a special love for music, and though he had never had any musical instruction himself, and made no pretensions as a vocalist, his schools were famous for the good singing which he had the knack of getting out of his pupils.
Leaving the schoolroom for the camp, he fought for the Union in the bloody battles of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville; and the close of the war found him in the employ of the Freedmen's Bureau at Nashville. He had been actively interested in Sunday-school work among the freedmen, and at the opening of Fisk School was invited by Professor Ogden, its Principal, to devote his leisure hours to the instruction of the pupils in vocal music. When Fisk University was chartered, he became its treasurer—in other words, its man-of-all-work in business matters.
The progress made by his large singing classes was a surprise and delight to him. With a presentiment, seemingly, of what was coming, he began to pick out the most promising voices and give them that special training for which his own remarkable range of voice, instinct for musical effect, and magnetism as a drill-master so well fitted him.
In the spring of 1867 he gave a public concert with his school chorus, which was a great success financially, and a greater one in opening the eyes of the white people to the possibilities that lay hidden in the education of the blacks. A leading daily interpreted the concert as evidence that the negro was susceptible of education, and raised the question whether it was not the duty of the Southern people
