Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [125]
Whatever happened in the future, no matter what kind of South emerged from the ruins, it seemed certain that the relations which masters and slaves alike had enjoyed or tolerated in the past would never be quite the same again.
9
WHEN THE UNION ARMY neared his Savannah River plantations, Louis Manigault fled. That was December 1864. More than two years later, having leased the plantations to a former Confederate officer, Manigault decided to visit the place for the first time since his hasty departure and assess the impact of the war. Traveling along the familiar roads between Savannah and his plantations, he noted traces of previous army encampments, the twisted ruins of the Charleston and Savannah Railroad, and the remains of what had once been a magnificent neighboring mansion. Upon entering the plantations, he was greeted enthusiastically by his former slave cooper, George, who still called him “Maussa.” Standing next to the ruins of his country house, Manigault recalled how he had spent here “the most happy period” of his childhood. All that remained of the house was a tall chimney and some scattered bricks which the slaves had not stolen and sold in Savannah. Except for the “Negro Houses,” which he had constructed just before the war, the entire settlement had “a most abandoned and forlorn appearance.”
As he approached the old slave quarters, some of the blacks came out of their cabins, hesitant in their greetings, “not knowing whether under the new regime it would be proper to meet me politely or not.” Manigault shook hands with them, called each by his name (“which seemed to please them highly”), and joked with them about his present plight. “Lord! a Massy!” he mocked when asked why he had not returned earlier. “You tink I can lib in de Chimney.” Near the center of the plantation, twelve of his former slaves greeted him. “They all seemed pleased to see me, calling me ‘Maussa’ & the Men still showing respect by taking off their caps.” He spotted “Captain” Hector, “as cunning as Negroes can be,” his “constant companion” until the war transformed him into “a great Rascal” and troublemaker. Hector was now a foreman.
Much to Manigault’s surprise, Jack Savage, the slave he had sold in Savannah, had returned. “Tall, black, lousy, in rags, & uncombed, kinky, knotty-hair,” this man had been “the most notoriously bad character & worst Negro of the place,” the one slave he had thought capable of murder and arson, and yet acknowledged to be intelligent and an able carpenter. The two men now shook hands and exchanged “a few friendly remarks.” To Manigault, it seemed highly ironic that Jack Savage, “the last one I should have dreamt of,” greeted him, “whilst sitting idly upon the Negro-House steps dirty & sluggish, I behold young Women to whom I had most frequently presented Earrings, Shoes, Calicos, Kerchiefs &c, &c,—formerly pleased to meet me, but now not even lifting the head as I passed.”
Unlike many slaveholders, Louis Manigault had never pretended to understand his blacks. Before the war, he reflected, fear had largely shaped the behavior of the slaves, and “we Planters could never get at the truth.” Those who claimed to know the Negro were simply deceiving themselves. “Our ‘Northern Brethren’ inform us that we Southerners knew nothing of the Negro Character. This I have always considered perfectly true, but they further state that They (the Yankees) have always known the true Character of the Negro which I consider entirely false in the extreme. So deceitful is the Negro that as far as my own experience extends I could never in a single instance decipher his character.” Conversing now with his former slaves,