spectin' to get well no more."
" Hebbenly Marster ! Am she dat
had, Frite ?"
"I reckon she am," returned
Aphrodite, stoically; and immediately added, " So I's gwine to cut an' run 'fore
Mas'r Charles git here. I reckon he look sharp 'nough arter us, Tip, wedder he
sister dill or die. I knows whar dere's some cullud folks in de swamp waitin'
for to git Norf."
"Has you seen Pete?" asked Tip,
referring to a brother of Frite's, who had disappeared from a neighboring
plantation some weeks previously.
"Nebber you min''bout dat, ole
man," retorted Frite, nodding her head shrewdly. " On'y if you'd like to git
your freedom easy, you corn' 'long o' me to-night to de Rig Swamp."
" But be you gwine to leave
Mist's an' lilly Missy all 'lone," asked Tippoo, incredulously, "an' she so sick
as you tell for?"
" She ain't no sicker dan I be.
o' slavin' bore for noffin," returned Frite, angrily. "An' to-night's de las'
chance fer jinin' dem folks. Dey spec's to move 'fore mornin'. I tole Pete I's
be dar 'fore midnight."
" Be whar 'fore midnight?"
"whar I's gwine to jine him,"
retorted Frite, dryly. "Ef you's a min' ter go 'long, yer'll find out all 'bout
it; an' ef you ain't agwine, w'y- 'tain't no matter."
"Wouldn' it do to-morrer mornin'
arter I's ben to sen' de doctor to Mist's ?"
"Tell ye no, niXXer, 'twon't.
Dey's gwine to start dis berry night arter moonrise, an' I ain't a gwine to gib
ye no d'rections whar dey's gwine neider. Pete didn' want I should even say wot
I has, but I worn't agwine to cut 'thout gibin you a chance fer to go'long too.
So now say, ole Tip, right smart, wot'll ye do ?"
" Tank ye kin'ly, Frite," replied
Tippoo, after a long pause, during which he softly smoothed and patted the head
of Snowdrop, his favorite heifer. " Tank ye kin'ly, but I reckin I'll stop."
"Den all I's got to say is, do
more fool you," responded Frite, venomously, as she lifted the full pail and
turned toward the house.
" Stop a minute, honey. Don' yer
fink- dat I's ongrateful for de chance, nor yet dat I doesn' keer for freedom.
But dere ain't no way to get to Wes-ton an' back fore mornin', an' dat you sez
is too late. Den dere ain't no house 'tween here an' dar, an' dere ain't never
no one comes dis way, now Mas'r gone, and poor Mist's moat die an' lilly Missy
too, 'fore any one '(I know on't."
"Mas'r wa'n't so tender o' your
ole woman an' pickaninny," retorted the disappointed Frite. The thrust was
unexpected, and the groat. loving, ignorant heart was unshielded by any
philosophy, any hope, any faith that what seemed so wrong must yet be right.
Tippoo abruptly hid his face in time white heifer's neck, and great heaving sobs
began to shake his brawny frame, and the hot tears rolled down wondering
Snowdrop's neck and mingled with the dust.
"I didn' mean to make you feel so
had, Tip," said Frite, at last, in an awe-struck voice; "on'y I didn' see w'y
year couldn' do same as Mas'r jes' done by you. Look arter yerself an' nebber
min' what come to odor folks."
Tippoo stood up wiping his eyes
on the sleeve of his coarse shirt, and looked at the girl with a patient smile
as be replied,
'Pears like, Frite, I'd rather do
de way dat I'd ha' lilted Mas'r to ha' done by me."
But do not think that Tippoo Saib;
thus speaking, echoed mechanically, as so many of his white brethren do. that
Golden Rule which is in all our mouths, and so few of our hearts. He had never
heard of it—in fact, his religious education had progressed very little beyond
that Mumbo Jumbo faith, in the odor of whose sanctity his ancestors had lived
and died.
He did but speak out of the
fullness of that child's heart of his, whose dumb anguish shook the uncouth
frame that held it, but found no other expression
than the tears that had rolled
down Snowdrop's neck.
Frite lingered a moment or two,
but not finding any better argument than those she had already used, and feeling
also a little injured by Tip's superiority, she finally went into the house and
slammed the door violently, after which demonstration her mind relapsed into its
former placidity.
Tippoo Saib went to his lonely
cabin, cooked his scanty supper, and then slept as a man who labors fourteen
hours out of twenty-four must sleep what-ever may be his mental disquietude.
Early in the morning he went up
to the house to receive his directions for Weston from his mistress, and not
without curiosity as to Frite's movements. The kitchen door stood open, and the
autumn sun-shine streamed merrily in, but, except the cat purring in the ashes,
no creature was visible, nor any preparations for breakfast going on.
