At last the time came for me to leave. The colonel and Captain Berry came down to the beach with me. Outside we found Captain Vodges kindly keeping my friends in conversation and in liquid supplies in the shade of the bakehouse shed, and, after a little more pleasant conversation, we were afloat once more. Probably no living man was ever permitted to visit the camps of two enemies within sight of each other before this, under similar circumstances, for I was neither spy nor herald, and I owe my best thanks to those who trusted me on both sides so freely and so honorably. A gentleman who preceded me did not fare quite so well. He landed on the island and went up to the fort, where he represented himself to be the correspondent of an American journal. But his account of himself was not deemed satisfactory. He was sent off to the fleet. Presently there came over a flag of truce from General Bragg, with a warrant signed by a justice of the peace, for the correspondent, on a charge of felony; but the writ did not run in Fort Pickens. The officers regarded the message as a clever ruse to get back a spy, and the correspondent is still in durance vile or in safety, as the case may be, on board the squadron.
All sails filled, the Diana stood up toward the navy-yard once more in the glare of the setting sun. The sentinels along the battery and beach glared at us with surprise as the schooner, with her flag of truce still flying, ran past them. The pier was swept with the glass for the Mobile gentlemen; they were not visible. “Halloa! Mr. Captain, what’s that you’re at?” His mate was waving the Confederate flag from the deck—“It’s only the signal, sir, to the gentlemen on shore.” “Wave some other flag, then, while there’s a flag of truce flying, and while we are in these waters.” After backing and filling for some time the party were descried in the distance. Again, the watery skiff was sent off, and in a few minutes they were permitted, thanks to their passes, to come off. Some confidential person had informed them the attack was certainly coming off in a very short time. They were anxious to stay. They had seen friends at Pensacola, and were full of praises of “the quaint old Spanish settlement,” but mine is, unfortunately, not an excursion of pleasure, and it was imperative that I should not waste time. Every thing had been seen that was necessary for my purpose. It was beyond my power to state the reasonswhich led me to think no fight would take place, for doing so would have been to betray confidence. And so we parted company—they to feast their eyes on a bombardment—and if they only are near enough to see it they will heartily regret their curiosity, or I am mistaken—and we to return to Mobile.
It was dark before the Diana was well down off Fort Pickens again, and, as she passed out to sea between it and Fort M’Rae, it was certainly to have been expected that one side or other would bring her to. Certainly our friend Mr. Brown in his clipper Oriental would overhaul us outside, and there lay a friendly bottle in a nest of ice waiting for the gallant sailor who was to take farewell of us according to promise. Out we glided into night and into the cool sea breeze, which blew fresh and strong from the north. In the distance the black form of the Powhatan could be just distinguished; the rest of the squadron could not be made out by either eye or glass, nor was the schooner in sight. A lantern was hoisted by my orders, and was kept aft for some time after the schooner was clear of the forts. Still no schooner. The wind was not very favorable for running toward the Powhatan, and it was too late to approach her with perfect confidence from the enemy’s side. Besides, it was late; time pressed. The Oriental was surely lying off somewhere to the westward, and the word was given to make sail, and soon the Diana was bowling along shore, where the sea melted away in a fiery line of foam so close to us that a man could, in nautical phrase, “shy a biscuit” on the sand. The wind was abeam, and the Diana seemed to breathe it through her sails, and flew along at an astonishing rate through the phosphorescent waters with a prow of flame and a bubbling wake of dancing meteor-like streams flowing from her helm, as though it were a furnace whence boiled a stream of liquid metal. “No sign of the Oriental on our lee-bow?” “Nothin’ at all in sight, sir.” The sharks and huge rays flew off from the shore as we passed and darted out seaward, marking their runs in brilliant trails of light. On sped the Diana, but no Oriental came in sight.
I was tired. The sun had been very hot; the ride through the batteries, the visits to quarters, the excursion to Pickens, had found out my weak places, and my head was aching and legs fatigued, and so I thought I would turn in for a short time, and I dived into the shades below, where my comrades were already sleeping, and kicking off my boots, lapsed into a state which rendered me indifferent to the attentions no doubt lavished upon me by the numerous little familiars who recreate in the well-peopled timbers. It never entered into my head, even in my dreams, that the captain would break the blockade ifhe could—particularly as his papers had not been indorsed, and the penalties would be sharp and sure if he were caught. But the confidence of coasting captains in the extraordinary capabilities of their craft is a madness—a hallucination so strong that no danger or risk will prevent their acting upon it whenever they can. I was assured once by the “captain” of aBillyboy, that he could run to windward of any frigate in Her Majesty’s service, and there is not a skipper from Hartlepool to Whitstable who does not believe his ownMary AnnorThree Grandmothersis, on certain “pints,” able to bump her fat bows and scuttle-shaped stern faster through the seas than any clipper which ever flew a pendant. I had been some two hours and a half asleep, when I was awakened by a whispering in the little cabin. Charley, the negro cook, ague-stricken with terror, was leaning over the bed, and in broken French was chattering through his teeth: “Monsieur, Monsieur, nous sommes perdus! Le batement de guerre nous poursuit. Il n’a pas encore tiré. Il va tirer bientot! Oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu!” Through the hatchway I could see the skipper was at the helm, glancing anxiously from the compass to the quivering reef-points of his mainsail. “What’s all this we hear, captain?” “Well, sir, there’s been somethin’ a runnin’ after us these two hours” (very slowly). “But I don’t think he’ll keech us up no how this time.” “But, good heavens! you know it may be the Oriental, with Mr. Brown on board.” “Ah, wall—may bee. But he kept quite close up on me in the dark—it gave me quite a stark when I seen him. May be, says I, he’s a privateerin’ chap, and so I draws in on shore close as I cud,—gets mee centre-board in, and, says I, I’ll see what yer med of, mee boy. He an’t a gaining much on us.” I looked, and sure enough, about half or three-quarters of a mile astern, and somewhat to leeward of us, a vessel, with sails and hull all blended into a black lump, was standing on in pursuit. I strained my eyes and furbished up the glasses, but could make out nothing definite. The skipper held grimly on. The shore was so close we could have almost leaped into the surf, for the Diana, when her centre-board is up, does not draw much over four feet. “Captain, I think you had better shake your wind, and see who he is. It may be Mr. Brown.” “Meester Brown or no I can’t help carrine on now. I’d be on the bank outside in a minit if I didn’t hold my course.” The captain had his own way; he argued that if it was the Oriental she would have fired a blank gun long ago to bring us to; and as to not calling us when the sail was discovered he took up the general line of the cruelty of disturbing people when they’re asleep. Ah! captain, you knew well it was Mr. Brown, as you let out when we were off Fort Morgan. Bykeeping so close in shore in shoal water the Diana was enabled to creep along to windward of the stranger, who evidently was deeper than ourselves. See there! Her sails shiver! so one of the crew says; she’s struck! But she’s off again, and is after us. We are just within range, and one’s eyes become quite blinky, watching for the flash from the bow, but, whether privateer or United States schooner she was too magnanimous to fire. A stern chase is a long chase. It must now be somewhere about two in the morning. Nearer and nearer to shore creeps the Diana. “I’ll lead him into a pretty mess, whoever he is, if he tries to follow me through the Swash,” grins the skipper. The Swash is a very shallow, narrow, and dangerous passage into Mobile Bay, between the sand-banks on the east of the main channel and the shore. The Diana is now only some nine or ten miles from Fort Morgan, guarding the entrance to Mobile. Soon an uneasy dancing motion welcomes her approach to the Swash. “Take a cast of the lead, John!” “Nine feet.” “Good! Again!” “Seven feet.” “Good—Charley, bring the lantern.” (Oh, Charley, why did that lantern go out just as it was wanted, and not only expose us to the most remarkable amount of “cussin’,” imprecation, and strange oaths our ears ever heard, but expose our lives and your head to more imminent danger?) But so it was, just at the critical juncture when a turn of the helm port or starboard made the difference, perhaps, between life and death, light after light went out, and the captain went dancing mad after intervals of deadly calmness, as the mate sang out, “Five feet and a half! seven feet—six feet—eight feet—five feet—four feet and a half—(Oh, Lord!)—six feet,” and so on, through a measurement of death by inches, not at all agreeable. And where was Mr. Brown all this time? Really, we were so much interested in the state of the lead-line, and in the very peculiar behavior of the lanterns which would not burn, that we scarcely cared much when we heard from the odd hand and Charley that she had put about, after running aground once or twice, they thought, as soon as we entered the Swash, and had vanished rapidly in the darkness. It was little short of a miracle that we got past the elbow, for just at the critical moment, in a channel not more than a hundred yards broad, with only six feet of water, the binnacle light, which had burned steadily for a minute, sank with a sputter into black night. When the passage was accomplished, the captain relieved his mind by chasing Charley into a corner, and with a shark, which he held by the tail, as the first weapon that came to hand, inflicting on him condign punishment, and then returning to the helm. Charley, however, knew his master, for he slyly seized the shark and flung his defunct corpse overboard before another fit of passion cameon, and by the morning the skipper was good friends with him, after he had relieved himself, by a series of castigations of the negligent lamplighter with every variety of Rhadamanthine implement.
The Diana had thus distinguished her dirty little person by breaking a blockade, and giving an excellent friend of ours a great deal of trouble (if it was, indeed Mr. Brown), as well as giving us a very unenviable character for want of hospitality and courtesy; and, for both, I beg to apologize with this account of the transaction. But she had a still greater triumph. As she approached Fort Morgan, all was silence. The morning was just showing a gray streak in the east. “Why, they’re all asleep at the fort,” observed the indomitable captain, and, regardless of guns or sentries, down went his helm, and away the Diana thumped into Mobile Bay, and stole off in the darkness toward the opposite shore. There was, however, a miserable day before us. When the light fairly broke we had got only a few miles inside, a stiff northerly wind blew right in our teeth, and the whole of the blessed day we spent in tacking backward and forward between one low shore and another low shore, in water the color of pea-soup, so that temper and patience were exhausted, and we were reduced to such a state that we took intense pleasure in meeting with a drowning alligator. He was a nice-looking young fellow about ten feet long, and had evidently lost his way, and was going out to sea bodily, but it would have been the height of cruelty to take him on board our ship miserable as he was, though he passed within two yards of us. There was to be sure the pleasure of seeing Mobile in every possible view, far and near, east and west, and in a lump and run out, but it was not relished any more than our dinner, which consisted of a very gamy Bologna sausage, pig who had not decided whether he would be pork or bacon, and onions fried in a terrible preparation of Charley the cook. At five in the evening, however, having been nearly fourteen hours beating about twenty-seven miles, we were landed at an outlying wharf, and I started off for the Battle House and rest. The streets are filled with the usual rub-a-dub-dubbing bands, and parades of companies of the citizens in grotesque garments and armament, all looking full of fight and secession. I write my name in the hotel book at the bar as usual. Instantly young Vigilance Committee, who has been resting his heels high in air, with one eye on the staircase and the other on the end of his cigar, stalks forth and reads my style and title, and I have the satisfaction of slapping the door in his face as he saunters after me to my room, and looks curiously in to see how a man takes off his boots. They are all very anxious in the evening to know what I think about Pickens and Pensacola, and I am pleased to tell the citizens I think itbe a very tough affair on both whenever it comes. I proceed to New Orleans on Monday.
