Chapter One
Harris Heights Plantation,
Harris County, South Carolina
March 17, 1863
“Don’t hit that girl again!”
The stout white woman in the grimy blue dress looked up for an instant in surprise,
then raised the short wooden club in her right hand, preparing to hit the forehead of the
frightened negro girl, whose curly hair she grasped in her left hand.
The negro girl could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old, wearing
a short dress made out of a burlap sack, with crude holes for her arms and head. She knelt
at the white woman’s knees, wailing piteously, and trying unsuccessfully to escape the
next blow.
“Oh, pleeze, mis’ Courtney, don’ hi’ me no’ mo’, I din’ do nuff’n fo’ you’ ta do
dis, ‘deed I din’, oh, pleeze, don’ hi’ me no’ mo’ …” She twisted and writhed
unsuccessfully, but the white woman’s grip in her hair was too strong. In a dreadful
instant, First Lieutenant Ben Atherton saw his own daughter writhing there in her place.
He shut his eyes, and opened them in an instant.
“Sergeant Justice,” he told the burly Negro soldier on his right, “disarm that
woman! If she offers to strike that girl again, shoot her in the arm! Madam,” he told the
woman, who shook her grey curls in defiance, “you’ve heard my sergeant! Let that girl go,
or suffer the consequences!”
“Consequences? Consequences?” the woman screamed, loosening her grip on the girl’s
hair, but brandishing the club until Sergeant Justice wrested it from her hand. “You go
straight to hell, you mother-pronging, bluebellied slavehound! The girl’s mine, and I’ll
use her just as I please!” The woman reached out a foot to stamp on the girl’s ankle, to
prevent her flight, but the girl had moved away from her, crabwise, across the ground, and
had wrapped her arms around Sergeant Justice’s knees, momentarily immobilizing him, tears
.
“Now, girl-child, you’re safe with us,” Sergeant Justice reassured her in a soft
voice. “Now, no one’s going to hurt you while we’re here. You just let me go so I can do
my duty, and you sit here. We’ll keep you safe. Father Abraham sent us here, just to make
you safe.” Uncertainly and reluctantly, the girl released her grip on the sergeant’s legs,
and sat a few feet away, pulling her flimsy dress as best she could over herself, putting
her arms around her knees, her shadow lengthening in the late afternoon sun.
“Sergeant, give her your jacket to cover herself with,” Lieutenant Atherton
ordered, and the sergeant removed his blue jacket with the three gold chevrons and single
arc, and put it over her knee.
“Who are you, you mother-pronging bastard son of a sea turtle?” the white woman
shouted, hands on hips.
“I’m First Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Atherton, madam,” he explained, removing
his hat and flourishing it in what he hoped was a courtly gesture from horseback,
“commanding the Second Platoon of Troop ‘C’, Fifth Squadron, Ninth United States Cavalry
Regiment, and these,” he gestured at the fifty-three blue-clad negro mounted troopers
right, left, and behind him, “are my men.” Without looking at them, he knew that they were
grinning at the woman’s rage and discomfiture. He replaced his hat on his head.
“Sergeant Cooley, you set pickets around this house and at the main gate. No one
leaves the farm without my permission, personally given. Send a man into the house;
present my compliments to every inmate of the house, and say that I request and require
the presence of every gentleman who is not seriously bedridden on that porch in fifteen
minutes’ time. Any lady who wishes to be present will be welcome. Set a sentry over that
lady” – he pointed his Colt revolver at the girl’s former captor -- “and do not permit
her to leave the porch without my approval.”
“Sergeant Justice,” he continued, “take three men and go out to the fields.
Everyone you find there, white or negro is to be brought here within fifteen minutes time.
If anyone, such as a white overseer, offers resistance to my invitation, you are to bind
them and bring them here. In the case of armed resistance, you should shoot the person
resisting in the legs, bind them, and bring them here for trial by court-martial.
“Corporal Baines, inspect the barns and outbuildings, and report to me on their
suitability to make our headquarters and to quarter the platoon. Confiscate all weapons
and other materiel of resistance, but do not damage any crops or foodstuffs. Report on the
presence of a smith and smithy, and on the presence of any horses and mules suitable for
purchase into the service.
“The rest of you men can dismount and water and care for your horses, and then take
your rest here in the yard, until you’re called to assemble. You passed a brook before the
entrance to this farm; take the horses in groups of two and three at a time.”
A grizzled trooper, with an ebony skin, a crushed-in nose, and white hair shouted,
“the lieutenant’s horse first, you there!” A young trooper came forward to take the bridle
of the lieutenant’s horse, and led him away.
“And how do you propose to pay for what you take, you mother-pronging brigand?” the
heavy-set woman spat out. “Oh, I know you Yankees! You’ll steal what you want, and burn
what you can’t take with you!”
By this time, Lieutenant Atherton had dismounted. Resisting the urge to slap the
woman with his leather gauntlets, he mounted the three steps of the weather-beaten porch,
and confronted her. Removing his hat once more, he informed her, “In United States gold
coin, or in banknotes of the Confederate States of America, as you elect, ma’am. I
wouldn’t insult you with United States greenbacks.” He grinned as he waited for her
answer.
“I’ll take our own notes, thank you,” the woman informed him, haughtily. “You’ll
lose this war, and then I’ll be sitting pretty. Where would you get Confederate
banknotes?”
“Our troop subdued a wagon train carrying them, together with other materiel of
war, at an action at Ardmore Station, last week. We divided up the contraband, and that
included the Confederate currency. If the action had gone the other way, your troops would
now have in their possession a meaningful sum of United States gold coin.”
“We’ve beaten you time after time since Fort Sumter,” the woman sneered, “and we’ll
beat you again!”
“Perhaps, madam, perhaps,” Atherton replied. “But we mean to give a good account of
ourselves, and the dispatches are beginning to report our victories more often than our
revcrses.
“In the meantime, may I not have the honor of knowing whom I address?” he asked.
“I am Missus Henrietta Harris Courtney, of Harris County Courthouse, South
Carolina, and the property upon which you are trespassing is Harris Heights Plantation.
The property belongs to my father, Colonel Horatio Harding Harris.” By this time, two
white men, a teen-aged boy and four white women had come from inside the house, followed
by three negro house servants. One of the men was elderly, with a white frock coat, a grey
goatee and a bushy grey moustache; the man was younger, clad in the grey-and-red uniform
of an officer of Confederate artillery, with his left arm in a sling.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for answering my summons in such a timely manner,”
Atherton greeted them. “I am First Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Atherton, of the United
States Cavalry.
“Sir,” he continued, pointing to the elderly man, “are you Colonel Harris?”
“I am, sir,” the elderly man replied. “I served at the heights of Tehauntepec in
eighteen-forty-five, with General Scott himself. I was beside him when we stormed those
heights, young man.”
“You served with credit in a desperate situation, sir,” Atherton replied. “For the
sake of our common oath of allegiance, will you give me your parole while we are here?”
“With reluctance, yes,” the Colonel replied. “But I can not and will not shelter
any one else behind that parole.”
“I cannot give you my parole, sir,” the young officer replied. “I am Captain Wilson
J. Hammond, husband of Anna Harris Hammond, and I have a duty to confound whatever you
attempt to do, sir, and to escape your custody and warn my comrades in arms if I can.” He
looked at the slim woman at his left, who leaned her head on his left shoulder, tightening
her grip on his wounded arm.
“You do, indeed, Captain Wilson,” Atherton told him, saluting; Hammond returned the
salute with his uninjured hand. “I am afraid that I will therefore have to place a picket
at the front door of your home. If you attempt to confound my actions, I will be forced to
detain you in irons, sir.” The captain bowed his head in assent. “May we go upstairs,
Lieutenant? My wife is unwell, I’m afraid.”
“Your wife may go upstairs, Captain, but I shall require your presence for a few
moments, after which you may attend her.” He looked around, and saw that the fifty or
sixty Negroes he expected to have come from the fields were walking toward the house from
the area behind the mansion, followed by two white men. To Atherton’s surprise, the
Negroes were not in rags and tatters; the men and boys were neatly dressed in homespun
pants and shirts, with straw hats; the women and girls wore clean, but plainly tailored
dresses, wearing straw hats or turbans, most with white scarves at the neck and
shoulders.
The two white men, obviously the overseers, were as neatly dressed as the Negroes;
one wore a frock coat and carried what could only be a bible. The Negroes stopped in a
body, standing quietly and respectfully near the house. Atherton glanced around, looking
for the girl he had spared from a beating. She huddled by herself, near his troopers, away
from the Negroes.
Followed by Sergeant Justice, holding the American flag on its staff, and by the
platoon’s bugler, Lieutenant Atherton mounted the porch, and stood at the center, at the
steps. The sergeant reached into the leather despatch pouch which he had strapped across
his chest, and removed a document, which he pressed into Atherton’s hand, and Private
First Class Jeremy Wilson, the bugler, sounded a three-note fanfare. Atherton looked at
his troopers, in five ranks of twelve each, smiled, nodded, and began to read:
“By the Honorable Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, a Proclamation:
“Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the
United States, containing, among things, the following, to wit:”
As he read, he was conscious of the disbelief and dismay of the whites on the porch
behind him; of the amazement and dawning realization of the negroes before him; and of the
grim satisfaction of the troopers, who were witnessing this scene for the tenth time since
the regiment had been raised, and for the fifth time in South Carolina.
“Now, Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln … Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South
Carolina …
“And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the
Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the
gracious favor of Almighty God …”
Atherton, when he had completed the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation,
folded it tenderly and carefully, and gave it to Sergeant Justice. As he had done nine
times before, the Bugler Wilson blew a three-note fanfare.
“Father Abraham’s proclamation, which I have just read to you,” he told the
Negroes, “means that slavery‘s over. You’re not bound to the land, nor to your masters or
mistresses, any more. You can leave here or stay, as you like, but no one can hold you by
force of law or force of arms.
“Father Abraham thinks that you should work here for wages if you wish to, but you
don’t have to. If any of you wish to leave, you’re free to go. The Army will protect you
from anyone who tries to enslave you again. And the Federal Government will give you food
and clothing and shelter, and eventually, land that you will be able to own and have your
own farms.”
“God has delivered us from bondage, just as he delivered the children of Israel,”
the white man in the frock exclaimed, sinking to his knees. The Negroes and all the whites
on the porch knelt as well; only the white overseer and Henrietta Courtney remained
standing.
“Glory, hallelujah!” the white overseer cried, tears in his eyes. “The day of
jubilee is at hand, at last!”
From the porch, Henrietta Courtney screamed, “I’ll see that you all burn in hell,
all of you! Get off my land, you mother-pronging, nigger-loving, nigger bluebellies! Get
off my land!”
“I don’t think that will be possible, madam,” Atherton informed her, turning and
bowing again. “Colonel, I am afraid that while we will gladly leave you and yours in
possession of the house, but with a picket around it, and we will quarter in your barn and
outbuildings, and here on the lawn. As I explained to your daughter when we arrived, we
are prepared to pay for all that we use in either Confederate notes or United States gold
coin. Your daughter prefers Confederate notes. You have, I have been informed, a smithy
which we shall make use of, and six horses my armorer considers suitable for cavalry
service. I will purchase those from you at two hundred Confederate dollars each.
“You are more than welcome to do so, sir,” Colonel Harris informed him. “But I
would prefer to be paid in the coin of the United States. My daughter spoke hastily, I
fear.”
