THE GLORIOUS END.

In closing this brief sketch of my experiences in the war, I would ask my readers to go back of the war a little with me.  I want to show them a few of the dark pictures of the slave system.  Hark!  I hear the clanking of the ploughman’s chains in the fields; I hear the tramping of the feet of the hoe-hands.  I hear the coarse and harsh voice of the negro driver and the shrill voice of the white overseer swearing at the slaves.  I hear the swash of the lash upon the backs of the unfortunates; I hear them crying for mercy from the merciless.  Amidst these cruelties I hear the fathers and mothers pour out their souls in prayer,—­“O, Lord, how long!” and their cries not only awaken the sympathy of their white brothers and sisters of the North, but also mightily trouble the slave masters of the South.

The firing on Fort Sumter, in April of 1861, brought hope to the slaves that the long looked for year of jubilee was near at hand.  And though the South won victory after victory, and the Union reeled to and fro like a drunken man, the negroes never lost hope, but faithfully supported the Union cause with their prayers.

Thank God, where Christianity exists slavery cannot exist.

At last came freedom.  And what joy it brought!  I am now standing, in imagination, on a high place just outside the city of Columbia, in the spring of 1865.  The stars and stripes float in the air.  The sun is just making its appearance from behind the hills, and throwing its beautiful light upon green bush and tree.  The mocking birds and jay birds sing this morning more sweetly than ever before.  Beneath the flag of liberty there is congregated a perfect network of the emancipated slaves from the different plantations, their swarthy faces, from a distance, looking like the smooth water of a black sea.  Their voices, like distant thunder, rend the air,—­

    “Old master gone away, and the darkies all at home,
    There must be now the kingdom come and the year of jubilee.”

The old men and women, bent over by reason of age and servitude, bound from their staves, praising God for deliverance.