'General, dese han's never was in dough--I never made a cake o' bread
in my life; please let me have my cook.' An' she tuck on so I jus'
trimble; I's feared he'd tell me to go wid her. But all her cryin'
didn't help her. General say, 'I can't help you, madam; if your cook
wants to go wid you she can; but she is free, an' can do as she likes
about it.' An' she went off cryin'; an' we could jus' kiss de groun'
General Grant walks on ever since."

Among the most affecting scenes were meetings of members of families
long separated. In passing out of this multitude my attention was
attracted to a group who were singing, shaking hands, shouting, and
reciting their afflictions and sore trials since they were parted. One
woman found her sister, who was sold from her fifteen years before.
They had not heard from each other till just here they met. "O sis'
Susie, you know my two nice boys was sole from me two year afore I was
sole off dat plantation down de river, an' it 'peared like my heart
was broke; an' missus had me hit fifty lashes 'case I cried so much.
An' de Lo'd has been my sun an shiel' all dis time. An' here I foun'
my two boys; da's heap bigger, but da's my own dear boys. I's prayed
long for freedom, an' God did come down and make us free.
_Glory_, GLORY be to his name!" And they embraced each other in
wild excitement during some minutes. Then they went to another part of
the camp to meet some of their friends Susie told her of.

I hastened back 'to Camp Bethel, to witness the marriage of twenty
couples that Colonel Eaton, who was a chaplain among them, was to
marry with one ceremony. Many of the men were of the newly-enlisted
soldiers, and the officers thought they had better be legally married,
although many of them had been married a number of years, but only
according to slave law, which recognized no legal marriage among