May 29, 1863

May 29, 1863

Letter from Chauncey Herbert Cooke, May 29, 1863
My dear mother:

Your last letter came in due time, just two and a half days from the hour it was written. It must have been dated wrong. I got a letter from father the same day. It had been held up somewhere. I suppose the mail clerks get things mixed sometimes.
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We are under orders to march on short notice. We don't know if it means to go south, north, east or west. It means just one thing and nothing else "be ready." A soldier can't find any fault and if he does he is put in the guard house or if on a march he is tied up by the thumbs.

We have cooked up five day's rations and are ready at the first note of command to fall in. I am in a mighty hurry and must make this letter brief. Just another word. One of my mates wants me to say a good word for him to sister D. He is a nice clean fellow and all right. His only fault is quite common he don't think the black race is just human I can't beat him in argument but I know in my heart he is wrong about these poor wretched black people. You need not get excited, marching orders may not mean anything.

We may not strike tents for a month yet.

May 30th
Was out last night where the evening gun, a black cannon booms the hour of sunset. A man pulls a string called a lanyard and a roar that shakes the great bluff follows, and all this means sunset. I learned last night what it meant in French. I was standing near the big black cannon which stands almost straight above the river some 300 feet. A negro sweep doing police work, a fine looking mulatto was idly leaning upon his shovel and staring at a passing boat. What are you thinking about I asked? Taking off his dirty cap and bowing, he answered with a smile, "I kind hates to tell you, but I was thinking of my Jewlarke." I didn't know what a Jewlarke was so I asked him. "Why Massa he answered just a sweetheart," and hen he told me his story how he was a slave in Louisina, how he came out as cook for his master who was a Lieutenant in a Louisina Regiment, how his master's cavalry company was surprised by Union cavalry was fired upon by our boys, how he fell down to make believe he was dead and when our boys came up, he jumped to his feet and came back to Columbus with our boys. He had been at work in the fort at Columbus ever since. Whenever he spoke he took off his cap. I asked him what he done that for he said slaves had to do that in the south. I asked him if he was glad he was free and he said, "O yes Massa, I would be glad if I had my Kizzie wid me." (Kizzie was his sweetheart). The poor fellow took off his hat as he said this and slowly replaced it again. I am sure I saw tears in the fellow's eyes. The song of Nellie Gray came to my mind. It disappoints me that the negroes have never heard these songs. They stare at you when you sing them. While we were talking the gunner came and fixing the lanyard pulled the cord with a jerk and with a mighty roar that sent a tremor thru the bluff and a black smoke that hid the river for a moment told us that the sun had set and the flagman at head quarters slowly lowered the stars and stripes. Soliquasha, said my colored friend. What do you mean by that I asked. That is French he replied meaning sunset. Here was a slave teaching me French. Mother do you know I asked myself this question, what right have I simply because I am white to be the master race, while this man knowing more than I should be a slave because he is black. He called himself a Creole; that is a negro born in Louisina. He said he was born in a Parish 50 miles from New Orleans. His master raised sugar and rice and they toted it on two wheel carts to New Orleans where they sold it. His Massa's plantation was long side a live oak swamp that was full of deer, bear and aligators. He said the "Gaitors" warnt so bad as folks let on. "De niggers had a swimming hole in de bayou whar an old Gator had raised a nest of young uns ever
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year. In the winter the gaitors buried themselves like frogs in the mud. When they came out in the spring you could hear them bellow all night long." I don't know and I don't care whether this fellow was stuffing me or not. I was interested. Things he said about New Orleans and things he told me about his master's plantation away back in the swamps made me think of the story of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It looks as tho this war was to change all this. The South has had a mighty soft snap with darkies to do their work for a hundred years, while their masters have grown rich and insolent to us of the north. The papers don't say much about it but the truth is these slaveholders, these three hundred and fifty thousand chivalrous southern gentlemen, who own some four million of poor ignorant fellows who pushed to the front and mowed down by Union bullet don't know what they are fighting for. Love to father, brother and sister D.

Your son,

CHAUNCEY.