In the background Eddie could hear Frederick Douglass continuing to inform Fremont about the scarcity of slaves here.
“The slave owners couldn’t secure their slaves,” so they sold them further south,” Douglass explained. “The nature of the land has changed too. The old tobacco plantations of my childhood have been subdivided into smaller parcels. Most of those grow wheat. Slaves aren’t used as much on small farms. You’ll need to advance a couple counties deeper into Maryland’s Eastern Shore in order to find the tobacco plantations that work hundreds of slaves.”
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to move any further south,” replied Fremont. “This war has not been kind to commanders who failed to fortify their lines of communication. If I move any further south or east the Confederates will certainly try to cut me off from Pennsylvania. The best I could hope for would be an ignominious retreat. It will be best to fortify the ground we have already gained, which blocks the railroad into Wilmington and makes it difficult for the Confederates to threaten Philadelphia. I regret not being able to push far enough south to liberate slaves in large numbers, but I don’t see that as being an important enough objective at the moment to risk having this force cut off and destroyed.”
Douglass nodded. “Even if you don’t advance any farther, you’ll encourage some of the Negroes further south to make a run for our lines. They’ll try to escape at night, so warn your sentries not to shoot them. Now if we can only convince Mr. Lincoln to let the free Negroes fight for us, it might convince many more to join our cause.”
“I won’t ask Mr. Lincoln,” replied Fremont. “I’ll enlist the Negroes in the ranks and put the burden on the President to muster them out.”
“You will do that?” asked Douglass.
“You just watch me.”
“Well, God bless your pompous hide, you--!” exclaimed Douglass, stopping himself in mid sentence before he said out loud all he thought of Fremont..
They all laughed uproariously. No one laughed louder than Fremont, who didn’t seem to mind the very few he considered his true friends poking fun at his pretentiousness. Douglass smiled broadly, realizing by Fremont’s laughter, than he had passed within the general’s embrace of friendship.
“What about you, Douglass?” asked Fremont “I wouldn’t mind you — and Eddie — sticking with me for a while. Every slave we liberate is important to our cause, and both of you give powerful testimony that encourages Whites to respect free Negroes as their equals. It doesn’t do any good to liberate the Negroes if they are then to be despised as an inferior class of citizens. Our common cause will be strengthened if we encourage Free States Whites to believe that they have a stake in your progress from slavery to equality.”
“I’ll be pleased to accompany you,” answered Douglass at once. “Garrison has asked me to return to Boston to help him continue to publish The North Star Liberator. But I’m frankly afraid to do it. The Confederates haven’t gone so far as to kidnap any free Negroes and sell them back into slavery, but if they start it will very likely be with me. I also believe it’s better for me to dedicate myself to rallying the people inside our lines to fight for our cause rather than trying to persuade the people remaining in Boston to passively resist the Confederates.”
Douglass’ determination to work with Fremont inspired Eddie to think about his own role.
And what about me? Should I continue speaking at these rallies? Or should I pick up a gun and fight for the liberation of my people now that Fremont says he will enlist us. Maybe I ought to go back home and raise a company of Cass County Negroes and bring them to Fremont. That will show folks that Negroes can fight as well as Whites. A company of Free Negroes fighting here might even inspire the slaves of Maryland and Delaware to come into our lines to fight with us.
“General Fremont, Sir?”
“Yes, Mr. Bates.”
“With your permission I’d like to return to Michigan and see if I can raise up a company of free Negroes to fight with you. We’ll soonest earn our freedom if’n we show that we’ll fight for it.”
“Yes, Eddie, by all means!” exclaimed Fremont. “Return home and raise your company and bring them to me. I will prepare them to fight, and I promise I will fight them!”
Fremont reached into his pocket and removed the nine-page flowery speech that he had written as an address at tomorrow’s Liberation Ceremony. The speech was mostly written with a view toward promoting himself as the Great Emancipator. Fremont ripped the speech to shreds.
“Why did you do that?” asked Douglass.
“Because I realized that I don’t need a speech. All I need to do is let the world know that Eddie will be raising the first Negro Company. From now on I will not be your race’s liberator. You will liberate yourselves.”
31
Cincinnati, December 14, 1861
Confederate Colonel of Artillery Porter Alexander shouted a command to his telegrapher over the din of exploding shells: “Battery Mason. Adjust Fire. Up thirty. Right thirty. Fire bolts.”
The telegrapher clicked out the message. Minutes later solid bolts from the Parrot Rifles of Mason’s Battery on Covington Heights began slamming into the three-story building across Seventh Street to Alexander’s right. The Rebels firing out of the windows of the upper floors ceased fire at once, some struck down by the bolts and flying shards of brick and glass they scattered, while the rest fled out the back.
Alexander watched as another salvo collapsed the roof into the interior of the top floor. Then he shouted to the telegrapher, “Battery Mason. Cease fire.”
Alexander was not only the Confederate Army’s most respected artillery officer but also its chief signals expert. He was testing out his newly developed method of controlling indirect artillery fire by telegraph.
He shouted his next command: “Lilly Belle. Adjust Fire. Up fifty. Right fifty. Fire percussion.” The ground shook as one of the big shells plowed into the ground behind the vacated building and detonated. A debris cloud mushroomed up behind the building. The third floor fell on top of the second when the concussion shook it. Alexander hoped the round had killed or disabled any of the men who might have been preparing a defensible position behind the building. He called in two more shells.
He decided that this would be the last fire mission he called from Lilly Belle that day. Lilly’s “sister” Lady Kate had blown itself sky high two days before when its chamber proved unable to withstand the black powder charge that hurled its huge shells across town. A store of black powder carelessly placed near the gun had gone off too. The combined explosions killed twenty-two of Alexander’s gunners and wounded fifty more — the most dreadful day of the war for Alexander’s men so far.
After the explosion Alexander had called in fire support from Lilly sparingly. After each three rounds he allowed the chamber to cool for three hours before calling in the next mission. As soon as he had time he would devise a method for remote firing the huge gun so as never again to place a gun crew at risk of being killed by the exploding charge or premature detonation of the shell.
He looked at Major Roberdeau Wheat, commanding his Special Assault Battalion of Louisiana Tigers. The Tigers, late to the Battle of the Salient, were right where they needed to be in this fight. Lee had used them to fill out the depleted divisions of Cleburne, McCulloch, Van Dorn, Hindman and Hardee. Van Dorn was attacking Ormsby Mitchel’s army from the west side of Madison while Hardee and McCulloch had moved into its rear at Lawrenceburg. Cleburne’s division, its battered regiments filled out with fresh Tigers snarling for a fight, was hacking its way through the blasted ruins of Cincinnati.