Scene at Beaufort, S.C.—Negro Hucksters Disposing of their
Produce to the Soldiers.—From a Sketch by W.T. Crane
From Frank Leslie’s American Soldier in the Civil War, page 430, 1895
The pleasures of honest ownership were as sweet to the soldiers, even in the land of plenty, as to the most exemplary Christian citizen. Then there came also the feeling of independence when the mess chest, so long dependent upon Uncle Sam’s liberality and thoughtfulness could be reinforced by fresh and unaccustomed viands. Hence, it is not strange that negro hucksters carried on a thriving trade in camp. The troops would purchase anything from cabbages to live stock. No doubt the man-o’-warsman driving off the young porker might have secured the same ration clandestinely, for whenever the negroes could get at the stores of produce the troops could also, if on foraging bent, but he probably made a very clever bargain, to his mind, and found immense satisfaction in exhibiting his prize on the road back to the rendezvous without being compelled to sneak along the by-ways and dodge the argus-eyed provost guard. The negroes likewise amused their new customers with their strange and grotesque dress, their rollicking humor and ready tongues. Generally speaking, the blacks may be classed as the Yankees of the South. Well aware of the mission of the Northern fighters on behalf of their race they relieved them of their greenbacks as eagerly and as mercilessly as though the process that of taking spoil of the Egyptians.
Print from wood engraving, probably originally black and white.