The regiments of Union soldiers were not the only special guests of the season that were gathered in large numbers in and near the city. Many hundreds of negroes who had heard the call of freedom on the plantations of the south and had managed to escape from their masters and to make their way through the military cordons had come to the city as to a harbor of refuge. When the last Thursday in November drew near good friends planned to give to those desolate people a homelike Thanksgiving dinner that would gladden their hearts and give them a foretaste of what freedom was to mean to them. Encouraging speeches were to be made and distinguished people from various parts of the country were invited to come. It was to this sorrowful-happy banquet that Mrs. Stowe had been asked, and she was the more willing to make the journey, since she hoped to have an opportunity to see her son, Frederick, who was staying near the city with his regiment, the First Massachusetts Infantry. She had also another great purpose in coming, as will soon appear. The Contraband Dinner, as the dinner of the freed men was called, was held on November 27, 1862, in the church that had been used as a hospital and place of rendezvous for the freedmen’s camp at the end of Twelfth Street East. As Mrs. Stowe entered the room she saw that a great deal of affectionate pains had been spent in decorating it for the occasion. Garlands of evergreen had been hung all about, and wreaths encircled the portraits of great people who had been working for the cause of the down-trodden. Back of the platform were the picture of the President with the mottoes, “God bless Abraham Lincoln,” and “Liberty to the Captive.” Upon the walls were arranged the portraits of various sympathizers and philanthropists: Senator Pomeroy and Professor Stowe, Horace Greeley and General Wadsworth were in one group, and the professors from Oberlin--Finney, Morgan, Dascomb and Coles, with Thomas Clarkson and Horace Mann were in another circle. Another group, whose connection will perhaps be a puzzle, contained Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Queen Hortense, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles V, General Cavaignac and General Havelock. Elsewhere on the walls were also Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, John Bunyon, John Knox, Hugh Miller, Peter Melanchthon, Mozart and Haydn. Under this array of inspiring portraits tables with a comfortable supply of good things to eat were spread for some hundreds of guests.