CHAPTER XVI. Charleston; the Market-place
Charleston; the Market-place—Irishmen at Charleston—Governor Pickens: his political economy and theories—Newspaper offices and counting-houses—Rumours as to the war policy of the South.
April 19th.—An exceeding hot day. The sun pours on the broad sandy street of Charleston with immense power, and when the wind blows down the thoroughfare it sends before it vast masses of hot dust. The houses are generally detached, surrounded by small gardens, well provided with verandahs to protect the windows from the glare, and are sheltered with creepers and shrubs and flowering plants, through which flit humming-birds and fly-catchers. In some places the streets and roadways are covered with planking, and as long as the wood is sound they are pleasant to walk or drive upon.
I paid a visit to the markets; the stalls are presided over by negroes, male and female; the coloured people engaged in selling and buying are well clad; the butchers’ meat by no means tempting to the eye, but the fruit and vegetable stalls well-filled. Fish is scarce at present, as the boats are not permitted to proceed to sea lest they should be whipped up by the expected Yankee cruisers, or carry malcontents to communicate with the enemy. Around the flesh-market there is a skirling crowd of a kind of turkey-buzzard; these are useful as scavengers and are protected by law. They do their nasty work very zealously, descending on the offal thrown out to them with the peculiar crawling, puffy, soft sort of flight which is the badge of all their tribe, and contending with wing and beak against the dogs which dispute the viands with the harpies. It is curious to watch the expression of their eyes as with outstretched necks they peer down from the ledge of the market roof on the stalls and scrutinise the operations of the butchers below. They do not prevent a disagreeable odour in the vicinity of the markets, nor are they deadly to a fine and active breed of rats.
Much drumming and marching through the streets to-day. One very ragged regiment which had been some time at Morris’ Island halted in the shade near me, and I was soon made aware they consisted, for the great majority, of Irishmen. The Emerald Isle, indeed, has contributed largely to the population of Charleston. In the principal street there is a large and fine red sandstone building with the usual Greek-Yankee-composite portico, over which is emblazoned the crownless harp and the shamrock wreath proper to a St. Patrick’s Hall, and several Roman Catholic churches also attest the Hibernian presence.
I again called on General Beauregard, and had a few moments’ conversation with him. He told me that an immense deal depended on Virginia, and that as yet the action of the people in that State had not been as prompt as might have been hoped, for the President’s proclamation was a declaration of war against the South, in which all would be ultimately involved. He is going to Montgomery to confer with Mr. Jefferson Davis. I have no doubt there is to be some movement made in Virginia. Whiting is under orders to repair there, and he hinted that he had a task of no common nicety and difficulty to perform. He is to visit the forts which had been seized on the coast of North Carolina, and probably will have a look at Portsmouth. It is incredible that the Federal authorities should have neglected to secure this place.
Later I visited the Governor of the State, Mr. Pickens, to whom I was conducted by Colonel Lucas, his aide-de-camp. His palace was a very humble shed-like edifice with large rooms, on the doors of which were pasted pieces of paper with sundry high-reading inscriptions, such as “Adjutant General’s Dept., Quartermaster-General’s Dept., Attorney-General of State,” &c., and through the doorways could be seen men in uniform, and grave, earnest people busy at their desks with pen, ink, paper, tobacco, and spittoons. The governor, a stout man, of a big head, and a large important looking face, with watery eyes and flabby features, was seated in a barrack-like room, furnished in the plainest way and decorated by the inevitable portrait of George Washington, close to which was the “Ordinance of Secession of the State of South Carolina” of last year.
Governor Pickens is considerably laughed at by his subjects, and I was amused by a little middy, who described with much unction the governor’s alarm on his visit to Fort Pickens, when he was told that there were a number of live shells and a quantity of powder still in the place. He is said to have commenced one of his speeches with “Born insensible to fear,” &c. To me the governor was very courteous, but I confess the heat of the day did not dispose me to listen with due attention to a lecture on political economy with which he favoured me. I was told, however, that he had practised with success on the late Czar when he was United States Minister to St. Petersburg, and that he does not suffer his immediate staff to escape from having their minds improved on the relations of capital to labour, and on the vicious condition of capital and labour in the North.
“In the North, then, you will perceive, Mr. Russell, they have maximised the hostile condition of opposed interests in the accumulation of capital and in the employment of labour, whilst we in the South, by the peculiar excellence of our domestic institution, have minimised their opposition and maximised the identity of interest by the investment of capital in the labourer himself,” and so on, or something like it. I could not help remarking it struck me there was “another difference betwixt the North and the South which he had overlooked—the capital of the North is represented by gold, silver, notes, and other exponents, which are good all the world over and are recognised as such; your capital has power of locomotion, and ceases to exist the moment it crosses a geographical line.” “That remark, sir,” said the Governor, “requires that I should call your attention to the fundamental principles on which the abstract idea of capital should be formed. In order to clear the ground, let us first inquire into the soundness of the ideas put forward by your Adam Smith”——I had to look at my watch and to promise I would come back to be illuminated on some other occasion, and hurried off to keep an engagement with myself to write letters by the next mail.
The Governor writes very good proclamations, nevertheless, and his confidence in South Carolina is unbounded. “If we stand alone, sir, we must win. They can’t whip us.” A gentleman named Pringle, for whom I had letters of introduction, has come to Charleston to ask me to his plantation, but there will be no boat from the port till Monday, and it is uncertain then whether the blockading vessels, of which we hear so much, may not be down by that time.
April 20th.—I visited the editors of the Charleston Mercury and the Charleston Courier to-day at their offices. The Rhett family have been active agitators for secession, and it is said they are not over well pleased with Jefferson Davis for neglecting their claims to office. The elder, a pompous, hard, ambitious man, possesses ability. He is fond of alluding to his English connections and predilections, and is intolerant of New England to the last degree. I received from him, ere I left, a pamphlet on his life, career, and services. In the newspaper offices there was nothing worthy of remark; they were possessed of that obscurity which is such a characteristic of the haunts of journalism—the clouds in which the lightning is hiding. Thence to haunts more dingy still where Plutus lives—to the counting-houses of the cotton brokers, up many pairs of stairs into large rooms furnished with hard seats, engravings of celebrated clippers, advertisements of emigrant agencies and of lines of steamers, little flocks of cotton, specimens of rice, grain, and seed in wooden bowls, and clerks living inside railings, with secluded spittoons, and ledgers, and tumblers of water.
I called on several of the leading merchants and bankers, such as Mr. Rose, Mr. Muir, Mr. Trenholm, and others. With all it was the same story. Their young men were off to the wars—no business doing. In one office I saw an announcement of a company for a direct communication by steamers between a southern port and Europe. “When do you expect that line to be opened?” I asked. “The United States’ cruisers will surely interfere with it.” “Why, I expect, sir,” replied the merchant, “that if those miserable Yankees try to blockade us, and keep you from our cotton, you’ll just send their ships to the bottom and acknowledge us. That will be before autumn, I think.” It was in vain I assured him he would be disappointed. “Look out there,” he said, pointing to the wharf, on which were piled some cotton bales; “there’s the key will open all our ports, and put us into John Bull’s strong box as well.”
I dined to-day at the hotel, notwithstanding many hospitable invitations, with Messrs. Manning, Porcher Miles, Reed, and Pringle. Mr. Trescot, who was Under-Secretary-of-State in Mr. Buchanan’s Cabinet, joined us, and I promised to visit his plantation as soon as I have returned from Mr. Pringle’s. “We heard much the same conversation as usual, relieved by Mr. Trescot’s sound sense and philosophy. He sees clearly the evils of slavery, but is, like all of us, unable to discover the solution and means of averting them.”
The Secessionists are in great delight with Governor Letcher’s proclamation, calling out troops and volunteers, and it is hinted that Washington will be attacked, and the nest of Black Republican vermin which haunt the capital driven out. Agents are to be at once despatched to get up a navy, and every effort made to carry out the policy indicated in Jeff Davis’s issue of letters of marque and reprisal. Norfolk harbour is blocked up to prevent the United States ships getting away; and at the same time we hear that the United States officer commanding at the arsenal of Harper’s Ferry has retired into Pennsylvania, after destroying the place by fire. How “old John Brown” would have wondered and rejoiced had he lived a few months longer!