The domestic relations of the freedmen, if indeed they can be said to have any, are, to use one of their own expressions, “the most twisted-up affairs conceivable.” This, however, is one of the legitimate fruits of slavery, and it will take many generations of freedom to bring them out of their present condition of chaos. What most surprises one in this connection is, that families having no legal bond hang together as well as they do.

“My husband and I have lived together fifteen years,” says the mother of a large family of children, “and we wants to be married over again now.”

“I have lived with my husband twenty-one years,” says another. “He has always been good to me, and my ways have pleased him, and so we are both satisfied.” “She is my fifth wife,” says an old man, of the present incumbent of his bed and board, “and I believe I could live with her anywhere.”

“They kept my husband away from me three years,” says Judy, “and tried to make me marry another man, but I wouldn’t do it. They couldn’t make me love anybody but Sam; of course they couldn’t, and I wouldn’t marry anybody else. But if my master found him on his grounds, he’d whip him; and if his aster knew of his being away fro home, he’d whip him; and then they sold him away, and I couldn’t hear where he was. After he had been gone three years, I was sick and master sent me to the doctor’s to be cured. One night I heard some one knocking at my doe, and I called out, ‘Who’s thar?’ ‘Sam!’ ‘Sam who?’ ‘You wouldn’t know any better than you does now if I tol’ you. I want to find the way to Dr. T’s.’ ‘You is at Dr. t’s now, but who is you.’ ‘My name is Sam, but they call me Sam Beverly.’ (They did call him Sam Beverly, because he ‘longed to Miss Harrit Beverly.) Then I got out of bed, and crawled to the doe, and opened it, and I says, ‘Sam, is this you?’ and he caught me in his arms, and says, ‘Judy is this you?’ and I was so glad, and after that I couldn’t get well fast enough. He had been sold back into that part of the country, and had got leave to come up to the doctor’s to see his wife. Then he coaxed his master to buy me, and we have lived together ever since, and that was eleven years ago. My owner said he wouldn’t sell me if I was well, but he thought I was going to die and sole me off his hands, so as not to lose me entirely.”

Yet among many remarkable instances of family devotion and constancy, we must not be surprised to find occasional exceptions.

“Do you think,” I asked of a sick woman, “that your husband will ever return to take care of you and his little children?” “Do’ know, missus, men is so kind o’ queer like, ‘pears like dar’s no ‘pending on ‘em any how.”

“My husband done lef’ me for good,” said another. “’Pears like men isn’t studyin’ ‘bout one woman now’days, dey’s studying;’ ‘bout two or three.” These uncharitable remarks were doubtless aimed only at persons of their own color, and intended to have no wider application.

“Why in the world,” I asked of a sensible woman, who was calling her boy ‘Jeff Davis,’ across the way, “Did you give that name to your child?” “I didn’t want to call him so, missus, but ole master named him, and I couldn’t help it; I wanted to call him Thomas.” “You had better change it now, and not compel him to bear that name through life. He will be ashamed of it when he grows up.” “Yes, missus, I think I’ll call him THOMAS GRANT.” They invariably give their names Tom, Billy, Jack; and when interrogated as to their patronymics, hesitate as if trying to invent a name, and then give that of their former owner, or the town or country from whence they came. Or they will answer, “My name is Peter, but my title is Raleigh;” or, “My name is Mary, but they call me Branch.” It is not unusual to find in a family of half a dozen children, as many shades of color, and as many different titles.

Still greater is the uncertainty as to age. “I am seventeen or seventy,” says a young woman; and a middle-aged man asks for something for his old mother, “thirty years old.” The dates from which they reckon are, Christmas, Planting time, Fourth of July, and Corn time; and the unlucky waif who does not make his advent at one of these epochs, must date from that nearest. From the mixed character of his domestic relations has perhaps arisen the charge that the negro is wanting in domestic affection.

That there should be some grounds for such accusation does not appear strange, when we consider that to the slave an increase of children is only an increase of gain to the4 pocket of his owner. The child born under bondage belongs neither to father nor mother, but to master. The parents can not even select a name for it, and are sure of possessing it only during the first month. After that their only parental privilege is to labor at odd moments for its maintenance; and at any day it may be separated from them forever by sale, or division of estate. This, they say, is so much worse than death, “because when your child dies, you know where it is; but when he is sold away, you never know what may happen to him.”

