"That sweet old word, good-bye!"
"That sweet old word, good-bye!"
"That sweet old word, good-bye!"
One gray dawn, six hundred Zouaves filed out of the pines and got aboard our train. They were a splendid set of animals; medium sized, sunburnt, muscular and wiry as Arabs; and a long, swingy gait told of drill and endurance. But the faces were dull and brutish, generally; and some of them would vie, for cunning villainy, with the features of the prettiest Turcos that Algeria could produce.
The uniform was very picturesque and very—dirty. Full, baggy, scarlet trowsers, confined round the waist by the broad, blue band or sash, bearing the bowie-knife and meeting, at mid-leg, the white gaiter; blue shirt cut very low and exhibiting the brawny, sunburnt throat; jacket heavily braided and embroidered, flying loosely off the shoulders, and the jauntyfez, surmounting the whole, made a brightensemblethat contrasted prettily with the gray and silver of the South Carolinians, or the rusty brown of the Georgians, who came in crowds to see them off.
But the use of these uniforms about the grease and dust of Pensacola camp-fires had left marks that these soldiers considered badges of honor, not to be removed.
Nor were they purer morally. Graduates of the slums of New Orleans, their education in villainy was naturally perfect. They had the vaguest ideas ofmeumandtuum; and small personal difficulties were usually settled by the convincing argument of a bowie-knife, or brass knuckle.
Yet they had been brought to a very perfect state of drill and efficiency. All commands were given in French—the native tongue of nearly all the officers and most of the men; and, in cases of insubordination, the former had no hesitancy in a free use of the revolver. A wonderful peacemaker is your six-shooter.
They might be splendid fellows for a charge on the "Pet Lambs," or on a—pocket; but, on the whole, were hardly the men one would choose for partners in any business but a garroting firm, or would desire to have sleep in the company bedroom.
Their officers we found of a class entirely above them; active, bright, enthusiastic Frenchmen, with a frank courtesy and soldierly bearing that were very taking. They occupied the rear car of the train, while the men filled the forward ones, making the woods ring with their wild yells, and the roaring chorus of the song of theZou-Zou.
We had crossed the gap at Garland, where the road was yet unfinished, and were soon at the breakfast house, where we mounted the hill in a body; leaving our car perfectly empty, save a couple of buglers who stood on the platform. As I looked back, the elder musician was a most perfect picture of theTurco. He had served in Algiers, and after the war in Italy brought a bullet in his leg to New Orleans. He was long past fifty—spare, broad-shouldered and hard as a log of oak. His sharp features were bronzed to the richest mahogany color, and garnished with a moustache and peak of grizzled hair "a cubit and a span"—or nearly—in length. And the short, grizzled hair had been shaved far back from his prominent temples, giving a sinister and grotesque effect to his naturally hard face. Turc was a favorite with the officers, and his dress was rather cleaner than that of the others; a difference that was hardly an improvement.
We were just seated at breakfast—and having a special train we took our time—when a wild scream of the whistle, succeeded immediately by the heavy rumble of cars, came up the hill. We rushed to the windows, just in time to see a column of smoke disappearing round the curve and the officers' car standing solitary and empty on the road.
The Zouaves had run away with the train!
The language the officers used, as we surrounded the "sole survivors"—the two buglers—was, at least, strong; and short, hard words not in the church service dropped frequently from their lips.
It was no use; the train had gone and the men with it, and the best we could do was to speculate on the intention of the runaways, while we waited the result of the telegrams sent to both ends of the line for another engine. At last it came puffing up, and we whirled at its full speed into Montgomery.
Meanwhile theZou-Zoushad several hours' start. Led by one ardent spirit—whose motto had beensimilia similibus, until he lost his balance of mind—they had uncoupled the officers' car and forced the engineers to take them on. On arriving at Montgomery, they wandered over the town, "going through" drinking houses until they became wild with liquor; then bursting open the groceries to get whisky, threatening the citizens and even entering private houses. The alarm became so great, as the Zouaves became more maddened, that the first Georgia regiment was ordered out and stationed by platoons, with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, across the streets where the rioters were. Serious trouble was beginning, when the car with their officers dashed into the depot.
The charge of the Light Brigade was surpassed by those irate Creoles. With the cars still in rapid motion, they leaped off, revolver in hand; and charged into the quarter where their drunken men were still engaged in every sort of excess. The old bugler still trotted at their head, his black eyes gleaming at the prospect of a row, and his bugle occasionally raised to sound the "rally." Into the midst of the drunken and yelling crowd dashed the officers; crackling French oaths rolling over their tongues with a snapping intonation, and their pistols whirling right and left like slung-shot, and dropping a mutineer at every blow. Habit and the rough usage overcame even the drunken frenzy of the men, and they dropped the plunder from their arms, snatched muskets from the corners they had been whirled into, and rapidly dressed into line in the street.
I saw one beardless boy, slight and small, rush to a huge sergeant and order him into ranks. The soldier, a perfect giant, hesitated to drop the handful of shoes he had seized, only for a second. But that was enough. The youth had to jump from the ground to seize his throat; but, at the same moment, the stock of the heavy revolver crashed over his temple, and he fell like a stricken ox.
"Roll that carrion into the street!" said the lieutenant to another soldier near; and before his order was obeyed the store was empty.
In a half hour from the officers' arrival the battalion was mustered on Main street, and only nine absentees were reported at roll-call; but many afezwas drawn far down over a bleeding forehead, and many a villainous countenance was lighted by one eye, while the other was closed and swollen.
The colonel and I had jumped from the car and run on with our French friends; but the colonel was not the son of Atalanta, and by reason of asoupçonof gout his feet were not beautiful upon Zion or any other place. Neither could he make them "swift to shed blood."
As we entered the street where the rioters were, I turned and saw him, perfectly breathless, bear his two hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois against a door. It was not closed, but had only been slammed by the score ofZou-Zousenjoying the whisky within; and as I looked I saw a dignified colonel in the C.S. army turn a complete somersault into a group of red-legged devils, who immediately closed around him.
Gabriel Ravel, though a lighter man, never made a cleaner leap through the third story in the side-scene; but there was no time to waste and I went back at speed. I had scarcely turned when I saw the colonel's huge form tower among the red-legs. By the time I reached the door my apparition, revolver in hand, completed what he had begun; and they slipped by and vanished.
Luckily the bar of the door had fallen with him, and the old gymnastics of other days coming back like a flash, he had seized it, made two rapid blows and laid as many of his assailants at his feet; roaring, meanwhile, oaths as thunderous as they were unintelligible.
"Sacré-é nom!" he shouted as he saw me; "shoot 'em, me boy!Poltrons, egad! Laugh at me! D——n their eyes!Can-n-naille!"
There was a wicked light in my fat friend's eye, and he had recovered his second wind; so we sallied out, the colonel still clinging to his weapon of chance.
"Good enough for these dogs!" he roared, wrathfully shaking the bar. "Saves the pistol."
That night at "the Ranche," as later about many a camp-fire, our French visitors declared that the colonel's bar had done more effective service than their revolvers; and, as it stood dented and blood-smeared in the corner of that vine-clad porch, it did not belie their praise.
CHAPTER X.
EN ROUTE FOR THE BORDER.
Very soon after their state went out of the Union, and it became settled that the policy of the central Government was to take possession of the border states by force, the people of Virginia decided that the battle was to be fought on her soil. Her nearness to Washington, the facility of land communication, and the availability of her waterways for transportation purposes, all pointed to this; and the southern Government also became aware that the Potomac boundary of the Confederacy was the one to be most jealously guarded. Under these circumstances, when the tender of the use of the state capital at Richmond was made to the Montgomery Government, the advantages of the move were at once apparent, and the proffer was promptly accepted.
When we returned to Montgomery, preparations for removal were in such state of progress that the change would be made in a few days. Archives and public property not in daily use had already been sent on, and some of the force of the executive departments were already in the new capital, preparing for the reception of the remainder. Troops in large bodies had already been forwarded to Virginia from all parts of the South, and all indications were that, before the summer was over, an active campaign on the soil of the Old Dominion would be in progress.
About this time, a telegram from Montgomery appeared in the New YorkTribune, which created as much comment at the South as at the North. It stated, in so many words, that the whole South was in motion; that a few days would see Mr. Davis in Virginia at the head of thirty thousand men, Beauregard second in command. With the two sections in a state of open hostility, and with armies already in the field and manœuvering for position, it was somewhat singular that the avowed correspondent of a northern journal should be allowed in the southern Capital; but, when his dispatches bore on their face some signs of authoritative sanction, it became stranger still.
The correspondent of theTribunewas a well-known lobby member of years standing, but avowedly a southern man. His intercourse with the leaders of the government was, at least, friendly, and his predictions and assertions in the columns of that newspaper were generally borne out in fact. The state of the country was an anomalous one, but this method of waging war was still more so.
The history of the dispatch in question was simply this: There had been much jubilation in Montgomery over the news from Virginia. Serenades had been made, speeches delivered, and the invariable whisky had not been neglected.
Late at night, I was shown a copy of this dispatch, as one about to be sent. On my doubting it, I was credibly informed that it had been shown to at least one cabinet officer, and received his approval. And it went!
When it was finally settled that the Capital was to be moved to Virginia, the city of Montgomery began to wail. It had all along been utterly and most emphatically opposed to the location of the government there. It would ruin the trade, the morals and the reputation of the town. Dowagers had avowed their belief that the continuance of the Congress there for one year would render the city as perfect a Sodom as Washington—would demoralize the society beyond purification.
Men of business had grumbled at being disturbed from their fixed routine of many years. But now that the incubus was to be removed, there was a strong pressure to prevent—and bitter denunciations of—the outrage!
Leaders came out in the papers, advising against the practicability; scathing articles about perfidy sometimes appeared; and it was, on all hands, prophesied that the government would lose caste and dignity, and become a traveling caravan if the change were made. Where will the nations of Europe find it when they send their ministers to recognize the Confederate Government?—was the peroration of these eloquent advocates.
Now, as there was no contract made or implied, in locating the provisional government at Montgomery, that it was to be the permanent Capital; or that the exigencies of the war might not necessitate a change to some point more available, this was at least unnecessary. True, the people had made sacrifices, and had inconvenienced themselves. But what they had done was for the country, and not for the Government; and had, besides, been done equally elsewhere. And the location, even temporarily, of the Government there had aided the town greatly. It had become the converging point of railroad and contract business for the Confederacy; and the depots and storehouses located there would be of course continued, throwing a vast amount of business activity and money into it. So, though the people might be somewhat morbid on the subject, their arguments against the change were, on the whole, if natural, not founded on fact.
But, perfectly regardless of the thunders of the press and the growlings of the people, the preparations for removal and the change of base to Virginia went steadily on. By the 20th of May, everything had been completed—the President and Cabinet left Montgomery—the fact, that had for some time been a real one, was formally consummated; and Montgomery became again the Capital of Alabama.
I had nothing to keep me in town longer, so I started for a leisurely trip to Richmond. But man proposes; and in this instance, the Quartermaster's Department disposed that travel was to be anything but practicable.
Trains, crowded with troops from all directions, met at the junctions, and there had to lay over for hours, or days. Burden trains, with supplies for the army, munitions of war, or government property from Montgomery, blocked the road in all directions; and trains running "not on time" had to proceed much more carefully than ordinarily. In fact, there was not the amount of transportation at the disposal of the roads that the greatly enhanced demands required; and at every station nearer Richmond, the pressure of passengers and freight became greater.
Through Georgia I bore the troubles of the transit like a philosopher; but under three detentions between Augusta and Columbia, of from nine to thirteen hours, patience and endurance both gave way.
South Carolina had gone into the war with her eyes wider open than those of her sisters; and while she had yet time, was straining every nerve to utilize all her available resources and to make new ones. Her factories, tanneries and foundries were all in constant and active operation; she was making bountiful preparation for the future.
Everywhere in the South was earnest endeavor and heartfelt enthusiasm for the cause; but I saw it nowhere directed into such practical and productive channels, thus early, as in South Carolina. Charleston, Pensacola and Virginia had drained her of younger and more active men; but the older ones and her vast resources of slave labor made up for the loss, and neither time nor energy seemed to be misapplied.
After a rest, I found a freight train with a philanthropic conductor, and started for Kingsville.Væ Victis!
I reached that station—what a misnomer!—in a driving mist and a very bad humor. Neither was a fine preparation for the news that a train had smashed seventeen miles above, tearing up the track and effectually blocking the road. The down train, with which we were to connect, could not come through; not a car was visible; no one knew when we could get off, and the engine we had left was just disappearing around a curve—Charlestonward.
One hopeful individual ventured a mild suggestion that we should have to stay all night. He weighed a hundred and eighty pounds, at least—not a fraction less—so I remained passive; but ten pounds subtracted from his avoirdupois would have brought him a black eye. Stay all night! The idea was an ague!
Kingsville was a splendid aggregation of one house and a long platform. The town—i.e., the house—had, even in palmy days, been remarkable on the road for great dirt, wretched breakfasts and worse whisky. You entered at one door, grabbed a biscuit and a piece of bacon and rushed out at the other; or you got an awful decoction of brown sugar and turpentine in a green tumbler. Constant travel and crowds of passing soldiers had not improved it in any particular. The very looks of the place were repugnant enough in the daytime, but
"Bold was he who hither cameAt midnight—man or boy!"
"Bold was he who hither cameAt midnight—man or boy!"
"Bold was he who hither came
At midnight—man or boy!"
I felt that a night in the rain under the pines, with my bag for a pillow, would be endurable; but no mortal with a white skin could dare those bloated and odorous feather-beds, where other things—in the shape of mordants, vivacious, active and gigantic—besides
"Wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleeper."
"Wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleeper."
"Wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleeper."
To mend matters, Gartrell's regiment of Georgians, eight hundred and fiftystrong, and three other companies of Georgians from Pensacola, had been left here to meet a way-train, which failing, they bivouacked by the roadside. In all there were over eleven hundred tobacco-and-gin redolences, remarkably quiet for them; shooting at a mark, going through squad drill, drinking bad liquor by the canteen and swearing in a way that would have made the "Army in Flanders" sick with envy.
In the latter amusement I joined internally; and it did me so much good that I bought the anti-administration newspaper of Charleston and, getting out of bullet range, put my back against a tree and tried to read.Mercurywas ever a blithe and sportive god, and his gambols on Mount Olympus were noted in days of yore; but the modern namesake—or else my present position—had soporific tendencies; and fear of the target shooters growing dimmer and dimmer, I lost myself in sleep.
It was near sundown when I was awakened by the snort of a locomotive, and a freight train hove in sight. The drums rolled, the troops formed in line, each packing his household on his back as he trotted along; and, as the cars backed up, the men broke ranks and jumped aboard, filling every crack and corner, and seeming to pile on top of each other.
A berth there was utterly impracticable to any man with any of his senses in active operation. That squirming, dense mass of humanity was more than the oldest traveler could stand, and I gave up my place in the rush. Luckily, there was an express car along, and I found the agent. He was very busy; and eloquence worthy of Gough, or Cicero, or Charles Sumner got no satisfaction. Desperation suggested a masonic signal, with the neck of a black bottle protruding from my bag. The man of parcels melted and invoked terrible torments on the immortal part of him if he didn't let me "g'long wi' the 'spress," as he styled that means of locomotion.
The accommodation was not princely—six feet by ten, cumbered with packages of all shapes and sizes and strongly flavored with bacon and pipe. Yet, "not for gold or precious stones" would I have exchanged that redolent corner. The agent waxed more and more polite as the bottle emptied, regretted the want of room, regaled himself with frequent "nips," and me with anecdotes of a professional nature.
From him was learned that he was with the train that had carried my old friends, the Zouaves, to their fresh fields of glory in Virginia. They retained a lively recollection of their lesson at Montgomery, and had kept rather quiet till reaching Columbia. There the devil again got unchained among them, and they broke out in a style to make up for their enforced good behavior.
"Sich a shooting of cattle and poultry, sich a yelling and singing of ther darned frenchy stuff—sich a rolling of drums and a damning of officers, I ain't hear yit"—said the agent. "And theydoesride more on the outside of the cars than the inside, anyhow."
Beyond Weldon a knot were balancing themselves on the connecting beams of the box-cars. Warned by their officers, they laughed; begged by the conductors, they swore. Suddenly there was a jolt, the headway of the cars jammed them together, and three red-legged gentlemen were mashed between them—flat as Ravel in the pantomime.
"And I'm jest a-thinkin'," was his peroration, "ef this yere reegement don't stop a-fightin' together, being shot by the Georgians and beat by their officers—not to mention a jammin' up on railroads—they're gwine to do darned leetle sarvice a-fightin' of Yanks!"
After this period the agent talked, first to himself and then to the black bottle; while I, seated on a box of cartridges, lit my pipe and went into a reverie as to the treatment the surgeons would use in the pneumonia sure to result from the leaks in the car.
In the midst of an active course of turpentine and stimulants, I was brought to myself by a jolt and dead halt in mid-road. The engine had blown off a nut, and here we were, dead lame, six miles from a station and no chance of getting on.
My Express friend advised very quietly to "quit this and walk onter Florence."
"'Taint but a small tramp after all," he said. "And ye'll jest catch the A.M. up train and miss the sojers. Jest hand this yere to the A. & Co.'s agent, and he'll help yer ef she's crowded. Here's luck!" and he took a long pull at the bottle and handed it back—rather regretfully—with a dingy note on the back of an Express receipt.
For the benefit of literature in ages yet unborn, I give a careful transcription of this document:
"Deer bil this gentilman Is a verry peerticular frend of mine—also My brother-en-law. And you must give him sum Help ef he needs any cos Our engen she's run of the track And I won't be long afore to morrer."Yours trewly,"Grimes."
"Deer bil this gentilman Is a verry peerticular frend of mine—also My brother-en-law. And you must give him sum Help ef he needs any cos Our engen she's run of the track And I won't be long afore to morrer.
"Yours trewly,
"Grimes."
Thus armed, I shouldered my bag and started on my tramp over the wet and slippery track, reaching Florence at gray dawn. As I came in sight, there stood the train, the engines cold and fires unlit. I had full time, but my good luck—the first since I started—put me in a glow, and I stepped out in a juvenile pace that would have done credit to "the Boy" in training days. As I came nearer, my mercury went rapidly down to zero. Every car was jammed, aisles packed and box-cars crowded even on top. The doorways and platforms were filled with long rows of gray blankets that smelt suggestively human! Crowds of detained passengers and three companies of the "Crescent Guard" had taken their places at midnight, and slept with a peacefulness perfectly aggravating. As I walked ruefully by the windows, there was no hope! Every seat was filled, and every passenger slept the sleep of the just; and their mixed and volleyed snoring came through,
"Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme."
"Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme."
"Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme."
There was no sort of use. I'd have to try the Express, and deep was my chuckle as I reread my friend Grimes' remarkable production. It would be an oasis in this desert—that Express car; but lo! when I went to look for it there was none on the train!
Dead beat I sat on the platform and awaited day. When a fireman began operations on the engine, I meekly queried where the Express was.
"Be n't none," was the surly rejoinder.
I was wet and tired and generally bewildered. Was it a wonder that I then and there swore at that fireman, as only meek and long-suffering men, when aroused, can swear? The volley was effective, however, and he very politely told me the agent would "be roun'" before the train started. Presently he pointed out the desired individual, to whom I hastened to hand my note. Now the terrible denunciations my former friend had made on his own soul were as nothing to what the present representative of Adams & Co. called down upon his own and everybody else's immortal function.
"Well, I hope to be eternally —— —— by ——! But it ain't no use! —— —— my —— soul, ef yer shan't ride somehow!" remarked this profane expressman. "Yer be Hector Grimes' brother, and by ——! go yer shell! Yer married his sister Cynthy—the one as squints? Why —— —— me! I knowed her when she wasn't knee high—and yer done —— —— well, by ——! Here, Potty!" and he addressed a greasy man just mounting the mail car—"Here be Grimes' brother, asmustgit to Weldon, by —— ——! So hist him along, will yer?"
"O.K. Jump in, Mr. Grimes," agreed the mail agent; and by this time I was so wet and disgusted I didn't care who I was. So in I went, playingGrimes"for this night only."
"Here's luck, Potty! may —— —— me, but I'm glad I met yer, Grimes," remarked my profane friend, taking a long pull at the bottle I handed him in my gratitude. "Here's to your wife, Grimes!" and the cars starting just then, "deer bil" took another pull and, with great absence of mind, put the bottle in his pocket and waved us adieu.
The Mail car, like the Express, was a box ten feet by six—one-half the space filled with counter and pigeon-holes, and the other half with mail-bags. Into the remainder were crammed the agent—specific gravity equal to that of two hundred and ninety pounds of feathers—a friend of his and myself. The friend I soon found was what is known as "a good traveling companion;"i.e., a man who keeps himself primed with broad stories and bad whisky, and who doesn't object to a song in which the air always runs away with the harmony. After we started I tried to sleep. It was no use. Lying on one mail-bag with another for a pillow, that is liable to be jerked out at any station to the near dislocation of your neck, with a funny man sitting nearly on you, are not sedatives. My bottle was gone, so I drank gin out of the funny man's. I hate gin—but that night I hated everything and tried thesimilia similibusrule.
We missed connection at Weldon. Did anybody ever make connection there? We were four hours late, and with much reason had, therefore, to wait five hours more. If Kingsville is cheap and nasty, Weldon is dear and nastier. Such a supper! It was inedible even to a man who had tasted nothing but whisky, gin and peanuts for forty-eight hours. Then the landlord—whose hospitality was only equaled by his patriotism—refused to open his house at train time. We must either stay all night, or not at all—for the house would shut at ten o'clock—just after supper. So a deputation of the Crescents and I waited on him, and after a plain talk concluded to "cuss and quit." So we clambered into some platform cars that were to go with the train, and, after a sumptuous supper of dried-apple pies and peanuts, slept the sleep of the weary.
CHAPTER XI.
"ON TO RICHMOND!"
Of course, Petersburg was reached two hours after the train for Richmond had left, but in full time to get half a cold breakfast, at double price. For, about the first development one noted in the South was the growth of an inordinate greed in the class who had anything to sell, or to do, that was supposed to be indispensable. The small hotels and taverns along the railways peculiarly evidenced this; for, demands of passengers must be supplied, and this was the moment for harvest full and fat. Disgust, wetting, gin and detention had made me feel wolfish; but I wanted none ofthatbreakfast. Still, I gave the baldheaded man, with nose like a vulture—collecting nimbly the dollars of the soldiers—a very decided expression of my opinion. He seemed deeply pained thereat; but no one ever mentioned that he had put down the price.
At the depot was Frank C., an old chum of Washington "germans," in the new dress of first sergeant of a Georgia battery. He was rushing a carload of company property to Richmond, and was as eager as I and the Crescents to get to that goal. So, between us, the railroad superintendent was badgered into an extra engine; and, mounting Frank's triumphal car, we bumped away from fellow travelers, wandering dolefully through the mud in vain attempt at time-killing until the evening train. That freight-car—piled as it was with ammunition, wheels and harness—was a Godsend, after the past three days. Cicero, Frank's ancient and black Man Friday, dispensed hot coffee and huge hunks of bread and ham; and a violin and two good voices among the Crescents made the time skim along far faster than since starting.
"How is it you haven't your commission?" one of the Creoles asked the Georgian. "When we parted at Montgomery it was promised you."
"Pledges are not commissions, though," was the careless reply. "I got tired of waiting the Secretary's caprices, when there was real work to be done; so one day I went to the War Department and demanded either my sheepskin, or a positive refusal. I got only more promises; so I told the Sec. I needed no charity from the government, but would present it with a company! Then, to be as good as my word, I sold some cotton and some stock, equipped this company and—voila tout!"
"But you are not commanding your company?"
"Couldn't do it, you see. Wouldn't let the boys elect me an officer and have the Sec. think I hadboughtmy commission! But, old fellow, I'll win it before the month is out; and, if God spares me, mother shall call her boy Colonel Frank, before Christmas!"
Poor Frank! Before the hoped-for day his bones were bleaching in front of Fort Magruder. One morning the retreat from Yorktown—a pitiful roadside skirmish—a bullet in his brain—and the tramp of McClellan's advancing hosts packed the fresh sods over his grave,herois monumentum! He was one of many, but no truer heart or readier hand were stilled in all the war.
Passing out of the cut through the high bluff, just across the "Jeems" river bridge, Richmond burst beautifully into view; spreading panorama-like over her swelling hills, with the evening sun gilding simple houses and towering spires alike into a glory. The city follows the curve of the river, seated on amphitheatric hills, retreating from its banks; fringes of dense woods shading their slopes, or making blue background against the sky. No city of the South has grander or more picturesque approach; and now—as the slant rays of the sun kissed her a loving good-night—nothing in the view hinted of war to come, but all of holy peace.
Just here the James narrows its bed between high banks, and for some three miles—from Hollywood cemetery down to "Rockett's" landing—the shallow current dashes over its rocky bed with the force and chafe of a mountain torrent; now swirling, churned into foamy rapids, again gliding swiftly smooth around larger patches of islands that dot its surface. On the right hand hills, behind us, rises the suburb village of Manchester, already of considerable importance as a milling town; and the wholecoup d'œil—from the shining heights of Chimborazo to the green slopes of the city of the silent, the grim, gray old capitol as a centerpiece—makes a Claud landscape that admits no thought of the bloody future!
The railroad bridge—then a frail, giddy structure, wide enough for a track and footway—spans near a mile across the boiling current. From the car-platform, the treetops far below and the rugged, foam-crowned rocks look inhospitably distant. I have whirled round the high trestles on the Baltimore & Ohio when the work swayed and rattled under the heavy train, threatening each moment to hurl us down the precipitous mountain into the black, rocky bed of the Cheat, hundreds of feet below; have dashed at speed round steep grades hewn in the solid rock, where the sharp, jagged peaks rose a thousand feet beneath us; and I have raced in pitchy nights on the western rivers in tinder-box boats, that seemed shaking to pieces away from their red-hot furnaces; but I do not recall any piece of travel that gave the same sense of the instability of railroad affairs as that James river bridge.
The city was thoroughly jammed—its ordinary population of forty thousand swelled to three times that number by the sudden pressure. Of course, all the Government, with its thousand employés, had come on; and in addition, all the loose population along the railroad over which it had passed seemed to have clung to and been rolled into Richmond with it. Not only did this mania seize the wealthier and well-to-do classes, but the queerest costumes of the inland corners of Georgia and Tennessee disported themselves with perfect composure at hotels and on the streets. Besides, from ten to fifteen thousand troops were always collected, as a general rendezvous, before assignment to one of the important points—Norfolk, the Peninsula, or the Potomac lines. Although these were in camp out of town, their officers and men thronged the streets from daylight to dark, on business or pleasure bent; and the variety of uniforms—from the butternut of the Georgia private to the three stars of the flash colonel—broke the monotony of the streets pleasingly to the eye.
Hotel accommodations in Richmond were always small and plain, and now they were all overflowing. The Spotswood, Exchange and American held beds at a high premium in the parlors, halls and even on the billiard-tables. All the lesser houses were equally packed, and crowds of guests stood hungrily round the dining-room doors at meal-times, watching and scrambling for vacated seats. It was a clear case of "devil take the hindmost," for theircuisinedecreased in quantity and quality in exact ratio to augmentation of their custom. The Richmond hotels, always mediocre, were now wretched. Such a thing as a clean room, a hot steak, or an answered bell were not to be bought by flagrant bribery. I would fain believe that all concerned did their best; but rapid influx absolutely overwhelmed them; and resources of the neighboring country—ample to support one-third the numbers now collected—were quickly exhausted under suddenly tripled demand. No transportation for private supplies was available in the overtaxed condition of the railroads; so the strangers, perforce, had to "grin and bear it," dry soever as the grin might be. Private boarding-houses sprang up like mushrooms on every block; bereaved relicts and ambitious spinsterhood equally clutching the chance to turn an honest penny. And naturally, ordinary trials of boarding-house life were aggravated by circumstance. Discomfort of the hotels was great enough; but, desiccated into the boarding-house can, it became simply unendurable. In this strait many private families were induced to open their doors to the better class of strangers; and gradually the whole dense population settled down, wedged into comparative quiet. Happily, my lines fell in these pleasanter places; and, whatever the unavoidable trials, it were base ingratitude in an experimental pilgrim among the mail-bags to indite a new Jeremiad thereon.
Suites of rooms had been reserved at the Spotswood hotel for the President and some of his Cabinet; so that house naturally became headquarters. Mr. Davis' office, the "Cabinet-room" with the State and Treasury Departments were located in the custom-house; and the other bureaux of the Government were relegated to the "Mechanics' Institute," an ungainly pile of bricks, formerly used as library and lecture-rooms.
The State of Virginia, though not at all on pleasure bent in inviting the Government to her capital, had yet been of frugal enough mind not to commence preparations in advance of acceptance; and the hejira followed so swiftly upon it that we plumped down into their very midst. Miss Bremer—who declared Alexandria entirely finished because she never heard the sound of a hammer—would have been more than amused at Richmond. The great halls of the Institute were cutting up into offices, with deafening clatter, day and night; and one of the Cabinet secretaries—who did not exhibit, if indeed he possessed, that aspiration ascribed to the devil when ill—swore himself almost to a shadow.
Both these public offices faced upon Capitol Square; a large, iron-fenced space, beautifully undulating and with walks winding under grand old trees. On the central hill stood the old State Capitol, picturesque from the river, but grimly dirty on close inspection. It is a plain, quadrangular construction, with Grecian pediment and columns on its south front and broad flights of steps leading to its side porticoes. Below were the halls of the legislature, now turned over to the Confederate States Congress; and in the small rotunda connecting them stood Houdon's celebrated statue of Washington—a simple but majestic figure in marble, ordered by Dr. Franklin from the French sculptor in 1785—of which Virginians are justly proud. In the cool, vaulted basement were the State officials; and above the halls the offices of the governor and the State library. That collection, while lacking many modern works, held some rare and valuable editions. It was presided over by the gentlest and most courteouslittérateurof the South. Many a bedeviled and ambitious public man may still recall his quiet, modest aid, in strong contrast to thebrusquerieand "insolence of office," too much the general rule; and his touching, heart-born poems were familiar at every southern hearth and camp-fireside. Soon after, the familiar voice of friendship was dulled to him—exul patriæ—by the boom of the broad Atlantic; and now his bones rest far away from those alcoves and their classic dust.
John R. Thompson, the editor of the famous "Southern Literary Messenger," went to London to edit "The Index," established in the never-relinquished hope of influencing European opinion. On reaching New York, when the cause he loved was lost, the staunch friendship of Richard Henry Stoddard and the appreciation of William Cullen Bryant found him congenial work on "The Post." But the sensitive spirit was broken; a few brief years saw the end, and only a green memory is left to those who loved, even without knowing, the purest southern poet.
From the roof of the Capitol is had the finest view of Richmond, the surrounding country lying like a map for a radius of twenty miles. Only from this bird's-eye view can a perfect idea be gained of the elevation of the city, perched above a rolling country—its stretches of meadowland below cut by the valley of the James; the river stealing in sluggish, molten silver through it, or heaving up inland into bold, tree-bearded hills, high enough to take the light from the clouds on their tops, as a halo. Far northward alternate swells of light and depressions of shadow among the hills; the far-off horizon making a girdle of purple light, blended into the blue of undefined woods. On clear days, a splendid ozone fills the air at that high perch, the picture having, as far as the eye can travel, stereoscopic clearness.
Immediately beneath lies the Square; its winding walks, rare old trees and rich sweep of sod filled with children, so full of enjoyment that one is half-minded to drop down and roll over the grass with them. On the central walk, midway between the Capitol and St. Paul's church, stands Crawford's equestrian Washington in bronze, resting upon a circular base and pedestal of plain granite, in which are bases for statues of the mighty Virginians of the past. Only the three southern ones were now occupied; but those figures—Jefferson, Mason and Henry—were accepted as surpassing in merit the central work. The Washington is imposing in size and position, but its art is open to criticism. The horse is exaggeration of pose and muscle; being equally strained, though not rampant, as that inopportune charger on which Clark Mills perched General Jackson, at the national Capital. Nor is this "first in peace" by any means "the first" on horseback; the figure being theatric rather than dignified, and the extended arm more gymnastic than statuesque.
An irate senator once told the august body he addressed that it was a warning to them—"pointing straight to the penitentiary!" So, as a whole, the group, if not thoroughly classic, may be admirably useful.
From Capitol Square, open, wide streets—neatly built up and meeting each other at right angles—stretch away on all sides; an occasional spire or dome, and frequent houses larger than the rest, breaking the monotony. Below, toward the river, lie the basins, docks and rows of warehouses; and further still is the landing, "Rockett's," the head of river navigation, above which no vessels of any size can come. Just under the Capitol—to the East—stands the governor's house, a plain, substantial mansion of the olden time, embosomed in trees and flower-beds. Further off, in the same line, rise the red and ragged slopes of Church Hill. It takes its name from the old church in which Patrick Henry made his celebrated speech—a structure still in pretty good preservation. And still further away—opposite the vanishing point of the water view—are seen the green tops of Chimborazo Heights and Howard's Grove—hospital sites, whose names have been graven upon the hearts of all southern people by the mordant of sorrow!
Just across the river, to the South, the white and scattered village of Manchester is prettily relieved against the green slopes on which it sits. There the bridge cuts the shining chafe of the river like a black wire; and just under it, the wind sighs softly in the treetops of Belle Isle, afterward to become so famous in the newspaper annals of the North, as a prison for the Union soldiers captured in the long struggle for the city.
Far to the west, higher shafts of Hollywood Cemetery gleam among the trees; and the rapids, dancing down in the sunlight, break away into a broader sheet of foam around its point. Except, perhaps, "Bonnie Venture" (Buona Ventura), at Savannah, there is no site for a cemetery in the South, naturally so picturesque and at the same time solemn, as this. Rising from comparatively level ground in the rear, it swells and undulates in a series of gentle hills to the river, that embraces it on three sides. Rows of magnificent old trees in many places arch quite across the walk—giving, even at midday, a half-twilight—and the sigh of the river breeze in their tops, mingling with the constant roar of the rapids, seems to sing aTe Deumfor the dead. The graves are simple and unpretending—only an occasional column of any prominence rearing itself above the humbler surroundings.
On a hill—just behind the point where the river curves round the extreme point—rest the ashes of Monroe, enclosed in a large and ornate mausoleum, where they were laid when escorted south by the New York Seventh Regiment. That escort was treated with all the generous hospitality Virginia can so well use; and numerous and deep were the oaths of amity between the citizen-soldiers. Though the Seventh were not notoriously deadly, in the war that followed, only the shortest of memories—or, indeed, the most glowing of patriotism—could have erased the brother-love, then and there bumpered down!
Under the hills of the cemetery—the dirty, dull canal creeping between them—stand the buildings, dam and powerful pumps of the water service; ordinarily more than adequate for all uses. Usually, the water was pure and clear; but when heavy rains washed the river lands, the "noble Jeems" rushed by with an unsavory and dingy current, that might have shamed the yellow Tiber and rivaled the Nile itself. Sometimes the weary and worn patriot took his whisky and mud, thick enough to demand a fork; and for days
"The water is muddy and dankAs ever a company pumped."
"The water is muddy and dankAs ever a company pumped."
"The water is muddy and dank
As ever a company pumped."
The outskirts of Richmond are belted by bold crests, near enough, together to form a chain of natural forts. These were now fortifying; the son of wealth, the son of Erin and the son of Ham laboring in perspiration and in peace side by side. Later these forts did good turn, during cavalry raids, when the city was uncovered and the garrison but nominal.
Gamble's hill, a pretty but steep slope, cuts the river west of the bridge. Rising above its curves, from the Capitol view-point, are the slate-roofed Tredegar Works; their tall chimneys puffing endless black smoke against the sunshine, which reflects it, a livid green, upon the white foam of the rapids. So potent a factor in the aggressive power of the Confederacy was this foundry that it overtopped the regular government agencies. When the war began, this was the only rolling-mill of great capacity, of which the South could boast; the only one, indeed, capable of casting heavy guns. Almost the first decisive act of Virginia was to prevent, by seizure, the delivery to United States officers of some guns cast for them by the Tredegar Works; and, from that day, there were no more earnest and energetic workers for the cause of southern independence than the firm of Jos. R. Anderson & Co. It was said, at this time, that the firm was in financial straits. But it thrived so well on government patronage—spite of sundry boards to consider if army and navy work was not paid for at ruinously low rates—that it greatly increased in size; added to its utility by importations of costly machinery, through the blockade; stood loss of one-third of its buildings, by fire; used a ship of its own for importation; and, at the close of the struggle, was in better condition than at the commencement. The senior partner was, for a time, in the field at head of his brigade; but affairs were so well managed, in the interval, by the Messrs. Tanner—father and son, who were partners with General Anderson—that his absence was not appreciable in the work.
It was at the Tredegar Works that the famous "Brooke gun"—a rifled 7-inch—was cast, tested and perfected. Here the plates for the iron-clads, in almost all southern waters, were rolled or made ready for use. Here heavy ordnance for the forts was cast, together with shells and shot; and here the torpedoes—sometimes so effective, and usually so useless—were contrived and made. Indeed, the Tredegar Works so greatly aided the Confederacy, that the lengthening of the war may be, in large measure, attributed to their capacity, and to the able zeal with which they were managed.
So great and effective an agent could not fail to receive, from the Richmond government, every aid in obtainance of supplies, labor and transportation. "The Works" had mines, mills and pork-packeries in various sections of the South; thus obtaining coal and metals, as well as food—at reduced rates, within reach of their wages—for an army of employés. So great was the necessary number of these—whites, skilled, in labor—that even closest conscription left the junior of the firm a full battalion of infantry. This, drilled and equipped from his own shops, Major Tanner led in person, when raids or other straits made their soldiering paramount to other occupation. And—even when greatest scarcity of provisions came—the agents of "the Works" proceeded with those of the commissary of the Confederacy,pari passu.
An odd incident, coming to mind just here, will point the general estimate of the importance of the Tredegar Works. A special train was crossing the bridge, en route for Petersburg, at a time when transportation was rare. A huge negro, blacker than the soot upon his face, sat placidly on the platform of the rear car.
"What are you doing here?" was asked by the officer in charge.
"Rid'n' t' Petesbug," was the placid reply.
"Have you paid your fare?"
"Don' got nun t' pay, boss. Rides onner pass, I does!"
"Work for the government?"—this rather impatiently.
Ebo rolled his eyes, with expression of deep disgust, as he responded, grandly:
"No—sah!Fur t'uther consarn!"