The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1896-12-10

twentieth Connecticut, and one, that OF
1865, while on detached service as the judge
advocate of general court martial The
Christmas which especially impressed it
self upon me- however, was that of 1864,
which I spent with my new regiment, the
Forty fourth, U. S. G. T. This regiment
was RECRUITED from among the planta-
ton negroes recently slaves of northern
Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, with q
small sprinkling from Mississippi. Dec
25 1864, was my first Christmas as field
officer, and with the colored troops-and
with all of them-it was their first Christ
mas as soldiers and with many of them
their first holiday as free men.
When Hood made his backward swing
from Atlanta toward Nashville, while
Sherman swung off on his famous march
to the sea, the Forty fourth was among the
regiments left behind under Thomas t
prevent the imperious Hood from reach
ing the Ohio We were not with Schofeld
at Franklin, one of the fiercest engage
ments of the war. We did succeed in get
ting into Nashville in time to take part in
the utter rout and dispersion of Hoods
army on Dec. Is and 16, though in getting
there our train ran into cul-de-sac lined
with Confederate batteries, and we were
only saved from humiliation by thesceler-
ity with which we got off the train and
got behind cover. That night, guided by
some of our Tennessee negroes who knew
the bypaths, we eluded the Confederate
pickets and got into the Union lines.
After the fight we were sent to Chatta-
nooga and went into winter quarters. Our
men lived in huts, rude, but comfortable
In fact, most of them were better housed,
better clothed and better fed than they had
ever been, and, while subject to the restraint
of military discipline, enjoyed more real
freedom than they had ever before known.
AS Christmas drew nigh the colored troops
showed anxiety to celebrate it appropriate
~. On all we'll conducted plantations in
the south before the war the holiday season
was always time for enjoyment and feast
ing with the blacks as we'll as the whites.
The bonds of slavery were temporarily re-
Taxed, and all went in for a good time
The white troops were receiving from their
friends at home reminders that they were
not forgotten in the shape of packages by
mail and boxes by train laden with food,
drink and clothing of a kind not provided
by Uncle Sans commissary or quarter
master. But our colored soldiers had no
friends at home to send them these tokens
of love and remembrance. Their friends
when not still in bondage, were poor, and
homes were vet thing of the future. But
the men had their pay and suffers were as
numerous as their prices were high. The
officers of the regiment, both field and line,
helped out the festivities of the black men
in blue both by contributions and by teach
ing them how and what to buy. The re-
suit was that so far as creature comforts
were concerned the men of the Forty
fourth, colored, Jared remarkably we'll on
their first Christmas of freedom and as SOL
diers.
The negro like the Chinese and Japa-
nese, is initiative; but, unlike them, he Is
musical. AS race the negro possesses
positive genius for music both vocal and
instrumental. The men of the Forty
fourth Colored were not at all behind in
this regard. We had number of string
bands among the men. In fact, every
company had one or more. They had
some very good performers among them,
some of those on the fiddle and banjo be-
ing remarkably good. They played, of
course, by ear, knowing nothing of writ
| ten music. There was one negro who
| played the accordion with marvellous skill
| He was from Mississippi and had acquired
| this accomplishment at New Orleans,
| this man having accompanied the planter
as his body servant. The man had brought
with him the instrument his master had
bought him. Under his manipulation the
peculiar whining tone of the accordion
as ordinarily played was lost.
Then, there were any number of good
| singers. One big fellow, the blacklist man.
I think, I ever saw, had tenor voice that;
| do no 20, 90
a white man. 1t was clear and powerful
and as swee' as a chime of silver BELLS
In ordinary conversation he spoke in dia--
lect, yet in singing his pronunciation was:
| correct, while his enunciation was perfect
| ly distinct. He sang all the old favorite
ballads of antebellum days and the war
songs of the time. His favorite song,
| though was one of his own composition
1t was all about hooking birds and night
| ingales, orange groves and cotton fields,
running brooks and waveless bayous
| trackless forests and hunted animals. The
| language was crude, yet endowed with the
| spirit of poetry, and when he sang it in
that rich voice to a strange air full of
| pathOs and sentiment it always seemed to
| me somehow that the black singer was
| inspired by dim recollection of his an
| cestral home in some vast African forest
| and on the bank of some great stream.
This man was the leader of a band of
choral singers formed by one of our lieu
tenants, who had musical turn, to sing
| Christmas and war songs. And how they
did sing them! Christmas eve was passed
in this way. Sweet and touching were the
Christmas carols they sang, but they were
at their best when they gave musical voice
| to the fact that John Browns soul goes
marching on" This they sang as though
| inspired, and when a thousand voices joined
in the chorus filling the frosty air with
| great sound of chanting, the effect was one
| I'll never forget This singing and the
| music were the most characteristic features
| of our Christmas festivities, the one in
| which we all participated as performer or
| listener, and the one which afforded the
most universal pleasure and delight. Thus
| all of Christmas eve was passed. Christ
mas morning my striker, ii boy about IS
or 10, black, careless, shrewd impudent
and faithful woke me up by crying:
'Crismus gif', majah; Crismus gif',
sab. I'ze de fus'. Wct We gwine to glib me
"a drink"