found on most farms west of Springfield. The black
family lives in a little outhouse. “The negroes here
are very prolific, like the rest of the cattle. The young
ones are well fed, especially while they are still calves.
Moreover, the slavery is very bearable. The negro is
to be looked on as the servant of a peasant; the
negress does all the coarse house-work; and the black
children wait on the white children. The negro can
take the field in the place of his master, and so you do
not see a regiment in which there are not a large number
of blacks; and there are well-grown, strong, and
sturdy fellows among them. There are, also, many
families of free blacks here, who occupy good houses,
have means, and live entirely in the style of the other
inhabitants. It looks funny enough when Miss
Negress pulls up her woolly hair over a cushion, puts a
little shade-hat on her head, wraps herself in her mantle,
and shuffles along the road in this finery, with a
slave negress waddling behind her.”[1]
Baroness Riedesel was making her first observations of the American people. She relates that one night her husband was ill, and that the guard were drinking and making a noise before his door. He sent word to them to stop, whereupon they only redoubled their clamor. Frau von Riedesel then went out, told them that her husband was sick, and begged them to make less noise. They were quiet immediately, “a proof,” says the baroness, “that this nation also has respect for our sex.” The citizen officers of America were a continual puzzle to the Germans. No story was too extravagant for the latter to believe. “Their generals,
- ↑ Schlözer's “Briefwechsel,” vol. iv. pp. 363-366.