NEW-ORLEANS,May25, 1861.
There are doubts arising in my mind respecting the number of armed men actually in the field in the South, and the amount of arms in the possession of the Federal forces. The constant advertisements and appeals for “a few more men to complete” such and such companies furnish some sort of evidence that men are still wanting. But a painful and startling insight into the manner in which “volunteers” have been sometimes obtained has been afforded to me at New Orleans. In no country in the world have outrages on British subjects been so frequent and so wanton as in the States of America. They have been frequent, perhaps, because they have generally been attended with impunity. Englishmen, however, will be still a little surprised to hear that within a few days British subjects living in New Orleans have been seized, knocked down, carried off from their labor at the wharf and the workshop, and forced by violence to serve in the “volunteer” ranks! These cases are not isolated. They are not in twos and threes, but in tens and twenties; they have not occurred stealthily or in by-ways; they have taken place in the open day, and in the streets of New Orleans. These men have been dragged along like felons, protesting in vain that they were British subjects. Fortunately, their friends bethought them that there was still a British consul in the city, who would protect his countrymen—English, Irish, or Scotch. Mr. Mure, when he heard of the reports and of the evidence, made energetic representations to the authorities, who, after some evasion, gave orders that the impressed “volunteers” should be discharged, and the “Tiger Rifles” and other companies were deprived of the services of the thirty-five British subjects whom they had taken from their usual avocations. The mayor promises that it shall not occur again. It is high time that such acts should be put a stop to, and that the mob of New Orleans should be taught to pay some regard to the usages of civilized nations. There are some strange laws here and elsewhere in reference to compulsory service on the part of foreigners which it would be well to inquire into, and Lord John Russell may be able to deal with them at a favorable opportunity. As to any liberty of opinion or real freedom here, the boldest Southerner would not dare to say a shadow of either exists. It may be as bad in the North, for all I know; but it must be remembered that in all my communications I speak of things as they appear to me to be in the place where I am at the time. Themost cruel and atrocious acts are perpetrated by the rabble who style themselves citizens. The national failing of curiosity and prying into other people’s affairs is now rampant, and assumes the name and airs of patriotic vigilance. Every stranger is watched, every word is noted, espionage commands every keyhole and every letter-box; love of country takes to evesdropping, and freedom shaves men’s heads, and packs men up in boxes for the utterance of “Abolition sentiments.” In this city there is a terrible substratum of crime and vice, violence, misery, and murder, over which the wheels of the Cotton King’s chariot rumble gratingly, and on which rest in dangerous security the feet of his throne.
There are numbers of negroes who are sent out into the streets every day with orders not to return with less than seventy-five cents—any thing more they can keep. But if they do not gain that—about 3s.6d.a day—they are liable to be punished; they may be put into jail on charges of laziness, and may be flogged adlibitum, and are sure to be half starved. Can any thing, then, be more suggestive than this paragraph, which appeared in last night’s papers. “Onlythree coroners’ inquests were held yesterday on persons found drowned in the river, names unknown!” The italics are mine. Over and over again has the boast been repeated to me, that on the plantations lock and key are unknown or unused in the planters’ houses. But in the cities they are much used, though scarcely trusted. It appears, indeed, that unless a slave has made up his or her mind to incur the dreadful penalties of flight, there would be no inducement to commit theft, for money or jewels would be useless; search would be easy, detection nearly certain. That all the slaves are not indifferent to the issues before them, is certain. At the house of a planter, the other day, one of them asked my friend, “Will we be made to work, massa, when ole English come?” An old domestic in the house of a gentleman in this city said, “There are few whites in this place who ought not to be killed for their cruelty to us.” Another said, “Oh, just wait till they attack Pickens!” These little hints are significant enough, coupled with the notices of runaways, and the lodgments in the police jails, to show that all is not quiet below the surface. The holders, however, are firm, and there have been many paragraphs stating that slaves have contributed to the various funds for state defence, and that they generally show the very best spirit.
By the proclamation of Governor Magoffin, a copy of which I enclose, you will see that the governor of the commonwealth of Kentucky and commander-in-chief of all her military forces on land or water, warns all states, separately or united, especially the United States and theConfederate States, that he will fight their troops if they attempt to enter his commonwealth. Thus Kentucky sets up for herself, while Virginia is on the eve of destruction, and an actual invasion has taken place on her soil. It is exceedingly difficult of comprehension that, with the numerous troops, artillery, and batteries, which the Confederate journals asserted to be in readiness to repel attack, an invasion which took place in face of the enemy, and was effected over a broad river, with shores readily defensible, should have been unresisted. Here it is said there is a mighty plan, in pursuance of which the United States troops are to be allowed to make their way into Virginia, that they may at some convenient place be eaten up by their enemies; and if we hear that the Confederates at Harper’s Ferry retain their position, one may believe some such plan really exists, although it is rather doubtful strategy to permit the United States forces to gain possession of the right bank of the Potomac. Should the position at Harper’s Ferry be really occupied with a design of using it as apoint d’appuifor movements against the North, and any large number of troops be withdrawn from Annapolis, Washington and Baltimore, so as to leave those places comparatively undefended, an irruption in force of the Confederates on the right flank and in rear of General Scott’s army, might cause most serious inconvenience, and endanger his communications, if not the possession of the places indicated.
