The Colored Cadet at West Point | Page 4

and carriage-trimmer, was owned
by Ephraim G. Ponder, a successful and influential slave-dealer.
In 1859 Mr. Ponder, having retired from business, returned to Georgia
from Virginia with a number of mechanics, all slaves,and among whom
was the father of young Flipper. He established a number of
manufactories in Atlanta, then a growing inland town of Georgia. He
married about this time a beautiful, accomplished, and wealthy lady.
"Flipper," as he was generally called,had married before this, and had
been taken back alone to his native Virginia to serve an apprenticeship
under a carriage-trimmer. This served, Mr. Ponder joined his wife in
Thomasville, bringing with him, as stated, a number of mechanics.
All were soon ready for transportation to Atlanta except "Flipper." As
he and his wife were each the property (?) of different persons, there
was, under the circumstances, every probability of a separation. This,
of course, would be to them most displeasing. Accordingly an
application was made to Mr. Ponder to purchase the wife and son. This
he was, he said, unable to do. He had, at an enormous expense,
procured and fitted up a home, and his coffers were nearly, if not quite,
empty. Husband and wife then appealed to Mr. Lucky. He, too, was
averse to parting them, but could not, at the great price asked for him,
purchase the husband. He was willing however, to sell the wife. An

agreement was finally made by which the husband paid from his own
pocket the purchase-money of his own wife and child, this sum to be
returned to him by Mr. Ponder whenever convenient. The joy of the
wife can be conceived. It can not be expressed.
In due time all arrived at Atlanta, where Mr. Ponder had purchased
about twenty-five acres of land and had erected thereon, at great
expense, a superb mansion for his own family, a number of substantial
frame dwellings for his slaves, and three large buildings for
manufacturing purposes.
Of sixty-five slaves nearly all of the men were mechanics. All of them
except the necessary household servants, a gardener, and a coachman,
were permitted to hire their own time. Mr. Ponder would have
absolutely nothing to do with their business other than to protect them.
So that if any one wanted any article of their manufacture they
contracted with the workman and paid him his own price. These bond
people were therefore virtually free. They acquired and accumulated
wealth, lived happily, and needed but two other things to make them
like other human beings, viz., absolute freedom and education. But
"God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform."
And through that very mysteriousness this people was destined to attain
to the higher enjoyment of life. The country, trembling under the
agitation of the slave question, was steadily seeking a condition of
equilibrium which could be stable only in the complete downfall of
slavery. Unknown to them, yet existing, the great question of the day
was gradually being solved; and in its solution was working out the
salvation of an enslaved people. Well did that noblest of women, Mrs.
Julia Ward Howe, sing a few years after:
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is
tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath
loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; This truth is
marching on.
"I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They

have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read
his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps; His day is
marching on.
"I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel; 'As ye deal
with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero,
born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching
on.'
"He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is
sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat; Oh! be swift my
soul to answer him! be jubilant my feet! Our God is marching on.
"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, With a glory
in his bosom that transfigures you and me; As he died to make men
holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on."
Another influence was as steadily tending to the same end. Its object
was to educate, to elevate intellectually, and then to let the power thus
acquired act.
The mistress of this fortunate household, far from discharging the
duties and functions of her station, left them unnoticed, and devoted her
whole attention to illegitimate pleasures. The outraged husband
appointed a guardian and returned broken-hearted to the bosom of his
own family, and devoted