The Secret Service, the Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape

by Albert D. Richardson

CHAPTER I.

I will go on the slightest errand now to the antipodes that you can desire to send me on.

Much Ado about Nothing.

Early in 1861, I felt a strong desire to look at the Secession movement for myself; to learn, by personal observation, whether it sprang from the people or not; what the Revolutionists wanted, what they hoped, and what they feared.

But the southern climate, never propitious to the longevity of Abolitionists, was now unfavorable to the health of every northerner, no matter how strong his political constitution. I felt the danger of being recognized; for several years of roving journalism, and a good deal of political speaking on the frontier, had made my face familiar to persons whom I did not remember at all, and given me that large and motley acquaintance which every half-public life necessitates.

Moreover, I had passed through the Kansas struggle; and many former shining lights of Border Ruffianism were now, with perfect fitness, lurid torches in the early bonfires of Secession. I did not care to meet their eyes, for I could not remember a single man of them all who would be likely to love me, either wisely or too well. But the newspaper instinct was strong within me, and the journalist who deliberates is lost. My hesitancy resulted in writing for a roving commission to represent The Tribune in the Southwest.

The Managing Editor.

A few days after, I found the Managing Editor in his office, going through the great pile of letters the morning mail had brought him, with the wonderful rapidity which quick intuition, long experience, and natural fitness for that most delicate and onerous position alone can give. For the modern newspaper is a sort of intellectual iron-clad, upon which, while the Editorial Captain makes out the reports to his chief, the public, and entertains the guests in his elegant cabin, the leading column, and receives the credit for every broadside of type and every paper bullet of the brain poured into the enemy,—back out of sight is an Executive Officer, with little popular fame, who keeps the ship all right from hold to maintop, looks to every detail with sleepless vigilance, and whose life is a daily miracle of hard work.

The Manager went through his mail, I think, at the rate of one letter per minute. He made final disposition of each when it came into his hand; acting upon the great truth, that if he laid one aside for future consideration, there would soon be a series of strata upon his groaning desk, which no mental geologist could fathom or classify. Some were ruthlessly thrown into the waste-basket. Others, with a lightning pencil-stroke, to indicate the type and style of printing, were placed on the pile for the composing-room. A few great packages of manuscript were re-enclosed in envelopes for the mail, with a three-line note, which, while I did not read, I knew must run like this:—

"My Dear Sir—Your article has unquestionable merit; but by the imperative pressure of important news upon our columns, we are very reluctantly compelled," etc.

Preliminary Instructions.

There was that quick, educated instinct, which reads the whole from a very small part, taking in a line here and a key-word there. Two or three glances appeared to decide the fate of each; yet the reader was not wholly absorbed, for all the while he kept up a running conversation:

"I received your letter. Are you going to New Orleans?"

"Not unless you send me."

"I suppose you know it is rather precarious business?"

"O, yes."

"Two of our correspondents have come home within the last week, after narrow escapes. We have six still in the South; and it would not surprise me, this very hour, to receive a telegram announcing the imprisonment or death of any one of them."

"I have thought about all that, and decided."

"Then we shall be very glad to have you go."

"When may I start?"

"To-day, if you like."

"What field shall I occupy?"

"As large a one as you please. Go and remain just where you think best."

"How long shall I stay?"

"While the excitement lasts, if possible. Do you know how long you will stay? You will be back here some fine morning in just about two weeks."

"Wait and see."

Pondering upon the line of conduct best for the journey, I remembered the injunction of the immortal Pickwick: "It is always best on these occasions to do what the mob do!" "But," suggested Mr. Snodgrass, "suppose there are two mobs?" "Shout with the largest," replied Mr. Pickwick. Volumes could not say more. Upon this plan I determined to act—concealing my occupation, political views, and place of residence. It is not pleasant to wear a padlock upon one's tongue, for weeks, nor to adopt a course of systematic duplicity; but personal convenience and safety rendered it an inexorable necessity.

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 offshoot fronted 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 requires thirty years 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 this season 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, chiseled through 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, has a 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 sharp ylp of 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 to feel the 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, packing [1] their 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, like brethren, 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 were swindled out 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 met for 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 for The 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 for The 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.

---

[CHAPTER II.]

Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have 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 a great 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."

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

——"Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The 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 such sentiments 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 make your acquaintance."

"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 owner of 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 world would 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 the hot 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."

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 would appear 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 to The Tribune correspondent; 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 that here, 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,"[2] streamed 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."

"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 lithographed fac similes of 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.

---

[CHAPTER III.]

I will be correspondent to 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 was not 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 denounce The 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, even The Tribune was 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 heaped upon 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 go up to 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.

Cemeteries Above the Ground.

In the cemeteries the tombs are called "ovens." They are all built aboveground, of brick, stone, or stucco, closed up with mortar and cement. Sometimes the walls crack open, revealing the secrets of the charnel-house. Decaying coffins are visible within; and once I saw a human skull protruding from the fissure of a tomb. Here, indeed,

"Imperial Cæsar, dead, and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away."

Despite this revolting feature, the Catholic cemeteries are especially interesting. About the humblest of the monuments, artificial wreaths, well-tended rose-beds, garlands of fresh flowers, changed daily, and vases inserted in the walls, to catch water and attract the birds, evince a tender, unforgetful attention to the resting-place of departed friends. More than half the inscriptions are French or Spanish. Very few make any allusion to a future life. One imposing column marks the grave of Dominique You, the pirate, whose single virtue of patriotism, exhibited under Jackson during the war of 1815, hardly justifies, upon his monument, the magnificent eulogy of Bayard: "The hero of a hundred battles,—a chevalier without fear and without reproach."

In New Orleans, grass growing upon the streets is no sign of decadence. Stimulated by the rich, moist soil, it springs up in profusion, not only in the smaller thoroughfares, but among the bricks and paving-stones of the leading business avenues.

The French Quarter of New Orleans.

Canal street is perhaps the finest promenade on the continent. It is twice the width of Broadway, and in the middle has two lines of trees, with a narrow lawn between them, extending its entire length. At night, as the long parallel rows of gas-lights glimmer through the quivering foliage, growing narrower and narrower in perspective till they unite and blend into one, it is a striking spectacle—a gorgeous feast of the lanterns. On the lower side of it is the "French Quarter," more un-American even than the famous German portion of Cincinnati known as "Over the Rhine." Here you may stroll for hours, "a straggler from another civilization," hearing no word in your native tongue, seeing no object to remove the impression of an ancient French city. The dingy houses, "familiar with forgotten years," call up memories of old Mexican towns. They are grim, dusky relics of antiquity, usually but one story high, with steep projecting roofs, tiled or slated, wooden shutters over the doors, and multitudinous eruptions of queer old gables and dormer windows.

New Orleans is the most Parisian of American cities. Opera-houses, theaters, and all other places of amusement are open on Sunday nights. The great French market wears its crowning glory only on Sunday mornings. Then the venders occupy not only several spacious buildings, but adjacent streets and squares. Their wares seem boundless in variety. Any thing you please—edible, drinkable, wearable, ornamental, or serviceable—from Wenham ice to vernal flowers and tropical fruits—from Indian moccasins to a silk dress-pattern—from ancient Chinese books to the freshest morning papers—ask, and it shall be given unto you.

French Market on Sunday Morning.

Sit down in a stall, over your tiny cup of excellent coffee, and you are hobnobbing with the antipodes—your next neighbor may be from Greenland's icy mountains, or India's coral strand. Get up to resume your promenade, and you hear a dozen languages in as many steps; while every nation, and tribe, and people—French, English, Irish, German, Spanish, Creole, Chinese, African, Quadroon, Mulatto, American—jostles you in good-humored confusion.

Some gigantic negresses, with gaudy kerchiefs, like turbans, about their heads, are selling fruits, and sit erect as palm-trees. They look like African or Indian princesses, a little annoyed at being separated from their thrones and retinues, but none the less regal "for a' that." At every turn little girls, with rich Creole complexions and brilliant eyes, offer you aromatic bouquets of pinks, roses, verbenas, orange and olive blossoms, and other flowers to you unknown, unless, being a woman, you are a botanist by "gift of fortune," or, a man, that science has "come by nature."

Upon Jackson Square, a delicious bit of verdure fronting the river, gloom antique public buildings, which were the seat of government in the days of the old Spanish régime. Near them stands the equally ancient cathedral, richly decorated within, where devout Catholics still worship. Its great congregations are mosaics of all hues and nationalities, mingling for the moment in the democratic equality of the Roman Church.

Attending service in the cathedral one Sunday morning, I found the aisles crowded with volunteers who, on the eve of departure for the debatable ground of Fort Pickens, had assembled to witness the consecration of their Secession flag, a ceremonial conducted with great pomp and solemnity by the French priests.

In the First Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Dr. Palmer, a divine of talent and local reputation, might be heard advocating the extremest Rebel views. The southerners had formerly been very bitter in their denunciation of political preaching; but now the pulpit, as usual, made obeisance to the pews, and the pews beamed encouragement on the pulpit.

Pressing Cotton by Machinery.

If I may go abruptly from church to cotton—and they were not far apart in New Orleans—a visit to one of the great cotton-presses was worthy of note. It is a low building, occupying an entire square, with a hollow court in the center. It was filled with heaped-up cotton-bales, which overran their limits and covered the adjacent sidewalks. Negroes stood all day at the doors receiving and discharging cotton. The bales are compressed by heavy machinery, driven by steam, that they may occupy the least space in shipping. They are first condensed on the plantations by screw-presses; the cotton is compact upon arrival here; but this great iron machine, which embraces the bales in a hug of two hundred tons, diminishes them one-third more. The laborers are negroes and Frenchmen, who chant a strange, mournful refrain in time with their movements.

The ropes of a bale are cut; it is thrown under the press; the great iron jaws of the monster close convulsively, rolling it under the tongue as a sweet morsel. The ropes are tightened and again tied, the cover stitched up, and the bale rolled out to make room for another—all in about fifty seconds. It weighs five hundred pounds, but the workmen siezeseize it on all sides with their iron hooks, and toss it about like a schoolboy's ball. The superintendent informed me that they pressed, during the previous winter, more than forty thousand bales.

The Barracks. —The New Orleans Levee.

The Rebels, with their early penchant for capturing empty forts and full treasuries, had seized the United States Branch Mint, containing three hundred thousand dollars, and the National barracks, garrisoned at the time by a single sergeant. Visiting, with a party of gentlemangentlemen, the historic Jackson battle-ground, four miles below the city, I obtained a glimpse of the tall, gloomy Mint, and spent an hour in the long, low, white, deep-balconied barracks beside the river.

The Lone Star flag of Louisiana was flying from the staff. A hundred and twenty freshly enlisted men of the State troops composed the garrison. Three of the officers, recent seceders from the Federal army, invited us into their quarters, to discuss political affairs over their Bourbon and cigars. As all present assumed to be sanguine and uncompromising Rebels, the conversation was one-sided and uninteresting.

We drove down the river-bank along the almost endless rows of ships and steamboats. The commerce of New Orleans, was more imposing than that of any other American city except New York. It seemed to warrant the picture painted by the unrivaled orator, Prentiss, of the future years, "when this Crescent City shall have filled her golden horn." The long landing was now covered with western produce, cotton, and sugar, and fenced with the masts of hundreds of vessels. Some displayed the three-striped and seven-starred flag of the "Southern Confederacy," many the ensigns of foreign nations, and a few the Stars and Stripes.

We were soon among the old houses of the Creoles.[3] These anomalous people—a very large element of the population—properly belong to a past age or another land, and find themselves sadly at variance with America in the nineteenth century. They seldom improve or sell their property; permit the old fences and palings to remain around their antique houses; are content to live upon small incomes, and rarely enter the modern districts. It is even asserted that old men among them have spent their whole lives in New Orleans without ever going above Canal street! Many have visited Paris, but are profoundly ignorant of Washington, New York, Philadelphia, and other northern cities. They are devout Catholics, sudden and quick in quarrel, and duelling continues one of their favorite recreations.

Visit to the Jackson Battle-Ground.

We stopped at the old Spanish house—deeply embowered in trees—occupied as head-quarters by General Jackson, and saw the upper window from which, glass in hand, he witnessed the approach of the enemy. The dwelling is inhabited, and bears marks of the cannon-balls fired to dislodge him. Like his city quarters—a plain brick edifice, at one hundred and six, Royal-street, New Orleans—it is unchanged in appearance since that historic Eighth of January.

A few hundred yards from the river, we reached the battle-ground where, in 1815, four thousand motley, undisciplined, half-armed recruits defeated twelve thousand veterans—the Americans losing but five men, the British seven hundred. This enormous disparity is explained by the sheltered position of one party behind a breastwork, and the terrible exposure of the other in its march, by solid columns, of half a mile over an open field, without protection of hillock or tree. A horrible field, whence the Great Reaper gathered a bloody harvest!

Incidents of the Battle.

The swamp here is a mile from the river. Jackson dug a canal between them, throwing up the earth on one side for a breastwork, and turning a stream of water from the Mississippi through the trench. The British had an extravagant fear of the swamp, and believed that, attempting to penetrate it, they would be ingulfed in treacherous depths. So they marched up, with unflinching Saxon courage, in the teeth of that terrible fire from the Americans, ranged four deep, behind the fortification; and the affair became a massacre rather than a battle.

The spongy soil of the breastwork (the tradition that bales of cotton were used is a fiction) absorbed the balls without any damage. It first proved what has since been abundantly demonstrated in the Crimean war, and the American Rebellion—the superiority of earthworks over brick and stone. The most solid masonry will be broken and battered down sooner or later, but shells and solid shot can do little harm to earthworks.

Jackson's army was a reproduction of Falstaff's ragamuffins. It was made up of Kentucky backwoodsmen, New Orleans clergymen, lawyers, merchants and clerks; pirates and ruffians just released from the calaboose to aid in the defense; many negroes, free and slave, with a liberal infusion of nondescript city vagabonds, noticeable chiefly for their tatters, and seeming, from their "looped and windowed raggedness," to hang out perpetual flags of truce to the enemy.

Judah Trouro, a leading merchant, while carrying ammunition, was struck in the rear by a cannon-ball, which cut and bore away a large slice of his body; but, in spite of the awkward loss, he lived many years, to leave an enviable memory for philanthropy and public spirit. Parton tells of a young American who, during the battle, stooped forward to light a cigar; and when he recovered his position saw that a man exactly behind him was blown to pieces, and his brains scattered over the parapet, by an exploding shell.

A Peculiar Free Negro Population.

More than half of Jackson's command was composed of negroes, who were principally employed with the spade, but several battalions of them were armed, and in the presence of the whole army received the thanks of General Jackson for their gallantry. On each anniversary the negro survivors of the battle always turned out in large numbers—so large, indeed, as to excite the suspicion that they were not genuine.

The free colored population, at the time of my visit, was a very peculiar feature of New Orleans. Its members were chiefly of San Domingo origin; held themselves altogether aloof from the other blacks, owned numerous slaves, and were the most rigorous of masters. Frequently their daughters were educated in Paris, married whites, and in some cases the traces of their negro origin were almost entirely obliterated. This, however, is not peculiar to that class. It is very unusual anywhere in the South to find persons of pure African lineage. A tinge of white blood is almost always detected.

Our company had an invaluable cicerone in the person of Judge Alexander Walker, author of "Jackson and New Orleans," the most clear and entertaining work upon the battle, its causes and results, yet contributed to American history. He had toiled unweariedly through all the official records, and often visited the ground with men who participated in the engagement. He pointed out positions, indicated the spot where Packenham fell, and drew largely upon his rich fund of anecdote, tradition, and biography.

A plain, unfinished shaft of Missouri limestone, upon a rough brick foundation, now marks the battle-field. It was commenced by a legislative appropriation; but the fund became exhausted and the work ceased. The level cotton plantation, ditched for draining, now shows no evidence of the conflict, except the still traceable line of the old canal, with detached pools of stagnant water in a fringe of reeds, willows, and live oaks.

A negro patriarch, with silvery hair, and legs infirm of purpose, hobbled up, to exhibit some balls collected on the ground. The bullets, which were flattened, he assured us, had "hit somebody." No doubt they were spurious; but we purchased a few buckshots and fragments of shell from the ancient Ethiop, and rode back to the city along avenues lined with flowers and shrubbery. Here grew the palm—the characteristic tree of the South. It is neither graceful nor beautiful; but looks like an inverted umbrella upon a long, slender staff. Ordinary pictures very faithfully represent it.

All About a "Black Republican Flag."

New Orleans, March 11, 1861.

We are a good deal exercised, just now, about a new grievance. The papers charged, a day or two since, that the ship Adelaide Bell, from New Hampshire, had flung defiant to the breeze a Black Republican flag, and that her captain vowed he would shoot anybody attempting to cut it down. As one of the journals remarked, "his audacity was outrageous." En passant, do you know what a Black Republican flag is? I have never encountered that mythical entity in my travels; but 'tis a fearful thing to think of—is it not?

The reporter of The Crescent, with charming ingenuousness, describes it as "so much like the flag of the late United States, that few would notice the difference." In fact, he adds, it is the old Stars and Stripes, with a red stripe instead of a white one immediately below the union. Of course, we are greatly incensed. It is flat burglary, you know, to love the Star Spangled Banner itself; and as for a Black Republican flag—why, that is most tolerable and not to be endured.

Captain Robertson, the "audacious," has been compelled, publicly, to deny the imputation. He asserts that, in the simplicity of his heart, he has been using it for years as a United States flag. But the newspapers adhere stoutly to the charge; so the presumption is that the captain is playing some infernal Yankee trick. Who shall deliver us from the body of this Black Republican flag?

If it were possible, I would like to see the "Southern Confederacy" work out its own destiny; to see how Slavery would flourish, isolated from free States; how the securities of a government, founded on the right of any of its members to break it up at pleasure, would stand in the markets of the world; how the principle of Democracy would sustain itself in a confederation whose corner-stones are aristocracy, oligarchy, despotism. This is the government which, in the language of one of its admirers, shall be "stronger than the bonds of Orion, and benigner than the sweet influences of the Pleiades."

Vice-Pres­ident Hamlin a Mulatto.

A few days since, I was in a circle of southern ladies, when one of them remarked:

"I am glad Lincoln has not been killed."

"Why so?" asked another.

"Because, if he had been, Hamlin would become President, and it would be a shame to have a mulatto at the head of the Government."

A little discussion which followed developed that every lady present, except one, believed Mr. Hamlin a mulatto. Yet the company was comparatively intelligent, and all its members live in a flourishing commercial metropolis. You may infer something of the knowledge of the North in rural districts, enlightened only by weekly visits from Secession newspapers!

We are enjoying that soft air "which comes caressingly to the brow, and produces in the lungs a luxurious delight." I notice, on the streets, more than one premonition of summer, in the form of linen coats. The yards and cemeteries, smiling with myriads of roses and pinks, are carpeted with velvet grass; the morning air is redolent of orange and clover blossoms, and nosegays abound, sweet with the breath of the tropics.

Northerners Living in the South.

March 15.

Men of northern nativity are numerous throughout the Gulf States. Many are leading merchants of the cities, and a few, planters in the interior. Some have gone north to stay until the storm is over. A part of those who remain out-Herod the native fire-eaters in zeal for Secession. Their violence is suspicious; it oversteps the modesty of nature. I was recently in a mixed company, where one person was conspicuously bitter upon the border slave States, denouncing them as "playing second fiddle to the Abolitionists," and "traitors to southern rights."

"Who is he?" I asked of a southern gentleman beside me.

"He?" was the indignant reply; "why, he is a northerner, ---- him! He is talking all this for effect. What does he care about our rights? He don't own slaves, and wasn't raised in the South; if it were fashionable, he would be an Abolitionist. I'd as soon trust a nigger-stealer as such a man!"

---

[CHAPTER IV.]

'Tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation.

King Henry IV.

The city was measurably quiet, but arrests, and examinations of suspected Abolitionists, were frequent. In general, I felt little personal disquietude, except the fear of encountering some one who knew my antecedents; but about once a week something transpired to make me thoroughly uncomfortable for the moment.

Preparing and Transmitting Cor­res­pon­dence.

I attended daily the Louisiana Convention, sitting among the spectators. I could take no notes, but relied altogether upon memory. In corresponding, I endeavored to cover my tracks as far as possible. Before leaving Cincinnati, I had encountered a friend just from New Orleans, and induced him to write for me one or two letters, dated in the latter city. They were copied, with some changes of style, and published. Hence investigation would have shown that The Tribune writer began two or three weeks before I reached the city, and thrown a serious obstacle in the way of identifying him.

My dispatches, transmitted sometimes by mail, sometimes by express, were addressed alternately to half a dozen banking and commercial firms in New York, who at once forwarded them to The Tribune editorial rooms. They were written like ordinary business letters, treating of trade and monetary affairs, and containing drafts upon supposititious persons, quite princely in amount. I never learned, however, that they appreciably enlarged the exchequer of their recipients. Indeed, they were a good deal like the voluminous epistles which Mr. Toots, in his school-boy days, was in the habit of writing to himself.

Guarding Letters against Scrutiny.

I used a system of cipher, by which all phrases between certain private marks were to be exactly reversed in printing. Thus, if I characterized any one as "patriot and an honest man," inclosing the sentence in brackets, it was to be rendered a "demagogue and a scoundrel." All matter between certain other marks was to be omitted. If a paragraph commenced at the very edge of a sheet, it was to be printed precisely as it stood. But beginning it half across the page indicated that it contained something to be translated by the cipher.

The letters, therefore, even if examined, would hardly be comprehended. Whether tampered with or not, they always reached the office. I never kept any papers on my person, or in my room, which could excite suspicion, if read.

In writing, I assumed the tone of an old citizen, sometimes remarking that during a residence of fourteen years in New Orleans, I had never before seen such a whirlwind of passion, etc. In recording incidents I was often compelled to change names, places, and dates, though always faithful to the fact. Toward the close of my stay, the correspondence appearing to pass unopened, I gave minute and exact details, designing to be in the North before the letters could return in print.

A Phil­adel­phian among the Rebels.

Two incidents will illustrate the condition of affairs better than any general description. Soon after Mr. Lincoln's election, a Philadelphian reached New Orleans, on a collecting tour. One evening he was standing in the counting-room of a merchant, who asked him:—

"Well, now you Black Republicans have elected your President, what are you going to do next?"

"We will show you," was the laughing response.

Both spoke in jest; but the bookkeeper of the house, standing by, with his back turned, belonged to the Minute Men, who, that very evening, by a delegation of fifty, waited on the Philadelphian at the St. James Hotel. They began by demanding whether he was a Black Republican. He at once surmised that he was obtaining a glimpse of the hydra of Secession, beside which the armed rhinoceros were an agreeable companion, and the rugged Russian bear a pleasant household pet. His face grew pallid, but he replied, with dignity and firmness:

"I deny your right to ask me any such questions."

The inquisitors, who were of good social position and gentlemanly manners, claimed that the public emergency was so great as to justify them in examining all strangers who excited suspicion; and that he left them only the alternative of concluding him an Abolitionist and an incendiary. At last he informed them truthfully that he had never sympathized with the Anti-Slavery party, and had always voted the Democratic ticket. They next inquired if the house which employed him was Black Republican.

"Gentlemen," he replied, "it is a business firm, not a political one. I never heard politics mentioned by either of the partners. I don't know whether they are Republicans or Democrats."

He cheerfully permitted his baggage to be searched by the Minute Men, who, finding nothing objectionable, bade him good-evening. But, just after they left, a mob of Roughs, attracted by the report that an Abolitionist was stopping there, entered the hotel. They were very noisy and profane, crying—"Let us see him; bring out the scoundrel!"

His friend, the merchant, spirited him out of the house through a back door, and drove him to the railway station, whence a midnight train was starting for the North. His pursuers, finding the room of their victim empty, followed in hot haste to the dépôt. The merchant saw them coming, and again conveyed him away to a private room. He was kept concealed for three days, until the excitement subsided, and then went north by a night train.

Secession vs. Sincerity.

One of the clerks at the hotel where I was boarding had been an acquaintance of mine in the North ten years before. Though I now saw him several times a day, politics were seldom broached between us. But, whenever they came up, we both talked mild Secession. I did not believe him altogether sincere, and I presume he did me equal justice; but instinct is a great matter, and we were cowards on instinct.

During the next summer, I chanced to meet him unexpectedly in Chicago. After we exchanged greetings, his first question was—

"What did you honestly think of Secession while in New Orleans?"

"Do you know what I was doing there?"

"On your way to Mexico, were you not?"

"No; corresponding for The Tribune."

His eyes expanded visibly at this information, and he inquired, with some earnestness—

"Do you know what would have been done with you if you had been detected?"

"I have my suspicions, but, of course, do not know. Do you?"

"Yes; you would have been hung!"

"Do you think so?"

"I am sure of it. You would not have had a shadow of chance for your life!"

My friend knew the Secessionists thoroughly, and his evidence was doubtless trustworthy. I felt no inclination to test it by repeating the experiment.

A Mania for Southern Manu­fac­turing.

The establishment of domestic manufactures was always a favorite theme throughout the South; but the manufactures themselves continued very rudimentary. The furniture dealers, for example, made a pretense of making their own wares. They invariably showed customers through their workshops, and laid great stress upon their encouragement of southern industry; but they really received seven-eighths of their furniture from the North, having it delivered at back-doors, under cover of the night.

Secession gave a new impetus to all sorts of manufacturing projects. The daily newspapers constantly advocated them, but were quite oblivious of the vital truth that skilled labor will have opinions, and opinions can not be tolerated in a slave community.

One sign on Canal-street read, "Sewing Machines manufactured on Southern Soil"—a statement whose truth was more than doubtful. The agent of a rival machine advertised that his patent was owned in New Orleans, and, therefore, pre-eminently worthy of patronage. Little pasteboard boxes were labeled "Superior Southern Matches," and the newspapers announced exultingly that a candy factory was about to be established.

But the greatest stress was laid upon the Southern Shoe Factory, on St. Ferdinand-street—a joint stock concern, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. It was only two months old, and, therefore, experimental; but its work was in great demand, and it was the favorite illustration of the feasibility of southern manufactures.

Visit to the Southern Shoe Factory.

Sauntering in, one evening, I introduced myself as a stranger, drawn thither by curiosity. The superintendent courteously invited me to go through the establishment with him.

His physiognomy and manners impressed me as unmistakably northern; but, to make assurance doubly sure, I ventured some remark which inferred that he was a native of New Orleans. He at once informed me that he was from St. Louis. When I pursued the matter further, by speaking of some recent improvements in that city, he replied:

"I was born in St. Louis, but left there when I was twelve months old. Philadelphia has been my home since, until I came here to take charge of this establishment."

The work was nearly all done with machinery run by steam. As we walked through the basement, and he pointed out the implements for cutting and pressing sole-leather, I could not fail to notice that every one bore the label of its manufacturer, followed by these incendiary words: "Boston, Massachusetts!"

Then we ascended to the second story, where sewing and pegging were going on. All the stitching was done as in the large northern manufactories, with sewing-machines run by steam—a combination of two of the greatest mechanical inventions. Add a third, and in the printing-press, the steam-engine, and the sewing-machine, you have the most potent material agencies of civilization.

Where its Facilities Came From.

Here was the greatest curiosity of all—the patent pegging-machine, which cuts out the pegs from a thin strip of wood, inserts the awl, and pegs two rows around the sole of a large shoe, more regularly and durably than it can be done by hand—all in less than twenty-five seconds. Need I add that it is a Yankee invention? One machine for finishing, smoothing, and polishing the soles came from Paris; but all the others bore that ominous label, "Boston, Massachusetts!" In the third story, devoted to fitting the soles and other finishing processes, the same fact was apparent—every machine was from New England.

The work was confined exclusively to coarse plantation brogans, which were sold at from thirteen to nineteen dollars per case of twelve pairs. Shoes of the same quality, at the great factories in Milford, Haverhill, and Lynn, Massachusetts, were then selling by the manufacturers at prices ranging from six to thirteen dollars per case. In one apartment we found three men making boxes for packing the shoes, from boards already sawed and dressed.

"Where do you get your lumber?" I asked.

"It comes from Illinois," replied my cicerone. "We have it planed and cut out in St. Louis—labor is so high here."

"Your workmen, I presume, are from this city?"

"No, sir. The leading men in all departments are from the North, mainly from Massachusetts and Philadelphia. We are compelled to pay them high salaries—from sixty to three hundred dollars per month. The subordinate workmen, whom we hope soon to put in their places, we found here. We employ forty-seven persons, and turn out two hundred and fifty pairs of brogans daily. We find it impossible to supply the demand, and are introducing more machinery, which will soon enable us to make six hundred pairs per day."

How "Southern" Shoes were Made.

"Where do you procure the birch for pegs?"

"From Massachusetts. It comes to us cut in strips and rolled, ready for use."

"Where do you get your leather?"

"Well, sir" (with a searching look, as if a little suspicious of being quizzed), "it also comes from the North, at present; but we shall soon have tanneries established. The South, especially Texas, produces the finest hides in the country; but they are nearly all sent north, to be tanned and curried, and then brought back in the form of leather."

Thanking the superintendent for his courtesy, and wishing him a very good evening, I strolled homeward, reflecting upon the Southern Shoe Factory. It was admirably calculated to appeal to local patriotism, and demonstrate the feasibility of southern manufacturing. Its northern machinery, run by northern workmen, under a northern superintendent, turned out brogans of northern leather, fastened with northern pegs, and packed in cases of northern pine, at an advance of only about one hundred per cent. upon northern prices!

New Orleans afforded to the stranger few illustrations of the "Peculiar Institution." Along the streets, you saw the sign, "Slave Dépôt—Negroes bought and sold," upon buildings which were filled with blacks of every age and of both sexes, waiting for purchasers. The newspapers, although recognizing slavery in general as the distinguishing cause which made southern gentlemen gallant and "high-toned," and southern ladies fair and accomplished, were yet reticent of details. They would sometimes record briefly the killing of a master by his negroes; the arrest of A., charged with being an Abolitionist; of B., for harboring or tampering with slaves; of C.—f. m. c. (free man of color)—for violating one of the many laws that hedged him in; and, very rarely, of D., for cruelty to his slaves. But their advertising columns were filled with announcements of slave auctions, and long descriptions of the negroes to be sold. Said The Crescent:

Studying Southern Society.

"We have for a long time thought that no man ought to be allowed to write for the northern Press, unless he has passed at least two years of his existence in the Slave States of the South, doing nothing but studying southern institutions, southern society, and the character and sentiments of the southern people."

There was much truth in this, though not in the sense intended by the writer. Strangers spending but a short time in the South were liable to very erroneous views. They saw only the exterior of a system, which looked pleasant and patriarchal. They had no opportunity of learning that, within, it was full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Northern men were so often deceived as to make one skeptical of the traditional acuteness of the Yankee. The genial and hospitable southerners would draw the long bow fearfully. A Memphis gentleman assured a northern friend of mine that, on Sundays, it was impossible for a white man to hire a carriage in that city, as the negroes monopolized them all for pleasure excursions!

One of my New Orleans companions, who was frank and candid upon other subjects, used to tell me the most egregious stories respecting the slaves. As, for instance, that their marriage-vows were almost universally held sacred by the masters; the virtue of negro women respected, and families rarely separated. I preserved my gravity, never disputing him; but he must have known that a visit to any of the half-dozen slave auctions, within three minutes' walk of his office, would disprove all these statements.

Reporting a Slave Auction.

These slave auctions were the only public places where the primary social formation of the South cropped out sharply. I attended them frequently, as the best school for "studying southern institutions, southern society, and the character and sentiments of the southern people."

I remember one in which eighty slaves were sold, one after another. A second, at which twenty-one negroes were disposed of, I reported, in extenso, from notes written upon blank cards in my pocket during its progress. Of course, it was not safe to make any memoranda openly.

The auction was in the great bar-room of the St. Charles Hotel, a spacious, airy octagonal apartment, with a circular range of Ionic columns. The marble bar, covering three sides of the room, was doing a brisk business. Three perturbed tapsters were bustling about to supply with fluids the bibulous crowd, which by no means did its spiriting gently.

The negroes stood in a row, in front of the auctioneer's platform, with numbered tickets pinned upon their coats and frocks. Thus, a young woman with a baby in her arms, who rolled his great white eyes in astonishment, was ticketed "No. 7." Referring to the printed list, I found this description:

"7. Betty, aged 15 years, and child 4 months, No. 1 field-hand and house-servant, very likely. Fully guaranteed."

In due time, Betty and her boy were bid off for $1,165.

Sale of a White Girl.

Those already sold were in a group at the other end of the platform. One young woman, in a faded frock and sun-bonnet, and wearing gold ear-rings, had straight brown hair, hazel eyes, pure European features, and a very light complexion. I was unable to detect in her face the slightest trace of negro lineage. Her color, features, and movements were those of an ordinary country girl of the white working class in the South. A by-stander assured me that she was sold under the hammer, just before I entered. She associated familiarly with the negroes, and left the room with them when the sale was concluded; but no one would suspect, under other circumstances, that she was tinged with African blood.

The spectators, about two hundred in number, were not more than one-tenth bidders. There were planters from the interior, with broad shoulders and not unpleasing faces; city merchants, and cotton factors; fast young men in pursuit of excitement, and strangers attracted by curiosity.

Among the latter was a spruce young man in the glossiest of broadcloth, and the whitest of linen, with an unmistakable Boston air. He lounged carelessly about, and endeavored to look quite at ease, but made a very brilliant failure. His restless eye and tell-tale countenance indicated clearly that he was among the Philistines for the first time, and held them in great terror.

There were some professional slave-dealers, and many nondescripts who would represent the various shades between loafers and blacklegs, in any free community. They were men of thick lips, sensual mouths, full chins, large necks, and bleared eyes, suggesting recent dissipation. They were a "hard-looking" company. I would not envy a known Abolitionist who should fall into their unrestrained clutches. No prudent life-insurance company would take a risk in him.

The auctioneer descanted eloquently upon the merits of each of his chattels, seldom dwelling upon one more than five minutes. An herculean fellow, with an immense chest, was dressed in rusty black, and wore a superannuated silk hat. He looked the decayed gentleman to a charm, and was bid off for $840. A plump yellow boy, also in black, silk hat and all, seemed to think being sold rather a good joke, grinning broadly the while, and, at some jocular remark, showing two rows of white teeth almost from ear to ear. He brought $1,195, and appeared proud of commanding so high a figure.

Women on the Block.

Several light quadroon girls brought large prices. One was surrounded by a group of coarse-looking men, who addressed her in gross language, shouting with laughter as she turned away to hide her face, and rudely manipulating her arms, shoulders, and breasts. Her age was not given. "That's the trouble with niggers," remarked a planter to me; "you never can tell how old they are, and so you get swindled." One mother and her infant sold for $1,415.

Strolling into the St. Charles, a few days later, I found two sales in full career. On one platform the auctioneer was recommending a well-proportioned, full-blooded negro, as "a very likely and intelligent young man, gentlemen, who would have sold readily, a year ago, for thirteen hundred dollars. And now I am offered only eight hundred—eight hundred—eight hundred—eight hundred; are you all done?"

On the opposite side of the room another auctioneer, in stentorian tones, proclaimed the merits of a pretty quadroon girl, tastefully dressed, and wearing gold finger and ear rings. "The girl, gentlemen, is only fifteen years old; warranted sound in every particular, an excellent seamstress, which would make her worth a thousand dollars, if she had no other qualifications. She is sold for no fault, but simply because her owner must have money. No married man had better buy her; she is too handsome." The girl was bid off at $1,100, and stepped down to make way for a field-hand. Ascending the steps, he stumbled and fell, at which the auctioneer saluted him with "Come along, G-d d--n you!"

Mothers and Children.—"Defects."

Mothers and their very young children were not often separated; but I frequently saw husbands and wives sold apart; no pretense being made of keeping them together. Negroes were often offered with what was decorously described as a "defect" in the arm, or shoulder. Sometimes it appeared to be the result of accident, sometimes of punishment. I saw one sold who had lost two toes from each foot. No public inquiries were made, and no explanation given. He replied to questions that his feet "hurt him sometimes," and was bid off at $625—about two-thirds of his value had it not been for the "defect."

Some slaves upon the block—especially the mothers—looked sad and anxious; but three out of four appeared careless and unconcerned, laughing and jesting with each other, both before and after the sale. The young people, especially, often seemed in the best of spirits.

A Most Revolting Spectacle.

And yet, though familiarity partially deadened the feeling produced by the first one I witnessed, a slave auction is the most utterly revolting spectacle that I ever looked upon. Its odiousness does not lie in the lustful glances and expressions which a young and comely woman on the block always elicits; nor in the indelicate conversation and handling to which she is subjected; nor in the universal infusion of white blood, which tells its own story about the morality of the institution; nor in the separation of families; nor in the sale of women—as white as our own mothers and sisters—made pariahs by an imperceptible African taint; nor in the scars and "defects," suggestive of cruelty, which are sometimes seen.

All these features are bad enough, but many sales exhibit few of them, and are conducted decorously. The great revolting characteristic lies in the essence of the system itself—that claim of absolute ownership in a human being with an immortal soul—of the right to buy and sell him like a horse or a bale of cotton—which insults Democracy, belies Civilization, and blasphemes Christianity.

In March, there was a heavy snow-storm in New York. Telegraphic intelligence of it reached me in an apartment fragrant with orange blossoms, where persons in linen clothing were discussing strawberries and ice-cream. It made one shiver in that delicious, luxurious climate. Blind old Milton was right. Where should he place the Garden of Eden but in the tropics? How should he paint the mother of mankind but in

——"The flowing gold
Of her loose tresses,"

as a blonde—the distinctive type of northern beauty?

---

[CHAPTER V.]

There's villany a broad; this letter shall tell you more.

Love's Labor Lost.

Northerners and the Minute Men.

Nearly every northerner whom I heard of in the South, as suffering from the suspicion of Abolitionism, was really a pro-slavery man, who had been opposing the Abolitionists all his life. I recollect an amusing instance of a man, originally from a radical little town in Massachusetts, who had been domiciled for several years in Mississippi. While in New England, during the campaign after which Mr. Lincoln was elected, he expressed pro-slavery sentiments so odious that he was with difficulty protected from personal violence.

He was fully persuaded in his heart of hearts of the divinity of Slavery; and, I doubt not, willing to fight for it. But his northern birth made him an object of suspicion; and, immediately after the outbreak of Secession, the inexorable Minute Men waited upon him, inviting him, if he wished to save his life, to prepare to quit the State in one hour. He was compelled to leave behind property to the amount of twenty thousand dollars. His case was one of many.

Even from a Rebel standpoint, there was an unpleasant injustice about this. Perhaps Democrats were almost the only northerners now in the South—Republicans and Abolitionists staying away, in the exercise of that discretion which is the better part of valor.

I well remember thinking, as I strolled down to the post-office one evening, with a long letter in my pocket, which gave a minute and bitterly truthful description of the slave auctions:

A Lively Discussion.

"If the Minute Men were to pounce upon me now, and find this dispatch, no amount of plausible talking could save me. There would be a vacancy on The Tribune staff within the next hour."

But when the message was safely deposited in the letter-box, I experienced a sort of relief in the feeling that if the Rebels were now to mob or imprison me, I should at least have the satisfaction of knowing they were not mistaking souls; and that, if I were forced to emulate Saint Paul in "labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in pains more frequent, in deaths oft," I should, in their code, most richly have earned martyrdom.

New Orleans, March 17, 1861.

Yesterday was a lively day in the Convention. Mr. Bienvenu threw a hot shot into the Secession camp, in the shape of an ordinance demanding a report of the official vote in each parish (county) by which the delegates were elected. This would prove that the popular vote of the State was against immediate Secession by a majority of several hundred. The Convention would not permit such exposure of its defiance of the popular will; and, by seventy-three to twenty-two, refused to consider the question.

A warm discussion ensued, on the ordinance for submitting the "Constitution of the Confederate States of America" to the popular vote, for ratification or rejection. The ablest argument against it was by Thomas J. Semmes, of New Orleans, formerly attorney-general of Louisiana. He is a keen, wiry-looking, spectacled gentleman, who, in a terse, incisive speech, made the best of a bad cause. The pith of his argument was, that Republican Governments are not based upon pure Democracy, but upon what Mr. Calhoun termed "concurring majorities." The voters had delegated full powers to the Convention, which was the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people."

