Near the end of this year, Chattanooga fell into the hands of the Union troops, and Holmes took advantage of the terms of the proclamation which he had read the year before in the Charlestown slave-pen. He hired out as a servant to General Jefferson C. Davis, of the Union army, at $10 a month, but in the spring returned to the employ of his old owner, who offered him $30 a month. Afterward he worked for a year or two as a cashier in a large barber's-shop, and on the death of his employer he was made administrator of his estate—the first coloured man ever appointed to such duties in the State of Tennessee. He had previously taken an interest in the business, but on settling up the estate it was found to be insolvent; and after it had eaten up $300 of his small savings he gave up the business.
He had been anxious for a long while to get a better education, and in 1868 began studying at Fisk University. The next year he was engaged to teach one of the State schools for the coloured people in Davidson County, and was promised $30 a month. His school averaged an attendance of sixty-eight scholars, but those were days of poverty in private and mismanagement in public affairs, and Davidson County still owes him $150 of his wages. The attempt to educate the coloured people met with bitter opposition, and in another school a shot whizzed past him one day while he was hearing a class recite, fired by some one outside, but by whom it was never known.
After studying again for a while at Fisk, he took
