A Year in the South (21 page)

They agreed that the safest thing to do for now was to obey Master Jack and stay alert for an opportunity. And so they labored on, slaves still, amid the ruins of the Old South.
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P
ART
T
HREE

SUMMER

LOUIS HUGHES

Warm weather returned to Panola County with the arrival of June, and along with the summery heat came much-needed rain. The corn and cotton crops, which had struggled through the spring, now began to look quite promising. June brought another blessing as well: early in the month, to everyone's relief, the gnats disappeared.
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The question uppermost in Lou Hughes's mind was whether June would also bring his freedom. As the first week of the month gave way to the second, and then to the third and fourth, the answer seemed to be no. Though all of Mississippi was now formally under Union army rule and the state and county governments were dissolved, there were still no federal troops anywhere near the McGehee plantation. The commander of the garrison at Grenada, whose district included Panola County, proclaimed his authority but could not enforce it very far beyond his post. As long as this vacuum of authority persisted in Panola, Master Jack did not intend to relax his grip.
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In holding on to his black people so tenaciously, the old man may simply have been trying to wring a few last drops of profit from the institution of slavery before its inevitable demise. But he may have had something more in mind. There was hopeful talk among some Southern planters in those early summer weeks that the U.S. Supreme Court might nullify the Emancipation Proclamation, leaving the reconstructed Southern state governments free to restore slavery or at least to enact a gradual program of emancipation, perhaps with compensation to the slaveholders. Should this come to pass, those who were lucky and farsighted enough to hold on to their slaves would be rewarded.
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Whatever the motive, Master Jack and his family remained determined that no black person of theirs would escape the plantation. On Sunday, June 25, there was an incident that showed just how determined they were; and it was this that finally propelled Lou to make his break for freedom.

It happened as the McGehee clan returned from church. Most of the family members were in the carriages driven by Lou and George, and they took the main road home. Master Jack's son William was on horseback that day, however, and he took a different route that cut through the plantation. On the way he ran into some blacks from the neighborhood who had come to see the McGehee slaves. Sunday visiting in the quarters had always been tolerated by the McGehees, but now William grew suspicious. He demanded to know if the blacks had passes. When they replied that they did not, he ordered them off the premises. After Master Jack arrived at the Big House, William reported what had happened. Master Jack then summoned George and Uncle Peter, the foreman, and issued an order: no blacks from the neighborhood were to be allowed on the McGehee plantation without a pass from their owner, and any who showed up were to be brought to the Big House for interrogation.
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After George left the house, he found Lou and told him of the new rule. It was obvious to both men that Master Jack, worried that news from the outside world might make his slaves restless, now intended to seal them off completely. Lou looked at George and said:

“If we listen to them we shall be here until Christmas comes again.”

“What do you mean?,” George asked.