Looking at the map, it is easy to comprehend that a march southward from Alexandria could be combined with an offensive movement by the forces said to be concentrated in and around Fortress Monroe, so as to place Richmond itself in danger, and, if any such measure is contemplated, a battle must be fought in that vicinity, or theprestigeof the South will receive very great damage. It is impossible for any one to understand the movement of the troops on both sides. These companies are scattered broadcast over the enormous expanse of the states, and, where concentrated in any considerable numbers, seem to have had their position determined rather by local circumstances than by considerations connected with the general plan of a large campaign.
In a few days the object of the recent movement will be better understood, and, it is probable that your correspondent at New York will send, by the same mail which carries this, exceedingly important information, to which I, in my present position, can have no access. The influence of the blockade will be severely felt, combined with the strict interruption of all intercourse by the Mississippi. Although the South boasts of its resources and of its amazing richness and abundance of produce, the constant advice in the journals to increase the breadth of land under corn, and to neglect the cotton crop in consideration of the paramountimportance of the cause, indicates an apprehension of a scarcity of food if the struggle be prolonged.
Under any circumstances, the patriotic ladies and gentlemen who are so anxious for the war, must make up their minds to suffer a little in the flesh. All they can depend on is a supply of home luxuries: Indian corn and wheat, the flesh of pigs, eked out with a small supply of beef and mutton, will constitute the staple of their food. Butter there will be none, and wine will speedily rise to an enormous price. Nor will coffee and tea be had, except at a rate which will place them out of the reach of the mass of the community. These are the smallest sacrifices of war. The blockade is not yet enforced here, and the privateers of the port are extremely active, and have captured vessels with more energy than wisdom.
The day before yesterday, ships belonging to the United States in that river were seized by the Confederation authorities, on the ground that war had broken out, and that the time of grace accorded to the enemy’s traders had expired. Great was the rush to the consul’s office to transfer the menaced property from ownership under the stars and stripes to British hands; but Mr. Mure refused to recognize any transaction of the kind, unless salebona fidehad been effected before the action of the Confederate marshals.
At Charleston the blockade has been raised, owing, apparently, to some want of information or of means on the part of the United States government, and considerable inconvenience may be experienced by them in consequence. On the 11th, the United States steam-frigate Niagara appeared outside and warned off several British ships, and on the 13th she was visited by Mr. Bunch, our consul, who was positively assured by the officers on board that eight or ten vessels would be down to join in enforcing the blockade. On the 15th, however, the Niagara departed, leaving the port open, and several vessels have since run in and obtained fabulous freights, suggesting to the minds of the owners of the vessels which were warned off the propriety of making enormous demands for compensation. The Southerners generally believe not only that their Confederacy will be acknowledged, but that the blockade will be disregarded by England. Their affection for her is proportionably prodigious, and reminds one of the intensity of the gratitude which consists in lively expectations of favors to come.
NEWORLEANS,May 21, 1861.
Yesterday morning early I left Mobile in the steamer Florida, which arrived in the Lake of Pontchartrain, late at night, or early this morning. The voyage, if it can be called so, would have offered, in less exciting times, much that was interesting—certainly, to a stranger, a good deal that was novel—for our course lay inside a chain, almost uninterrupted, of reefs, covered with sand and pine-trees, exceedingly narrow, so that the surf and waves of the ocean beyond could be seen rolling in foam through the foliage of the forest, or on the white beach, while the sea lake on which our steamer was speeding lay in a broad, smooth sheet, just crisped by the breeze, between the outward barrier and the wooded shores of the mainland. Innumerable creeks, or “bayous,” as they are called, pierce the gloom of these endless pines. Now and then a sail could be made out, stealing through the mazes of the marshy waters. If the mariner knows his course, he may find deep water in most of the channels from the outer sea into these inner waters, on which the people of the South will greatly depend for any coasting-trade and supplies coastwise, they may require, as well as for the safe retreat of their privateers. A few miles from Mobile, the steamer turning out of the bay, entered upon the series of these lakes through a narrow channel called Grant’s Pass, which some enterprising person, not improbably of Scottish extraction, constructed for his own behoof, by an ingenious watercut, and for the use of which, and of a little iron lighthouse that he has built close at hand, on the model of a pepper-castor, he charges toll on passing vessels. This island is scarcely three feet above the water; it is not over 20 yards broad and 150 yards long. A number of men were, however, busily engaged in throwing up the sand, and arms gleamed amid some tents pitched around the solitary wooden shed in the centre. A schooner lay at the wharf, laden with two guns and sand-bags, and as we passed through the narrow channel several men in military uniform, who were on board, took their places in a boat which pushed off for them, and were conveyed to their tiny station, of which one shell would make a dust heap. The Mobilians are fortifying themselves as best they can, and seem, not unadvisedly, jealous of gun-boats and small war-steamers. On more than one outlying sand-bank toward New Orleans, are they to be seen at work on other batteries, and they are busied in repairing, as well as they can, old Spanish and new United States works which had been abandoned, or which were never completed. The news has just been reported, indeed, that the batteries they were preparing on Ship Island have been destroyedand burnt by a vessel of war of the United States. For the whole day we saw only a few coasting craft and the return steamers from New Orleans; but in the evening a large schooner, which sailed like a witch and was crammed with men, challenged my attention, and on looking at her through the glass I could make out reasons enough for desiring to avoid her if one was a quiet, short-handed, well-filled old merchantman. There could be no mistake about certain black objects on the deck. She lay as low as a yacht, and there were some fifty or sixty men in the waist and forecastle. On approaching New Orleans, there are some settlements rather than cities, although they are called by the latter title, visible on the right hand, embowered in woods and stretching along the beach. Such are the “Mississippi City,” Pass Cagoula, and Pass Christian, &c.—all resorts of the inhabitants of New Orleans during the summer heats and the epidemics which play such havoc with life from time to time. Seen from the sea, these huge hamlets look very picturesque. The detached villas, of every variety of architecture, are painted brightly, and stand in gardens in the midst of magnolias and rhododendrons. Very long and slender piers lead far into the sea before the very door, and at the extremity of each there is a bathing-box for the inmates. The general effect of one of these settlements, with its light domes and spires, long lines of whitewashed railings, and houses of every hue set in the dark green of the pines, is very pretty. The steamer touched at two of them. There was a motley group of colored people on the jetty, a few whites, of whom the males were nearly all in uniform; a few bales of goods were landed or put on board, and that was all one could see of the life of that place. Our passengers never ceased talking politics all day, except when they were eating or drinking, for I regret to say they can continue to chew and to spit while they are engaged in political discussion. Some were rude provincials in uniform. One was an acquaintance from the far East, who had been a lieutenant on board of the Minnesota, and had resigned his commission in order to take service under the Confederate flag. The fiercest among them all was a thin little lady, who uttered certain energetic aspirations for the possession of portions of Mr. Lincoln’s person, and who was kind enough to express intense satisfaction at the intelligence that there was small-pox among the garrison at Monroe. In the evening a little difficulty occurred among some of the military gentlemen, during which one of the logicians drew a revolver, and presented it at the head of the gentleman who was opposed to his peculiar views, but I am happy to say that an arrangement, to which I was an unwilling “party,” for the row took place within a yard of me, was entered into for a fight to come offon shore in two days after they landed, which led to the postponement of immediate murder.
The entrance to Ponchartrain lake is infamous for the abundance of its mosquitos, and it was with no small satisfaction that we experienced a small tornado, a thunderstorm, and a breeze of wind which saved us from their fury. It is a dismal canal through a swamp. At daylight, the vessel lay alongside a wharf surrounded by small boats and bathing stations. A railway shed receives us on shore, and a train is soon ready to start for the city, which is six miles distant. For a few hundred yards the line passes between wooden houses, used as restaurants, or “restaurats,” as they are called hereaway, kept by people with French names and using the French tongue; then the rail plunges through a swamp, dense as an Indian jungle, and with the overflowings of the Mississippi creeping in feeble, shallow currents over the black mud. Presently the spires of churches are seen rising above the underwood and rushes. Then we come out on a wide marshy plain, in which flocks of cattle, up to the belly in mud, are floundering to get at the rich herbage on the unbroken surface. Next comes a wide-spread suburb of exceedingly broad lanes, lined with small one-storied houses. The inhabitants are pale, lean, and sickly; and there is about the men a certain look, almost peculiar to the fishy-fleshy populations of Levantine towns, which I cannot describe, but which exists all along the Mediterranean seaboard, and crops out here again. The drive through badly-paved streets enables us to see that there is an air of French civilization about New Orleans. The streets are wisely adapted to the situation; they are not so wide as to permit the sun to have it all his own way from rising to setting. The shops are “magasins;” cafés abound. The colored population looks well dressed, and is going to mass or market in the early morning. The pavements are crowded with men in uniform, in which the taste of France is generally followed. The carriage stops at last, and rest comes gratefully after the stormy night, the mosquitos, “the noise of the captains” (at the bar), and the shouting.
May22.—The prevalence of the war spirit here is in every thing somewhat exaggerated by the fervor of Gallic origin, and the violence of popular opinion and the tyranny of the mass are as potent as in any place in the South. The great house of Brown Brothers, of Liverpool and New York, has closed its business here in consequence of the intimidation of the mob, or as the phrase is, of the “citizens,” who were “excited” by seeing that the firm had subscribed to the New York fund, on its sudden resurrection after Fort Sumter had fallen. Someother houses are about to pursue the same course; all large business transactions are over for the season, and the migratory population which comes here to trade, has taken wing much earlier than usual. But the streets are full of “Turcos,” and “Zouaves,” and “Chasseurs;” the tailors are busy night and day on uniforms; the walls are covered with placards for recruits; the seamstresses are sewing flags; the ladies are carding lint and stitching cartridge-bags. The newspapers are crowded with advertisements relating to the formation of new companies of volunteers and the election of officers. There are Pickwick Rifles, Lafayette, Beauregard, Irish, German, Scotch, Italian, Spanish, Crescent, McMahon—innumerable—rifle volunteers of all names and nationalities, and the Meagher Rifles, indignant with “that valiant son of Mars” because he has drawn his sword for the North, have rebaptized themselves, and are going to seek glory under a more auspicious nomenclature. About New Orleans, I shall have more to say when I see more of it. At present it looks very like an outlying suburb of Chalons when the grand camp is at its highest military development, although the thermometer is rising gradually, and obliges one to know occasionally that it can be 95° in the shade already. In the course of my journeyings southward, I have failed to find much evidence that there is any apprehension on the part of the planters of a servile insurrection, or that the slaves are taking much interest in the coming contest, or know what it is about. But I have my suspicions that all is not right; paragraphs meet the eye, and odd sentences strike the ear, and little facts here and there come to the knowledge, which arouse curiosity and doubt. There is one stereotyped sentence which I am tired of: “Our negroes, sir, are the happiest, the most contented, and the best off of any people in the world.”
