Twelve Years a Slave - Enhanced Edition (44 page)

Some of the preceding as well as other testimony of the long trip of the former slaves following the Union army is found in
The Conduct of Federal Troops in Louisiana During the Invasions of 1863 and 1864
, the official report prepared by a commission in 1865 as requested by Louisiana Gov. Henry W. Allen. The material presented in the report, though prepared by a commission under the direction of a Confederate general and written by others in service to the state of Louisiana under the Confederacy, is, according to the edition edited by David C. Edmonds, “nonetheless a credible addition to the literature of the period,” as it was compiled from sworn testimony as well as supported by countless other legal documents and papers of Louisianians of the time. Moreover, the diaries and letters of Northern soldiers support these accounts [See Edmonds, vii-viii]. In his charge to the commission, Governor Allen insisted that the publication that resulted should contain “intrinsic evidence of its own credibility.” Governor Allen also particularly asked that any “special acts of kindness that may have been done to our citizens by Federal officers or soldiers” be reported. [See Edmonds, xi-xii]

One of those interviewed by Governor Allen’s Commission was Dr. George Hill. Dr. Hill had been in medical and surgical practice in Opelousas for forty years at the time, and therefore had his professional background to guide him in his official statement, given under oath. The portions that became part of the Commission’s report follow:

In the summer of 1863, Berwick’s Bay and a portion of the Lafourche country were taken possession of by the Confederate army. I, with many others who had lost property by the raid which the Federal army made between the 20th of April and the 20th of May of this year, visited the Bay for the purpose of recovering our property. I was among the first to cross the bay; and having been informed on the night of my arrival by a gentleman named March that several of my lost Negroes were at the sugar house of Dr. Sanders, and that others were there in a dying condition, I, in the morning as soon as sugar house of Dr. S [
sic
] and entered it by a door in the west end.

The scene which then and there presented itself can never be effaced from my memory. On the right hand female corpses in a state of nudity, and also in a far advanced stage of decomposition. Many others were lying all over the floor; many speechless and in a dying condition.

All appeared to have died of the same disease: bloody flux. The floor was slippery with blood, mucus, and feces. The dying, and all those unable to help themselves, were lying with their scanty garments rolled around their heads and breasts—the lower part of the body naked—and every time an involuntary discharge of blood and feces, combined with air, would pass, making a slight noise, clouds of flies, such as I never saw before, would immediately rise and settle down again on all the exposed parts of the dying. In passing through the house a cold chill shook my frame, from which I did not recover for several months, and, indeed, it came near causing my life. [See Edmonds, 117-118]

During this period of time, while this exodus south was in progress, Banks looked for other options for his own troops. The Red River was low, making naval support impossible for any further movement into Louisiana north of Alexandria. In May through July of 1863, Banks laid siege to Port Hudson, south of Vicksburg, where Grant was laying siege. Halleck was annoyed with this move, chastising Banks and suggesting he should give up the attack, but Banks would not. Shortly after Vicksburg fell, so did Port Hudson, and Banks was recognized for making his contribution [See Brooksher, 10-11].

Pressure to make inroads into Texas increased after this, especially from Halleck. Banks would have preferred to attack Mobile, but Halleck insisted that army and navy movements through the Red River up to Shreveport would provide an opening to northern Texas. Banks agreed to go to Texas, but his plan was to attack Galveston from the sea. The sea invasion of Texas in early September of 1863 failed [See Brooksher, 15-20].

Banks tried again in October and established a presence in Texas. However, Halleck had not been informed of Banks’ plans for hitting Texas; Banks responded to Halleck’s inquiries that he felt this choice was better than Halleck’s preferred method of going up the Red River to invade Texas, because water levels were too low to do that. The gains in Texas did not grow and activities in Louisiana were halted [Brooksher, 23-24].

In January of 1864, Halleck again pushed an excursion up the Red Riveron Banks [See Brooksher, 29]. In March of 1864, the second incursion into the Boeuf country began, continuing through May, when Banks retreated to New Orleans [See Edmonds; Pellet; DeForest; Bacon; Johnson; Root and Root].

Chapter Eighteen

183.
Warren O’Niel, a widower, married Emma, the daughter of Leonard Anderson and Sarah Ann Providence Chafin. Chafin was the overseer for William Prince Ford [See Stafford,
Three Rapides Families
, 31].