“I mean that now, today, is the time to make a start.”
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Quickly they assessed their situation and devised a plan. They knew that they would not be able to keep their flight a secret for long. The McGehees would learn of it and would dispatch armed pursuers, probably with bloodhounds. The more time they had between their departure and the family's discovery of it, the better. It would be relatively easy to get away from the plantation without being spotted by any of the whites. The problem was to avoid being spotted by the other slaves: they were so terrified of being punished for not reporting an escape attempt that they might run to Master Jack. Waiting until nightfall to slip away was out of the question. It was just two days past the new moon and the tiny sliver of silver in the night sky would provide hardly any light. Lou and George therefore agreed that the best time to try to get away would be late that afternoon, when the slaves had gathered for their religious service. There was one who would not be at the service, however, and who would likely see them fleeing. This was John Smith, who had to feed the livestock every evening. They decided to approach John, reveal their plan, and beg him not to report their escape until he was through with the feeding, which was usually around seven. To their relief, John agreed. This would give them a good head start.
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They decided also to go without their wives and Lou's baby. The two men would go alone, heading for Memphis. If they succeeded in getting there, they would try to enlist help from the Union army and then return to the plantation to rescue the others.
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They returned to their cabin and told their wives what they intended to do. Matilda broke down, crying and pleading with Lou not to take such a risk. Kitty was stronger. “I'll be ready,” she said, smiling, when Lou and George assured her that they would return.
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The men made their final preparations. They would have to travel as light as possible, but Lou made sure to take along some of the money he had made at the saltworks. Then, as the sounds of prayer and song reached them, they said good-bye to the women and set out. Quietly they made their way from the quarters to the orchard, then through the orchard to the fields and woods beyond, and past the boundary of Master Jack's land. They headed west, aiming for the Mississippi & Tennessee Railroad about five miles away. Their route took them through more fields and woods, for they avoided roads. All the while they listened for the sound of pursuers behind them; but they heard nothing.
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They reached the railroad just north of the Como depot, then followed it northward a few miles to a point near the village of Senatobia. By now it was about seven-thirty, and the sun had set. They found a safe place to camp and settled in for the night, elated at their success.
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The sun rose the next morning at quarter to five and the men set off again, still following the track northward. They were no longer worried about being pursued. In the communities they were now passing through, slavery was obviously dead. They saw other black people tramping along, heading for Memphis, and saw wagons loaded with cotton going in the same direction. They learned that a detachment of Union cavalry was now posted at Senatobia—perhaps it was this that had provoked Master Jack to try to insulate his slaves from news of the outside world. Rather than approach this small federal force, however, Lou and George decided to continue on to Memphis.
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It was about two o'clock in the afternoon when the two men arrived at Hernando, having made fifteen miles since daybreak. There they discovered that a train of sorts was running that could take them the remaining twenty miles to Memphis. This stretch of the Mississippi & Tennessee line had been wrecked during the war, but since the surrender the railroad company had managed to repair the track and trestles and put a flatcar in operation, pulled by a team of horses.
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Lou and George paid for their passage and seated themselves on the car. The day was sunny, and cooler than it had been for some time, so their open-air ride to Memphis was pleasant. It was slow, however, and not only because the horses could not match the speed of a locomotive. They also could not cross the narrow trestles, so each time the car approached a stream the teamsters had to unhitch them and lead them down the bank and through the water while the passengers pushed the car to the other side.
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It was almost sunset when the car pulled into Memphis. Lou looked around in wonder. The city had grown and changed so much in the three years since he had left that it was hardly recognizable. Black people were everywhere, for the city had become a mecca for fugitives from the plantations of northern Mississippi, western Tennessee, and eastern Arkansas. Lou saw some he knew, earlier escapees from Panola or Bolivar. Like him, they were slaves no longer. They were being called by a new name now: freedmen.
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The next day was Tuesday. Lou and George spent that day and Wednesday asking around, trying to figure out the best way to get help and complete their mission. As they walked the streets, Lou continued to shake his head in wonder at the changes he saw. Since it had fallen to the Union army in June 1862, Memphis had drawn not only hordes of blacks but also white refugees in great numbers, not to mention Yankee soldiers and citizens. The city was now home to at least 40,000 people, maybe 60,000—nobody knew for sure. To Lou it had always seemed a busy place, but now it fairly hummed; the old Memphis was a sleepy village by comparison. As he and George passed down Front Row, the heart of the business district, he saw many unfamiliar establishments among the shops and business houses and hotels. All around him, pedestrians, wagons, drays, and hacks jostled with one another for room. The annoyances that Memphians had always had to endure, especially in the summer, were now magnified. There was the dust, for one thing. The city authorities had never seen fit to pave the streets. The principal downtown thoroughfares were sprinkled with water every day, but it did not help much: choking clouds wafted in from the unsprinkled streets beyond. Lou knew that the only relief from the dust came when it rained, but then the streets turned to slop. The insects were worse than ever now, too. Flies buzzed around by the millions, feasting on the mounds of horse and mule dung that littered the streets. Swarms of mosquitoes fattened on animals and humans alike.
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Lou also took time to visit the place where he had lived for more than a decade. He was shocked to find that Boss's magnificent estate had been seized by the Union army and used for a headquarters. The main structure was intact: the two-story whitewashed brick mansion with its columned veranda and balcony. But the years of Yankee occupation had taken a toll. The place was untended and run-down, and in other ways transformed. In an odd way, Lou felt a personal sense of loss. He had helped build this house with his own hands, had lovingly polished its gorgeous mahogany furniture, had carefully tended its splendid ornamental garden. He had swelled with pride when he had heard it praised as one of the city's showpieces. Certainly he had some painful memories of the estate—the daily cruelties of Madam, the brutal whippings in the barn, the death of his twin babies—but what he saw now was nonetheless sad. “[H]ow different it was from what it had been,” he thought. “All was changed.”
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By Thursday Lou and George had picked up enough information to begin organizing their rescue expedition back to Panola. The first step was to see the Union army officer responsible for dealing with the freedmen in this military district, Captain Thomas A. Walker. On their way to his office, Lou and George must have noticed the excitement in the streets. It was election day in Memphis: the city, which had been under military rule since the Yankee army came, was being returned to civilian control. The hack drivers were especially busy, for the candidates for office had rented dozens of carriages to convey voters to the polls. By the time the polls closed at five, almost 2,300 voters had made their choices—not a large proportion of the city's adult male population, to be sure, for the blacks and the former rebels could not vote, but enough to keep the hackmen occupied all day.
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At Walker's office Lou and George found a large crowd of blacks waiting. It was two hours before their turn came to see the captain. When they were finally called in, they found a tall dark-haired man about Lou's age (early thirties), wearing a blue officer's uniform and sitting at a desk. He began to question them. They explained who they were and what had happened to them since the war began, and told of Boss and the mansion. The conversation went on for several minutes before they were asked to state their business. Lou replied: “[W]e want protection to go back to Mississippi after our wives, who are still held as slaves.” If he and George attempted it on their own, Lou added, the McGehees “will shoot the gizzards out of us.”
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Walker had heard many such stories. Union army officials were well aware that some planters in the more remote areas were ignoring their decrees about emancipation. That very day, in fact, one of the Memphis newspapers had reprinted a circular, issued recently by the commander of the west Tennessee department, that took note of the many complaints received from blacks and warned the citizens that they must “acknowledge and act upon the full and permanent emancipation of the colored race.”
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Walker had held the position of Superintendent of Freedmen in the District of Memphis for almost a year and a half now, a long tour of duty by army standards. In truth, he was not a career soldier but a teacher. He had enlisted in his home state of Ohio in 1861 and had seen a good deal of combat before being assigned to work with the freedmen. Perhaps he accepted the task willingly but eventually it wore him down. He sympathized with the men and women who jammed his office every day seeking aid, but the complaints and pleadings seemed endless and his ability to help was limited. And these office hours were only one of his headaches. There were more than 15,000 blacks living in Memphis, all under army authority and in some measure his responsibility. By 1865 he had grown sick of the job—“one of the most laborious and unthankful positions in the whole General Department,” as he described it—and was anxious to return to duty with his regiment.
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