The violence and reiterancy of this formula cause one to inquire whether any thing which demands such insistance is really in the condition predicated; and for myself I always say: “It may be so, but as yet I do not see the proof of it. The negroes do not look to be what you say they are.” For the present that is enough as to one’s own opinions. Externally, the paragraphs which attract attention, and the acts of the authorities, are inconsistent with the notion that the negroes are all very good, very happy, or at all contented, not to speak of their being in the superlative condition of enjoyment; and as I only see them as yet in the most superficial way, and under the most favorable circumstances, it may be that when the cotton-picking season is at its height, and it lasts for several months, when the labor is continuous from sunrise to sunset, there is less reason to accept the assertionsas so largely and generally true of the vast majority of the slaves. “There is an excellent gentleman over there,” said a friend to me, “who gives his overseers a premium of ten dollars on the birth of every child on his plantation.” “Why so?” “Oh, in order that the overseers may not work the women in the family-way overmuch.” There is little use in this part of the world in making use of inferences. But where overseers do not get the premium, it may be supposed they do work the pregnant women too much. Here are two paragraphs which do not look very well as they stand.
Those negroes who were taken with a sudden leaving on Sunday night last, will save the country the expenses of their burial if they keep dark from these parts. They and other of the “breden” will not be permitted to express themselves quite so freely in regard to their braggadocio designs upon virtue, in the absence of volunteers.—Wilmington (Clintock County, Ohio) Watchman (Republican).Served Him Right. One day last week, some colored individual, living near South Plymouth, made a threat that, in case a civil war should occur, “he would be one to ravish the wife of every democrat, and to help murder their offspring, and wash his hands in their blood.” For this diabolical assertion he was hauled up before a committee of white citizens, who adjudged him forty stripes on his naked back. He was accordingly stripped, and the lashes were laid on with such a good will that blood flowed at the end of the castigation.—Washington (Fayette County, Ohio) Register (Neutral).
Those negroes who were taken with a sudden leaving on Sunday night last, will save the country the expenses of their burial if they keep dark from these parts. They and other of the “breden” will not be permitted to express themselves quite so freely in regard to their braggadocio designs upon virtue, in the absence of volunteers.—Wilmington (Clintock County, Ohio) Watchman (Republican).
Served Him Right. One day last week, some colored individual, living near South Plymouth, made a threat that, in case a civil war should occur, “he would be one to ravish the wife of every democrat, and to help murder their offspring, and wash his hands in their blood.” For this diabolical assertion he was hauled up before a committee of white citizens, who adjudged him forty stripes on his naked back. He was accordingly stripped, and the lashes were laid on with such a good will that blood flowed at the end of the castigation.—Washington (Fayette County, Ohio) Register (Neutral).
It is reported that the patrols are strengthened, and I could not help hearing a charming young lady say to another, the other evening, that “she would not be afraid to go back to the plantation, though Mrs. Brown Jones said she was afraid her negroes were after mischief.”
There is a great scarcity of powder, which is one of the reasons, perhaps, why it has not yet been expended as largely as might be expected from the tone and temper on both sides. There is no sulphur in the States; nitre and charcoal abound. The sea is open to the North. There is no great overplus of money on either side. In Missouri, the interest on the state debt, due in July, will be used to procure arms for the state volunteers to carry on the war. The South is preparing for the struggle by sowing a most unusual quantity of grain; and in many fields corn and maize have been planted instead of cotton. “Stay laws,” by which all inconveniences arising from the usual dull, old-fashioned relations between debtor and creditor are avoided (at least by the debtor), have been adopted in most of the seceding states. How is it that the state legislatures seem to be in the hands of the debtors and not of the creditors?
There are some who cling to the idea that there will be no war after all, but no one believes that the South will ever go back of its own freewill, and the only reason that can be given by those who hope rather than think in that way is to be found in the faith that the North will accept some mediation, and will let the South go in peace. But could there—can there be peace? The frontier question—the adjustment of various claims—the demands for indemnity, or for privileges or exemptions, in the present state of feeling, can have but one result. The task of mediation is sure to be as thankless as abortive. Assuredly the proffered service of England would, on one side at least, be received with something like insult. Nothing but adversity can teach these people its own most useful lessons. Material prosperity has puffed up the citizens to an unwholesome state. The toils and sacrifices of the old world have been taken by them as their birthright, and they have accepted the fruits of all that the science, genius, suffering, and trials of mankind in time past have wrought out, perfected, and won as their own peculiar inheritance, while they have ignorantly rejected the advice and scorned the lessons with which these were accompanied.
May23.—The Congress at Montgomery, having sat with closed doors almost since it met, has now adjourned till July the 20th, when it will reassemble at Richmond, in Virginia, which is thus designated, for the time, capital of the Confederate States of America. Richmond, the principal city of the Old Dominion, is about one hundred miles in a straight line south by west of Washington. The rival capitals will thus be in very close proximity by rail and by steam, by land and by water. The movement is significant. It will tend to hasten a collision between the forces which are collected on the opposite sides of the Potomac. Hitherto, Mr. Jefferson Davis has not evinced all the sagacity and energy, in a military sense, which he is said to possess. It was bad strategy to menace Washington before he could act. His secretary of war, Mr. Walker, many weeks ago, in a public speech, announced the intention of marching upon the capital. If it was meant to do so, the blow should have been struck silently. If it was not intended to seize upon Washington, the threat had a very disastrous effect on the South, as it excited the North to immediate action, and caused General Scott to concentrate his troops on points which present many advantages in the face of any operations which may be considered necessary along the lines either of defence or attack. The movement against the Norfolk navy-yard strengthened Fortress Monroe, and the Potomac and Chesapeake were secured to the United States. The fortified ports held by the Virginians and the Confederate States troops, are not of much value as long as the streams are commanded by the enemy’s steamers; and General Scott has shown that he has not outlived either his reputation or hisvigor by the steps, at once wise and rapid, he has taken to curb the malcontents in Maryland, and to open his communications through the city of Baltimore. Although immense levies of men may be got together, on both sides, for purposes of local defence or for state operations, it seems to me that it will be very difficult to move these masses in regular armies. The men are not disposed for regular, lengthened service, and there is an utter want of field trains, equipment, and commissariat, which cannot be made good in a day, a week, or a month.
The bill passed by the Montgomery Congress, entitled “An act to raise an additional military force to serve during the war,” is, in fact, a measure to put into the hands of the government the control of irregular bodies of men, and to bind them to regular military service. With all their zeal, the people of the South will not enlist. They detest the recruiting sergeant, and Mr. Davis knows enough of war to feel hesitation in trusting himself in the field to volunteers. The bill authorizes Mr. Davis to accept volunteers who may offer their services, without regard to the place of enlistment, “to serve during the war, unless sooner discharged.” They may be accepted in companies, but Mr. Davis is to organize them into squadrons, battalions, or regiments, and the appointment of field and staff officers is reserved especially to him. The company officers are to be elected by the men of the company, but here again Mr. Davis reserves to himself the right of veto, and will only commission those officers whose election he approves.
The absence of cavalry and the deficiency of artillery may prevent either side obtaining any decisive results in one engagement; but, no doubt, there will be great loss whenever these large masses of men are fairly opposed to each other in the field. Of the character of the Northern regiments I can say nothing more from actual observation; nor have I yet seen, in any place, such a considerable number of the troops of the Confederate States, moving together, as would justify me in expressing any opinion with regard to their capacity for organized movements, such as regular troops in Europe are expected to perform. An intelligent and trustworthy observer, taking one of the New York state militia regiments as a fair specimen of the battalions which will fight for the United States, gives an account of them which leads me to the conclusion that such regiments are much superior, when furnished by the country districts, to those raised in the towns and cities. It appears, in this case at least, that the members of the regular militia companies in general send substitutes to the ranks. Ten of these companies form the regiment, and, in nearly every instance, they have been doubled in strength by volunteers. Their drill is exceedingly incomplete, and informing the companies there is a tendency for the different nationalities to keep themselves together. In the regiment in question the rank and file often consists of quarrymen, mechanics, and canal boatmen, mountaineers from the Catskill, bark peelers, and timber cutters—ungainly, square-built, powerful fellows, with a Dutch tenacity of purpose crossed with an English indifference to danger. There is no drunkenness and no desertion among them. The officers are almost as ignorant of military training as their men. The colonel, for instance, is the son of a rich man in his district, well educated, and a man of travel. Another officer is a shipmaster. A third is an artist; others are merchants and lawyers, and they are all busy studying “Hardee’s Tactics,” the best book for infantry drill in the United States. The men have come out to fight for what they consider the cause of the country, and are said to have no particular hatred of the South, or of its inhabitants, though they think they are “a darned deal too high and mighty, and require to be wiped down considerably.” They have no notion as to the length of time for which their services will be required, and I am assured that not one of them has asked what his pay is to be.