184.
There has been speculation that “Uncle Abram” was selected by David Wilson to be analogous to Uncle Tom in
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
. There was indeed a slave named Abram on the Epps plantation, and he was about 60 [See Endnote 143]. As to whether his portrait as presented by Wilson was designed to recall Uncle Tom, no one can know.

185.
As noted in Endnote 174, Chapter 16, Solomon Northup and/or David Wilson confused the first name of this slave wife, calling her Charlotte in one chapter and Harriet in this one.

186.
Solomon Northup gave an interview after his return home recounting this story. According to the story on page one of the
New York Times
, January 20, 1853, the reporter wrote the following: “Blood flowed from her neck to her feet, and in this condition she was compelled the next day to go into the field to work as a field hand” [See
New York Times
“The Kidnapping Case . . .”].

187.
Many Southern whites at the time believed that slaves were a different species of humanity, without intelligence or normal reaction to injustice.

188.
Plantations notoriously operated on credit, and in Louisiana that money was borrowed from factors whose funds came from the Wall Street and Boston firms they ordinarily represented. Money was loaned to Louisiana planters with liens taken on the crops, the crops being shipped to the factor, who then sold the crop and settled with the planter. The factor shipped supplies to the planters throughout the year and loaned the money with interest, sometimes compounded, to be paid back when the crop was gathered and sold. Most planters made an annual visit to settle business with his or her factor and to make arrangements for the upcoming year.

New York was a major port for shipment of cotton to Europe, and the South bought most manufactured goods from the North. It was, of course, Boston that launched the Triangular Trade with three-way journeys to Africa to secure slaves to sell, then to the planters in the Caribbean where the slaves were exchanged for sugar to be made into rum, then back to the United States. There were other arrangements for the Triangular Trade that included England.

According to Brent Staples of the
New York Times
, Americans tend to believe that slavery was peculiar to the South and that the North, particularly the New England region, had always been “free.” This erroneous belief stems in part from mistaken ideas about the Civil War—the central metaphor of American popular history—and partly from the sterling reputations left by Northeastern abolitionists like Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The truth is that slavery existed to some degree across the early United States. It lingered in Greeley’s New York until 1827, and in Stowe’s Connecticut until the late date of 1848 [See Staples].

Following the abolition of slavery in New York in 1827, being a free person of color did not provide the freedom of choice of education, earning a livelihood, and status in the general society.

Chapter Nineteen

189.
The carpenter, Henry Avery, is listed in the U.S. Census of 1850 as a twenty-seven year-old farmer born in Louisiana. He was married to Mary, twenty-one, and they had two children, Amos, five, and Sidna, a three-month-old baby. The Epps’ house he built in 1852 survived minus only the detached kitchen, which was connected to the main house by a short covered walk. Such kitchens were a customary feature of houses in that period as protection against fire. The Epps kitchen-dining room burned in the 1880s. [See a photo of Epps’ house in the Extras & More section of our website at
www.TwelveYearsASlave.org
.]

Dr. J.L. Knoll, born in 1888 in Bunkie, Louisiana, lived from birth through childhood in the old house and described it as follows:

This house was an old house when I was born in 1888, wasn’t fancy on the colonial style. It was a simple built house with wooden shutters, a story and a half facing west on Bayou Boeuf. There was a long gallery along the front of it with white rectangular columns. It didn’t have a hall running through it although there was a breezeway between the kitchen and the rest of the house. It was built out of such lumber as they had at the time, cyprus, and built in the days before the steam sawmill of handsawed lumber. [See Knoll]

Due to its historic significance, the house was preserved and moved to Louisiana State University at Alexandria in 2001, where it stands today.

190.
Information about the identity of Samuel Bass was discovered by the editor in the diary of the Marksville lawyer, John Pamplin Waddill, who would figure later in the trial in which Northup was freed. The diary was furnished to the editor by her former student, the great-granddaughter of Waddill, Elizabeth Brazelton. Waddill recorded these entries:

July 29, 1853 – Today I wrote the last will and testament of Samuel Bass, about 11 o’clock at night.

August 11, 1853—Today I wrote out a form of an olographic will for Samuel Bass to copy as his own. My fee $10.

August 12, 1853 - Today I called to see S. Bass to learn whether he had copied said will. He informed me that he had not, & that he was so ill he would sick up.

