November 27th, 1775
Today, all hands to fortification.
A thing which troubles me: I am sensible of a silence that accompanies me in all conversation. It stops up my mouth and the mouths of others. My own voice galls even me; it oppresses me like a silver fork scraped across porcelain.
Not so when we are upon fatigue: When we dig, bind, do any of the work of entrenchment — these things I know from long practice — I am one of the number. There is no distinction of habit or effort.
But when we sup or dine, I know the looks my voice will invite, and I cannot bring myself to speak. I am ashamed at my words before they scape the teeth; I clutch my trencher on my knees; I discover myself practicing all the arts of concealment which I learned in my years of service, when I little wished notice from Mr. Sharpe. I say nothing which might offend; I respond if questioned, so as not to draw interest through unoccasioned silence; I do what is asked of me; and most of all, I observe.
Among the Collegians, silence was protection; among the rebels, ’twas grief. Among the members of the orchestra, ’twas policy; and among the work crews, ’twas prudence.
I do not know what it signifies here, where there is no purpose of concealment nor need of diplomacy; and I am tired of it.
I may write this, that I know not; but I do know on several heads why I am ashamed here; one being, that in this company where all have a story of suffering, all have a history of grief and a narrative of flight, I am suddenly the least of them.
A new youth, a boy younger than me by a year or two, enlisted this day. He labors under an affliction in his speech, acquired through long habit of degradation or sudden excess of horror. When he talks, his throat or tongue will of a moment seize up, and he be unable to speak more. I fully compassionate in his distress, having but the other day, when enlisting, felt I should never speak a full word again. A gentle soul, already long and spidery of limb and uneven of tooth, this boy was introduced to me in the evening in some embarrassment. He said that it had been told him that I could read; which accomplishment I could not deny. He asked me then to read his badge; which I did, saying that it read as all of ours did, Liberty to Slaves.
He told me that Serjeant Clippinger had howled when he had seen it, jeering that the woman had sewn it wrong, and it was a perfect fit for a three-toothed black coxcomb like himself. He asked me again, earnestly, to con it out; and I admitted that the letters were not formed in complete perfection; that it resembled somewhat, Liberty to Slane, with a wriggling trail after the e. I inquired if that was Serjeant Clippinger’s reading; and he replied glumly, Liberty to Slant.
Upon hearing this, Will and John broke into great laughter and patted him on the back, crowing out the motto, tilting comedically, embracing him until he too laughed. The men now call him Slant, which would be wounding, were it not exclaimed with such an achievement in the “Liberty” that the “Slant” might be righted with balance and equanimity.
And the men now call me Buckra, which is their word for a white man; for having seen me read, they say that I am a white man hidden in a black skin.
And I have just called them “they.”