Reverting to Montgomery, one may say without offence that its claims to be the capital of a republic which asserts that it is the richest, and believes that it will be the strongest in the world, are not by any means evident to a stranger. Its central position, which has reference rather to a map than to the hard face of matter, procured for it a distinction to which it had no other claim. The accommodations which suited the modest wants of a state legislature vanished or were transmuted into barbarous inconveniences by the pressure of a central government, with its offices, its departments, and the vast crowd of applicants which flocked thither to pick up such crumbs of comfort as could be spared from the executive table. Never shall I forget the dismay of myself, and of the friends who were travelling with me, on our arrival at the Exchange Hotel, under circumstances with some of which you are already acquainted. With us were men of high position, members of Congress, senators, ex-governors, and General Beauregard himself. But to no one was greater accommodation extended than could be furnished by a room held, under a sort of ryot-warree tenure, in common with a community of strangers. My room was shown to me. It contained four large four-post beds, a ricketty table, and some chairs of infirm purpose and fundamental unsoundness. The floor was carpetless, covered with litter of paper and ends of cigars, and stained with tobacco juice. The broken glass of the window afforded no ungrateful means of ventilation. One gentleman sat in his shirt sleeves atthe table reading the account of the marshalling of the Highlanders at Edinburgh in the Abbottsford edition of Sir Walter Scott; another, who had been wearied, apparently, by writing numerous applications to the government for some military post, of which rough copies lay scattered around, came in, after refreshing himself at the bar, and occupied one of the beds, which by the bye, were ominously provided with two pillows apiece. Supper there was none for us in the house, but a search in an outlying street enabled us to discover a restaurant, where roasted squirrels and baked opossums figured as luxuries in the bill of fare. On our return we found that due preparation had been made in the apartment by the addition of three mattresses on the floor. The beds were occupied by unknown statesmen and warriors, and we all slumbered and snored in friendly concert till morning. Gentlemen in the South complain that strangers judge of them by their hotels, but it is a very natural standard for strangers to adopt, and in respect to Montgomery it is almost the only one that a gentleman can conveniently use, for if the inhabitants of this city and its vicinity are not maligned, there is an absence of the hospitable spirit which the South lays claim to as one of its animating principles, and a little bird whispered to me that from Mr. Jefferson Davis down to the least distinguished member of his government there was reason to observe that the usual attentions and civilities offered by residents to illustrious stragglers had been “conspicuous for their absence.” The fact is, that the small planters who constitute the majority of the land-owners are not in a position to act the Amphytrion, and that the inhabitants of the district can scarcely aspire to be considered what we would call gentry in England, but are a frugal, simple, hog-and-hominy living people, fond of hard work and, occasionally, of hard drinking.
NEWORLEANS,May24, 1861.
It is impossible to resist the conviction that the Southern Confederacy can only be conquered by means as irresistible as those by which Poland was subjugated. The South will fall, if at all, as a nation prostrate at the feet of a victorious enemy. There is no doubt of the unanimity of the people. If words mean any thing, they are animated by only one sentiment, and they will resist the North as long as they can command a man or a dollar. There is nothing of a sectional character in this disposition of the South. In every state there is only one voice audible. Hereafter, indeed, state jealousies may work their own way. Whatever may be the result, unless the men are the merest braggarts—andthey do not look like it—they will fight to the last before they give in, and their confidence in their resources is only equalled by their determination to test them to the utmost. There is a noisy vociferation about their declarations of implicit trust and reliance on their slaves which makes one think “they do protest too much,” and it remains to be seen whether the slaves really will remain faithful to their masters should the abolition army ever come among them as an armed propaganda. One thing is obvious here. A large number of men who might be usefully employed in the ranks are idling about the streets. The military enthusiasm is in proportion to the property interest of the various classes of the people, and the very boast that so many rich men are serving in the ranks is a significant proof, either of the want of a substratum, or of the absence of great devotion to the cause, of any such layer of white people as may underlie the great slave-holding, mercantile, and planting oligarchy. The whole state of Louisiana contains about 50,000 men liable to serve when called on. Of that number only 15,000 are enrolled and under arms in any shape whatever, and if one is to judge of the state of affairs by the advertisements which appear from the adjutant-general’s office, there was some difficulty in procuring the 3,000 men—merely 3,000 volunteers—“to serve during the war,” who are required by the Confederate government. There is “plenty of prave ’ords,” and if fierce writing and talking could do the work, the armies on both sides would have been killed and eaten long ago. It is found out that “lives of the citizens” at Pensacola are too valuable to be destroyed in attacking Pickens. A storm that shall drive away the ships, a plague, yellow fever, mosquitos, rattlesnakes, small-pox—any of these agencies, is looked to with confidence to do the work of shot, shell, and bayonet. Our American “brethren in arms” have yet to learn that great law in military cookery, that “if they want to make omelets they must break eggs.” The “moral suasion” of the lasso, of head-shaving, ducking, kicking, and such processes, are, I suspect, used not unfrequently to stimulate volunteers; and the extent to which the acts of the recruiting officer are somewhat aided by the arm of the law, and the force of the policeman and the magistrate, may be seen from paragraphs in the morning papers now and then, to the effect that certain gentlemen of Milesian extraction, who might have been engaged in pugilistic pursuits, were discharged from custody unpunished on condition that they enlisted for the war. With the peculiar views entertained of freedom of opinion and action by large classes of people on this continent, such a mode of obtaining volunteers is very natural, but resort to it evinces a want of zeal on thepart of some of the 50,000 who are on the rolls; and, from all I can hear—and I have asked numerous persons likely to be acquainted with the subject—there are not more than those 15,000 men of whom I have spoken in all the state under arms, or in training, of whom a considerable proportion will be needed for garrison and coast defence duties. It may be that the Northern states and Northern sentiments are as violent as those of the South but I see some evidences to the contrary. For instance, in New York ladies and gentlemen from the South are permitted to live at their favorite hotel without molestation, and one hotel keeper at Saratoga Springs advertises openly for the custom of his Southern patrons. In no city of the South which I have visited would a party of Northern people be permitted to remain for an hour if the “citizens” were aware of their presence. It is laughable to hear men speaking of the “unanimity” of the South. Just look at the peculiar means by which unanimity is enforced and secured! This is an extract from a New Orleans paper: