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By Root 1490 0

for their master, the terror and suspicions aroused by the fears of slave violence became more important than the actual number of incidents. The anticipated uprisings never materialized in New Orleans, Charleston, Wilmington, Lynchburg, and other localities where rumors to that effect had kept white residents in a constant state of anxiety and readiness. Nonetheless, the fears never seemed to subside, even after the much-dreaded day had passed without incident. “We are slumbering on a volcano,” the newspaper in Wilmington editorialized. “[T]he general eruption is likely to occur at any time.” The mere sight of unfamiliar blacks in the vicinity was enough to unsettle the local whites. “As we passed through our quarters,” Kate Stone wrote, “there were numbers of strange Negro men standing around. They had gathered from the neighboring places. They did not say anything, but they looked at us and grinned and that terrified us more and more. It held such a promise of evil.”92

Recognizing the unpredictability of black behavior, there was every reason for slaveholding families to be apprehensive. After the experiences some of them had endured, and the incredible scenes they had witnessed, they also came to be that much more appreciative of those slaves whose attachment to the family never seemed to waver. The “faithful few” stood out. That in itself had to be a frightening comment on the system the slave owners had so methodically erected.

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ALTHOUGH WHITE SOUTHERNERS would weave heroic images and tales into the legend of the faithful slave, both exaggerating and simplifying his wartime behavior, they did not simply create him out of a vivid imagination or a troubled conscience. Such slaves existed in sufficient numbers to warrant the oratorical tributes and legislative resolutions of gratitude. Whether their loyalty rested on genuine attachment, habit, fear, or sheer opportunism usually defied detection. What mattered to whites was that they fulfilled the highest expectations of their masters and mistresses. The runaways, the pillagers, the insubordinate could be charged to subversive Yankee influences. How much more comforting and reassuring it was to recall those slaves who remained “faithful through everything,” proving themselves “superior to temptations which might have shaken white people” and “shirking no debt of love and gratitude” to those who owned them. Risking even the hostility of their own people, the “faithful few,” including those legendary white-haired “uncles” and devoted “mammies,” tried to protect their “white folks,” stood in the doorway of the Big House to block the entrance of the soldiers, refused to divulge where the valuables were hidden, and scolded the Yankees for their “insolence.”93 With one leg bandaged, and feigning lameness (to avoid conscription), the servant of Mary Kirkland advised his mistress to stand up, keep her children in her arms, and remain calm while the Yankees pillaged the house. He then imparted to her a valuable lesson he had learned as her slave: “Don’t answer ’em back, Miss Mary. Let them say what they want to. Don’t give ’em any chance to say you are impudent to ’em.”94

To dissemble or “play dumb” had been effective ploys during slavery to mislead the master and obtain special advantages. The same kind of deception was now used by some slaves, particularly the house servants, to mislead the Yankees and protect the master and mistress. To save the family’s silverware which he had secreted, an elderly slave on a South Carolina plantation tried to impress the Yankee soldiers with how much he hated his “white folks,” even slapping the master’s children to demonstrate his loyalty to the Union cause. (He was said to have “cried like a child afterwards because he ‘had to hit Mas’ Horace’s children.’ ”) In Richmond, to preserve his mistress’s house, a servant deceived the Yankees into thinking she was “a good Union woman.” (Actually, the family was passionately pro-Confederate and had to be restrained from hanging the flag outside their window.) When asked about the location