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By Root 1095 0

In some places, the frequency and the severity of punishments abated, and the masters—perhaps fearing slave retaliation—assumed a more benign attitude, prepared for the eventuality of free labor, and even offered to pay wages. After the Yankees had been sighted less than two miles away, a Tennessee planter who had beaten one of his slaves that morning apologized to him and begged him not to desert. But as slaves had learned so well, usually from bitter personal experience, the moods of their “white folks” were capable of violent fluctuations. If the wartime disruptions, privations, and casualties had earlier provoked fits of anger, the impending disaster they now faced and the knowledge that they were about to lose both the war and their slaves rendered even some usually self-possessed whites unable to contain their emotions. That was how Katie Darling, a nurse and housegirl on a Texas plantation, recalled her mistress. When the Yankees drew near, “missy go off in a rage. One time when a cannon fire, she say to me, ‘You li’l black wench, you niggers ain’t gwine be free. You’s made to work for white folks.’ ” A former Georgia slave recalled a “good master” who broke under the strain and tension that preceded the Union soldiers. “Marse William ain’t eber hit one of us a single lick till de day when we heard dat de Yankees was a’comin’.” When one of the slaves jumped up and shouted “Lawd bless de Yankees” on that day, the master lost his composure. Shouting “God damn de Yankees,” he slapped the slave repeatedly. “Ever’-body got outen dar in a hurry an’ nobody else dasen’t say Yankees ter de marster.”21

Not knowing what to expect of the invading army but fearing the worst, white families, in those final days and hours, often verged on panic and hysteria. At least that was how some of their slaves perceived them. In exasperation, masters were known to have lashed out at men and women who were too quick to celebrate their imminent release from bondage, while others refused to acknowledge either defeat or emancipation. After hearing of a new Confederate setback in the vicinity, Katie Rowe’s master mounted his horse and rode out onto the plantation where the slaves were hoeing the corn. He instructed the overseer to assemble the hands around the lead row man—“dat my own uncle Sandy”—and what he told them on that occasion Katie Rowe could recall vividly many years later:

You niggers been seeing de ‘Federate soldiers coming by here looking purty raggedy and hurt and wore out, but dat no sign dey licked! Dem Yankees ain’t gwine git dis fur, but iffen dey do you all ain’t gwine git free by ’em, ’cause I gwine free you befo’ dat. When dey git here dey going find you already free, ’cause I gwine line you up on de bank of Bois d’Arc Creek and free you wid my shotgun! Anybody miss jest one lick wid de hoe, or one step in de line, or one clap of dat bell, or one toot of de horn, and he gwine be free and talking to de debil long befo’ he ever see a pair of blue britches!

Not long after that warning, the master was “blowed all to pieces” in a boiler explosion, “and dey jest find little bitsy chunks of his clothes and parts of him to bury.” And when the Yankees finally arrived, the overseer who had previously terrorized them “git sweet as honey in de comb! Nobody git a whipping all de time de Yankees dar!”22

Looking on with a growing sense of incredulity, slaves observed the desperation, the anguish, the helplessness that marked the faces and actions of their “white folks.” A Tennessee slave recalled how her mistress, at the sight of Union gunboats, suddenly “got wild-like” and “was cryin’ an’ wringin’ her han’s,” while at the same time she kept repeating to her slaves, “Now, ’member I brought you up!” Although the slaves shared much of the uncertainty that pervaded the Big House, the quality of their fears and the anticipation they felt were quite different. When Margaret Hughes, who had been a young slave in South Carolina, heard that the Union soldiers were coming, she ran to her aunt for comfort. Much to Margaret’s surprise, she