Year: 1862




Dear Exprcss.-I have beer spending
four or five hours in Washington, it is easy
to see there the northern.ization of that de
cidedly Southern city. A street railroad is
in process Of construction down the Avenue.
New buildings of lofty dimensions are rap
idly going up, and while labor is largely
employed, the war will have materially i'm.
proved the Federal Capital, enlarging its
sphere of action aud adding 10 its general
appearance. There aud elsewhere the
process of rc-populaton is begun and will
go on.


This has been long lazy Sunday, rather
hot, but not SO much as to render unpIeas.
ant long walk around the ramparts of
Fortress Monroe. One must make this
lengthy excursion in order 10 appreciate
the vast extent aud enormous cost of this
greatest of our national rti6cations.
have no accurate knowledge OF the area it
covers-about IS acres-nor of the exact
number Of huge columbiads it mounts, but
the whole thing is huge.


/ have been TO see the contrabandS to.
night, in their quarters, and in their prayer
meetings Mr.. Wilder, a sincere old gen
tleman, who believes in the nigger" and is
their superintendent here, was our ccerOne
and companion The quarters are very
comfortable barracks on the edge of a badly |
smelling marsh. One of these we found fill
ed with men and women engaged in their
worship. Their prayers are strange utter.
anccs, broken appeals 20 Almighty Power
for guidance, sometimes SO hidden by the
thick-lipped gibberish of negro. English as
to be incomprehensible at other moments
rising to real poetry aud most touching
pathos of entreaty. As to style, any one
who has heard the monOtonous iHt0aiag of
the Catholic churches, or the la. sofia anti.
phonial readings in use in some Puseyite
Episcopal churches, can imagine the queer
cadence of the chant in which these people
say their earnest devotion.


The singing was good, and two private
soldiers read to them from the Bible, and
famillary explained the meaning of the read.
ings Now don't open your eyes too wide
when tell you that | preached them
short lay sermon. | was tricked and sold
into it, but suddenly thinking that exhort-
ing in negro prayer-meeting would not be
very bad bit of experience, | took the rough
pulpit, and with more genuine embarrass-
ment than you would believe, | made as
sensible talk as | knew how, mostly on
the necessity of working and earning de-
cent independent and honest livings.


To study the slave character is getting
to be a passion with ME. l have no great
faith in the lasting utility of the black race
on this continent or rather in its perma.
nonce on these shores The fault is far
luore with the white than the black Count
the latter as an inferior type of humanity,
and yet you fud that he is strong willing
and docile-qualilies most essential aud
which prove that, rightly 'tsed, be can
be made useful. Yet, 50 strong is the an
tipathy of races, that the white will never
do Justice to the black. IL is so at the
North and in the South ten times more so.
The odds arc that at the North the black
has legal right to employ his labor or his
wits for his own benefit, while here he is
kept down more meanly and cruelty than
can be justified by any theory of national
necessity Aud moreover, slavery is thou.
sand times greater curse than we have
ever supposed it to be, until we have seen
how thoroughly it has spoiled and ruined
the whites here, who otherwise might have
been decent people,


l thought tonight, with strange seusa.
tions, that it might be that the mission of
the black race has eliminated ON this con.
tincnt aud that in very few generations it
will have followed the aborgines to that
page in history which chronicles race de-
stroyed The thought is not SO very mel
ancholy-all of us bring up in the grave
yard at last. The passing away of race
is no more to be lamented, other things be-
ing equal, than the death of generation-a
phenomenon we see going on always, with
out emotion The negro has opened the
South to an imperfect civilization. He has
served as a means of acclimation to the
white, as if soue prophetic Saxon had said
occupy till come, aud ill the ground un.
Ill my physical system, through series Of
genera tions, has become accustomed TO
semi. tropical heats and miasma."


That work is done now, There is already
white race at the South, needing only
that labor should be dgnifed to be able TO
develop all the general resources OF the
country. Perhaps Providence has wiled
that they shall do it hereafter.