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By Root 1241 0

Young Margaret Lavine remembered how her mother grabbed her in her arms; indeed, some slave women ordered their children to bed, told them to feign illness, and warned the Union soldiers not to enter the cabin because “dere’s de fever in heah!” Neither ignorance nor devotion to their “white folks” necessarily explains the caution with which many slaves greeted their liberators. The activities of the much-feared “paterollers,” who roamed the countryside to keep the blacks in check, had already made the slaves exceedingly wary of approaching strangers, even those claiming to be Yankees; the citizens’ patrols, as well as Confederate guerrillas (sometimes wearing Yankee uniforms), were known to have beaten and murdered slaves who mistook them for Union soldiers and prematurely rejoiced over their liberation, and some slaves had been tricked into giving information to alleged Yankees, only to find themselves strung up as spies and informers. Many a slave suffered, too, at the hands of white stragglers and deserters, and General Joe Wheeler’s Confederate cavalry had become notorious for the ways in which it pillaged and terrorized the countryside, leaving in some areas of South Carolina and North Carolina little for the Yankees to plunder. “Dey was ’Federates but dey was mean as de Yankees,” Sarah Debro recalled. “Dey ax de niggahs if dey wanted to be free. If dey say yes, den dey shot dem down, but if dey say no, dey let dem alone. Dey took three of my uncles out in de woods an’ shot dey faces off.”31

If the approaching soldiers were, in fact, Yankees, there remained compelling reasons why the slaves might act cautiously. Although freedom appeared to be at hand, uncertainty about what forms that freedom would take, how their “liberators” would treat them, and what would happen to them once the soldiers departed suggested the need to adopt that noncommittal stance that had served them so well in relations with the “white folks.” Realizing that their master would most likely regain control after the soldiers moved on, slaves had good reason to fear that a terrible revenge might be visited upon those who behaved contrary to expectations. Despite reassurances by General Sherman himself that the Yankees came as friends, an elderly Georgia slave remained skeptical. “I spose dat you’se true,” he told the General; “but, massa, you’se ’ll go way to-morrow, and anudder white man ’ll come.” Experience with both Yankees and Confederates led one former slave to conclude, “Dem ‘Blue-coats’ wuz devils, but de ‘gray-coats’ wuz wusser,” and it prompted many slaves to maintain a safe distance between themselves and either army.

One night there’d be a gang of Secesh, and the next one, there’d come along a gang of Yankees. Pa was ’fraid of both of ’em. Secesh said they’d kill ’im if he left his white folks. Yankees said they’d kill ’im if he didn’t leave ’em. He would hide out in the cotton patch and keep we children out there with him.32

If a slave chose to believe only half of what he had been told about the approaching Union soldiers, there was every reason to be apprehensive. On the day the Yankees were expected, Betty Roach, a housegirl and nurse for the children on a small plantation in Tennessee, asked how she might be able to tell them apart from other whites. That would be easy, her mistress explained. “They got long horns on their heads, and tushes in their mouths, and eyes sticking out like a cow! They’re mean old things. And Betty—if they come to the house, don’t dare tell them the babies’ names—you hear? [The children had been named after two prominent Confederate generals.] If you do, they will kill the babies—and you too!” This same woman had previously assured Betty that if she worked hard and behaved herself, she would eventually turn white. Not at all uncommon, then, was the experience of a Union officer near Opelousas, Louisiana, when he wandered off the road to a shed in search of a cup of water. Seeing him, the slave women and children fled, leaving behind a small child who was trying desperately to join the others. The