The women of Columbus, Miss., animated by noble sentiments, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers.
The women of Columbus, Miss., animated by noble sentiments, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers.
This episode becomes the more touching by reason of the fact that the Columbus lady who initiated themovement to place flowers on the Union graves, at a time when such action was sure to provoke much criticism in the South, was Mrs. Augusta Murdock Sykes, herself the widow of a Confederate soldier.
So with an equal splendorThe morning sun rays fall,With a touch impartially tenderOn the blossoms blooming for all;Under the sod and the dew,Waiting the Judgment Day;Broidered with gold the Blue;Mellowed with gold the Gray.
So with an equal splendorThe morning sun rays fall,With a touch impartially tenderOn the blossoms blooming for all;Under the sod and the dew,Waiting the Judgment Day;Broidered with gold the Blue;Mellowed with gold the Gray.
While local historians attempt to tangle up the exploration of De Soto with the early history of this region, saying that De Soto "entered the State of Mississippi near the site of Columbus," and that "he probably crossed the Tombigbee River at this point," their conclusions are largely the result of guesswork. But it is not guesswork to say that when the Kentucky and Tennessee volunteers, going to the aid of Andrew Jackson, at New Orleans, in 1814, cut a military road from Tuscumbia, Alabama, to the Gulf, they passed over the site of Columbus, for the road they cut remains to-day one of the principal highways of the district as well as one of the chief streets of the town.
More clearly defined, of course, are memories of the Civil War and of Reconstruction, for there are many present-day residents of Columbus who remember both. Among these is one of those wonderful, sweet, high-spirited, and altogether fascinating ladies whom we call old only because their hair is white and because a number of years have passed over their heads—one of those glorious young old ladies in which the South is, Ithink, richer than any other single section of the world.
It was our good fortune to meet Mrs. John Billups, and to see some of her treasured relics—among them the flag carried through the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista by the First Mississippi Regiment, of which Jefferson Davis was colonel, and in which her husband was a lieutenant; and a crutch used by General Nathan Bedford Forrest when he was housed at the Billups residence in Columbus, recovering from a wound. But better yet it was to hear Mrs. Billups herself tell of the times when the house in which she lived as a young woman, at Holly Springs, Mississippi, was used as headquarters by General Grant.
Mrs. Billups, who was a Miss Govan, was educated in Philadelphia and Wilmington, and had many friends and relatives in the North. Her mother was Mrs. Mary Govan of Holly Springs, and her brother's wife, who resided with the Govans during the war, was a Miss Hawkes, a daughter of the Rev. Francis L. Hawkes, then rector of St. Thomas's Church in New York. All were, however, good Confederates.
Mrs. Govan's house at Holly Springs was being used as a hospital when Grant and his army marched, unresisted, into the town, and Mrs. Govan, with her daughters and daughter-in-law, had already moved to the residence of Colonel Harvey Walter, which is to this day a show place, and is now the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Johnson of St. Louis—Mrs. Johnson being Colonel Walter's daughter.
This house was selected by Grant as his headquarters, and he resided there for a considerable period. ("It seemed a mighty long time," says Mrs. Billups.) With the general was Mrs. Grant and their son Jesse, as well as Mrs. Grant's negro maid, Julia, who, Mrs. Grant told Mrs. Billups, had been given to her, as a slave, by her father, Colonel Dent. Mrs. Billups was under the impression that Julia was, at that time, still a slave. At all events, she was treated as a slave.
"We all liked the Grants," Mrs. Billups said. "He had very little to say, but she was very sociable and used to come in and sit with us a great deal.
"One day the general took his family and part of his army and went to Oxford, Mississippi, leaving Colonel Murphy in command at Holly Springs. While Grant was away our Confederate General Van Dorn made a raid on Holly Springs, capturing the town, tearing up the railroad, and destroying the supplies of the Northern army. He just dashed in, did his work, and dashed out again.
"Some of his men came to the house and, knowing that it was Grant's headquarters, wished to make a search. My mother was entirely willing they should do so, but she knew that there were no papers in the house, and assured the soldiers that if they did search they would find nothing but Mrs. Grant's personal apparel—which she was sure they would not wish to disturb.
"That satisfied them and they went away.
"Next morning back came Grant with his army. Herode up on horseback, preceded by his bodyguard, and I remember that he looked worn and worried.
"As he dismounted he saw my sister-in-law, Mrs. Eaton Pugh Govan—the one who was Miss Hawkes—standing on the gallery above.
"He called up to her and said: 'Mrs. Govan, I suppose my sword is gone?'
"'What sword, General?' she asked him.
"'The sword that was presented to me by the army. I left it in my wife's closet.'
"Mrs. Govan was thunderstruck.
"'I didn't know it was there,' she said. 'Oh! I should have been tempted to send it to General Van Dorn if I had known that it was there!'
"The next morning, as a reward to us for not having known that his sword was there, the general gave us a protection paper explicitly forbidding soldiers to enter the house."
Of course the Govans, like all other citizens of invaded districts in the South, buried their family plate before the "Yankees" came.
Shortly after this had been accomplished—as they thought, secretly—the Govans were preparing to entertain friends at dinner when a negro boy who helped about the dining-room remarked innocently, in the presence of Mrs. Govan and several of her servants:
"Missus ain't gwine to have no fine table to-night, caze all de silvuh's done buried in de strawbe'y patch."
He had seen the old gardener "planting" the plate.
Thereafter it was quietly decided in the family that the negroes had better know nothing about the location of buried treasure. That night, therefore, some gentlemen went out to the strawberry patch, disinterred the silver, carried it to Colonel Walter's place, and there buried it under the front walk.
"And after Grant came," said Mrs. Billups, "we used to laugh as we watched the Union sentries marching up and down that walk, right over our plate."
Among the items not already mentioned, of which Columbus is proud, are the facts that she has supplied two cabinet members within the past decade—J. M. Dickinson, Taft's Secretary of War, and T. W. Gregory, Wilson's Attorney General—and that J. Gano Johnson, breeder of famous American saddle horses, has recently come from Kentucky and established his Emerald Chief Stock Farm in Lowndes County, a short distance from the town.
But items like these, let me be frank to say, do not appeal to me as do the picturesque old stories which cling about such a town.
There is, for instance, the story of Alexander Keith McClung, famous about the middle of the last century as a duellist and dandy. McClung was a Virginian by birth, but while still a young man took up his residence in Columbus. His father studied law under Thomas Jefferson and was later conspicuous in Kentucky politics, and his mother was a sister of Chief Justice John Marshall. In 1828, at the age of seventeen, McClung became a midshipman in the navy, and though he remained in the service but a year, he managed during that time to fight a duel with another midshipman, who wounded him in the arm. At eighteen he fought a duel near Frankfort, Kentucky, with his cousin James W. Marshall. His third duel was with a lawyer named Allen, who resided in Jackson, Mississippi. Allen was the challenger—as it is said McClung took pains to see that his adversaries usually were, so that he might have the choice of weapons, for he was very skillful with the pistol. In his duel with Allen he specified that each was to be armed with four pistols and a bowie knife, that they were to start eighty paces apart, and upon signal were to advance, firing at will. At about thirty paces he shot Allen through the brain. His fourth duel was with John Menifee, of Vicksburg, and was fought in 1839, on the river bank, near that city, with rifles at thirty yards. Some idea of the spirit in which duelling was taken in those days may be gathered from the fact that the Vicksburg Rifles, of which Menifee was an officer, turned out in full uniform to see the fight. However they were doubly disappointed, for it was Menifee and not McClung who died. It is said that a short time after this, one of Menifee's brothers challenged McClung, who killed this brother, and so on until he had killed all seven male members of the Menifee family.
McClung fought gallantly in the Mexican War, as lieutenant-colonel of the First Mississippi Regiment,of which Jefferson Davis was colonel. Though he remained always a bachelor it is said that he had many love affairs. He was a hard drinker, a flowery speaker, and a writer of sentimental verse. It is said that in his later life he was exceedingly unhappy, brooding over the lives he had taken in duels—fourteen in all. His last poem was an "Invocation to Death," ending with the line:
"Oh, Death, come soon! Come soon!"
"Oh, Death, come soon! Come soon!"
Shortly after writing it he shaved, dressed himself with the most scrupulous care, and shot himself. This occurred March 23, 1855, in the Eagle Hotel, North Capitol Street, Jackson, Mississippi.
"To preserve the neatness and cleanliness of his attire after death should have ensued," says Colonel R. W. Banks, "it is said he poured a little water upon the floor to ascertain the direction the blood would take when it flowed from the wound. Then, placing himself in proper position, so that the gore would run from and not toward his body, he placed the pistol to the right temple, pulled the trigger and death quickly followed."
On our second evening in Columbus my companion and I returned to the house, near our domicile, to which we had been sent by Mrs. Eichelberger for our meals; but owing to a misunderstanding as to the dinner hour we found ourselves again too late. The family, and the teachers from the I. I. and C. who took meals there, were already coming out from dinner to sit and chat on the steps in the twilight.
We were disappointed, for we were tired of restaurants, and had counted on a home meal that night; nor was our disappointment softened by the fact that the lady whom we interviewed seemed to have no pity for us, but dismissed us in a chilling manner, which hinted that, even had we been in time for dinner, we should have been none too welcome at her exclusive board.
Crestfallen, we turned away and started once more in the direction of the Belle Café. In the half light the street held for us a melancholy loveliness. Above, the great trees made a dark, soft canopy; the air was balmy and sweet with the scent of lilacs and roses; lights were beginning to appear in windows along the way. Yetnone of it was for us. We were wanderers, condemned forever to walk through strange streets whose homes we might not enter, and whose inhabitants we might not know.
When we had proceeded in silence for a block or two, we perceived a woman strolling toward us on the walk ahead. Nor was it yet so dark that we could fail to notice, as we neared her, that she was very pretty in her soft black dress and her corsage of narcissus—that, in short, she was the young lady whom, though we were indebted to her for our rooms at Mrs. Eichelberger's, we had not been able to thank.
Now, of course, we stopped and told her of our gratitude. First my companion told her of his. Then I told her of mine. Then we both told her of our combined gratitude. And after each telling she assured us sweetly that it was nothing—nothing at all.
All this made quite a little conversation. She hoped that we were comfortable. We assured her that we were. Then, because it seemed so pleasant to be talking, on a balmy, flower-scented evening, with a pretty girl wearing a soft black dress and a corsage of narcissus, we branched out, telling her of our successive disappointments as to meals in the house up the street.
"Which house?" she asked.
We described it.
"That's where I live," said she.
And to think we had twice been late!
"Youlive there?"
"Yes. It was my elder sister whom you saw." Then we all smiled, for we had spoken of the chill which had accompanied the rebuff.
"Do you think your sister will let us come to-morrow for breakfast?" ventured my companion.
"If you're there by eight."
"Because," he added, "breakfast is our last meal here."
"You're going away?"
"Yes. About noon."
"Oh," she said. And we hoped the way she said it meant that she was just the least bit sorry we were going.
With that she started to move on again.
"We'll see you at breakfast, then?"
"Perhaps," she said in a casual tone, continuing on her way.
"Not surely?"
"Why not come and see?" The words were wafted back to us provocatively upon the evening air.
"We will! Good night."
"Good night."
We walked some little way in silence.
"Eight o'clock!" murmured my companion presently in a reflective, rueful tone. "We must turn in early."
We did turn in early, and we should have been asleep early was it not for the fact that among the chief wonders of Columbus must be ranked its roosters—birds of a ghastly habit of nocturnal vocalism.
But though these creatures interfered somewhat with our slumbers, and though eight is an early hour for us, we reached the neighboring house next morning five minutes ahead of time. And though the manner of the elder sister was, as before, austere, that made no difference, for the younger sister was there.
After breakfast we dallied, chatting with her for a time; then a bell began to toll, and my companion reminded me that I had an engagement to visit the Industrial Institute and College before leaving.
It was quite true. I had made the engagement the day before, but it had been my distinct understanding that he was to accompany me; for if anything disconcerts me it is to go alone to such a place. However sweet girls may be as individuals, or in small groups, they are in the mass diabolically cruel, and their cruelty is directed especially against men. I know. I have walked up to a college building to pay a call, while thirty girls, seated on the steps, played, sang, and whistled an inane marching tune, with the rhythm of which my steps could not but keep time. I have been the only man in a dining-room full of college girls. A hundred of them put down their knives and forks with a clatter as I entered, and a hundred pairs of mischievously solemn eyes followed my every movement. Voluntarily to go through such experiences alone a man must be in love. And certainly I was not in love with any girl at the Industrial Institute.
"We both have an engagement," I said.
"I can't go," he returned.
"Why not?"
"I have two sketches to make before train time."
"You're going to make me go over therealone?"
"I don't care whether you go or not," he replied mercilessly. "You made the engagement. I had nothing to do with it. But I am responsible for the pictures."
Perceiving that it was useless to argue with him, I reluctantly departed and, not without misgivings, made my way to the Industrial Institute.
I am thankful to say that there matters did not turn out so badly for me as I had anticipated. I refused to visit classrooms, and contented myself with gathering information. And since the going to gather this information cost me such uneasiness, I do not propose to waste entirely the fruits of my effort, but shall here record some of the facts that I collected.
The Industrial Institute and College is for girls of sixteen years or over who are graduates of high schools. There are about 800 students taking either the collegiate, normal, industrial, or musical courses, or combination courses. This college, I was informed, was the first in the country to offer industrial education to women.
Most of the students come from families in modest circumstances, and attend the college with the definite purpose of fitting themselves to become self-supporting. The cost is very slight, the only regular charge, aside from board and general living expenses, being a nominalmatriculation fee of $5. There is no charge for rooms in the large dormitories connected with the college. Board, light, fuel, and laundry are paid for coöperatively, the average cost per student, for all these, being about ten dollars a month—which sum also includes payment for a lyceum ticket and for two hats per annum. Uniforms are worn by all, these being very simple navy-blue suits with sailor hats. Seniors and juniors wear cap and gown. All uniform requirements may be covered at a cost of twenty dollars a year, and a girl who practices economy may get through her college year at a total cost of about $125, though of course some spend considerably more.
Many students work their way, either wholly or in part. Thirty or forty of them serve in the dining room, for which work they are allowed sixty-five dollars a year. Others, who clean classrooms are allowed fifty dollars a year, and still others earn various sums by assisting in the library or reading room or by doing secretarial work.
Unlike the other departments of the college, the musical department is not a tax upon the State, but is entirely self-sustaining, each girl paying for her own lessons. This department is under the direction of Miss Weenonah Poindexter, to whose enthusiasm much if not all of its success is due. Miss Poindexter began her work in 1894, as the college's only piano teacher, giving lessons in the dormitories. Now she not only has a splendid music hall and a number of assistants, but hassucceeded in making Columbus one of the recognized musical centers of the South, by bringing there a series of the most distinguished artists: Paderewski, Nordica, Schumann-Heinck, Gadski, Sembrich, Bispham, Albert Spaulding, Maud Powell, Damrosch's Orchestra, and Sousa's Band.
So much I had learned of the I. I. and C. when it came time for me to flee to the train. My companion and I had already packed our suitcases, and it had been arranged between us that, instead of consuming time by trying to meet and drive together to the station, we should work independently, joining each other at the train.
I left the college in an automobile, stopping at Mrs. Eichelberger's only long enough to get my suitcase. As I drove on past the next corner I chanced to look up the intersecting street. There, by a lilac bush, stood my companion. He was not alone. With him was a very pretty girl wearing a soft black dress and a corsage of narcissus. But the corsage was now smaller, by one flower, than it had been before, for, as I sighted them, she was in the act of placing one of the blooms from her bouquet in my companion's buttonhole. Her hands looked very white and small against his dark coat, and I recall that he was gazing down at them, and that his features were distorted by a sentimental smile.
Her hands looked very white and small against his dark coat. He was gazing down at them, his features distorted by a shockingly sentimental smileHer hands looked very white and small against his dark coat. He was gazing down at them, his features distorted by a shockingly sentimental smile
"Come on!" I called to him.
He looked up. His expression was vague.
"Go along," he returned.
"Why don't you come with me now?"
"I'll be there," he replied. "You buy the tickets and check the baggage." And with that he turned his back.
"Good-by," I called to the young lady. But she was looking up at him and didn't seem to hear me.
My companion arrived at the station in an old hack, with horses at the gallop. He was barely in time.
When we were settled in the car, bowling along over the prairies toward the little junction town of Artesia, I turned to him and inquired how his work had gone that morning. But at that moment he caught sight, through the car window, of some negroes sitting at a cabin door, and exclaimed over their picturesqueness.
I agreed. Then, as the train left them behind, I repeated my question: "How did your work go?"
"This is very fertile-looking country," said he.
This time I did not reply, but asked:
"Did you finish both sketches?"
"No," he answered. "Not both. There wasn't time."
"Let's see the one you did."
"As a matter of fact," he returned, "I didn't do any. You know how it is. Sometimes a fellow feels like drawing—sometimes he doesn't. Somehow I didn't feel like it this morning."
With that he lifted the lapel of his coat and, bending his head downward, sniffed in a romantic manner at the sickeningly sweet flower in his buttonhole.
I should advise the traveler who is interested in cities not to enter Vicksburg by the Alabama & Vicksburg Railroad, which has a dingy little station in a sort of gulch, but by the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad—a branch of the Illinois Central—which skirts the river bank and flashes a large first impression of the city before the eyes of alighting passengers.
The station itself is a pretty brick colonial building, backed by a neat if tiny park maintained by the railroad company, and facing the levee (pronounce "lev-vy"), along which the tracks are laid. Beyond the tracks untidy landing places are scattered along the water front, with here and there a tall, awkward, stern-wheel river steamer tied up, looking rather like an old-fashioned New Jersey seacoast hotel, covered with porches and jimcrack carving, painted white, embellished with a cupola and a pair of tall, thin smokestacks, and set adrift in its old age to masquerade in maritime burlesque.
At other points along the bank are moored a heterogeneous assortment of shanty boats of an incredible and comic slouchiness. Some are nothing but raftsmade of water-soaked logs, bearing tiny shacks knocked together out of driftwood and old patches of tin and canvas, but the larger ones have barges, or the hulks of old launches, as their foundation. These curious craft are moored in long lines to the half-submerged willow and cottonwood trees along the bank, or to stakes driven into the levee, or to the railroad ties, or to whatever objects, ashore, may be made fast an old frayed rope or a piece of telephone wire. Long, narrow planks, precariously propped, connect them with the river bank, so that the men, women, children, dogs, and barnyard creatures who inhabit them may pass to and fro. Some of the boats are the homes of negro families, some of whites. On some, negro fish markets are conducted, advertised by large catfish dangling from their posts and railings.
In some of the boats negro fish-markets are conducted, advertised by large catfish dangling from posts and railingIn some of the boats negro fish-markets are conducted, advertised by large catfish dangling from posts and railing
Whether fishing for market, for personal use, or merely for the sake of having an occupation involving a minimum of effort, the residents of shanty boats—particularly the negroes—seem to spend most of their days seated in drowsy attitudes, with fish poles in their hands. Their eyes fall shut, their heads nod in the sun, their lines lag in the muddy water; life is uneventful, pleasant, and warm.
When Porter's mortar fleet lay in the river, off Vicksburg, bombarding the town, that river was the Mississippi, but though it looks the same to-day as it did then, it is not the Mississippi now, but the Yazoo River. This comes about through one of those freakish changesof course for which the great stream has always been famous.
In the old days Vicksburg was situated upon one of the loops of a large letter "S" formed by the Mississippi, but in 1876 the river cut through a section of land and eliminated the loop upon which the town stood. Fortunately, however, the Yazoo emptied into the Mississippi above Vicksburg, and it was found possible, by digging a canal, to divert the latter river from its course and lead its waters into the loop left dry by the whim of the greater stream. Thus the river life, out of which Vicksburg was born, and without which the place would lose its character, was retained, and the wicked old Mississippi, which has played rough pranks on men and cities since men and cities first appeared upon its banks, was for once circumvented. This is but one item from the record of grotesque tricks wrought by changes in the river's course: a record of farms located at night on one side of the stream, and in the morning on the other; of large tracts of land transferred from State to State by a sudden switch of this treacherous fluid line of boundary; of river boats crashing by night into dry land where yesterday a deep stream flowed; of towns built up on river trade, utterly dependent upon the river, yet finding themselves suddenly deserted by it, like wives whose husbands disappear, leaving them withering, helpless, and in want.
Where the upper Mississippi, above St. Louis, flows between tall bluffs it attains a grandeur which one expects in mighty streams, but that is not the part of the river which gets itself talked about in the newspapers and in Congress, nor is it the part of the river one involuntarily thinks of when the name Mississippi is mentioned. The drama, the wonder, the mystery of the Mississippi are in the lower river: the river of countless wooded islands, now standing high and dry, now buried to the tree tops in swirling torrents of muddy water; the river of black gnarled snags carried downstream to the Gulf with the speed of motor boats; the river whose craft sail on a level with the roofs of houses; the river of broken levees, of savage inundations.
The upper river has a beauty which is like that of some lovely, stately, placid, well-behaved blond wife. She is conventional and correct. You always know where to find her. The lower river is a temperamental mistress. At one moment she is all sweetness, smiles and playfulness; at the next vivid and passionate. Even when she is at her loveliest there is always the possibility of sudden fury: of her rising in a rage, breaking the furniture, wrecking the house—yes, and perhaps winding her wicked cold arms about you in a final destroying embrace.
Being the "Gibraltar of the river" (albeit a Gibraltar of clay and not of rock), Vicksburg does not suffer when floods come. Turn your back upon the river, as you stand on the platform of the Yazoo & Mississippi railroad station, and you may gather at a glance an impression of the town piling up the hillside to the eastward.
The first buildings, occupying the narrow shelf of land at the water's edge, are small warehouses, negro eating houses, dilapidated little steamship offices, and all manner of shacks in want of paint and repairs. From the station Mulberry Street runs obliquely up the hillside to the south. This street, which forms the main thoroughfare to the station, used to be occupied by wholesale houses, but has more lately been given over largely to a frankly and prominently exposed district of commercialized vice—negro and white. Not only is it at the very door of Vicksburg, but it parallels, and is but one block distant from, the city's main street.
Other streets, so steep as hardly to be passable, directly assault the face of the hill, mounting abruptly to Washington Street, which runs on a flat terrace at about the height of the top of the station roof, and exposes to the view of the newly arrived traveler the unpainted wooden backs of a number of frame buildings which, though they are but two or three stories high in front, reach in some cases a height of five or six stories at the rear, owing to the steepness of the hillside to which they cling. The roof lines, side walls, windows, chimneys, galleries, posts, and railings of these sad-looking structures are all picturesquely out of plumb, and some idea of the general dilapidation may be gathered from the fact that, one day, while my companion stood on the station platform, drawing a picture of this scene, abrick chimney, a portrait of which he had just completed, softly collapsed before our eyes, for all the world like a sitter who, having held a pose too long, faints from exhaustion.
A brief inspection of the life on the galleries of these foul old fire traps reveals them as negro tenements; and, though they front on the main street of Vicksburg, it should be explained that about here begins the "nigger end" of Washington Street—the more prosperous portion of the downtown section lying to the southward, where substantial brick office buildings may be seen.
Between the ragged, bulging tenements above are occasional narrow gaps through which are revealed cinematographic glimpses of street traffic; and over the tenement roofs one catches sight of sundry other buildings, these being of brick, and, though old, and in no way imposing, yet of a more prosperous and self-respecting character than the nearer structures.
Altogether, the scene, though it is one to delight an etcher, is not of a character to inspire hope in the heart of a humanitarian, or an expert on sanitation or fire prevention. Nor, indeed, would it achieve completeness, even on the artistic side, were it not for its crowning feature. Far off, over the roofs and above them, making an apex to the composition, and giving to the whole picture a background of beauty and of ancient dignity, rises the graceful white-columned cupola of Vicksburg's old stone courthouse, partially obscured bya feathery green tree top, hinting of space and foliage upon the summit of the hill.
Over the tenement roofs one catches sight of sundry other buildings of a more self-respecting character, and, far off, the cupola of Vicksburg's old stone court houseOver the tenement roofs one catches sight of sundry other buildings of a more self-respecting character, and, far off, the cupola of Vicksburg's old stone court house
Pamphlets on Vicksburg, issued by railroad companies for the enticement of tourists, give most of their space to the story of the campaign leading to Grant's siege of Vicksburg and to descriptions of the various operations in the siege—the battlefield, now a national military park, being considered the city's chief object of interest.
Though I am not constitutionally enthusiastic about seeing battlefields, I must admit that I found the field of Vicksburg engrossing. The siege of a small city presents a comparatively simple and compact military problem which is, therefore, comprehensible to the civilian mind, and in addition to this the Vicksburg battlefield is splendidly preserved and marked, so that the visitor may easily reconstruct the conflict.
The park, which covers the fighting area, forms a loose crescent-shaped strip over the hills which surround the city, its points abutting on the river above and below. The chief drives of the park parallel each other, the inner one, Confederate Avenue, following, as nearly as the hills permit, the city's line of defense, while the other, Union Avenue, forms an outer semicircle and follows, in a similar manner, the trenches of the attacking forces.
That the battlefield is so well preserved is due in part to man and in part to Nature. Many of the hills of Warren County, in which Vicksburg is situated, arecomposed of a curious soft limy clay, called marl, which, normally, has not the solidity of soft chalk. Marse Harris Dickson, who knows more about Vicksburg—and also about negroes, common law, floods, funny stories, geology, and rivers—than any other man in Mississippi, tells me that this marl was deposited by the river, in the form of silt, centuries ago, and that it was later thrown up into hills by volcanic action. He did not live in Vicksburg when this took place, but deduces his facts from the discovery of the remains of shellfish in the soil of the hills.
Whatever its geological origin, this soil has some very strange characteristics. In composition it is neither stone nor sand, but a cross between the two—brown and brittle. One can easily crush it to dust in one's hand, in which form it has about the consistency of talcum powder, and it may be added that when this brown powder is seized by the winds and whirled about, Vicksburg becomes one of the most mercilessly dusty cities on this earth.
On exposed slopes the marl washes very badly, forming great caving gullies, but, curiously enough, where it is exposed perpendicularly it does not wash, but slicks over on the outside, and stands almost as well as soft sandstone, although you can readily dig into it with your fingers.
Many of the highways leading in and out of the city pass between tall walls of this peculiar soil, through deep cuts which a visitor might naturally take for theresult of careful grading by the road builders; but Marse Harris Dickson tells me that the cuts are entirely the result of erosion wrought by a hundred years of wheeled traffic.
So far as I know there is but one man who has witnessed this phenomenon without being impressed. That man is Samuel Merwin. Merwin went down and visited Marse Harris in Vicksburg, and saw all the sights. He was polite about the battlefield, and the river, and the negro stories, and everything else, until Marse Harris showed him how the highways had eroded through the hills. That did not seem to impress him at all. Moreover, instead of being tactful, he started telling about his trip to China. In China, he said, there were similar formations, but, as the civilization of China was much older than that of Vicksburg (fancy his having said a thing like that!) the gorges over there had eroded to a much greater extent. He said he had seen them three hundred feet deep.
The more Marse Harris tried to get him to say something a little bit complimentary about the Vicksburg erosions, the more Merwin boasted about China. He declared that the Vicksburg erosions didn't amount to a hill of beans compared with what he could show Marse Harris if Marse Harris would go with him to a certain point on the banks of the Wa Choo, in the province of Lang Pang Si.
Evidently he harped on this until he touched not only his host's local pride, but his pride of discovery. Before that, Marse Harris had been content to stick around in Mississippi, with perhaps a little run down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, or up to Dogtail to see a break in the levee, but after Merwin's talk about China he began to grow restless, and it is generally said in Vicksburg that it was purely in order to have something to tell Merwin about, the next time he saw him, that he made his celebrated trip to the source of the Nile. As for Merwin, he has never been invited back to Vicksburg, and it is to be observed that, even to this day, Marse Harris, by nature of a sunny disposition, shows signs of erosion of the spirit when China is mentioned.
It is apropos the battlefield that I mention the peculiarities of the soil. Had the bare ground been exposed to the rains of a few years, the details of redoubts, trenches, gun positions, saps, and all other military works would have melted away. Fortunately, however, there is a kind of tough, strong-rooted grass, called Bermuda grass, indigenous to that part of the country, and this grass quickly covered the battlefield, holding the soil together so effectually that all outlines are practically embalmed. So, although those in charge of the park have contributed not a little to its preservation—putting old guns in their former places, perpetuating saps with concrete work, and placing white markers on the hillsides, to show how far up those hillsides the assaulting Union troops made their way in various historic charges—it is due most of all to Nature that the Vicksburg battlefield so well explains itself.
Could Grant and Pemberton look to-day upon the hills and valleys where surged their six weeks' struggle for possession of the city, I doubt that they would find any important landmark wanting, and it is certain that they could not say, as Wellington did when he revisited Waterloo: "They have spoiled my battlefield!"
Besides the old guns and the markers, the field is dotted over with observation towers and all manner of memorials. Of the latter, the marble pantheon erected by the State of Illinois, and the beautiful marble and bronze memorial structure of the State of Iowa, are probably the finest. The marble column erected by Wisconsin carries at its summit a great bronze effigy of "Old Abe," the famous eagle, mascot of the Wisconsin troops. Guides to the battlefield are prone to relate to visitors—especially, I suspect, those whose accents betray a Northern origin—how "Old Abe," the bird of battle, went home and disgraced himself, after the war, by his ungentlemanly action in laying a setting of eggs.
The handsomest monument to an individual which I saw upon the battlefield was the admirable bronze bust of Major General Martin L. Smith, C. S. A., and the one which appealed most to my imagination was also a memorial to a Confederate soldier: Brigadier-General States Rights Gist. Is there not something Roman in the thought that, thirty or more years before the war, a southern father gave his new-born son that name, dedicating him, as it were, to the cause of States Rights, and that the son so dedicated gave hislife in battle for that cause? The name upon that stone made me better understand the depth of feeling that existed in the South long years before the War, and gave me a clearer comprehension of at least one reason why the South made such a gallant fight.
Of more than fourscore national cemeteries in the United States, that which stands among the hills and trees, overlooking the river, at the northerly end of the military park, is one of the most beautiful, and is, with the single exception of Arlington, the largest. It contains the graves of nearly 17,000 Union soldiers lost in this campaign—three-fourths of them "unknown"!
It is interesting to note that, because the surrender of Pemberton to Grant occurred on July 4, that date has, in this region, associations less happy than attach to it elsewhere, and that the Fourth has not been celebrated in Vicksburg since the Civil War, except by the negroes, who have taken it for their especial holiday. This reminds me, also, of the fact that, throughout the South, Christmas, instead of the Fourth of July, is celebrated with fireworks.
It was Marse Harris Dickson who showed us the battlefield. As we were driving along in the motor we overtook an old trudging negro, very picturesque in his ragged clothing and battered soft hat. My companion said that he would like to take a picture of this wayfarer, and asked Marse Harris, who, as author of the "Old Reliable" stories, seemed best fitted for the task, to arrange the matter. The automobile, having passed the negro, was stopped to wait for him to catch up. Presently, as he came by, Marse Harris addressed him in that friendly way Southerners have with negroes.
"Want your picture taken, old man?" he asked.
To which the negro, still shuffling along, replied:
"I ain't got no money."
Marse Harris, knowing the workings of the negro mind, got the full import of this reply at once, but I must confess that a moment passed before I realized that the negro took us for itinerant photographers looking for trade.
With the possible exception of Irvin S. Cobb, I suppose Marse Harris has the largest collection of negro character stories of any individual in this country.And let me say, in this connection, that I know of no better place than Vicksburg for the study of southern negro types.
One day Marse Harris was passing by the jail. It was hot weather, and the jail windows were open. Behind the bars of one window, looking down upon the street, stood a negro prisoner. As Marse Harris passed this window a negro wearing a large watch chain came by in the other direction. His watch chain evidently caught the eye of the prisoner, who spoke in a wistful tone, demanding:
"What tahme is it, brotha?"
"What foh you want t' know what tahme it is?" returned the other sternly, as he continued upon his way. "You ain't goin' nowhere."
Through Marse Harris I obtained a copy of a letter written by a negro named Walter to Mr. W. H. Reeve of Vicksburg. Walter had looked out for Mr. Reeve's live stock during a flood, and had certain ideas about what should be done for him in consequence. I give the letter exactly as it was written, merely inserting, parenthetically, a few explanatory words: