Been in the Storm so Long

Hiral Madhani
November 10, 2010
Mrs. Johnson

Been In the Storm So Long

Been in the storm so long, by Leon Litwack, is great book about the aftermath of slavery in the American south in 1866. It gives you different stories about the slaves and their experiences during and after World War II. A lot of people are introduced in this book and there a lot of names. It commences wit hthe Civil War and continues through the Emancipation Proclamation, Confederate defeat, and the beginnings of congressional reconstruction. In 1860, Litwack argues, southern whites and blacks maintained a traditional slave to master relationship. Usually the slaves would get beaten and abused harshly. The slave masters would treat them like trash. However, with the turmoil of the Civil War, these relationships changed drastically. The illusions of the old system were dissolved. The tensions of the slaves we revealed more starkly and they were treated a little better. The relationship between the slave and the master was totally different. Litwack gives us examples of how these relationships changed.
So when the war started, neither the blacks nor the whites really knew what was happening or why it was happening. The scenes and the noise of the war would distract the slaves. They watched the military drills with fascination and learned some of the words of the patriotic songs from hearing them all day. They also stood in front of the courthouse and always listened in on the gossip of the war. Although they didn’t know what was happening, the war did affect them. Both the blacks and whites were physically and emotionally affected by the demands of the war. Food was scarce and clothing was now limited. Both were imposed with hardships, but the blacks had a harder time dealing with it. They didn’t have money, whereas the whites would have little money to help them survive.
The scenes of the aftermath of battles that the slaves witnessed would never be forgotten. Martha Cunningham, who was raised near Knoxville, Tennessee, recalled walking over hundreds of dead soldiers lying on the ground and listening to the groans of the dying. (Litwack 7) William Walters and his mother recall watching the wounded being carried to a clearing across the battlefield. They heard soldiers fighting for their life and cussing God and Man. When the masters or their son had to leave for war, the slaves were immune to the human tragedies that befell their families. They were too close to the masters or the family. They felt so sad and hurt that their master or his sons were going to war and possible never come back. Nancy Smith recalled the day when she first saw her mistress cry. She saw her walking back and forth saying, “Poor Benny’s been killed.” The slaves would see their families cry, and they would go into the corner and cry themselves. They didn’t want to show everyone else how hurt they were, so they would hide their tears. Some slaves, however, were so happy that the master and the sons left because they were so mean to them. They were happy that they would not get abused no more. Sometimes, the master would leave the mistress in charge of the plantation and the slaves. Some slaves would be okay with it, but sometimes, the mistress was worse than the master. One slave said, “Wash Hodges was gone away for four years and Missus Hodges was meaner’n the devil all the time. Seems like she jus’ hated us worser than ever. She said blabber-mouth niggers done cause the war.” Sometimes, if the master trusted one of the slaves well enough, he would appoint the slave to be in charge of the plantation and the rest of the slaves. Andrew Goodman, who had worked on the Texas plantation, was left in charge of the plantation along with some other slaves when the master went to war for four years.
Slaves would really want to know what the war was about and any news about it. They would do anything to get information about the war. Most of the slaves were illiterate, but there were a few who knew how to read and write so they would be the ones who would access the information and then pass it on. They would go county to county with the information with secrecy and accuracy. This is what the slaves called the Grapevine Telegraph. It contained code words that enabled them to carry on the conversations about forbidden subjects about the war and their masters and mistresses.
Chapter 2 basically talks about the blacks involvement with the army. It was very a very controversial topic because some disagreed that blacks should be allowed to fight with the whites in the war. When the Civil War broke out, Fredrick Douglas who was a black abolitionist and a former a slave, believed that enlisting the slaves into the army was a great idea. He believed that he could assemble 10,000 slaves to enlist within thirty days. He said that, “one black regiment alone would be, in such a war, the full equal of two white ones.” (Litwack 66) He truly believed that blacks would do so much better in the military than the whites could. But the north was not yet ready for this revolutionary move to take place. They were not ready to have blacks fighting against them. However, many believed that to enlist the blacks into the army, would be for the betterment of this war. They believed that it would preserve the valuable lives of the white men. The very best men in the North were dying in swamps and quickly catching diseases. The nation could ill afford the loss of these men. They believed that white men were irreplaceable, but if a black man died, you could just replace him with another black man. The voice of the African Methodist Episcopal Church believed that, “blacks were especially adapted to service in the south because they were less susceptible to diseases which easily felled white men. To see if blacks were ready to fight in the war, they wanted to did a test first. They wanted the blacks to fight against the Indians to resolve any doubts which persisted about the military capabilities of the black men. This test failed because some believed that black men would fight differently with Indians then their enemies. So this test was useless and would not really show their fighting capabilities. However, after mush arguments and disputes, the black men were allowed to fight in the army during the Civil War.