“My master was the father of two of my girls” says a freed-woman, “and when they were both dead he whipped me because I said I was glad of it. But I was glad, for I had seen them suffer with sickness, and I knew if they had lived master would sell them away from me as he had the others, but when they were dead he could not mistreat them, as he had mistreated me.” That the negro is incapable of the truest and most devoted affection, and that his heart, in absence is afflicted with the same longing for kindred as the heart which throbs under a white skin, is attested by abundant proof. Witness the anxiety of mothers peering into every strange face, to see if they can discern some trace of the long-lost child, their agonized expressions, when attempting to relate the horrible tale of separation, old men begging to have letters written to the place where their boys were last heard from, children undertaking long and tiresome journeys because they can not repress the yearning to see once more the face of the old father or mother if peradventure they be yet alive.

Looking out one cold day in January, I saw an old cart body with a mule attached to it, standing at the door of a cabin, whose occupant was suffering from a ‘chronic disease that had disabled her for life. On inquiry, I found that her sister and brother-in-law had come a distance of seventy miles, in this crazy old vehicle, over the rough winter roads, to take her and her two little children home, so that the family might all be near to their aged mother. They had “made corn enough to last them untwell corn time again” and had no doubt of being able to provide for all. The next morning was cold and frosty, but they started off at an early hour, on the journey which would occupy two or three days, the invalid lying in the bottom of the wagon, the younger child sitting by her side, while the brother, sister, and elder child walked. Where in the annals of our own race can we find an example of more affectionate self-sacrifice? Returning to camp one morning from a ride of a few miles in the country, I overtook an old man, walking in the same direction, and entering into conversation with him, found that he was in search of a daughter who had been separated from him and her mother when an infant of a few months, by division of estate. From that time he had had no certain news of her, though he had all the time reason to believe that she was not far away. For the last three years he had been traveling through, Nottaway, Dinwiddie, Chesterfield, and Amelia Counties, pushing his inquiries wherever his limited means would allow, but he had obtained no clue to her until last night, when he received a letter telling him that she was at Poplar Grove Encampment, the mother of three children. I inquired her name, and told him that I knew her well, and would lead him to her house. So riding up to the little cabin under the tall trees, I called her out and presented her to her father. The iron yoke of servitude has made them undemonstrative, and their emotions are expressed only by a clasping of hands, and a mute, inquiring gaze into each other’s faces. Presently the little grand-daughter walks up, a pretty quadroon child of eight or nine years, with glossy black curls, a tin vessel of water poised on her head. “Lucy Ann, this is your grandfather.” The child, still preserving the poise, lays her hand in that of the old man, with “howdy’ Grandfather.” He immediately begins talking about taking them home to the mother, at Nottawy, and in a few days they are gone. Instances of this kind are constantly occurring, where the magnetism of kinship, as strong in the black man as in the white, is drawing together and reuniting family circles, with which slavery has made such fearful havoc. The kindness of the colored people toward orphans, and homeless children is remarkable, and in this respect their humanity often puts to shame that of the whites. Perhaps the sad experience of their race in the rending of domestic ties, and the sorrows of orphanage may account for the tenderness with which they regard these unfortunates, and the readiness with which they place them among their own children, and divide with them their scanty morel. Not long since an old man came into camp, bringing in his arms a child of about two years (having walked with her twelve miles), which he said he found a year ago last Christmas, in one of the owner’s outhouses, left entirely alone.

He had kept her ever since, and the family had grown so fond of her, that nothing but poverty compelled him now to part with her. “But where are her father and mother.” “As to her father,” he said, glancing at her light skin and smooth auburn hair, “he wouldn’t acknowledge her if he could be found, and the mother, they told me, was compelled to leave the place by barbarous treatment.” The child had evidently been well cared for, and when the old man set her down, and turned reluctantly away she cried bitterly at being left behind, but a good old aunty in camp immediately adopted her, and she is now perfectly happy with her new mammy.”

POPLAR SPRINGS, VA., April 9, 1866