Chief steward

“ In our own army the President is Commander-in-Chief, and the command descends through a multitude of subordinate grades down to the lowest commissioned officer in the service. We have "Articles of War" and "Regulations," and the entire discipline and government of the army is committed to writing. There is no chance to enshroud in mystery the ability to command. For ordinary military command, with intelligence the chief requisite, little is required beyond courage, firmness and good judgment. These qualities are in no respect natural barriers for colored men. ”

“ The 80th Regiment was sent with the 1st European Light Infantry to silence the guns, and the 80th was successful in capturing three. "A more wonderful battle never was. Within 150 yards of one another were 8,000 British troops against an unknown number of enemies yet unbroken." All the Governor-General's staff were killed or wounded before the day of retribution arrived. The Commander-in-Chief and the Governor-General of India, Sir Henry Hardinge, placed themselves in front of the two wings of the army "to prevent the troops from firing" until they closed! ”

“ Proclamation for silence having been made by the [Pg 418] Lord Steward's serjeant-at-arms, the commission was read, the lords standing up, uncovered. Then his Grace, making obeisance to the lords, reseated himself; and Garter, and the Black Rod, with their reverences, jointly presented the white staff, on their knees, to his Grace. Thus fully invested with his office, the Lord Steward took his staff in his hand and descended from the woolsack to a chair prepared for him on an ascent before the throne. ”

“ Battalion Ohio Volunteer Infantry," by the Battalion Adjutant, Lieutenant Nelson Ballard, following the close of this chapter.
[pg 299]
CHAPTER XII. COLORED OFFICERS. By Captain Frank R. Steward, A.B., LL.B., Harvard, Forty-ninth U.S. Volunteer Infantry—Appendix.
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Of all the avenues open to American citizenship the commissioned ranks of the army and navy have been the stubbornest to yield to the newly enfranchised. Colored men have filled almost every kind of public office or trust save the Chief Magistracy. ”

“ But we find in every place a steward, and in each town the king's reeve or the lord's reeve. These acted for the overlord, whoever he was, and saw that the villeins and cottiers did their proper proportion of work at the right time; they saw that the lord's tolls at the markets, fairs, and ferries, were properly enforced. The steward was a most important officer in every town and village, and a great deal of power was in his hands. ”

“ The steward comes upon the scene, and is angry to find the child in such company. When the child gives his name as Poor Disaware, the steward denounces him as a thief who had robbed his own father; but the duke speaks kindly to the boy, and makes him his stable-groom. One day, when he is watering a gelding, the horse flings up his head and hits the child above the eye. The child breaks out, Woe worth thee, gelding! thou hast stricken the Lord of Lorn. I was born a lord and shall be an earl; my father sent me over the sea, and the false steward has beguiled me. ”

“ The gentleman had just come from London, and had seen handbills at every conspicuous place, describing me and my horses. I asked him what I should do? He said, 'you are not safe a moment; there is no hope but in flight; avoid the main road, and get to the colony if you can; if you succeed, go to A. Steward; he is an upright man and will never betray you for money,' And here I am: if I am arrested, six months imprisonment, three hundred dollars fine, and the forfeiture of my father's valuable and favorite horses, will be my portion. ”

“ At the rise of the curtain there is a moment of intense silence. Then The Steward enters and commences to clear the table of the few dishes which still remain on it after the Captain's dinner. He is an old, grizzled man dressed in dungaree pants, a sweater, and a woolen cap with ear flaps. His manner is sullen and angry. He stops stacking up the plates and casts a quick glance upward at the skylight; then tiptoes over to the closed door in rear and listens with his ear pressed to the crack. What he hears makes his face darken and he mutters a furious curse. ”

“ To learn the speeches of each land.'
'Who shall go with him?' said the lady;
'Husband, we have no more but he;'
'Madam,' he saith, 'My head steward,
He hath bin true to me.'
She cal'd the steward to an account,
A thousand pound she gave him anon;
Sayes, Good Sir Steward, be as good to my child,
When he is far from home.
'If I be fals unto my young lord,
Then God be [the] like to me indeed!'
And now to France they both are gone,
And God be their good speed. ”

“ He was a fine, persevering kind of man, and very soon got to be General McClure, and commanded the brigade in Steuben County, and, as such, was liable to be called at any time when his services were required, to go to the frontier and guard our lines from the invasion of the English army.
To him I applied for a situation as waiter, which he readily agreed to give me if I could get the consent of Captain Helm. I thought there would be no trouble about that; and oh! how I dreamed of and anticipated the happiness of being something beside a slave, for a little while at least. ”

“ The Steward, who, along with the Earl of March, had commanded the left wing, made good his retreat to Scotland, when the Steward was again elected regent, under the title of lieutenant of David II. The suspicion that he had deserted the king when the battle turned against him does not appear to be well founded. ”

“ I never so much as heard of the least unkindness whatsoever.
Lord High Steward—Well then, my lord, who do you call next?
Earl of Warwick—Now colonel Stanhope is here, I desire he may be asked the same question, whether he does not know the particular friendship that was between capt. Coote and me, and what instances he can give of it?
Lord High Steward—You are to consider, Sir, though you are not upon your oath you are in a great court, and under no less restriction to testify the truth, and nothing but the truth: You hear what my noble lord asks you. ”

“ Steward was a Justice of the Peace for the Borough, and also for the County of Suffolk. As a public man his loss will be much felt, for though occasionally overbearing and impetuous, his faults were overlooked in the thorough earnestness with which he applied himself to the promotion of those measures which he considered for the general good. Out of respect the flags on the Town Hall and shipping have been hoisted half-mast. ”

“ What he saw no human being knows; but it must have been something awful, for, without a cry, the old steward fell dead in the hall. Perhaps the strangest part of the story is this: that the shadow of a burly man, holding a pistol in his hand, entered by the open door, stepped over the steward's body, and, gliding up the stairs, disappeared, no one could say where. Such is the legend. ”

“ And his horse—I never saw a better."
"But what is all this to me?" asked the steward. "If he is trespassing in the forest, it is your duty to bring him before the duke."
"Ah! it is hard for you to understand," answered the forester. "Methinks that if our master had the boar, the sword, and the horn, he would let me keep the clothing, and you the horse, and would trouble us with but few questions."
"Thou art indeed wise," answered the steward. And he at once called six men, whom he knew he could trust to any evil deed, and told them to go with the forester. ”

“ He was only partly dressed; and all people agreed that he had been sitting up reading in his own room, where there were many traces of blood, and was suddenly fallen upon and killed, before his master.’
Now, be it observed, it is not the author himself who asserts that the steward’s body was found; he has put the words in the mouth of one of his characters. ”

“ He threw himself forward on his face, shaken by great sobs.
The little officer sat quite still, his face very sad. There was no glory about war—that was merely a fiction to hold soldiers to their work; it was all horrible, detestable, inhuman. He had seen brave men killed, torn, mutilated; he had seen inoffensive people driven from their homes and left to starve; he had seen women weeping for their husbands and children for their fathers; he had seen terror stalk across the quiet countryside—famine, want, despair——
The paroxysm passed, and Stewart gradually regained his self-control. ”

“ The steward, who is a superstitious fellow, perhaps, and expected something to go wrong, went to look for him, this morning, and found his berth empty, but his clothes lying about, just as he had left them. The steward was the only man on board who knew him by sight, and he has been searching everywhere for him. He has disappeared! Now, sir, I want to beg you not to mention the circumstance to any of the passengers; I don't want the ship to get a bad name, and nothing hangs about an ocean-goer like stories of suicides. ”

“ The steward read them, and both wept for joy and grief, he and the King, and when their transport was over they agreed that the steward should go in a King's ship with the youth wheresoever the youth should guide him, and should see the damsel that should be shown him whom the youth should affirm to be she who wrought the linen, and if she were the Princess he should give him in whose house she had been kept, all he should say he had spent upon her, and two thousand crusadoes to boot, and promise him that if he would come with her the King would show him great favour, and to the youth also. ”

“ Their number was now reduced to twenty-five men, but the leader, a gigantic African, with a massive, compact frame, and an arm of great strength, looked competent to put ten common men to flight. He clenched his powerful fist, and declared that he would resist unto death, before he would be arrested by those savage men, even if they promised not to flog him. ”

“ The steward, when he shall ask, has the skin of a hart from the huntsmen from the middle of February until the end of a fortnight of May. When the steward comes to the court, the food and the drink is to be wholly according to his ruling. He shows every one his proper place in the hall. He apportions the lodgings. A horse always in attendance he has from the king, and his horse has two shares of the provender. The steward's land is to be free. He has a steer of every spoil from the household. A steward is to have the gobr of the daughters of every land-maer. ”

“ Then sing to thy gelding, and not to me, she says. The child repeats his story, and adds that the steward has been deceiving both her and him for a twelvemonth. The lady declares that she will marry no man but him that stands before her, sends in haste to her father to have her wedding put off, and writes an account of the steward’s treachery to the old lord in Scotland. The old lord collects five hundred friends of high degree, and goes over to France in search of his son. ”

“ You go and ask the Steward what was there in that letter from the Harbour Office. Ask him straight out."
I remained speechless for a time. Here was something unexpected and original enough to be altogether incomprehensible. I murmured, astounded:
"But I thought it was Hamilton that you . . ."
"Exactly. Don't you let him. You do what I tell you. You tackle that Steward. You'll make him jump, I bet," insisted Captain Giles, waving his smouldering pipe impressively at me. Then he took three rapid puffs at it.
His aspect of triumphant acuteness was indescribable. ”

“ In our colony, located in the township of Bidulph, the colored people were a large majority of the inhabitants, which gave us the power to elect commissioners from our own settlement, and therefore, three black men where duly chosen, who entered on the duties of their office, while your humble servant, A. Steward, was elected township clerk, with all the responsibility of the office resting upon him and the same power given him as though he had been born in Her Britannic Majesty's dominion, with a face as white as the driven snow. ”

“ They felt that they were men going forward to men’s work; they were drinking deep of a cup brimming with the joy of supreme experience!
There were jests and loud laughter; there were snatches of song; and presently a thousand voices were shouting what sounded to Stewart like a mighty hymn—shouting it in slow and solemn unison, marked by the tramp, tramp of their feet. Not until he caught the refrain did he know what it was—“Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles!”—the German battle-song, fit expression of the firm conviction that the Fatherland was first, was dearest, must be over all! ”

“ The steward and his wife, with the other servants, came to me immediately; all clinging together, with a number of lights in their hands. It seems they had all been waiting to see the issue of the interview betwixt me and the apparition. They asked me what was the matter. I told them the foregoing circumstances, and showed them the box. The steward durst not meddle with it, but his wife had more courage, and, with the help of the other servants, tugged it out, and found the key. ”