August 30, 1853 - Today about twelve o’clock Samuel Bass died in Marksville, at the home of Justine Tounier, f.w.c. His disease was pneumonia. He was 48 years of age and was born in upper Canada where he has a wife and four children. He had been separated from his wife for 12 or 15 years. His only complaint against her was that she had such a temper as to preclude any man from living with her. Her name was Lydia Catlin Lane before she married him. She is living near Prescott upper Canada or Ogsdenburg. His two daughters Catherine and Martha Bass are in Manchester, New Hampshire at work in a cotton factory. He had a brother-in-law residing in Ogle County, Illinois near Daysville. Annis Martin in that vicinity has his land titles & many other valuable papers in her possession. He says that his above mentioned Brother-in-law Freeman Woodcock knows where Annis Martin resides. He appointed William Sloat of this Parish as his executor. [See Waddill, 99]

191.
Settlement along the river in Louisiana began around 1715 with Spain and France claiming much of the same land along its borders. Bayou Boeuf is not connected with Red River. The Bayou flows about thirty miles south of the Red River. Thousands of years before, the Boeuf may have been a tributary of the Red River. A fast-growing population, despite the stringent business of settling new country, suggests early settlers did not find the Red River country any less healthy than other frontier regions. Like other frontiers, there was a dearth of doctors. According to Cornell professors Ellis, Frost, Syrett, and Carman, describing the years 1775-1825 during a comparable period of increased settlement, New York also had its problems, as did the entire nation:

Life expectancy in this period was a fraction of its present figure. Disease ravaged the population almost unchecked and little understood. Disorders almost unknown were commonplace. Smallpox left its scars upon thousands, while tuberculosis filled 20 times as many graves in proportion to the population as it did in 1967. Malaria, sometimes called “the shakes,” or “Genesee fever,” riddled the frontier population. Typhoid and many other contagious diseases struck every community, and cholera hit the seaports. Only one half the number of children reached their fifth birthday—a sobering statistic in the light of modern advances. Medical attention, if available, was practically worthless. [Ellis et al., 207]

192.
Northup/Platt was assigned by Edwin Epps to assist the carpenter; Samuel Bass was a carpenter, perhaps an assistant to Avery.

193.
William Perry, fifty-two, a young merchant in Saratoga Springs, had in his household: Elizabeth Perry, forty-nine; Sally Perry, forty; Harriet Perry, thirty-eight; a laborer from Vermont named George, age fifty; another laborer, age fifteen, from New York. They lived in Saratoga Springs, New York [See U.S. Census of 1840, Schedule 2, page 25]. Cephas Parker was also a merchant in Saratoga Springs [See Durkee, 148]. Judge James Madison Marvin was born in the Town of Ballston, Saratoga County, New York, February 27, 1809. An Englishman, he moved to this country in 1835 [See Sylvester].

194.
James Guillot was the Marksville postmaster in 1849 [See Marksville, LA list, U.S. Post Office Records, National Archives].

Chapter Twenty

195.
Although an outsider from the North and a recent immigrant to Avoyelles Parish, Bass understood very well the fine line that existed between order and chaos in the plantation community—indeed, across Louisiana and the rest of the South. Any hint of an interference that broke the unwritten code of labor relations between slaves and their owners could cause an instant crisis. Bass correctly reasoned that the Marksville postmaster, James Guillot, might become suspicious of some plot that would cause serious trouble in the community [See
Marksville Weekly News
].

196.
Mary Dunwoody McCoy (1834-1913), an orphan, was reared by her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Silas Talbert, a justice of the peace and large landowner. Young Mary was the daughter of Mary L. Dunwoody, member of a prominent plantation family whose plantation was located south of Lecompte, and James Dickson McCoy, who was apparently some kind of salesman. Nineteenth century records, including personal letters from antebellum residents of the Cheneyville area, frequently mention the winsome Mary McCoy. She was not only known by a wide circle of people who invariably mentioned her affectionately, but she also became a person of considerable influence. She married Dr. Dewitt Clinton Rhodes (1853); Austin Willis Burgess (1860); and minister Silas H. Cooper (1876). Her son by husband Austin Willis Burgess became a doctor and practiced in Cheneyville until he died in 1896 [See Stafford,
Three
Pioneer Families . . .
, 403-407].