“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).“SERVEDHIMRIGHT.—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 good will, that the 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).
“SERVEDHIMRIGHT.—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 good will, that the 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 willever go back of its own free will, and the only reason that can be given for 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.
May 23.—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 considerednecessary 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 his vigor 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 wouldjustify 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 in forming 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 theo cuntry, 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 orwere 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 fourpost 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 at the table reading the account of the marshalling of the Highlanders at Edinburgh in the Abbotsford 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 toobserve 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, May 24, 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 anything, 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—and they 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 substratum, or of the absence of great devotion to the cause of any such layer of white people as may underlie the great slaveholding, 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’soffice, 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 lords,” and if fierce writing and talking could do work, the armies on both sides would have been killed and eaten long ago. It is found out that “the 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, mosquitoes, 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 American 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 the part 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 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 hotels 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 unanimityis enforced and secured. This is an extract from a New Orleans paper:
"Charges of Abolitionism.—Mayor Monroe has disposed of some of the cases brought before him on charges of this kind by sending the accused to the workhouse.“A Mexican, named Bernard Cruz, born in Tampico, and living here with an Irish wife, was brought before the Mayor this morning, charged with uttering Abolition sentiments. After a full investigation, it was found that from the utterance of his incendiary language, that Cruz’s education was not yet perfect in Southern classics, and his Honor therefore directed that he be sent for six months to the Humane Institution for the Amelioration of the Condition of Northern Barbarians and Abolition Fanatics, presided over by Professor Henry Mitchell, keeper of the workhouse, and who will put him through a course of study on Southern ethics and institutions.“The testimony before him on Saturday, however, in the case of a man named David O’Keefe, was such as to induce him to commit the accused for trial before the Criminal Court. One of the witnesses testified positively that she heard him make his children shout for Lincoln; another, that the accused said, ‘I am an Abolitionist,’ &c. The witnesses, neighbors of the accused, gave their evidence reluctantly, saying they had warned him of the folly and danger of his conduct. O’Keefe says he has been a United States soldier, and came here from St. Louis and Kansas.“John White was arraigned before Recorder Emerson on Saturday for uttering incendiary language while travelling in the baggage car of a train of the New Orleans, Ohio and Great Western Railroad, intimating that the decapitator of Jefferson Davis would get $10,000 for his trouble, and the last man of us would be whipped like dogs by the Lincolnites. He was held under bonds of $500 to answer the charge on the 8th of June.“Nicholas Gento, charged with declaring himself an Abolitionist, and acting very much like he was one by harboring a runaway slave, was sent to prison, in default of bail, to await an examination before the Recorder.”
"Charges of Abolitionism.—Mayor Monroe has disposed of some of the cases brought before him on charges of this kind by sending the accused to the workhouse.
“A Mexican, named Bernard Cruz, born in Tampico, and living here with an Irish wife, was brought before the Mayor this morning, charged with uttering Abolition sentiments. After a full investigation, it was found that from the utterance of his incendiary language, that Cruz’s education was not yet perfect in Southern classics, and his Honor therefore directed that he be sent for six months to the Humane Institution for the Amelioration of the Condition of Northern Barbarians and Abolition Fanatics, presided over by Professor Henry Mitchell, keeper of the workhouse, and who will put him through a course of study on Southern ethics and institutions.
“The testimony before him on Saturday, however, in the case of a man named David O’Keefe, was such as to induce him to commit the accused for trial before the Criminal Court. One of the witnesses testified positively that she heard him make his children shout for Lincoln; another, that the accused said, ‘I am an Abolitionist,’ &c. The witnesses, neighbors of the accused, gave their evidence reluctantly, saying they had warned him of the folly and danger of his conduct. O’Keefe says he has been a United States soldier, and came here from St. Louis and Kansas.
“John White was arraigned before Recorder Emerson on Saturday for uttering incendiary language while travelling in the baggage car of a train of the New Orleans, Ohio and Great Western Railroad, intimating that the decapitator of Jefferson Davis would get $10,000 for his trouble, and the last man of us would be whipped like dogs by the Lincolnites. He was held under bonds of $500 to answer the charge on the 8th of June.
“Nicholas Gento, charged with declaring himself an Abolitionist, and acting very much like he was one by harboring a runaway slave, was sent to prison, in default of bail, to await an examination before the Recorder.”
Such is “freedom of speech” in Louisiana! But in Texas the machinery for the production of “unanimity” is less complicated, and there are no insulting legal formalities connected with the working of the simple appliances which a primitive agricultural people have devised for their own purposes. Hear the Texan correspondent of one of the journals of this city on the subject. “It is to us astonishing,” he says,
“That such unmitigated lies as those Northern papers disseminate as anarchy and disorder here in Texas, dissension among ourselves, and especially from our German, &c., population, with dangers and anxieties from the fear of insurrection among the negroes, &c., should be deemed anywhere South worthy of a moment’s thought. It is surely notorious enough that in no part of the South are Abolitionists or other disturbers of the public peace so very unsafe as in Texas. Thelassois soveryconvenient!"
“That such unmitigated lies as those Northern papers disseminate as anarchy and disorder here in Texas, dissension among ourselves, and especially from our German, &c., population, with dangers and anxieties from the fear of insurrection among the negroes, &c., should be deemed anywhere South worthy of a moment’s thought. It is surely notorious enough that in no part of the South are Abolitionists or other disturbers of the public peace so very unsafe as in Texas. Thelassois soveryconvenient!"
Here is an excellent method of preventing dissension described by a stroke of the pen; and, as such, an ingenious people are not likely to lose sight of the uses of a revolution in developing peculiar principles to their own advantage, repudiation of debts to the North has been proclaimed and acted on. One gentleman has found it convenient to inform Major Anderson that he does not intend to meet certain bills which he had given the Major for some slaves. Another declares he won’t pay anybody at all, as he has discovered it is immoral and contrary to the laws of nations to do so. A third feels himself bound to obey the commands of the Governor of his State, who has ordered that debts due to the North shall not be liquidated. As anaivespecimen of the way in which the whole case is treated, take this article and the correspondence of “one of the most prominent mercantile houses of New Orleans:”
SOUTHERN DEBTS TO THE NORTH.“The Cincinnati Gazettecopies the following paragraph fromThe New York Evening Post:“‘BADFAITH.—The bad faith of the Southern merchants in their transactions with their Northern correspondents is becoming more evident daily. We have heard of several recent cases where parties in this city, retired from active business, have, nevertheless, stepped forward to protect the credit of their Southern friends. They are now coolly informed that they cannot be reimbursed for these advances until the war is over. We know of a retired merchant who in this way has lost $100,000.’—and adds:“‘The same here. Men who have done most for the South are the chief sufferers. Debts are coolly repudiated by the Southern merchants, who have heretofore enjoyed a first-class reputation. Men who have grown rich upon the trade furnished by the West are among the first to pocket the money of their correspondents, asking, with all the impudence and assurance of a highwayman, “What are you going to do about it?” There is honor among thieves, it is said, but there is not a spark of honor among these repudiating merchants. People who have aided and trusted them to the last moment are the greatest losers. There is a future, however. This war will be over, and the Southern merchants will desire a resumption of their connections with the West. As the repudiators—such as Goodrich & Co. of New Orleans—will be spurned, there will be a grand opening for honest men.“‘There are many honorable exceptions in the South, but dishonesty is the rule. The latter is but the development of latent rascality. The rebellion has afforded a pretext merely for the swindling operations. The parties previously acted honestly, only because that was the best policy. The sifting process that may now be conducted will be of advantage to Northern merchants in the future. The present losses will be fully made up by subsequent gains.’“We have been requested to copy the following reply to this tirade from one of our most prominent mercantile houses, Messrs. Goodrich & Co.:
SOUTHERN DEBTS TO THE NORTH.
“The Cincinnati Gazettecopies the following paragraph fromThe New York Evening Post:
“‘BADFAITH.—The bad faith of the Southern merchants in their transactions with their Northern correspondents is becoming more evident daily. We have heard of several recent cases where parties in this city, retired from active business, have, nevertheless, stepped forward to protect the credit of their Southern friends. They are now coolly informed that they cannot be reimbursed for these advances until the war is over. We know of a retired merchant who in this way has lost $100,000.’—and adds:
“‘The same here. Men who have done most for the South are the chief sufferers. Debts are coolly repudiated by the Southern merchants, who have heretofore enjoyed a first-class reputation. Men who have grown rich upon the trade furnished by the West are among the first to pocket the money of their correspondents, asking, with all the impudence and assurance of a highwayman, “What are you going to do about it?” There is honor among thieves, it is said, but there is not a spark of honor among these repudiating merchants. People who have aided and trusted them to the last moment are the greatest losers. There is a future, however. This war will be over, and the Southern merchants will desire a resumption of their connections with the West. As the repudiators—such as Goodrich & Co. of New Orleans—will be spurned, there will be a grand opening for honest men.
“‘There are many honorable exceptions in the South, but dishonesty is the rule. The latter is but the development of latent rascality. The rebellion has afforded a pretext merely for the swindling operations. The parties previously acted honestly, only because that was the best policy. The sifting process that may now be conducted will be of advantage to Northern merchants in the future. The present losses will be fully made up by subsequent gains.’
“We have been requested to copy the following reply to this tirade from one of our most prominent mercantile houses, Messrs. Goodrich & Co.:
“‘NEWORLEANS, May 24, 1861.“‘CINCINNATIGAZETTE.—We were handed, through a friend of ours, your issue of the 18th inst., and attention directed to an article contained therein, in which you are pleased to particularize us out of a large number of highly respectable merchants of this and other Southern cities as repudiators, swindlers, and other epithets, better suited to the mouths of the Wilson Regiment of New York than from a once respectable sheet, but now has sunk so low in the depths of niggerdom, that it would take all the soap in Porkopolis and the Ohio River to cleanse it from its foul pollution.“‘We are greatly indebted to you for using our name in the above article, as we deem it the best card you could publish for us, and may add greatly to our business relations in the Confederate States, which will enable us in the end to pay our indebtedness to those who propose cutting our throats, destroying our property, stealing our negroes, and starving our wives and children, to pay such men in times of war. You may term it rascality, but we beg leave to call it patriotism.“‘Giving the sinews of war to your enemies have ever been considered as treason.—Kent.“‘Now for ‘repudiating.’ We have never, nor do we ever expect to repudiate any debt owing by our firm. But this much we will say, never will we pay a debt due by us to a man, or any company of men, who is a known Black Republican, and marching in battle array to invade our homes and firesides, until every such person shall be driven back, and their polluted footsteps shall, now on our once happy soil, be entirely obliterated.“‘We have been in business in this city for twenty years, have passed through every crisis with our names untarnished or credit impaired, and would at present sacrifice all we have made, were it necessary, to sustain our credit in the Confederacy, but care nothing for the opinions of such as are open and avowed enemies. We are sufficiently known in this city not to require the indorsement ofThe Cincinnati Gazette, or any such sheet, for a character.“‘The day is coming, and not far distant, when there will be an awful reckoning, and we are willing and determined to stand by our Confederate flag, sink or swim, and would like to meet some ofThe Gazette’seditorsvis-à-vison the field of blood, and see who would be the first to flinch.“‘Our senior partner has already contributed one darkey this year to your population, and she is anxious to return, but we have a few more left which you can have, provided you will come and take them yourselves.“‘We have said more than we intended, and hope you will give this a place in your paper.GOODRICH & Co.’”
“‘NEWORLEANS, May 24, 1861.
“‘CINCINNATIGAZETTE.—We were handed, through a friend of ours, your issue of the 18th inst., and attention directed to an article contained therein, in which you are pleased to particularize us out of a large number of highly respectable merchants of this and other Southern cities as repudiators, swindlers, and other epithets, better suited to the mouths of the Wilson Regiment of New York than from a once respectable sheet, but now has sunk so low in the depths of niggerdom, that it would take all the soap in Porkopolis and the Ohio River to cleanse it from its foul pollution.
“‘We are greatly indebted to you for using our name in the above article, as we deem it the best card you could publish for us, and may add greatly to our business relations in the Confederate States, which will enable us in the end to pay our indebtedness to those who propose cutting our throats, destroying our property, stealing our negroes, and starving our wives and children, to pay such men in times of war. You may term it rascality, but we beg leave to call it patriotism.
“‘Giving the sinews of war to your enemies have ever been considered as treason.—Kent.
“‘Now for ‘repudiating.’ We have never, nor do we ever expect to repudiate any debt owing by our firm. But this much we will say, never will we pay a debt due by us to a man, or any company of men, who is a known Black Republican, and marching in battle array to invade our homes and firesides, until every such person shall be driven back, and their polluted footsteps shall, now on our once happy soil, be entirely obliterated.
“‘We have been in business in this city for twenty years, have passed through every crisis with our names untarnished or credit impaired, and would at present sacrifice all we have made, were it necessary, to sustain our credit in the Confederacy, but care nothing for the opinions of such as are open and avowed enemies. We are sufficiently known in this city not to require the indorsement ofThe Cincinnati Gazette, or any such sheet, for a character.
“‘The day is coming, and not far distant, when there will be an awful reckoning, and we are willing and determined to stand by our Confederate flag, sink or swim, and would like to meet some ofThe Gazette’seditorsvis-à-vison the field of blood, and see who would be the first to flinch.
“‘Our senior partner has already contributed one darkey this year to your population, and she is anxious to return, but we have a few more left which you can have, provided you will come and take them yourselves.
“‘We have said more than we intended, and hope you will give this a place in your paper.
GOODRICH & Co.’”
There is some little soreness felt here about the use of the word “repudiation,” and it will do the hearts of some people good, and will carry comfort to the ghost of the Rev. Sydney Smith, if it can hear the tidings, to know I havebeen assured, over and over again, by eminent mercantile people and statesmen, that there is “a general desire” on the part of the repudiating States to pay their bonds, and that no doubt, at some future period, not very clearly ascertainable or plainly indicated, that general desire will cause some active steps to be taken to satisfy its intensity, of a character very unexpected, and very gratifying to those interested. The tariff of the Southern Confederation has just been promulgated, and I send herewith a copy of the rates. Simultaneously, however, with this document, the United States steam frigates Brooklyn and Niagara have made their appearance off the Pas-à-l’Outre, and the Mississippi is closed, and with it the port of New Orleans. The steam-tugs refuse to tow out vessels for fear of capture, and British ships are in jeopardy.
MAY25.—A visit to the camp at Tangipao, about fifty miles from New Orleans, gave an occasion for obtaining a clearer view of the internal military condition of those forces of which one reads much, and sees so little, than any other way. Major-General Lewis of the State Militia, and staff, and General Labuzan, a Creole officer, attended by Major Ranney, President of the New-Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railway, and by many officers in uniform, started with that purpose at 4:30 this evening in a rail-carriage, carefully and comfortably fitted for their reception. The militia of Louisiana has not been called out for many years, and its officers have no military experience, and the men have no drill or discipline.
Emerging from the swampy suburbs, we soon pass between white clover pastures, which we are told invariably salivate the herds of small but plump cattle browsing upon them. Soon cornfields “in tassel,” alternate with long narrow rows of growing sugar-cane, which, though scarcely a fourth of the height of the maize, will soon over-shadow it; and the cane-stalks grow up so densely together that nothing larger than a rattle-snake can pass between them.
From Kennersville, an ancient sugar plantation cut up into “town lots,” our first halt, ten miles out, we shoot through a cypress swamp, the primitive forest of this region, and note a greater affluence of Spanish moss than in the woods of Georgia or Carolina. There it hung, like a hermit’s beard, from the pensile branch. Here, to one whoshould venture to thread the snake and alligator haunted mazes of the jungle, its matted profusion must resemble clusters of stalactites pendent from the roof of some vast cavern; for the gloom of an endless night appears to pervade the deeper recesses, at the entrance of which stand, like outlying skeleton pickets, the unfelled and leafless patriarchs of the clearing, that for a breadth of perhaps fifty yards on either side seems to have furnished the road with its sleepers.
The gray swamp yields to an open savannah, beyond which, upon the left, a straggling line of sparse trees skirts the left bank of the Mississippi, and soon after the broad expanse of Lake Pontchartrain appears within gunshot of our right, only separated from the road by one hundred yards or more of rush-covered prairie, which seems but a feeble barrier against the caprices of so extensive a sheet of water subject to the influences of wind and tide. In fact, ruined shanties and outhouses, fields laid waste, and prostrate fences remain evidences of the ravages of the “Wash” which a year ago inundated and rendered the railroad impassable save for boats. The down trains first notice of the disaster was the presence of a two-story frame building, which the waves had transported to the road, and its passengers, detained a couple of days in what now strikes us as a most grateful combination of timber-skirted meadow and lake scenery, were rendered insensible to its beauties by the torments of hungry mosquitoes. Had its engineers given the road but eighteen inches more elevation its patrons would have been spared this suffering, and its stock-holders might have rejoiced in a dividend. Many of the settlers have abandoned their improvements. Others, chiefly what are here called Dutchmen, have resumed their tillage with unabated zeal, and large fields of cabbages, one of them embracing not less than sixty acres, testify to their energy.
Again through miles of cypress swamps the train passes on to what is called the “trembling prairie,” where the sleepers are laid upon a tressel-work of heavier logs, so that the rails are raised by “cribs” of timber nearly a yard above the morass. Three species of rail, one of them as large as a curlew, and the summer duck, seem the chief occupants of the marsh, but white cranes and brown bitterns take the alarm, and falcons and long-tailed “blackbirds” sail in the distance.
Toward sunset a halt took place upon the long bridge that divides Lake Maurepas, a picturesque sheet of water which blends with the horizon on our left, from Pass Maunshae, an arm of Lake Pontchartrain, which disappears in the forest on our right. Half a dozen wherries and a small fishing-smack are moored in front of a rickety cabin, crowded by the jungle to the margin of the cove. It is the first token of a settlement that has occurred for miles, and when we have sufficiently admired the scene, rendered picturesque in the sunset by the dense copse, the water and the bright colors of the boats at rest upon it, a commotion at the head of the train arises from the unexpected arrival upon the “switch” of a long string of cars filled with half a regiment of Volunteers, who had been enlisted for twelve months’ service, and now refused to be mustered in for the war, as required by the recent enactment of the Montgomery Congress. The new comers are at length safely lodged on the “turn off,” and our train continues its journey. As we pass the row of cars, most of them freight wagons, we are hailed with shouts and yells in every key by the disbanded Volunteers, who seem a youngish, poorly-clad, and undersized lot, though noisy as a street mob.
After Maunshae, the road begins to creep up towardterra firma, and before nightfall there was a change from cypresses and swamp laurels to pines and beeches, and we inhale the purer atmosphere of dry land, with an occasional whiff of resinous fragrance, that dispels the fever-tainted suggestions of the swamp below. There we only breathed to live. Here we seem to live to breathe. The rise of the road is a grade of but a foot to the mile, and yet at the camp an elevation of not more than eighty feet in as many miles suffices to establish all the climatic difference between the malarious marshes and a much higher mountain region.
But during our journey the hampers have not been neglected. The younger members of the party astonish the night-owls with patriotic songs, chiefly French, and the French chiefly with the “Marseillaise,” which, however inappropriate as the slogan of the Confederate States, they persist in quavering, forgetful, perhaps, that not three-quarters of a century ago Toussaiant l’Ouverture caught the words and air from his masters, and awoke the lugubrious notes of the insurrection.
Towards nine P. M., the special car rests in the woods,and is flanked on one side by the tents and watch-fires of a small encampment, chiefly of navvy and cotton-handling Milesian volunteers, called “the Tigers,” from their prehensile powers and predatory habits. A guard is stationed around the car; a couple of Ethiopians who have attended us from town are left to answer the query,quis custodiet ipsos custodes?and we make our way to the hotel, which looms up in the moonlight in a two-storied dignity. Here, alas! there have been no preparations made to sleep or feed us. The scapegoat “nobody” announced our coming. Some of the guests are club men, used to the small hours, who engage a room, a table, half a dozen chairs, and a brace of bottles to serve as candlesticks. They have brought stearine and pasteboards with them, and are soon deep in the finesses of “Euchre.” We quietly stroll back to the car, our only hope of shelter. At the entrance we are challenged by a sentry, apparently ignorant that he has a percussion cap on his brown rifle, which he levels at us cocked. From this unpleasant vision of an armed and reckless Tiger rampant we are relieved by one of the dusky squires, who assures the sentinel that we are “all right,” and proceeds to turn over a seat and arrange what might be called a sedan-chair bed, in which we prepare to make a night of it. Our party is soon joined by others in quest of repose, and in half an hour breathings, some of them so deep as to seem subterranean, indicate that all have attained their object—like Manfred’s—forgetfulness.
An early breakfast of rashers and eggs was prepared at thetable d’hôte, which we were told would be replenished half-hourly until noon, when a respite of an hour was allowed to the “help” in which to make ready a dinner, to be served in the same progression.
Through a shady dingle a winding path led to the camp, and, after trudging a pleasant half mile, a bridge of boards, resting on a couple of trees laid across a pool, was passed, and, above a slight embankment, tents and soldiers are revealed upon a “clearing” of some thirty acres in the midst of a pine forest. Turning to the left, we reach a double row of tents, only distinguished from the rest by their “fly roofs” and boarded floors, and, in the centre, halt opposite to one which a poster of capitals on a planed deal marks as “Head-quarters.” Major-General Tracy commands the camp. The white tents crouching close to the shade of the pines, the parade alive with groups and colors as various asthose of Joseph’s coat, arms stacked here and there, and occasionally the march of a double file in green, or in mazarine blue, up an alley from the interior of the wood, to be dismissed in the open camp, resembles a militia muster, or a holiday experiment at soldiering, rather than the dark shadow of forthcoming battle. The cordon of sentinels suffer no Volunteer to leave the precincts of the camp, even to bathe, without a pass or the word. There are neither wagons nor ambulances, and the men are rolling in barrels of bacon and bread and shouldering bags of pulse—good picnic practice and campaigning gymnastics in fair weather.
The arms of these Volunteers are the old United States smooth-bore musket, altered from flint to percussion, with bayonet—a heavy and obsolete copy of Brown Bess in bright barrels. All are in creditable order. Most of them have never been used, even to fire a parade volley, for powder is scarce in the Confederated States, and must not be wasted. Except in their material, the shoes of the troops are as varied as their clothing. None have as yet been served out, and each still wears the boots, the brogans, the patent leathers, or the Oxford ties in which he enlisted. The tents have mostly no other floor than the earth, and that rarely swept; while blankets, boxes, and utensils are stowed in corners with a disregard of symmetry that would drive a martinet mad. Camp stools are rare and tables invisible, save here and there in an officer’s tent. Still the men look well, and, we are told, would doubtless present a more cheerful appearance, but for some little demoralization occasioned by discontent at the repeated changes in the organic structure of the regiments, arising from misapprehensions between the State and Federal authorities, as well as from some favoritism toward certain officers, effected by political wire-pulling in the governing councils. The system of electing officers by ballot has made the camp as thoroughly a political arena as the poll districts in New Orleans before an election, and thus many heroes, seemingly ambitious of epaulettes, are in reality only “laying pipes” for the attainment of civil power or distinction after the war.
The volunteers we met at Maunshae the previous evening had been enlisted by the State to serve for twelve months, and had refused to extend their engagement for the war—a condition now made precedent at Montgomery to their being mustered into the army of the Confederate States. Another company, a majority of whom persist in the samerefusal, were disbanded while we were patrolling the camp, and an officer told one of the party he had suffered a loss of six hundred volunteers by this disintegrating process within the last twenty-four hours. Some of these country companies were skilled in the use of the rifle, and most of them had made pecuniary sacrifices in the way of time, journeys, and equipments. Our informant deplored this reduction of volunteers, as tending to engender dissaffection in the parishes to which they will return, and comfort when known to the Abolitionists of the North. He added that the war will not perhaps last a twelvemonth, and if unhappily prolonged beyond that period, the probabilities are in favor of the short-term recruits willingly consenting to a reënlistment.
The encampment of the “Perrit Guards” was worthy of a visit. Here was a company ofprofessional gamblers, one hundred and twelve strong, recruited for the war in a moment of banter by one of the patriarchs of the fraternity, who, upon hearing at the St. Charles Hotel one evening, that the vanity or the patriotism of a citizen, not famed for liberality, had endowed with $1,000 a company which was to bear his name, exclaimed that “he would give $1,500 to any one who should be fool enough to form a company and call it after him.” In less than an hour after the utterance of this caprice, Mr. Perrit was waited upon by fifty-six “professionals,” who had enrolled their names as the “Perrit Guards,” and unhesitatingly produced from his wallet the sum so sportively pledged. The Guards are uniformed in Mazarin blue flannel with red facings, and the captain, a youngish-looking fellow, with a hawk’s eye, who has seen service with Scott in Mexico and Walker in Nicaragua, informed us that there is not a pair of shoes in the company that cost less than six dollars, and that no money has been spared to perfect their other appointments. A sack of ice and half a dozen silver goblets enforced his invitation “to take a drink at his quarters,” and we were served by an African in uniform, who afterward offered us cigars received by the last Havana steamer. Looking at the sable attendant, one of the party observes that if these “experts of fortune win the present fight, it will be a case ofcouleur gagne.”
It would be difficult to find in the same number of men taken at hazard greater diversities of age, stature, and physiognomy; but in keenness of eye and imperturbility of demeanor they exhibit a family likeness, and there is notan unintelligent face in the company. The gamblers, or, as they are termed, the “sports,” of the United States have an air of higher breeding and education than the dice-throwers and card-turners of Ascot or Newmarket—nay, they may be considered the Anglo-Saxon equals, minus the title, of thoseâmes damnéesof the continental nobility who are styled Greeks by their Parisian victims. They are the Pariahs of American civilization, who are, nevertheless, in daily and familiar intercourse with their patrons, and not restricted, as in England, to a betting-ring toleration by the higher orders. The Guards are the model company of Camp Moore, and I should have felt disposed to admire the spirit of gallantry with which they have volunteered in this war as a purification by fire of their maculated lives, were it not hinted that the “Oglethorpe Guards,” and more than one other company of volunteers, are youths of large private fortunes, and that in the Secession, as in the Mexican War, these patriots will doubtless pursue their old calling with as much profit as they may their new one with valor.
From the Lower Camp we wind through tents, which diminish in neatness and cleanliness as we advance deeper, to the Upper Division, which is styled “Camp Tracy,” a newer formation, whose brooms have been employed with corresponding success. The adjutant’s report for the day sums up one thousand and seventy-three rank and file, and but two on the sick list. On a platform, a desk beneath the shade of the grove holds a Bible and Prayer-book, that await the arrival at ten o’clock of the Methodist preacher, who is to perform Divine service. The green uniforms of the “Hibernian Guards,” and the gray and light blue dress of other companies, appertain to a better appointed sort of men than the Lower Division.
There may be two thousand men in Camp Moore—not more, and yet every authority gives us a different figure. The lowest estimate acknowledged for the two camps is three thousand five hundred men, andThe Picayuneand other New Orleans papers still speak in glowing terms of the five thousand heroes assembled in Tangipao. Although the muster there presents a tolerable show of ball-stoppers, it would require months of discipline to enable them to pass for soldiers even at the North; and besides that General Tracy has never had other experience than in militia duty, there is not, I think, a single West Point officer in his whole command. The only hope of shaping such raw materialto the purposes of war, would naturally be by the admixture of a proper allowance of military experience, and until those possessing it shall be awarded to Camp Moore, we must sigh over the delusion which pictures its denizens to the good people of New Orleans as “fellows ready for the fray.”
While the hampers are being ransacked an express locomotive arrives from town with despatches for General Tracy, who exclaims when reading them, “Always too late!” from which expression it is inferred that orders have been received to accept the just-disbanded volunteers. The locomotive was hitched to the car and drew it back to the city. Our car was built in Massachusetts, the engine in Philadelphia, and the magnifier of its lamp in Cincinnati. What will the South do for such articles in future?
MAY26.—In the evening, as I was sitting in the house of a gentleman in the city, it was related as a topic of conversation that a very respectable citizen named Bibb had had a difficulty with three gentlemen, who insisted on his reading out the news for them from his paper as he went to market in the early morning. Mr. Bibb had a revolver “casually” in his pocket, and he shot one citizen dead on the spot, and wounded the other two severely, if not mortally. “Great sympathy,” I am told, “is felt for Mr. Bibb.” There has been a skirmish somewhere on the Potomac, but Bibb has done more business “on his own hook” than any of the belligerents up to this date; and, though I can scarcely say I sympathize with him, far be it from me to say that I do not respect him.
One curious result of the civil war in its effects on the South will, probably, extend itself as the conflict continues—I mean the refusal of the employers to pay their workmen, on the ground of inability. The natural consequence is much distress and misery. The English Consul is harassed by applications for assistance from mechanics and skilled laborers who are in a state bordering on destitution and starvation. They desire nothing better than to leave the country and return to their homes. All business, except tailoring for soldiering and cognate labors, are suspended. Money is not to be had. Bills on New York are worth little more than the paper, and the exchange against London is enormous—18 per cent. discount from the par value of the gold in bank, good draughts on England having been negotiated yesterdayat 92 per cent. One house has been compelled to accept 4 per cent. on a draught on the North, where the rate was usually from ¼ per cent. to ½ per cent. There is some fear that the police force will be completely broken up, and the imagination refuses to guess at the result. The city schools will probably be closed—altogether, things do not look well at New Orleans. When all their present difficulties are over, a struggle between the mob and the oligarchy, or those who have no property and those who have, is inevitable; for one of the first acts of the Legislature will probably be directed to establish some sort of qualification for the right of suffrage, relying on the force which will be at their disposal on the close of the war. As at New York, so at New Orleans. Universal suffrage is denounced as a curse, as corruption legalized, confiscation organized. As I sat in a well-furnished club-room last night, listening to a most respectable, well-educated, intelligent gentleman descanting on the practices of “the Thugs”—an organized band who coolly and deliberately committed murder for the purpose of intimidating Irish and German voters, and were only put down by a Vigilance Committee, of which he was a member—I had almost to pinch myself to see that I was not the victim of a horrid nightmare.
Monday, May27.—The Washington Artillery went off to-day to the wars—quo fas et gloria ducunt; but I saw a good many of them in the streets after the body had departed—spirits who were disembodied. Their uniform is very becoming, not unlike that of our own foot artillery, and they have one battery of guns in good order. I looked in vain for any account of Mr. Bibb’s little affair yesterday in the papers. Perhaps, as he is so very respectable, there will not be any reference to it at all. Indeed, in some conversation on the subject last night it was admitted that when men were very rich they might find judges and jury-men as tender as Danae, and policeman as permeable as the walls of her dungeon. The whole question now is, “What will be done with the blockade?” The Confederate authorities are acting with a high hand. An American vessel, the Ariel, which had cleared out of port with British subjects on board, has been overtaken, captured, and her crew have been put in prison. The ground is that she is owned in main by Black Republicans. The British subjects have received protection from the Consul. Prizeshave been made within a league of shore, and in one instance, when the captain protested, his ship was taken out to sea, and was then re-captured formally. I went round to several merchants to-day; they were all gloomy and fierce. In fact, the blockade of Mobile is announced, and that of New Orleans has commenced, and men-of-war have been reported off the Pas-à-l’Outre. The South is beginning to feel that it is being bottled up all fermenting and frothing, and is somewhat surprised and angry at the natural results of its own acts, or, at least, of the proceedings which have brought about a state of war. Mr. Slidell did not seem at all contented with the telegrams from the North, and confessed that “if they had been received by way of Montgomery he should be alarmed.” The names of persons liable for military service have been taken down in several districts, and British subjects have been included. Several applications have been made to Mr. Mure, the Consul, to interfere in behalf of men who, having enlisted, are now under orders to march, and who must leave their families destitute if they go away; but he has, of course, no power to exercise any influence in such cases. The English journals to the 4th of May have arrived here to-day. It is curious to see how quaint in their absurdity the telegrams become when they have reached the age of three weeks. I am in the hapless position of knowing, without being able to remedy, the evils from this source, for there is no means of sending through to New York political information of any sort by telegraph. The electric fluid may be the means of blasting and blighting many reputations, as there can be no doubt the revelations which the Government at Washington will be able to obtain through the files of the despatches it has seized at the various offices, will compromise some whose views have recently undergone remarkable changes. It is a hint which may not be lost on Governments in Europe when it is desirable to know friends and foes hereafter, and despotic rulers will not be slow to take a hint from “the land of liberty.”
Orders have been issued by the Governor to the tow-boats to take out the English vessels by the southwest passage, and it is probable they will all get through without any interruption on the part of the blockading force. It may be imagined that the owners and consignees of cargoes from England, China, and India, which are on their way here, are not at all easy in their minds. Two ofthe Washington Artillery died in the train on their way to that undefinable region called “the seat of war.”
May 28.—The Southern States have already received the assistance of several thousands of savages, or red men, and “the warriors” are actually engaged in pursuing the United States troops in Texas in conjunction with the State Volunteers. A few days ago a deputation of the chiefs of the Five Nations, Creeks, Choctaws, Seminoles, Camanches, and others passed through New Orleans on their way to Montgomery, where they hoped to enter into terms with the Government for the transfer of their pension list and other responsibilities from Washington, and to make such arrangements for their property and their rights as would justify them in committing their fortunes to the issue of war. These tribes can turn out twenty thousand warriors, scalping-knives, tomahawks, and all. The chiefs and principal men are all slaveholders.
May 29.—A new “affair” occurred this afternoon. The servants of the house in which I am staying were alarmed by violent screams in a house in the adjoining street, and by the discharge of firearms—an occurrence which, like the cry of “murder” in the streets of Havana, clears the streets of all wayfarers if they be wise, and do not wish to stop stray bullets. The cause is thus stated in the journals:
“SADFAMILYAFFRAY.—Last evening, at the residence of Mr. A. P. Withers, in Nayades street, near Thalia, Mr. Withers shot and dangerously wounded his step-son, Mr. A. F. W. Mather. As the police tell it, the nature of the affair was this: The two men were in the parlor, and talking about the Washington Artillery, which left on Monday for Virginia. Mather denounced the artillerists in strong language, and his step-father denied what he said. Violent language followed, and, as Withers says, Mather drew a pistol and shot at him once, not hitting him. He snatched up a Sharp’s revolver that was lying near and fired four times at his step-son. The latter fell at the third fire, and as he was falling Withers fired a fourth time, the bullet wounding the hand of Mrs. Withers, wife of one and mother of the other, she having rushed in to interfere, and she being the only witness of the affair. Withers immediately went out into the street and voluntarily surrendered himself to officer Casson, the first officer he met. He waslocked up. Three of his shots hit Mather, two of them in the breast. Last night Mather was not expected to live.”
Another difficulty is connected with the free colored people who may be found in prize ships. Read and judge of the conclusion: