#native guard

                                       Now that the salt of their blood     Stiffens the saltier oblivion of the sea . . .       —Allen Tate

                                                                                                                          We leave Gulfport at noon; gulls overhead trailing the boat—streamers, noisy fanfare— all the way to Ship Island. What we see first is the fort, its roof of grass, a lee— half reminder of the men who served there— a weathered monument to some of the dead.

Inside we follow the ranger, hurried though we are to get to the beach. He tells of graves lost in the Gulf, the island split in half when Hurricane Camille hit, shows us casemates, cannons, the store that sells souvenirs, tokens of history long buried.

The Daughters of the Confederacy has placed a plaque here, at the fort’s entrance— each Confederate soldier’s name raised hard in bronze; no names carved for the Native Guards— 2nd Regiment, Union men, black phalanx. What is monument to their legacy?

All the grave markers, all the crude headstones— water-lost. Now fish dart among their bones, and we listen for what the waves intone. Only the fort remains, near forty feet high, round, unfinished, half open to the sky, the elements—wind, rain—God’s deliberate eye.

Truth be told, I do not want to forget anything of my former life: the landscape's song of bondage—dirge in the river's throat where it churns into the Gulf, wind in trees choked with vines. I thought to carry with me want of freedom though I had been freed, remembrance not constant recollection. Yes: I was born a slave, at harvest time, in the Parish of Ascension; I've reached thirty-three with history of one younger inscribed upon my back. I now use ink to keep record, a closed book, not the lure of memory—flawed, changeful—that dulls the lash for the master, sharpens it for the slave.

You can get there from here, though there’s no going home. Everywhere you go will be somewhere you’ve never been. Try this: head south on Mississippi 49, one- by-one mile markers ticking off another minute of your life. Follow this to its natural conclusion—dead end at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches in a sky threatening rain. Cross over the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand dumped on the mangrove swamp—buried terrain of the past. Bring only what you must carry—tome of memory, its random blank pages. On the dock where you board the boat for Ship Island, someone will take your picture: the photograph—who you were— will be waiting when you return.