No Gawge Nimbus, nor ennything Nimbus, nor Nimbus
ennything--jes' Nimbus; so. Nigger got no use fer two names, nohow."
The officer, perceiving that it was useless to argue the matter
further, added his name to the muster-roll of a regiment, and
he was duly sworn into the service of the United States as George
Nimbus, of Company C, of the---Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry,
and was counted one of the quota which the town of Great Barringham,
in the valley of the Housatuck, was required to furnish to complete
the pending call for troops to put down rebellion. By virtue of
this fact, the said George Nimbus became entitled to the sum of
four hundred dollars bounty money offered by said town to such as
should give themselves to complete its quota of "the boys in blue,"
in addition to his pay and bounty from the Government. So, if it
forced on him a new name, the service of freedom was not altogether
without compensatory advantages.
Thus the slave Nimbus was transformed into the "contraband" George
Nimbus, and became not only a soldier of fortune, but also the
representative of a patriotic citizen of Great Barringham, who served
his country by proxy, in the person of said contraband, faithfully
and well until the end of the war, when the South fell--stricken
at last most fatally by the dark hands which she had manacled,
and overcome by their aid whose manhood she had refused to
acknowledge.
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