"She's cut and lef' pore Mist's
all lone," soliloquized Tip ; and his slow mind began a process of inquiry as to
his own first duty in the case.
While he still stood pondering
and scratching his woolly head the quick patter of small bare feet was heard
along the passage, and in the open doorway stood a rosy little maid, her
trailing night-dress deftly gathered in one hand, while the other " shed by the
yellow hair" from her sweet but troubled face.
" Uncle Tip, go call Frite,"
began she, eagerly. "Baby wants her supper, and Frite all gone. Uncle Tip make
Frite come dress baby, and get baby's supper."
"Poor lilly Missy!'' was all Tip
found to say, but his voice was tender as a woman's.
Lilly Missy came forward and put
her morsel of a hand into his black paw, and when he knelt upon one knee and
placed her upon the other she threw both arms round his neck and nestled close
to his broad breast.
" Uncle Tip's good. Baby loves
Uncle Tip ; but baby wants her supper," remarked she, persistently.
"Lilly Missy go and get into her
bed again, an' Tip 'll go an' gist her some nice warm milk from time mooly cow,
will she?"
" And give milk to poor mamma,
too ; nice warm milk, for mamma all cold, and don't want to talk to baby. Mamma
don't wake up at all, when baby tells she to wake up."
A sudden horror woke in Tip's
bewildered mind.
"Lilly Missy, show Tip where her
mammy is, an' he'll ask if she wants some milk," suggested he ; and Alice,
sliding from his knee, seized his finger and led him on through the passage to
the door of a large bedroom, where Mrs. Fernald had chosen to lie, after she was
confined to her bed.
Standing at the door, with head
reverently bared and breath suspended, Tip looked earnestly at time pale, pretty
face turned toward him on the pillow. He needed not to approach. There is an
unnamed sense, keener than sight, keener than touch, that unerringly warns
living man of his neighborhood to death—a chill—a repugnance nervous desire to
flee. Such it was that now crept through Tippoo's blood, and turned the rich
brown of his honest skin to a muddy yellow. Such it was that, laying its chill
hand even upon the innocent heart of the child, made her cling closer to the
side of her strange comrade, murmuring :
" Baby's cold. Baby don't want
stay here."
Releasing himself from her grasp,
Tippoo Saib stole on tip-toe across the room, and reverently drew the fair linen
sheet over that face as white as cold ; then drew down the blinds and left the
room, closing the door behind him.
"Come, lilly Missy," said he,
soothingly, to time child, who now sat on the lower step of the stair-case, with
her little trembling lip and grieved eyes, showing that the tears were close at
hand.
"Come, show ole Tip whar's its
little closes. an' he'll try to dress you. Den you'll go 'long wid him, milkin'
de cows, an' den he'll gib you some breaksus."
" And give mamma some nice warm
milk, so she feel all well again, and talk to baby?" asked the little maid.
" Mammy don' want for nothin',
lilly Missy, an de nex' she cats an' drinks will be better nor any tiling we
could gib her," said Tip, solemnly, with hazy visions of a very objective sort
of Paradise flitting through his mind.
The child was satisfied with the
vague assurance, and patted off to fetch her clothes. Theme, with much trouble
and anxious effort to understand the probable intent of their construction, Tip
finally adjusted, with some little aid from Alice herself, and then lifting her
in ono arm, and taking his pails upon the other, he went out to milk.
This process completed, they
returned to the house, and Tip, discovering some bread in a cup-board, prepared
bread and milk- for a family of perhaps six hungry boys, and setting it before
lilly Missy, who had forgotten all her troubles in a frolic with the cat, he
bade her " eat it all up, like a blessed lamb," and she should have some more.
Then seating himself upon the
door-step, with his elbows upon his knees, and his chin in the palms of his
hands, Tippoo Saib unconsciously entered upon the crisis of his life.
Before him lay two courses. The
one led to freedom—and remember that this word to a slave carries the same
illimitable blessing that the word Heaven does to a freeman—the other to
continued, nay, aggravated slavery, for Mr. Bennett, the brother of Mrs.
Fernald, was well known as a hard master, and to hint, should Captain Fernald
never re-turn from time war, 'rip would become thrall.
Tip raised his head and looked
steadfastly North-ward, until in his dull eyes began to glow a fire, a manhood
they never knew before. Then suddenly turning his head, be fixed them upon the
little child, who, chattering gayly to the kitten as she fed her with the
remnant of her breakfast, did not know that her own life hung in the balance,
and that the untaught man whom the father had so bitterly wronged was its
arbiter.
Tippoo knew the forest paths for
miles about his bogie. Ile knew the course the party of fugitive would
necessarily travel. He did not doubt
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