A Ride Through Kentucky.
On Tuesday, February 26th, I left Louisville, Kentucky, by the Nashville train. Public affairs were the only topic of conversation among the passengers. They were about equally divided into enthusiastic Secessionists, urging in favor of the new movement that negroes already commanded higher prices than ever before; and quasi Loyalists, reiterating, "We only want Kentucky to remain in the Union as long as she can do so honorably." Not a single man declared himself unqualifiedly for the Government.
A ride of five hours among blue, dreamy hills, feathered with timber; dense forests, with their drooping foliage and log dwellings, in the doors of which women and little girls were complacently smoking their pipes; great, hospitable farm-houses, in the midst of superb natural parks; tobacco plantations, upon which negroes of both sexes—the women in cowhide brogans, and faded frocks, with gaudy kerchiefs wrapped like turbans about their heads—were hoeing, and following the plow, brought us to Cave City.
I left the train for a stage-ride of ten miles to the Mammoth Cave Hotel. In the midst of a smooth lawn, shaded by stately oaks and slender pines, it looms up huge and white, with a long, low, one-story offshootfronted by a deep portico, and known as "the Cottages."
The Curiosities of White's Cave.
Several evening hours were spent pleasantly in White's Cave, where the formations, at first dull and leaden, turn to spotless white after one grows accustomed to the dim light of the torches. There are little lakes so utterly transparent that your eye fails to detect the presence of water; stone drapery, hanging in graceful folds, and forming an exquisitely beautiful chamber; petrified fountains, where the water still trickles down and hardens into stone; a honey-combed roof, which is a very perfect counterfeit of art; long rows of stalactites, symmetrically ribbed and fluted, which stretch off in a pleasing colonnade, and other rare specimens of Nature's handiwork in her fantastic moods. Many of them are vast in dimension, though the geologists declare that it requiresthirtyyears to deposit a formation no thicker than a wafer! Well says the German proverb "God is patient because he is eternal."
With another visitor I passed the next day in the Mammoth Cave. "Mat," our sable cicerone, had been acting in the capacity of guide for twenty-five years, and it was estimated that he had walked more than fifty thousand miles under ground. The story is not so improbable when one remembers that the passages of the great cavern are, in the aggregate, upwards of one hundred and fifty miles in length, and that it has two hundred and twenty-six known chambers. The outfit consisted of two lamps for himself and one for each of us. Cans of oil are kept at several interior points; for it is of the last importance that visitors to this labyrinth of darkness should keep their lamps trimmed and burning.
The Mammoth Cave.—Lung Complaints.
The thermometer within stands constantly at fifty-nine Fahrenheit; and the cave "breathes just once a year." Through the winter it takes one long inspiration, and in summer the air rushes steadily outward. Its vast chambers are the lungs of the universe.
In 1845, a number of wood and stone cottages were erected in the cavern, and inhabited by consumptive patients, who believed that the dry atmosphere and equable temperature would prove beneficial. After three or four months their faces were bloodless; the pupils of their sunken eyes dilated until the iris became invisible and the organs appeared black, no matter what their original color. Three patients died in the cave; the others expired soon after leaving it.
Mat gave a vivid description of these invalids flitting about like ghosts—their hollow coughs echoing and reechoing through the cavernous chambers. It must have looked horrible—as if the tomb had oped its ponderous and marble jaws, that its victims might wander about in this subterranean Purgatory. A cemetery would seem cheerful in comparison with such a living entombment. Volunteer medical advice, like a motion to adjourn, is always in order. My own panacea for lung-complaints would be exactly the opposite. Mount a horse or take a carriage, and ride, by easy stages at first, across the great plains to the Rocky Mountains or California, eating and sleeping in the open air. Nature is very kind, if you will trust her fully; and in the atmosphere, which is so dry and pure that fresh meat, cut in strips and hung up, will cure without salting or smoking, and may be carried all over the world, her healing power seems almost boundless.
The walls and roof of the cave were darkened and often hidden by myriads of screeching bats, at thisseason of the year all hanging torpid by the claws, with heads downward, and unable to fly away, even when subjected to the cruel experiment of being touched by the torches.
Methodist Church.—Fat Man's Misery.
The Methodist Church is a semi-circular chamber, in which a ledge forms the natural pulpit; and logs, brought in when religious service was first performed, fifty years ago, in perfect preservation, yet serve for seats. Methodist itinerants and other clergymen still preach at long intervals. Worship, conducted by the "dim religious light" of tapers, and accompanied by the effect which music always produces in subterranean halls, must be peculiarly impressive. It suggests those early days in the Christian Church, when the hunted followers of Jesus met at midnight in mountain caverns, to blend in song their reverent voices; to hear anew the strange, sweet story of his teachings, his death, and his all-embracing love.
Upon one of the walls beyond, a figure of gypsum, in bass-relief, is called the American Eagle. The venerable bird, in consonance with the evil times upon which he had fallen, was in a sadly ragged and dilapidated condition. One leg and other portions of his body had seceded, leaving him in seeming doubt as to his own identity; but the beak was still perfect, as if he could send forth upon occasion his ancient notes of self-gratulation.
Minerva's Dome has fluted walls, and a concave roof, beautifully honey-combed; but no statue of its mistress. The oft-invoked goddess, wearied by the merciless orators who are always compelling her to leap anew from the brain of Jove, has doubtless, in some hidden nook, found seclusion and repose.
We toiled along the narrow, tortuous passage, chiseledthrough the rock by some ancient stream of water, and appropriately named the Fat Man's Misery; wiped away the perspiration in the ample passage beyond, known as the Great Relief; glanced inside the Bacon Chamber, where the little masses of lime-rock pendent from the roof do look marvelously like esculent hams; peeped down into the cylindrical Bottomless Pit, which the reader shall be told, confidentially,hasa bottom just one hundred and sixty feet below the surface; laughed at the roof-figures of the Giant, his Wife, and Child, which resemble a caricature from Punch; admired the delicate, exquisite flowers of white, fibrous gypsum, along the walls of Pensacola Avenue; stood beside the Dead Sea, a dark, gloomy body of water; crossed the Styx by the natural bridge which spans it, and halted upon the shore of Lethe.
A Ride Down the Lethe.
Then, embarking in a little flat-boat, we slowly glided along the river of Oblivion. It was a strange, weird spectacle. The flickering torches dimly revealed the dark inclosing walls, which rise abruptly a hundred feet to the black roof. Our sable guide looked, in the ghastly light, like a recent importation from Pluto's domain; and stood in the bows, steering the little craft, which moved slowly down the winding, sluggish river. The deep silence was only broken by drops of water, which fell from the roof, striking the stream like the tick of a clock, and the sharpylpof the paddle, as it was thrust into the wave to guide us. When my companion evoked from his flute strains of slow music, which resounded in hollow echoes through the long vault, it grew so demoniac, that I almost expected the walls to open and reveal a party of fiends, dancing to infernal music around a lurid fire. I never saw any stage effect or work of art that could compare with it.If one would enjoy the most vivid sensations of the grand and gloomy, let him float down Lethe to the sound of a dirge.
The Star Chamber.—Magnificent Distances.
We first saw the Star Chamber with the lights withdrawn. It revealed to us the meaning of "darkness visible." We seemed tofeelthe dense blackness against our eye-balls. An object within half an inch of them was not in the faintest degree perceptible. If one were left alone here, reason could not long sustain itself. Even a few hours, in the absence of light, would probably shake it. In numberless little spots, the dark gypsum has scaled off, laying bare minute sections of the white limestone roof, resembling stars. When the chamber was lighted the illusion became perfect. We seemed in a deep, rock-walled pit, gazing up at the starry firmament. The torch, slowly moved to throw a shadow along the roof, produced the effect of a cloud sailing over the sky; but the scene required no such aid to render it one of marvelous beauty. The Star Chamber is the most striking picture in all this great gallery of Nature.
My companion had spent his whole life within a few miles of the cave, but now visited it for the first time. Thus it is always; objects which pilgrims come half across the world to see, we regard with indifference at our own doors. Persons have passed all their days in sight of Mount Washington, and yet never looked upon the grand panorama from its brow. Men have lived from childhood almost within sound of the roar of Niagara, without ever gazing on the vast fountain, where mother Earth, like Rachel, weeps for her children, and will not be comforted. We appreciate no enjoyment justly, until we see it through the charmed medium of magnificent distances.
Political Feeling in Kentucky.
Throughout Kentucky the pending troubles were uppermost in every heart and on every tongue. One gentleman, in conversation, thus epitomized the feeling of the State:—
"We have more wrongs to complain of than any other slave community, for Kentucky loses more negroes than all the cotton States combined. But Secession is no remedy. It would be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire."
Another, whose head was silvered with age, said to me:—
"When I was a boy here in this county, some of our neighbors started for New Orleans on a flat-boat. As we bade them good-by, we never expected to see them again; we thought they were going out of the world. But, after several months, they returned, having come on foot all the way, through the Indian country, packing1their blankets and provisions. Now we come from New Orleans in five days. I thank God to have lived in this age—the age of the Railroad, the Telegraph, and the Printing Press. Ours was the greatest nation and the greatest era in history. But that is all past now. The Government is broken to pieces; the slave States can not obtain their rights; and those which have seceded will never come back."
An old farmer "reckoned," as I traveled a good deal, that I might know better than he whether there was any hope of a peaceable settlement. If the North, as he believed, was willing to be just, an overwhelming majority of Kentuckians would stand by the Union. "It is a great pity," he said, very earnestly, in a broken voice, "that we Americans could not live harmoniously, likebrethren, instead of always quarreling about a few niggers."
My recollections of Nashville, Tennessee, include only an unpalatable breakfast in one of its abominable hotels; a glimpse at some of its pleasant shaded streets and marble capitol, which, with the exception of that in Columbus, Ohio, is considered the finest State-house on the continent.
Continuing southward, I found the country already "appareled in the sweet livery of spring." The elm and gum trees wore their leafy glory; the grass and wheat carpeted the ground with swelling verdure, and field and forest glowed with the glossy green of the holly. The railway led through large cotton-fields, where many negroes, of both sexes, were plowing and hoeing, while overseers sat upon the high, zig-zag fences, armed with rifles or shot-guns. On the withered stalks snowy tufts of cotton were still protruding from the dull brown bolls—portions of the last year's crop, which had never been picked, and were disappearing under the plow.
Cotton-Fields.—An Indignant Alabamian.
A native Kentuckian, now a young merchant in Alabama, was one of my fellow-passengers. He pronounced the people aristocratic. They looked down upon every man who worked for his living—indeed, upon every one who did not own negroes. The ladies were pretty, and often accomplished, but, he mildly added, he would like them better if they did not "dip." He insisted that Alabama had been precipitated into the revolution.
"We wereswindledout of our rights. In my own town, Jere Clemens—an ex-United States senator, and one of the ablest men in the State—was elected to the convention on the strongest public pledges of Unionism. When the convention met, he went completely over to the enemy. The leaders—a few heavy slaveholders,aided by political demagogues—dared not submit the Secession ordinance to a popular vote; they knew the people would defeat them. They are determined on war; they will exasperate the ignorant masses to the last degree before they allow them to vote on any test question. I trust the Government will put them down by force of arms, no matter what the cost!"
The same evening, crossing the Alabama line, I was in the "Confederate States of America." At the little town of Athens, the Stars and Stripes were still floating; as the train left, I cast a longing look at the old flag, wondering when I should see it again.
"Our Correspondent" as a New Mexican.
The next person who took a seat beside me went through the formula of questions, usual between strangers in the South and the Far West, asking my name, residence, business, and destination. He was informed, in reply, that I lived in the Territory of New Mexico, and was now traveling leisurely to New Orleans, designing to visit Vera Cruz and the City of Mexico before returning home. This hypothesis, to which I afterward adhered, was rendered plausible by my knowledge of New Mexico, and gave me the advantage of not being deemed a partisan. Secessionists and Unionists alike, regarding me as a stranger with no particular sympathies, conversed freely. Aaron Burr asserts that "a lie well stuck to is good as the truth;" in my own case, it was decidedly better than the truth.
My querist was a cattle-drover, who spent most of his time in traveling through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. He declared emphatically that the people of those States had been placed in a false position; that their hearts were loyal to the Union, in spite of all the arts which had been used to deceive and exasperate them.
At Memphis was an old friend, whom I had not metfor many years, and who was now commercial editor of the leading Secession journal. I knew him to be perfectly trustworthy, and, at heart, a bitter opponent of Slavery. On the morning of my arrival, he called upon me at the Gayoso House. After his first cordial greeting, he asked, abruptly:
A Hot Climate for Abolitionists.
"What are you doing down here?"
"Corresponding forThe Tribune."
"How far are you going?"
"Through all the Gulf States, if possible."
"My friend," said he, in his deep bass tones, "do you know that you are on very perilous business?'"
"Possibly; but I shall be extremely prudent when I get into a hot climate."
"I do not know" (with a shrug of the shoulders) "what you call a hot climate. Last week, two northerners, who had been mobbed as Abolitionists, passed through here, with their heads shaved, going home, in charge of the Adams' Express. A few days before, a man was hung on that cottonwood tree which you see just across the river, upon the charge of tampering with slaves. Another person has just been driven out of the city, on suspicion of writing a letter forThe Tribune. If the people in this house, and out on the street in front, knew you to be one of its correspondents, they would not leave you many minutes for saying your prayers."
After a long, minute conversation, in which my friend learned my plans and gave me some valuable hints, he remarked:
Aims and Animus of Secessionists.
"My first impulse was to go down on my knees, and beg you, for God's sake, to turn back; but I rather think you may go on with comparative safety. You are the first man to whom I have opened my heart for years.I wish some of my old northern friends, who think Slavery a good thing, could witness the scenes in the slave auctions, which have so often made my blood run cold. I knew two runaway negroes absolutely starve themselves to death in their hiding-places in this city, rather than make themselves known, and be sent back to their masters. I disliked Slavery before; now I hate it, down to the very bottom of my heart." His compressed lips and clinched fingers, driving their nails into his palms, attested the depth of his feeling.
Thus far into the bowels of the landHave we marched on without impediment.Richard III.
Thus far into the bowels of the landHave we marched on without impediment.Richard III.
Thus far into the bowels of the landHave we marched on without impediment.
Richard III.
While I remained in Memphis, my friend, who was brought into familiar contact with leading Secessionists, gave me much valuable information. He insisted that they were in the minority, but carried the day because they were noisy and aggressive, overawing the Loyalists, who staid quietly at home. Before the recent city election, every one believed the Secessionists in a large majority; but, when a Union meeting was called, the people turned out surprisingly, and, as they saw the old flag, gave cheer after cheer, "with tears in their voices." Many, intimidated, staid away from the polls. The newspapers of the city, with a single exception, were disloyal, but the Union ticket was elected by a majority of more than three hundred.
Secession Aims and Grievances.
"Tell me exactly what the 'wrongs' and 'grievances' are, of which I hear so much on every side."
"It is difficult to answer. The masses have been stirred into a vague, bitter, 'soreheaded' feeling that the South is wronged; but the leaders seldom descend to particulars. When they do, it is very ludicrous. They urge the marvelous growth of the North; the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise (done by southern votes!), and that Freedom has always distanced Slavery in the territories. Secession is no new or spontaneous uprising; every one of its leaders here has talked of it and planned it for years. Individual ambition, and wild dreams of agreat southern empire, which shall include Mexico, Central America, and Cuba, seem to be their leading incentives. But there is another, stronger still. You can hardly imagine how bitterly they hate the Democratic Idea—how they loathe the thought that the vote of any laboring man, with a rusty coat and soiled hands, may neutralize that of a wealthy, educated, slave-owning gentleman."
"Wonder why they gave it such a name of old renown,This dreary, dingy, muddy, melancholy town."
"Wonder why they gave it such a name of old renown,This dreary, dingy, muddy, melancholy town."
Spring-Time in Memphis.
Thus Charles Mackay describes Memphis; but it impressed me as the pleasantest city of the South. Though its population was only thirty thousand, it had the air and promise of a great metropolis. The long steamboat landing was so completely covered with cotton that drays and carriages could hardly thread the few tortuous passages leading down to the water's edge. Bales of the same great staple were piled up to the ceiling in the roomy stores of the cotton factors; the hotels were crowded, and spacious and elegant blocks were being erected.
A few days earlier, in Cleveland, I had seen the ground covered with snow; but here I was in the midst of early summer. During the first week of March, the heat was so oppressive that umbrellas and fans were in general use upon the streets. The broad, shining leaves of the magnolia, and the delicate foliage of the weeping willow, were nodding adieu to winter; the air was sweet with cherry blossoms; with
——"DaffodilsThat come before the swallow dares, and takeThe winds of March with beauty; violets dim,But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,Or Cytherea's breath."
——"DaffodilsThat come before the swallow dares, and takeThe winds of March with beauty; violets dim,But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,Or Cytherea's breath."
Captain McIntire, late of the Army.
On the evening of March 3d I left Memphis. A thin-visaged, sandy-haired, angular gentleman in spectacles, who occupied a car-seat near me, though of northern birth, had resided in the Gulf States for several years, as agent for an Albany manufactory of cotton-gins and agricultural implements. A broad-shouldered, roughly dressed, sun-browned young man, whose chin was hidden by a small forest of beard, accepted the proffer of a cigar, took a seat beside us, and introduced himself as Captain McIntire, of the United States Army, who had just resigned his commission, on account of the pending troubles, and was returning from the Texian frontier to his plantation in Mississippi. He was the first bitter Secessionist I had met, and I listened with attent ear to his complaints of northern aggression.
The Albanian was an advocate of Slavery and declared that, in the event of separation, his lot was with the South, for better or for worse; but he mildly urged that the Secession movement was hasty and ill advised; hoped the difficulty might be settled by compromise, and declared that, traveling through all the cotton States since Mr. Lincoln's election, he had found, everywhere outside the great cities, a strong love for the Union and a universal hope that the Republic might continue indivisible. He was very "conservative;" had always voted the Democratic ticket; was confident the northern people would not willingly wrong their southern brethren; and insisted that not more than twenty or thirty thousand persons in the State of New-York were, in any just sense, Abolitionists.
Captain McIntire silently heard him through, and then remarked:
"You seem to be a gentleman; you may be sincere in your opinions; but it won't do for you to express suchsentiments in the State of Mississippi. They will involve you in trouble and in danger!"
An Amusing Colloquy.
The New-Yorker was swift to explain that he was very "sound," favoring no compromise which would not give the slaveholders all they asked. Meanwhile, a taciturn but edified listener, I pondered upon the German proverb, that "speech is silver, while silence is golden." Something gave me a dim suspicion that our violent fire-eater was not of southern birth; and, after being plied industriously with indirect questions, he was reluctantly forced to acknowledge himself a native of the State of New Jersey. Soon after, at a little station, Captain McIntire, late of the Army of the United States, bade us adieu.
At Grand Junction, after I had assumed a recumbent position in the sleeping-car, two young women in a neighboring seat fell into conversation with a gentleman near them, when a droll colloquy ensued. Learning that he was a New Orleans merchant, one of them asked:—
"Do you know Mr. Powers, of New Orleans?"
"Powers—Powers," said the merchant; "what does he do?"
"Gambles," was the cool response.
"Bless me, no! What do you know about a gambler?"
"He is my husband," replied the woman, with ingenuous promptness.
"Your husband a gambler!" ejaculated the gentleman, with horror in every tone.
"Yes, sir," reiterated the undaunted female; "and gamblers are the best men in the world."
"I didn't know they ever married. I should like to see a gambler's wife."
"Well, sir, take a mighty good look, and you can see one now."
The merchant opened the curtains into their compartment, and scrutinized the speaker—a young, rosy, and rather comely woman, with blue eyes and brown hair, quietly and tastefully dressed.
"I should like to know your husband, madam."
"Well, sir; if you've got plenty of money, he will be glad to makeyouracquaintance."
"Does he ever go home?"
"Lord bless you, yes! He always comes home at one o'clock in the morning, after he gets through dealing faro. He has not missed a single night since we were married—going on five years. We own a farm in this vicinity, and if business continues good with him next year we shall retire to it, and never live in the city again."
All the following day I journeyed through deep forests of heavy drooping foliage, with pendent tufts of gray Spanish moss. The beautiful Cherokee rose everywhere trailed its long arms of vivid green; all the woods were decked with the yellow flowers of the sassafras and the white blossoms of the dogwood and the wild plum. Our road stretched out in long perspective through great Louisiana everglades, where the grass was four feet in hight and the water ten or twelve inches deep.
Feeling Toward President Lincoln.
It was the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. One of our passengers remarked:
"I hope to God he will be killed before he has time to take the oath!"
Another said:
"I have wagered a new hat that neither he nor Hamlin will ever live to be inaugurated."
What a Mississippi Slaveholder Thought.
An old Mississippian, a working man, though the ownerof a dozen slaves, assured me earnestly that the people did not desire war; but the North had cheated them in every compromise, and they were bound to regain their rights, even if they had to fight for them.
"We of the South," said he, "are the most independent people in the universe. We raise every thing we need; but the world can not do without cotton. If we have war, it will cause terrible suffering in the North. I pity the ignorant people of the manufacturing districts there, who have been deluded by the politicians; for they will be forced to endure many hardships, and perhaps starvation. After Southern trade is withdrawn, manufactures stopped, operatives starving, grass growing in the streets of New York, and crowds marching up Broadway crying 'Bread or Blood!' northern fanatics will see, too late, the results of their folly."
This was the uniform talk of Secessionists. That Cotton was not merely King, but absolute despot; that they could coerce the North by refusing to buy goods, and coerce the whole world by refusing to sell cotton, was their profound belief. This was always a favorite southern theory. Bancroft relates that as early as 1661, the colony of Virginia, suffering under commercial oppression, urged North Carolina and Maryland to join her for a year in refusing to raise tobacco, that they might compel Great Britain to grant certain desired privileges. Now the Rebels had no suspicion whatever that there was reciprocity in trade; that they needed to sell their great staple just as much as the world needed to buy it; that the South bought goods in New York simply because it was the cheapest and best market; that, were all the cotton-producing States instantly sunk in the ocean, in less than five years the worldwould obtain their staple, or some adequate substitute, from other sources, and forget they ever existed.
Wisconsin Freemen vs. Southern Slaves.
"I spent six weeks last summer," said another planter, "in Wisconsin. It is a hot-bed of Abolitionism. The working-classes are astonishingly ignorant. They are honest and industrious, but they are not so intelligent as the nig-roes of the South. They suppose, if war comes, we shall have trouble with our slaves. That is utterly absurd. All my nig-roes would fight for me."
A Mississippian, whom his companions addressed as "Judge," denounced the Secession movement as a dream of noisy demagogues:
"Their whole policy has been one of precipitation. They declared: 'Let us rush the State out of the Union while Buchanan is President, and there will be no war.' From the outset, they have acted in defiance of the sober will of the masses; they have not dared to submit one of their acts to a popular vote!"
Another passenger, who concurred in these views, and intimated that he was a Union man, still imputed the troubles mainly to agitation of the Slavery question.
"The northern people," said he, "have been grossly deceived by their politicians, newspapers, and books like 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' whose very first chapter describes a slave imprisoned and nearly starved to death in a cellar in New Orleans, when there is not a single cellar in the whole city!"
Midnight found us at the St. Charles Hotel, a five-story edifice, with granite basement and walls of stucco—that be-all and end-all of New Orleans architecture. The house has an imposing Corinthian portico, and in thehot season its stone floors and tall columns are cool and inviting to the eye.
Hospitality of a Stranger.
"You can not fail to like New Orleans," said a friend, before I left the North. "Its people are much more genial and cordial to strangers than ours." I took no letters of introduction, for introduction was just the thing I did not want. But on the cars, before reaching the city, I met a gentleman with whom I had a little conversation, and exchanged the ordinary civilities of traveling. When we parted, he handed me his card, saying:
"You are a stranger in New Orleans, and may desire some information or assistance. Call and see me, and command me, if I can be of service to you."
"You are a stranger in New Orleans, and may desire some information or assistance. Call and see me, and command me, if I can be of service to you."
He proved to be the senior member of one of the heaviest wholesale houses in the city. Accepting the invitation, I found him in his counting-room, deeply engrossed in business; but he received me with great kindness, and gave me information about the leading features of the city which I wished to see. As I left, he promised to call on me, adding: "Come in often. By the way, to-morrow is Sunday; why can't you go home and take a quiet family dinner with me?"
I was curious to learn the social position of one who would invite a stranger, totally without indorsement, into his home-circle. The next day he called, and we took a two-story car of the Baronne street railway. It leads through the Fourth or Lafayette District—more like a garden than a city—containing the most delightful metropolitan residences in America. Far back from the street, they are deeply imbosomed in dense shrubbery and flowers. The tropical profusion of the foliage retains dampness and is unwholesome, but very delicious to the senses.
The houses are low—this latitude is unfavorable to climbing—and constructed of stucco, cooler than wood, and less damp than stone. They abound in verandas, balconies, and galleries, which give to New Orleans a peculiarly mellow and elastic look, much more alluring than the cold, naked architecture of northern cities.
An Agreeable Family Circle.
My new friend lived in this district, as befits a merchant prince. His spacious grounds were rich in hawthorns, magnolias, arbor-vitæs, orange, olive, and fig trees, and sweet with the breath of multitudinous flowers. Though it was only the tenth of March, myriads of pinks and trailing roses were in full bloom; Japan plums hung ripe, while brilliant oranges of the previous year still glowed upon the trees. His ample residence, with its choice works of art, was quietly, unostentatiously elegant. There was no mistaking it for one of those gilt and gaudy palaces which seem to say: "Look at the state in which Crœsus, my master, lives. Lo, the pictures and statues, the Brussels and rosewood which his money has bought! Behold him clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day!"
Three other guests were present, including a young officer of the Louisiana troops stationed at Fort Pickens, and a lady whose husband and brother held each a high commission in the Rebel forces of Texas. All assumed to be Secessionists—as did nearly every person I met in New Orleans upon first acquaintance—but displayed none of the usual rancor and violence. In that well-poised, agreeable circle the evening passed quickly, and at parting, the host begged me to frequent his house. This was not distinctively southern hospitality, for he was born and bred at the North. But in our eastern cities, from a business man in his social position, it wouldappear a little surprising. Had he been a Philadelphian or Bostonian, would not his friends have deemed him a candidate for a lunatic asylum?
New Orleans,March 6, 1861.
Taking my customary stroll last evening, I sauntered into Canal street, and suddenly found myself in a dense and expectant crowd. Several cheers being given upon my arrival, I naturally inferred that it was an ovation toThe Tribunecorrespondent; but native modesty, and a desire to blush unseen, restrained me from any oral public acknowledgment.
Tribune Letters.—General Twiggs.
Just then, an obliging by-stander corrected my misapprehension by assuring me that the demonstration was to welcome home General Daniel E. Twiggs—the gallant hero, you know, who, stationed in Texas to protect the Government property, recently betrayed it all into the hands of the Rebels, to "prevent bloodshed." His friends wince at the order striking his name from the army rolls as a coward and a traitor, and the universal execration heaped upon his treachery even in the border slave States.
They did their best to give him a flattering reception. The great thoroughfare was decked in its holiday attire. Flags were flying, and up and down, as far as the eye could reach, the balconies were crowded with spectators, and the arms of long files of soldiers glittered in the evening sunlight. One company bore a tattered and stained banner, which went through the Mexican war. Another carried richly ornamented colors, presented by the ladies of this city. There were Pelican flags, and Lone Star flags, and devices unlike any thing in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth; but nowhere could I see the old National banner.It was well; on such occasion the Stars and Stripes would be sadly out of place.
Braxton Bragg.—Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural.
After a welcoming speech, pronouncing him "not only the soldier of courage, but the patriot of fidelity and honor," and his own response, declaring thathere, at least, he would "never be branded as a coward and traitor," the ex-general rode through some of the principal streets in an open barouche, bareheaded, bowing to the spectators. He is a venerable-looking man, apparently of seventy. His large head is bald upon the top; but from the sides a few thin snow-white locks, utterly oblivious of the virtues of "the Twiggs Hair Dye,"2streamed in the breeze. He was accompanied in the carriage by General Braxton Bragg—the "Little-more-grape-Captain-Bragg" of Mexican war memory. By the way, persons who ought to know declare that General Taylor never used the expression, his actual language being: "Captain Bragg, give them ----!"
President Lincoln's Inaugural, looked for with intense interest, has just arrived. All the papers denounce it bitterly.The Delta, which has advocated Secession these ten years, makes it a signal for the war-whoop:—
"War is a great calamity; but, with all its horrors, it is a blessing to the deep, dark, and damning infamy of such a submission, such surrenders, as the southern people are now called upon to make to a foreign invader. He who would counsel such—he who would seek to dampen, discourage, or restrain the ardor and determination of the people to resist all such pretensions, is a traitor, who should be driven beyond our borders."
"War is a great calamity; but, with all its horrors, it is a blessing to the deep, dark, and damning infamy of such a submission, such surrenders, as the southern people are now called upon to make to a foreign invader. He who would counsel such—he who would seek to dampen, discourage, or restrain the ardor and determination of the people to resist all such pretensions, is a traitor, who should be driven beyond our borders."
"Foreign invader," is supposed to mean the President of our common country! The "submission" denounced so terribly would be simply the giving up of the Government property lately stolen by the Rebels, and the paying of the usual duties on imports!
March 8.
Louisiana Convention.
The State convention which lately voted Louisiana out of the Union, sits daily in Lyceum Hall. The building fronts Lafayette Square—one of the admirable little parks which are the pride of New Orleans. Upon the first floor is the largest public library in the city, though it contains less than ten thousand volumes.
In the large hall above are the assembled delegates. Ex-Governor Mouton, their president, a portly old gentleman, of the heavy-father order, sits upon the platform. Below him, at a long desk, Mr. Wheat, the florid clerk, is reading a report in a voice like a cracked bugle. Behind the president is a life-size portrait of Washington; at his right, a likeness of Jefferson Davis, with thin, beardless face, and sad, hollow eyes. There is also a painting of the members, and a copy of the Secession ordinance, with lithographedfac similesof their signatures. The delegates, you perceive, have made all the preliminary arrangements for being immortalized. Physically, they are fine-looking men, with broad shoulders, deep chests, well-proportioned limbs, and stature decidedly above the northern standard.
I will becorrespondentto command,And do my spiriting gently.Tempest.
I will becorrespondentto command,And do my spiriting gently.Tempest.
I will becorrespondentto command,And do my spiriting gently.
Tempest.
Introduction to Rebel Circles.
The good fortune which in Memphis enabled me to learn so directly the plans and aims of the Secession leaders, did not desert me in New Orleans. For several years I had been personally acquainted with the editor of the leading daily journal—an accomplished writer, and an original Secessionist. Uncertain whether he knew positively my political views, and fearing to arouse suspicion by seeming to avoid him, I called on him the day after reaching the city.
He received me kindly, never surmising my errand; invited me into the State convention, of which he was a member; asked me to frequent his editorial rooms; and introduced me at the "Louisiana Democratic Club," which had now ripened into a Secession club. Among prominent Rebels belonging to it were John Slidell and Judah P. Benjamin, of Jewish descent, whom Senator Wade of Ohio characterized so aptly as "an Israelite with Egyptian principles."
Admission to that club was a final voucher for political soundness. The plans of the conspirators could hardly have been discussed with more freedom in the parlor of Jefferson Davis. Another friend introduced me at the Merchants' Reading-room, where were the same sentiments and the same frankness. The newspaper office also was a standing Secession caucus.
Intensity of the Secession Feeling.
These associations gave me rare facilities for studying the aims and animus of the leading Revolutionists. I wasnot compelled to ask questions, so constantly was information poured into my ears. I used no further deceit than to acquiesce quietly in the opinions everywhere heard. While I talked New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, my companions talked Secession; and told me more, every day, of its secret workings, than as a mere stranger I could have learned in a month. Socially, they were genial and agreeable. Their hatred of New England, which they seemed to consider "the cruel cause of all our woes," was very intense. They were also wont to denounceThe Tribune, and sometimes its unknown Southern correspondents, with peculiar bitterness. At first their maledictions fell with startling and unpleasant force upon my ears, though I always concurred. But in time I learned to hear them not only with serenity, but with a certain quiet enjoyment of the ludicrousness of the situation.
I had not a single acquaintance in the city, whom I knew to be a Union man, or to whom I could talk without reserve. This was very irksome—at times almost unbearable. How I longed to open my heart to somebody! Recently as I had left the North, and strongly as I was anchored in my own convictions, the pressure on every hand was so great, all intelligence came so distorted through Rebel mediums, that at times I was nearly swept from my moorings. I could fully understand how many strong Union men had at last been drawn into the almost irresistible tide. It was an inexpressible relief to read the northern newspapers at the Democratic Club. There, evenThe Tribunewas on file. The club was so far above suspicion that it might have patronized with impunity the organ of William Lloyd Garrison or Frederick Douglass.
Rebel Newspapers and President Lincoln.
The vituperation which the southern journals heapedupon Abraham Lincoln was something marvelous. The speeches of the newly elected President on his way to Washington, were somewhat rugged and uncouth; not equal to the reputation he won in the great senatorial canvass with Douglas, where debate and opposition developed his peculiar powers and stimulated his unrivaled logic. The Rebel papers drew daily contrasts between the two Presidents, pronouncing Mr. Davis a gentleman, scholar, statesman; and Mr. Lincoln a vulgarian, buffoon, demagogue. One of their favorite epithets was "idiot;" another, "baboon;" just as the Roman satirists, fifteen hundred years ago, were wont to ridicule the great Julian as an ape and a hairy savage.
The times have changed. While I write some of the same journals, not yet extinguished by the fortunes of war, denounce Jefferson Davis with equal coarseness and bitterness, as an elegant, vacillating sentimentalist; and mourn that he does not possess the rugged common sense and indomitable perseverance displayed by Abraham Lincoln!
While keeping up appearances on the Mexican question, by frequent inquiries about the semi-monthly steamers for Vera Cruz, I devoted myself ostensibly to the curious features of the city. Odd enough it sounded to hear persons say, "Let us goupto the river;" but the phrase is accurate. New Orleans is two feet lower than the Mississippi, and protected against overflow by a dike or levee. The city is quite narrow, and is drained into a great swamp in the rear. In front, new deposits of soil are constantly and rapidly made. Four of the leading business streets, nearest the levee, traverse what, a few years ago, was the bed of the river. Anywhere, by digging two feet below the surface, one comes to water.
The earth is peculiarly spongy and yielding. The unfinished Custom House, built of granite from Quincy, Massachusetts, has sunk about two feet since its commencement, in 1846. The same is true of other heavy buildings. Cellars and wells being impossible in the watery soil, refrigerators serve for the one, and cylindrical upright wooden cisterns, standing aboveground, like towers, for the other.