An American Album 150 Years of

For over 150 years, Harper's Magazine has explored the American experience with a fiercely independent spirit and spectacular writing. That experience is available in this magnificent illustrated volume, spanning the decades and encompassing writing from Melville and Twain to Normal Mailer, David Mamet, and Annie Dillard. This beautiful volume includes reports, poetry, fiction, commentary, critiques of contemporary society and politics, speeches, humor - plus more than 200 photographs, illustrations, and other artwork, originally published in the magazine.

Excerpt

The Freedman's Story

by M. Schele de Vere

October 1866

I have thought that a plain, unvarnished account of a servant's trialsin his efforts to secure his freedom might not be uninteresting. Itis given as nearly as possible in his own words. Oby is now withme, my dining-room servant. He has learned to read himself what Ihave written.
Charlottesville, Virginia. M. S. de V.

My name is Oby; they say it is because my father was an Obeah man, when he liveddown South in Florida and drove a stage. I have heard him say, to the contrary,that he belonged, at the time I was born, to a man by the name of Overton, andthat that is my true name. So when I went down to town the other day, and theProvost-Marshal asked me if I could sign my own name, I boldly wrote down "Mr.Overton Paragon." [...]

    I was nearly grown?I may have been about nineteen or twenty years old?whenthe Yankees came right down upon us. We had been expecting them often before,and many is the time Uncle Henry came running in where mother was and criedout, "God be thanked, they are coming, they are coming!" And mother askedhim, "Who are you talking about?" and he would say, "Our deliverers, theYankees, whom God sends to make us all free!" But mother did not like hisways at all, and when he was gone she would take me and brother Henry by herlittle stool close to the fire and say: "Now, boys, don't you think you'll beso much better off when you are free. Folks have to work every where, free orslave, black or white; and it's much better for you to be with genteel folks,and go to church, [...] than to be way off, where you have not any body whocares for you."

    Mother was mighty good to us, and I know she meant itall for the best, but, to save my life, I could not help thinkingof what Uncle Henry said, and what a fine thing itwould be to be free, and to have twelve dollars a month andnothing to do. So I went over to Colonel Wood's Aleck andwe talked it over behind the wood-pile, where nobody couldhear us, and he told me how he knew a plenty more whowould go away as soon as ever the Yankees came. He saidthey were fighting for us, and if we wanted to go we neednot run away by night, [...] but we might ride off on a finehorse, in the middle of the day, and our masters could notsay a word against it for fear of the Yankees. So I promised Iwould join him, and when we heard that General Sheridanwas coming this way, with a hundred thousand men, weknew that the Confederates could not stand before him, andwe agreed we would go off all together. [...]

    And so it did come about one fine, clear morning. OnMonday a man in gray had come racing up the turnpike,looking right and left under his broad-brimmed, slouchedhat, and gone into town. Uncle Henry had met him as hecame up, and shook his head and said: "Now, I should notwonder if that was a real Yankee." They all laughed at him,and asked him if he did not see the Confederate gray andthe ragged hat the man wore. But he shook his head andsaid: "Now, I'll tell you, boys, it may be so, and it may not beso; but that man there did not ride like one of our folks, andhe had his eyes too busy and his hand too near his revolverto be one of our soldiers." That morning early there cametwo, and three, and at last a whole number of these gray-coats.[...]

    On Tuesday, early in the morning, as soon as master hadhad his breakfast, we all slipped out and went down to theroad, where we found a great many people standing aboutand talking of what the Yankees were going to do with thehouse, and the servants, and the town itself. Down by thelake, where the road from the house comes into the turnpike,and not far from the little lodge, stood a heap of gentlemen,who had come up from town to beg pardon of theGeneral, and to ask him not to burn them all out. Theywere mightily scared, and Mr. Fowler, the tailor, who is agreat goose, as I have heard it said often and often, lookedwhite and shook in all his limbs. It could not be from thecold, for although the rain had stopped overnight, it wasquite mild in the morning. Alongside of them, but a littleapart, stood master and some of his friends; I don't know ifthey had come too to ask the Yankees to spare the house.Soon one man came flying down the hill, and then another,and then three or four together, galloping right by us withoutever stopping, and just crying one after another, "Theyare coming! they are coming!" [...] Every now and thensomebody would cry out, "There they are!" and we alllooked up to the top of the hill, behind which the road washid, and when a man slowly rose over the brow and it turnedout that he was on horseback, we thought sure enough therewere the Yankees. So we stood hours and hours, and justwhen we thought they would not be coming that day, twomen rode up the hill and down again slowly, then threemore, then a dozen or more all in a body, with flags in theirhands; and at last the whole turnpike was blue, and we knewfor a certainty they were come. We just looked at oneanother, and I felt mighty queer; but Uncle Henry and allthe others, who stood way down by the stile, looked exactlyas if they were going to shout to the sky and to jump out oftheir skin. Aleck looked at me too, and winked, and shut hiseyes, and shook all over, till I could not help myself, and Ilaughed, and they all laughed, and it set the others down atthe stile a-laughing, and we held our sides and did not mindmaster and his friends looking at us as if they did not like itat all.

    When the first officer came up to where Mr. Fowlerstood, he rushed forward and came near falling between thehorses' feet, and they all cried out together, I don't knowwhat; but the tailor had the biggest mouth, and he talkedloudest. So I suppose they heard him, and one of the officerssaid something about private property being spared, butpublic property must be given up.

    Just then master walked up himself, like a real gentlemanthat he is, and although he was on foot and had noteven a spur on his boot, he looked as good a man as the bigofficers on their fine horses. One of them told him he wasnot the General, but he would send up a guard as soon asthey got into town. Then they moved on, and such a sight!They looked very different from our poor Confederate soldiers,with their sleek horses and bright swords, and therewas not a ragged jacket or a bare foot among them all. Theyhad, every one of them, a pile of good things strapped upbehind and before their saddles, and a good many had a finehorse by their side with all sorts of packages and parcelsstrapped upon their back, ever so high, but nobody in thesaddle. [...] We stood there and looked and looked until wewere tired, for there was no end to the horses, and the bigguns, and the wagons, and oh, they had every thing so niceand so whole, though they were bespattered from head tofoot; I did not think soldiers could look so well. At last theywere nearly all gone, and I and Aleck went back.

    When we came to the other side of the lake we sawMiss Mary and some of the other young ladies standing bythe window up stairs, and some of them were crying; butMiss Mary waved a little flag, such as our soldiers have, rightin the face of the Yankees. But master looked up and gaveher such a look! Miss Mary went away from the window,and when they sent for her to come down to dinner, she toldFlora to tell master she had a bad headache and did notwant any dinner. Soon after the bell rang, and when I wentto the front-door there stood a big Yankee officer, with hissword by his side and the mud all over him, and he asked ina very soft voice if master was at home. I did not like muchhis talking of my master and...