Boldness of Union Members.

The speaker's lip curled with ineffable scorn as he rang the changes upon the words "mere numerical majorities." Just now, this is a favorite phrase with the Rebels throughout the South. Yet they all admit that a majority, even of one vote, in Mississippi or Virginia, justly controls the action of the State, and binds the minority. I wish they would explain why a "mere numerical majority" is more oppressive in a collection of States than in a single commonwealth.

Mr. Add Rozier, of New Orleans, in a bold speech, advocated submitting the constitution to the people. On being asked by a member—"Did you vote for the Secession ordinance several weeks ago?" he replied, emphatically:—

"No; and, so help me God, I never will!"

A spontaneous outburst of applause from the lobby gave an index of the stifled public sentiment. Mr. Rozier charged that the Secessionists knew they were acting against the popular will, and dared not appeal to the people. Until the Montgomery constitution should become the law of the land, he utterly spurned it, spat upon it, trampled it under his feet.

Mr. Christian Roselius, also of this city, advocated the ordinance with equal boldness and fervor. He insisted that it was based on the fundamental principle of Republicanism—that this Convention was no Long Parliament to rule Louisiana without check or limit; and he ridiculed with merciless sarcasm Mr. Semmes's theory of the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people."

The inexorable majority here cut off debate, calling the previous question, and defeated the ordinance by a vote of seventy-three to twenty-six.

This body is a good specimen of the Secession Oligarchy. It appointed, from its own members, the Louisiana delegates to the Convention of all the seceded States which framed the Montgomery Constitution, and now it proposes to pass finally upon their action, leaving the people quite out of sight.

March 21.

Another Exciting Discussion.

Another exciting day in the Convention. Subject: "The adoption of the Montgomery Constitution." Five or six Union members fought it very gallantly, and denounced unsparingly the plan of a Cotton Confederacy, and the South Carolina policy of trampling upon the rights of the people. The majority made little attempt to refute these arguments, but some of the angry members glared fiercely upon Messrs. Roselius, Rozier, and Bienvenu, who certainly displayed high moral and physical courage. It is easy for you in the North to denounce Secession; but to oppose it here, as those gentlemen did, requires more nerve than most men possess.

The speech of Mr. Roselius was able and bitter. This was not a constitution; it was merely a league—a treaty of alliance. It sprung from an audacious, unmitigated oligarchy. It was a retrogression of six hundred years in the science of government. We were told (here the speaker's sarcasm of manner was ludicrous and inimitable, drawing shouts of laughter even from the leading Secessionists) that this body represented the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people!"

He supposed that Cæsar, when he crossed the Rubicon—Augustus, when he overthrew the Roman Republic—Cromwell, when he broke up the Long Parliament—Bonaparte, when he suppressed the Council of Five Hundred at the point of the bayonet—Louis Napoleon, when he violated his oath to the republic, and ascended the imperial throne—were each the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people."

Secession in a Nutshell.

Like the most odious tyrannies of history, it preserved the forms of liberty; but its spirit was crushed out. The Convention from which this creature crept into light had imitated the odious government of Spain—the only one in the world taxing exports—by levying an export duty upon cotton. He was surprised that the Montgomery legislators failed to introduce a second Spanish feature—the Inquisition. One was as detestable as the other.

Mr. Roselius concluded in a broken voice and with great feeling. His heart grew sad at this overthrow of free institutions. The Secession leaders had dug the grave of republican liberty, and we were called upon to assist at the funeral! He would have no part in any such unhallowed business.

Mr. Rozier, firm to the last, now offered an amendment:

That in adopting the Montgomery Constitution, "the sovereign State of Louisiana does expressly reserve the right to withdraw from the Union created by that Constitution, whenever, in the judgment of her citizens, her paramount interests may require it."

This, of course, is Secession in a nutshell—the fundamental principle of the whole movement. But the leaders refused to take their own medicine, and tabled the proposition without discussion.

Mr. Bienvenu caused to be entered upon the journal his protest against the action of the Convention, denouncing it as an ordinance which "strips the people of their sovereignty, reduces them to a state of vassalage, and places the destinies of the State, and of the new Republic, at the mercy of an uncommissioned and irresponsible oligarchy."

The final vote was then taken, and resulted in one hundred and one yeas to seven nays; so "the Confederate Constitution" is declared ratified by the State of Louisiana.

March 25.

Despotic Theories of the Rebels.

The Revolutionists can not be charged with any lack of frankness. The Delta, lamenting that the Virginia Convention will not take that State out of the Union, predicts approvingly that "some Cromwellian influence will yet disperse the Convention, and place the Old Dominion in the Secession ranks." De Bow's Review, a leading Secession oracle, with high pretensions to philosophy and political economy, says, in its current issue:

"All government begins with usurpation, and is continued by force. Nature puts the ruling elements uppermost, and the masses below, and subject to those elements. Less than this is not a government. The right to govern resides with a very small minority, and the duty to obey is inherent with the great mass of mankind."

To-day's Crescent discusses the propriety of admitting northern States into the Southern Confederacy, "when they find out, as they soon will, that they can not get along by themselves." It is quite confident that they will, ere long, beg admission—but predicts for them the fate of the Peri, who

——"At the gate
Of Eden stood, disconsolate,
And wept to think her recreant race
Should e'er have lost that glorious place."

They must not be permitted to enter. Upon this point it is inexorable. It will permit no compunctious visitings of nature to shake its fell purpose.

The Northwest to Join Them.

I know all this sounds vastly like a joke; but The Crescent is lugubriously in earnest. In sooth, these Rebels are gentlemen of magnificent expectations. "Sir," remarked one of them, a judge, too, while conversing with me this very day, "in seven years, the Southern Confederacy will be the greatest and richest nation on earth. We shall have Cuba, Central America, Mexico, and every thing west of the Alleghanies. We are the natural market of the northwestern States, and they are bound to join us!"

Think of that, will you! Imagine Father Giddings, Carl Schurz, and Owen Lovejoy—the stanch Republican States of Wisconsin, Michigan, and even young Kansas—whose infant steps to Freedom were over the burning plowshare and through the martyr's blood—knocking for admission at the door of a Slave Confederacy! Is not this the very ecstasy of madness?

March 26.

That virtuous and lamented body, the Louisiana Convention, after a very turbulent session to-day, has adjourned until the 1st of November.

The Crescent is exercised at the presence here of "correspondents of northern papers, who indite real falsehoods and lies as coolly as they would eat a dinner at the Saint Charles." The Crescent's rhetoric is a little limping; but its watchfulness and patriotism are above all praise. The matter should certainly be attended to.

The Swamp—a Trip through Louisiana.

We are still enjoying the delights of summer. The air is fragrant with daffodils, violets, and roses, the buds of the sweet olive and the blossoms of the orange. I have just returned from a ride through the swamp—that great cesspool of this metropolis, which generates, with the recurrence of summer, the pestilence that walketh in darkness.

It is full of sights strange to northern eyes. The stagnant pools of black and green water harmonize with the tall, ghastly dead trees, from whose branches depend long fleeces of gray Spanish moss, with the effect of Gothic architecture. It is used in lounges and mattresses; but when streaming from the branches, in its native state, reminds one of the fantastic term which the Choctaw Indians apply to leaves—"tree-hair."

The weird dead trunks, the moss and the water, contrast strikingly with the rich, bright foliage of the deciduous trees just glowing into summer life. The balmy air makes physical existence delicious, and diffuses a luxurious languor through the system. Remove your hat, close your eyes, and its strong current strokes your brow lovingly and nestles against your cheek like a pillow.

---

During the last week in March, I went by the New Orleans and Great Northern Railway to Jackson, Mississippi, where the State Convention was in session.

There is not in Louisiana a hill two hundred feet high. Along the railroad, smooth, grassy everglades give place to gloomy swamps, dark with the gigantic cypress and the varnished leaves of the laurel.

On the plantations, the white one-story cabins of the negroes stood in long double rows, near the ample porched and balconied residences of the planters. Young sugar-cane, resembling corn two or three weeks old, was just peering through the ground. Noble live-oaks waved their drooping boughs above the fields. The Pride-of-China tree was very abundant about the dwellings. It produces a berry on which the birds eagerly feed, though its juice is said to intoxicate them. As they do not wear revolvers or bowie-knives, it is rather a harmless form of dissipation.

Life in the City of Jackson.

Jackson was not a paradise for a man of my vocation. Containing four or five thousand people, it was one of those delightful villages, calling themselves cities, of which the sunny South by no means enjoys a monopoly—where everybody knows everybody's business, and where, upon the advent of a stranger, the entire community resolves itself into a Committee of the Whole to learn who he is, where he came from, and what he wants.

In a great metropolis, espionage was easily baffled; but in Jackson, an unknown chiel, who looked capable of "takin' notes," to say nothing of "prentin' 'em," was subject to constant and uncomfortable scrutiny.

Contrasted with the bustle of New Orleans, existence seemed an unbroken seventh-day rest, though a dire certainty possessed me, that were my errand suspected, e'en Sunday would shine no Sabbath day for me.

Some months later, a refugee, who had resided there, pictured vividly to me the indignant and bewildered astonishment of the Jacksonians, when, through a stray copy of The Tribune, they learned that one of its correspondents had not only walked with them, talked with them, and bought with them, but, less scrupulous than Shylock, had been ready to eat with them, drink with them, and pray with them.

At this time the Charleston papers and some northern journals declared The Tribune's southern correspondence fictitious, and manufactured at the home office. To remove that impression touching my own letters, I wrote, on certain days, the minutest records of the Convention, and of affairs in Jackson, which never found their way into the local prints.

Mournfully metropolitan was Jackson in one respect—the price of board at its leading hotel. The accommodations were execrable; but I suppose we were charged for the unusual luxury of an unctuous Teutonic landlord, who bore the formidable patronymic of H-i-l-z-h-e-i-m-e-r!

"—— Phœbus, what a name,
To fill the speaking-trump of future fame!"

Reporting the Mississippi Convention.

The Convention was discussing the submission of the Montgomery Constitution to the people. The chief clerk, with whom I formed a chance acquaintance, kindly invited me to a chair beside his desk, and as I sat facing the members, explained to me their capacity, views, and antecedents. Whether an undue inquisitiveness seemed to him the distinguishing quality of the New Mexican mind, he did not declare; but once he asked me abruptly if I was connected with the press? With the least possible delay, I disabused his mind of that peculiarly unjust misapprehension.

After a long discussion, the Convention, by a vote of fifty-three to thirty-two, refused to submit the Constitution to the people, and ratified it in the name of Mississippi. Seven Union members could not be induced to follow the usual practice of making the action unanimous, but to the last steadfastly refused their adherence.

---

[CHAPTER VI.]

—— My business in this State
Made me a looker-on here in Vienna.

Measure for Measure.

I whipped me behind the arras, and there heard it agreed upon.

Much Ado About Nothing.

Jackson, Miss., April 1, 1861.

The Mississippi State House.

The Mississippi State House, upon a shaded square in front of my window, is a faded, sober edifice, of the style in vogue fifty years ago, with the representative hall at one end, the senate chamber at the other, an Ionic portico in front, and an immense dome upon the top. Above this is a miniature dome, like an infinitesimal parasol upon a gigantic umbrella. The whole is crowned by a small gilded pinnacle, which has relapsed from its original perpendicular to an angle of forty-five degrees, and looks like a little jockey-cap, worn jantily upon the head of a plethoric quaker, to whom it imparts a rowdyish air, at variance with his general gravity.

The first story is of cracked free-stone, the front and end walls of stucco, and the rear of brick. As you enter the vestibule two musty cannon stand gaping at you, and upon one of them you may see, almost any day, a little "darkey" sound asleep. Whether he guards the gun, or the gun guards him, opens a wide field for conjecture.

Ascending a spiral stairway, and passing along the balustrade which surrounds the open space under the dome, you turn to the left, through a narrow passage into the representative hall. Here is the Mississippi Convention.

View of the Rep­resen­tative Hall.

At the north end of the apartment sits the president, upon a high platform occupying a recess in the wall, with two Ionic columns upon each side of him. Before him is a little, old-fashioned mahogany pulpit, concealing all but his head and shoulders from the vulgar gaze. In front of this, and three or four feet lower, at a long wooden desk, sit two clerks, one smoking a cigar.

Before them, and still lower, at a shorter desk, an unhappy Celtic reporter, with dark shaggy hair and eyebrows, is taking down the speech of the honorable member from something or other county. In front of his desk, standing rheumatically upon the floor, is a little table, which looks as if called into existence by a drunken carpenter on a dark night, from the relics of a superannuated dry-goods box.

Upon one of the columns at the president's right, hangs a faded portrait of George Poindexter, once a senator from this State. Further to the right is an open fire-place, upon whose mantel stand a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence, now sadly faded and blurred, a lithographic view of the Medical College of Louisiana, and a pitcher and glass. On the hearth is a pair of ancient andirons, upon which a genial wood fire is burning.

General Air of Dilapidation.

The hypocritical plastering which coated the fireplace has peeled off, leaving bare the honest, worn faces of the original bricks. Some peculiar non-adhesive influence must affect plastering in Jackson. In whole rooms of the hotel it has seceded from the lath. Judge Gholson says that once, in the old State House, a few hundred yards distant, when SargeantSeargeant S. Prentiss was making a speech, he saw "an acre or two" of the plastering fall upon his head, and quite overwhelm him for the time. The Judge is what Count Fosco would call the Man of Brains; he is deemed the ablest member of the Convention. He was a colleague in Congress of the lamented Prentiss, whom he pronounces the most brilliant orator that ever addressed a Mississippi audience.

On the left of the president is another fire-place, also with a sadly blurred copy of the great Declaration standing upon its mantel. The members' desks, in rows like the curved line of the letter D, are of plain wood, painted black. Their chairs are great, square, faded mahogany frames, stuffed and covered with haircloth. As you stand beside the clerk's desk, facing them, you see behind the farthest row a semi-circle of ten pillars, and beyond them a narrow, crescent shaped lobby. Half-way up the pillars is a little gallery, inhabited just now by two ladies in faded mourning.

In the middle of the hall, a tarnished brass chandelier, with pendants of glass, is suspended from the ceiling by a rod festooned with cobwebs. This medieval relic is purely ornamental, for the room is lighted with gas. The walls are high, pierced with small windows, whose faded blue curtains, flowered and bordered with white, are suspended from a triple bar of gilded Indian arrows.

Chairs of cane, rush, wood and leather seats—chairs with backs, and chairs without backs, are scattered through the hall and lobby, in pleasing illustration of that variety which is the spice of life. The walls are faded, cracked, and dingy, pervaded by the general air of mustiness, and going to "the demnition bow-wows" prevalent about the building.

The members are in all sorts of social democratic positions. In the open spaces about the clerk's desk and fire-places, some sit with chairs tilted against the wall, some upon stools, and three slowly vibrate to and fro in pre-Raphaelite rocking-chairs. These portions of the hall present quite the appearance of a Kentucky bar-room on a winter evening.

A Free and Easy Convention.

Two or three members are eating apples, three or four smoking cigars, and a dozen inspect their feet, resting upon the desks before them. Contemplating the spectacle yesterday, I found myself involuntarily repeating the couplet of an old temperance ditty:

"The rumseller sat by his bar-room fire,
With his feet as high as his head, and higher,"

and a moment after I was strongly tempted to give the prolonged, stentorian shout of "B-o-o-t-s!" familiar to ears theatrical. Pardon the irreverence, O decorous Tribune! for there is such a woful dearth of amusement in this solemn, funereal city, that one waxes desperate. To complete my inventory, many members are reading this morning's Mississippian, or The New Orleans Picayune or Delta, and the rest listen to the one who is addressing the Chair.

They impress you by their pastoral aspect—the absence of urban costumes and postures. Their general bucolic appearance would assure you, if you did not know it before, that there are not many large cities in the State of Mississippi. Your next impression is one of wonder at their immense size and stature. Of them the future historian may well say: "There were giants in those days."

All around you are broad-shouldered, herculean-framed, well-proportioned men, who look as if a laugh from them would bring this crazy old capitol down about their ears, and a sneeze, shake the great globe itself. The largest of these Mississippi Anakim is a gigantic planter, clothed throughout in blue homespun.

J.P. Davis E^d

The Mississippi Convention Viewed by a Tribune Correspondent.

[Click for larger image.]

You might select a dozen out of the ninety-nine delegates, each of whom could personate the Original Scotch Giant in a traveling exhibition. They have large, fine heads, and a profusion of straight brown hair, though here and there is a crown smooth, bald, and shining. Taken for all in all, they are fine specimens of physical development, with frank, genial, jovial faces.

Southern Orators—Anglo-African Dialect.

The speaking is generally good, and commands respectful attention. There is little badinage or satire, a good deal of directness and coming right to the point, qualified by the strong southern proclivity for adjectives. The pungent French proverb, that the adjective is the most deadly enemy of the substantive, has never journeyed south of Mason & Dixon's line.

The members, like all deliberative bodies in this latitude, are mutual admirationists. Every speaker has the most profound respect for the honest motives, the pure patriotism, the transcendent abilities of the honorable gentleman upon the other side. It excites his regret and self-distrust to differ from such an array of learning and eloquence; and nothing could impel him to but a sense of imperious duty.

He speaks fluently, and with grammatical correctness, but in the Anglo-African dialect. His violent denunciations of the Black Republicans are as nothing to the gross indignities which he offers to the letter r. His "mo's," "befo's," and "hea's" convey reminiscences of the negress who nursed him in infancy, and the little "pickaninnies" with whom he played in boyhood.

The custom of stump-speaking, universal through the South and West, is a capital factory for converting the raw material into orators. Of course there are strong exceptions. This very morning we had an address from one member—Mr. D. B. Moore, of Tuppah county—which is worthy of more particular notice. I wish I could give you a literal report. Pickwick would be solemn in comparison.

A Speech worth Preservation.

Mr. Moore conceives himself an orator, as Brutus was; but in attempting to cover the whole subject (the Montgomery Constitution), he spread himself out "very thin." I will "back" him in a given time to quote more Scripture, incorrectly, irreverently, and irrelevantly, than any other man on the North American continent.

His "like we" was peculiarly refreshing, and his history and classics had a strong flavor of originality. He quoted Patrick Henry, "Let Cæsar have his Brutus;" piled "Pelion upon Pelion!" and made Sampson kill Goliah!! He thought submitting the Secession ordinance to the people in Texas had produced an excellent effect. Previous to it, the New York Tribune said: "Secession is but a scheme of demagogues—a move on the political chess-board—the people oppose it." But afterward it began to ask: "How is this? What does it all mean? The people seem to have a hand in it, and to be in earnest, too." The tone of Mr. Seward also changed radically, he observed, after that election.

Mr. Moore spoke an hour and a half, and the other members, though listening courteously, betrayed a lurking suspicion that he was a bore. In person he resembles Henry S. Lane, the zealous United States Senator-elect from Indiana. The sergeant-at-arms, who, in a gray coat, and without a neckerchief, walks to and fro, with hands in his pockets, looks like the unlovely James H. Lane, Senator-expectant from Kansas.

Shall I give you a little familiar conversation of the members, as they smoke their post-prandial cigars in the hall, waiting for the Convention to be called to order? Every mother's son of them has a title.

Familiar Conversation of Members.

Judge.—Toombs is a great blusterer. When speaking, he seems determined to force, to drive you into agreeing with him. Howell Cobb is another blusterer, much like him, but immensely fond of good dinners. Aleck Stephens is very different. When he speaks, you feel that he desires to carry you with him only by the power of reason and argument.

Colonel.—I knew him when he used to be a mail-carrier in Georgia. He was a poor orphan boy, but a charitable society of ladies educated him. He is a very small man, with a hand no wider than my three fingers, and as transparent as any lady's who has been sick for a year. He always looked like an invalid. If you were to cut his head off, I don't believe he would bleed a pint.[4]

Major.—Do you know what frightened Abe Lincoln out of Baltimore? Somebody told him that Aleck Stephens was lying in wait for him on a street corner, with a six-pounder strapped to his back. When he heard that, he sloped. [Loud laughter from the group.]

Judge.—Well, Lincoln has been abused immensely about his flight through Baltimore; but I believe the man acted from good motives. He knew that his partisans there meant to make a demonstration when he arrived, and that they were very obnoxious to the people; he had good reason to believe that it would produce trouble, and perhaps bloodshed; so he went through, secretly, to avoid it.

New Orleans Again—Reviewing Troops.

New Orleans, April 5, 1861.

The Second Louisiana Zouaves were reviewed on Lafayette Square last evening, before leaving for Pensacola. They are boyish-looking, and handle their muskets as if a little afraid of them, but seem to be the raw material of good soldiers. They are luridly grotesque, in closely-fitting, blue-tasseled, red fez caps, blue flannel jackets and frocks, faced with red, baggy red breeches, like galvanized corn-sacks, and gutta-percha greaves about their ankles.

April 6.

All the Secession leaders except Senator Benjamin declare there will be no war. He asserts that war is sure to come; and in a recent speech characterized it as "by no means an unmixed evil."

The Fire-Eaters are intensely bitter upon the border States for refusing to plunge into the whirlpool of Secession. They are bent on persuading or driving all the slave States into their ranks. Otherwise they fear—indeed, predict frankly—that the border will gradually become Abolitionized, and extend free territory to the Gulf itself. They are quite willing to devote Kentucky and Virginia to the devastation of civil war, or the embarrassment of a contiguous hostile republic, which would not return their run-away negroes.[5] But they will move heaven and earth to save themselves from any such possible contingency.

April 8.

The recent warlike movements of the National Government cause excitement and surprise. At last, the people begin to suspect that they have invoked grim-visaged war. The newspapers descant upon the injury to commerce and industry. Why did they not think of all this before?

Three Obnoxious Northerners.

It is vouchsafed to few mortals to learn, before death, exactly what their associates think of them; but your correspondent is among the favored few. The other evening, I was sitting with a Secession acquaintance, in the great exchange of the St. Charles Hotel, when conversation turned upon the southern habit of lynching people who do not happen to agree with the majority. He presumed enough upon my ignorance to insist that any moderate, gentlemanly Republican might come here with impunity.

"But," he added, "there are three men whose safety I would not guarantee."

"Who are they?"

"Governor Dennison, of Ohio, is one. Since he refused to return that fugitive slave to Kentucky, he would hardly be permitted to stay in New Orleans; at all events, I should oppose it. Then there is Andy Johnson. He ought to be shot, or hanged, wherever found. But for him, Kentucky and Tennessee would have been with us long ago. He could not remain here unharmed for a single hour."

"And the third?"

"Some infernal scoundrel, who is writing abusive letters about us to The New York Tribune."

"Is it possible?"

"Yes, sir, and he has been at it for more than a month."

"Can't you find him out?"

"Some think it is a Kentuckian, who pretends to be engaged in cattle-trading, but only makes that a subterfuge. I suspect, however, that it is an editor of The Picayune, which is a Yankee concern through and through. If he is caught, I don't think he will write many more letters."

I ventured a few words in palliation of the Governor and the Senator, but quite agreed that this audacious scribbler ought to be suppressed.

Attack on Sumter—Rebel Boasting.

April 12.

Telegraphic intelligence to-day of the attack upon Fort Sumter causes intense excitement. The Delta office is besieged by a crowd hungry for news. The universal expectation of the easy capture of the fort is not stronger than the belief that it will be followed by an immediate and successful movement against the city of Washington. The politicians and newspapers have persuaded the masses that the Yankees (a phrase which they no longer apply distinctively to New Englanders, but to every person born in the North) mean to subjugate them, but are arrant cowards, who may easily be frightened away. Leading men seldom express this opinion; yet The Crescent, giving the report that eight thousand Massachusetts troops have been called into the field, adds, that if they would come down to Pensacola, eighteen hundred Confederates would easily "whip them out."

God help them if the tempest swings
The pine against the palm!"

---

[CHAPTER VII.]

—— Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout.

Macbeth.

Abolition Tendencies of Kentuckians.

There were two of my acquaintances (one very prominent in the Secession movement) with whom, while they had no suspicion of my real business, I could converse with a little frankness. One of them desired war, on the ground that it would unite the inhabitants of all the border slave States, and overpower the Union sentiment there.

"But," I asked, "will not war also unite the people of the North?"

"I think not. We have a great many earnest and bold friends there."

"True; but do you suppose they could stand for a single week against the popular feeling which war would arouse?"

"Perhaps you are right," he replied, thoughtfully, "but it never occurred to me before."

My other friend also talked with great frankness:

"We can get along very well with the New England Yankees who are permanently settled here. They make the strongest Secessionists we have; but the Kentuckians give us a great deal of trouble. They were born and raised where Slavery is unprofitable. They have strong proclivities toward Abolitionism. The constituents of Rozier and Roselius, who fought us so persistently in the Convention, are nearly all Kentuckians.

Two Chief Causes of Secession.

"Slavery is our leading interest. Right or wrong, we have it and we must have it. Cotton, rice, and sugar cannot be raised without it. Being a necessity, we do not mean to allow its discussion. Every thing which clashes with it, or tends to weaken it, must go under. Our large German population is hostile to it. About all these Dutchmen would be not only Unionists, but Black Republicans, if they dared."

Perhaps it is the invariable law of revolutions that, even while the revolters are in a numerical minority, they are able to carry the majority with them. It is certain that, before Sumter was fired on, a majority in every State, except South Carolina, was opposed to Secession. The constant predictions of the Rebel leaders that there would be no war, and the assertions of prominent New York journals, that any attempt at coercion on the part of the Government would be met with armed and bloody resistance in every northern city and State, were the two chief causes of the apparent unanimity of the South.

The masses had a vague but very earnest belief that the North, in some incomprehensible manner, had done them deadly wrong. Cassio-like, they remembered "a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore." The leaders were sometimes more specific.

"The South," said a pungent writer, "has endured a great many wrongs; but the most intolerable of all the grievances ever thrust upon her was the Census Report of 1860!" There was a great deal of truth in this remark. One day I asked my New Orleans friend:

"Why have you raised all this tempest about Mr. Lincoln's election?"

Fundamental Grievance of the Rebels.

"Don't deceive yourself," he answered. "Mr. Lincoln's election had nothing to do with it, beyond enabling us to rouse our people. Had Douglas been chosen, we should have broken up the Union just as quickly. Had Bell triumphed, it would have been all the same. Even if Breckinridge had been elected, we would have seceded before the close of his term. There is an essential incompatibility between the two sections. The South stands still, while the North has grown rich and powerful, and expanded from ocean to ocean."

This was the fundamental grievance. Very liberal in his general views, he had not apparently the faintest suspicion that Slavery was responsible for the decadence of the South, or that Freedom impelled the gigantic strides of the North.

Yet his theory of the Rebellion was doubtless correct. It arose from no man, or party, or political event, but from the inherent quarrel between two adverse systems, which the fullness of time had ripened into open warfare. His "essential incompatibility" was only another name for Mr. Seward's "Irrepressible Conflict" between two principles. They have since recorded, in letters of blood, not merely their incompatibility, but their absolute, aggressive, eternal antagonism.

During the second week in April, I began to find myself the object of unpleasant, not to say impertinent, curiosity. So many questions were asked, so many pointed and significant remarks made in my presence, as to render it certain that I was regarded with peculiar suspicion.

At first I was at a loss to surmise its origin. But one day I encountered an old acquaintance in the form of a son of Abraham, who had frequently heard me, in public addresses in Kansas, utter sentiments not absolutely pro-slavery; who knew that I once held a modest commission in the Free State army, and that I was a whilom correspondent of The Tribune.

Sudden Departure from New Orleans.

He was by no means an Israelite without guile, for he had been chased out of the Pike's Peak region during the previous summer, for robbing one of my friends who had nursed him in sickness. Concluding that he might play the informer, I made an engagement with him for the next afternoon, and, before the time arrived, shook from my feet the dust of New Orleans. Designing to make a détour to Fort Pickens on my way, I procured a ticket for Washington. The sea was the safer route, but I was curious to take a final look at the interior.

On Friday evening, April 12th, I left the Crescent City. In five minutes our train plunged into the great swamp which environs the commercial metropolis of the Southwest. Deep, broad ditches are cut for draining, and you sometimes see an alligator, five or six feet long, and as large as the body of a man, lying lazily upon the edge of the green water.

The marshy ground is mottled with gorgeous flowers, and the palmetto is very abundant. It does not here attain to the dignity of a tree, seldom growing more than four feet high. Its flag, sword-shaped leaves branch out in flat semicircular clusters, resembling the fan palm. Its tough bulbous root was formerly cut into fine fragments by the Indians, then bruised to a pulp and thrown into the lake. It produced temporary blindness among the fishes, which brought them to the surface, where they were easily caught by hand.

With rare fitness stands the palmetto as the device of South Carolina. Indeed, it is an excellent emblem of Slavery itself; for, neither beautiful, edible, nor useful, it blinds the short-sighted fish coming under its influence.

To them it is

——"The insane root, Which takes the reason prisoner."

A ride of four miles brought us to Lake Pontchartrain, stretching away in the fading sunlight. Over the broad expanse of swelling water, delicate, foamy white caps were cresting the waves.

The War Spirit in Mobile.

We were transferred to the propeller Alabama, and, when I woke the next morning, were lying at Mobile. With a population of thirty thousand, the city contains many pleasant residences, embowered in shade-trees, and surrounded by generous grounds. It is rendered attractive by its tall pines, live oak, and Pride-of-China trees. The last were now decked in a profusion of bluish-white blossoms.

The war spirit ran high. Hand-bills, headed "Soldiers wanted," and "Ho! for volunteers," met the eye at every corner; uniforms and arms abounded, and the voice of the bugle was heard in the streets. All northern vessels were clearing on account of the impending crisis, though some were not more than half loaded.

Mobile was very radical. One of the daily papers urged the imposition of a tax of one dollar per copy upon every northern newspaper or magazine brought into the Confederacy!

The leading hotel was crowded with guests, including many soldiers en route for Bragg's army. It was my own design to leave for Pensacola that evening, and look at the possible scene of early hostilities. A Secession friend in New Orleans had given me a personal letter to General Bragg, introducing me as a gentleman of leisure, who would be glad to make a few sketches of proper objects of interest about his camps, for one of the New York illustrated papers. It added that he had known me all his life, and vouched completely for my "soundness."

Suspicions Aroused—an Awkward Encounter.

But a little incident changed my determination. Among my fellow-passengers from New Orleans were three young officers of the Confederate army, also bound for Fort Pickens. While on the steamer, I did not observe that I was an object of their special attention; but just after breakfast this morning, as I was going up to my room, in the fourth story of the Battle House, I encountered them also ascending the broad stairs. The moment they saw me, they dropped the subject upon which they were conversing, and one, with significant glances, burst into a most violent invective against The Tribune, denouncing it as the vilest journal in America, except Parson Brownlow's Knoxville Whig! pronouncing every man connected with it a thief and scoundrel, and asserting that if any of its correspondents could be caught here, they would be hung upon the nearest tree.

This philippic was so evidently inspired by my presence, and the eyes of the whole group glared with a speculation so unpleasant, that I felt myself an unhappy Romeo, "too early seen unknown and known too late." I had learned by experience that the best protection for a suspected man was to go everywhere, as if he had a right to go; to brave scrutiny; to return stare for stare and question for question.

So, during this tirade, which lasted while, side by side, we leisurely climbed two staircases, I strove to maintain an exterior of serene and wooden unconsciousness. When the speaker had exhausted his vocabulary of hard words, I drew a fresh cigar from my pocket, and said to him, "Please to give me a light, sir." With a puzzled air he took his cigar from his mouth, knocked off the ashes with his forefinger, handed it to me, and stood regarding me a little curiously, while, looking him full in the face, I slowly ignited my own Havana, returned his, and thanked him.

They turned away apparently convinced that their zeal had outrun their discretion. The look of blank disappointment and perplexity upon the faces of those young officers as they disappeared in the passage will be, to me, a joy forever.

Pondering in my room upon fresh intelligence of the arrest of suspicious persons in General Bragg's camp, and upon this little experience, I changed my plan. As Toodles, in the farce, thinks he "won't smoke," so I decided not to go to Pensacola; but ordered a carriage, and drove down to the mail-boat St. Charles, which was to leave for Montgomery that evening.

I fully expected during the afternoon to entertain a vigilance committee, the police, or some military officials who would invite me to look at Secession through prison bars. It was not an inviting prospect; yet there was nothing to do but to wait.

The weather was dreamy and delicious. My state-room looked out upon the shining river, and the rich olive green of the grassy shore. Upon the dull, opaque water of a broad bayou beyond, little snowy sails flashed, and a steamer, with tall black chimneys, left a white, foamy track in the waters, and long clouds of brown smoke against the sky.

"Mass'r, Fort Sumter's Gone up!"

At three o'clock in the afternoon, while I was lying in my state-room, looking out drowsily upon this picture, a cabin-boy presented his sooty face at the door and said, "Mass'r, Fort Sumter's gone up!"

Bells Ringing and Cannons Booming.

The intelligence had just arrived by telegraph. The first battle of the Great War was over, and seventy-two men, after a bombardment of two days, were captured by twelve thousand! In a moment church and steamboat bells rang out their notes of triumph, and cannon belched forth their deep-mouthed exultation. A public meeting was extemporized in the street, and enthusiastic speeches were made. Mindful of my morning experience, I did not leave the boat, but tried to read the momentous Future. I thought I could see, in its early pages, the death-warrant of Slavery; but all else was inscrutable.

There was a steam calliope attached to the "St. Charles." That evening, when the last bell had rung, and the last cable was taken in, she left the Mobile landing, and plowed slowly up the river to the shrill notes of "Dixie's Land."[6]

The Alabama is the "most monotonously beautiful of rivers." In the evening twilight, its sinuous sweep afforded a fine view of both shores, timbered down to the water's edge. Dense foliage, decked in the blended and intermingled hues of summer, gave them the appearance of two soft, smooth cushions of variegated velvet.

After dark, we met the descending mail-boat. Our calliope saluted her with lively music, and the passengers assembled on the guards, greeting each other with the usual huzzas and waving of hats and handkerchiefs.

On Sunday morning, the inevitable calliope awoke us—this time, with sacred music. At many river landings there was only a single well-shaded farm-house on the bank, with ladies sitting upon the piazzas, and white and negro children playing under the magnificent live-oaks. At others, a solitary warehouse stood upon the high, perpendicular bluff, with an inclined-plane railway for the conveyance of freight to the water. At some points the country was open, and a great cotton-field extended to the river-bank, with a weather-beaten cotton-press in the midst of it, like an old northern cider-mill.

A Terp­si­chorean Young Negro.

Planters, returning from New Orleans and Mobile, were met at the landings by their negroes. The slaves appeared glad to see them, and were greeted with hearty hand-shakings. At one landing the calliope struck up a lively strain, and a young darkey on the bank, with the Terpsichorean proclivity of his race, began to dance as if for dear life, throwing his arms and legs in ludicrous and extravagant fashion. His master attempted to cuff his ears, but the little fellow ducked his head and danced away, to the great merriment of the lookers-on. The negro nurses on the boat fondled and kissed the little white children in their charge most ardently.

I saw no instance of unkind treatment to slaves; but a young planter on board mentioned to me, as a noteworthy circumstance, that he had not permitted a negro to be struck upon his plantation for a year.

A Texian on board the boat was very bitter against Governor Houston, and, with the usual extreme language of the Rebels, declared he would be hanged if he persisted in opposing the Disunionists. An old citizen of Louisiana, too, became so indignant at me for remarking I had always supposed Douglas to sympathize with the South, that I made haste to qualify the assertion.

Leading Charac­teristics of Southerners.

Our passengers were excellent specimens of the better class of southerners. Aside from his negrophobia, the southern gentleman is an agreeable companion. He is genial, frank, cordial, profoundly deferential to women, and carries his heart in his hand. His social qualities are his weak point. To a northerner, passing through his country during these disjointed times, I would have said:

"Your best protection is to be 'hail fellow, well met;' spend money freely, tell good stories, be liberal of your private brandy-flask, and your after-dinner cigars. If you do this, and your manners are, in his thinking, gentlemanly, he can by no means imagine you a Yankee in the offensive sense. He pictures all Yankees as puritanic, rigid, fanatical, and talking through the nose. 'What the world wants,' says George William Curtis, 'is not honesty, but acquiescence.' That is profoundly true here. Acquiesce gracefully, not intemperately, in the prevailing sentiment. Don't hail from the State of Massachusetts; don't 'guess,' or use other northern provincialisms; don't make yourself conspicuous—and, if you know human nature, you may pass without serious trouble."

Our southerner has little humanity—he feels little sympathy for a man, as a man—as a mere human being—but he has abundant warmth toward his own social class. Not a very high specimen himself, he yet lays infinite stress upon being "a gentleman." If you have the misfortune to be poor, and without credentials, but possess the manners of education and good society, he will give you kinder reception than you are likely to obtain in the bustling, restless, crowded North.

Southern Pro­vin­cialisms.

He affects long hair, dresses in unqualified black, and wears kid gloves continually. He pronounces iron "i-ron" (two syllables), and barrel "barl." He calls car "kyah" (one syllable), cigar "se-ghah," and negro "nig-ro"—never negro, and very rarely "nigger." The latter, by the way, was a pet word with Senator Douglas. Once, while his star was in the ascendant, some one asked Mr. Seward:

"Will Judge Douglas ever be President?"

"No, sir," replied the New York senator. "No man will ever be President of the United States who spells negro with two g's!"

These southern provincialisms are sometimes a little startling. Conversing with a young man in the senior class of a Mississippi college, I remarked that men were seldom found in any circle who had not some sympathy or affinity with it, to stimulate them to seek it. "Yes," he replied, "something to aig them on!"

The forests along the river were beautiful with the brilliant green live-oak festooned with mistletoe, the dark pine, the dense cane, the spring glory of the cottonwood and maple, the drooping delicate leaves of the willow, the white-stemmed sycamore with its creamy foliage, and the great snowy blossoms of the dog-wood.

With a calliope, familiarity breeds contempt. Ours became an intolerable nuisance, and induced frequent discussions about bribing the player to stop it. He was apparently animated by the spirit of the Parisian who set a hand-organ to running by clockwork in his room, locked the apartment, went to the country for a month, and, when he returned, found that two obnoxious neighbors, whom he wished to drive away, had blown out their brains in utter despair.

While I was pleasantly engaged in a whist-party in the cabin, this fragment of a conversation between two bystanders reached my ears:

"A spy?"

"Yes, a spy from the North, looking about to obtain information for old Lincoln; and they arrested one yesterday, too."

Con­fed­erate Capitol at Mont­gomery.

This was a pleasing theme of reflection for the timid and contemplative mind. A passenger explained the matter, by informing me that, at one of the landings where we stopped, telegraphic intelligence was received of the arrest of two spies at Montgomery. The popular impression seemed to be, that about one person in ten was engaged in that not-very-fascinating avocation!

In Indian dialect, Alabama signifies, "Here we rest;" but, for me, it had an exactly opposite meaning. We awoke one morning to find our boat lying at Montgomery. Reaching the hotel too early for breakfast, I strolled with a traveler from Philadelphia, a pretended Secessionist, to the State House, which was at present also the Capitol of the Confederacy.

Standing, like the Capitol in Washington, at the head of a broad thoroughfare, it overlooks a pleasant city of eight thousand people. The building is of stucco, and bears that melancholy suggestion of better days which seems inseparable from the Peculiar Institution.

The senate chamber is a small, dingy apartment, on whose dirty walls hang portraits of Clay, Calhoun, and two or three Alabama politicians. The desks and chairs were covered with antiquated public documents, and the other débris of legislative halls. While returning to the hotel, we heard from a street loafer a terse description of some model slave:

"He is just the best nigger in this town. He knows enough to work well, and he knows nothing else."

We were also informed that the Virginia Convention had passed a Secession ordinance.

"This is capital news; is it not?" said my Philadelphia companion, with well-assumed glee.

For several days, in spite of his violent assertions, I had doubted his sincerity. This was the first time he broached the subject when no one else was present. I looked steadily in his eye, and inquired:

"Do you think so?"

His half-quizzical expression was a satisfactory answer, even without the reply:

"I want to get home to Philadelphia without being detained on the way."

"Copperas Breeches" vs. "Black Breeches."

In the hotel office, two well-dressed southerners were discussing the omnipresent topic. One of them said:

"We shall have no war."

"Yes, we shall," replied the other. "The Yankees are going to fight for a while; but it will make no difference to us. We have got copperas breeches enough to carry this war through. None of the black breeches will have to shoulder muskets!"

The reader should understand that the clothing of the working whites was colored with a dye in which copperas was the chief ingredient; while, of course, the upper, slaveholding classes, wore "customary suits of solemn black." This was a very pregnant sentence, conveying in a few words the belief of those Rebels who instigated and impelled the war.

A Cor­res­pondent in Durance Vile.

The morning newspapers, at our breakfast-table, detailed two interesting facts. First, that "Jasper,"[7] the Charleston correspondent of The New York Times, had been seized and imprisoned in the Palmetto City. Second, that Gen. Bragg had arrested in his camp, and sent under guard to Montgomery, "as a prisoner of war," the correspondent of The Pensacola (Fla.) Observer. This journalist was an enthusiastic Secessionist, but had been guilty of some indiscretion in publishing facts touching the strength and designs of the Rebel army. His signature was "Nemo;" and he now bade fair to be No One, indeed, for some time to come.

---

[CHAPTER VIII.]

I reckon this always, that a man is never undone until he be hanged.

Two Gentlemen of Verona.

I now began to entertain sentiments of profound gratitude toward the young officer, at Mobile, who kept me from going to Fort Pickens. Rejecting the tempting request of my Philadelphia companion to remain one day in Montgomery, that he might introduce me to Jefferson Davis, I continued my "Journey Due North."

Effect of Capturing Fort Sumter.

When we reached the cars, my baggage was missing. The omnibus agent, who was originally a New Yorker, and probably thought it precarious for a man desiring to reach Washington to be detained, even a few hours, kindly induced the conductor to detain the train for five minutes while we drove back to the Exchange Hotel and found the missing valise. The event proved that delay would have been embarrassing, if not perilous.

A Georgian on the car-seat with me, while very careful not to let others overhear his remarks, freely avowed Union sentiments, and asserted that they were predominant among his neighbors. I longed to respond earnestly and sincerely, but there was the possibility of a trap, and I merely acquiesced.

The country was intoxicated by the capture of Sumter. A newspaper on the train, several days old, in its regular Associated Press report, contained the following:

Was­hing­ton to be Captured.

Montgomery, Ala., Friday, April 12, 1861.

An immense crowd serenaded President Davis and Mr. Walker, Secretary of War, at the Exchange Hotel to-night. The former was not well, and did not appear. Secretary Walker, in a few words of electrical eloquence, told the news from Fort Sumter, declaring, in conclusion, that before many hours the flag of the Confederacy would float over that fortress. No man, he said, could tell where the war this day commenced would end, but he would prophesy that the flag which here streams to the breeze would float over the dome of the old Capitol at Washington before the first of May. Let them test Southern courage and resources, and it might float eventually over Faneuil Hall itself.

An officer from General Bragg's camp informed me that all preparations for capturing Fort Pickens were made, the United States sentinels on duty upon a certain night being bribed; but that "Nemo's" intimation of the intended attack frustrated it, a copy of his letter having found its way into the post, and forewarned and forearmed the commander.

Everybody was looking anxiously for news from the North. The predictions of certain New York papers, that the northern people would inaugurate war at home if the Government attempted "coercion," were received with entire credulity, and frequently quoted.

There was much admiration of Major Anderson's defense of Sumter; but the opinion was general, that only a military sense of honor dictated his conduct; that now, relieved from a soldier's responsibility, he would resign and join the Rebels. "He is too brave a man to remain with the Yankees," was the common remark. Far in the interior of Georgia, I saw fragments of his flag-staff exhibited, and highly prized as relics.

We dined at the little hamlet of West Point, on the line between Alabama and Georgia, and stopped for two evening hours at the bustling city of Atlanta. Our stay was enlivened by a fresh conversation in the car about northern spies and reporters, who were declared to be infesting the country, and worthy of hanging wherever found.

Appre­hension about Arming the Negroes.

We spent the night in pursuit of sleep under difficulties, upon a rough Georgia railway. The next morning, the scantiness of the disappearing foliage indicated that we were going northward. In Augusta, we passed through broad, pleasant shaded streets, and then crossed the Savannah river into South Carolina. Companies of troops, bound for Charleston, began to come on board the train, and were greeted with cheering at all the stations. A young Carolinian, taking me for a southerner, remarked:

"The only thing we fear in this war is that the Yankees will arm our slaves and turn them against us."

This was the first statement of the kind I heard. Persons had said many times in my presence that they were perfectly sure of the slaves—who would all fight for their masters. In the last article of faith they proved as deluded as those sanguine northerners who believed that slave insurrections would everywhere immediately result from hostilities.

At Lee's Station we met the morning train from Charleston. Within two yards of my window, I saw a dark object disappear under the cow-catcher; and a moment after, a woman, wringing her hands, shrieked:

"My God! My God! Mr. Lee killed!"

Lying on the track was a shapeless, gory mass, which only the clothing showed to be the remains of a human being. The station-keeper, attempting to cross the road just in advance of the train, was struck down and run over. His little son was standing beside him at the very moment, and two of his daughters looking on from the door of his residence, a few yards away. In the first bewilderment of terror, they now stood wildly beating their foreheads, and gasping for breath. In strange contrast with this scene, a martial band was discoursing lively music, and people were loudly cheering the soldiers. Buoyant Life and grim Death stood side by side and walked hand in hand.

Our train plunged into deep pine woods, and wended through large plantations, whose cool frame houses were shaded by palmetto-trees. The negro men and women, who stood in the fields persuading themselves that they were working, handled their hoes with indescribable awkwardness. A sketch of their exact positions would look ridiculously unnatural. They were in striking contrast with the zeal and activity of the northern laborer, who moves under the stimulus of freedom.

Looking at the Captured Fortress.

In the afternoon, we passed through the Magnolia Cemetery, and in view of the State Arsenal, with the palmetto flag waving over it. The Mills' House, in Charleston, was crowded with guests and citizens, half of them in uniform. After I registered my name, a brawny fellow, with a "plug-ugly" countenance, looked over my shoulder at the book, and then regarded me with a long, impudent, scrutinizing stare, which I endeavored to return with interest. In a few seconds his eyes dropped, and he went back to his seat.

I strolled down the narrow streets, with their antiquated houses, to the pleasant Battery, where several columbiads, with pyramidal piles of solid shot between them, pointed at Fort Sumter. Down the harbor, among a few snow-white sails, stood the already historic fortress. The line of broken roof, visible above the walls, was torn and ragged from Rebel shots. At the distance of two miles, it was impossible, with the naked eye, to identify the two flags above it. A bystander told me that they were the colors of South Carolina and of the Confederacy.

The devices of treason flaunting in the breeze where the Stars and Stripes, after being insulted for months, were so lately lowered in dishonor, were not a pleasant spectacle, and I turned slowly and sadly back to the hotel. In its reading-room, among the four or five papers on file, was a copy of The Tribune, whose familiar face was like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

A Short Stay in Charleston.

The city reeled with excitement. In the evening martial music and huzzas came floating up to my window from a meeting at the Charleston Hotel, where the young Virginian Hotspur, Roger A. Pryor, was one of the prominent speakers. Publicly and privately, the Charlestonians were boasting over their late Cadmean victory. They had not heard from the North.

I hoped to remain several days, but the public frenzy had grown so uncontrollable, that every stranger was subjected to espionage. One could hardly pick up a newspaper without seeing, or stand ten minutes in a public place without hearing, of the arrest of some northerner, charged with being a spy. While the lines of retreat were yet open, it was judicious to flee from the wrath to come.

Designing to stop for a while in North Carolina, whose Rip Van Winkle sleep seemed proof against any possible convulsion, I took the midnight train northward. A number of Baltimoreans on board were returning home, after assisting at the capture of Sumter. They were voluble and boisterous Rebels, declaring in good set terms that Maryland would shortly be revolutionized, Governor Hicks and Henry Winter Davis hanged, and President Lincoln driven out of Washington. They averred with great vehemence and iteration that the Yankees were all cowards, and could easily be "whipped out;" but when one, whose denunciations had been peculiarly bitter, was asked:

The Country on Fire.

"Are you going home through Washington?"

"Not I," was the reply. "Old Abe might have us nabbed!'"

We were soon on the clayey soil of the Old North State, which, to the eye, closely resembles those regions of Ohio near Lake Erie. Hour after hour, we rode through the deep forests of tall pines, from which the bark had been stripped for making rosin and turpentine.

My anticipations of quiet proved altogether delusive. President Lincoln's Proclamation, calling for seventy-five thousand soldiers, had just arrived by telegraph, and the country was on fire. It was the first flush of excitement here, and the feeling was more intense and demonstrative than in those States which had become accustomed to the Revolution. Forts were being seized, negroes and white men impressed to labor upon them, military companies forming, clergymen taking up the musket, and women encouraging the determination to fight the "Abolitionists." All Union sentiment was awed into utter silence.

While the train was stopping at Wilmington, a telegram, announcing that Virginia had passed a Secession ordinance, was received with yells of applause. Sitting alone at one end of the car, I observed three fellow-passengers, with whom I had formed a traveling acquaintance, conferring earnestly. Their frequent glances toward me indicated the subject of the conversation. As I had said nothing to define my political position, I resolved to set myself right at once, should they put me to the test. One of them approached me, and remarked:

"We just have news that Virginia has seceded."

I replied, with considerable emphasis: "Good! That will give us all the border States."

Apparently satisfied, he returned to his friends, and they said no more to me upon the all-absorbing question.

Submitting to Rebel Scrutiny.

A fragment of conversation which occurred near me, will illustrate the general tone of remark. A young man observed to a gentleman beside him:

"We shall have possession of Washington before the first of June."

"Do you think so? Lincoln is going to call out an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men."

"Oh, well, we can whip them out any morning before breakfast. Throw three or four shells among those blue-bellied Yankees and they will scatter like a flock of sheep!"

Up to this day I had earnestly hoped that a bloody conflict between the two sections might be averted; but these remarks were so frequent—the opinion that northerners were unmitigated cowards seemed so universal,[8] that I began to look with a great deal of complacency upon the prospect which the South enjoyed of testing this faith. It was time to ascertain, once for all, whether these gentlemen of the cotton and the canebrake were indeed a superior race, destined to wield the scepter, or whether their pretensions were mere arrogance and swagger.

It seemed impossible for the southern mind to comprehend that he who never blusters, or flourishes the bowie-knife, who will endure a great deal before fighting, who would rather suffer a wrong than do a wrong, is, when roused, the most dangerous of adversaries—a fact so universal, that it has given us the proverb, "Beware the fury of a patient man."

The North Heard From.

New York papers, issued after receiving intelligence of the fall of Sumter, now reached us, and both in their news and editorial columns indicated how suddenly that event had aroused the whole North. The voice of every journal was for war. The Herald, which one morning spoke bitterly against coercion, received a visit during the day from several thousand tumultuous citizens, who left it the alternative of running up the American flag or having its office torn down. By the presence of the police, and the intercession of leading Union men, its property was saved from destruction. In next morning's paper appeared one of its periodical and constitutional somersaults. Its four editorial articles all cried "War to the knife!"

The Rebels were greatly surprised, half appalled, and doubly exasperated at the unexpected change of all the northern papers which they had counted friendly to them; but they also shouted "War!" even louder than before.

At Goldsboro, where we stopped for supper, a small slab of marble, standing upon the mantel in the hotel office, had these words upon it:

"Sacred to the memory of A. Lincoln, who died of a broken neck, at Newburn, April 16, 1861."

An Inebriated Patriot.

Before the train started again, a young patriot, whose articulation was impeded by whisky, passed through it, asking:

"S'thr any --- ---- Yankee onth'strain? F'thr's a --- ---- Union man board these cars, Ic'nwhip him by ---. H'rahfr Jeff. Davis nth'southrncnfdrcy!" He afterward amused himself by firing his revolver from the car door. At the next station he stepped out upon the platform, and repeated:

"H'rah fr Jeff. Davis n'th'Southrn Confdrcy!" Another patriot among the bystanders at the station promptly responded:

"Good. Hurra for Jeff. Davis!"

"Yre th'man fr me," responded our passenger; "Come 'n' takeadrink. All fr Jeff. Davis here, ain't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thatsallrightth'n. But what d'you elect that ---- ---- Abolitionist, Murphy, t'th' Leg'slature for?"

"I'm Murphy," replied the patriot, who had been standing in the group, but now sprang forward belligerently. "Who calls me an Abolitionist?"

"Beg y'r padon sr. Reck'n you ain't the man. But who is that Abolitionist you 'lected here? 's name's Brown, 'sn't it? Yes, that's it. ---- ---- Brown; y'ought t'hang him!"

Just then the whistle shrieked and the train moved on, amid shouts of laughter.

At six o'clock next morning, we reached Richmond. Here, also, I had hoped to stop, but the caldron was seething too hotly. Rebel flags were everywhere flying, the newspapers all exulted over the passage of the Secession ordinance, and some of them warned northerners and Union men to leave the country forthwith. The tone of conversation, too, was very bitter. The farther I went, the intenser the frenzy; and, beginning to wonder whether there was any safe haven south of Philadelphia or New York, I continued northward without a moment's unnecessary delay.

The railway accommodations grew better in exact ratio to our approach to Mason and Dixon's line, and northern physiognomies were numerous on the train. At Ashland, a few miles north of Richmond, the first palatable meal since leaving the Alabama River was set before us. All the intervening distance, to the epicurean eye, stretched out in a dreary perspective of bacon and corn bread.

The Old Dominion in a Frenzy.

Half the passengers were soldiers. Every village bristled with bayonets. At Fredericksburgh, one of the polished F. F. V.'s on the platform presented his face at our window, and asked what the unmentionable-to-ears-polite all these people were going north for? As the passengers maintained an "heroic reticence," he exploded a fresh oath, and went to the next car to pursue his investigations.

A citizen of Richmond, who occupied the seat with me, satisfied that I was sound on the Secession question, assured me that it had been very difficult to get the ordinance through the Convention; that trouble was anticipated from Union men in Western Virginia; that business in Richmond was utterly suspended, New York exchange commanding a premium of fifteen per cent.

"We are fearful," he added, "of difficulty with our free negroes. There are several thousand in Richmond, many of whom are intelligent, and some wealthy. They show signs of turbulence, and we are perfecting an organization to hold them in check. I sent the money to New York this morning for a quantity of Sharp's rifles, ordering them to be forwarded in dry-goods boxes, that they might not excite suspicion."

He added, that Ben McCulloch was in Virginia, and had perfected a plan by which, at the head of Rebel troops, he was about to capture Washington. As we progressed northward, the noisy Secession element grew small by degrees, and beautifully less. At Acquia Creek, we left the cars and took a steamer up the Potomac.

The Old Flag Once More.

A quiet gentleman, who had come on board at Richmond, impressed me, through that mysterious freemasonry which exists among journalists—indeed, between members of all professions—as a representative of the Fourth Estate. In reply to inquiries, he informed me that he had been reporting the Virginia Convention for The Richmond Enquirer, but, being a New Yorker, had concluded, like Jerry Blossom, he wanted "to go home." He described the Convention, which at first had an emphatic majority for the Government; but in time, one Union man after another was dragooned into the ranks, until a bare Secession majority was obtained.

The ordinance explicitly provided that it should not take effect until submitted to the popular vote; but the State authorities immediately assumed that it would be ratified. Senator Mason wrote a public letter, warning all Union men to leave the State; and before the time for voting arrived, the Secessionists succeeded in inaugurating a bloody conflict upon the soil, and bringing in armies from the Gulf States. It was then ratified by a large majority.

We steamed up the Potomac, passed the quiet tomb at Mount Vernon, which was soon to hear the clangor of contending armies, and early in the afternoon came in sight of Washington. There, at last, thank God! was the old Starry Banner, flying in triumph over the Capitol, the White House, the departments, and hundreds of dwellings. Albeit unused to the melting mood, my heart was full, and my eyelids quivered as I saw it. Until that hour, I never knew how I loved the old flag!

Walking down Pennsylvania avenue, I encountered troops of old friends, and constantly wondered that I had been able to spend ten weeks in the South, without meeting more than two or three familiar acquaintances.

An Hour with President Lincoln.

A body-guard for the President, made up entirely of citizens of Kansas, armed with Sharp's rifles, was on duty every night at the White House. It contained two United States Senators, three members and ex-members of Congress, the Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court, and several editors and other prominent citizens of that patriotic young State.

With two friends, I spent an hour at the White House. The President, though overwhelmed with business, received us kindly, and economized time by taking a cup of tea while conversing with us, and inquiring very minutely about affairs in the seceding States.

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,"

though the crown be only the chaplet of a Republic.

This man had filled the measure of American ambition, but the remembered brightness of his face was in strange contrast with the weary, haggard look it now wore, and his blushing honors seemed pallid and ashen. There was the same honest, kindly tone—the same fund of humorous anecdote—the same genuineness; but the old, free, lingering laugh was gone.

"Mr. Douglas," remarked the President, "spent three hours with me this afternoon. For several days he has been too unwell for business, and has devoted his time to studying war-matters, until he understands the military position better, perhaps, than any one of the Cabinet. By the way," continued Mr. Lincoln, with his peculiar twinkle of the eye, "the conversation turned upon the rendition of slaves. 'You know,' said Douglas, 'that I am entirely sound on the Fugitive Slave Law. I am for enforcing it in all cases within its true intent and meaning; but, after examining it carefully, I have concluded that a negro insurrection is a case to which it does not apply.'"

Panic in Wash­ing­ton.

I had not come north a moment too early. The train which brought me from Richmond to Acquia Creek was the last which the Rebel authorities permitted to pass without interruption, and the steamer, on reaching Washington, was seized by our own Government, and made no more regular trips. Before I had been an hour in the Capital, the telegraph wires were cut, and railway tracks in Maryland torn up. Intelligence of the murderous attack of a Baltimore mob on the Sixth Massachusetts regiment, en route for Washington, startled the town from its propriety.

Chaos had come again. Washington was the seat of an intense panic. An attack from the Rebels was hourly expected, and hundreds of families fled from the city in terror. During the next two days, twenty-five hundred well-officered, resolute men could undoubtedly have captured the city. The air was filled with extravagant and startling rumors. From Virginia, Union refugees were hourly arriving, often after narrow escapes from the frenzied populace.

Massachusetts soldiers, who had safely run the Baltimore gantlet of death, were quartered in the United States Senate Chamber. They had mustered with characteristic promptness. At 5 o'clock one evening, a telegram reached Boston asking for troops for the defense of the imperiled Capital. At 9 o'clock the next morning, the first company, having come twenty-five miles from the country, stacked arms in Faneuil Hall. At 5 o'clock that night the Sixth Regiment, with full ranks, started for Washington. They were fine-looking fellows, but greatly embittered by their Baltimore experience. In a very quiet, undemonstrative way, they manifested an earnest desire for immediate and active service.

"Came Out to Fight!"

The bewilderment and terror which had so long rested like a nightmare on the National authorities—which for months had left almost every leading Republican statesman timid and undecided—was at last over. The echoes of the Charleston guns broke the spell! The masses had been heard from! Then, as at later periods of the war, the popular instinct was clearer and truer than all the wisdom of the politicians.

During the three days I spent in Washington, the city was virtually blockaded, receiving neither mails, telegrams, nor re-enforcements. Martial law, though not declared, was sadly needed. Most of the Secessionists had left, but enough remained to serve as spies for the Virginia Revolutionists.

I left for New York, by an evening train crowded with fleeing families. Most of them went west from the Relay House, deterred from passing through Baltimore by the reign of terror which the Rebels had inaugurated. The most zealous Union papers advocated Secession as their only means of personal and pecuniary safety. The State and city authorities, though professedly loyal, bowed helpless before the storm. Governor Sprague, with his Rhode Island volunteers, had started for Washington. Mayor Brown telegraphed him, requesting that they should not come through Baltimore, as it would exasperate the people.

"The Rhode Island regiment," was Sprague's epigrammatic response, "came out to fight, and may just as well fight in Maryland as in Virginia." It passed unmolested!

Baltimore under Rebel Rule.

We found Baltimore in a frenzy. The whole city seemed under arms. The Union men were utterly silenced, and many had fled. The only person I heard express undisguised loyalty was a young lady from Boston, and only her sex protected her. Several persons had been arrested as spies during the day, including two supposed correspondents of New York papers.

Baltimore, for the time, was worse than any thing I had seen in Charleston, New Orleans, or Mobile. Through the evening Barnum's hotel was filled with soldiers. Stepping into the office to make arrangements for going to Philadelphia, I encountered an old acquaintance from Cincinnati, now commanding a Baltimore company under arms:

"If Lincoln persists in attempting to send troops through Maryland," said he, "we are bound to have his head!"

Another Baltimorean came up and began to question me, but my acquaintance promptly vouched for me as "a true southern man," and I escaped annoyance. The same belief was expressed here which prevailed throughout the whole South, that northern men were cowards; and persons actually alluded to the attack upon the unarmed Massachusetts troops as an act of bravery.

Leaving Baltimore, I took a carriage for the nearest northern railway point. The roads were crowded with families leaving the city, and infested by Rebel scouts and patrols. Union citizens were helpless. One of them said to us:

"For God's sake, beg the Administration and the North not to let us be crushed out!"

We hoped to take the Philadelphia cars, twenty-six miles out, but a detachment of Baltimore soldiers that very morning had passed up the railroad, destroying every bridge; smoke was still rising from their ruins. We were compelled to press on and on, until, in the evening, after a ride of forty-six miles, we reached York, Pennsylvania.

The North Fully Aroused.

Here, at last, we could breathe freely. But both railroads being monopolized by troops, we were compelled, wearily, to drive on to the village of Columbia, on the Susquehanna river. There we began to see that the North, as well as the South, was under martial rule. Armed sentinels peremptorily ordered us to halt.

On identifying the driver, and learning my business, they allowed us to proceed. At the bridge, the person in charge declined to open the gate:

"I guess you can't cross to-night, sir," said he.

I replied by "guessing" that we could; but he continued:

"Our orders are positive, to let no one pass who is not personally known to us."

He soon became convinced that I was not an emissary of the enemy; and the sentinels escorted us across the bridge, a mile and a quarter in length. We proceeded undisturbed to Lancaster, arriving there at two o'clock, after a carriage-ride of seventy miles. Thence to New York, communication was undisturbed.

The cold-blooded North was fully aroused. Rebel sympathizers found themselves utterly swept away by a Niagara of public indignation. In Pennsylvania, in New York, in New England, I heard only the sentiment that talking must be ended, and acting begun; that, cost what it might, in money and blood, all must unite to crush the gigantic Treason which was closing its fangs upon the throat of the Republic.

Uprising of the Whole People.

The people seemed much more radical than the President. In all public places, threats were heard that, if the Administration faltered, it must be overturned, and a dictatorship established. Against the Monumental City, feeling was peculiarly bitter. All said:

"If National troops can not march unmolested through Baltimore, that city has stood long enough! Not one stone shall be left upon another."

I had witnessed a good deal of earnestness and enthusiasm in the South, but nothing at all approaching this wonderful uprising of the whole people. All seemed imbued with the sentiment of those official papers issued before Napoleon was First Consul, beginning, "In the name of the French Republic, one and indivisible."

It was worth a lifetime to see it—to find down through all the débris of money-seeking, and all the strata of politics, this underlying, primary formation of loyalty—this unfaltering determination to vindicate the right of the majority, the only basis of republican government.

The storm-cloud had burst; the Irrepressible Conflict was upon us. Where would it end? What forecast or augury could tell? Revolutions ride rough-shod over all probabilities; and who has mastered the logic of civil war?

Here ended a personal experience, sometimes full of discomfort, but always full of interest. It enabled me afterward to look at Secession from the stand-point of those who inaugurated it; to comprehend Rebel acts and utterances, which had otherwise been to me a sealed book. It convinced me, too, of the thorough earnestness of the Revolutionists. My published prediction, that we should have a seven years' war unless the country used its utmost vigor and resources, seemed to excite a mild suspicion of lunacy among my personal acquaintances.

A Tribune Cor­res­pon­dent on Trial.

I was the last member of The Tribune staff to leave the South. By rare good fortune, all its correspondents escaped personal harm, while representatives of several other New York journals were waited upon by vigilance committees, driven out, and in some cases imprisoned. It was a favorite jest, that The Tribune was the only northern paper whose attachés were allowed in the South.

Its South Carolinian correspondence had a peculiar history. Immediately after the Presidential election, Mr. Charles D. Brigham went to Charleston as its representative. With the exception of two or three weeks, he remained there from November until February, writing almost daily letters. The Charlestonians were excited and indignant, and arrested in all five or six persons whom they unjustly suspected.

Finally, about the middle of February, Mr. Brigham was one day taken into custody, and brought before Governor Pickens and his cabinet counselors, among whom Ex-Governor McGrath was the principal inquisitor. At this time the Southern Confederacy existed only in embryo, and South Carolina claimed to be an independent republic. The correspondent, who had great coolness and self-control, and knew a good deal of human nature, maintained a serene exterior despite the awkwardness of his position. After a rigid catechisation, he was relieved to find that the tribunal did not surmise his real character, but suspected him of being a spy of the Government.

His trial took place at the executive head-quarters, opposite the Charleston Hotel, and lasted from nine o'clock in the morning until nine at night. During the afternoon, the city being disturbed by one of its daily reports that a Federal fleet had appeared off the bar, he was turned over to Mr. Alexander H. Brown, a leading criminal lawyer, famous for his skill in examining witnesses. Mr. Brown questioned, re-questioned, and cross-questioned the vagrant scribe, but was completely baffled by him. He finally said:

"Mr. Brigham, while I think you are all right, this is a peculiar emergency, and you must see that, under the circumstances, it will be necessary for you to leave the South at once."

He is Warned to Depart.

The "sweet sorrow" of parting gladdened his journalistic heart; but, at the bidding of prudence, he replied:

"I hope not, sir. It is very hard for one who, as you are bound to admit, after the most rigid scrutiny, has done nothing improper, who has deported himself as a gentleman should, who sympathizes with you as far as a stranger can, to be driven out in this way."

The attorney replied, with that quiet significance which such remarks possessed:

"I am sorry, sir, that it is not a question for argument."

The lucky journalist, while whispering he would ne'er consent, consented. Whereupon the lawyer, who seemed to have some qualms of conscience, invited him to join in a bottle of wine, and when they had become a little convivial, suddenly asked:

"By the way, do you know who is writing the letters from here to The Tribune?"

"Why, no," was the answer. "I haven't seen a copy of that paper for six months; but I supposed there was no such person, as I had read in your journals that the letters were purely fictitious."

"There is such a man," replied Brown; "and thus far, though we have arrested four or five persons, supposing that we had found him, he completely baffles us. Now, when you get home to New York, can't you ascertain who he is, and let us know?"

Tribune Rep­re­sen­tatives in Charleston.

Mr. Brigham, knowing exactly what tone to adopt with the "Chivalry," replied:

"Of course, sir, I would not act as a spy for you or anybody else. However, such things have a kind of publicity; are talked of in saloons and on street-corners. If I can learn in that way who The Tribune correspondent is, I shall deem it my duty to advise you."

The lawyer listened with credulity to this whisper of hope, though a well-known Rebel detective, named Shoubac—a swarthy, greasy, uncomfortable fellow, with a Jewish countenance—did not. He remarked to the late prisoner:

"You haven't fooled me, if you have Brown."

But Mr. Brigham was allowed to depart in peace for New York. The Tribune afterward had in Charleston five or six different correspondents, usually keeping two there at a time for emergencies. Often they did not know each other personally; and there was no communication between them. When one was arrested, there was always another in reserve to continue the correspondence. Mr. Brigham, who remained in the home editorial rooms, retouched the letters just enough to stamp them as the work of one hand, and the baffled authorities went hopelessly up and down to cast out the evil spirit which troubled their peace, and whose unsuspected name was legion.

---

[II.]
THE FIELD.

---

[CHAPTER IX.]

Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of War.

Julius Cæsar.

Sancho Panza passed away too early. To-day, he would extend his benediction on the man who invented sleep, to the person who introduced sleeping-cars. The name of that philanthropist, by whose luxurious aid we may enjoy unbroken sleep at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, should not be concealed from a grateful posterity.

A Sunday at Niagara Falls.

Thus I soliloquized one May evening, when, in pursuit of that "seat of war," as yet visible only to the prophetic eye, or in newspaper columns, I turned my face westward. It were more exact to say, "turned my heels." Inexorable conductors compel the drowsy passenger to ride feet foremost, on the hypothesis that he would rather break a leg than knock his brains out.

I was detained for a day at Suspension Bridge; but life has more afflictive dispensations, even for the impatient traveler, than a Sunday at Niagara Falls. Vanity of vanities indeed must existence be to him who could not find a real Sabbath at the great cataract, laying his tired head upon the calm breast of Nature, and feeling the pulsations of her deep, loving heart!

Eight years had intervened since my last visit. There was no second pang of the disappointment we feel in seeing for the first time any object of world-wide fame. In Nature, as in Art, the really great, however falling below the ideal at first glance, grows upon the beholder forever afterward.

Though the visiting season had not begun, the harpies were waiting for their victims. Step out of your hotel, or turn a corner, and one instantly pounced upon you. But, though numerous, they were quiet, and decorous manners, even in leeches, are above all praise.

Everybody at the Falls is eager to shield you from the extortion of everybody else. The driver, whom you pay two dollars per hour; the vender, who sells you Indian bead-work at a profit of one hundred per cent.; the guide, who fleeces you for leading to places you would rather find without him—each warns you against the other, with touching zeal for your welfare. And the precocious boy, who offers a bit of slate from under the Cataract for two shillings, cautions you to beware of them all.

View from the Su­spen­sion Bridge.

As you cross the suspension bridge, the driver points out the spot, more than two hundred feet above the water, where Blondin, of tight-rope renown, crossed upon a single strand, with a man upon his shoulders, cooked his aerial omelet, hung by the heels, and played other fantastic tricks before high heaven.

Palace of the Frost King.

From the bridge you view three sections of the Cataract. First, is the lower end of the American Fall, whose deep green is intermingled with jets and streaks of white. Its smooth surface conveys the impression of the segment of a slowly revolving wheel rather than of tumbling water. Beyond the dense foliage appears another section, parted in the middle by the stone tower on Goat Island. Its water is of snowy whiteness, and looks like an immense frozen fountain. Still farther is the great Horse-shoe Fall, its deep green surface veiled at the base in clouds of pure white mist.

Here, at the distance of two miles, the Falls soothe you with their quiet, surpassing beauty. But when you reach them on the Canada side, and go down, down, beneath Table Rock, under the sheet of water, you feel their sublimity. As you look out upon the sea of snowy foam below, or through the rainbow hues of the vast sweeping curtain above, the earth trembles with the unceasing thunder of the cataract.

In winter the effect is grandest. Then, from the bank in front of the Clifton House, you look down on upright rocks, crowned with pinnacles of ice, till they rise half way to the summit, or catch glimpses of the boundless column of water as it strikes the torrent below, faintly seen through the misty, alabaster spray rising forever from its troubled bed. Hundreds of white-winged sea-gulls graze the rapids above, and circle down to plunge in the waters below.

Attired in stiff, cold, water-proof clothing, which, culminating in a round oil-cloth cap, makes you look like an Esquimaux and feel like a mummy, you follow the guide far down dark, icy stairs and paths.

Look up ninety feet, and see the great torrent pour over the brink. Look down seventy feet from your icy little shelf, and behold it plunge into the dense mist of the boiling gulf. Through its half-transparent sheet, filtered rays of the bright sunshine struggle toward your eyes. You are in the palace of the Frost King. Ice—ice everywhere, from your slippery foothold to the huge icicles, fifty feet long and three feet thick, which overhang you like the sword of Damocles.

Admiration without comparison is vague and unsatisfactory. Less glorious, because less vast, than the matchless panorama seen from the summit of Pike's Peak, this picture is nearly as impressive, because spread right beside you, and at your very feet. Less minutely beautiful than the exquisite chambers of the Mammoth Cave, its great range and sweep make it more grand and imposing.

Along the Great Western Railway of Canada, the country closely resembles northern Ohio; but the people have uncompromising English faces. A well-dressed farmer and his wife rode upon our train all day in a second-class car, without seeming in the least ashamed of it—a moral courage not often exhibited in the United States.

At Detroit, an invalid, pale, wasted, unable to speak above a whisper, was lying on a bed hastily spread upon the floor of the railway station. Her husband, with their two little boys bending over her in tears, told us that they had been driven from New Orleans, and he was now taking his dying wife to their old home in Maine. There were few dry eyes among the lookers-on. A liberal sum of money was raised on the spot for the destitute family, whose broken pride, after some persuasion, accepted it.

Chicago Rising from the Earth.

The next morning we reached Chicago. In that breezy city upon the lake shore, property was literally rising. Many of the largest brick and stone blocks were being elevated five or six feet, by a very nice system of screws under their walls, while people were constantly pouring in and out of them, and the transaction of business was not impeded. The stupendous enterprise was undertaken that the streets might be properly graded and drained. This summoning a great metropolis to rise from its vasty deep of mud, is one of the modern miracles of mechanics, which make even geological revelations appear trivial and common-place.

Mysteries of Western Currency.

The world has many mysteries, but none more inscrutable than Western Currency. The notes of most Illinois and Wisconsin banks, based on southern State bonds, having depreciated steadily for several weeks, gold and New York exchange now commanded a premium of twenty per cent. The Michigan Central Railway Company was a good illustration of the effect of this upon Chicago interests. That corporation was paying six thousand dollars per week in premiums upon eastern exchange. Yet the hotels and mercantile houses were receiving the currency at par. One Illinois bank-note depreciated just seventy per cent., during the twelve hours it spent in my possession!

In Chicago I encountered an old friend just from Memphis. His association with leading Secessionists for some time protected him; but the popular frenzy was now so wild that they counselled him, as he valued his life, to stay not upon the order of his going, but go at once.

The Memphians were repudiating northern debts, and, with unexampled ferocity, driving out all men suspected of Abolitionism or Unionism. More than five thousand citizens had been forced or frightened away, and in many cases beggared. A secret Committee of Safety, made up of prominent citizens, was ruling with despotic sway.

Scores of suspected persons were brought before it daily, and, if they could not exculpate themselves, sentenced to banishment, with head half shaved, to whipping, or to death. Though, by the laws of all slave States, negroes were precluded from testifying against white men, this inquisition received their evidence. My friend dared not avow that he was coming North, but purchased a ticket for St. Louis, which was then deemed a Rebel stronghold.

A Horrible Spectacle in Arkansas.

As the steamer passed Osceola, Arkansas, he saw the body of a man hanging by the heels, in full view of the river. A citizen told him that it had been there for eight days; that the wretched victim, upon mere suspicion of tampering with slaves, was suspended, head downward, and suffered intensely before death came to his relief.

All on board the crowded steamboat pretended to be Secessionists. But when, at last, nearing Cairo, they saw the Stars and Stripes, first one, then another, began to huzza. The enthusiasm was contagious; and in a moment nearly all, many with heaving breasts and streaming eyes, gave vent to their long-suppressed feeling in one tumultuous cheer for the Flag of the Free. Of the one hundred and fifty passengers, nearly every man was a fleeing Unionist.

The all-pervading railroad and telegraph in the North began to show their utility in war. Cairo, the extreme southern point of Illinois, now garrisoned by Union troops, was threatened by the enemy. The superintendent of the Illinois Central Railway (including branches, seven hundred and four miles in length) assured me that, at ten hours' notice, he could start, from the various points along his line, four miles of cars, capable of transporting twenty-four thousand soldiers.

Pat­rio­tism of the Northwest.

The Rebels now began to perceive their mistake in counting upon the friendship of the great Northwest. Indeed, of all their wild dreams, this was wildest. They expected the very States which claimed Mr. Lincoln as from their own section, and voted for him by heavy majorities, to help break up the Union because he was elected! Though learning their delusion, they never comprehended its cause. After the war had continued nearly a year, The New Orleans Delta said:

"The people of the Northwest are our natural allies, and ought to be fighting on our side. It is the profoundest mystery of these times how the few Yankee peddlers and school-marms there have been able to convert them into our bitter enemies."

On the mere instinct of nationality—the bare question of an undivided republic—the West would perhaps fight longer, and sacrifice more, than any other section. Its people, if not more earnest, are much more demonstrative than their eastern brethren. Their long migration from the Atlantic States to the Mississippi, the Missouri, or the Platte, has quickened and enlarged their patriotism. It has made our territorial greatness to them no abstraction, but a reality.

No one else looks forward with such faith and fervor to that great future when man shall "fill up magnificently the magnificent designs of Nature;" when their Mississippi Valley shall be the heart of mightiest empire; when, from all these mingling nationalities, shall spring the ripe fruitage of free schools and free ballots, in a higher average Man than the World has yet seen.

Our train from Chicago to St. Louis was crowded with Union troops. Along the route booming guns saluted them; handkerchiefs fluttered from windows; flags streamed from farm-houses and in village streets; old men and boys at the plow huzzaed themselves hoarse.

Thus, at the rising of the curtain, the northwestern States, worthy offspring of the Ordinance of Eighty-seven, were sending out—

"A multitude, like which the populous North Poured never from her frozen loins."

Four blood-stained years have not dimmed their faith or abated their ardor. "Wherever Death spread his banquet, they furnished many guests." What histories have they not made for themselves! Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin—indeed, if we call their roll, which State has not covered herself with honor—which has not achieved her Lexington—her Saratoga—her Bennington—though the battle-field lie beyond her soil?[9]

Missouri Rebels bent on Rev­olu­tion.

In St. Louis I found at last a "seat of war." Recent days had been full of startling events. The Missouri Legislature, at Jefferson City, desired to pass a Secession ordinance, but had no pretext for doing so. The election of a State Convention, to consider this very subject, had just demonstrated, by overwhelming Union majorities, the loyalty of the masses. Claiborne Fox Jackson, the Governor, was a Secessionist, and was determined to plunge Missouri into revolution. This flagrant, open warfare against the popular majority, well illustrated how grossly the Rebels deceived themselves in supposing that their conduct was impelled by regard for State Rights, rather than by the inherent antagonism between free and slave labor.

Camp Jackson, commanded by Gen. D. M. Frost, was established at Lindell Grove, two miles west of St. Louis, "for the organization and instruction of the State Militia." It embraced some Union men, both officers and privates. Frost and his friends claimed that it was loyal; but the State flag, only, was flying from the camp, and its streets were named "Davis Avenue," "Beauregard Avenue," etc.

Nathaniel Lyon and Camp Jackson.

An envoy extraordinary, sent by Governor Jackson, had just returned from Louisiana with shot, shell, and mortars—all stolen from the United States Arsenal at Baton Rouge. The camp was really designed as the nucleus of a Secession force, to seize the Government property in St. Louis and drive out the Federal authorities. But the Union men were too prompt for the Rebels. Long before the capture of Fort Sumter, nightly drills were instituted among the loyal Germans of St. Louis; and within two weeks after the President's first call for troops, Missouri had ten thousand Union soldiers, armed, equipped, and in camp.

The first act of the Union authorities was to remove by night all the munitions from the United States Arsenal near St. Louis, to Alton, Illinois. When the Rebels learned it, they were intensely exasperated. The Union troops were commanded by a quiet, slender, stooping, red-haired, pale-faced officer, who walked about in brown linen coat, wearing no military insignia. He was by rank a captain; his name was Nathaniel Lyon.

On the tenth of May, Capt. Lyon, with three or four hundred regulars, and enough volunteers to swell his forces to five thousand, planted cannon upon the hills commanding Camp Jackson, and sent to Gen. Frost a note, reciting conclusive evidence of its treasonable intent, and concluding as follows:

"I do hereby demand of you an immediate surrender of your command, with no other conditions than that all persons surrendering shall be humanely and kindly treated. Believing myself prepared to enforce this demand, one-half hour's time will be allowed for your compliance."

This contrasted so sharply with the shuffling timidity of our civil and military authorities, usual at this period, that Frost was surprised and "shocked." His reply, of course, characterized the demand as "illegal" and "unconstitutional." In those days there were no such sticklers for the Constitution as the men taking up arms against it! Frost wrote that he surrendered only upon compulsion—his forces being too weak for resistance. The encampment was found to contain twenty cannon, more than twelve hundred muskets, many mortars, siege-howitzers, and shells, charged ready for use—which convinced even the most skeptical that it was something more than a school for instruction.

The garrison, eight hundred strong, were marched out under guard. There were many thousands of spectators. Hills, fields, and house-tops were black with people. In spite of orders to disperse, crowds followed, jeering the Union troops, throwing stones, brickbats, and other missiles, and finally discharging pistols. Several soldiers were hurt, and one captain shot down at the head of his company, when the troops fired on the crowd, killing twenty and wounding eleven. As in all such cases, several innocent persons suffered.

Intense excitement followed. A large public meeting convened that evening in front of the Planter's House—heard bitter speeches from Governor Jackson, Sterling Price, and others. The crowd afterward went to mob The Democrat office, but it contained too many resolute Unionists, armed with rifles and hand-grenades, and they wisely desisted.

Sterling Price Joins the Rebels.

Sterling Price was president of the State Convention—elected as an Unconditional Unionist. But, in this whirlwind, he went over to the enemy. An old feud existed between him and a leading St. Louis loyalist. Price had a small, detached command in the Mexican war. Afterward, he was Governor of Missouri, and candidate for the United States Senate. An absurd sketch, magnifying a trivial skirmish into a great battle, with Price looming up heroically in the foreground, was drawn and engraved by an unfortunate artist, then in the Penitentiary. It pleased Price's vanity; he circulated it largely, and pardoned out the suffering votary of art.

Severe Loss to the Unionists.

When the Legislature was about voting for United States Senator, Frank Blair, Jr., then a young member from St. Louis, obtained permission to say a few words about the candidates. He was a great vessel of wrath, and administered a terrible excoriation, pronouncing Price "worthy the genius of a convict artist, and fit subject for a Penitentiary print!" Price was defeated, and the rupture never healed.

At the outbreak of the Rebellion, Price was far more loyal than men afterward prominent Union leaders in Missouri. In those chaotic days, very slight influences decided the choice of many. By tender treatment, Price could doubtless have been retained; but neither party regarded him as possessing much ability.

His defection proved a calamity to the Loyalists. He was worth twenty thousand soldiers to the Rebels, and developed rare military talent. Like Robert E. Lee, he was an old man, of pure personal character, sincerity, kindness of heart, and unequaled popularity among the self-sacrificing ragamuffins whom he commanded. He held them together, and induced them to fight with a bravery and persistency which, Rebels though they were, was creditable to the American name. With a good cause, they would have challenged the world's acclamation.

At this time the President was treating the border slave States with marvelous tenderness and timidity. The Rev. M. D. Conway declared, wittily, that Mr. Lincoln's daily and nightly invocation ran:

"O Lord, I desire to have Thee on my side, but I must have Kentucky!"

Captain Lyon was confident that if he asked permission to seize Camp Jackson, it would be refused. So he captured the camp, and then telegraphed to Washington—not what he proposed to do, but what he had done. At first his act was disapproved. But the loyal country applauded to the echo, and Lyon's name was everywhere honored. Hence the censure was withheld, and he was made a Brigadier-General!

St. Louis in a Convulsion.

Governor Jackson burned the bridges on the Pacific Railroad; the Missouri Legislature passed an indirect ordinance of Secession, and adjourned in a panic, caused by reports that Lyon was coming; a Union regiment was attacked in St. Louis, and again fired into the mob, with deadly results. The city was convulsed with terror. Every available vehicle, including heavy ox wagons, was brought into requisition; every outgoing railway train was crowded with passengers; every avenue was thronged with fugitives; every steamer at the levee was laden with families, who, with no definite idea of where they were going, had hastily packed a few articles of clothing, to flee from the general and bloody conflict supposed to be impending between the Americans and the Dutch, as Secessionists artfully termed the two parties. Thus there became a "Seat of War."

Heart-rending as were the stories of most southern refugees, some were altogether ludicrous. In St. Louis, I encountered an old acquaintance who related to me his recent experiences in Nashville. Grandiloquent enough they sounded; for his private conversation always ran into stump speeches.

A Nashville Experience.

"One day," said he, "I was waited on by a party of leading Nashville citizens, who remarked: 'Captain May, we know very well that you are with us in sentiment; but, as you come from the North, others, less intimate with you, desire some special assurance.' I replied: 'Gentlemen, by education, by instinct, and by association, I am a Southern man. But, gentlemen, when you fire upon that small bit of bunting known as the American flag, you can count me, by Heaven, as your persistent and uncompromising foe!' The committee intimated to me that the next train for the North started in one hour! You may stake your existence, sir, that the subscriber came away on that train. Confound a country, anyhow, where a man must wear a Secession cockade upon each coat-tail to keep himself from being kicked as an Abolitionist!"

Inexorable war knows no ties of friendship, of family, or of love. Its bitterest features were seen on the border, where brother was arrayed against brother, and husband against wife. At a little Missouri village, the Rebels raised their flag, but it was promptly torn down by the loyal wife of one of the leaders. I met a lady who had two brothers in the Union army, and two among Price's Rebels, who were likely soon to meet on the battle-field.

In St. Louis, a Rebel damsel, just about to be married, separated from her Union lover, declaring that no man who favored the Abolitionists and the "Dutch hirelings" could be her husband. He retorted that he had no use for a wife who sympathized with treason; and so the match was broken off.

Bitterness of Old Neighbors.

I knew a Union soldier who found at Camp Jackson, among the prisoners, his own brother, wounded by two Minié rifle balls. He said: "I am sorry my brother was shot; but he should not have joined the traitors!" Of course, the bitterness between relatives and old neighbors, now foes, was infinitely greater than between northerners and southerners. The same was true everywhere. How intensely the Virginia and Tennessee Rebels hated their fellow-citizens who adhered to the Union cause! Ohio and Massachusetts Loyalists denounced northern "Copperheads" with a malignity which they never felt toward South Carolinians and Mississippians.

St. Louis, May 20, 1861.

When South Carolina seceded, the slave property of Missouri was worth forty-five millions of dollars; hence she is under bonds to just that amount to keep the peace. With thirteen hundred miles of frontier, she is "a slave peninsula in an ocean of free soil." Free Kansas, which has many old scores to clear up, guards her on the west. Free Iowa, embittered by hundreds of Union refugees, watches her on the north. Free Illinois, the young giantess of the prairie, takes care of her on the east. This loyal metropolis, with ten Union regiments already under arms, is for her a sort of front-door police. Missouri, in the significant phrase of the frontier, is corraled.[10]

Here, at least, as The Richmond Whig, just before going over to the Rebels, so aptly said: "Secession is Abolitionism in its worst and most dangerous form."

Rebels glare upon Union men like chained wild beasts. Citizens, walking by night, remember the late assassinations, and, like Americans in Mexican towns, cast suspicious glances behind. Secessionists utter fierce threats; but since their recent severe admonition that Unionists, too, can use fire-arms, and that it is not discreet to attack United States soldiers, they do not execute them.

Captain Lyon, who commands, is an exceedingly prompt and efficient officer, attends strictly to his business, exhibits no hunger for newspaper fame, and seems to act with an eye single to the honor of the Government he has served so long and so faithfully.

Good Soldiers for Scaling Walls.

Among our regiments is the Missouri First, Colonel Frank P. Blair. Three companies are made up of German Turners—the most accomplished of gymnasts. They are sinewy, muscular fellows, with deep chests and well-knit frames. Every man is an athlete. To-day a party, by way of exercise, suddenly formed a human pyramid, and commenced running up, like squirrels, over each other's shoulders, to the high veranda upon the second story of their building. In climbing a wall, they would not require scaling-ladders. There are also two companies from the Far West—old trappers and hunters, who have smelt gunpowder in Indian warfare.

Colonel Blair's dry, epigrammatic humor bewilders some of his visitors. I was sitting in his head-quarters when a St. Louis Secessionist entered. Like nearly all of them, he now pretends to be a Union man, but is very tender on the subject of State Rights, and wonderfully solicitous about the Constitution. He remarked:

"I am a Union man, but I believe in State Rights. I believe a State may dissolve its connection with the Government if it wants to."

"O yes," replied Blair, pulling away at his ugly mustache, "yes, you can go out if you want to. Certainly you can secede. But, my friend, you can't take with you one foot of American soil!"

Missouri and the Slave­holders.

A citizen of Lexington introduced himself, saying:

"I am a loyal man, ready to fight for the Union; but I am pro-slavery—I own niggers."

"Well, sir," replied Blair, with the faintest suggestion of a smile on his plain, grim face, "you have a right to. We don't like negroes very much ourselves. If you do, that's a matter of taste. It is one of your privileges. But if you gentlemen who own negroes attempt to take the State of Missouri out of the Union, in about six months you will be the most ---- niggerless set of individuals that you ever heard of!"

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[CHAPTER X.]

Only we want a little personal strength,
And pause until these Rebels, now afoot,
Come underneath the yoke of Government.

King Henry IV.

Cairo, as the key to the lower Mississippi valley, is the most important strategic point in the West. Immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, it was occupied by our troops.

As a place of residence it was never inviting. To-day its offenses smell to heaven as rankly as when Dickens evoked it, from horrible obscurity, as the "Eden" of Martin Chuzzlewit. The low, marshy, boot-shaped site is protected from the overflow of the Mississippi and Ohio by levees. Its jet-black soil generates every species of insect and reptile known to science or imagination. Its atmosphere is never sweet or pure.

General McClellan at Cairo.

On the 13th of June, Major-General George B. McClellan, commander of all the forces west of the Alleghanies, reached Cairo on a visit of inspection. His late victories in Western Virginia had established his reputation for the time, as an officer of great capacity and promise, notwithstanding the high heroics of his ambitious proclamations. This was before Bull Run, and before the New York journals, by absurdly pronouncing him "the Young Napoleon," raised public expectation to an embarrassing and unreasonable hight.

In those days, every eye was looking for the Coming Man, every ear listening for his approaching footsteps, which were to make the earth tremble. Men judged, by old standards, that the Hour must have its Hero. They had not learned that, in a country like ours, whatever is accomplished must be the work of the loyal millions, not of any one, or two, or twenty generals and statesmen.

A Little Speech-Making.

McClellan was enthusiastically received, and, to the strains of the "Star Spangled Banner," escorted to head-quarters. There, General Prentiss, who had so decided a penchant for speech-making, that cynics declared he always kept a particular stump in front of his office for a rostrum, welcomed him with some rhetorical remarks:

* * * * "My command are all anxious to taste those dangers which war ushers in—not that they court danger, but that they love their country. We have toiled in the mud, we have drilled in the burning sun. Many of us are ragged—all of us are poor. But we look anxiously for the order to move, trusting that we may be allowed to lead the division."

The soldiers applauded enthusiastically—for in those days the anxiety to be in the earliest battles was intense. The impression was almost universal throughout the North that the war was to be very brief. Officers and men in the army feared they would have no opportunity to participate in any fighting!

McClellan responded to Prentiss and his officers in the same strain:

* * * "We shall meet again upon the tented field; and Illinois, which sent forth a Hardin and a Bissell, will, I doubt not, give a good account of herself to her sister States. Her fame is world-wide: in your hands, gentlemen, I am sure it will not suffer. The advance is due to you."

Then there was more applause, and afterward a review of the brigade.

Penalty of Writing for the Tribune.

General McClellan is stoutly built, short, with light hair, blue eyes, full, fresh, almost boyish face, and lip tufted with a brown mustache. His urbane manner truly indicates the peculiar amiability of character and yielding disposition which have hurt him more than all other causes. An officer once assured me that McClellan had said to him: "My friends have injured me a thousand times more than my enemies." It was certainly true.

Now, seeing his features the first time, I scanned them anxiously for lineaments of greatness. I saw a pleasant, mild, moony face, with one cheek distended by tobacco; but nothing which appeared strong or striking. Tinctured largely with the general belief in his military genius, I imputed the failure only to my own incapacity for reading "Nature's infinite book of secrecy."

One evening, at Cairo, a man, whose worn face, shaggy beard, matted locks, and tattered clothing marked him as one of the constantly arriving refugees, sought me and asked:

"Can you tell me the name of The Tribune correspondent who passed through Memphis last February?"

He was informed that that pleasure had been mine.

A Loyal Girl's Assistance.

"Then," said he, "I have been lying in jail at Memphis about fifty days chiefly on your account! The three or four letters which you wrote from there were peculiarly bitter. Of course, I was not aware of your presence, and I sent one to The Tribune, which was also very emphatic. The Secessionists suspected me not only of the one which I did write, but also of yours. They pounced on me and put me in jail. After the disbanding of the Committee of Safety I was brought before the City Recorder, who assured me from the bench of his profound regrets that he could find no law for hanging me! I would have been there until this time, but for the assistance of a young lady, through whom I succeeded in bribing an officer of the jail, and making my escape. I was hidden in Memphis for several days, then left the city in disguise, and have worked my way, chiefly on foot, aided by negroes and Union families, through the woods of Tennessee and the swamps of Missouri up to God's country."

The refugee seemed to be not only in good health, but also in excellent spirits, and I replied:

"I am very sorry for your misfortunes; but if the Rebels must have one of us, I am very glad that it was not I."

Nearly four years later, this gentleman turned the tables on me very handsomely. After my twenty months imprisonment in Rebel hands, among a crowd of visitors he walked into my room at Cincinnati one morning, and greeted me warmly.

"You do not remember me, do you?" he asked.

"I recognize your face, but cannot recall your name."

"Well, my name is Collins. Once, when I escaped from the South, you congratulated me at Cairo. Now, I congratulate you, and I can do it with all my heart, in exactly the same words. I am very sorry for your misfortunes; but if the Rebels must have one of us, I am very glad that it was not I!"

After our troops captured Memphis, I encountered the young lady who aided Mr. Collins in escaping. She was enthusiastically loyal, but her feeling had been repressed for nearly two years, when the arrival of our forces loosened her tongue. She began to utter her long-stifled Union views, and it is my deliberate opinion that she has not stopped yet. She is now the wife of an officer in the United States service.

The Fas­cin­ations of Cairo.

Cairo, May 29.

A drizzly, muddy, melancholy day. Never otherwise than forlorn, Cairo is pre-eminently lugubrious during a mild rain. In dry weather, even when glowing like a furnace, you may find amusement in the contemplation of the high-water mark upon trees and houses, the stilted-plank sidewalks, the half-submerged swamps, and other diluvian features of this nondescript, saucer-like, terraqueous town. You may speculate upon the exact amount of fever and ague generated to the acre, or inquire whether the whisky saloons, which spring up like mushrooms, are indigenous or exotic.

In downright wet weather you may calculate how soon the streets will be navigable, and the effect upon the amphibious natives. It is difficult to realize that anybody was ever born here, or looks upon Cairo as home. Washington Irving records that the old Dutch housewives of New York scrubbed their floors until many "grew to have webbed fingers, like unto a duck." I suspect the Cairo babies must have fins.

Long-suffering, much-abused Cairo! What wounds hast thou not received from the Parthian arrows of tourists! "The season here," wrote poor John Phenix, bitterest of all, "is usually opened with great éclat by small-pox, continued spiritedly by cholera, and closed up brilliantly with yellow fever. Sweet spot!"

Theorists long predicted that the great metropolis of the Mississippi valley—the granary of the world—must ultimately rise here. Many proved their faith by pecuniary investments, which are likely to be permanent.

Possessed by a similar delusion, Illinois, for years, strove to legislate Alton into a vast commercial mart. But, in spite of their unequaled geographical positions, Cairo and Alton still languish in obscurity, while St. Louis and Cincinnati, twin queens of this imperial valley, succeed to their grand heritage.

Nature settles these matters by laws which, though hidden, are inexorable. Even that mysterious, semi-civilized race, which swarmed in this valley centuries before the American Indian, established their great centers of population where ours are to-day.

The Death of Douglas.

June 4.

Intelligence of the death of Senator Douglas, received last evening, excites profound and universal regret. Though totally unfamiliar with books, Mr. Douglas thoroughly knew the masses of the Northwest, down to their minutest sympathies and prejudices. Beyond any of his cotemporaries, he was a man of the people, and the people loved him. Never before could he have died so opportunely for his posthumous fame. Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it. His last speech, in Chicago, was a fervid, stirring appeal for the Union and the Government, and for crushing out treason with an iron hand. His emphatic loyalty exerted great influence in Illinois. His life-long opponents forget the asperities of the past, in the halo of patriotism around his setting sun, and unite, with those who always idolized him, in common tribute to his memory.

We have very direct intelligence from Tennessee. The western districts are all Secession. Middle Tennessee is about equally divided. East Tennessee, a mountain region, containing few slaves, is inhabited by a hardy, primitive, industrious race. They are thoroughly, enthusiastically loyal.[11]

A Clear-Headed Negro.

The felicitous decision of Major-General Butler, that slaves of the enemy are "contraband of war," disturbs the Rebels not a little, even in the West. A friend just from Louisiana, relates an amusing conversation between a planter and an old, trusted slave.

"Sam," said his master, "I must furnish some niggers to go down and work on the fortifications at the Balize. Which of the boys had I better send?"

"Well, massa," replied the old servant, shaking his head oracularly, "I doesn't know about dat. War's comin' on, and dey might be killed. Ought to get Irishmen to do dat work, anyhow. I reckon you'd better not send any ob de boys—tell you what, massa, nigger property's mighty onsartin dese times!"

Scores of fugitives from the South arrive here daily, with the old stories of insult, indignity, and outrage. Several have come in with their heads shaved. To you, my reader, who have never seen a case of the kind, it may seem a trivial matter for a person merely to have one side of his head laid bare, but it is a peculiarly repulsive spectacle. The first time you look upon it, or on those worse cases, where free-born men of Saxon blood bear fresh marks of the lash, you will involuntarily clinch your teeth, and thank God that the system which bears such infernal fruits is rushing upon its own destruction.

June 8.

The heated term is upon us. We are amid upper, nether, and surrounding fires. At eight, this morning, the mercury indicated eighty degrees in the shade. How high it has gone since, I dare not conjecture; but a friend insists that the sun will roast eggs to-day upon any doorstep in town. I am a little incredulous as to that, though a pair of smarting, half-blistered hands—the result of a ten minutes' walk in its devouring breath—protest against absolute unbelief. Officers who served in the War with Mexico declare they never found the heat so oppressive in that climate as it is here. The raw troops on duty, who are sweltering in woolen shirts and cloth caps, bear it wonderfully well.

A number of Chicago ladies are already here, acting as nurses in the hospital. The dull eyes of the invalids brighten at their approach, and voices grow husky in attempting to express their gratitude. According to Carlyle, "in a revolution we are all savages still; civilization has only sharpened our claws;" but this tender care for the soldier is the one redeeming feature of modern war.

A Review of the Troops.

June 12.

A review of all the troops. The double ranks of well-knit men, with shining muskets and bayonets, stretch off in perspective for more than a mile. After preliminary evolutions, at the word of command, the lines suddenly break and wheel into column by companies, and marching commences. You see two long parallel columns of men moving in opposite directions, with an open space between. Their legs, in motion, look for all the world like the shuttles in some great Lowell factory.

The artillerists fire each of their six-pounders three times a minute. They discharge one, dismount it, lay it upon the ground, remove the wheels from the carriage, drop flat upon their faces, then spring up, remount the gun, ready for reloading or removing, all in forty-five seconds.

Standing three hundred yards from the cannon, the column of smoke, white at first, but rapidly changing to blue, shoots out twenty-five or thirty feet from the muzzle before you hear the report.

The flying flags, playing bands, galloping officers, long lines of our boys in blue, and sharp metallic reports, impress you with something of the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.

But Captain Jenny, a young engineer officer, quietly remarks, that he once witnessed a review of seventy thousand French troops in the Champ de Mars, and in 1859 saw the army of seventy-five thousand men enter Paris, returning from the Italian wars. Colonel Wagner, an old Hungarian officer, who has participated in twenty-three engagements, assures you that he has looked upon a parade of one hundred and forty thousand men, whereupon our little force of five thousand appears insignificant. Nevertheless, it exceeds Jackson's recruits at New Orleans, and is larger than the effective force of Scott during the Mexican war.

A "Runnin' Nigger!"

Our first contraband arrived here in a skiff last night, bearing unmistakable evidences of long travel. He says he came from Mississippi, and the cotton-seed in his woolly head corroborates the statement. I first saw him beside the guard-house, surrounded by a party of soldiers. He answered my salutation with "Good evenin', Mass'r," removing his old wool hat from his grizzly head. He smiled all over his face, and bowed all through his body, as he depressed his head, slightly lifting his left foot, with the gesture which only the unmistakable darkey can give.

"Well, uncle, have you joined the army?"

"Yes, mass'r" (with another African salaam).

"Are you going to fight?"

"No, mass'r, I'se not a fightin' nigger, I'se a runnin' nigger!"

"Are you not afraid of starving, up here among the Abolitionists?"

Capturing a Rebel Flag.

"Reckon not, mass'r—not much."

And Sambo gave a concluding bow, indescribable drollery shining through his sooty face, bisected by two rows of glittering ivory.

June 13.

A reconnoitering party went down the Mississippi yesterday upon a Government steamer, under command of Colonel Richard J. Oglesby, colloquially known among the Illinois sovereigns of the prairie as "Dick Oglesby."

Twenty miles below Cairo, we slowly passed the town of Columbus, Ky., on the highest bluffs of the Mississippi. The village is a straggling collection of brick blocks, frame houses, and whisky saloons. It contains no Rebel forces, though seven thousand are at Union City, Tenn., twenty-five miles distant.

On a tall staff, a few yards from the river, a great Secession flag, with its eight stars and three stripes, was triumphantly flying.

Turning back, after steaming two miles below, the boat was stopped at the landing; the captain went on shore, cut down the flag, and brought it on board, amid cheers from our troops. The Columbians looked on in grim silence—all save four Union ladies, who,

"Faithful among the faithless only they,"

waved handkerchiefs joyfully from a neighboring bluff.

Each star of the flag bore the name in pencil of the young lady who sewed it on. The Maggies, and Julias, and Sues, and Kates, and Sallies, who thus left their autographs upon their handiwork, did not anticipate that it would so soon be scrutinized by Yankee soldiers. And, doubtless, "Julia K----," the damsel whose star I pilfered, scarcely aspired to the honor of furnishing a relic for The Tribune cabinet.

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[CHAPTER XI.]

And thus the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges.

Twelfth Night, or What You Will.

Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
To plague the inventors.

Macbeth.

The Retributions of Time.

On the 15th of June I returned from Cairo to St. Louis. Lyon had gone up the Missouri River with an expedition, which was all fitted out and started in a few hours. Lyon was very much in earnest, and he knew the supreme value of time in the outset of a war.

How just are the retributions of history! Virginia originated State Rights run-mad, which culminated in Secession. Behold her ground between the upper and nether mill-stones! Missouri lighted the fires of civil war in Kansas; now they blazed with tenfold fury upon her own soil. She sent forth hordes to mob printing-presses, overawe the ballot-box, substitute the bowie-knife and revolver for the civil law. Now, her own area gleamed with bayonets; the Rebel newspaper was suppressed by the file of soldiers, civil process supplanted by the unpitying military arm.

Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, in 1855, led a raid into Kansas, which overthrew the civil authorities, and drove citizens from the polls. Now, the poisoned chalice was commended to his own lips. A hunted fugitive from his home and his chair of office, he was deserted by friends, ruined in fortune, and the halter waited for his neck. Thomas C. Reynolds, late Lieutenant-Governor, by advocating the right of Secession, did much to poison the public mind of the South. He, too, found his reward in disgrace and outlawry; unable to come within the borders of the State which so lately delighted to do him honor!

A Railroad Reminiscence.

I followed Lyon's Expedition by the Pacific railway. The president of the road told me a droll story, which illustrates the folly that governed the location of the railway system of Missouri. The Southwest Branch is about a hundred miles long, through a very thinly settled region. For the first week after the cars commenced running over it, they carried only about six passengers, and no freight except a live bear and a jar of honey. The honey was carried free, and the freight on Bruin was fifty cents. Shut up in the single freight car, during the trip, he ate all the honey! The company were compelled to pay two dollars for the loss of that saccharine esculent. Thus their first week's profits on freight amounted to precisely one dollar and fifty cents on the wrong side of the ledger.

The Rebels had now evacuated Jefferson City, and our own troops, commanded by Colonel Bœrnstein, a German editor, author, and theatrical manager, of St. Louis, were in peaceable possession. The soldiers were cooking upon the grass in the rear of the Capitol, standing in the shade of its portico and rotunda, lying on beds of hay in its passages, and upon carpets in the legislative halls. They reposed in all its rooms, from the subterranean vaults to the little circular chamber in the dome.

Untainted with "B. Republicanism."

Governor and Legislature were fled. With Colonel Bœrnstein, I went through the executive mansion, which had been deserted in hot haste. Sofas were overturned, carpets torn up and littered with letters and public documents. Tables, chairs, damask curtains, cigar-boxes, champagne-bottles, ink-stands, books, private letters, and family knick-knacks, were scattered everywhere in chaotic confusion. Some of the Governor's correspondence was amusing. The first letter I noticed was a model of brevity. Here it is—its virgin paper unsullied by the faintest touch of "B. Republicanism."

Jefferson City, fed. 21nd 1861.

"to his Honour Gov. C. F. Jackson.—Please Accept My Compliments. With a little good Old Bourbon Whisky Cocktail. Made up Expressly in St Louis. fear it not. it is good. And besides it is not even tainted with B. Republicanism. Respectfully yours,

"P. Naughton."

There was a ludicrous disparity between the evidences of sudden flight on all sides and the pompous language of the Governor's latest State paper, which lay upon the piano in the drawing-room:

"Now, therefore, I, C. F. Jackson, Governor of the State of Missouri, do issue this my proclamation, calling the militia of the State, to the number of FIFTY THOUSAND, into the service of the State. * * * Rise, then, and drive out ignominiously the invaders!"

Beds were unmade, dishes unwashed, silver forks and spoons, belonging to the State, scattered here and there. The only things that appeared undisturbed were the Star Spangled Banner and the national escutcheon, both frescoed upon the plaster of the gubernatorial bedroom.

As we walked through the deserted rooms, a hollow echo answered to the tramp of the colonel and his lieutenant, and to the dull clank of their scabbards against the furniture.

General Lyon opened the war in the West by the battle of Booneville. It lasted only a few minutes, and the undisciplined and half-armed Rebel troops, after a faint show of resistance, retreated toward the South. Lyon's command lost only eleven men.

A Belligerent Chaplain.

During the engagement, the Rev. William A. Pile, Chaplain of the First Missouri Infantry, with a detail of four men, was looking after the wounded, when, coming suddenly upon a party of twenty-four Rebels, he ordered them to surrender. Strangely enough, they laid down their arms, and were all brought, prisoners, to General Lyon's head-quarters by their five captors, headed by the reverend representative of the Church militant and the Church triumphant.

Messrs. Thomas W. Knox and Lucien J. Barnes, army correspondents, zealous to see the first battle, narrowly escaped with their lives. Appearing upon a hill, surveying the conflict through their field-glasses, they were mistaken by General Lyon for scouts of the enemy. He ordered his sharpshooters to pick them off, when one of his aids recognized them.

Booneville, Mo., June 21.

The First Iowa Infantry has arrived here. On the way, several slaves, who came to its camp for refuge, were sent back to their masters.

Humors of the Iowa Solders.

The regiment contains many educated men, and that large percentage of physicians, lawyers, and editors, found in every far-western community. On the way here, they indulged in a number of freaks which startled the natives. At Macon, Mo., they took possession of The Register, a hot Secession sheet, and, having no less than forty printers in their ranks, promptly issued a spicy loyal journal, called Our Whole Union. The valedictory, which the Iowa boys addressed to Mr. Johnson, the fugitive editor, in his own paper, is worth perusing.

"VALEDICTORY.

"Johnson, wherever you are—whether lurking in recesses of the dim woods, or fleeing a fugitive on open plain, under the broad canopy of Heaven—good-by! We never saw your countenance—never expect to—never want to—but, for all that, we won't be proud; so, Johnson, good-by, and take care of yourself!

"We're going to leave you, Johnson, without so much as looking into your honest eyes, or clasping your manly hand—even without giving utterance, to your face, of 'God bless you!' We're right sorry, we are, that you didn't stay to attend to your domestic and other affairs, and not skulk away and lose yourself, never to return. Oh, Johnson! why did you—how could you do this?

"Johnson, we leave you to-night. We're going where bullets are thick and mosquitos thicker. We may never return. If we do not, old boy, remember us. We sat at your table; we stole from your 'Dictionary of Latin Quotations;' we wrote Union articles with your pen, your ink, on your paper. We printed them on your press. Our boys set 'em up with your types, used your galleys, your 'shooting-sticks,' your 'chases,' your 'quads,' your 'spaces,' your 'rules,' your every thing. We even drank some poor whisky out of your bottle.

"And now, Johnson, after doing all this for you, you won't forget us, will you? Keep us in mind. Remember us in your evening prayers, and your morning prayers, too, when you say them, if you do say them. If you put up a petition at mid-day, don't forget us then; or if you awake in the solemn stillness of the night, to implore a benison upon the absent, remember us then!

"Once more, Johnson—our heart pains us to say it—that sorrowful word!—but once more and forever, Johnson, Good-By! If you come our way, Call! Johnson, adieu!"

One of the privates in the regular army has just been punished with fifty lashes on the bare back, for taking from a private house a lady's furs and a silk dress.

This morning I passed a group of the Iowa privates, resting beside the road, along which they were bringing buckets of water to their camp. They were debating the question whether a heavy national debt tends to weaken or to strengthen a Government! These are the men whom the southern Press calls "ignorant mercenaries."

St. Louis, July 12.

The Missouri State Journal, which made no disguise of its sympathy with the Rebels, is at last suppressed by the military authorities. It was done to-day, by order of General Lyon, who is pursuing the Rebels near Springfield, in the southwest corner of the State. Secessionists denounce it as a military despotism, but the loyal citizens are gratified.

Camp Tales of the Marvelous.

Are you fond of the marvelous? If so, here is a camp story about Colonel Sigel's late engagement at Carthage:

A private in one of his companies (so runs the tale), while loading and firing, was lying flat upon his face to avoid the balls of the Rebels, when a shot from one of their six-pounders plunged into the ground right beside him, plowed through under him, about six inches below the surface, came out on the other side, and pursued its winding way. It did not hurt a hair of his head, but, in something less than a twinkling of an eye, whirled him over upon his back!

If you shake your head, save your incredulity for this: A captain assures me that in the same battle he saw one of Sigel's artillerists struck by a shot which cut off both legs; but that he promptly raised himself half up, rammed the charge home in his gun, withdrew the ramrod, and then fell back, dead! This is, at least, melo-dramatic, and only paralleled by the ballad-hero

——"Of doleful dumps,
Who, when his legs were both cut off,
Still fought upon his stumps."

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[CHAPTER XII.]

Who can be * * * * *
Loyal and neutral in a moment? No man.

Macbeth.

Why, this it is when men are ruled by women.

Richard III.

It was a relief to escape the excitement and bitterness of Missouri, and spend a few quiet days in the free States. Despite Rebel predictions, grass did not grow in the streets of Chicago. In sooth, it wore neither an Arcadian nor a funereal aspect. Palatial buildings were everywhere rising; sixty railway trains arrived and departed daily; hotels were crowded with guests; and the voice of the artisan was heard in the land. Michigan Avenue, the finest drive in America, skirting the lake shore for a mile and a half, was crowded every evening with swift vehicles, and its sidewalks thronged with leisurely pedestrians. It afforded scope to one of the two leading characteristics of Chicago residents, which are, holding the ribbons and leaving out the latch-string.

Corn not Cotton is King.

I did not hear a single cry of "Bread or Blood!" As the city had over two million bushels of corn in store, and had received eighteen million bushels of grain during the previous six months, starvation was hardly imminent. War or peace, currency or no currency, breadstuffs will find a market. Corn, not cotton, is king; the great Northwest, instead of Dixie Land, wields the sceptre of imperial power.

The elasticity of the new States is wonderful. Wisconsin and Illinois had lost about ten millions of dollars through the depreciation of their currency within a few months. It caused embarrassment and stringency, but no wreck or ruin.

Reminiscences of the financial chaos were entertaining. New York exchange once reached thirty per cent. The Illinois Central Railroad Company paid twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars premium on a single draft. For a few weeks before the crash, everybody was afraid of the currency, and yet everybody received it. People were seized with a sudden desire to pay up. The course of nature was reversed; debtors absolutely pursued their creditors, and creditors dodged them as swindlers dodge the sheriff. Parsimonious husbands supplied their wives bounteously with means to do family shopping for months ahead. There was a "run" upon those feminine paradises, the dry-goods stores, while the merchants were by no means anxious to sell.

Suddenly prices went up, as if by magic. Then came a grand crisis. Currency dropped fifty per cent., and one morning the city woke up to find itself poorer by just half than it was the night before. The banks, with their usual feline sagacity, alighted upon their feet, while depositors had to stand the loss.

Curious Reminiscences of Chicago.

Persons who settled in Chicago when it was only a military post, many hundred miles in the Indian country, relate stories of the days when they sometimes spent three months on schooners coming from Buffalo. Later settlers, too, offer curious reminiscences. In 1855, a merchant purchased a tract of unimproved land near the lake, outside the city limits, for twelve hundred dollars, one-fourth in cash. Before his next payment, a railroad traversed one sandy worthless corner of it, and the company paid him damages to the amount of eleven hundred dollars. Before the end of the third year, when his last installment of three hundred dollars became due, he sold the land to a company of speculators for twenty-one thousand five hundred dollars. It is now assessed at something over one hundred thousand.

Visit to the Grave of Douglas.

On a July day, so cold that fires were comforting within doors, and overcoats and buffalo robes requisite without, I visited the grave of Senator Douglas, unmarked as yet by monumental stone. He rests near his old home, and a few yards from the lake, which was sobbing and moaning in stormy passion as the great, white-fringed waves chased each other upon the sandy shore.

With the arrival of each railway train from the east, long files of immigrants from Norway and northern Germany come pouring up Dearborn street, gazing curiously and hopefully at their new Land of Promise. One of the many railroad lines had brought twenty-five hundred within two weeks. There were gray-haired men and young children. All were attired neatly, especially the women, with snow-white kerchiefs about their heads.

They were bound, mainly, for Wisconsin and Minnesota. Men and women are the best wealth of a new country. Though nearly all poor, these brought, with the fair hair and blue eyes of their fatherland, honesty, frugality, and industry, as their contribution to that great crucible which, after all its strange elements are fused, shall pour forth the pure and shining metal of American Character.

Social Habits of the Germans.

Missouri, at the commencement of the war, had two hundred thousand Germans in a population of little more than one million. Almost to a man, they were loyal, and among the first who sprang to arms.

In the South, they were always regarded with suspicion. The Rebels succeeded in dragooning but very few of them into their ranks. Honor to the loyal Germans!

According to some unknown philosopher, "an Englishman or a Yankee is capital; an Irishman is labor; but a German is capital and labor both." Cincinnati, at the outbreak of the Rebellion, contained about seventy thousand German citizens, who for many years had contributed largely to her growth and prosperity.

A visit to their distinctive locality, called "Over the Rhine," with its German daily papers, German signs, and German conversation, is a peep at Faderland.

Cincinnati is nearer than Hamburg, the Miami canal more readily crossed than the Atlantic, and that "sweet German accent," with which General Scott was once enraptured, is no less musical in the Queen City than in the land of Schiller and Göethe. Why, then, should one go to Germany, unless, indeed, like Bayard Taylor, he goes for a wife? The multitudinous maidens—light-eyed and blonde-haired—in these German streets, would seem to remove even that excuse.

When Young America becomes jovial, he takes four or five boon companions to a drinking saloon, pours down half a glass of raw brandy, and lights a cigar. Continuing this programme through the day, he ends, perhaps, by being carried home on a shutter or conducted to the watch-house.

But the German, at the close of the summer day, strolls with his wife and two or three of his twelve children (the orthodox number in well-regulated Teutonic families) to one of the great airy halls or gardens abounding in his portion of the city. Calling for Rhein wine, Catawba, or "zwei glass lager bier und zwei pretzel," they sit an hour or two, chatting with friends, and then return to their homes like rational beings after rational enjoyment. The halls contain hundreds of people, who gesticulate more and talk louder during their mildest social intercourse than the same number of Americans would in an affray causing the murder of half the company; but the presence of women and children guarantees decorous language and deportment.

The laws of migration are curious. One is, that people ordinarily go due west. The Massachusetts man goes to northern Ohio, Wisconsin, or Minnesota; the Ohioan to Kansas; the Tennesseean to southern Missouri; the Mississippian to Texas. Great excitements, like those of Kansas and California, draw men off their parallel of latitude; but this is the general law. Another is, that the Irish remain near the sea-coast, while the Germans seek the interior. They constitute four-fifths of the foreign population of every western city.

The Early Days of Cincinnati.

In 1788, a few months before the first settlement of Cincinnati, seven hundred and forty acres of land were bought for five hundred dollars. The tract is now the heart of the city, and appraised at many millions. As it passed from hand to hand, colossal fortunes were realized from it; but its original purchaser, then one of the largest western land-owners, at his death did not leave property enough to secure against want his surviving son. Until 1862, that son resided in Cincinnati, a pensioner upon the bounty of relatives. As, in the autumn of life, he walked the streets of that busy city, it must have been a strange reflection that among all its broad acres of which his father was sole proprietor, he did not own land enough for his last resting-place. "Give him a little earth for charity!"

Many high artificial mounds, circular and elliptical, stood here when the city was founded. In after years, as they were leveled, one by one, they revealed relics of that ancient and comparatively civilized race, which occupied this region before the Indian, and was probably identical with the Aztecs of Mexico.

Upon the site of one of these mounds is Pike's Opera House, a gorgeous edifice, erected at an expense of half a million of dollars, by a Cincinnati distiller, who, fifteen years before, could not obtain credit for his first dray-load of whisky-barrels. It is one of the finest theaters in the world; but the site has more interest than the building. What volumes of unwritten history has that spot witnessed, which supports a temple of art and fashion for the men and women of to-day, was once a post from which Indian sentinels overlooked the "dark and bloody ground" beyond the river, and, in earlier ages, an altar where priests of a semi-barbaric race performed mystic rites to propitiate heathen gods!

A City Founded by a Woman.

Cincinnati was built by a woman. Its founder was neither carpenter nor speculator, but in the legitimate feminine pursuit of winning hearts. Seventy years ago, Columbia, North Bend, and Cincinnati—all splendid cities on paper—were rivals, each aspiring to be the metropolis of the West. Columbia was largest, North Bend most favorably located, and Cincinnati least promising of all.

But an army officer, sent out to establish a military post for protecting frontier settlers against Indians, was searching for a site. Fascinated by the charms of a dark-eyed beauty—wife of one of the North Bend settlers—that location impressed him favorably, and he made it head-quarters. The husband, disliking the officer's pointed attentions, came to Cincinnati and settled—thus, he supposed, removing his wife from temptation.

The Aspirations of the Cincinnatian.

But as Mark Antony threw the world away for Cleopatra's lips, this humbler son of Mars counted the military advantages of North Bend as nothing compared with his charmer's eyes. He promptly followed to Cincinnati, and erected Fort Washington within the present city limits. Proximity to a military post settled the question, as it has all similar ones in the history of the West. Now Cincinnati is the largest inland city upon the continent; Columbia is an insignificant village, and North Bend an excellent farm.

In architecture, Cincinnati is superior to its western rivals, and rapidly gaining upon the most beautiful seaboard cities. Some of its squares are unexcelled in America. A few public buildings are imposing; but its best structures have been erected by private enterprise. The Cincinnatian is expansive. Narrow quarters torture him. He can live in a cottage, but he must do business in a palace. An inferior brick building is the specter of his life, and a freestone block his undying ambition.

From the Queen City I went to Louisville. Though communication with the South had been cut off by every other route, the railroad was open thence to Nashville.

Treason and Loyalty in Louisville.

Kentucky was disputed ground. Treason and Loyalty jostled each other in strange proximity. At the breakfast table, one looked up from his New York paper, forty-eight hours old, to see his nearest neighbor perusing The Charleston Mercury. He found The Louisville Courier urging the people to take up arms against the Government. The Journal, published just across the street, advised Union men to arm themselves, and announced that any of them wanting first-class revolvers could learn something to their advantage by calling upon its editor. In the telegraph-office, the loyal agent of the Associated Press, who made up dispatches for the North, chatted with the Secessionist, who spiced his news for the southern palate. On the street, one heard Union men advocate the hanging of Governor Magoffin, and declare that he and his fellow-traitors should find the collision they threatened a bloody business. At the same moment, some inebriated "Cavalier" reeled by, shouting uproariously "Huzza for Jeff. Davis!"

Here, a group of pale, long-haired young men was pointed out as enlisted Rebel soldiers, just leaving for the South. There, a troop of the sinewy, long-limbed mountaineers of Kentucky and East Tennessee, marched sturdily toward the river, to join the loyal forces upon the Indiana shore. Two or three State Guards (Secession), with muskets on their shoulders, were closely followed by a trio of Home Guards (Union), also armed. It was wonderful that, with all these crowding combustibles, no explosion had yet occurred in the Kentucky powder-magazine.

While Secessionists were numerous, Louisville, at heart loyal, everywhere displayed the national flag. Yet, although the people tore to pieces a Secession banner, which floated from a private dwelling, they were very tolerant toward the Rebels, who openly recruited for the Southern service. Imagine a man huzzaing for President Lincoln and advertising a Federal recruiting-office in any city controlled by the Confederates!

Prentice of the Louisville Journal.

"The real governor of Kentucky," said a southern paper, "is not Beriah Magoffin, but George D. Prentice." In spite of his "neutrality," which for a time threatened to stretch out to the crack of doom, Mr. Prentice was a thorn in the side of the enemy. His strong influence, through The Louisville Journal, was felt throughout the State.

Visiting his editorial rooms, I found him over an appalling pile of public and private documents, dictating an article for his paper. Many years ago, an attack of paralysis nearly disabled his right hand, and compelled him ever after to employ an amanuensis.

His small, round face was fringed with dark hair, a little silvered by age; but his eyes gleamed with their early fire, and his conversation scintillated with that ready wit which made him the most famous paragraphist in the world. His manner was exceedingly quiet and modest. For about three-fourths of the year, he was one of the hardest workers in the country; often sitting at his table twelve hours a day, and writing two or three columns for a morning issue.

At this time, the Kentucky Unionists, advocating only "neutrality," dared not urge open and uncompromising support of the Government. When President Lincoln first called for troops, The Journal denounced his appeal in terms almost worthy of The Charleston Mercury, expressing its "mingled amazement and indignation." Of course the Kentuckians were subjected to very bitter criticism. Mr. Prentice said to me:

"You misapprehend us in the North. We are just as much for the Union as you are. Those of us who pray, pray for it; those of us who fight, are going to fight for it. But we know our own people. They require very tender handling. Just trust us and let us alone, and you shall see us come out all right by-and-by."

The State election, held a few weeks after, exposed the groundless alarm of the leading politicians. It resulted in returning to Congress, from every district but one, zealous Union men. Afterward the State furnished troops whenever they were called for, and, in spite of her timid leaders, finally yielded gracefully to the inexorable decree of the war, touching her pet institution of Slavery.

First Union Troops of Kentucky.

I paid a visit to the encampment of the Kentucky Union troops, on the Indiana side of the Ohio, opposite Louisville. "Camp Joe Holt" was on a high, grassy plateau. Unfailing springs supplied it with pure water, and trees of beech, oak, elm, ash, maple, and sycamore, overhung it with grateful shade. The prospective soldiers were lying about on the ground, or reading and writing in their tents.

General Rousseau, who was sitting upon the grass, chatting with a visitor, looked the Kentuckian. Large head, with straight, dark hair and mustache; eye and mouth full of determination; broad chest, huge, erect, manly frame.

His men were sinewy fellows, with serious, earnest faces. Most of them were from the mountain districts. Many had been hunters from boyhood, and could bring a squirrel from the tallest tree with their old rifles. Byron's description of their ancestral backwoodsmen seemed to fit them exactly:

"And tall and strong and swift of foot were they,
Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions,
Because their thoughts had never been the prey
Of care or gain; the green woods were their portions.
Simple they were, not savage; and their rifles,
Though very true, were yet not used for trifles."

The history of this brigade was characteristic of the times. Rousseau scouted "neutrality" from the outset. On the 21st of May, he said from his place in the Kentucky Senate:

"If we have a Government, let it be maintained and obeyed. If a factious minority undertakes to override the will of the majority and rob us of our constitutional rights, let it be put down—peaceably if we can, but forcibly if we must. * * * Let me tell you, sir, Kentucky will not 'go out!' She will not stampede. Secessionists must invent something new, before they can either frighten or drag her out of the Union. We shall be but too happy to keep peace, but we cannot leave the Union of our fathers. When Kentucky goes down, it will be in blood! Let that be understood."

Struggle in the Kentucky Legislature.

In that Legislature, the struggle between the Secessionists and the Loyalists was fierce, protracted, and uncertain. Each day had its accidents, incidents, telegraphic and newspaper excitements, upon which the action of the body seemed to depend.

In firm and determined men, the two parties were about equally divided; but there were a good many "floats," who held the balance of power. These men were very tenderly nursed by the Loyalists.

The Secessionists frequently proposed to go into secret session, but the Union men steadfastly refused. Rousseau declared in the Senate that if they closed the doors he would break them open. As he stands about six feet two, and is very muscular, the threat had some significance.

Buckner, Tighlman, and Hanson[12]—all afterward generals in the Rebel army—led the Secessionists. They professed to be loyal, and were very shrewd and plausible. They induced hundreds of young men to join the State-Guard, which they were organizing to force Kentucky out of the Union, though its ostensible object was to assure "neutrality."

What Rebel Leaders Pretended.

"State Rights" was their watchword. "For Kentucky neutrality," first; and, should the conflict be forced upon them, "For the South against the North." They worked artfully upon the southern partiality for the doctrine that allegiance is due first to the State, and only secondly to the National Government.

Governor Magoffin and Lieutenant-Governor Porter were bitter Rebels. The Legislature made a heavy appropriation for arming the State, but practically displaced the Governor, by appointing five loyal commissioners to control the fund and its expenditure.

In Louisville, the Unionists secretly organized the "Loyal League," which became very large; but the Secessionists, also, were noisy and numerous, firm and defiant.

On the 5th of June, Rousseau started for Washington, to obtain authority to raise troops in Kentucky. At Cincinnati, he met Colonel Thomas J. Key, then Judge-Advocate of Ohio, on duty with General McClellan. Key was alarmed, and asked if it were not better to keep Kentucky in the Union by voting, than by fighting. Rousseau replied:

"As fast as we take one vote, and settle the matter, another, in some form, is proposed. While we are voting, the traitors are enlisting soldiers, preparing to throttle Kentucky and precipitate her into Revolution as they have the other southern States. It is our duty to see that we are not left powerless at the mercy of those who will butcher us whenever they can."

Rousseau's Visit to Washington.

Key declared that he would ruin every thing by his rashness. By invitation, Rousseau called on the commander of the Western Department. During the conversation, McClellan remarked that Buckner had spent the previous night with him. Rousseau replied that Buckner was a hypocrite and traitor. McClellan rejoined that he thought him an honorable gentleman. They had served in Mexico together, and were old personal friends.

He added: "But I did draw him over the coals for saying he would not only drive the Rebels out of Kentucky, but also the Federal troops."

"Well, sir," said Rousseau, "it would once have been considered pretty nearly treason for a citizen to fight the United States army and levy war against the National Government!"

When Rousseau reached Washington, he found that Colonel Key, who had frankly announced his determination to oppose his project, was already there. He had an interview with the President, General Cameron, and Mr. Seward. The weather was very hot, and Cameron sat with his coat off during the conversation.

As usual, before proceeding to business, Mr. Lincoln had his "little story" to enjoy. He shook hands cordially with his visitor, and asked, in great glee:

"Rousseau, where did you get that joke about Senator Johnson?"

"The joke, Mr. President, was too good to keep. Johnson told it himself."

It was this: Dr. John M. Johnson, senator from Paducah, wrote to Mr. Lincoln a rhetorical document, in the usual style of the Rebels. In behalf of the sovereign State, he entered his solemn and emphatic protest against the planting of cannon at Cairo, declaring that the guns actually pointed in the direction of the sacred soil of Kentucky!

His Interview with President Lincoln.

In an exquisitely pithy autograph letter, Mr. Lincoln replied, if he had known earlier that Cairo, Illinois, was in Dr. Johnson's Kentucky Senatorial District, he certainly should not have established either the guns or the troops there! Singularly enough—for a keen sense of humor was very rare among our "erring brethren"—Johnson appreciated the joke.

While Rousseau was urging the necessity of enlisting troops, he remarked:

"I have half pretended to submit to Kentucky neutrality, but, in discussing the matter before the people, while apparently standing upon the line, I have almost always poked."

This word was not in the Cabinet vocabulary. General Cameron looked inquiringly at Mr. Lincoln, who was supposed to be familiar with the dialect of his native State.

"General," asked the President, "you don't know what 'poke' means? Why, when you play marbles, you are required to shoot from a mark on the ground; and when you reach over with your hand, beyond the line, that is poking!"

Cameron favored enlistments in Kentucky, without delay. Mr. Lincoln replied:

"General, don't be too hasty; you know we have seen another man to-day, and we should act with caution." Rousseau explained:

"The masses in Kentucky are loyal. I can get as many soldiers as are wanted; but if the Rebels raise troops, while we do not, our young men will go into their army, taking the sympathies of kindred and friends, and may finally cause the State to secede. It is of vital importance that we give loyal direction to the sentiment of our people."

At the next interview, the President showed him this indorsement on the back of one of his papers:

"When Judge Pirtle, James Guthrie, George D. Prentice, Harney, the Speeds, and the Ballards shall think it proper to raise troops for the United States service in Kentucky, Lovell H. Rousseau is authorized to do so."

"How will that do, Rousseau?"

"Those are good men, Mr. President, loyal men; but perhaps some of the rest of us, who were born and reared in Kentucky, are just as good Union men as they are, and know just as much about the State. If you want troops, I can raise them, and I will raise them. If you do not want them, or do not want to give me the authority, why that ends the matter."

Finally, through the assistance of Mr. Chase, who steadfastly favored the project, and of Secretary Cameron, the authority was given.

Timidity of Kentucky Unionists.

A few Kentucky Loyalists were firm and outspoken. But General Leslie Coombs was a good specimen of the whole. When asked for a letter to Mr. Lincoln, he wrote: "Rousseau is loyal and brave, but a little too much for coercion for these parts."

After Rousseau returned, with permission to raise twenty companies, The Louisville Courier, whose veneer of loyalty was very thin, denounced the effort bitterly. Even The Louisville Journal derided it until half a regiment was in camp.

Loyalty of Judge Lusk.

A meeting of leading Loyalists of the State was held in Louisville, at the office of James Speed, since Attorney General of the United States. Garrett Davis, Bramlette, Boyle, and most of the Louisville men, were against the project. They feared it would give the State to the Secessionists at the approaching election. Speed and the Ballards were for it. So was Samuel Lusk, an old judge from Garrard County, who sat quietly as long as he could during the discussion, then jumped up, and bringing his hand heavily down on the table, exclaimed:

"Can't have two regiments for the old flag! By ---! sir, he shall have thirty!"

A resolution was finally adopted that, when the time came, they all wished Rousseau to raise and command the troops, but that, for the present, it would be impolitic and improper to commence enlisting in Kentucky.

Greatly against his own will, and declaring that he never was so humiliated in his life, Rousseau established his camp on the Indiana shore. After the election, some Secession sympathizers, learning that he proposed to bring his men over to Louisville, protested very earnestly, begging him to desist, and thus avoid bloodshed, which they declared certain.

"Gentlemen," said he, "my men, like yourselves, are Kentuckians. I am a Kentuckian. Our homes are on Kentucky soil. We have organized in defense of our common country; and bloodshed is just the business we are drilling for. If anybody in the city of Louisville thinks it judicious to begin it when we arrive, I tell you, before God, you shall all have enough of it before you get through!"

The next day he marched his brigade unmolested through the city. Afterward, upon many battle-fields, its honorable fame and Rousseau's two stars were fairly won and worthily worn.

---

[CHAPTER XIII.]

The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch.

King Henry V.

Campaigning in the Kanawha Valley.

I spent the last days of July, in Western Virginia, with the command of General J. D. Cox, which was pursuing Henry A. Wise in hot haste up the valley of the Kanawha. There had been a few little skirmishes, which, in those early days, we were wont to call battles.

Like all mountain regions, the Kanawha valley was extremely loyal. Flags were flying, and the people manifested intense delight at the approach of our army. We were very close upon the flying enemy; indeed, more than once our cavalry boys ate hot breakfasts which the Rebels had cooked for themselves.

At a farm-house, two miles west of Charleston, a dozen natives were sitting upon the door-step as our column passed. The farmer shook hands with us very cordially. "I am glad to see the Federal army," said he; "I have been hunted like a dog, and compelled to hide in the mountains, because I loved the Union." His wife exclaimed, "Thank God, you have come at last, and the day of our deliverance is here. I always said that the Lord was on our side, and that he would bring us through safely."

A Bloodthirsty Female Secessionist.

Two of the women were ardent Rebels. They did not blame the native-born Yankees, but wished that every southerner in our ranks might be killed. Just then one of our soldiers, whose home was in that county, passed by the door-step, on his way to the well for a canteen of water. One of the women said to me, with eyes that meant it:

"I hope he will be killed! If I had a pistol I would shoot him. Why! you have a revolver right here in your belt, haven't you? If I seen it before, I would have used it upon him!"

Suggesting that I might have interfered with such an attempt, I asked:

"Do you think you could hit him?"

"O, yes! I have been practicing lately for just such a purpose."

Her companion assured me that she prayed every night and morning for Jefferson Davis. If his armies were driven out of Virginia, she would go and live in one of the Gulf States. She had a brother and a lover in General Wise's army, and gave us their names, with a very earnest request to see them kindly treated, should they be taken prisoners. When we parted, she shook my hand, with: "Well, I hope no harm will befall you, if you are an Abolitionist!"

An old citizen, who had been imprisoned for Union sentiments, was overcome with joy at the sight of our troops. He mounted a great rock by the roadside, and extemporized a speech, in which thanks to the Union army and the Lord curiously intermingled.

Women, with tears in their eyes, told us how anxiously they had waited for the flag; how their houses had been robbed, their husbands hunted, imprisoned, and impressed. Negroes joined extravagantly in the huzzaing, swinging flags as a woodman swings his ax, bending themselves almost double with shouts of laughter, and exclamations of "Hurrah for Mass'r Lincoln!"

Thirteen miles above Charleston, at the head of navigation, we left behind what we grandiloquently called "the fleet." It consisted of exactly four little stern-wheel steamboats.

The people of these mountain regions use the old currency of New England, and talk of "fourpence ha'pennies" and "ninepences."

Our road continued along the river-bank, where the ranges of overhanging hills began to break into regular, densely timbered, pyramidal spurs. The weather was very sultry. How the sun smote us in that close, narrow valley! The accoutrement's of each soldier weighed about thirty pounds, and made a day's march of twenty miles an arduous task.

A Woman in Disguise.

A private who had served in the First Kentucky Infantry[13] for three months, proved to be of the wrong sex. She performed camp duties with great fortitude, and never fell out of the ranks during the severest marches. She was small in stature, and kept her coat buttoned to her chin. She first excited suspicion by her feminine method of putting on her stockings; and when handed over to the surgeon proved to be a woman, about twenty years old. She was discharged from the regiment, but sent to Columbus upon suspicion, excited by some of her remarks, that she was a spy of the Rebels.

Extravagant Joy of the Negroes.

At Cannelton, a hundred slaves were employed in the coal-oil works—two long, begrimed, dilapidated buildings, with a few wretched houses hard by. Nobody was visible, except the negroes. When I asked one of them—"Where are all the white people?" he replied, with a broad grin—

"Done gone, mass'r."

A black woman, whom we encountered on the road, was asked:

"Have you run away from your master?"

"Golly, no!" was the prompt answer, "mass'r run away from me!"

The slaves, who always heard the term "runaway" applied only to their own race, were not aware that it could have any other significance. After the war opened, its larger meaning suddenly dawned upon them. The idea of the master running away and the negroes staying, was always to them ludicrous beyond description. The extravagant lines of "Kingdom Coming," exactly depicted their feelings:

Say, darkies, hab you seen de mass'r,
Wid de muffstach on his face,
Go 'long de road some time dis mornin',
Like he's gwine to leave de place?
He seen de smoke way up de ribber
Where de Linkum gunboats lay;
He took his hat and left berry sudden,
And I 'spose he runned away.
De mass'r run, ha! ha!
De darkey stay, ho! ho!
It must be now de kingdom comin',
An' de year ob Jubilo.

"Dey tole us," said a group of blacks, "dat if your army cotched us, you would cut off our right feet. But, Lor! we knowed you wouldn't hurt us!"

At a house where we dined, the planter assuming to be loyal, one of our officers grew confidential with him, when a negro woman managed to beckon me into a back room, and seizing my arm, very earnestly said: "I tell you, mass'r's only just putting on. He hates you all, and wants to see you killed. Soon as you have passed, he will send right to Wise's army, and tell him what you mean to do; if any of you'uns remain here behind the troops, you will be in danger. He's in a heap of trouble," she added, "but, Lord, dese times just suits me!"

At another house, while the Rebel host had stepped out for a moment, an intelligent young colored woman, with an infant in her arms, stationed two negro girls at the door to watch for his return, and interrogated me about the progress and purposes of the War. "Is it true," she inquired, very sadly, "that your army has been hunting and returning runaway slaves?"

Thanks to General Cox, who, like the sentinel in Rolla, "knew his duty better," I could reply in the negative. But when, with earnestness gleaming in her eyes, she asked, if, through these convulsions, any hope glimmered for her race, what could I tell her but to be patient, and trust in God?

How the Soldiers Foraged.

Army rations are not inviting to epicurean tastes; but in the field all sorts of vegetables and poultry were added to our bill of fare. Chickens, young pigs, fence-rails, apples, and potatoes, are legitimate army spoils the world over.

"Where did you get that turkey?" asked a captain of one of his men. "Bought it, sir," was the prompt answer. "For how much?" "Seventy-five cents." "Paid for it, did you?" "Well, no, sir; told the man I would pay when we came back!"

"Mass'r," said a little ebony servant to a captain with whom I was messing, "I sees a mighty fine goose. Wish we had him for supper."

"Ginger," replied the officer, "have I not often told you that it is very wicked to steal?"

The little negro laughed all over his face, and fell out of the ranks. By a "coincidence," worthy of Sam Weller, we supped on stewed goose that very evening.

Seen by night from the adjacent hills, our picturesque encampments gave to the wild landscape a new beauty. In the deep valleys gleamed hundreds of snowy tents, lighted by waning camp-fires, round which grotesque figures flitted. The faint murmur of voices, and the ghostly sweetness of distant music, filled the summer air.

The Falls of the Kanawha.

At the Falls of the Kanawha the river is half a mile wide. A natural dam of rocks, a hundred yards in breadth, and, on its lower side, thirty feet above the water, extends obliquely across the stream—a smooth surface of gray rock, spotted with brown moss.

Near the south bank is the main fall, in the form of a half circle, three or four hundred yards long, with a broken descent of thirty feet. Above the brink, the water is dark, green, and glassy, but at the verge it looks half transparent, as it tumbles and foams down the rocks, lashed into a passion of snowy whiteness. Plunging into the seething caldron, it throws up great jets and sheets of foam. Above, the calm, shining water extends for a mile, until hidden by a sudden bend in the channel. The view is bounded by a tall spur, wrapped in the sober green of the forest, with an adventurous corn-field climbing far up its steep side. At the narrow base of the spur, a straw-colored lawn surrounds a white farm-house, with low, sloping roof and antique chimneys. It is half hidden among the maples, and sentineled by a tall Lombardy poplar.

Two miles above the fall, the stream breaks into its two chief confluents—the New River and the Gauley. Hawk's Nest, near their junction, is a peculiarly romantic spot. In its vicinity our command halted. It was far from its base, and Wise ran too fast for capture. We had five thousand troops, who were ill-disciplined and discontented. General Cox was then fresh from the Ohio Senate. After more field experience, he became an excellent officer.

A Tragedy of Slavery.

When I returned through the valley, I found Charleston greatly excited. A docile and intelligent mulatto slave, of thirty years, had never been struck in his life. But, on the way to a hayfield, his new overseer began to crack his whip over the shoulders of the gang, to hurry them forward. The mulatto shook his head a little defiantly, when the whip was laid heavily across his back. Turning instantly upon the driver, he smote him with his hayfork, knocking him from his horse, and laying the skull bare. The overseer, a large, athletic man, drew his revolver; but, before he could use it, the agile mulatto wrenched it away, and fired two shots at his head, which instantly killed him. Taking the weapon, the slave fled to the mountains, whence he escaped to the Ohio line.

St. Louis, August 19, 1861.

In the days of stage-coaches, the trip from Cincinnati to St. Louis was a very melancholy experience; in the days of steamboats, a very tedious one. Now, you leave Cincinnati on a summer evening; and the placid valley of the Ohio—the almost countless cornfields of the Great Miami (one of them containing fifteen hundred acres), where the exhaustless soil has produced that staple abundantly for fifty years—the grave and old home of General Harrison, at North Bend—the dense forests of Indiana—the Wabash Valley, that elysium of chills and fever, where pumpkins are "fruit," and hoop-poles "timber"—the dead-level prairies of Illinois, with their oceans of corn, tufts of wood, and painfully white villages—the muddy Mississippi, "All-the-Waters," as one Indian tribe used to call it—are unrolled in panorama, till, at early morning, St. Louis, hot and parched with the journey, holds out her dusty hands to greet you.

The Future of St. Louis.

No inland city ever held such a position as this. Here is the heart of the unequaled valley, which extends from the Rocky Mountains to the Alleghanies, and from the great lakes to the Gulf. Here is the mighty river, which drains a region six times greater than the empire of France, and bears on its bosom the waters of fifty-seven navigable streams. Even the rude savage called it the "Father of Waters," and early Spanish explorers reverentially named it the "River of the Holy Ghost."

St. Louis, "with its thriving young heart, and its old French limbs," is to be the New York of the interior. The child is living who will see it the second city on the American continent.

Three Rebel newspapers have recently been suppressed. The editor of one applied to the provost-marshal for permission to resume, but declined to give a pledge that no disloyal sentiment should appear in its columns. He was very tender of the Constitution, and solicitous about "the rights of the citizen." The marshal replied:

"I cannot discuss these matters with you. I am a soldier, and obey orders."

"But," remonstrated the editor, "you might be ordered to hang me."

"Very possibly," replied the major, dryly.

"And you would obey orders, then?"

"Most assuredly I would, sir."

The Secession journalist left, in profound disgust.

---

[CHAPTER XIV.]

——He died,
To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
As 'twere a careless trifle.

Macbeth.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

Merchant of Venice.

The Battle of Wilson Creek.

On the 10th of August, at Wilson Creek, two hundred and forty miles southwest of St. Louis, occurred the hardest-fought battle of the year. General Lyon had pursued the Rebels to that corner of the State. He had called again and again for re-enforcements, but at Washington nothing could be seen except Virginia. Lyon's force was five thousand two hundred men. The enemy, under Ben McCulloch and Sterling Price, numbered over eleven thousand, according to McCulloch's official report. Lyon would not retreat. He thought that would injure the Cause more than to fight and be defeated.

To one of his staff-officers, the night before the engagement, he said: "I believe in presentiments, and, ever since this attack was planned, I have felt that it would result disastrously. But I cannot leave the country without a battle."

On his way to the field, he was silent and abstracted; but when the guns opened, he gave his orders with great promptness and clearness.

He had probably resolved that he would not leave the field alive unless he left it as a victor. By a singular coincidence, the two armies marched out before daybreak on that morning each to attack the other. They met, and for many hours the tide of battle ebbed and flowed.

Lyon's little army fought with conspicuous gallantry. It contained the very best material. The following is a list—from memory, and therefore quite incomplete—of some officers, who, winning here their first renown, afterward achieved wide and honorable reputation:

	At Wilson Creek.	Afterward.
Frederick Steele	Captain	Major-General.
F. J. Herron	Captain	Major-General.
P. J. Osterhaus	Major	Major-General.
S. D. Sturgis	Major	Major-General.
R. B. Mitchell	Colonel	Major-General.
Franz Sigel	Colonel	Major-General.
D. S. Stanley	Captain	Major-General.
J. M. Schofield	Major	Major-General.
Gordon Granger	Captain	Major-General.
J. B. Plummer	Captain	Brigadier-General.
James Totten	Captain	Brigadier-General.
E. A. Carr	Captain	Brigadier-General.
Geo. W. Deitzler	Colonel	Brigadier-General.
T. W. Sweeney	Captain	Brigadier-General.
Geo. L. Andrews	Lieutenant-Colonel	Brigadier-General.
I. F. Shepard	Major	Brigadier-General.

Daring Exploit of a Kansas Officer.

During the battle, Captain Powell Clayton's company of the First Kansas Volunteers, becoming separated from the rest of our forces, was approached by a regiment uniformed precisely like the First Iowa. Clayton had just aligned his men with this new regiment, when he detected small strips of red cloth on the shoulders of the privates, which marked them as Rebels. With perfect coolness, he gave the order:

"Right oblique, march! You are crowding too much upon this regiment."

By this maneuver his company soon placed a good fifty yards between itself and the Rebel regiment, when the Adjutant of the latter rode up in front, suspicious that all was not right. Turning to Clayton, he asked:

"What troops are these?"

"First Kansas," was the prompt reply. "What regiment is that?"

"Fifth Missouri, Col. Clarkson."

"Southern or Union?"

"Southern," said the Rebel, wheeling his horse; but Clayton seized him by the collar, and threatened to shoot him if he commanded his men to attack. The Adjutant, heedless of his own danger, ordered his regiment to open fire upon the Kansas company. He was shot dead on the spot by Clayton, who told his men to run for their lives. They escaped with the loss of only four.

The Death of Lyon.

Toward evening Lyon's horse was killed under him. Immediately afterward, his officers begged that he would retire to a less exposed spot. Scarcely raising his eyes from the enemy, he said:

"It is well enough that I stand here. I am satisfied."

While the line was forming, he turned to Major Sturgis, who stood near him, and remarked:

"I fear that the day is lost. I think I will lead this charge."

Early in the day he had received a flesh-wound in the leg, from which the blood flowed profusely. Sturgis now noticed fresh blood on the General's hat, and asked where it came from.

"It is nothing, Major, nothing but a wound in the head," replied Lyon, mounting a fresh horse.

Without taking the hat that was held out to him by Major Sturgis, he shouted to the soldiers:

"Forward, men! I will lead you."

Two minutes later he lay dead on the field, pierced by a rifle-ball through the breast, just above the heart.

Our officers held a hurried consultation, and decided not only to retreat, but to abandon southwest Missouri. Strangely enough, the coincidence of the morning was here repeated. Almost simultaneously, the Rebels decided to fall back. They were in full retreat when they were arrested by the news of the departure of the Federal troops, and returned to take possession of the field which the last Union soldier had abandoned eight hours before.

They claimed a great victory, and with justice, as they finally held the ground. Their journals were very jubilant. Said The New Orleans Picayune:

"Lyon is killed, Sigel in flight; southwestern Missouri is clear of the National scum of invaders. The next word will be, 'On to St. Louis.' That taken, the whole power of Lincolnism is broken in the West, and instead of shouting 'Ho for Richmond!' and 'Ho for New Orleans!' there will be hurrying to and fro among the frightened magnates at Washington, and anxious inquiries of what they shall do to save themselves from the vengeance to come. Heaven smiles on the armies of the Confederate States."

Lyon's Courage and Patriotism.

Lyon went into the battle in civilian's dress, excepting only a military coat. He had on a soft hat of ashen hue, with long fur and very broad brim, turned up on three sides. He had worn it for a month; it would have individualized the wearer among fifty thousand men. His peculiar dress and personal appearance were well known through the enemy's camp. He received a new and elegant uniform just before the battle, but it was never worn until his remains were clothed in it, after the brave spirit had fled, and while our forces were retreating from Springfield by night.

Notwithstanding his personal bravery and military education, he always opposed dueling on principle. No provocation made him recognize the "code." Once he was struck in the face, but he had courage enough to refuse to challenge his adversary. For a time this subjected him to misapprehension and contempt among military men, but, long before his death, his fellow-officers understood and respected him.

He seemed to care little for personal fame—to think only of the Cause. Knowing exactly what was before him, he went to death on that summer evening "as a man goes to his bridal." Losing a life, he gained an immortality. His memory is green in the nation's heart, his name high on her roll of honor.

Arrival of General Fremont.

On the 25th of July, Major-General John C. Fremont reached St. Louis, in command of the Western Department. His advent was hailed with great enthusiasm. The newspapers, West, predicted for him achievements extravagant and impossible as those which the New York journals had foretold for McClellan. In those sanguine days, the whole country made "Young Napoleons" to order.

With characteristic energy, Fremont plunged into the business of his new department, where chaos reigned, and he had no spell to evoke order, save the boundless patriotism and earnestness of the people.

His head-quarters were established on Chouteau Avenue. He was overrun with visitors—every captain, or corporal, or civilian, seeking to prosecute his business with the General in person. He was therefore compelled to shut himself up, and, by the sweeping refusal to admit petitioners to him, a few were excluded whose business was important. Some dissatisfaction and some jesting resulted. I remember three Kansas officers, charged with affairs of moment, who used daily to be merry, describing how they had made a reconnoissance toward Fremont's head-quarters, fought a lively engagement, and driven in the pickets, only to find the main garrison so well guarded that they were quite unable to force it.

Union Families Driven Out.

St. Louis, August 26, 1861.

A long caravan of old-fashioned Virginia wagons, containing rude chairs, bedsteads, and kitchen utensils, passed through town yesterday. They brought from the Southwest families who,

"Forced from their homes, a melancholy train, are seeking in free Illinois that protection which Government is unable to afford them in Missouri. At least fifty thousand inoffensive persons have thus fled since the Rebellion."

August 29.

We were lately surprised and gratified to learn that a gentleman from Minnesota had offered an unasked loan of forty-six thousand dollars to the Government authorities—gratified at such spontaneous patriotism, and surprised that any man who lived in Minnesota should have forty-six thousand dollars. The latter mystery has been explained by the discovery that he never took his funds to that vortex of real estate speculation, but left them in this city, where he formerly resided. Moreover, his money was in Missouri currency, which, though at par here in business transactions, is at a discount of eight per cent. on gold and New York exchange. The loan is to be returned to him in gold. So, after all, there is probably as much human nature to the square acre in Minnesota as anywhere else.

September 6.

"Egypt to the rescue!" is the motto upon the banner of a new Illinois regiment. Southern Illinois, known as Egypt, is turning out men for the Mississippi campaign with surprising liberality; whereupon a fiery Secessionist triumphantly calls attention to this prophetic text, from Hosea: "Egypt shall gather them up; Memphis shall bury them!"

The aptness of the citation is admirable; but he is reminded, in return, that the pet phrase of the Rebels, "Let us alone," was the prayer of a man possessed of a devil, to the Saviour of the world!

An Involuntary Sojourn With Rebels.

I have just met a gentleman, residing in southwestern Missouri, whose experience is novel. He visited the camp of the Rebels to reclaim a pair of valuable horses, which they had taken from his residence. They not only retained the stolen animals, but also took from him those with which he went in pursuit, and left him the alternative of walking home, twenty-three miles, through a dangerous region, or remaining in their camp. Fond of adventure, he chose the latter, and for three weeks messed with a Missouri company. The facetious scoundrels told him that they could not afford to keep him unless he earned his living; and employed him as a teamster. He had philosophy enough to make the best of it, and flattered himself that he became a very creditable mule-driver.

Early on the morning of August 10th, he was breakfasting with the officers from a dry-goods box, which served for a table, when bang! went a cannon, not more than two or three hundred yards from them, and crash! came a ball, cutting off the branches just above their heads. "Here is the devil to pay; the Dutch are upon us!" exclaimed the captain, springing up and ordering his company to form.

My friend was a looker-on from the Southern side during the whole battle. He gives a graphic account of the joy of the Rebels at finding the body of General Lyon, lying under a tree (the first information they had of his death), and their surprise and consternation at the bravery with which the little Union army fought to the bitter end.

---

Twenty leading Secessionists are in durance vile here. There is a poetic justice in the fact that their prison was formerly a slave-pen, and that they are enabled to study State Rights from old negro quarters.

September 7.

A Startling Confederate Atrocity.

The Rebels have just perpetrated a new and startling atrocity. They cut down the high railroad bridge over the Little Platte River near St. Joseph. The next train from Hannibal reached the spot at midnight, and its locomotive and five cars were precipitated, thirty feet, into the bed of the river. More than fifty passengers were dangerously wounded, and twenty instantly killed. They were mainly women and children; there was not a single soldier among them.

September 15.

General Fremont is issuing written guarantees for their freedom to the slaves of Rebels. They are in the form of real-estate conveyances, releasing the recipient from all obligations to his master; declaring him forever free from servitude, and with full right and authority to control his own labor. They are headed "Deed of Manumission," authenticated by the great seal of the Western Department, and the signature of its commander. Think of giving a man a warranty-deed for his own body and soul!

In compliance with imperative orders from the Government, several regiments, though sadly needed here, are being sent eastward. To the colonel commanding one of them, the order was conveyed by Fremont in these characteristic terms:

"Repair at once to Washington. Transportation is provided for you. My friend, I am sorry to part with you, but there are laurels growing on the banks of the Potomac."

---

[CHAPTER XV.]

Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?

Merchant of Venice.

Organization of the "Bohemian Brigade."

In October, General Fremont's forming army rendezvoused at the capital of Missouri. From afar, Jefferson City is picturesque; but distance lends enchantment. Close inspection shows it uninviting and rough. The Capitol, upon a frowning hill, is a little suggestive of the sober old State House which overlooks Boston Common. Brick and frame houses enough for a population of three thousand straggle over an area of a mile square, as if they had been tossed up like a peck of apples, and left to come down and locate themselves. Many are half hidden by the locust, ailantus, and arbor-vitæ trees, and the white blossoms of the catalpas.

The war correspondents "smelled the battle from afar off." More than twenty collected two or three weeks before the army started. Some of them were very grave and decorous at home, but here they were like boys let out of school.

They styled themselves the Bohemian Brigade, and exhibited that touch of the vagabond which Irving charitably attributes to all poetic temperaments. They were quartered in a wretched little tavern eminently First Class in its prices. It was very southern in style. A broad balcony in front, over a cool brick pavement; no two rooms upon the same level; no way of getting up stairs except by going out of doors; long, low wings, shooting off in all directions; a gallery in the rear, deeper than the house itself; heavy furniture, from the last generation, with a single modern link in the shape of a piano in the ladies' parlor; leisurely negro waiters, including little boys and girls, standing behind guests at dinner, and waving long wands over the table to disconcert the omnipresent flies; and corn bread, hot biscuits, ham, and excellent coffee. The host and hostess were slaveholders, who said "thar" and "whar," but held that Secessionists were traitors, and that traitors ought to be hung.

An Amused African.

The landlord, who was aged, rheumatic, and half blind, labored under the delusion that he kept the house; but an intelligent and middle-aged slave, yclept John, was the real brain of the establishment.

"John," asked one of the correspondents, "does your master really think he is alive?"

"'Live, sir? I reckon so."

"Why, he has been dead these twenty years. He hobbles around, pretending he exists, just to save funeral expenses."

John's extravagant enjoyment of this sorry jest beggared description. He threw himself on the floor, rolled over and over, and roared with laughter for fifteen minutes. He did not recover his usual gravity for weeks. Again and again, while waiting upon guests, he would see his master coming, and suddenly explode with merriment, to the infinite amazement of the habitués of the house, who suspected that the negro was losing his wits.

Diversions of the Correspondents.

The Bohemians took their ease in their inn, and held high carnival, to the astonishment of all its attachés, from the aged proprietor down to the half-fledged negro cherubs. Each seemed to regard as his personal property the half-dozen rooms which all occupied. The one who dressed earliest in the morning would appropriate the first hat, coat, and boots he found, remarking that the owner was probably dead.

One huge, good-natured brother they called "the Elephant." He was greatly addicted to sleeping in the daytime; and when other resources failed, some reckless quill-driver would say:

"Now, let's all go and sleep with the Elephant."

Eight or ten would pile themselves upon his bed, beside him and upon him, until his good-nature became exhausted, when the giant would toss them out of the room like so many pebbles, and lock his door.

There was little work to be done; so they discussed politics, art, society, and metaphysics; and would soon kindle into singing, reciting, "sky-larking," wrestling, flinging saddles, valises, and pillows. In some recent theatrical spectacle, two had heard a "chorus of fiends," which tickled their fancy. As the small hours approached, it was their unceasing delight to roar imitations of it, declaring, with each repetition, that it was now to be given positively for the last time, and by the very special request of the audience. How they sent that demoniac "Ha! ha! ha!" shrieking through the midnight air! The following account of their diversions was given by "J. G." in The Cincinnati Gazette. The scenes he witnessed suggested, very naturally, the nomenclature of the prize-ring:

Happening to drop in the other night, I found the representatives of The Missouri Republican, The Cincinnati Commercial, The New York World, and The Tribune, engaged in a hot discussion upon matrimony, which finally ran into metaphysics. The Republican having plumply disputed an abstruse proposition of The Tribune, the latter seized an immense bolster, and brought it down with emphasis upon the glossy pate of his antagonist. This instantly broke up the debate, and a general mêlée commenced. The Republican grabbed a damp towel and aimed a stunning blow at his assailant, which missed him and brought up against the nasal protuberance of Frank Leslie. The exasperated Frank dealt back a pillow, followed by a well-packed knapsack. Then The Missouri Democrat sent a coverlet, which lit upon and enveloped the knowledge-box of The Herald. The latter disengaged himself after several frantic efforts, and hurled a ponderous pair of saddle-bags, which passed so close to The Gazette's head, that in dodging it he bumped his phrenology against the bed-post, and raised a respectable organ where none existed before. Simultaneously The Commercial threw a haversack, which hit Harper in the bread-basket, and doubled him into a folio—knocking him against The World, who, toppling from his center of gravity, was poising a plethoric bed-tick with dire intent, when the upturned legs of a chair caught and tore it open, scattering the feathers through the surging atmosphere. In falling, he capsized the table, spilling the ink, wrecking several literary barks, extinguishing the "brief candle" that had faintly revealed the sanguinary fray, thus abruptly terminating hostilities, but leaving the panting heroes still defiant and undismayed. A light was at last struck; the combatants adjusted their toilets, and, having lit the calumets of peace, gently resigned themselves to the soothing influence of the weed.

A Polite Army Chaplain.

They did not learn, for several days, that a meek chaplain, with his wife and three children, inhabited an adjacent apartment. He was at once sent for, and a fitting apology tendered. He replied that he had actually enjoyed the novel entertainment. He must have been the most polite man in the whole world. He is worthy a niche in biography, beside the lady who was showered with gravy, by Sidney Smith, and who, while it was still dripping from her chin, blandly replied to his apologies, that not a single drop had touched her!

When in-door diversions failed, the correspondents amused themselves by racing their horses, which were all fresh and excitable. That region, abounding in hills, ravines, and woods, is peculiarly seductive to reckless equestrians desiring dislocated limbs or broken necks.

One evening, the "Elephant" was thrown heavily from his horse, and severely lamed. The next night, nothing daunted, he repeated the race, and was hurled upon the ground with a force which destroyed his consciousness for three or four hours. A comrade, in attempting to stop the riderless horse, was dragged under the heels of his own animal. His mild, protesting look, as he lay flat upon his back, holding in both hands the uplifted, threatening foot of his fiery Pegasus, was quite beyond description. One correspondent dislocated his shoulder, and went home from the field before he heard a gun.

Sights in Jefferson City.

Jefferson City, Mo., October 6, 1861.

These deep ravines and this fathomless mud offer to obstinate mules unlimited facilities for shying, and infinite possibilities of miring. Last night, six animals and an army wagon went over a small precipice, and, after a series of somersaults, driver, wagon, and mules, reached the bottom, in a very chaotic condition.

Jefferson is strong on the wet weather question. When Lyon got here in June, he was welcomed by one man with an umbrella. When Fremont arrived, a few nights ago, he was taken in charge by the same gentleman, who was floundering about through the mud with a lantern, seeking, not an honest man, but quarters for the commanding general.

Most of the troops have gone forward, but some remain. Newly mounted officers, who sit upon their steeds much as an elephant might walk a tight rope, dash madly through the streets, fondly dreaming that they witch the world with noble horsemanship. Subalterns show a weakness for brass buttons, epaulettes, and gold braid, which leaves feminine vanity quite in the shade.

In the camps, the long roll is sometimes sounded at midnight, to accustom officers and men to spring to arms. Upon the first of these sudden calls from Morpheus to Mars, the negro servant of a staff-officer was so badly frightened that he brought up his master's horse with the crupper about the neck instead of the tail. The mistake was discovered just in season to save the rider from the proverbial destiny of a beggar on horseback.

"Fights mit Sigel."

Here is a German private very shaky in the legs; he swears by Fremont and "fights mit Sigel." Too much "lager" is the trouble with him; and, in serene though harmless inebriety, he is arrested by a file of soldiers. A capital print in circulation represents a native and a German volunteer, with uplifted mugs of the nectar of Gambrinus, striking hands to the motto, "One flag, one country, zwei lager!"

Here is a detachment of Home Guards, whose "uniform is multiform." To a proposition, that the British militia should never be ordered out of the country, Pitt once moved the satirical proviso, "Except in case of invasion." So it is alleged that the Missouri Home Guards are very useful—except in case of a battle; and I hear one merciless critic style them the "Home Cowards." This is unjust; but they illustrate the principle, that to attain good drill and discipline, soldiers should be beyond the reach of home.

Camp Lillie, upon a beautiful grassy slope, is the head-quarters of the commander. In his tent, directing, by telegraph, operations throughout this great department, or upon horseback, personally inspecting the regiments, you meet the peculiarly graceful, slender, compact, magnetic man whose assignment here awoke so much enthusiasm in the West. General Fremont is quiet, well-poised, and unassuming. His friends are very earnest, his enemies very bitter. Those who know him only by his early exploits, are surprised to find in the hero of the frontier the graces of the saloon. He impresses one as a man very modest, very genuine, and very much in earnest.

A Physiological Phenomenon.

His hair is tinged with silver. His beard is sprinkled with snow, though two months ago it was of unmingled brown.

"Nor turned it white
In a single night,
As men's have done from sudden fears;"

but it did blanch under the absorbing labors and anxieties of two months—a physiological fact which Doctor Holmes will be good enough to explain to us at his earliest convenience.

Mrs. Fremont is in camp, but will return to Saint Louis when the army moves. She inherits many traits of her father's character. She possesses that "excellent thing in woman," a voice, like Annie Laurie's, low and sweet—more rich, more musical, and better modulated, than that of any tragédienne upon the stage. To a broad, comprehensive intellect she adds those quick intuitions which leap to results, anticipating explanations, and those proclivities for episode, incident, and bits of personal analyzing, which make a woman's talk so charming.

How much rarer this grace of familiar speech than any other accomplishment whatever! In a lifetime one meets not more than four or five great conversationalists. Jessie Benton Fremont is among the felicitous few, if not queen of them all.

October 8.

The army is forty thousand strong. Generals Sigel, Hunter, Pope, Asboth, and McKinstry command respectively its five divisions.

Sigel, Hunter, Pope, Asboth, McKinstry.

Sigel is slender, pale, wears spectacles, and looks more like a student than a soldier. He was professor in a university when the war broke out.

Hunter, at sixty, and agile as a boy, is erect and grim, with bald head and Hungarian mustache.

Pope is heavy, full-faced, brown-haired, and looks like a man of brains.

Asboth is tall, daring-eyed, elastic, a mad rider, and profoundly polite, bowing so low that his long gray hair almost sweeps the ground.

McKinstry is six feet two, sinewy-framed, deep-chested, firm-faced, wavy-haired, and black-mustached. He looks like the hero of a melodrama, and the Bohemians term him "the heavy tragedian."

Warsaw, Mo., October 22.

An officer of New York mercantile antecedents, recently appointed to a high position, reached Syracuse a few days since, under orders to report to Fremont. He would come no farther than the end of the railroad, but turned abruptly back to St. Louis. Being asked his reason, he made this reply, peculiarly ingenuous and racy for a brigadier-general and staff-officer:

"Why, I found that I should have to go on horseback!"

With two fellow-journalists, I left Syracuse four days ago. Asboth's and Sigel's divisions had preceded us. The post-commandant would not permit us to come through the distracted, guerrilla-infested country without an escort, but gave us a sergeant and four men of the regular army.

On the way we spent the supper hour near Cole Camp. Our Falstaffian landlord informed us that two brothers, Jim and Sam Cole, encamped here in early days, to hunt bears, and that the creek was named in remembrance of them. Being asked with great gravity the extremely Bohemian question, "Which of them?" he relapsed into a profound study, from which he did not afterward recover.

We made the trip—forty-seven miles—in ten hours. This is a strong Secession village. Half its male inhabitants are in the Rebel army. Our officers quarter in the most comfortable residences. At first the people were greatly incensed at the "Abolition soldiery," but they now submit gracefully. One of the most malignant Rebel families involuntarily entertains a dozen German officers, who drink lager-beer industriously, smoke meerschaums unceasingly, and at night sing unintermittently.

We are quartered at the house of a lady who has a son in Price's army, and a daughter in whom education and breeding maintain constant warfare with her antipathies toward the Union forces. Being told the other evening that one of our party was a Black Republican, she regarded him with a wondering stare, declaring that she never saw an Abolitionist before in her life, and apparently amazed that he wore the human face divine!

Sigel's Transportation Train.

Sigel, as usual, is thirty miles ahead. He has more go in him than any other of our generals. Several division commanders are still waiting for transportation, but Sigel collected horse-wagons, ox-wagons, mule-wagons, family-carriages, and stage-coaches, and pressed animals until he organized a most unique transportation train three or four miles long. He crossed his division over the swift Osage River—three hundred yards wide—in twenty-four hours, upon a single ferry-boat. The Rebels justly name him "The Flying Dutchman."

A Countryman's Estimate of Troops.

The Missourians along our line of march have very extravagant ideas about the Federal army. We stopped at the house of a native, where ten thousand troops had passed. He placed their number at forty thousand!

"I reckon you have, in all, about seventy thousand men, and three hundred cannon, haven't you?" he asked.

"We have a hundred and fifty thousand men, and six hundred pieces of artillery," replied a wag in the party.

"Well," said the countryman, thoughtfully, "I reckon you'll clean out old Price this time!"

---

[CHAPTER XVI.]

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!

King Henry V.

A "Kid-Gloved" Corps.

General Fremont's Body Guard was composed of picked young men of unusual intelligence. They were all handsomely uniformed, efficiently armed, and mounted upon bay horses. They cultivated the mustache, with the rest of the face smooth—at least, not a more whimsical decree than the rigid regulation of the British army, which compelled every man to shave and wear a stock under the burning sun of the Crimea. Many denounced the Guard as a "kid-gloved," ornamental corps, designed only to swell Fremont's retinue.

Major Zagonyi, commandant of the Guard, with one hundred and fifty of his men, started with orders to reconnoiter the country in front of us. When near Springfield, they found the town held by a Rebel force of cavalry and infantry, ill organized, but tolerably armed, and numbering two thousand.

Zagonyi drew his men up in line, explained the situation, and asked whether they would attack or turn back for re-enforcements. They replied unanimously that they would attack.

They did attack. Men and horses were very weary. They had ridden fifty miles in seventeen hours; they had never been under fire before; but history hardly parallels their daring.

Charge of the Body Guard.

The Rebels formed in line of battle at the edge of a wood. To approach them, the Guard were compelled to ride down a narrow lane, exposed to a terrible fire from three different directions. They went through this shower of bullets, dismounted, tore down the high zig-zag fence, led their horses over in the teeth of the enemy, remounted, formed, and, spreading out, fan-like, charged impetuously, shouting "Fremont and the Union."

The engagement was very brief and very bloody. Though only in the proportion of one to thirteen, the Guard behaved as if weary of their lives. Men utterly reckless are masters of the situation. At first, the Confederates fought well; but they were soon panic-stricken, and many dropped their guns, and ran to and fro like persons distracted.

The Guard charged through and through the broken ranks of the Rebels, chased them in all directions—into the woods, beyond the woods, down the roads, through the town—and planted the old flag upon the Springfield court-house, where it had not waved since the death of Lyon.

Armed with revolvers and revolving carbines, members of the Guard had twelve shots apiece. After delivering their first fire, there was no time to reload, and (the only instance of the kind early in the war) nearly all their work was done with the saber. When they mustered again, almost every blade in the command was stained with blood.

Of their one hundred and fifty horses, one hundred and twenty were wounded. A sergeant had three horses shot under him. A private received a bullet in a blacking-box, which he carried in his pocket. They lost fifty men, sixteen of whom were killed on the spot.

"I wonder if they will call us fancy soldiers and kid-gloved boys any longer?" said one, who lay wounded in the hospital when we arrived.

Turning the Tables.

On a cot beside him, I found an old schoolmate. His eye brightened as he grasped my hand.

"Is your wound serious?" I asked.

"Painful, but not fatal. O, it was a glorious fight!"

It was a glorious fight. Wilson Creek is doubly historic ground. There first a thousand of our men poured out their blood like water, and the brave Lyon laid down his life "for our dear country's sake." Two months later, the same stream witnessed the charge of the Body Guard, which, in those dark days, when the Cause looked gloomy, thrilled every loyal heart in the nation. It will shine down the historic page, and be immortal in song and story.

Major Frank J. White, of our army, was with the Rebels as a prisoner of war during the charge. Just before they were routed, fourteen men, under a South Carolina captain, started with him for General Price's camp. At a house where they spent the night, the farmer boldly avowed himself a Union man. He supposed White to be one of the Rebel officers; but, finding a moment's opportunity, the major whispered to him:

"I am a Union prisoner. Send word to Springfield at once, and my men will come and rescue me."

The Rebels, leaving one man on picket outside, went to bed in the same room with their prisoner. Then the farmer sent his little boy of twelve years, on horseback, fourteen miles to Springfield. At three o'clock in the morning, twenty-six Home Guards surrounded the house, and captured the entire party. Major White at once took command, and posted his guards over the crestfallen Confederates.

While they sat around the fire in the evening, waiting for supper, the Rebel captain had remarked:

"Major, we have a little leisure, and I believe I will amuse myself by looking over your papers." Whereupon he spent an hour in examining the letters which he found in White's possession. In the morning, when the party, again sitting by the fire, waited for breakfast, the major said, quietly:

"Captain, we have a little leisure, and I think I will amuse myself by looking over your papers." So the Rebel documents were scrutinized in turn. White returned in triumph to Springfield, bringing his late captors as prisoners. A friendship sprang up between him and the South Carolina captain, who remained on parole in our camp for several days, and they messed and slept together.

Welcome from Union Residents.

When our troops entered Springfield, the people greeted them with uncontrollable joy; for they were intensely loyal, and had been under Rebel rule more than eleven weeks. Scores and scores of National flags now suddenly emerged from mysterious hiding-places; wandering exiles came pouring back, and we were welcomed by hundreds of glad faces, waving handkerchiefs, swinging hats, and vociferous huzzas.

Fremont had now modified his Proclamation; but the logic of events was stronger than President Lincoln. The negroes would throng our camp, and Fremont never permitted a single one to be returned. One slave appropriated a horse, and, guiding him only by a rope about the nose, without saddle or bridle, blanket or spur, rode from Price's camp to Fremont's head-quarters, more than eighty miles, in eighteen hours.

A brigade of regular troops, under General Sturgis, having marched from Kansas City, joined us in Springfield. They were under very rigid discipline, and all their supplies, whether procured from Rebels or Unionists, were paid for in gold. Sturgis was then very "conservative," and some of our people denounced him as disloyal. But, like hundreds of others, inexorable war educated him very rapidly. His sympathies were soon heartily on our side. He afterward, in the Army of the Potomac, won and wore bright laurels.

Freaks of the Kansas Brigade.

The Kansas volunteer brigade, under General "Jim" Lane, also joined us at Springfield. Their course contrasted sharply with that of Sturgis's men. They had a good many old scores to settle up, and they swept along the Missouri border like a hurricane. Sublimely indifferent to the President's orders, and all other orders which did not please them, they received over two thousand slaves, sending them off by installments into Kansas. When the master was loyal, they would gravely appraise the negro; give him a receipt for his slave, named ----, valued at ---- hundred dollars, "lost by the march of the Kansas Brigade," and advise him to carry the claim before Congress!

By some unexplained law, dandies, fools, and supercilious braggarts often gravitate into staff positions; but Fremont's staff was an exceedingly agreeable one. Many of its members had traveled over the globe, and, from their wide experiences, whiled away many hours before the evening camp-fires.

On the 31st of October, the correspondents, under cavalry escort, visited the Wilson Creek battle-ground, ten miles south of Springfield.

The field is broken by rocky ridges and deep ravines, and covered with oak shrubs. Picking his way among the brushwood, my horse's hoof struck with a dull, hollow sound against a human skull. Just beyond, still clad in uniform, lay a skeleton, on whose ghastliness the storms and sunshine of three months had fallen. The head was partially severed; and though the upturned face was fleshless, I could not resist the impression that it wore a look of mortal agony. It was in a little thicket, several yards from the scene of any fighting. The poor fellow was carried there, dying or dead, during the progress of the battle, and afterward overlooked. Among our lost his name was probably followed by the sad word "Missing."

"Not among the suffering wounded;
Not among the peaceful dead;
Not among the prisoners. Missing—
That was all the message said.

"Yet his mother reads it over,
Until, through her painful tears,
Fades the dear name she has called him
For these two-and-twenty years."

Many graves had been opened by wolves. Bones of horses, haversacks, shoes, blouses, gun-barrels, shot, and fragments of shell, were scattered over the field. The trees were scarred with bullets, and hundreds were felled by the artillery. A six-inch shot would cut down one of these brittle oaks a foot in diameter.

Capture of a Female Spy.

A few miles south of Springfield one of our scouts encountered a young woman on horseback. Suspecting her errand, he informed her confidentially that he was a spy from Price's army, who had been several days in Fremont's camp. Falling into this palpable trap, the girl told him frankly that she was sent by Price to visit our forces, and obtain information. She was taken immediately to Fremont's head-quarters. Her terror was very great on finding herself betrayed. She told all she knew about the Rebels, and was finally allowed to depart in peace. The employment of female spies was very common upon both sides.

Fremont's Farewell to his Army.

On the 2d of November our whole army was at Springfield. Fremont had progressed farther south than any other Union commander, from the Atlantic to the Rio Grande. Detachments of Rebels were within ten miles of our camps. Emphatic, but entirely false reports from the colonel at the head of Fremont's scouts,[14] had given the impression that Price's entire command was very near us; and a great battle was hourly expected.

Fremont was in the midst of an important campaign. His army was most patriotic, enthusiastic, and promising. His personal popularity among his troops was without parallel.

At this moment the official ax fell. He received an order to turn over his command to Hunter. It was a trying ordeal, but he did a soldier's duty, obeying silently and instantly. The first intelligence which the army received was conveyed by this touching farewell:

Soldiers of the Mississippi Army: Agreeably to orders this day received, I take leave of you. Although our army has been of sudden growth, we have grown up together, and I have become familiar with the brave and generous spirit which you bring to the defense of your country, and which makes me anticipate for you a brilliant career.

Continue as you have begun, and give to my successor the same cordial and enthusiastic support with which you have encouraged me. Emulate the splendid example already before you, and let me remain, as I am, proud of the noble army which I have thus far labored to bring together.

Disaffection among the Soldiers.

Soldiers! I regret to leave you. Sincerely I thank you for the regard and confidence you have invariably shown me. I deeply regret that I shall not have the honor to lead you to the victory which you are just about to win, but I shall claim to share with you in the joy of every triumph, and trust always to be fraternally remembered by my companions in arms.

Fremont's name had been the rallying-point of the volunteers. Officers and entire regiments had come from distant parts of the country to serve under him. All felt the impropriety and cruelty of his removal at this time. Many officers at once wrote their resignations. Whole battalions were reported laying down their arms. The Germans were specially indignant, and among the Body Guard there was much bitterness.

The slightest encouragement or tolerance from the General would have produced wide-spread mutiny; but he expostulated with the malcontents, reminding them that their first duty was to the country; and, after Hunter's arrival, left the camp before daylight, lest his appearance among the soldiers, as he rode away, should excite improper demonstrations.

A few days moderated the feeling of the troops; for, like all our volunteers, they were wedded not to any man, but to the Cause.

In St. Louis, Fremont was received more like a conquering hero than a retiring general. An immense assembly greeted him. In their enthusiasm, the people even carpeted his door-step with flowers.

For weeks before his removal the air had been filled with clamors, charging him with incompetency, extravagance, and giving Government contracts to corrupt men. The first attacks upon him immediately followed his Emancipation Proclamation, issued August 31, 1861.

Spurious Missouri Unionists.

There were many half-hearted Unionists in Missouri. For example, shortly after the capture of Sumter, General Robert Wilson, of Andrew County, in a public meeting, served upon the committee on resolutions reporting the following:

"Resolved, That we condemn as inhuman and diabolical the war being waged by the Government against the South."

Eight months after, this same Wilson claimed to be a Union leader, and, as such, was sent to represent Missouri in the Senate of the United States! Of course all men of this class waged unrelenting war upon Fremont. Afterward there was a rupture among the really loyal men; a fierce quarrel, in which the able but unscrupulous Blairs headed the opposition, and some zealous and patriotic Unionists co-operated with them. The President, always conscientious, was persuaded to remove the General; but afterward tacitly admitted its injustice by giving him another command.

Mr. Lincoln also countermanded the Emancipation Proclamation, which was a little ahead of the times. Still it gratified the plain people, even then. Tired of the tender and delicate terms in which our authorities were wont to speak of "domestic institutions" and "systems of labor," they were delighted to read the announcement in honest Saxon:

"The property of active Rebels is confiscated for the public use; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared Free Men."

It was a new and pure leaf in the history of the war.

Of course Fremont made mistakes, though the abuses in his department were infinitely less than those which disgraced Washington, and which in some degree are inseparable from large, unusual disbursements of public money.

Conduct of Cameron and Thomas.

But he was very earnest. He was quite ignorant of How Not to Do it. He took grave responsibilities. When red tape hampered him, he cut it. Unable to obtain arms at Washington—which, in those days, knew only Virginia—he ransacked the markets of the world for them. When a paymaster refused to liquidate one of his bills, on the ground of irregularity, he arrested him, and threatened to have him shot if he persisted. Able to leave but few troops in St. Louis, he fortified the city in thirty days, employing five thousand laborers.

Secretary Cameron and Adjutant-General Thomas visited Missouri, after Fremont started upon his Springfield campaign. General Thomas did not hesitate, in railway cars and hotels, to condemn him violently—a gross breach of official propriety, and clearly tending to excite insubordination among the soldiers. Cameron dictated a letter, ordering Fremont to discontinue the St. Louis fortifications as unnecessary, informing him that his official debts would not be discharged till investigated, his contracts recognized, or the officers paid whom he had appointed under the written authority of the President.

In due time they were recognized and paid. The St. Louis fortifications proved needful, and were afterward finished. Yet Cameron permitted the contents of this letter to be telegraphed all over the country four days before Fremont received it. It seemed designed to impugn his integrity, destroy his credit, promote disaffection in his camps, and prevent his contractors from fulfilling their engagements. Thomas officially reported that Fremont would not be able to move his army for lack of transportation. Before the report could reach Washington, the army had advanced more than a hundred miles!

Disregard of the Army Regulations.

Time, which at last makes all things even, vindicated Fremont's leading measures in Missouri. His subsequent withdrawal from the field, in Virginia, was doubtless unwise. It was hard to be placed under a junior and hostile general; but private wrongs must wait in war, and resignation proves quite as inadequate a remedy for the grievances of an officer, as Secession for the fancied wrongs of the Slaveholders.

Brigadier-General Justus McKinstry, ex-Quartermaster of the Western Department, was arrested, and closely confined in the St. Louis arsenal for many months. His repeated demands for the charges and specifications against him were disregarded. He was at last court-martialed and dismissed the service, on the charge of malfeasance in office. Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone was for a long time kept under arrest in the same manner. These proceedings flagrantly violated both the Army Regulation, entitling officers to know the charges and witnesses against them, within ten days after arrest, and the spirit of the Constitution itself, which guarantees to every man a speedy public trial in the presence of his accusers.

Equally reprehensible was the arrest and long confinement of many civilians without formal charges or trial. States where actual war existed, and even the debatable ground which bordered them, might be proper fields for this exercise of the Military Power. But the friends of the Union, holding Congress, and nearly every State Legislature by overwhelming majorities, could make whatever laws they pleased; therefore, these measures were unnecessary and unjustifiable in the North, hundreds of miles from the seat of war. Utterly at variance with personal rights and republican institutions, they were alarming and dangerous precedents, which any unscrupulous future administration may plausibly cite in defense of the grossest outrages. President Lincoln was always very chary of this exercise of arbitrary power; but some of his constitutional advisers were constantly urging it. Secretary Stanton, in particular, advocated and committed acts of flagrant despotism. He was a good patent-office lawyer, but had not the faintest conception of those primary principles of Civil Liberty which underlie English and American institutions. Even the Magna Charta, in sonorous Latin, declared:

"No person shall be apprehended or imprisoned, except by the legal judgment of his peers, or the law of the land. To none will we sell, to none will we deny, to none will we delay right or justice."

Military Power and the Press.

Kindred questions arose touching the Military Power and the Liberty of the Press. Each northern city had its daily journal, which, under thin disguise of loyalty, labored zealously for the Rebels. Soldiers could not patiently read treasonable sheets. On several occasions military commanders suppressed them, but the President promptly removed the disability. The sober second thought of the people was, that if editors and publishers in the loyal North could not be convicted and punished in the civil courts, they should not be molested.

General Hunter, succeeding Fremont, evacuated southwestern Missouri. Before leaving Springfield, besieged with applications for runaway slaves, he issued orders to deliver them up; but soldiers and officers in his camps hid them so safely that they could not be found by their masters.

Rudeness of General Halleck.

Hunter's little brief authority lasted just fifteen days, when he was succeeded by General Halleck—a stout, heavy-faced, rather stupid-looking officer, who wore civilian's dress, and resembled a well-to-do tradesman. On the 20th of November appeared his shameful General Order Number Three:

"It has been represented that important information respecting the numbers and condition of our forces is conveyed to the enemy by means of fugitive slaves who are admitted within our lines. In order to remedy this evil, it is directed that no such persons be hereafter permitted to enter the lines of any camp, or of any forces on the march, and that any now within our lines be immediately excluded therefrom."

Its inhumanity outraged the moral sense, and its falsehood the common sense, of the country. The negroes were uniformly friends to our soldiers. After diligent inquiry from every leading officer of my acquaintance, I could not learn a single instance of treachery. To the cruelty of turning the slave away, Halleck added the dishonesty of slandering him.

When Charles James Fox was canvassing for Parlia-liament, one of his auditors said to him:

"Sir, I admire your talents, but d--n your politics!"

Fox retorted: "Sir, I admire your frankness, but d--n your manners!"

Many who had official business with Halleck uttered similar maledictions. To his visitors he was brusque to surliness. Dr. Holmes says, with great truth, that all men are bores when we do not want them. Like all public characters, Halleck was beset by those grievous dispensations of Providence. But a general in command of half a continent ought, at least, to have the manners of a gentleman; and he was sometimes so insulting that his legitimate visitors would have been justified in kicking him down stairs. None of our high officials equaled him in rudeness, except Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War.

In January, as a Government steamer approached the landing at Commerce, Missouri, two women on shore shouted to the pilot:

"Don't land! Jeff. Thompson and his soldiers are here waiting for you."

The redoubtable guerrilla, with fifty men, instantly sprang from behind a wood-pile and fired a volley. Twenty-six bullets entered the cabin of the retreating boat; but, thanks to the loyal women, no person was killed or captured.

A Droll Flag of Truce.

One day, a seedy individual in soiled gray walked into Halleck's private room at the Planter's House, in St. Louis, and, with the military salute, thus addressed him:

"Sir, I am an officer of General Price's army, and have brought you a letter under flag of truce."

"Where's your flag of truce?" growled Halleck.

"Here," was the prompt reply, and the Rebel pulled a dirty white rag from his pocket!

He had entered our lines, and come one hundred and fifty miles, without detection, passing pickets, sentinels, guards, and provost-marshals. Halleck, who plumed himself on his organizing capacity and rigid police regulations, was not a little chagrined. He sent back the unique messenger with a letter, assuring Price that he would shoot as a spy any one repeating the attempt.

---

[CHAPTER XVII.]

Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm by erecting a grammar-school.

King HenryVI.

O, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear,
To wake an earthquake!

Tempest.

Rebel Guerrillas Outwitted.

In January, Colonel Lawson, of the Missouri Union forces, was captured by a dozen Rebels, who, after some threats of hanging, decided to release him upon parole. Not one of them could read or write a line. Lawson, requested by them to make out his own parole, drew up and signed an agreement, pledging himself never to take up arms against the United States of America, or give aid and comfort to its enemies! Upon this novel promise he was set at liberty.

On the 3d of February a journalistic friend telegraphed me from Cairo:

"You can't come too soon: take the first train."

Immediately obeying the summons, I found that Commodore Foote had gone up the Tennessee River with the new gunboats. The accompanying land forces were under the command of an Illinois general named Grant, of whom the country knew only the following:

Making a reconnoissance to Belmont, Missouri, opposite Columbus, Kentucky, he had ventured too far, when the enemy opened on him. Yielding to the fighting temptation, he made a lively resistance, until compelled to retreat, leaving behind his dead and wounded. Jefferson Davis officially proclaimed it a great Confederate success, and Rebel newspapers grew merry over Grant's bad generalship, expressing the wish that he might long lead the Yankee armies!

——"We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often for our own harms; so find we profit
By losing of our prayers."

Expedition to Fort Henry.

As the gunboats had never been tested, intense interest was felt in their success. Approaching Fort Henry, three went forward to reconnoiter. At the distance of two miles and a half, a twenty-four pounder rifled ball penetrated the state-room of Captain Porter, commanding the Essex, passing under his table, and cutting off the feet of a pair of stockings which hung against the ceiling as neatly as shears would have cut them.

"Pretty good shot!" said Porter. "Now we will show them ours." And he dropped a nine-inch Dahlgren shell right into the fort.

The next day, a large number of torpedoes, each containing seventy-five pounds of powder, were fished up from the bottom of the river. The imprudent tongue of an angry Rebel woman revealed their whereabouts. Prophesying that the whole fleet would be blown to atoms, she was compelled to divulge what she knew, or be confined in the guard-house. In mortal terror she gave the desired information. The torpedoes were found wet and harmless. Commodore Foote predicted

"I can take that fort in about an hour and a half."

The night was excessively rainy and severe upon our boys in blue in their forest bivouacs; but in the well-furnished cabin of General Grant's steamer, we found "going to war" an agreeable novelty.

Its Capture by Commodore Foote.

At mid-day on the 6th, Foote fired his first shot, at the distance of seventeen hundred yards. Then he slowly approached the fort with his entire fleet, until within four hundred yards. The Rebel fire was very severe; but he determined to vindicate the iron-clads or to sink them in the Tennessee. The wood-work of his flag-ship was riddled by thirty-one shots, but her iron plating turned off the balls like hail. All the boats were more or less damaged; but they fully established their usefulness, and their officers and men behaved with the greatest gallantry. One poor fellow on the Essex, terribly scalded by the bursting of a steam drum, learning that the fort was captured, sprung from his bunk, ran up the hatchway, and cheered until he fell senseless upon the deck. He died the same night.

With several fellow-correspondents, I witnessed the fight from the top of a high tree, up on the river-bank, between the fortification and the gun-boats. There was little to be seen but smoke. Foote's prediction proved correct. After he had fired about six hundred shots, just one hour and fifteen minutes from the beginning, the colors of Fort Henry were struck, and the gunboats trembled with the cheers and huzzas of our men.

The Rebel infantry, numbering four thousand, escaped. Grant's forces, detained by the mud, came up too late to surround them. Brigadier-General Lloyd Tilghman, commanding, and the immediate garrison, were captured.

In the barracks we found camp-fires blazing, dinners boiling, and half-made biscuits still in the pans. Pistols, muskets, bowie-knives, books, tables partially set for dinner, half-written letters, playing-cards, blankets, and carpet-sacks were scattered about.

Our soldiers ransacked trunks, arrayed themselves in Rebel coats, hats, and shirts, armed themselves with Rebel revolvers, stuffed their pockets with Rebel books and miniatures, and some were soon staggering under heavy loads of Rebel whisky.

From the quarters of one officer, I abstracted a small Confederate flag; the daguerreotype of a female face so regular and classic that, without close inspection, it was difficult to believe it taken from life; a long tress of brown hair, and a package of elegantly written letters, full of a sister's affection. A year afterward I was able to return these family mementoes to their owner in Jackson, Mississippi.

A Delighted Negress.

Our shots had made great havoc. Carpet-sacks, trunks, and tables were torn in pieces, walls and roofs were pierced with holes large enough for a man to creep through, and cavities plowed in the ground which would conceal a flour-barrel. A female Marius among the ruins, in the form of an old negress, stood rubbing her hands with glee.

"You seem to have had hot work here, aunty."

"Lord, yes, mass'r, we did just dat! De big balls, dey come whizzing and tearing 'bout, and I thought de las' judgment was cum, sure."

"Where are all your soldiers?"

"Lord A'mighty knows. Dey jus' runned away like turkeys—nebber fired a gun."

"How many were there?"

"Dere was one Arkansas regiment over dere where you see de tents, a Mississippi regiment dere, another dere, two Tennessee regiments here, and lots more over de river."

"Why didn't you run with them?"

"I was sick, you see" (she could only speak in a whisper); "besides, I wasn't afraid—only ob de shots. I just thought if dey didn't kill me I was all right."

"Where is General Tilghman?"

"You folks has got him—him and de whole garrison inside de fort."

"You don't seem to feel very badly about it."

"Not berry, mass'r!"—with a fresh rub of the hands and a grin all over her sable face.

Scenes in the Captured Fortress.

In the fort, the magazine was torn open, the guns completely shattered, and the ground stained with blood, brains, and fragments of flesh. Under gray blankets were six corpses, one with the head torn off and the trunk completely blackened with powder; others with legs severed and breasts opened in ghastly wounds. The survivors, stretched upon cots, rent the air with groans.

The captured Rebel officers, in a profusion of gold lace, were taken to Grant's head-quarters. Tilghman was good-looking, broad-shouldered, with the pompous manner of the South. Commodore Foote asked him:

"How could you fight against the old flag?"

"It was hard," he replied, "but I had to go with my people."

Presently a Chicago reporter inquired of him:

"How do you spell your name, General?"

"Sir," replied Tilghman, with indescribable pomposity, "if General Grant wishes to use my name in his official dispatches, I have no objection; but, sir, I do not wish to appear at all in this matter in any newspaper report."

"I merely asked it," persisted the journalist, "for the list of prisoners captured."

Tilghman, whose name should have been Turveydrop, replied, with a lofty air and a majestic wave of the hand:

"You will oblige me, sir, by not giving my name in any newspaper connection whatever!"

One of the Rebel officers was reminded of the predominance of Union sentiments among the people about Fort Henry.

"True, sir," was his reply. "It is always so in these hilly countries. You see, these d-----d Hoosiers don't know any better. For the genuine southern feeling, sir, you must go among the gentlemen—the rich people. You won't find any Tories there."

Commodore Foote in the Pulpit.

The gunboats returned to Cairo for repairs. On the next Sunday morning, the pastor of the Cairo Presbyterian Church failing to arrive, Commodore Foote was induced to conduct the services. From the text:

"Let not your hearts be troubled; ye believe in God; believe also in me,"

he preached an excellent practical discourse, urging that human happiness depends upon integrity, pure living, and conscientious performance of duty.

The land forces remained near Fort Henry. A few days after the battle, I stepped into General Grant's head-quarters to bid him good-by, as I was about starting for New York.

"You had better wait a day or two," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I am going over to capture Fort Donelson to-morrow."

"How strong is it?"

"We have not been able to ascertain exactly, but I think we can take it. At all events, we can try."

The hopelessly muddy roads and the falling snow were terrible to our troops, who had no tents; but Grant marched to the fort. On Wednesday he skirmished and placed his men in position; on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, he fought from daylight until dark. On Saturday night, the sanguine General Pillow telegraphed to Nashville:

"The day is ours. I have repulsed the enemy at all points, but I want re-enforcements."

The Capture of Fort Donelson.

Before dawn on Sunday, the negro servant of a Confederate staff officer escaped into our lines, and was taken to General Grant. He insisted that the Rebel commanders were consulting about surrender, and that Floyd's men were already deserting the fort. A few hours later came a letter from Buckner, suggesting the appointment of commissioners to adjust terms of capitulation. Grant wrote in answer:

"I have no terms but unconditional surrender. I propose to move immediately upon your works."

Buckner's response, exquisitely characteristic of the Rebels, regretfully accepted what he described as Grant's "ungenerous and unchivalrous terms!" So the North was electrified by a success which recalled the great battles of Napoleon.

Grant first invested the garrison with thirteen thousand men. The enemy's force was twenty-two thousand. For two days, Grant's little command laid siege to this much larger army, which was protected by ample fortifications. At the end of the second day, Grant received re-enforcements, swelling his forces to twenty-six thousand.

From three to four thousand Rebels, of Floyd's command, escaped from the fort; others escaped on the way to Cairo, and several thousand were killed or wounded; but Grant delivered, at Cairo, upward of fifteen thousand eight hundred prisoners.

I was in Chicago when these captives, on their way to Camp Douglas, passed through the streets in sad procession. Motley was the only wear. A few privates had a stripe on the pantaloons and wore gray military caps; but most, in slouched hats and garments of gray or butternut, made no attempt at uniform. Some had the long hair and cadaverous faces of the extreme South; but under the broad-brimmed hats of the majority, appeared the full, coarse features of the working classes of Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The Chicago citizens, who crowded the streets, were guilty of no taunts or rude words toward the prisoners.

Columbus, Kentucky, twenty miles below Cairo, on the highest bluffs of the Mississippi, was called the Gibraltar of the West, and expected to be the scene of a great battle.

On the 4th of March, a naval and land expedition was ready to attack it. Before leaving Cairo, hundreds of workmen crowded the gunboats, repairing damages received on the Tennessee River—

"With busy hammers closing rivets up, And giving dreadful notes of preparation."

Commodore Foote, lame from his Donelson wound, hobbled on board upon crutches. A great National flag was taken along.

"Don't forget that," said the commodore. "Fight or no fight, we must raise it over Columbus!"

Army and Navy Officers Contrasted.

The leading commanders of the flotilla were from the regular navy—quiet and unassuming, with no nonsense about them. They were far freer from envy and jealousy than army officers. Before the war, the latter had been stationed for years at frontier posts, hundreds of miles beyond civilization, with no resources except drinking and gambling, nothing to excite National feeling or prick the bubble of their State pride. Naval officers, going all over the world, had acquired the liberality which only travel imparts, and learned that, abroad, their country was not known as Virginia or Mississippi, but the United States of America. With them, it was the Nation first, and the State afterward. Hence, while nearly all southerners holding commissions in the regular army joined the Rebellion, the navy almost unanimously remained loyal.

The low, flat, black iron-clads crept down the river like enormous turtles. Each had attending it a little pocket edition of a steamboat, in the shape of a tug, capable of carrying fifty or sixty men, and moving up the strong current twelve miles an hour. They were constantly puffing about among the unwieldy vessels like a breathless little errand-boy.

The "Gibraltar of the West."

Nearing Columbus, we found that the Rebels had evacuated it twelve hours before. The town was already held by an enterprising scouting party of the Second Illinois Cavalry, who had unearthed and raised an old National flag. Our colors waved from the Rebel Gibraltar, and the last Confederate soldier had abandoned Kentucky.

The enemy left in hot haste. Half-burned barracks, chairs, beds, tables, cooking-stoves, letters, charred gun-carriages, bent musket-barrels, bayonets, and provisions were promiscuously lying about.

The main fortifications, on a plateau one hundred and fifty feet high, mounted eighty-three guns, commanding the river for nearly three miles. Here, and in the auxiliary works, we captured one hundred and fifty pieces of artillery.

Scenes in Columbus, Kentucky.

Fastened to the bluff, we found one end of a great chain cable, composed of seven-eighths inch iron, which the brilliant Gideon J. Pillow had stretched across the river, to prevent the passage of our gunboats! It was worthy of the man who, in Mexico, dug his ditch on the wrong side of the parapet. The momentum of an iron-clad would have snapped it like a pipe-stem, had not the current of the river broken it long before.

We found, also, enormous piles of torpedoes, which the Rebels had declared would annihilate the Yankee fleet. They became a standing jest among our officers, who termed them original members of the Peace Society, and averred that the rates of marine insurance immediately declined whenever the companies learned that torpedoes had been planted in the waters where the boats were to run!

In the abandoned post-office I collected a bushel of Rebel newspapers, dating back for several weeks. At first the Memphis journals extravagantly commended the South Carolina planters for burning their cotton, after the capture of Port Royal, and urged universal imitation of their example. They said:—

"Let the whole South be made a Moscow; let our enemies find nothing but blackened ruins to reward their invasion!"

Extracts from Rebel Newspapers.

But when the capture of Donelson rendered the early fall of Memphis probable, the same journals suddenly changed their tone. They argued that Moscow was not a parallel case; that it would be highly injudicious to fire their city, as the Yankees, if they did take it, would hold it only for a short time; that those who urged applying the torch should be punished as demagogues and public enemies! But they abounded in frantic appeals like the following from The Avalanche:

"For the sake of honor and manhood, we trust no young unmarried man will suffer himself to be drafted. He would become a by-word, a scoff, a burning shame to his sex and his State. If young men in pantaloons will sit behind desks, counters, and molasses-barrels, let the girls present them with the garment proper to their peaceable spirits. He that would go to the field, but cannot, should be aided to do so; he that can go, but will not, should be made to do so."

The Avalanche was a great advocate of what is termed the "aggressive policy," declaring that:

"The victorious armies of the South should be precipitated upon the North. IIerHer chief cities should be seized or reduced to ashes; her armies scattered, her States subjugated, and her people compelled to defray the expenses of a war which they have wickedly commenced and obstinately continued. * * * Fearless and invincible, a race of warriors rivaling any that ever followed the standard of an Alexander, a Cæsar, or a Napoleon, the southerners have the power and the will to carry this war into the enemy's country. Let, then, the lightnings of a nation's wrath scathe our foul oppressors! Let the thunder-bolts of war be hurled back upon our dastardly invaders, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, until the recognition of southern independence shall be extorted from the reluctant North, and terms of peace be dictated by a victorious southern army at New York or Chicago."

General Jeff. Thompson, a literary Missouri bushwhacker, was termed the "Swamp Fox" and the "Marion of the Southern Revolution." I found one of his effusions, entitled "Home Again," in that once decorous journal, The New Orleans Picayune. Its transition from the pathetic to the profane is a curious anticlimax.

"My dear wife waits my coming,
My children lisp my name,
And kind friends bid me welcome
To my own home again.
My father's grave lies on the hill,
My boys sleep in the vale;
I love each rock and murmuring rill,
Each mountain, hill, and dale.

I'll suffer hardships, toil, and pain,
For the good time sure to come;
I'll battle long that I may gain
My freedom and my home.
I will return, though foes may stand
Disputing every rod;
My own dear home, my native land,
I'll win you yet, by ---!"

Inmates of the Union Hospitals.

Our hospitals at Mound City, Illinois, contained fourteen hundred inmates. A walk along the double rows of cots in the long wards revealed the sadder phase of war. Here was a typhoid-fever patient, motionless and unconscious, the light forever gone out from his glazed eyes; here a lad, pale and attenuated, who, with a shattered leg, had lain upon this weary couch for four months. There was a Tennessean, who, abandoning his family, came stealthily hundreds of miles to enlist under the Stars and Stripes, with perfect faith in their triumph, and had lost a leg at Donelson; an Illinoisan, from the same battle, with a ghastly aperture in the face, still blackened with powder from his enemy's rifle; a young officer in neat dressing-gown, furnished by the United States Sanitary Commission, sitting up reading a newspaper, but with the sleeve of his left arm limp and empty; marines terribly scalded by the bursting boiler of the Essex at Fort Henry, some of whose whole bodies were one continuous scar. Sick, wounded, and convalescent were alike cheerful; and twenty-five Sisters of Mercy, worthy of their name, moved noiselessly among them, ministering to their wants.

---

[CHAPTER XVIII.]

Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.

Tempest.

If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to lay my head.

Ibid.

Starting down the Mississippi.

On the 14th of March, the flotilla again started down the Mississippi, steaming slowly by Columbus, where Venus followed close upon Mars, in the form of two women disbursing pies and some other commodities to sailors and soldiers. The next day we anchored above Island Number Ten, where Beauregard had built formidable fortifications.

A fast little Rebel gunboat, called the Grampus, ran screeching away from the range of our guns. Below her we could read with glasses the names painted upon the many steamers lying in front of the enemy's works, and see the guns upon a great floating battery.

Our gunboats fired one or two experimental shots, and the mortar-rafts, with tremendous explosions, began to throw their ten-inch shells, weighing two hundred and fifty pounds each. Great results were expected from these enormous mortars, but they proved inaccurate. Our shots fell among the batteries and steamboats of the enemy, throwing up clouds of dirt and sheets of water. The Rebel guns replied with great puffs of smoke; but their missiles, bounding along the river, fell three-quarters of a mile short.

Light skirmishing in closer range continued for several days. My own quarters were on the Benton, Commodore Foote's flagship. She was the largest of the iron-clads, one hundred and eighty-three feet by seventy, and contained quite a little community of two hundred and forty men.

Standing upon the hurricane roof, directly over our bow-guns, we caught the first glimpse of each shot, a few feet from the muzzle, and watched it rushing through the air like a round, black meteor, till it exploded two or three miles away. After we saw the warning puff of smoke, the time seemed very long before each Rebel shot struck the water near us; but no more than ten or fifteen seconds ever elapsed.

When ready to attack the batteries, Commodore Foote said to me:

"You had better take your place with the other correspondents, upon a transport in the rear, out of range. Should any accident befall you here, censure would be cast upon me for permitting you to stay."

Haunted by a resistless curiosity to learn exactly how one feels under fire, I persuaded him to let me remain.

Bombardment of Island Number Ten.

Two other iron-clads, the St. Louis and the Cincinnati, were lashed upon either side of the Benton. Hammocks were taken down and piled in front of the boilers to protect them; the hose was attached to reservoirs of hot water, designed for boarders in close conflict; surgeons scrutinized the edges of their instruments, while our triple floating battery moved slowly down, with the other iron-clads a short distance in the rear. We opened fire, and the balls of the enemy soon replied, now and then striking our boats.

A deafening noise from the St. Louis shook every plank beneath our feet. A moment after, a dozen men rushed upon her deck, their faces so blackened by powder that they would have been taken for negroes. Two were carrying the lifeless form of a third; several others were wounded. Through the din of the cannonade, one of her crew shouted to us from a port-hole that an old forty-two pounder had exploded, killing and mutilating several men.

"Here comes another Shot."

We obtained the best view from the hurricane deck of the Benton, where there could be no special danger from splinters. While we stood there, one of the party was constantly on the look-out, and, seeing a puff of smoke curl up from the Rebel battery, he would shout:

"Here comes another!"

Then we all dropped upon our faces behind the iron-plated pilot-house, which rose from the deck like a great umbrella. The screaming shot would sometimes strike our bows, but usually pass over, falling into the water behind us.

While the Rebels fired from one battery, there was just sufficient excitement to make it interesting; but when they opened with two others, stationed at different points in the bend of the river, their range completely covered the pilot-house. Dropping behind that shelter to avoid the missiles in front, we were exposed to a hail of shot from the side. Thereupon the commodore peremptorily ordered us below, and we went down upon the gun-deck.

A correspondent of The Chicago Times, who chanced to be on board, took a position in the stern of the boat, under the impression that it was entirely safe. A moment after he came rushing in with blanched face and dripping clothing. A shot had struck within three feet of him, glancing into the river, and drenching every thing in the vicinity.

That long gun-deck was alive with action. The executive officer, Lieutenant Bishop, a gallant young fellow, fresh from the naval school, superintended every thing. Swarthy gunners manned the pieces; little powder-boys rushed to and fro with ammunition, and hurrying men crowded the long compartment.

There came a tremendous crashing of glass, iron, and wood! An eight-inch solid shot, penetrating the half-inch iron plating and the five-inch timber, near the bows, as if they were paper, buried itself in the deck, and rebounded, striking the roof. In that manner it danced along the entire length of the boat, through the cabin, the ward-room, the machinery, the pantry—where it smashed a great deal of crockery—until, at the extreme stern, it fell and remained upon the commodore's writing-desk, crushing in the lid.

A moment before the noisy, agile visitor arrived, the whole deck seemed crowded with busy men. A moment after, I looked again. A score of undismayed fellows were comfortably blowing splinters from their mouths and beards, and brushing them from their hair and faces; but, by a fortunate accident, not a single one of them was hurt.

How One feels underFeels Under Fire.

As the shot screamed along very near me, my curiosity diminished. I had a dim perception that nothing in this gunboat life could become me like the leaving of it. A mulatto cabin-boy, whose face turned almost white when the missile tore through the boat, shared my sensations.

"I wish that I was out of it," he said, confidentially; "but I put my own neck into this yoke, and I have got to wear it."

Toward evening, some of the enemy's batteries were silent, and we idlers once more sought the hurricane deck, dodging behind the pilot-house whenever the smoke puffed from the hostile guns. Once, some one cried, "There she comes!" and we dropped as usual. Looking up, I noticed a second engineer standing beside me.

"Lie down, Blakely!" I said, sharply.

He replied laughingly, with his hands in his pockets:

"O no, there is no need of it; one is just as safe here."

While he spoke, the Rebel shot passed within fifteen inches of his bloodless face, shaved a sheet-iron ventilator, tore through the chimney, severed a large wrought-iron rod, struck the deck, plowed through a half-inch iron plate, neatly cutting it in two, passed under the next plate, and then came out again, with its force spent, and rolled languidly against a sky-light. When he felt the rush of air, Blakely bent back almost double, and thereafter he was among the first to seek the shelter of the pilot-house.

Fifty Shots to the Minute.

From the mortars and the guns on both sides, there were sometimes fifty shots to the minute. The jarrings and explosions induced head-ache for hours afterward. The results of the day's bombardment were not very sanguinary. Our iron-clads were struck scores of times, but few men were injured. This desultory fighting was kept up for two or three weeks.

Meanwhile, General Pope, moving across the country from Cairo with great enterprise and activity, had defeated the Rebels and captured their forts at New Madrid, on the Missouri shore of the Mississippi, eight miles below Island Number Ten. He thus held the river in the rear of the enemy, preventing steamboats from ascending to them; but he had not even a skiff or a raft in which he could cross to the Tennessee bank, and reach the rear of the fortifications. How to supply him with boats was the great problem.

Pope was anxious that the commodore should send one of the iron-clads to him, past the Rebel fortifications. Foote hesitated, as running batteries was then an untried experiment.

Pope had an active, hard-working Illinois engineer regiment, which began cutting a canal, to open communication between the flotilla and New Madrid; and we waited for results.

Daily Life on a Gunboat.

I found life on the Benton full of novelty. More than half of her crew were old salts, and the discipline was the same as on a man-of-war. Half-hour bells marked the passage of time. Every morning the deck was holystoned to its utmost possibilities of whiteness. Through each day we heard the shrill whistle of the boatswain, amid hoarse calls of "All hands to quarters," "Stand by the hammocks!" etc.

Even the negro servants caught the naval expressions. One of them, playing on the guitar and singing, broke down from too high a pitch.

"Too much elevation there," said he. "I must depress a little."

"Yes," replied another. "Start again on the gun-deck."

Exchanging shots with the enemy grew monotonous. Reading, writing, or playing chess in the ward-room, we carelessly noted the reports from the Rebel batteries, and some officer from the deck walked in, saying:

"There's another!"

"Where did it strike?" asked some one, quite care lesslycarelessly.

"Near us," or "Just over us in the woods," would be the reply; and the idlers returned to their employments.

My own state-room was within six feet of a thirty-two pounder, which fired every fifteen minutes during the day. The explosions in no wise disturbed my afternoon naps.

On Sunday mornings, after the weekly muster, the men in clean blue shirts and tidy clothing, and the officers, in full uniform, with all their bravery of blue and gold, assembled on the gun-deck for religious service. Hat in hand, they stood in a half circle around the commodore, who, behind a high stool, upon which the National flag was spread, read the comprehensive prayer for "All who are afflicted in mind, body, or estate," or acknowledged that "We have done the things which we ought not to have done, and left undone the things which we ought to have done."

Among the groups of worshipers were seen the gaping mouths of the black guns, and the pyramidal piles of grape and canister ready for use. During prayer, the boat was often shaken by the discharge of a mortar, which made the neighboring woods resound with its long, rolling echoes. The commodore extemporized a brief, simple address on Christian life and duty; then the men were "piped down" and dispersed.

The Carondelet Runs the Batteries.

On a dark April night, during a terrific thunder-shower, the iron-clad Carondelet started to run the gantlet. The undertaking was deemed hazardous in the extreme. The commodore gave to her commander written instructions how to destroy her, should she become disabled; and solemnly commended him to the mercy and protection of Almighty God.

The Carondelet crept noiselessly down through the darkness. When the Rebels discovered her, they opened with shot, shell, and bullets. All her ports were closed, and she did not fire a gun. It was too dark to guide her by the insufficient glimpses of the shore obtained from the little peep-holes of her pilot-house. Mr. D. R. Hoell, an old river pilot, volunteered to remain unprotected on the open upper deck, among the rattling shots and the singing bullets, to give information to his partners within. His daring was promptly rewarded by an appointment as lieutenant in the navy.

Upon the flag-ship above intense anxiety prevailed. After an hour, which seemed a day, from far down the river boomed two heavy reports; then there was silence, then two shots again. All gave a sigh of relief. This was the signal that the Carondelet had lived through the terrible ordeal!

Wonderful Feat of Pope's Engineers.

The Rebels had made themselves very merry over Pope's canal. But, at daylight on the second morning after this feat of the iron-clad, they saw four little stern-wheel steamboats lying in front of Pope's camps. The canal was a success! In two weeks the indefatigable engineers had brought these steamers from Foote's flotilla, sixteen miles, through corn-fields, woods, and swamps, cutting channels from one bayou to another, and felling heavy timber all the way. They were compelled to saw off hundreds of huge trees, three feet below the water's edge. It was one of the most creditable feats of the war.

"Let all the world take notice," said a Confederate newspaper, "that the southern troops are gentlemen, and must be subjected to no drudgery."

The loyal troops, like these Illinois engineers, were men of skilled industry, proud to know themselves "kings of two hands."

The Confederates felt that Birnam wood had come to Dunsinane. Declaring that it was useless to fight men who would deliberately float gunboats by the very muzzles of their heavy guns, and could run steamers sixteen miles over dry land, they began to evacuate Island Number Ten. But Pope had already ferried the greater part of his army across the river, and he replied to my inquiries:

"I will have every mother's son of them!"

The Rebels Effectively Caged.

He kept his promise. The Rebels were caged. They fled in haste across the country to Tiptonville, where they supposed their steamboats awaited them. Instead, they found two of our iron-clads lying in front of the town, and learned that Pope held the river even ten miles below. The trap was complete. On their front was Tiptonville, with the cavernous eyes of the Carondelet and the Pittsburgh ominously scrutinizing them. At their left was an impassable line of lake and slough; at their right a dry region, bounded by the river, and held by our troops; in their rear, Pope's army was hotly pursuing them. Some leaped into the lake or plunged into the swamps, trying to escape. Three times the Rebel forces drew up in line of battle; but they were too much demoralized to fight, and, after a weary night, they surrendered unconditionally.

At sunrise, long files of stained, bedraggled soldiers, in butternut and jeans, began to move sadly into a great corn-field, and stack their arms. The prisoners numbered twenty-eight hundred. We captured upward of a hundred heavy guns, twenty-five field-pieces, half a dozen steamboats, and immense supplies of provisions and ammunition. The victory was won with trifling loss of life, and reflected the highest credit both upon the land and water forces. The army and the navy, fitting together like the two blades of the scissors, had cut the gordian knot.

Pope telegraphed to Halleck that, if steamboats could be furnished him, in four days he would plant the Stars and Stripes in Memphis. Halleck, as usual, engrossed in strategy, declined to supply the transportation.

The Northern Flood Rolling on.

But the great northern flood rolled on toward the Gulf, and in its resistless torrent was no refluent wave.

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[CHAPTER XIX.]

Of sallies and retires; of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets;
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin;
And all the currents of a heady fight.

King Henry IV.

The Battle of Shiloh.

Simultaneously with the capture of Island Number Ten occurred the battle of Shiloh. The first reports were very wild, stating our loss at seventeen thousand, and asserting that the Union commander had been disastrously surprised, and hundreds of men bayoneted in their tents. It was even added that Grant was intoxicated during the action. This last fiction showed the tenacity of a bad name. Years before, Grant was intemperate; but he had abandoned the habit soon after the beginning of the war.

General Albert Sydney Johnson was killed, and Beauregard ultimately driven back, leaving his dead and wounded in our hands; but Jefferson Davis, with the usual Rebel policy, announced in a special message to the Confederate Congress:

"It has pleased Almighty God again to crown the Confederate arms with a glorious and decided victory over our invaders."

I went up the Tennessee River by a boat crowded with representatives—chiefly women—of the Sanitary Commissions of Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago.

The Reverend Robert Colyer.

One evening, religious services were held in the cabin. A clergyman exhorted his hearers, when they should arrive at the bloody field, to minister to the spiritual as well as physical wants of the sufferers. With special infelicity, he added:

"Many of them have doubtless been wicked men; but you can, at least, remind them of divine mercy, and tell them the story of the thief on the cross."

The next speaker, a quiet gentleman, wearing the blouse of a private soldier, after some remarks about practical religion, added:

"I can not agree with the last brother. I believe we shall best serve the souls of our wounded soldiers by ministering, for the present, simply to their bodies. For my own part, I feel that he who has fallen fighting for our country—for your Cause and mine—is more of a man than I am. He may have been wicked; but I think room will be found for him among the many mansions above. I should be ashamed to tell him the story of the thief on the cross."

Hearty, spontaneous clapping of hands through the crowded cabin followed this sentiment—a rather unusual demonstration for a prayer-meeting. The speaker was the Rev. Robert Colyer, of Chicago.

With officers who had participated in the battle, I visited every part of the field. The ground was broken by sharp hills, deep ravines, and dense timber, which the eye could not penetrate.

The reports of a surprise were substantially untrue. No man was bayoneted in his tent, or anywhere else, according to the best evidence I could obtain.

But the statements, said to come from Grant and Sherman, that they could not have been better prepared, had they known that Beauregard designed to attack, were also untrue. Our troops were not encamped advantageously for battle. Raw and unarmed regiments were on the extreme front, which was not picketed or scouted as it should have been in the face of an enemy.

Beauregard attacked on Sunday morning at daylight. The Rebels greatly outnumbered the Unionists, and impetuously forced them back. Grant's army was entirely western. It contained representatives of nearly every county in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

Partially unprepared, and steadily driven back, often ill commanded and their organizations broken, the men fought with wonderful tenacity. It was almost a hand-to-hand conflict. Confederates and Loyalists, from behind trees, within thirty feet of each other, kept up a hot fire, shouting respectively, "Bull Run!" and "Donelson!"

Prentiss' shattered division, in that dense forest, was flanked before its commander knew that the supporting forces—McClernand on his right and Hurlbut on his left—had been driven back. Messengers sent to him by those commanders were killed. During a lull in the firing, Prentiss was lighting his cigar from the pipe of a soldier when he learned that the enemy was on both sides of him, half a mile in his rear. With the remnant of his command he was captured.

A Union Orator Captured.

Remaining in Rebel hands for six months, he was enabled to indulge in oratory to his heart's content. Southern papers announced, with intense indignation, that Prentiss—occupying, with his officers, an entire train—called out by the bystanders, was permitted to make radical Union speeches at many southern railway stations. Removed from prison to prison, the Illinois General continued to harangue the people, and his men to sing the "Star-Spangled Banner," until at last the Rebels were glad to exchange them.

Grant and Sherman in Battle.

Throughout the battle, Grant rode to and fro on the front, smoking his inevitable cigar, with his usual stolidity and good fortune. Horses and men were killed all around him, but he did not receive a scratch. On that wooded field, it was impossible for any one to keep advised of the progress of the struggle. Grant gave few orders, merely bidding his generals do the best they could.

Sherman had many hair-breadth 'scapes. His briddlebridle-rein was cut off by a bullet within two inches of his fingers. As he was leaning forward in the saddle, a ball whistled through the top and back of his hat. His metallic shoulder-strap warded off another bullet, and a third passed through the palm of his hand. Three horses were shot under him. He was the hero of the day. All awarded to him the highest praise for skill and gallantry. He was promoted to a major-generalship, dating from the battle. His official report was a clear, vivid, and fascinating description of the conflict.

Five bullets penetrated the clothing of an officer on McClernand's staff, but did not break the skin. A ball knocked out two front teeth of a private in the Seventeenth Illinois Infantry, but did him no further injury. A rifle-shot passed through the head of a soldier in the First Missouri Artillery, coming out just above the ear, but did not prove fatal. Dr. Cornyn, of St. Louis, told me that he extracted a ball from the brain of one soldier, who, three days afterward, was on duty, with the bullet in his pocket.

More than a year afterward, at the battle of Fredericksburg, Captain Richard Cross, of the Fifth New Hampshire Infantry, noticed one of his men whose skull had been cut open by the fragment of a shell, with a section of it standing upright, leaving the brain exposed. Cross shut the piece of skull down like the lid of a teapot, tied a handkerchief around it, and sent to the rear the wounded soldier, who ultimately recovered. The one truth, taught by field experience to army surgeons, was that few, if any, wounds are invariably fatal.

A Gallant Feat by Sweeney.

At Shiloh, Brigadier-General Thomas W. Sweeney, who had lost one arm in the Mexican War, received a Minié bullet in his remaining arm, and another shot in his foot, while his horse fell riddled with seven balls. Almost fainting from loss of blood, he was lifted upon another horse, and remained on the field through the entire day. His coolness and his marvelous escapes were talked of before many camp-fires throughout the army.

Once, during the battle, he was unable to determine whether a battery whose men were dressed in blue, was Rebel or Union. Sweeney, leaving his command, rode at a gentle gallop directly toward the battery until within pistol-shot, saw that it was manned by Confederates, turned in a half circle, and rode back again at the same easy pace. Not a single shot was fired at him, so much was the respect of the Confederates excited by this daring act. I afterward met one of them, who described with great vividness the impression which Sweeney's gallantry made upon them.

The steady determination of Grant's troops during that long April Sunday, was perhaps unequaled during the war. At night companies were commanded by sergeants, regiments by lieutenants, and brigades by majors. In several regiments, one-half the men were killed and wounded; and in some entire divisions the killed and wounded exceeded thirty-three per cent, of the numbers who went into battle.

I have seen no other field which gave indication of such deadly conflict as the Shiloh ridges and ravines, everywhere covered with a very thick growth of timber—

"Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel."

In one tree I counted sixty bullet-holes; another bore marks of more than ninety balls within ten feet of the ground. Sometimes, for several yards in the dense shubberyshrubbery, it was difficult to find a twig as large as one's finger, which had not been cut off by balls.

A friend of mine counted one hundred and twenty-six dead Rebels, lying where they fell, upon an area less than fifty yards wide and a quarter of a mile long. One of our details buried in a single trench one hundred and forty-seven of the enemy, including three lieutenant-colonels and four majors.

But our forces, overpowered by numbers, fell farther and further back, while the Rebels took possession of many Union camps. At night, our line, originally three miles in length, was shortened to three-quarters of a mile.

Buell's Opportune Arrival.

For weeks the inscrutable Buell had been leisurely marching through Kentucky and Tennessee, to join Grant. He arrived at the supreme moment. At four o'clock on that Sunday afternoon, General Nelson, of Kentucky, who commanded Buell's advance, crossed the Tennessee, and rode up to Grant and his staff when the battle was raging.

"Here we are, General," said Nelson, with the military salute, and pointing to long files of his well-clad, athletic, admirably disciplined fellows, already pouring on the steamboats, to be ferried across the river. "Here we are! We are not very military in our division. We don't know many fine points or nice evolutions; but if you want stupidity and hard fighting, I reckon we are the men for you."

That night both armies lay upon their guns, and the opposing pickets were often within a hundred yards of each other. The groans and cries of the dying rendered it impossible to sleep. Grant said:

"We must not give the enemy the moral advantage of attacking to-morrow morning. We must fire the first gun."

Just at day-break, the Rebels were surprised at all points of the line by assaults from the foe whom they had supposed vanquished. Grant's shattered troops behaved admirably, and Buell's splendid army won new laurels. The Confederates were forced back at all points. Their retreat was a stampede, leaving behind great quantities of ammunition, commissary stores, guns, caissons, small arms, supply-wagons and ambulances. They were not vigorously followed; but as no effective pursuit was made by either side during the entire war (until Sheridan, in one of its closing scenes, captured Lee), perhaps northern and southern troops were too equally matched for either to be thoroughly routed.

Beauregard Finally Routed.

Beauregard withdrew to Corinth, as usual, announcing a glorious victory. He addressed a letter to Grant, asking permission, under flag of truce, to send a party to the battle-field to bury the Confederate dead. He prefaced the request as follows:

"Sir, at the close of the conflict of yesterday, my forces being exhausted by the extraordinary length of the time during which they were engaged with yours on that and the preceding day, and it being apparent that you had received and were still receiving re-enforcements, I felt it my duty to withdraw my troops from the immediate scene of the conflict."

Grant was strongly tempted to assure Beauregard that no apologies for his retreat were necessary! But he merely replied in a courteous note, declining the request, and stating that the dead were already interred.

The Losses on Both Sides.

The losses on both sides were officially reported as follows:

	Killed.	Wounded.	Missing.	Total.
Union	1,614	7,721	3,963	13,298
Rebel	1,728	8,012	959	10,699

The excess of Rebel wounded was owing to the superiority of the muskets used by the Federal soldiers; and the excess of Union missing, to the capture of Prentiss' division.

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[CHAPTER XX.]

How use doth breed a habit in a man.

Two Gentlemen of Verona.

——But let me tell the world,
If he outlive the envy of this day,
England did never owe so sweet a hope
So much misconstrued.

Henry IV.

It was long after the battle of Shiloh before all the dead were buried. Many were interred in trenches, scores together. A friend, who was engaged in this revolting labor, told me that, after three or four days, he found himself counting off the bodies as indifferently as he would have measured cord-wood.

General Halleck soon arrived, assuming command of the combined forces of Grant, Buell, and Pope. It was a grand army.

Grant Under a Cloud.

Grant nominally remained at the head of his corps, but was deprived of power. He was under a cloud. Most injurious reports concerning his conduct at Shiloh pervaded the country. All the leading journals were represented in Halleck's army. At the daily accidental gatherings of eight or ten correspondents, Grant was the subject of angry discussion. The journalistic profession tends to make men oracular and severely critical.

Several of these writers could demonstrate conclusively that Grant was without capacity, but a favorite of Fortune; that his great Donelson victory was achieved in spite of military blunders which ought to have defeated him.

He Serenely Smokes and Waits.

The subject of all this contention bore himself with undisturbed serenity. Sherman, while constantly declaring that he cared nothing for the newspapers, was foolishly sensitive to every word of criticism. But Grant, whom they really wounded, appeared no more disturbed by these paper bullets of the brain than by the leaden missiles of the enemy. He silently smoked and waited. The only protest I ever knew him to utter was to the correspondent of a journal which had denounced him with great severity:

"Your paper is very unjust to me; but time will make it all right. I want to be judged only by my acts."

When the army began to creep forward, I messed at Grant's head-quarters, with his chief of staff; and around the evening camp-fires I saw much of the general. He rarely uttered a word upon the political bearings of the war; indeed, he said little upon any subject. With his eternal cigar, and his head thrown slightly to one side, for hours he would sit silently before the fire, or walk back and forth, with eyes upon the ground, or look on at our whist-table, now and then making a suggestion about the play.

Most of his pictures greatly idealize his full, rather heavy face. The journalists called him stupid. One of my confrères used to say:

"How profoundly surprised Mrs. Grant must have been, when she woke up and learned that her husband was a great man!"

He impressed me as possessing great purity, integrity, and amiability, with excellent judgment and boundless pluck. But I should never have suspected him of military genius. Indeed, nearly every man of whom, at the beginning of the war, I prophesied a great career, proved inefficient, and vice versâ.

Jealousies of Military Men.

Military men seem to cherish more jealousies than members of any other profession, except physicians and artistes. At almost every general head-quarters, one heard denunciations of rival commanders. Grant was above this "mischievous foul sin of chiding." I never heard him speak unkindly of a brother officer. Still, the soldier's taint had slightly poisoned him. He regarded Rosecrans with peculiar antipathy, and finally accepted the command of our combined armies only on condition that he should be at once removed.

Hooker once boasted that he had the best army on the planet. One would have declared that Grant commanded the worst. There was little of that order, perfect drill, or pride, pomp, and circumstance, seen among Buell's troops and in the Army of the Potomac. But Grant's rough, rugged soldiers would fight wonderfully, and were not easily demoralized. If their line became broken, every man, from behind a tree, rock, or stump, blazed away at the enemy on his own account. They did not throw up their hats at sight of their general, but were wont to remark, with a grim smile:

"There goes the old man. He doesn't say much; but he's a pretty hard nut for Johnny Reb. to crack."

Unlike Halleck, Grant did not pretend to familiarity with the details of military text-books. He could not move an army with that beautiful symmetry which McClellan displayed; but his pontoons were always up, and his ammunition trains were never missing.

Though not occupied with details, he must have given them close attention; for, while other commanding generals had forty or fifty staff-officers, brilliant with braid and buttons, Grant allowed himself but six or seven.

The Union and Rebel Wounded.

Within ten days after the battle of Shiloh, nineteen large steamers, crowded with wounded, passed down the river. In the long rows of cots which filled their cabins and crowded their guards, Rebel and Union soldiers were lying side by side, and receiving the same attendance.

Scores of volunteer physicians aided the regular army surgeons. Hundreds of volunteer nurses, many of them wives, sisters, and mothers, came from every walk of life to join in the work of mercy. Hands hardened with toil, and hands that leisure and luxury left white and soft, were bathing fevered brows, supporting wearied heads, washing repulsive wounds, combing matted and bloody locks.

Patient forms kept nightly vigils beside the couches; gentle tones dropped priceless words of sympathy; and, when all was over, tender hands closed the fixed eyes, and smoothed the hair upon the white foreheads. Thousands of poor fellows carried to their homes, both North and South, grateful memories of those heroic women; thousands of hearts, wrung with the tidings that loved ones were gone, found comfort in the knowledge that their last hours were soothed by those self-denying and blessed ministrations.

One man, who had received several bullets, lay undiscovered for eight days in a little thicket, with no nourishment except rain-water. After discovery he lived nearly two weeks. At some points the ground was so closely covered with mutilated bodies that it was difficult to step between them. One soldier, rigid in death, was found lying upon the back, holding in his fixed hand, and regarding with stony eyes, the daguerreotype of a woman and child. It was terribly suggestive of the desolate homes and bleeding hearts which almost force one to Cicero's conclusion, that any peace is better than the justest war.

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[CHAPTER XXI.]

They are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.

Hamlet.

An Interview with General Sherman.

General Sherman was very violent toward the Press. Some newspapers had treated him unjustly early in the war. While he commanded in Kentucky, his eccentricities were very remarkable, and a journalist started the report that Sherman was crazy, which obtained wide credence. There was, at least, method in his madness; for his supposed insanity which declared that the Government required two hundred thousand troops in the West, though hooted at the time, proved wisdom and prophecy.

Nevertheless, he was very erratic. When I first saw him in Missouri, during Fremont's administration, his eye had a half-wild expression, probably the result of excessive smoking. From morning till night he was never without his cigar. To the nervous-sanguine temperament, indicated by his blonde hair, light eyes, and fair complexion, tobacco is peculiarly injurious.

While many insisted that no correspondent could meet Sherman without being insulted, I sought him at his tent in the field; he was absent with a scouting party, but soon returned, with one hand bandaged from his Shiloh wound. A staff-officer introduced me:

"General, this is Mr. ----."

"How do you do, Mr. ----?" inquired Sherman, with great suavity, offering me his uninjured hand.

"Correspondent of The New York Tribune," added the lieutenant.

His Complaints about the Press.

The general's manner changed from Indian summer to a Texas norther, and he asked, in freezing tones:

"Have you not come to the wrong place, sir?"

"I think not. I want to learn some facts about the late battle from your own lips. You complain that journalists misrepresent you. How can they avoid it, when you refuse to give them proper information? Some officers are drunkards and charlatans; but you would think it unjust if we condemned all on that account. Is it not equally absurd to anathematize every man of my profession for the sins of a few unworthy members?"

"Perhaps it is. Sit down. Will you have a cigar? The trouble is, that you of the Press have no responsibilities. Some worthless fellow, wielding a quill, may send falsehoods about me to thousands of people who can never hear them refuted. What can I do? His readers do not know that he is without character. It would be useless to prosecute him. If he would even fight there would be some satisfaction in that; but a slanderer is likely to be a coward as well."

"True; but when some private citizen slanders you on the street or in a drinking-saloon, you do not find it necessary to pull the nose of every civilian whom you meet. Reputable journalists have just as much pride in their profession as you have in yours. This tendency to treat them superciliously and harshly, which encourages flippant young staff-officers to insult them, tends to drive them home in disgust, and leave their places to be supplied by a less worthy class; so you only aggravate the evil you complain of."

Sherman's Personal Appearance.

After further conversation on this subject, Sherman gave me a very entertaining account of the battle. Since I first saw him, his eye had grown much calmer, and his nervous system healthier. He is tall, of bony frame, spare in flesh, with thin, wrinkled face, sandy beard and hair, and bright, restless eyes. His face indicates great vitality and activity; his manner is restless; his discourse rapid and earnest. He looks rather like an anxious man of business than an ideal soldier, suggesting the exchange, and not the camp.

He has great capacity for labor—sometimes working for twenty consecutive hours. He sleeps little, nor do the most powerful opiates relieve his terrible cerebral excitement. Indifferent to dress and to fare, he can live on hard bread and water, and fancies any one else can do so. Often irritable, and sometimes rude, he is a man of great originality and daring, and a most valuable lieutenant for a general of coolness and judgment, like Grant or Thomas. With one of them to plan or modify, he is emphatically the man to execute. His purity and patriotism are beyond all question. He did not enter the army to speculate in cotton, or to secure a seat in the United States Senate, but to serve the country.

Military weaknesses are often amusing. A prominent officer on Halleck's staff, who had served with Scott in Mexico, had something to do with fortifying Island Number Ten, after its capture. An obscure country newspaper gave another officer the credit. Seeking the agent of the Associated Press at Halleck's head-quarters, the aggrieved engineer remarked:

"By the way, Mr. Weir, I have been carrying a paper in my pocket for several days, but have forgotten to hand it to you. Here it is."

And he produced a letter page of denial, upon which the ink was not yet dry, stating that the island had been fortified under the immediate direction of General ----, the well-known officer of the regular army, who served upon the staff of Lieutenant-General Scott during the Mexican war, and was at present ----, ----, and ---- upon the staff of General Halleck.

"I rely upon your sense of justice," said this ornament of the staff, "to give this proper publicity."

Humors of the Telegraph.

Mr. Weir, with a keen sense of the ridiculous, sent the long dispatch word for word to the Associated Press, adding: "You may rest assured that this is perfectly reliable, because every word of it was written by the old fool himself!" All the newspaper readers in the country had the formal dispatch, and all the telegraph corps had their merriment over this confidential addendum.

Halleck's command contained eighty thousand effective men, who were nearly all veterans. His line was ten miles in length, with Grant on the right, Buell in the center, and Pope on the left.

The grand army was like a huge serpent, with its head pinned on our left, and its tail sweeping slowly around toward Corinth. Its majestic march was so slow that the Rebels had ample warning. It was large enough to eat up Beauregard at one mouthful; but Halleck crept forward at the rate of about three-quarters of a mile per day. Thousands and thousands of his men died from fevers and diarrhœa.

There was great dissatisfaction at his slow progress. Pope was particularly impatient. One day he had a very sharp skirmish with the enemy. Our position was strong. General Palmer, who commanded on the front, reported that he could hold it against the world, the flesh, and the devil; but Halleck telegraphed to Pope three times within an hour not to be drawn into a general engagement. After the last dispatch, Pope retired, leaving the enemy in possession of the field. How he did storm about it!

The little army which Pope had brought from the capture of Island Number Ten was perfectly drilled and disciplined, and he handled it with rare ability. Much of his subsequent unpopularity arose from his imprudent and violent language. He sometimes indulged in the most unseemly profanity and billingsgate within hearing of a hundred people.

Weaknesses of Sundry Generals.

But his personal weaknesses were pardonable compared with those of some other prominent officers. During Fremont's Missouri campaign, I knew one general who afterward enjoyed a well-earned national reputation for skill and gallantry. His head-quarters were the scenes of nightly orgies, where whisky punches and draw-poker reigned from dark until dawn. In the morning his tent was a strange museum of bottles, glasses, sugar-bowls, playing-cards, gold, silver, and bank-notes. I knew another western officer, who, during the heat of a Missouri battle, according to the newspaper reports, inspirited his men by shouting:

"Go in, boys! Remember Lyon! Remember the old flag!"

He did use those words, but no enemy was within half a mile, and he was lying drunk on the ground, flat upon his back. Afterward, repenting in sackcloth and ashes, he did the State some service, and his delinquency was never made public.

At Antietam, a general, well known both in Europe and America, was reported disabled by a spent shell, which struck him in the breast. The next morning, he gave me a minute history of it, assuring me that he still breathed with difficulty and suffered greatly from internal soreness. The fact was that he was disabled by a bottle of whisky, having been too hospitable to that seductive friend!

"John Pope, Major-General Commanding."

After the evacuation of Corinth, Pope's reputation suffered greatly from a false dispatch, asserting that he had captured ten thousand prisoners. Halleck alone was responsible for the report. Pope was in the rear. One of his subordinates on the front telegraphed him substantially as follows:

"The woods are full of demoralized and flying Rebels. Some of my officers estimate their number as high as ten thousand. Many of them have already come into my lines."

Pope forwarded this message, which said nothing about taking prisoners, to Halleck, without erasing or adding a line; and Halleck, smarting under his mortifying failure at Corinth, telegraphed that Pope reported the capture of ten thousand Rebels. Pope's reputation for veracity was fatally wounded, and the newspapers burlesqued him mercilessly.

One of my comrades lay sick and wounded at the residence of General Clinton B. Fisk, of St. Louis. On a Sunday afternoon the general was reading to him from the Bible an account of the first contraband. This historic precedent was the servant of an Amalekite, who came into David's camp and proposed, if assured of freedom, to show the King of Israel a route which would enable him to surprise his foes. The promise was given, and the king fell upon the enemy, whom he utterly destroyed. While our host was reading the list of the spoils, the prisoners, slaves, women, flocks and herds captured by David, the sick journalist lifted his attenuated finger, and in his weak, piping voice, said:

"Stop, General; just look down to the bottom of that list, and see if it is not signed John Pope, Major-General commanding!"

Halleck's Faux Pas at Corinth.

At last, Halleck's army reached Corinth, but the bird had flown. No event of the war reflected so much credit upon the Rebels and so much discredit upon the Unionists as Beauregard's evacuation. He did not disturb himself until Halleck's Parrott guns had thrown shots within fourteen feet of his own head-quarters. Then, keeping up a vigorous show of resistance on his front, he deserted the town, leaving behind not a single gun, or ambulance, or even a sick or wounded man in the hospital.

Halleck lost thenceforth the name of "Old Brains," which some imaginative person had given him, and which tickled for a time the ears of his soldiers. The only good thing he ever did, in public, was to make two brief speeches. When he first reached St. Louis, upon being called out by the people, he said:

"With your help, I will drive the enemy out of Missouri."

Called upon again, on leaving St. Louis for Washington, to assume the duties of general-in-chief, he made an equally brief response:

"Gentlemen: I promised to drive the enemy out of Missouri; I have done it!"

Halleck's Army, before Corinth, }
April 23, 1862. }

Heavy re-enforcements are arriving. The woods, in luxuriant foliage, are spiced with

"——a dream of forest sweets,
Of odorous blooms and sweet contents,"

and the deserted orchards are fragrant with apple and cherry blossoms.

Out on the Front.

May 11.

Still we creep slowly along. Pope's head-quarters are now within the borders of Mississippi. Out on his front you find several hundred acres of cotton-field and sward, ridged with graves from a recent hot skirmish. Carcasses of a hundred horses, killed during the battle, are slowly burning under piles of rails, covered with a layer of earth, that their decay may not taint the atmosphere.

Beyond, our infantry pickets present muskets and order you to halt. If you are accompanied by a field-officer, or bear a pass "by order of Major-General Halleck," you can cross this Rubicon. A third of a mile farther are our vedettes, some mounted, others lying in the shade beside their grazing horses, but keeping a sharp look-out in front. In a little rift of the woods, half a mile away, you see through your field-glass a solitary horseman clad in butternut. Two or three more, and sometimes forty or fifty, come out of the woods and join him, but they keep very near their cover, and soon go back. Those are the enemy's pickets. You hear the drum beat in the Rebel lines, and the shrill whistle of the locomotives at Corinth, which is three miles distant.

May 19.

Along our entire front, almost daily, the long roll is sounded, and the ground jarred by the dull rumble of cannonade. The little attention paid to these skirmishes, where we lose from fifty to one hundred men, illustrates the magnitude of the war.

We feel the earth vibrate, and look inquiringly into the office of the telegraph which accompanies every corps.

"It is on Buell's center, or on Grant's right," the operator replies.

If it does not become rapid and prolonged, no further questions are asked. At night, awakened by the sharp rattle of musketry, we raise our heads, listen for the alarm-drum, and, not hearing it, roll over in our blankets, to court again the drowsy god.

Ride out with me to the front, five miles from Halleck's head-quarters. The country is undulating and woody, with a few cotton-fields and planters' houses. The beautiful groves open into delicious vistas of green grass or rolling wheat; luxuriant flowers perfume the vernal air, and the rich foliage already seems to display—

——"The tintings and the fingerings of June,
As she blossoms into beauty and sings her Summer tune!"

Here is a deserted camp of a division which has moved forward. Three or four adjacent farmers are gathering up the barrels, boxes, provisions, and other débris, left behind by the troops.

Drilling, Digging, and Skirmishing.

Here is a division on drill, advancing in line of battle, the skirmishers thrown out in front, deploying, gathering in groups, or falling on their faces at the word of command.

Beyond those white tents our soldiers, in gray shirts and blue pants, are busily plying the spade. They throw up a long rampart notched with embrasures for cannon. We have already built fifty miles of breastworks.

A little in the rear are the heavy siege-guns, where they can be brought up quickly; a little in front, the field artillery, with the horses harnessed and tied to trees, ready for use at a moment's notice. Near the workmen, their comrades, who do the more legitimate duty of the soldier, are standing on their arms, to repel any sortie from the enemy. Their guns, with the burnished barrels and bayonets glistening in the sun, are stacked in long rows, while the men stand in little groups, or sit under the trees, playing cards, reading letters or newspapers. More than twenty thousand copies of the daily papers of the western cities and New York are sold in the army at ten cents each. The number of letters which go out from the camps in each day's mail is nearly as large.

When this parapet is completed, we shall go forward a few hundred yards, and throw up another; and thus we advance slowly toward Corinth.

Ride still farther, and you find the infantry pickets. The vedettes are drawn in, if there is any skirmishing going on. From the extreme front, you catch an occasional glimpse of the Rebels—"Butternuts," as they are termed in camp, from their cinnamon-hued homespun, dyed with butternut extract. They are dodging among the trees, and, if you are wise, you will get behind a tree yourself, and beware how you show your head.

Experiences among the Sharp-shooters.

Already one of their sharp-shooters notices you. Puff, comes a cloud of smoke from his rifle; in the same breath you hear the explosion, and the sharp, ringing "ping" of the bullet through the air! Capital shots are many of these long, lank, loose-jointed Mississippians and Texans, whose rifles are sometimes effective at ten and twelve hundred yards. Yesterday, one of them concealed himself in the dense foliage of a tree-branch, and picked off several of our soldiers. At last, one of our own sharp-shooters took him in hand, and, at the sixth discharge, brought him down to the ground. This sharp-shooting is a needless aggravation of the horrors of war; but if the enemy indulges in it, you have no recourse but to do likewise.

Horses Stolen Every Day.

Stealing is the inevitable accompaniment of camp life—"convey, the wise" call it. I have a steed, cadaverous and bony, but with good locomotive powers. There was profound policy in my selection. For five consecutive nights that horse was stolen, but no thief ever kept him after seeing him by day-light. In the morning, he would always come browsing back. My friend and tent-mate "Carlton," of The Boston Journal, had a more vaulting ambition. He procured a showy horse, which proved the most expensive luxury in all his varied experience. The special aptitude of the animal was to be stolen. Regularly, seven mornings in the week, our African factotum would thrust his woolly head into the tent, and awaken us with this salutation:

"Breakfast is ready. Mr. Coffin, your horse is gone again."

By hard search and liberal rewards, he would be reclaimed during the day from some cavalry soldier, who averred that he had found him running loose. After being impaled and nearly killed upon a rake-handle, the poor brute, hardly able to walk ten paces, was stolen again, and never re-appeared. My friend now remembered his showy steed, and the last five-dollar note which he sent in fruitless pursuit, among blessings which brightened as they took their flight.

Cairo, Ill., May 21.

Halleck Expels the War Correspondents.

General Halleck has expelled all the correspondents from the army, on the plea that he must exclude "unauthorized hangers-on," to keep spies out of his camps. His refusal to accept any guaranties of their loyalty and prudence, even from the President himself, proves that this plea was a shallow subterfuge. The real trouble is, that Halleck is not willing to have his conduct exhibited to the country through any other medium than official reports. "As false as a bulletin," has passed into a proverb.

The journalists received invitations to remain, from friends holding commissions in the army, from major-generals down to lieutenants; but, believing their presence just as legitimate and needful as that of any soldier or officer, they determined not to skulk about camps like felons, but all left in a body. Their individual grievances are nothing to the public; but this is a grave issue between the Military Power and the rights of the Press and the People.

---

[CHAPTER XXII.]

——Whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile.

Cymbeline.

Bloodthirstiness of Rebel Women.

No history of the war is likely to do full justice to the bitterness of the Rebel women. Female influence tempted thousands of young men to enter the Confederate service against their own wishes and sympathies. Women sometimes evinced incredible rancor and bloodthirstiness. The most startling illustration of the brutalizing effect of Slavery appeared in the absence of that sweetness, charity, and tenderness toward the suffering, which is the crowning grace of womanhood.

A southern Unionist, the owner of many slaves, said to me:

"I suppose I have not struck any of my negroes for ten years. When they need correcting, my wife always does it."

If he had a horse or a mule requiring occasional whipping, would he put the scourge in the hands of his little daughter, and teach her to wield it, from her tender years? How infinitely more must it brutalize and corrupt her when the victim is a man—the most sacred thing that God has made—his earthly image and his human temple!

The Battle of Memphis.

Before we captured Memphis, the sick and wounded Union prisoners were in a condition of great want and suffering. Women of education, wealth, and high social position visited the hospitals to minister to Rebel patients. Frequently entering the Federal wards from curiosity, they used toward the groaning patients expressions like this:

"I would like to give you one dose! You would never fight against the South again!"

In what happy contrast to this shone the self-denying ministrations of northern women, to friend and enemy alike!

In Memphis, on the evening of June 5th, General Jeff. Thompson, commanding the Rebel cavalry, and Commodore Edward Montgomery, commanding the Rebel flotilla, stated at the Gayoso House that there would be a battle the next morning, in which the Yankee fleet would be destroyed in just about two hours.

Just after daylight, the Rebel flotilla attacked ours, two miles above the city. We had five iron-clads and several rams, which were then experimental. They were light, agile little stern-wheel boats, whose machinery was not at all protected against shots. The battle occurred in full view of the city. Though it began soon after daylight, it was witnessed by ten thousand people upon the high bluff—an anxious, excited crowd. The Rebels dared not be too demonstrative, and the Unionists dared not whisper a word of their long-cherished and earnest hopes.

Gallant Exploits of the Rams.

While the two fleets were steaming toward each other, Colonel Ellet, determined to succeed or to die, daringly pushed forward with his little rams, the Monarch and Queen of the West. With these boats, almost as fragile as pasteboard, he steamed directly into the Rebel flotilla. One of his rams struck the great gunboat Sterling Price with a terrific blow, crushing timbers and tearing away the entire larboard wheel-house. The Price drifted helplessly down the stream and stranded. Another of Ellet's rams ran at full speed into the General Lovell, cutting her in twain. The Rebel boat filled and sunk.

From the shore, it was a most impressive sight. There was the Lovell, with holiday decorations, crowded with men and firing her guns, when the little ram struck her, crushing in her side, and she went down like a plummet. In three minutes, even the tops of her tall chimneys disappeared under water. Scores of swimming and drowning Rebels in the river were rescued by boats from the Union fleet.

One of the rams now ran alongside and grappled the Beauregard, and, through hose, drenched her decks with scalding water, while her cannoneers dared not show their heads to Ellet's sharpshooters, who were within a few feet of them. Another Rebel boat came up to strike the ram, but the agile little craft let go her hold and backed out. The blow intended for her struck the Beauregard, which instantly went down, "hoist with his own petar."

The Sumter and the Little Rebel, both disabled, were stranded on the Arkansas shore. The Jeff. Thompson was set on fire and abandoned by her crew. In a few minutes there was an enormous dazzling flash of light, a measureless volume of black smoke, and a startling roar, which seemed to shake the earth to its very center. For several seconds the air was filled with falling timbers. Exploding her magazine, the Rebel gunboat expired with a great pyrotechnic display.

The General Bragg received a fifty-pound shot, which tore off a long plank under her water-mark, and she was captured in a sinking condition. The Van Dorn, the only Rebel boat which survived the conflict, turned and fled down the river.

The battle lasted just one hour and three minutes. It was the most startling, dramatic, and memorable display of the whole war. On our side, no one was injured except Colonel Ellet, who had performed such unexampled feats with his little rams. A splinter, which struck him in the leg, inflicted a fatal wound.

As our fleet landed, a number of news-boys sprang on shore, and, a moment after, were running through the street, shouting:

"Here's your New-York Tribune and Herald—only ten cents in silver!"

The correspondents, before the city was formally surrendered, had strolled through the leading streets. At the Gayoso House they registered their names immediately under those of the fugacious Rebel general, and ordered dinner.

The Memphis Rebels, who had predicted a siege rivaling Saragossa and Londonderry, were in a condition of stupor for two weeks after our arrival. They rubbed their eyes wonderingly, to see Union officers and Abolition journalists at large without any suggestions of hanging or tarring and feathering. Remembering my last visit, it was with peculiar satisfaction that I appended in enormous letters to my signature upon the hotel register, the name of the journal I served.

A Sailor on a Lark.

On the day of the capture, an intoxicated seaman from one of the gun-boats, who had been shut up for several months, went on shore "skylarking." Offering his arms to the first two negro women he met, he promenaded the whole length of Main street. The Memphis Rebels were suffering for an outrage, and here was one just to their mind.

"If that is the way, sir," remarked one of them, "that your people propose to treat southern gentlemen and ladies—if they intend to thrust upon us such a disgusting spectacle of negro equality, it will be perilous for them. Do they expect to conciliate our people in this manner?"

I mildly suggested that the era of conciliation ceased when the era of fighting began. The sailor was arrested and put in the guard-house.

Appearance of the Captured city.

Our officers mingled freely with the people. No citizens insulted our soldiers in the streets; no woman repeated the disgraceful scenes of New Orleans by spitting in the faces of the "invaders." The Unionists received us as brothers from whom they had long been separated. One lady brought out from its black hiding-place, in her chimney, a National flag, which had been concealed there from the beginning of the war. A Loyalist told me that, coming out of church on Sunday, he was thrilled with the news that the Yankees had captured Fort Donelson; but, with a grave face, he replied to his informant:

"That is sad business for us, is it not?"

Reaching home, with his wife and sister, they gave vent to their exuberant joy. He could not huzza, and so he relieved himself by leaping two or three times over a center-table!

There were many genuine Rebels whose eyes glared at us with the hatred of caged tigers. Externally decorous, they would remark, ominously, that they hoped our soldiers would not irritate the people, lest it should deluge the streets with blood. They proposed fabulous wagers that Sterling Price's troops could whip the whole Union army; circulated daily reports that the Confederates had recaptured New Orleans and Nashville, and talked mysteriously about the fatality of the yellow fever, and the prospect that it would soon break out.

Gladness shone from the eyes of all the negroes. Their dusky faces were radiant with welcome, and many women, turbaned in bright bandanas, thronged the office of the provost-marshal, applying for passage to the North. We found Memphis as torpid as Syria, where Yusef Browne declared that he saw only one man exhibit any sign of activity, and he was engaged in tumbling from the roof of a house! But stores were soon opened, and traders came crowding in from the North. Most of them were Jews.

Everywhere we saw the deep eyes and pronounced features of that strange, enterprising people. I observed one of them, with the Philistines upon him, marching to the military prison. The pickets had caught him with ten thousand dollars' worth of boots and shoes, which he was taking into Dixie. He bore the miscarriage with great philosophy, bewailing neither his ducats nor his daughter, his boots nor his liberty—smiling complacently, and finding consolation in the vilest of cigars. But in his dark, sad eye was a gleam of latent vengeance, which he doubtless wreaked upon the first unfortunate customer who fell into his clutches after his release.

Glancing at the guests who crowded the dining-hall of the Gayoso, one might have believed that the lost tribes of Israel were gathering there for the Millennium.

Grant Orders Away the Jews.

Many of them engaged in contraband traffic, supplying the Rebels with food, and even with ammunition. Some months after, these very gross abuses induced Grant to issue a sweeping ukase expelling all Jews from his department—an order which the President wisely countermanded.

The Rebel authorities had destroyed all the cotton, sugar, and molasses they could find; but these articles now began to emerge from novel hiding-places. One gentleman had fifty bales of cotton in his closed parlor. Hundreds of bales were concealed in the woods, in lofts, and in cellars. Much sugar was buried. One man, entombing fifteen hogsheads, neglected to throw up a mound to turn off the water; when he dug for his sugar, its linked sweetness was too long drawn out! The hogsheads were empty.

On the 17th of June, a little party of Union officers came galloping into the city from the country. They were evidently no gala-day soldiers. Their sun-browned faces, dusty clothing, and jaded horses bespoke hard campaigns and long marches.

One horseman, in a blue cap and plain blouse, bore no mark of rank, but was noticeable for the peculiar brilliancy of his dark, flashing eye. This modest soldier was Major-General Lew. Wallace; and his division arrived a few hours after. He established his quarters at the Gayoso, in the same apartments which had been occupied successively by four Rebel commanders, Pillow, Polk, Van Dorn, and Price.

A Rebel Paper Supervised.

The Memphis Argus, a bitter Secession sheet, had been allowed to continue publication, though its tone was very objectionable. General Wallace at once addressed to the proprietors the following note:

"As the closing of your office might be injurious to you pecuniarily, I send Messrs. Richardson, of The New York Tribune, and Knox, of The New York Herald,—two gentlemen of ample experience—to take charge of the editorial department of your paper. The business and management will be left to you."

The publishers, glad to continue upon any terms, acquiesced, and thereafter every morning, before The Argus went to press, the proof-sheets were sent to us for revision.

The first dress-parade of Wallace's original regiment, the Eleventh Indiana Infantry, was attended by hundreds of Memphians, curious to see northern troops drawn up in line. They wore no bright trappings or holiday attire. Their well-kept arms shone in the fading sunlight, a line of polished steel; but their soiled uniforms had left their brightness behind in many hard-fought battles. They went through the drill with rare precision. The Rebel bystanders clapped their hands heartily, with a certain unconscious pride that these soldiers were their fellow-Americans. The spectacle dimmed their faith in their favorite five-to-one theory.

"Well, John," asked one of them beside me, "how many regiments like that do you think one of ours could whip?"

"I think that whipping one would be a pretty hard day's work!" was the reply.

"A Dam Black-Harted Ablichiness."

Months before our arrival, a Union employé of the Memphis and Ohio Railroad sold a watch to a Secession comrade. Vainly attempting to collect the pay, he finally wrote a pressing letter. The debtor sent back the dun with this reply:

"Sir: My privet Apinion is Public express is that you ar A Dam Black harted ablichiness and if I ever hear of you open you mouth a gane you will get you head shave and cent Back to you free nigar Land Whar you be along these are fackes and you now I can prove them and I will Doet."

The Loyalist pocketed the affront, "ablichiness" and all, and nursed his wrath to keep it warm. Meeting his debtor on the street, after the arrival of our forces, he administered to him a merciless flagellation. Before our Provost-Marshal it was decided to be a case of "justifiable assault," and the prisoner was discharged from custody.

Challenge from a Southern Woman.

In the deserted office of The Appeal we found the following manuscript:—

"A CHALLENGE

"where as the wicked policy of the president—Making war upon the South for refusing to submit to wrong too palpable for Southerners to do. And where as it has become necessary for the young Men of our country, My Brother, in the number To enlist to do the dirty work of Driving the Mercenarys from our sunny south. whoseWhose soil is too holy for such wretches to tramp And whose atmosphere is to pure for them to breathe

"For such an indignity afford to Civilization I Merely Challenge any abolition or Black Republican lady of character if there can be such a one found among the negro equality tribe. To Meet Me at Masons and dixon line. With a pair of Colt's repeaters or any other weapon they May Choose, That I May receive satis factionsatisfaction for the insult."

"Victoria E. Goodwin."
"Spring Dale, Miss., April 27, 1861."

Confederate currency was a curiosity of literature and finance. Dray-tickets and checks, marked "Good for twenty-five cents," and a great variety of shinplasters, were current. One, issued by a baker, represented "twenty-five cents in drayage or confectionary," at the option of the holder. Another guaranteed to the bearer "the sum of five cents from the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad Company, in freight or passage!"

A Droll Species of Currency.

One of my acquaintances had purchased in Chicago, at ten cents a dozen, lithographic fac-similes of the regular Confederate notes, promising to pay to the bearer ten dollars, six months after a treaty of peace between the United States and the Confederate States. A Memphis merchant, knowing that they were counterfeit, manufactured only to sell as curiosities, considered their execution so much better than the originals, that he gladly gave Tennessee bank-notes in exchange for them. My friend subsisted at his hotel for several days upon the proceeds of these fac-similes, and thought it cheap boarding. While Curtis's army was in northern Arkansas, our officers found at a village druggist's several large sheets of his printed promises to pay, neither cut nor signed. At the next village one of them purchased a canteen of whisky, and offered the grocer a National treasury note in payment. The trader refused it; it was, doubtless, good, but might cause him trouble after the army had left. He would receive either gold or Confederate money. The officer exhibited one of these blanks, and asked if he would take that. "O yes," he replied; "it is as good money as I want!" And he actually sold two hundred and fifty canteens of whisky for those unsigned shinplasters, cut off from the sheets in his presence!

Late in June, General Grant, accompanied only by his personal staff, often rode from Corinth to Memphis, ninety miles, through a region infested by guerrillas.

The guests at the Gayoso House regarded with much curiosity the quiet, slightly-stooping, rural-looking man in cotton coat and broad-brimmed hat, talking little and smoking much, who was already beginning to achieve world-wide reputation.

A party of native Arkansans, including a young lady, arrived in Memphis, coming up the Mississippi in an open skiff. When leaving home they expected to encounter some of our gun-boats in a few hours, and provided themselves only with one day's food, and an ample supply of champagne. Accustomed to luxury, and all unused to labor, in the unpitying sun they rowed for five days against the strong current of the Mississippi, burnt, sick, and famishing. For five nights they slept upon the ground on the swampy shore, half devoured by musquitoes. At last they found an ark of safety in the iron-clad St. Louis.

During a fight at St. Charles, on the White River, the steam-drum of the gun-boat Mound City was exploded by a Rebel shot. The terrified gunners and seamen, many of them horribly scalded, jumped into the water. The Confederates, from behind trees on the bank, deliberately shot the scalded and drowning wretches!

A Clever Rebel Trick.

Halleck continued in command at Corinth. From some cause, his official telegrams to General Curtis, in Arkansas, and Commodore Davis, on the Mississippi, were not transmitted in cipher; and the line was unguarded, though leading through an intensely Rebel region. In July, the Memphis operators, from the difficult working of their instruments, surmised that some outsider must be sharing their telegraphic secrets. One day the transmission of a message was suddenly interrupted by the ejaculation:

"Pshaw! Hurra for Jeff Davis!"

Individuality reveals itself as clearly in telegraphing as in the footstep or handwriting. Mr. Hall, the Memphis operator, instantly recognized the performer—by what the musicians would call his "time"—as a former telegraphic associate in the North; and sent him this message:

"Saville, if you don't want to be hung, you had better leave. Our cavalry is closing in on all sides of you."

After a little pause, the surprised Rebel replied:

"How in the world did you know me? I have been here four days, and learned about all your military secrets; but it is becoming a rather tight place, and I think I will leave. Good-by, boys."

He made good his escape. In the woods he had cut the wire, inserted one of his own, and by a pocket instrument perused our official dispatches, stating the exact number and location of United States troops in Memphis. Re-enforcements were immediately ordered in, to guard against a Rebel dash.

A Bit of Sherman's Waggery.

Later in July, Sherman assumed command. One day, a bereaved man-owner visited him, to learn how he could reclaim his runaway slaves.

"I know of only one way, sir," replied the general, "and that is, through the United States marshal."

The unsuspecting planter went up and down the city inquiring for that civil officer.

"Have you any business with him?" asked a Federal captain.

"Yes, sir. I want my negroes. General Sherman says he is the proper person to return them."

"Undoubtedly he is. The law prescribes it."

"Is he in town?"

"I rather suspect not."

"When do you think he left?"

"About the time Sumter was fired on, I fancy."

At last it dawned upon the planter's brain that the Fugitive Slave Law was void after the people drove out United States officers. He went sadly back to Sherman, and asked if there was no other method of recovering his chattels.

"None within my knowledge, sir."

"What can I do about it?"

"The law provided a remedy for you slaveholders in cases like this; but you were dissatisfied and smashed the machine. If you don't like your work, you had better set it to running again."

On the 7th and 8th of March, 1862, occurred the battle of Pea Ridge, in Arkansas. Our troops were commanded by General Curtis. Vandeveer's brigade made a forced march of forty-one miles between 2 o'clock a. m., and 10 p. m., in order to participate in the engagement. The fight was very severe, but the tenacity of the western soldiers finally routed the Rebels.

There chanced to be only one New York correspondent with Curtis's command. During the battle he was wounded by a fragment of shell. He sent forward his report, with calm complacency, presuming that it was exclusive.

Fictitious Battle Reports.

But two other New York journalists in St. Louis, hearing of the battle, at once repaired to Rolla, the nearest railway point, though one hundred and ninety-five miles distant from Pea Ridge. Perusing the very meager official dispatches, knowing what troops were engaged, and learning from an old countryman the topography of the field, they wrote elaborate accounts of the two days' conflict.

Indebted to their imagination for their facts, they gave minute details and a great variety of incidents. Their reports were plausible and graphic. The London Times reproduced one of them, pronouncing it the ablest and best battle account which had been written during the American war. For months, the editors who originally published these reports, did not know that they were fictitious. They were written only as a Bohemian freak, and remained the only accounts manufactured by any reputable journalist during the war.

After the battle, Curtis's army, fifteen thousand strong, pursued its winding way through the interior of Arkansas. It maintained no communications, carrying its base of supplies along with it. When out of provisions, it would seize and run all the neighboring corn-mills, until it obtained a supply of meal for one or two weeks, and then move forward.

Curtis's Great March through Arkansas.

Day after day, the Memphis Rebels told us, with ill-concealed glee, that Curtis's army, after terrific slaughter, had all been captured, or was just about to surrender. For weeks we had no reliable intelligence from it. But suddenly it appeared at Helena, on the Mississippi, seventy-five miles below Memphis, having marched more than six hundred miles through the enemy's country. Despite the unhealthy climate, the soldiers arrived in excellent sanitary condition, weary and ragged, but well, and with an immense train of followers. It was a common jest, that every private came in with one horse, one mule, and two negroes.

The army correspondents, disgusted with the hardships and unwholesome fare of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi, often predicted, with what they thought extravagant humor:—

"When Cincinnati or Chicago becomes the seat of war, all this will be changed. We will take our ease at our inn, and view battles æsthetically."

But in September, this jest became the literal truth. Bragg, leaving Buell far behind in Tennessee, invaded Kentucky, and seriously threatened Cincinnati.

Martial law was declared, and all Cincinnati began arming, drilling, or digging. In one day, twenty-five thousand citizens enrolled their names, and were organized into companies. Four thousand worked upon the Covington fortifications. Newspaper proprietors were in the trenches. Congressmen, actors, and artists, carried muskets or did staff duty.

A few sneaks were dragged from their hiding-places in back kitchens, garrets, and cellars. One fellow was found in his wife's clothing, scrubbing away at the wash-tub. He was suddenly stripped of his crinoline by the German guard, who, with shouts of laughter, bore him away to a working-party.

New regiments of volunteers came pouring in from Indiana, Michigan, and the other Northwestern States. The farmers, young and old, arrived by thousands, with their shot-guns and their old squirrel-rifles. The market houses, public buildings, and streets, were crowded with them. They came even from New York and Pennsylvania, until General Wallace was compelled to telegraph in all directions that no more were needed.

One of these country boys had no weapon except an old Revolutionary sword. Quite a crowd gathered one morning upon Sycamore street, where he took out his rusty blade, scrutinized its blunt edge, knelt down, and carefully whetted it for half an hour upon a door-stone; then, finding it satisfactorily sharp, replaced it in the scabbard, and turned away with a satisfied look. His gravity and solemnity made it very ludicrous.

Buell, before starting northward in pursuit of Bragg, was about to evacuate Nashville. Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of Tennessee, implored, expostulated, and stormed, but without effect. He solemnly declared that, if all the rest of the army left, he would remain with his four Middle Tennessee regiments, defend the city to the last, and perish in its ashes, before it should be given up to the enemy. Buell finally left a garrison, which, though weak in numbers, proved sufficient to hold Nashville.

"The Siege of Cincinnati."

The siege of Cincinnati proved of short duration. Buell's veterans, and the enthusiastic new volunteers soon sent the Rebels flying homeward. Then, as through the whole war, their appearance north of Tennessee and Virginia was the sure index of disaster to their arms. Southern military genius did not prove adapted to the establishment of a navy, or to fighting on Northern soil.

Gloomiest Days of the War.

Maryland invaded, Frankfort abandoned, Nashville evacuated, Tennessee and Kentucky given up almost without a fight, the Rebels threatening the great commercial metropolis of Ohio—these were the disastrous, humiliating tidings of the hour. These were, perhaps, the gloomiest days that had been seen during the war. We were paying the bitter penalty of many years of National wrong.

"God works no otherwise; no mighty birth
But comes with throes of mortal agony;
No man-child among nations of the earth
But findeth its baptism in a stormy sea."

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[CHAPTER XXIII.]

He that outlives this day and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named.

King Henry V.

Much work for tears in many an English mother,
Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground.

King John.

Ordered to Washington.

During the siege of Cincinnati, the Managing Editor telegraphed me thus:

"Repair to Washington without any delay."

An hour afterward I was upon an eastern train.

At the Capital, I found orders to join the Army of the Potomac. It was during Lee's first invasion. In Pennsylvania, the governor and leading officials nearly doubled the Confederate army, estimating it at two hundred thousand men.

Reaching Frederick, Maryland, I found more Union flags, proportionately, in that little city, than I had ever seen elsewhere. The people were intensely loyal. Four miles beyond, in a mountain region, I saw winding, fertile valleys of clear streams, rich in broad corn-fields; and white vine-covered farm-houses, half hidden in old apple-orchards; while great hay and grain stacks surrounded—

"The gray barns, looking from their hazy hills
O'er the dim waters widening in the vales."

The roads were full of our advancing forces, with bronzed faces and muscles compacted by their long campaigning. They had just won the victory of South Mountain, where Hooker found exercise for his peculiar genius in fighting above the clouds, and driving the enemy by an impetuous charge from a dizzy and apparently inaccessible hight.

On the War-Path.

The heroic Army of the Potomac, which had suffered more, fought harder, and been defeated oftener than any other National force, was now marching cheerily under the unusual inspiration of victory. But what fearful loads the soldiers carried! Gun, canteen, knapsack, haversack, pack of blankets and clothing, often must have reached fifty pounds to the man. These modern Atlases had little chance in a race with the Rebels.

There were crowds of sorry-looking prisoners marching to the rear; long trains of ambulances filled with our wounded soldiers, some of them walking back with their arms in slings, or bloody bandages about their necks or foreheads; Rebel hospitals, where unfortunate fellows were groaning upon the straw, with arms or legs missing; eleven of our lost, resting placidly side by side, while their comrades were digging their graves hard by; the unburied dead of the enemy, lying in pairs or groups, behind rocks or in fence corners; and then a Rebel surgeon, in bluish-gray uniform, coming in with a flag of truce, to look after his wounded.

All the morning I heard the pounding of distant guns, and at 4 p. m., near the little village of Keedysville, I reached our front. On the extreme left I found an old friend whom I had not met for many years—Colonel Edward E. Cross, of the Fifth New Hampshire Infantry. Formerly a Cincinnati journalist, afterward a miner in Arizona, and then a colonel at the head of a Mexican regiment, his life had been full of interest and romance.

A Novel Kind of Duel.

While living in Arizona he incurred the displeasure of the pro-Slavery politicians, who ruled the territory. Mowry, their self-styled Delegate to Congress, challenged him—probably upon the hypothesis that, as a Northerner, he would not recognize the code; but Cross was an ugly subject for that experiment. He promptly accepted, and named Burnside rifles at ten paces! Mowry was probably ready to say with Falstaff—

"An' I thought he had been valiant and so cunning in fence, I'd have seen him damned ere I had challenged him."

Both were dead shots. Their seconds placed them across the strong prairie wind, to interfere with their aim. At the first fire, a ball grazed Mowry's ear. At the second, a lock of Cross's hair was cut off.

"Rather close work, is it not?" he calmly asked of a bystander.

At the third fire, Mowry's rifle missed. His friends insisted that he was entitled to his fire. Those of the other party declared that this was monstrous, and that he should be killed if he attempted it. But Cross settled the difficulty by deciding that Mowry was right, and stood serenely, with folded arms, to receive the shot. The would-be Delegate was wise enough to fire into the air. Thus ended the bloodless duel, and the journalist was never challenged again.

A year or two later, I chanced to be in El Paso, Mexico, shortly after Cross had visited that ancient city. An old cathedral, still standing, was built before the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. Ascending to the steeple, Cross pocketed and brought away the clapper of the old Spanish bell, which was hung there when the edifice was erected. The devout natives were greatly exasperated at this profanation, and would have killed the relic-hunting Yankee had they caught him. I heard from them a great deal of swearing in bad Spanish on the subject.

Now, when I greeted him, his men were deployed in a corn-field, skirmishing with the enemy's pickets. He was in a barn, where the balls constantly whistled, and occasionally struck the building. He had just come in from the front, where Confederate bullets had torn two rents in the shoulder of his blouse, without breaking the skin. A straggling soldier passed us, strolling down the road toward the Rebel pickets.

"My young friend," said Cross, "if you don't want a hole through you, you had better come back."

Just as he spoke, ping! came a bullet, perforating the hat of the private, who made excellent time toward the rear. A moment after, a shell exploded on a bank near us, throwing the dirt into our faces.

How Correspondents Avoided Expulsion.

We spent the night at the house of a Union resident, of Keedysville. General Marcy, McClellan's father-in-law and chief of staff, who supped there, inquired, with some curiosity, how we had gained admission to the lines, as journalists were then nominally excluded from the army. We assured him that it was only by "strategy," the details whereof could not be divulged to outsiders.

One of the Tribune correspondents had not left the army since the Peninsular campaign, and, remaining constantly within the lines, his position had never been questioned. Another, who had a nominal appointment upon the staff of a major-general, wore a saber and passed for an officer. I had an old pass, without date, from General Burnside, authorizing the bearer to go to and fro from his head-quarters at all times, which enabled me to go by all guards with ease.

Marcy engaged lodgings at the house for McClellan; but an hour after, a message was received that the general thought it better to sleep upon the ground, near the bivouac-fires, as an example for the troops.

Shameful Surrender of Harper's Ferry.

Last night came intelligence of the surrender, to Stonewall Jackson, of Harper's Ferry, including the impregnable position of Maryland Hights and our army.

Colonel Miles, who commanded, atoned for his weakness with his life, being killed by a stray shot just after he had capitulated. Colonel Thomas H. Ford, ex-Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio, who was stationed on the Hights, professed to have a written order from Miles, his superior officer, to exercise his own discretion about evacuating; but he could not exhibit the paper, and stated that he had lost it. He gave up that key to the position without a struggle. It was like leaving the rim of a teacup, to go down to the bottom for a defensive point. He was afterward tried before a court-martial, but saved from punishment, and permitted to resign, through the clemency of President Lincoln. In any other country he would have been shot.

On September 16th, General McClellan established his head-quarters in a great shaded brick farm-house.

Under one of the old trees sat General Sumner, at sixty-four erect, agile, and soldierly, with snow-white hair. A few yards distant, in an open field, a party of officers were suddenly startled by two shells which dropped very near them. The group broke up and scattered with great alacrity.

"Why," remarked Sumner, with a peculiar smile, "the shells seem to excite a good deal of commotion among those young gentlemen!"

It appeared to amuse and surprise the old war-horse that anybody should be startled by bullets or shots.

Lying upon the ground near by, with his head resting upon his arm, was another officer wearing the two stars of a major-general.

"Who is that?" I asked of a journalistic friend.

"Fighting Joe Hooker," was the answer.

With his side-whiskers, rather heavy countenance, and transparent cheeks, which revealed the blood like those of a blushing girl, he hardly looked all my fancy had painted him.

A Cavalry Stampede.

Toward evening, at the head of his corps, preceded by the pioneers tearing away fences for the column, Hooker led a forward movement across Antietam Creek. His milk-white horse, a rare target to Rebel sharpshooters, could be seen distinctly from afar against the deep green landscape. I could not believe that he was riding into battle upon such a steed, for it seemed suicidal.

In an hour we halted, and the cavalry went forward to reconnoiter. A few minutes after, Mr. George W. Smalley, of The Tribune, said to me:

"There will be a cavalry stampede in about five minutes. Let us ride out to the front and see it."

Galloping up the road, and waiting two or three minutes, we heard three six-pound shots in rapid succession, and a little fifer who had climbed a tree, shouted:

"There they come, like the devil, with the Rebels after them!"

From a vast cloud of dust, emerged soon our troopers in hot haste and disorder. They had suddenly awakened a Rebel battery, which opened upon them.

"We will stir them up," said Hooker, as the cavalry commander made his report.

"Why, General," replied the major, "they have some batteries up there!"

"Well, sir," answered Hooker, "have'nthaven't we got as many batteries as they have? Move on!"

Opening of the Battle of Antietam.—General Hooker.

[Click for larger image.]

"Fighting Joe Hooker" in Battle.

McClellan, who had accompanied the expedition thus far, rode back to the rear. Hooker pressed forward, accompanied by General Meade, then commanding a division—a dark-haired, scholarly-looking gentleman in spectacles. The grassy fields, the shining streams, and the vernal forests, stretched out in silent beauty. With their bright muskets, clean uniforms, and floating flags, Hooker's men moved on with assured faces.

"'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life, One glance at their array."

With a very heavy force of skirmishers, we pushed on, finding no enemy. Our line was three-quarters of a mile in length. Hooker was on the extreme right, close upon the skirmishers.

As we approached a strip of woods, a hundred yards wide, far on our extreme left, we heard a single musket. Then there was another, then another, and in an instant our whole line blazed like a train of powder, in one long sheet of flame.

Right on our front, through the narrow belt of woods, so near that it seemed that we might toss a pebble to them, rose a countless horde of Rebels, almost instantly obscured by the fire from their muskets and the smoke of the batteries.

My confrère and myself were within a few yards of Hooker. It was a very hot place. We could not distinguish the "ping" of the individual bullets, but their combined and mingled hum was like the din of a great Lowell factory. Solid shot and shell came shrieking through the air, but over our heads, as we were on the extreme front.

Hooker—common-place before—the moment he heard the guns, loomed up into gigantic stature. His eye gleamed with the grand anger of battle. He seemed to know exactly what to do, to feel that he was master of the situation, and to impress every one else with the fact. Turning to one of his staff, and pointing to a spot near us, he said:

"Go, and tell Captain ---- to bring his battery and plant it there at once!"

The lieutenant rode away. After giving one or two further orders with great clearness, rapidity, and precision, Hooker's eye turned again to that mass of Rebel infantry in the woods, and he said to another officer, with great emphasis:

"Go, and tell Captain ---- to bring his battery here instantly!"

Sending more messages to the various divisions and batteries, only a single member of the staff remained. Once more scanning the woods with his eager eye, Hooker directed the aid:

"Go, and tell Captain ---- to bring that battery here without one second's delay. Why, my God, how he can pour it into their infantry!"

By this time, several of the body-guard had fallen from their saddles. Our horses plunged wildly. A shell plowed the ground under my rearing steed, and another exploded near Mr. Smalley, throwing great clouds of dust over both of us. Hooker leaped his white horse over a low fence into an adjacent orchard, whither we gladly followed. Though we did not move more than thirty yards, it took us comparatively out of range.

The Rebels Waver and Break.

The desired battery, stimulated by three successive messages, came up with smoking horses, at a full run, was unlimbered in the twinkling of an eye, and began to pour shots into the enemy, who were also suffering severely from our infantry discharges. It was not many seconds before they began to waver. Through the rifting smoke, we could see their line sway to and fro; then it broke like a thaw in a great river. Hooker rose up in his saddle, and, in a voice of suppressed thunder, exclaimed:

"There they go, G-d d--n them! Forward!"

Our whole line moved on. It was now nearly dark. Having shared the experience of "Fighting Joe Hooker" quite long enough, I turned toward the rear. Fresh troops were pressing forward, and stragglers were ranged in long lines behind rocks and trees.

Riding slowly along a grassy slope, as I supposed quite out of range, my meditations were disturbed by a cannon-ball, whose rush of air fanned my face, and made my horse shrink and rear almost upright. The next moment came another behind me, and by the great blaze of a fire of rails, which the soldiers had built, I saw it ricochet down the slope, like a foot-ball, and pass right through a column of our troops in blue, who were marching steadily forward. The gap which it made was immediately closed up.

Men with litters were groping through the darkness, bearing the wounded back to the ambulances.

A Night Among the Pickets.

At nine o'clock, I wandered to a farm-house, occupied by some of our pickets. We dared not light candles, as it was within range of the enemy. The family had left. I tied my horse to an apple-tree, and lay down upon the parlor floor, with my saddle for a pillow. At intervals during the night, we heard the popping of musketry, and at the first glimpse of dawn the picket-officer shook me by the arm.

"My friend," said he, "you had better go away as soon as you can; this place is getting rather hot for civilians."

The Battle of Antietam.

I rode around through the field, for shot and shell were already screaming up the narrow lane.

Thus commenced the long, hotly-contested battle of Antietam. Our line was three miles in length, with Hooker on the right, Burnside on the left, and a great gap in the middle, occupied only by artillery; while Fitz-John Porter, with his fine corps, was held in reserve. From dawn until nearly dark, the two great armies wrestled like athletes, straining every muscle, losing here, gaining there, and at many points fighting the same ground over and over again. It was a fierce, sturdy, indecisive conflict.

Five thousand spectators viewed the struggle from a hill comparatively out of range. Not more than three persons were struck there during the day. McClellan and his staff occupied another ridge half a mile in the rear.

"By Heaven! it was a goodly sight to see,
For one who had no friend or brother there."

No one who looked upon that wonderful panorama can describe or forget it. Every hill and valley, every corn-field, grove, and cluster of trees, was fiercely fought for.

The artillery was unceasing; we could often count more than sixty guns to the minute. It was like thunder; and the musketry sounded like the patter of rain-drops in an April shower. On the great field were riderless horses and scattering men, clouds of dirt from solid shot and exploding shells, long dark lines of infantry swaying to and fro, with columns of smoke rising from their muskets, red flashes and white puffs from the batteries—with the sun shining brightly on all this scene of tumult, and beyond it, upon the dark, rich woods, and the clear blue mountains south of the Potomac.

Fearful Slaughter in the Corn-field.

We saw clearly our entire line, except the extreme left, where Burnside was hidden by intervening ridges; and at times the infantry and cavalry of the Rebels. We could see them press our men, and hear their shrill yells of triumph. Then our columns in blue would move forward, driving them back, with loud, deep-mouthed, sturdy cheers. Once, a great mass of Rebels, in brown and gray, came pouring impetuously through a corn-field, forcing back the Union troops. For a moment both were hidden under a hill; and then up, over the slope came our soldiers, flying in confusion, with the enemy in hot pursuit. But soon after, up rose and opened upon them two long lines of men in blue, with shining muskets, who, hidden behind a ridge, had been lying in wait. The range was short, and the fire was deadly.

The Rebels instantly poured back, and were again lost for a moment behind the hill, our troops hotly following. In a few seconds, they reappeared, rushing tumultuously back into the corn-field. While they were so thick that they looked like swarming bees, one of our batteries, at short range, suddenly commenced dropping shots among them. We could see with distinctness the explosions of the shells, and sometimes even thought we detected fragments of human bodies flying through the air. In that field, the next day, I counted sixty-four of the enemy's dead, lying almost in one mass.

Hooker, wounded before noon, was carried from the field. Had he not been disabled, he would probably have made it a decisive conflict. Realizing that it was one of the world's great days, he said:

"I would gladly have compromised with the enemy by receiving a mortal wound at night, could I have remained at the head of my troops until the sun went down."

On the left, Burnside, who had a strong, high stone bridge to carry, was sorely pressed. McClellan denied his earnest requests for re-enforcements, though the best corps of the army was then held in reserve.

The Fifteenth Massachusetts Infantry took into the battle five hundred and fifty men, and brought out only one hundred and fifty-six. The Nineteenth Massachusetts, out of four hundred and six men, lost all but one hundred and forty-seven, including every commissioned officer above a first lieutenant. The Fifth New Hampshire, three hundred strong, lost one hundred and ten privates and fourteen officers. Colonel Cross, who seldom went into battle without receiving wounds, was struck in the head by a piece of shell early in the day, but with face crimsoned and eyes dimmed with blood, he led his men until night closed the indecisive conflict.

Best Battle-Report of the War.

At night, the four Tribune correspondents, who had witnessed the battle, met at a little farm-house. They prepared hasty reports, by a flickering tallow candle, in a narrow room crowded with wounded and dying.

Mr. Smalley had been with Hooker from the firing of the first gun. Twice his horse had been shot under him, and twice his clothing was cut by bullets. Without food, without sleep, greatly exhausted physically and mentally, he started for New York, writing his report on a railway train during the night, by a very dim light.

Reaching New York at seven in the morning, he found the printers awaiting him; and, an hour later, his account of the conflict, filling five Tribune columns, was being cried in the streets by the news-boys. Notwithstanding the adverse circumstances of its preparation, it was vivid and truthful, and was considered the best battle-report of the war.

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