r informed comrades,
who regarded any remove from the monotony of plantation life a respite.

The readiness with which they responded to the call was only astonishing
to those who were unacquainted with the true feelings of the unhappy
race whose highest hope of freedom was beyond the pearly gates of the
celestial domain. One thing that impressed the blacks greatly was the
failure of Denmark Vesy, Nat Turner and John Brown, whose fate was ever
held up to them as the fate of all who attempted to free themselves or
the slaves. Escape to free land was the only possible relief they saw on
earth, and _that_ they realized as an individual venture, far removed
from the field-hand South of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

It was not unnatural, then, for some to spring at the opportunity
offered to dig trenches and assist Beauregard in mounting cannon, and
loading them with shot and shell to fire upon Fort Sumter.

[Illustration: DOING MILITARY DUTY FOR THE CONFEDERATES.

Negroes building fortifications for the Confederates at James Island, S.
C., under direction of General Beauregard, to repel the land attack of
the Federal troops.]

The negro did not at first realize a fight of any magnitude possible, or
that it would result in any possible good to himself. So while the
_free_ negroes trembled because they _were_ free, the slaves sought
refuge from suspicion of wanting to be free, behind, _per se_, an
enthusiasm springing, not from a desire and hope for the success of the
confederates, but from a puerile ambition to enjoy the holiday
excitement.

Later on, however, when the war opened in earnest, and the question of
the freedom and slavery of the negro entered into the struggle; when
extra care was taken to guide him to the rear at night; when after a few
thousand Yankee prisoners, taken in battle, had sought and obtained an
opportunity of whispering to him the _real_ cause of the war, and the
surety of the negroes' freedom if the North was victorious, the slave
negro went to the breastworks with no less agility, but with prayers for
the success of the Union troops, and a determination to go to the
Yankees at the first opportunity; though he risked life in the
undertaking. When the breastworks had been built and the heavy guns
mounted, when a cordon of earthworks encircled the cities throughout the
South, and after a few thousand negroes had made good their escape into
the Union lines, then those who had labored upon th