February 13, 1863.
Tonight I have been talking with Cato Waring, one of my old
nurses in the hospital. The attempt to give a report of his history seems
futile. He is a quiet old black man, this Cato, with singular combination of
intellect and ready shrewdness, a subtlety of character that makes you feel as
if a serpent might silently coil around you at any moment, without the rustle
of a leaf. He appears dull and heavy, but is full of unspent sharpness and agility.
He is old, but not gray, body and spirit alike intact. The night after our
return from our expedition, I was telling them in the hospital about it and old
Cato sat, with his dull eyes bent upon the fire, seemingly indifferent to all,
till I came to the death of the rebel officer in the woods. Then his eyes
sparkled and glared at me. “Did you know his name?" “No." “Oh, I hope
to God it was my young master who went down that way.”
Tonight Cato came to my tent and began very quietly to tell
me of his life in slavery and his escape from it, but it was not long before
his tone and manner became too dramatic for me to take notes, and I felt as if
all the horrors of the accursed system were being poured upon my naked nerves.
His voice was always low, but commanding. He was born on the Santee river and “raised
by Mas’r Cooper as a pet.” But he was sent away to learn the carpenter's trade,
and after seven years apprenticeship returned home to find his old master was
dead and the estate involved by mismanagement on the part of the widow and
children. Finally, he and the other slaves were sold to pay the debts. Dr.
Waring, his new master, was a bad man, but not so bad as his wife.” The Dr.'s
family increased rapidly and his expenses were so great that Cato was made not only
driver, but overseer of the estate, a position he held till his escape, a
period of sixteen years. Dr. Waring and his wife ranked among the affectionate
specimens of humanity. “Dey ollus kiss wen he go out an wen he come in.” Mrs.
Waring was a neat housewife and made her servants “clean all de brasses an
eberyting befo' daylight in de mo’nin.” When she arose in the morning and
examined the furniture with her white handkerchief for dust, there were usually
one or two victims selected for the lash. It was Cato's business to wait at the
door for orders to apply from one hundred to five hundred lashes every morning
before going out to the plantation. If the victim was male, he was stripped and
cords were fastened to his fingers and then drawn over a horizontal pole above
his head, till his toes only, touched the ground; then the master would stand
behind Cato with a paddle and knock him over for any delinquency on his part.
The same treatment was applied to women, except that instead of stripping off
the clothing, the skirts and chemise were drawn up over the head. When the
parlor was filled with visitors, the mistress would wind a towel around the end
of a stick and have it thrust into the throat of the victim and it would come
out all covered with blood thus the screams of the tortured would be smothered.
These statements would seem exaggerated to me if I had not, over and over, in
my medical examinations in this regiment, found enormous horizontal scars
around the body, and, on inquiry, been told “Dat's what my ole Marsa had me
whipped.” Never once have these revelations come to me except by inquiry.
Finally, the war began. Old Cato heard the guns of Fort
Sumter and waited and waited to hear his master speak of it. He and all his
fellow slaves felt that the hour of deliverance had come. Finally, he said one
night to his old master, — young Doctor who “had been off to some place dey
calls Paris,” and who was worse than the old man; “What all dat tunder mean way
off dar?” “Oh, it's the d—d Yankees who want to steal all our property.” Of
course Cato was indignant at the Yankees and promised to stand by his master.
Time went ou and the rebels began to doubt their success and at the same time
began to swear that they would “work de niggers to deať [death] before the d—d
Yankees should have them.” Cato was compelled to exact tasks of the slaves that
were before unheard of. He could not do it, and told his master so one Sunday
night. The Doctor swore vehemently and ordered Cato to report himself in the
morning for chastisement. Cato said “I tanked him berry much for de information
an’ went to my hut an’ hung all de keys whar de ole woman could fin’ ’em, but
didn’t tell her what I'se gwine to do, cause she’d make such a hullaboo about
it.” But “Sunday mornin' befo' de hen git up,” Cato was in a dugout pushing his
way through the rice swamp, so that the dogs could not follow his trail. He had
gone far before daylight, and, during the day, lay quietly in his boat. Finally
he lost his way and had to leave the swamp and his boat, for he had been three
days without eating. When he unexpectedly met a white lady, he assumed
nonchalance, touched his hat and said, “howdye,” and told such a plausible
story that he got something to eat. At another time he went four days without
eating and in the evening saw a black man nailing up a coon-skin by torchlight
on the side of a hut. “Dis big ole man look like a religion feller,” and Cato
was almost on the point of trusting him enough to go up and ask for food, but
finally thought it safer to wait a little and try to steal something. He had
just entered the yard when a great dog caught him by the chest, but,
fortunately, got only his clothing in his mouth. His hickory cane silenced that
dog, but others came, the dogs. “an’ all de blacks an’ whites came down
togedder.” He ran to the woods and found a pond and waded half the night to
escape “I didn't git nullin for eat, but I wasn't hungry no mo' that night.”
At last he found shelter and food and rest under the roof of
a negro whom he could trust. He was then twenty-two miles from the river and in
the night a black horseman came and said a Yankee gunboat was “comin' up de
ribber, an’de Cap'n was holdin' out his arms an’ beck’nin’de niggahs fus' from
one sho' an' den from de odder.” Cato straightway started toward the river, but
there were many roads. The horseman agreed to break off pine boughs and drop
one in the right path at the parting of the ways. All during the dark night
Cato would get on his hands and knees to find the boughs at such partings and
then go on rejoicing. By some mistake he did not reach the river at the point
designated, and afterwards learned that his mistake had saved him from a trap
of the rebels for whom the black horseman was acting.
Another night he was lying under a garden fence when a rebel
was leaning over it, watching, intently, the house beyond, ready to shoot him
when he should jump from a window. “My heart did beat so hard I wondered he
didn't hear it, but he didn't an’ wen dey come to sarch de garden, I crawl on
my belly till I jump troo de gate an’ it rain so fass I knowed deyre guns
wouldn't go wen dey snapped em at me.” At last after wandering about “from de
secon’ week in May till de las' week in June I reach de gunboat.” His approach
to the boat was full of apprehension. Before he could be certain of the boat,
he saw soldiers on the shore and did not quite know whether they were Yankees
or rebels. So he wavered between holding up his “white rag” and keeping out of
sight. At last they saw him in his little boat, which he had somewhere
confiscated, and “I hol' up de rag an' de mo' de boat come, de mo' I draw back,
but oh, wen I git on de boat I thought I was in hebben.”
I shall not trouble you with more slave stories. It is too
much like trying to relate a tragedy acted by Rachel — very tame.
SOURCE: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society,
Volume 43, October, 1909—June, 1910: February 1910. p. 362-4
