Works of Booker T. Washington - Booker T. Washington [162]
After the war Smalls was elected to membership in Congress at least three times, and also served in many places of trust in South Carolina. General Smalls, as he is now known, still lives in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he enjoys the confidence and respect of the people of both races.
THE GENERAL'S LAST DOLLAR
VERY soon after the close of the Civil War some Union generals were given a dinner by a famous Confederate general in Petersburg, Virginia. The guests were waited upon by a colored man, one of the old type of servants, who was passionately devoted to the Confederate general, who had been his owner for many years.
None of the Union officers realized the fact that General G — — , their host, had been stripped of all his property by the war. Indeed, there was little in his fine, courtly bearing, or in the dinner, to apprise them of this fact.
The meal was served by Uncle Zeke, the old colored servant, with all the neatness and formality that had characterized such functions in the more prosperous days of the late slave's owner. When the meal was over, for some unexplained reason the Northern guests forgot, or neglected to remember, Uncle Zeke.
Not so with General G — — . He took the only piece of money in his possession, a one-dollar bill, and with great politeness handed it to Uncle Zeke, who bowed and thanked him for it in the most approved manner.
But as soon as the guests were gone, and the old colored servant could speak with General G — — alone and unobserved, he came to him and said: "Massa, I was powerful glad to see you make dat front before dem Yanks, an' teach dem a lesson; but, massa, I knows dat is de las' dollar you's got, an' I can't keep it. I want you to take it an' git Miss Genie a new dress, 'cause she ain't had no new dress dis year."
MOSES TURNER
DURING the closing days of the Civil War a great many of the slaves in Virginia followed the Northern army as it went through the State from time to time, and thus made themselves free before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. It was comparatively easy at this time for almost any slave to find his way from northern Virginia into a free State.
At the opening of the war there was a white family named Turner that was very prominent in that part of Virginia. In this family there were four sons, four daughters, and their mother. In the first battles of the war two of the sons were killed, and, later on, the third son was slain. Not long before the close of the war the fourth son came home on a furlough. He found his mother and sisters in destitute circumstances. They had no sugar and coffee, and the clothes that they had been able to secure were few. The war had reduced the family to a point where it had none of the comforts and few of the necessities of life.
But for the faithful labor of the dozen or more slaves on the place, there would have been great suffering.
Among the slaves there was one man, just past middle age, called Moses, who was looked up to by the others as a leader. To him had been intrusted the management of the farm.
Before the young master left home at the end of his last furlough, he had a long and earnest talk with Moses, in which he told him that he was going to trust not only the management of the farm to him, but was going to place in his care the safety of the young man's mother and sisters and the valuables in the house and about the place. Moses promised that he would not betray the trust.
A few weeks after the return of the young master to the army, a division of the Northern army came through that region. Some days before the arrival of this force, Moses had word of its possible coming through the agency of that rather mysterious means of communication known among the slaves as the "grape-vine telegraph."
Fearing that there might be those among the Yankees who would be bent upon mischief, Moses decided, after consulting with his mistress, to take all the old silver and valuable household articles to a near-by swamp and bury them. This he did in the night, and no