A Yankee Picture of Charleston.
We find in the New York Tribune a letter, eight columns long, written from Charleston by its special correspondent. In point of letters, the Confederates see what it is to be subjugated. This man's letter is worth a whole sheet of Confederate editorials. In it the facts stand out in boastful nakedness, and no one can read them without realizing that our own press has not yet told half the story. Among the first incidents attending the writer's advent at Charleston was the characteristic one of advising a negro in one of the deserted offices to break a plaster cast of Calhoun, a feat which, being accomplished, is considered a great victory. We copy some extracts from the letter, which may be read with profit as well as interest:The negro troops enter Charleston.
The first national soldiers that landed in Charleston in the capacity of masters of the rebel city were the South Carolina negroes (thank God!) of the Twenty-first United States colored troops.--There was also a detachment of the gallant Massachusetts Fifty-fourth, who were the first negro troops to demonstrate on Southern soil the splendid fighting qualities of the colored race. They were the heroes of Fort Wagner, where Shaw lies buried "under his niggers," as the brutal ruffians reported. The Pennsylvania Fifty-second formed the rest of the forces of occupation. Soon the Star-Spangled Banner floated from the top of the custom-house, the citadel and the arsenal — waving for the first time here over free soil and a people free. All the public buildings were immediately taken possession of, and detachments stationed to guard them.The negro Provost-Guard.
Lieutenant-Colonel Bennett is Provost-Marshal, and Major Willoughby Assistant Provost-Marshal. Two companies of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts are doing provost-marshal duty. At every public building the tidy negro sentinels can be seen halting citizens, ordering them back, or examining their passes. They are well-behaved gentlemen, and contrast very favorably with some of the rebel citizens. I heard of one citizen, a woman, who complained of them as insolent."Insolence" of the Colored troops.
"Do the Yankees trouble you?" was asked of this person. "No," she said; "the Yankees don't, but your negroes do." "They do not insult you, do they?" "No, not me; but they do others." "What do they do?" "Oh! they won't turn out of the sidewalk for you, and they will go up to a white man and ask him for a light for their cigars!" To appreciate this enormity fully, it should be known that it is a part of the unwritten laws of South Carolina that every negro, on meeting a white person on the sidewalk, shall give them the inside, or "the wall." Some seditious Yankees have probably advised the negroes of the fact that this lex non scripta is repealed, or at least played out. Since one of our soldiers went into a Catholic cathedral in Mexico and requested a priest to give him one of the tapers to light his cigar, there has probably nothing been done by American troops so offensive to the feelings of the natives of a conquered country as was perpetrated when the first negro soldier stepped up to one of the scions of the chivalry here and asked him for a light, "But things like this, you know, must be, after a famous victory." as the uncle of little Peter Kinvey judiciously remarked.The Massachusetts Fifty-fifth.
On Tuesday evening, about 7 o'clock, we heard prolonged and hearty cheering in a neighboring street. I ran in the direction indicated by the shouts, and found that the Massachusetts Fifty- fifth (colored) regiment had just landed in the city. ‘ John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave,John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave,
John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave,
His soul is marching on!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
We go marching on!
We'll hang Jeff. Davis on a crab-apple tree,
We'll hang Jeff. Davis on a crab-apple tree,
We'll hang Jeff. Davis on a crab-apple tree,
As we go marching on'
’ Imagine, if you can, this stirring song chanted with the most rapturous, most exultant emphasis, by a regiment of negro troops, who had been lying in sight of Charleston for nearly two years — as they trod with tumultuous delight along the streets of this pro-slavery city, whose soil they had just touched for the first time — imagine them, in the dim light of the evening, seeing on every side groups of their own race — men, women, maidens and little children, who greeted them with a joy that knew no bounds save that of physical ability to express itself fully — imagine them, as they finished their song of triumph, unite with equal ecstasy in joining in that other thrilling melody: ‘ Down with the traitor,
Up with the flag--
’ Imagine them cheer, as only triumphant troops can cheer, in honor of the "stars and stripes," and "Massachusetts," and "Governor Andrew," and you may conceive, (albeit very faintly,) the sublime and unequalled scene that I had the privilege of witnessing on Tuesday night in Charleston. I heard a lieutenant of the Fifty-fifth, in command of company I, give the order, " Shoulder Arms," and in a minute afterward shook hands with him, for he was an old acquaintance. Who do you think he was? The son of William Lloyd Garrison!