“As you wish, sir,” Atherton replied. “I am very surprised, I admit, sir. I had
expected a greater resistance to the proclamation. Except for Missis Courtney, you all
appear to have more the character of sympathizers with the Union, than adherents of the
Confederacy.”
“We support the Confederacy on the ground of the right of sovereign states to
secede from what they consider a baleful combination, sir,” the Colonel replied. “But
slavery is a hateful, loathesome practice which is absolutely condemned by the Bible, sir.
Your proclamation does away with a hateful and vile custom whose departure discomfits us
not at all. We are glad to be rid of it.”
“I don’t imagine you’re very popular with your neighbors, then,” Atherton
ventured.
“No,” the Colonel explained. “But if our neighbors are benighted and unproductive,
that’s their misery, not ours. For example, we are not burdened with constantly looking
for ways to remind our Negro colleagues of their own inferiority or our superiority, and
we have a more productive enterprise than our benighted neighbors. For example, the reason
you found no one in the fields is that we work in the fields during the night, to avoid
the oppressive heat of the day. If you will inspect them, you will find that our Negro
colleagues live in neater cottages, are better dressed and fed, better tended to in
illness, than the Negroes of other farms in this part of the country. One advantage of
your proclamation is that it nullifies the laws which have forced us to make our school
clandestine; now we don’t have to hide it any more.
“You educate your Negroes?” Atherton exclaimed in disbelief.
“Of course,” the Colonel replied. “They are happier and more productive, and why
should they not be educated? Our family has loathed slavery since we settled here before
the Revolutionary War. We free our Negroes when they are baptized. We pay them wages, and
we treat them with respect, as befits their common humanity with ourselves. If our
neighbors are not as enlightened, that’s their handicap, not ours.”
“I had expected the same resistance here as we’ve encountered elsewhere,” said
Atherton. “Most of your neighbors oppress their Negroes, and we’ve made a true change in
their lives by liberating them.”
“We’ve had to support the abolitionist cause clandestinely,” the Colonel explained.
“As I have told you, we differ absolutely and intractably on the issue of a sovereign
state leaving a hateful combination, but we will have no part of slavery. Would you care
to join us for dinner this evening, Lieutenant? My thought is that our Negroes and yours
might care to celebrate this great event with festivity and dancing, while we foregather
inside.”
“That would be a great pleasure for me, sir,” Atherton responded. “But what about –
Missis Courtney? And – and the girl?” He gestured toward the girl, who still huddled alone
near a tree, removed from all the others.
“My daughter will have her tray in her chamber, and I will see that the women take
Iry under their protection. If you like, afterwards, I’ll explain the tragic connection
between them to you.”
“May I call upon you at seven o’clock, sir?” Atherton asked. “I have my men’s
accommodation to see to. I wonder, are you an acolyte of Tacitus or Pliny?”
“To a limited extent,” the Colonel replied. “Marcus Aurelius and Catullus are more
to my liking. Are you an Academy graduate, sir?”
“Regretfully, no, Colonel,” Atherton explained. “I was originally commissioned out
of the Pennsylvania Militia in the spring of eighteen-sixty-two. My family has always
been prominent in the abolitionist movement, and when the Army raised a Negro regiment, my
name was sent in by Governor Mifflin and Major-General Morton, the commander of the
Pennsylvania Militia.”
“Ah, Pennsylvania,” the Colonel mused, glancing around. “May we retire, sir? The
hour grows late. Do you care for brandy? I have a bottle of not altogether unsatisfactory
Philippine Imperador, of the eighteen-oh-four vintage. I will expect you at seven.” The
Colonel bowed to Atherton, then turned to his companions, shepherding them inside the
house.
He turned to the others on the porch, as if he were motioning for a flock of birds
to enter a coop. The ladies hurried inside, and the gentlemen more slowly, a few with
backward, speculative glances. A young Negro girl was among the last to go in the house,
but not before she had sent a shy smile in the direction of the troopers.
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