“We have been slow,” said Captain Sybil, “to see our danger and to do our duty.  Our delay has cost us thousands of lives and millions of dollars.  Yet it may be it is all for the best.  Our national wound was too deep to be lightly healed.  When the President issued his Emancipation Proclamation my heart overflowed with joy, and I said:  ‘This is the first bright rift in the war cloud.’”

“And did you really think that they would accept the terms of freedom and lay down their arms?” asked Robert.

“I hardly thought they would,” continued Captain Sybil.  “I did not think that their leaders would permit it.  I believe the rank and file of their army are largely composed of a mass of ignorance, led, manipulated, and moulded by educated and ambitious wickedness.  In attempting to overthrow the Union, a despotism and reign of terror were created which encompassed them as fetters of iron, and they will not accept the conditions until they have reached the last extremity.  I hardly think they are yet willing to confess that such extremity has been reached.”

“Captain,” said Robert, as they left Colonel Robinson’s tent, “I have lived all my life where I have had a chance to hear the ‘Secesh’ talk, and when they left their papers around I used to read everything I could lay my hands on.  It seemed to me that the big white men not only ruled over the poor whites and made laws for them, but over the whole nation.”

“That was so,” replied Captain Sybil.  “The North was strong but forbearing.  It was busy in trade and commerce, and permitted them to make the Northern States hunting-grounds for their slaves.  When we sent back Simms and Burns from beneath the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument and Faneuil Hall, they mistook us; looked upon us as a lot of money-grabbers, who would be willing to purchase peace at any price.  I do not believe when they fired on the ‘Star of the West’ that they had the least apprehension of the fearful results which were to follow their madness and folly.”

“Well, Captain,” asked Robert, “if the free North would submit to be called on to help them catch their slaves, what could be expected of us, who all our lives had known no other condition than that of slavery?  How much braver would you have been, if your first recollections had been those of seeing your mother maltreated, your father cruelly beaten, or your fellow-servants brutally murdered?  I wonder why they never enslaved the Indians!”

“You are mistaken, Robert, if you think the Indians were never enslaved.  I have read that the Spaniards who visited the coasts of America kidnapped thousands of Indians, whom they sent to Europe and the West Indies as slaves.  Columbus himself, we are informed, captured five hundred natives, and sent them to Spain.  The Indian had the lesser power of endurance, and Las Cassas suggested the enslavement of the negro, because he seemed to possess greater breadth of physical organization and stronger power