The Good Lord Bird

He ordered the men and the slaves to chink out the walls, and they got busy. A feller named Phil, a slave feller, got some of the slaves together—there was ’bout twenty-five colored in there in all, some who had come or been gathered thereabouts along with those we brung, plus five white masters who set tight, not movin’—and them coloreds got busy. They chinked out some expert holes with pikes and loaded up the rifles. Lined ’em up one by one so the Old Man’s men could grab one after the other without having to load ’em up, and we prepared for perfect slumber.

31. Last Stand

The mob outside the gate waited a good hour or so for Colonel Washington to work whatever magic he had supposedly had, to exchange hisself and his Negroes for the white hostages. When it didn’t happen by the second hour, someone hollered out, “Where’s our colonel? How many hostages is you giving up for our colonel and his niggers?”

The Old Man stuck his face in the window and hollered, “None. If you want your colonel, come and get him.”

Oh, they throwed a hissy fit all over again. There was some hollerin’, fussin’, and huddlin’ up, and after a few minutes they walked ’bout two hundred militia through the gate, in uniform, marched ’em in there in formation, turned ’em against the engine house, and told ’em, “Fire!” By God, when they cut loose, it felt like a giant monster kicked the building. The whole engine house shook. Just a roaring and banging. Bricks and mortar chinked everywhere, from the roof pillars on down. Their firing blowed big pieces of brick mortar right clear through the walls of the Engine Works, and even tore off a big piece of the timber that held up the roof, it came crashing down.

But they didn’t overtake us. The Old Man’s men were well trained and they held steady, firing through the holes in the brick made by the militia’s firing, with him hollering, “Calm. Aim low. Make ’em pay dear.” They powered the militia with balls and drove ’em back outside the gate.

The militias gathered outside the walls again, and they was so drunk and mad now it was a pity. All that laughing and joking from the day before was gone now, replaced with full-out rage and frustration in every appearance. Some of them growed chickenhearted from that first charge, for several of their brothers had been hurt or deadened by the Captain’s men, and they peeled off and hauled ass away from the group. But more was coming down to the gate, and after a few minutes, they regrouped and come through the gate again in even greater numbers, for more men had arrived outside the armory to replace those that fell. Still, the Old Man’s men held them off. And that company drew back. They milled around out there by the safety of the gate, yelling and hollering, promising to string the Old Man up by his privates. Shortly after, they brung in a second company from somewhere ’bout. Different uniforms. Marched another two hundred or so into the gate, madder than the first, cussing and hooting, turned ’em on the building, and by the time they busted off their caps, the Old Man’s crew had diced, sliced, and gutted out a good number of ’em, and they broke loose for the gate running faster than the first, leaving a few more gutted or dead ’bout the yard. And each time the Virginians moved to fetch one of their wounded, one of the Old Man’s men poked his Sharps out the chinks in the brick wall and made ’em pay for them thoughts. That just got ’em hotter. They was burning up.

The white hostages, meantime, was dead quiet and terrified. The Old Man put the Coachman and the Emperor in charge of minding ’em, and had a good twenty-five slaves in there running ’bout busy. They wasn’t bewildered no more, them coloreds was with it. And not a peep was heard out of any of them white masters.

Now we wasn’t far from their saviors. We could hear the militia talking and yelling outside, screaming and cussing. That crowd growed bigger and bigger, and with that come more confusion to ’em. They’d say let’s go this way, try this, and someone would shout that plan down, then someone else would holler, “My cousin Rufus is wounded in the yard. We got to get him out,” and someone would say, “You get him!” and a fight would break out among ’em, and a captain would shout more directions, and they’d have to break up the fighting among themselves. They was just discombobulated. And while they done this, the Captain was ordering his men and the colored helpers, in calm fashion, “Reload, people. Aim low. Line the rifles on the walls loaded so you can grab one after you fire the first. We are hurting the enemy.” The men and them slaves was firing and reloading so fast, so efficient, seemed like a machine. Old John Brown knowed his business when it come to fighting a war. They could have used him in the great war that was to come, I’ll say that.

But his luck couldn’t hold. It runned out like it always done with him. In stitches. Clean out, the way it always did with him.