CHAPTER XXV.
Buenos Ayres.
February 12th.—Public events here, for the last few days, have been more exciting in their progress, and more important in their issues, than any that have occurred on the Plata for many years. On the evening of the 4th inst., the Hon. Mr. Schenck arrived from Buenos Ayres on his return to Brazil. He boarded the Congress from the steamer in which he came, announcing, as he crossed the gangway, the utter overthrow of Rosas by Urquiza, “foot, horse and dragoons!” as he expressed it. This had occurred on the morning of the preceding day. He left the city the same evening, when thousands of mounted troops were pouring through it in rapid flight, before the victorious pursuers. It was not yet known whether Rosas had fallen in battle, was a prisoner, or had made a safe escape.
Before the arrival in Buenos Ayres of Mr. Schenck and Commodore McKeever, he had left for the camp, ten miles distant; and they did not see him. They were twice at Palermo, however, on visits to Doña Manuelita; once before any collision between the hostile forces had taken place; and again on the evening of the 1st inst., when it was known that an advanced guard of six thousand Buenos Ayrean troops, under General Pachecho, had been routed the day previous, and the general made prisoner: a foreboding shadow of the coming event. Till then, Manuelita had sustained her position with great spirit and energy; receiving all visitors—official, diplomatic, and private—as usual, in the saloons of the Quinta, and conducting with ability and despatch the affairs of the Home Department of the government. Toward the close of the last named evening, however, when surrounded by those only who were in her immediate confidence, tears might occasionally be seen trembling in her eye, or stealing down her cheek; but only to be dashed away on the approach of any from whom she would conceal the weakness. It was now well known to her that a general and decisive battle might at any hour take place; and that Palermo, immediately in the line of march from the point of contest to the city, was no longer a place of safety for her. The night was one of splendid moonlight in midsummer, and among others, Commodore McKeever and Mr. Schenck remained with her till a late hour of the evening. Before they left, a walk in the flower-garden was proposed by her; and, taking the arm of Mr. Schenck, she led the way to the rose-covered arbor mentioned in my visit last year. Standing within it in silence for a few moments, she said—“This is my choicest retreat at Palermo; it is here that I come alone, to be alone; and I am here now for the last time, perhaps forever!” adding, as the tears fell rapidly down her face, upturned to the moon, as if in appeal to Heaven for her sincerity, “I leave Palermo to-night! Whatever the issue of the morrow is to be, I know our cause to be just, and believe that God will give to it success!” In this, however, she was mistaken. That cause, the next day but one, was utterly defeated; and the following midnight witnessed her flight with her father disguised as an English marine, and she in the dress of a sailor boy—not from Palermo only, but from her city and country, without even a change of clothes, to find safety and a conveyance to distant exile, under the protection of the British flag.
But this is anticipating the order of events. Rumors of the defeat, on the 1st instant, of the vanguard of the army of Rosas, or some disaster of the kind, reached the city on Sunday evening, the 2d inst.—the night on which Manuelita forsook Palermo. It produced little impression on the public mind, however; and on Monday the shops were open, and general business transacted as usual. At daybreak on Tuesday, heavy cannonading was heard for several hours in the direction of the opposing armies. Early afterwards, whispers of a defeat were afloat; and a straggling cavalry soldier here and there, soon followed by others, in groups of three and four, began to enter the city. The excitement spread rapidly, till three guns from the citadel—the signal for martial law—confirmed the report of the overthrow, and led at once to the shutting up of every shop, and the closing of every door. The retreating cavalry now rushed through the town by hundreds, and soon by thousands, hastening from harm’s way to their homes in the pampas of the South. General Mancilla, the brother-in-law of Rosas, and governor of the city, despatched messengers to the foreign ambassadors, reporting the place to be defenceless, and soliciting their intervention with the approaching conqueror, for a halt in his march, till terms of capitulation could be presented. Permission was at the same time granted by him, for the landing of the marines attached to the different foreign squadrons in the harbor, to protect the lives and property of residents from their respective countries—British, American, French, and Sardinian. Forty American marines, including those from the Congress, were disembarked from the Jamestown, under the command of Captain Taylor and Lieut. Tatnall, and the crew of the captain’s gig, in charge of Midshipman Walker. These were distributed in the central and richest part of the town—at the Embassy and Consulate of the United States; at the residence of Mr. Carlisle of the house of Zimmerman, Frazer & Co., the head-quarters of Commodore McKeever; and one or two other principal American mercantile establishments. At the same time, a hasty consultation of the diplomatic corps led to the sending of a deputation from their number to the head-quarters of Urquiza, in behalf of the city. The chief member of this was Mr. Pendleton. Mr. Glover, the secretary of our commander-in-chief, an accomplished young man, well fitted for the service by his talents, and the facility with which he speaks the principal modern languages, formed one of the mission. The special object was to solicit from the victorious chieftain an order to restrain his troops from entering the city, till the authorities could make a formal surrender to him, and thus spare the inhabitants the violence and rapine they had reason to fear. Happily the exhaustion of the victors rendered such an order, for the time, unnecessary. The whole force of thirty thousand men had been without refreshment of any kind, except, perhaps, a little water, for forty-eight hours; and, after having put their opponents to flight, they found it absolutely necessary to come to a rest themselves, not far from the scene of the principal conflict.
It was not till noon of the following day, that Urquiza reached Palermo, and established his head-quarters there. Here the deputation first met him, and readily secured the interposition of his authority in the point of mercy craved. Notwithstanding this, early the same morning—that immediately succeeding the battle—before any thing had been heard from the deputation, the sack of the city in one quarter was reported to have commenced; and, in confirmation of the rumor, the alarm-bell of the Cabildo, or town hall, sent forth an incessant peal. It appeared that a large number of the routed cavalry of Rosas, finding the pursuit by the victors given over, remained in the outskirts of the town during the night; and at the dawn of the next day, commenced breaking open the shops and houses in the more remote parts, and stripping them of their contents, bore off the plunder; alleging the authority of Mancilla himself, the governor of the city, for the outrage. The dress of the troops of both armies is the same; red flannel shirts, caps, and cheripas or swaddling cloths. Those of Urquiza, that they might be distinguished by each other in battle, had chosen for a badge a square piece of white cotton cloth, placed on the shoulders by thrusting the head through a hole in the centre, in the manner of a poncho. This badge these marauders assumed that they might be mistaken for the invading soldiery. Emboldened by success in the outskirts, they began to penetrate the central parts of the place. The terrified inhabitants believing them to be the invaders, submitted unresistingly to rapine and spoliation, lest they should lose their lives; and consternation spread every where with the increasing violence and robbery. Many of the largest and most valuable plate and jewelry shops had already been sacked; and the spirit of plunder grew in proportion to the success.
At this juncture, while a party of twenty or thirty of these mounted pillagers was engaged in bursting off the door-locks of a rich jeweller’s shop with powder, a company of American marines and sailors, in charge of Midshipman Walker, accompanied by Mr. Graham, the American Consul, on their way to the chief scene of pillage—turned into the street near them. The robbers at once fired upon them, happily without injury to any one. Our fellows, under the authority of their officers, were not slow in returning the salute; bringing to the ground, by one volley, four of the leading brigands. Two were killed outright, and two mortally wounded. The rest wheeled instantly in flight, and were seen no more. This first example of the manner by which to check the pillage, led at once to a rally by the citizens. They immediately commenced arming themselves, and a stay was put to the progress of what, in a short time, would have become a general sack of the town.
Mr. Glover arrived the same moment, at the consulate near which the above scene took place, to report the success of the mission on which he had accompanied Mr. Pendleton. He had passed a sleepless night, and been in the saddle many hours; but, as there was reason to fear that the check which had been put by our marines upon the pillage, would be but temporary, and that the marauders would soon return in augmented numbers to avenge the death of their comrades, as well as to load themselves with fresh booty, he was requested by Commodore McKeever to return immediately to Palermo, and solicit from Urquiza a force sufficient to control the disorder and robbery existing. The Chief of Police, at the same time made his appearance, to urge the same measure. Accompanied by this functionary, Mr. Glover, therefore, again hastened as an express to the Quinta. He was admitted immediately to the chieftain, though his companion, the Chief of Police, was forbidden his presence. The object of his visit was accorded, by an instant order for the entrance to the city of a body of troops sufficient for its protection. Informed of the result of the rencontre with the American marines and sailors, he gave full sanction to the interference, and authorized its continuance. The report of this interview was quickly spread through the city; and the patrol of the foreign marines and armed sailors, and the speedy arrival of the forces promised by Urquiza, allayed the panic of the inhabitants.
The troops of Urquiza brought with them orders to shoot down all persons implicated in the robbery and disorder. This was reiterated by the Provisional Government appointed by him upon receiving, as soon as he had taken up his quarters at Palermo, the deputation from the city, empowered to surrender it to his mercy. Under the orders thus issued, three or four hundred persons, both men and women, were summarily put to death, within twenty-four hours; and a scene of such frightful carnage was taking place, with the liberty of its continuance for eight days, that the humanity of Mr. Pendleton led him, accompanied by Mr. Glover, to hasten once more to head-quarters, to beseech that an immediate stop might be put to a slaughter in which it was so apparent that the innocent, through false accusations of robbery, might become the victims of their political and even private enemies. The good sense of Urquiza led him at once to appreciate the justice of this appeal to his humanity, and to countermand the order first issued. The alarm was thus quieted, and a general feeling of safety restored.
It is quite a matter of congratulation with us, that the marines and sailors of the Congress and Jamestown, should have been so eminently the means, by their prompt and gallant conduct, of staying a frightful evil; and, that the prestige of the American name, through the frank and philanthropic agency of Mr. Pendleton and Mr. Glover, should have had such ready and such important influence with the victor, now invested by right of conquest with all power here.
These particulars I learned before leaving Montevideo, from my friend Lieut. Turner. This officer was despatched to Buenos Ayres by Captain Pearson, immediately after the report made by Mr. Schenck of the overthrow of the Dictator. He went in charge of the American propeller, “Manuelita de Rosas,” which the emergency of affairs and the absence of every suitable tender of the kind in the squadron, led Commodore McKeever to charter for the time being. He arrived in the midst of the excitement and consternation of the second day after the battle, when the pillage was at its height, and the summary execution of the perpetrators by the troops of Urquiza was begun. Being a fellow Virginian and a friend of Mr. Pendleton, he was invited to a seat in a carriage with him and Mr. Glover, on their last mission of humanity to Palermo; and thus was a spectator in the city and its environs, and at the Quinta itself, of a succession of scenes of alarm and confusion, of bloodshed and affecting tragedy in various forms, which it is not often the lot even of a naval officer to witness. The city, containing more than a hundred thousand inhabitants, was under pillage and in panic; the wide suburbs were thronged with ten thousand savage troops, dashing to and fro in various directions; the bodies of dead men were scattered about, after having been shot down, or having their throats cut, not in the conflict of battle, but in wanton pursuit, or by order of a drum-head court-martial; women in common life were rushing here and there in terror, and ladies of wealth and rank hastening in their carriages through these scenes, in agitation and affright, to the centre of power, to throw themselves at the feet of the conqueror, in supplication for the lives and fortunes of those dearest to them.
It was in the carriage of Madame E——, a sister of the fallen Dictator, that the party made the excursion. This lady herself made one of their number; and, under the favoring auspices of the American minister, sought the presence of the chief, who now occupies the palace, and wields the power, so long and so recently in the undisputed possession of her brother. The avenues and corridors of Palermo were crowded with mothers, sisters, and daughters, pressing for audience, on like errands of mercy. The suits of many of whom, I am happy to add, were not in vain, but most promptly and generously accorded. Such were the scenes amidst which Mr. Turner passed his first day here. Those of the second, in a ride of fifteen miles, to the battle-field, under the guidance of an adjutant and the protection of a guard furnished by Urquiza, were, if possible, more exciting and more revolting to the feelings, and scarcely bearable in the disgust created. The whole way was marked with evidences of the completeness of the overthrow; and the scene of the conflict, strewn for miles with the bodies of the slain lying still unburied. The whole atmosphere was tainted with the effluvia of the dead, both of man and beast, and sad demonstration given on every side of the horrors of war.
It was his representation of the state of affairs that led me—the marriage of my friends Miss H—— and Dr. R—— having been duly celebrated, and the crew of the Congress still in the process of a general liberty—to the determination of making the visit of a few days. I came up in the propeller, still bearing a naval pennant: embarking on the evening of the 10th, and arriving the next morning.
On landing, I found every hotel and lodging-house crowded to overflowing, with officers, naval and military, both natives and foreigners, and with strangers from various quarters, who had hastened to the capital on hearing the result of the conflict. After long search, I was able to secure a small sleeping-room only, in a public house of very inferior order; and suffered so much during the night from the oppressive heat, fleas, and mosquitoes, as to have made up my mind by morning, to return to the Congress the same day. During my former visit, I had made the acquaintance of the Rev. Mr. Lore and Mrs. Lore, of the Wesleyan Methodist mission here, and had been so much interested in them by the brief intercourse, as to be unwilling to take my departure now without a call at the parsonage, of a few minutes at least. Here I was most cordially welcomed; and the cause of my intended return becoming known, they at once laid an interdict upon my purpose, and constrained me to accept a room in the parsonage, in their power to offer, and the kind hospitality of their house.
I had brought with me from the Congress, with the purpose of affording him a peep at Buenos Ayres, one of the lads of the ship, who had been commended to my special care by an excellent widowed mother at home, and who had merited this indulgence by long-continued good conduct in his position on board ship. His leave of absence extended to the passing day only; and, knowing that he was especially anxious to visit Palermo, I applied to Mr. Lore, as soon as it had been determined that I should remain, for aid in securing a vehicle to take the drive with him. This he at once gave; but in place of a carriage from a livery stable, as I intended, he soon appeared with the handsome equipage of one of his parishioners, and accompanied us in the excursion.
The morning was excessively hot—the character of the weather for the last fortnight. No rain had fallen in that time, and the road was one continued bed of deep dust, kept in constant motion by the thousand and ten thousands of horses and cattle, which the large force in bivouac in the environs of the city had brought together. It is computed that on the day of the battle, and for some days succeeding it, there were not less than three hundred thousand horses, within the circuit of a few miles, around the city. The number of cattle may be estimated by the allowance granted to the troops for subsistence—one animal a day for every hundred men: the number of men in both armies, the conquering and the conquered; amounts to more than fifty thousand, and the daily consumption, therefore, is at least five hundred. It would require pages to describe the novelty and wild romance of the scenes witnessed in our short drive. The riding at full tilt, to and fro, of unnumbered Indian-like horsemen in the picturesque and fiery costume of the native cavalry; the flying past of carriages in one direction or another, through the thick dust of the road; the lassoing of cattle amidst the herds crowding the open plain; the butchering them when entangled, wherever that might be—even in the middle of the highway; and flaying them while still alive, and scarcely well brought to the ground; the masses of hides, and horns, and offal scattered about every where; some freshly stripped from the carcasses and others in a shocking state of putrefaction; the hundreds of loose horses scampering about amid clouds of dust; and unnumbered savage men, in all attitudes, and in every kind of grouping, presented sights beyond the power of description.
As we approached the Quinta, such objects became, if possible, more varied and more crowded: while dead horses and dead cattle lined the road-side, and in some places dotted the ornamental canals of the domain with their bloated carcasses. The white shell-dust of that, which was once the private drive, covered every thing so thickly, that the iron railings, now bent and broken down, the orange trees and willows, once kept so neatly washed and so green, appeared as if just powdered with meal. Indeed, the aspect of every thing in this respect, was very much that of a landscape at home after a fall of snow, while the trees and their branches are still in leaf. The house itself—though surrounded, as when last seen by me, with guards and soldiery, and in the same dress; and by a long line of carriages and led horses awaiting the visitors within—had a closed and forsaken air. The reception rooms occupied by Urquiza, are not in the front. Those there, in which we had been received, with blinds drawn, and shutters closed, appeared as though death, as well as desertion, was there. It was not our purpose to alight; and, after a general survey of the establishment as we drove by, we returned to the city amidst the same scenes through which we had arrived.
The next evening I joined a large party of American ladies and gentlemen, residents of Buenos Ayres, in a visit of ceremony to Urquiza at Palermo. Notwithstanding the pressure of military and state affairs in the disposition of his troops, and the appointment of a provisional government for the city and province, he has been constrained to hold an almost uninterrupted levee, for the reception of the crowds whose interest it is to pay court to him. Many of the most servile of the partisans of Rosas have done this in the most sycophantic manner; and many of them, I have rejoiced to hear, only to meet his ill-concealed contempt and pointed rebuke, by a refusal to recognize their presence in some instances, and by prompt and stern dismissal from the audience-room in others. One incident which occurred interested me much. Col. Maximo Terero, the favorite aide-de-camp of Rosas, and the affianced husband of Doña Manuelita, was made prisoner on the day of the battle. It was believed by many—judging of the course Urquiza would pursue in the case, by the sanguinary precedents of Rosas and other successful aspirants in the past history of the country—that he, and such others of the immediate partisans of the Dictator as had fallen into his hands, would be severely dealt with, if not summarily shot. Contrary to all expectation, Col. Terero was at once set at liberty on parole. Touched by this magnanimity, Gen. Terero the father, a confidential friend of Rosas, and long his partner in extensive financial operations, hastened to Palermo to wait upon the commander-in-chief, and to thank him for the clemency and kindness he had shown to his son. He approached him with the following words, “Gen. Urquiza, I have come to Palermo to tender to you the unfeigned thanks of a father, for sparing the life of a son, whose life and liberty were in your power. You have, sir, my most sincere and heartfelt gratitude. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am known to you as the friend of General Rosas. He long since won my confidence, has long had my warm friendship, and I have never seen cause for withdrawing these from him.” The frankness and independence of this address met an appreciating spirit in Urquiza; and seizing him cordially by the hand, he exclaimed, “Gen. Terero, I am most happy to see you. I am glad to hear you express yourself as you have. I believe what you say—yours is the first honest speech I have heard in Palermo; and I honor you for it.”
At the time of our presentation by Mr. Pendleton the saloons and corridors were crowded; and the audience was brief, and, on the part of the General, unavoidably constrained. He wore a dress-coat of black, with white waistcoat; and, though polite and gentlemanly, appeared to much less advantage and less at home in the drawing-room, than on the tented field of Pantanoso. He appeared, too, to be jaded and exhausted; which he indeed must be, after the fatigue and excitement without intermission of the last fortnight. At the end of fifteen minutes we took leave; and after a turn along the parterres of the flower-garden, drove rapidly to the city, to escape a gust of wind and rain which was seen to be gathering with great blackness, in a threatening quarter.
On Friday, I made a visit to the hospital, in which most of the wounded of both parties are now collected, to the number of five or six hundred. The accommodations, in ordinary times, are limited and indifferent, and are now altogether inadequate. The surgeons and physicians are too few for the duty, and the services of Dr. Foltz, of the U. S. sloop Jamestown, have been gratefully accepted. The wounds of many of the poor creatures are frightful; especially those caused by grape and round shot. From the heat of the weather, and the length of time that elapsed after the battle before they could be properly attended to, such are now in a dreadful condition. Those made by lances are chiefly from behind, and show frightful thrusts on the part of the pursuers. Many of the wounded have died daily; and the state of many more is hopeless. The edifice appropriated as a hospital is itself spacious and massive, and is of special interest, from having been the residencia or palace of the viceroys of Buenos Ayres. Mr. Lore took me a ride also, the same morning, through the suburbs, in a semicircular sweep from one end of the city to the other—the base-line of the circuit being the river. There is little to interest one in the scenery, the whole is so flat; and the road was but a succession of dry and dirty lanes, lined by mean and shabby huts. We called in the eastern suburbs upon an English family, parishioners of Mr. Lore, who occupy and cultivate as a fruit and vegetable garden, the grounds of what appears once to have been a tasteful and luxurious country-seat. We were most kindly received, and refreshed with some very fine peaches and grapes, the former the last gatherings of the season. The situation is an exposed one in times of public commotion and disorder; and we were shown a cavern, screened and hidden almost beyond discovery, where the females of the household were to have been concealed, had the city, in the overthrow of Rosas, been given over to pillage and rapine. In one part of the enclosure, a natural terrace attains a height of about twenty feet above the general level. To this I was led as one of the finest points of view in the neighborhood. The extent of the landscape commanded from it was less than a mile, across a flat meadow, bounded at that distance by a range of tree-tops, above which rose the masts of some small craft at anchor in a stream, whose banks the trees line. I could scarcely avoid a smile in hearing this called a “fine view,” while in imagination my eye swept, in comparison, over that spread before you in such wide expanse at Riverside. In the course of our ride, we visited the English Protestant burial-ground; a rural cemetery on the south-side of the city. It embraces several acres, surrounded by a substantial wall, entered by a handsome gateway of iron; and has a lodge for the keeper, and a small, well-built chapel for the funeral service. Besides a variety of prettily-arranged shrubberies, it is ornamented with two or three avenues of the Pride of China, which grows here in great perfection: the whole forming an attractive and rural resting-place for the dead.
The observations of the day were completed by the inspection, under the guidance of Mr. Graham, of the new city residence of Rosas. It is already in possession of the provisional government appointed by Urquiza, and its elegant saloons are converted into offices for the various public bureaus. It is an extensive and finely-constructed edifice, one story in height, enclosing several quadrangles, and covering half a square; the front extends the length of a “block” on a principal street near the centre of the city. The middle section of this contains the suite of private rooms of the late owner. From these the furniture had been removed, preparatory to the sale of all his effects. The structure, though of one story only on the streets, rises to two in some of the inner sections. The whole is well built, and, for this part of the world, beautifully finished. One of the inner courts is filled with orange trees, and another contains a garden of choice flowers. A lofty tower or mirador rises from the centre. This is ascended by a spiral staircase of mahogany. The view from it comprises, as on a map, the city, river, roadstead and shipping; and the country in every direction as far as its flatness allows the vision to reach. It conveys a strong impression of the size, good order, and architecture of the city. Every prominent building is in conspicuous view: all the old Spanish churches—the Cathedral, the Merced, the collegiate, or former Jesuit College, that of San Francisco, San Domingo and San Miguel; and the Residencia or vice-regal palace, now the general hospital. All these are of dark stone, and are time-stained and moss-covered: massive and enduring piles, with many attractive features in the varied taste and symmetry of their architecture, and in the well-defined proportions of dome and tower, pediment and belfry. The lantern top of this look-out is furnished with a fine telescope, by which every object is subjected to near inspection; and it was a favorite resort of the Dictator, during his hours of seclusion in town. One story of the tower leading to this observatory, is a handsomely proportioned apartment, paved with tessellated marble of red and white. It is said to have been the favorite sleeping-room of Rosas, when he remained in the city over night, being secure from approach except by the spiral stairs, which could be easily defended. A fixture in one of the galleries of an open court into which the chief suites of rooms open, particularly struck me as a novelty: it is a fireplace with a grate and handsomely finished marble mantle, so that, if one choose, he may sit by a fireside in the open air, when the temperature makes it desirable.
As I looked around upon the spacious and well-appointed establishment, through which Doña Manuelita, a few days since, moved a princess, surrounded by luxury, and oppressed with the adulations of courtiers and admirers, I could not but anew deeply sympathize with her, in her flight and exile, with scarce a change of apparel, or a friend to cheer her under her reverse of fortune.
On leaving, we made an effort to gain admission to the Sala, or hall of Representatives near by, and to the public library of the city; but without success, from the absence of the persons having possession of the keys. A Porteno—a name by which the Buenos Ayreans pride themselves in being called—of intelligent and gentlemanlike appearance, on overhearing our application for admittance to the library and the cause of its failure, said pleasantly to us, “It is well for the credit of the city that the key cannot be found; we are thus saved a just reproach in the eyes of intelligent visitors.”