CHAPTER VI.
Relations to the Confederate Government—Jefferson Davis Gives him Charge of Confederate Funds—Mr. Plant Buys a Slave, who afterward Nursed him through a Severe Sickness—Impaired Health—Goes to Bermuda, New York, Canada, and Europe—Second Marriage.
THE seat of the Confederate Government at this time was Montgomery, Alabama, and the express company, just organized by Mr. Plant, was appointed by that government collector of tariff upon all goods consigned by the express company, and was also given the custody of all funds of the Confederacy that were to be transferred from one place to another. The express company filled this latter office until the dissolution of the Confederacy.
In consequence of this responsibility, officers and agents of the company were either relieved from military service, or detailed for the service of the express company. Its officers and agents were also for the same reason exempted from jury duty in Southern States.
Shortly before the removal of the capital of the Confederacy from Montgomery to Richmond, it was deemed necessary by government officials to define citizenship, and consequently a proclamation was issued by President Davis, that specified a time in which all citizens of States not in the Confederacy should leave it, or failing to do so within the time specified, would become citizens of the Confederacy, and would be subject to all duties and requirements of citizenship in the said Confederacy.
“At that time I thought it was incumbent on me,” said Mr. Plant, “that my duties and opinions should be understood by President Davis and his advisers. To that end I caused myself to be represented by counsel to Mr. Davis and his Cabinet, in order that my opinions and position might be clearly defined and known to the government, so that its wish might be expressed, as to whether I should continue to have charge of the express company without interference, or avail myself of the proclamation, and take my departure with other citizens of the State of New York.
“I wished to know whether by remaining I would be required to abandon the express and its obligations. It was a great satisfaction to me to learn from my counsel that the Cabinet were unanimous in this decision expressed by the President, that I should remain and continue to conduct the business of my company, he having full confidence in whatever I might do.”
The substance of this interesting episode has been published before with some slight variations, but the above is from the most authoritative source, and may therefore be received as correct.
While living at Augusta, Georgia, a curious incident occurred which resulted in the purchase of a slave by Mr. Plant. When the express office was opened at this place, help was needed, a sort of man-of-all-work for the many requirements of the office. Dennis Dorsey, a colored man, was hired from his owner to act as porter, and in whatever capacity he might be required. One summer when Mr. Plant was about to go north, Dennis came to him and said that his master was going to sell him, and that he wanted Mr. Plant to buy him. “What does your master want for you?” asked Mr. Plant. “Fifteen hundred dollars,” Dennis replied, “but it is too much, I am not worth so much. You can buy me when you come back, as there is little danger of my being sold at that price.” But Dennis was sold in Mr. Plant’s absence. When Mr. Plant returned, Dennis besought him to buy him from the trader at Mobile who then owned him. Mr. Plant bought him for eighteen hundred dollars, and brought him back to Augusta. In a short time after this Mr. Plant was stricken down with gastric fever, and Dennis proved a good and faithful nurse to him. Mrs. Plant was in her grave, and Mr. Plant lived alone at the hotel, so Dennis was gratified by the opportunity to return the kindness rendered to him by his generous purchaser.
Early in August, 1863, Mr. Plant returned from the mountains, whither he had gone during his convalescence. His health had been improved by the change, but he was still far from strong. Mr. Thomas H. Watts, attorney-general for the Southern Confederacy, had seen Mr. Plant’s physician, who had advised a change of climate. Mr. Watts sent Mr. Plant a passport, with an order from President Davis authorizing him to pass through the Confederate lines at any point. In about a month after this he went to Wilmington, North Carolina, and embarked on the steamer Hansa, for the Bermudas. He remained there about a month, when he went by the steamer Alpha to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and thence to Montreal. There some friends from New York came to see him, and brought his son Morton from school to him. Mr. Plant then went to New Haven, Connecticut, to visit his mother, and in the fall took passage on the steamship City of Edinburgh for Liverpool.
He was now a stranger in a strange land; the weather was cold, and with impaired health his experience was rather depressing.
However, Mr. Plant has never been the man to despond, still less to despair, but to make the best even of discouraging circumstances. So he went to Paris, whose mercurial people seldom cry, and always laugh when they can. Here he heard of some friends who were staying in Rome, and whom he would like to meet, so he determined to go there. By the French Commissioner of Passports he was informed that his passport from the Confederacy could not be recognized, and he was summoned to appear at the commissioner’s office. He at once presented himself to this official, answered many questions, and was informed that there was no way by which his passport could be accepted at present, but as he wished to visit Rome, then occupied by French troops, his case would be considered.
A few days afterwards he had the satisfaction of receiving a document which served as a passport, given in the name of the Empire of France, and in which he was described as a citizen of the United States of America, resident at Augusta, Georgia, and all officers, civil, military, and naval, were commanded to protect this stranger. He went to Rome via the Mediterranean Sea, and was received everywhere with great respect. He was about two weeks in France, several weeks in Rome, and from thence he went to Naples, Leghorn, Genoa, Milan, and Venice, which latter place was occupied by an Austrian army.
From Venice he went to Switzerland, visiting many places in that picturesque land, and returned to Paris by way of the Rhine. He then passed his time between London and Paris until the autumn, when he returned to America by way of Canada. He afterwards went to New York, where he was staying when President Lincoln was assassinated. By the end of April he was back in Augusta, Georgia.
Mr. Plant’s second tour in Europe was in 1873, on the occasion of his second marriage. He was then accompanied by his mother and his son, Morton Freeman, and on this occasion he made quite an extensive tour of the continent.
His third visit was in the year 1889, when he went to the Paris Exposition with an exhibit of Southern products. Soon after his arrival in Paris he was asked by General Franklin, representative and Commissioner-General of the United States, to accept the position of juror in Class Six, representing the United States. To this responsible position he was duly appointed by the proper authorities, and served with entire satisfaction to all concerned. He was the only English-speaking juror in that class, as Sir Douglas Galton was absent until near the close of the Exposition. From this Exposition the “Plant System” was awarded a large number of medals, which may be seen framed in that palace of art, wrongly named an hotel, at Tampa Bay. A diploma was given to Mr. Plant, in addition, and many other marks of esteem and courteous attention were freely tendered him.
Mr. Plant led a very busy life in Augusta. He lived with his wife at the hotel, and, when she was travelling in the North in the summer, he had his office, for convenience, on the same floor as his bedroom. It had been his habit to keep pad and pencil by his bedside, so that when there came to his mind a matter that called for attention he at once put it down on his memoranda. He was constantly receiving reports from his express offices all over the South. There came to him, for adjustment, many questions of management that were perplexing and urgent, so that he was often on the road, called away at short notice, north, south, or southwest. Complications, great, varied, and numerous, were superinduced by the civil war. The railroads were often seized by the contending armies, offices were raided, and confusion worse confounded heaped troubles thick and fast upon the president of the company, sufficient to have crushed a man of ordinary brain and nerve. But Mr. Plant was not the man to give way to difficulties,—only coolly to plan, determine, execute, and conquer.
The following communication in memorandum form, from one intimately acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Plant while in Augusta, Georgia, will be found suggestive of the busy life he led, and will prove valuable in furnishing the dates when he lived in that city, and the location of his various residences while there. Moreover, its sequel sounds like the plot of a good novel.
“Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Plant became residents of Augusta, Georgia, in 1854. Captain W. and his wife moved to that city in 1855. Both families boarded at the Eagle and Phœnix Hotel, and thus became acquainted. The Eagle and Phœnix was on Broad Street, and is now believed to be the property of Mr. Plant. Mr. Plant was busy organizing and developing the express business, was continually on the road, and made frequent visits to the North. He moved to the Globe Hotel about the summer of 1856. Captain W. and his wife moved to the Trout House, in Atlanta, Georgia, early in 1858, and Mr. and Mrs. Plant joined them there and spent the summer months with them, while Mr. Plant still made Augusta his headquarters and was constantly on the road.
“On Mr. and Mrs. Plant’s return to Augusta in the fall of 1858, they took residence at the Planter’s Hotel, then kept by Mr. Robbins. In the spring of 1859, Mr. and Mrs. Plant, leaving their young son Morton, with Captain W. and his wife in Atlanta, visited New Orleans and remained there during Mardi Gras. Their stay, however, was much shortened by the demands made upon Mr. Plant’s time and attention by the celebrated Maroney robbery. Mrs. Plant’s health, which had been failing for some time, was rapidly growing worse. Mr. Plant’s movements were thus handicapped, and his trips necessarily became shorter and more frequent. Captain W. and wife moved to Athens in April, 1861. Mrs. Plant intended to spend the spring and summer of 1862 with them, but their plans were broken up by her death, at the Planter’s Hotel, Augusta, February 28, 1862.
