George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

[159] I think a few outsiders joined them, for the line extended across the room, and there were more than I remembered to have seen around the place. What a sight! what an hour! Steadfastly, though in apathy, this motley gang of dark and ragged creatures gazed at me in wonder. The gray-haired uncle, the wrinkled auntie, the young, the middle-aged,--there they were, to hear from my lips the word their too-long-enslaved faculties could hardly appreciate. “I have sent for you,” I said, “to tell you that from to-day, for all your lives, you are free. You belong to no one, you need work for no one unless you wish.” I paused and waited; but there was no movement, not a word in reply. “Wherever,” I continued, “our armies go, we shall set all the slaves free; and now that we are here, you are forever hereafter your own masters.” Still, not a word was uttered; but instead thereof there was an anxious, earnest, painful look of inquiry, as if the mind could not grasp the subject. “Can you say nothing,” I asked, “can you do nothing, to show that you are glad? Can't you even turn a summersault in reply?” For a moment there was hesitation; and then, from the gray-haired old darky at the end to one younger and more agile, “Go ober, George.” In the most solemn and matter-of-fact rendering of obedience to an order, down went “George's” head on the carpet, and over he flopped with an awkward thud. This was all; and thus with senses dull to all it meant the line filed out, each heart beating with some undefined sensation, as if a great joy were coming.

Truly, the hour of the negro's triumph had come at last. They had seen their master's glance of scorn at the threatened invasion; they had trembled before his imperious will, and in their ignorance had come to feel that none could withstand him. No wonder that they could not take it in. Here, in the very home of their toils, they had seen