Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [175]
Although they did not see each other, the correspondence continued. He requested her to send him locks of the children’s hair with their names attached. He again urged her to remarry, if only for the sake of the children. But whatever she did, he insisted, their love for each other would remain undiminished.
You know it never was our wishes to be separated from each other, and it never was our fault. Oh, I can see you so plain, at any-time, I had rather anything to had happened to me most than ever have been parted from you and the children. As I am, I do not know which I love best, you or Anna. If I was to die, today or tomorrow, I do not think I would die satisfied till you tell me you will try and marry some good, smart man that will take good care of you and the children; and do it because you love me; and not because I think more of the wife I have got than I do of you. The woman is not born that feels as near to me as you do. Tell them [the children] they must remember they have a good father and one that cares for them and one that thinks about them every day.
My very heart did ache when reading your very kind and interesting letter. Laura I do not think that I have change any at all since I saw you last—I thinks of you and my children every day of my life. Laura I do love you the same. My love to you never have failed. Laura, truly, I have got another wife, and I am very sorry, that I am. You feels and seems to me as much like my dear loving wife, as you ever did Laura.25
Perhaps as tragic were the “reunions” in which marital partners accused each other of betrayal, infidelity, and desertion since their forced separation. After four years of absence, a freedman in North Carolina located his wife, only to find that she had borne two children by her master. Refusing to support the children, the husband took the case to the Freedmen’s Bureau in Raleigh, which decided that the woman in such cases could name the father and force him to assume paternal responsibility and support. “This decision is not yet generally known,” a reporter noted, “but when it is I fancy that it will create quite a flutter.” Near Woodville, Mississippi, Fanny Smart learned that her husband, Adam, whom she had presumed to be dead, was still alive. Although not displeased by this news, she had been hurt by his failure to contact her earlier and by his apparent indifference to the children he had fathered.
I received your letter yesterday. I was glad to hear from you. I heard that you was dead. I now think very strange, that you never wrote to me before. You could not think much of your children, as for me, I dont expect you to think much of as I have been confined, just got up, have a fine daughter.… I expect to stay here this year. I have made a contract to that effect. I am doing very well. My children I have all with me, they are all well, and well taken care of, the same as ever, if one get sick, they are well nursed. I now have eight children, all dependent on me for a support, only one, large enough to work for herselfe, the rest I could not hire for their victuals and clothes. I think you might have sent the children something, or some money. Joe can walk and talk. Ned is a great big boy, bad as ever. My baby I call her Cassinda. The children all send howda to you they all want to see you.
The circumstances surrounding their separation may have accounted for Adam Smart’s failure to contact his wife earlier, perhaps even for the rumor that he had died. At least, the man who had been his master suggested as much in the postscript he added to Fanny Smart’s letter.
Adam you have acted the damn rascal with me in ever way you trid to make the Yanks distroy ever thing I had I know worn you to neve put you foot on my place i think you a nary raskal after this yer you can send an git you your famley if they want to go with you.26
Far more serious complications were introduced into postwar reunions by masters