“Mr. Plant visited Athens shortly after the funeral, and remained several weeks; from thence important business called him back to Augusta. Health began to fail him and he visited Athens again in the following year. It was at this time that his friends prevailed upon him to pay a visit to Europe in the hope that his strength would be restored to him.
“In illustration of the good memory which Mr. Plant possessed for a past kindness, the following interesting story is told. The narrator was sitting in his office talking with Mr. Plant, when the latter suddenly turned from him to a clerk to instruct him in the following words. ‘While I remember it, I want you to write to Mrs. W. to say that her request that we take charge of her money is granted. We will take it and give her six per cent., this will give her —— dollars to pay for her board, and we will add to it —— dollars, which will keep her comfortably among her friends.’
“The amount added was very nearly one and a half times as large as the interest on the moderate amount of insurance which her deceased husband had placed on his life before he died.
“Then when all arrangements for this poor widow’s comfort had been made with the treasurer, Mr. Plant, not supposing that I had ever heard of the woman, explained that long years ago, when his first wife was sick in Augusta, this now widowed woman was very kind to her and also to his son Morton who was then a very little child. This was thirty-six years ago, but it was as fresh in Mr. Plant’s memory, and as near to his heart as if it had occurred only a few weeks ago. Little did this good woman think at the time she rendered this kindly service to a delicate wife, that thirty-six years hence it would be paid back to her with compound interest. It may be truly said that ‘bread cast upon the waters shall return after many days.’”
The Southern Express Company rendered very valuable services to the men engaged on both sides during the Civil War, by carrying packages, boxes, and parcels of all descriptions free of charge,—medicines, and comforts of various character, that made the hard life of the soldier a little easier, and gladdened his heart with the evidences that he was remembered tenderly in his far-away home. This service was especially acceptable on the occasions of exchange of prisoners, when clothing and money were the special needs of the men.
The benediction of many a brave heart, now still in death, rests upon the kindly services of the Southern Express Company so generously given during the four years of the bloody struggle.
In evidence of Mr. Plant’s popularity and the esteem in which he was held by his associates in business as early as 1861, it may be mentioned that on January 1st of that year, at Augusta, Ga., he was made the recipient of a magnificent testimonial in the form of a service of solid silver bearing the following inscription:
PRESENTED TO
H. B. PLANT
BY HIS ASSOCIATES IN THE ADAMS
SOUTHERN EXPRESS
AS A TESTIMONIAL OF THEIR
RESPECT AND ESTEEM
AUGUSTA, GA.,
JANUARY 1, 1861
In 1873, eleven years after the death of his first wife, Mr. Plant married Miss Margaret Josephine Loughman, the only daughter of Martin Loughman, of New York City. She is descended from an ancient and noble family, whose ancestral estate, eight miles long, in the Land of the Shamrock, is now occupied by Lord Dundrum. Mrs. Plant’s great grandmother on her mother’s side was Lady Mary Murphy, of Ballymore Castle, Ballymore. Her own mother was Miss Ellen O’Duyer, said to have been a woman of great beauty and to have been descended from the Kings of Munster.
The finest train of Pullman palace cars we ever saw was prominent among the beautiful exhibits at the Atlanta Exposition of last year (1896). Their exquisite upholstering and decoration owed their superlative finish to the refined taste of Mrs. Plant. The Tampa Bay Hotel, more like a palace of art, is indebted to this same lady for much of its elaborate furnishing and artistic adornment. The two hand-carved mantelpieces in the salon, the admiration of all visitors, as well as some of the fine cabinet-work in the gentlemen’s reading-room, evinced her business capacity and fine sense of the fitness of beautiful furnishing that costs no more than the plain and commonplace. She has given much time and earnest effort to the selection, purchase, and direction of the upholstering and decorations of that finest of American-built steamships, La Grande Duchesse, just completed at Newport News.
The impress of her forcible character and refined taste can be detected in many places throughout the great system over which her husband so ably presides, but is known only to those who are admitted to the inner circles of its operations.