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I looked at the mouth-watering array of scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuits, and a healthy bowl of hominy – more than one person could eat – but my appetite had returned and I was ravenous. I begin to serve myself but not before acknowledging Lizzie by taking her hand as she walked by.
“Lizzie, thank you for your care,” I said. “I wouldn’t have made it if it hadn’t been for you.”
“Don’t be thankin’ me,” she said. “Thank dem herbs. I jus’ know how to use ‘em. You was supposed to keep sleepin’ dis mornin’. But Patrick, he hard-headed, him. He jus’hadto see you for himself. Let him not listen to me again if he want to...”
“He was just concerned.”
Lizzie clucked her tongue. “I don’t say nothin’ ‘bout a person havin’ feelings. But he need listen to what people tell ‘im. Just ‘cause he old don’t mean he don’t have nothin’ to learn.”
I smiled. Lizzie’s drawl was as affecting as it was contradictory. She often spoke in the coarse speech patterns of the slaves, but there were those rare times when she’d slip and speak in tones indicative of her education. When she first came to Bellevue, it was obvious she could read and write even though she tried to hide it.
“Where’s Jeb? I thought he’d be back from New Orleans by now.”
“Jeb be aw’right,” she told me and bustled out of the room.
Eating my breakfast in silence, I turned my attention to a small stack of theThe Daily Picayune, New Orleans’ largest newspaper, copies of which I had not read for days because of my illness. I took special note of the lengthy political articles about Louisiana’s possible secession from the union. It was late January and the Secession Convention was in full swing in Baton Rouge. Delegates were discussing the fate of Louisiana and whether she should remain in the Union.
The Committee of Fifteen, as they called themselves, had announced to the convention they were ready to report on the Ordinance of Secession, dissolving its relationship with U.S. government. South Carolina and Florida had already seceded with Alabama and Mississippi following days after. There was indeed a political tornado sweeping through the South and it was only a matter of time before the entire house of cards fell.
Many who lived in and around New Orleans were initially opposed to secession. A Unionist stronghold, the city relied heavily on the federal government for its economic survival. But that was then. What lay at the heart of the conflict now, whether one wanted to believe it or not, was slavery. Not states’ rights, not cotton, not Abraham Lincoln, but slavery. The South, in particular, and the North for all its denials, had come to rely on slaves for their livelihoods, to the extent it was unimaginable to think of an existence without them, even though it was becoming increasingly clear the prosperity slavery had wrought was coming at too high a price.
For more than a year, Louisiana had stood on the water’s edge waiting to see which way the political tides would flow. Fear of economic ruin and the election of Abraham Lincoln, a “Black Republican” president, had forced the political leaders of the state into taking drastic action. As a result, in the months prior to the November election of 1860, Louisiana ended up having a heated political presidential campaign. Democratic candidates John Bell, Stephen A. Douglas and John Breckenridge had their staunch supporters but Bell led the pack. As for Abraham Lincoln, he wasn’t even on the Louisiana ballot.
But when word reached the country that the “congressman from Illinois” had become the new president, shockwaves rippled throughout the land and killed any hopes for the Southern states to remain in the Union. And because of Lincoln’s victory, many Louisianans had called for secession. Yet, I, in my cautious way, refused to voice my opinion one way or the other, and maintained an ongoing silence which caused many of my so-called friends and business associates to label me a Union sympathizer. Later, I came to realize there was no middle ground on this issue. I had to publicly choose.
Chapter Two
The sound of horses’ hoofs brought me to the dining room window where I saw a carriage approaching rapidly down the long road, the Negro driver’s coat billowing wildly in the wind. When Lizzie joined me at the window, her face went dark.
“A lot done happened since you been sleep,” she said, drying her hands on a towel. “He got news and it ain’t good.”
“It appears that way,” I said, a sense of foreboding coming over me. So much had happened over these last months since Lincoln’s election that any news received from New Orleans was sure to have darkness attached to it.
“I’ll go set a place,” Lizzie said.
The sky was gray and heavy with ominous clouds coming in steady over the tall, cypress and oak trees that lined the long road which led to the main house. By the time Patrick opened the front door, I was waiting for the tall, robust man who stepped down from the carriage.
Joseph Rozier was a hard-nosed and unflinching attorney who lived in New Orleans. He was also one of my family’s oldest friends. Despite being in his seventies now, he moved with the agility of a young man despite his bulk and the grey hair that lined his temples. He had lived in New Orleans all his life, the descendants of French parents who had taught him and his siblings to balance their European sensibilities against the realities of what was deemed Louisiana’s culture.
As for our relationship, it was an interesting one. It was formed out of an allegiance to several things which we chose to remain silent about. There had been tensions, but there was also understanding. For my part, I could never look at him without remembering the moment when I, as a younger man, had gone to him in desperation, not once but twice.
“It’s good to see you still living,” he said as he entered the foyer and greeted me with a hearty hug.
“Much to the chagrin of some of your brethren,” I replied. “I’d be talking to God now if it hadn’t been for Lizzie.”
“Hmph. That’s why it pays to have smart Negroes around,” he said, handing his coat and hat to Patrick. “I’ve come not to like this slavery business over the years, but there are times when it’s useful.”
I could have offered twenty reasons why it was never useful for one man to own another -- the whippings, the abuse, and the cruelty. It was all too often a part of everyday life for the Negro and one that sometimes made the steeliest of hearts cringe. When I was a child, I was often confused by the behavior of the men who called themselves Southern gentlemen – men who, decked out in the latest European finery, had no qualms about being witness to the savage beating of their slaves for even the most minor of transgressions.
Colin Keegan, for instance, our plantation overseer and an Irishman who never knew his English father, was one who took little pity on slaves when they broke the rules. He often said his only goal in life was to “see to it that all nigras suffer’d.”
I lost no sleep when he finally died.
“Would you like some breakfast? Lizzie set you a place.”
Joseph spread his arms wide. “Look at me. Do I look like a man who turns down a meal?”
I laughed as we walked to the large dining area. Pulling his chair as close to the table as his stomach would allow, Rozier began to eat heartily.
