Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [5]
Within easy earshot of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Mary Boykin Chesnut, whose husband was an extensive planter and political leader in South Carolina, tried in vain to penetrate behind the inscrutable faces of her servants. Why did they not betray some emotion or interest? How could they go about their daily chores seemingly unconcerned that their own destiny might be in the balance but a few miles away? “Not by one word or look can we detect any change in the demeanor of these Negro servants. Lawrence sits at our door, as sleepy and as respectful and as profoundly indifferent. So are they all. They carry it too far. You could not tell that they even hear the awful noise that is going on in the bay, though it is dinning in their ears night and day. And people talk before them as if they were chairs and tables, and they make no sign.” This almost studied indifference obviously troubled Mary Chesnut as much as it might have comforted and reassured her. “Are they stolidly stupid,” she wondered, “or wiser than we are, silent and strong, biding their time?”3
The slaves were no less observant of their “white folks.” Although blacks had always been aware of frailties in their owners, the system of slavery had been based on the acknowledged power of the white man. But the Civil War introduced tensions and tragedies into the lives of masters and mistresses that made them seem less than omnipotent, perhaps even suddenly human in ways blacks had thought impossible. Rarely had slaves perceived their owners so utterly at the mercy of circumstances over which they had no control. Never before had they seemed so vulnerable, so beleaguered, so helpless. Unprecedented in the disruptions, stresses, and trauma it generated among both whites and blacks, the Civil War threatened to undermine traditional relationships and dissolve long-held assumptions and illusions. Even if many slaves evinced a human compassion for masters and mistresses caught in the terrible plight of war, invasion, and death, how long before these same slaves came to recognize that in the very suffering of their “white folks” lay their own freedom and salvation?
2
DURING THE EARLY MONTHS, neither the whites nor the blacks appeared to grasp fully the nature of this war. The mobilization took on an almost festive air, exposing the slaves to unusual sights and sounds and affording them a welcome diversion from their day-to-day chores. They watched the military drills with fascination, learned the words of the patriotic songs, and stood with whites in the courthouse square to listen to the bombastic and confident speeches. “You’d thought the Confederates goin’ win the War,” John Wright speculated, after hearing Jefferson Davis address an enthusiastic crowd in Montgomery, Alabama. “But I notice Massa Wright look right solemn when we go back home. Don’ believe he ever was sure the South goin’ win.” When the soldiers prepared to leave for the front, the festivities gave way to sobering farewells that made a deep impression on some of the blacks. “Mis’ Polly an’ de ladies got to cryin’,” recalled Sarah Debro, who spent the war years as a young house slave in a North Carolina family. “I was so sad dat I got over in de corner an’ cried too.”4
The patriotic fervor and martial displays suggested a quick and glorious triumph. So confident was a North Carolina planter that he had his son candidly explain the issues to the slaves: “There is a war commenced between the North and the South. If the North whups, you will be as free a man as I is. If the South whups, you will be a slave all your days.” Before leaving, the master jokingly told the slaves that he expected to “whup the North” and be back for dinner. “He went away,” one of his slaves recalled, “and it wuz four long years before he cum back to dinner. De table wuz shore set a long time for him. A lot of de white