A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. HavilandHaviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith)
Religion
A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland
Haviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith)
Freed persons; Haviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith), 1808-1898; Underground Railroad
Rebel sympathizers were making trouble all along the line of our work.
They tried every plan that could be devised to drive the refugees back
to their old plantations. An infamous "health order" was issued,
compelling every colored person, not employed by responsible parties in
the city or suburbs, to go into the "corral," or colored camp. Many
were employed by colored citizens, who were doing all they could to
find work for them. But on the day this order took effect soldiers were
sent to hunt them out of all such places, as no colored party was
deemed responsible; and all who were not actual members of these
colored families were driven out at the point of Union bayonets.
They gathered two hundred and fifty, mostly women and children, and
drove them through the streets of Natchez on a chilly, rainy day, and
marched them into the camp of four thousand in condemned tents. One of
the colored citizens told me that she was paying her woman wages, and
allowing her to have her three children with her, but the soldiers
drove her out into the rain. Men and women tantalized them as they were
marching through the streets, saying: "That's the way the Yankees treat
you, is it? You'd better come back to us; we never treated you like
that." Many of the women went into camp crying. Said an old colored
man: "Never min', thar's a better day a comin'. 'Twould be strange if
Uncle Sam hadn't a few naughty boys." He was one of the group that was
driven in.
We heard, April 30th, that there was a skirmish near our lines the
evening before. A party of scouts had shot into the pickets, and they
retreated; but we did not learn whether any were killed. News came to
us of Calvin Fairbanks's release from the Kentucky penitentiary. We
trusted that the same Deliverer would open the prison-door for the
three thousand soldiers on the two islands in the Gulf.
At nine o'clock A. M., May 1st, we attended the organization of the
fifth colored Sabbath-school in the city. At eleven A. M. we went to
Wall Street Church, and listened to an interesting discourse by
Chaplain Trask, of the Fourth Illinois Regiment. At two P. M., at the
Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, we heard brother Burlingame. After
a short exhortation by brother Fitzhugh, twelve came forward for
prayer, and some were blessed with pardon. At six P. M. we attended a
soldiers' meeting at Wall Street Church, in which we took a part; also
a number of soldiers spoke and prayed. Between meetings I wrote a
letter for a colored man to his wife, who is still a slave in
Woodville, twenty miles distant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account