CHAPTER XXIX. Judge Campbell
Judge Campbell—Dr. Nott—Slavery—Departure for New Orleans—Down the river—Fear of Cruisers—Approach to New Orleans—Duelling—Streets of New Orleans—Unhealthiness of the city—Public opinion as to the war—Happy and contented negroes.
May 18th.—An exceedingly hot day, which gives bad promise of comfort for the Federal soldiers, who are coming, as the Washington Government asserts, to put down rebellion in these quarters. The mosquitos are advancing in numbers and force. The day I first came I asked the waiter if they were numerous. “I wish they were a hundred times as many,” said he. On inquiring if he had any possible reason for such an extraordinary aspiration, he said, “because we would get rid of these darned black republicans out of Fort Pickens all the sooner.” The man seemed to infer they would not bite the Confederate soldiers.
I dined at Dr. Nott’s, and met Judge Campbell, who has resigned his high post as one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, and explained his reasons for doing so in a letter, charging Mr. Seward with treachery, dissimulation, and falsehood. He seemed to me a great casuist rather than a profound lawyer, and to delight in subtle distinctions and technical abstractions; but I had the advantage of hearing from him at great length the whole history of the Dred Scot case, and a recapitulation of the arguments used on both sides, the force of which, in his opinion, was irresistibly in favour of the decision of the Court. Mr. Forsyth, Colonel Hardee, and others were of the company.
To me it was very painful to hear a sweet ringing silvery voice, issuing from a very pretty mouth, “I’m so delighted to hear that the Yankees in Fortress Monroe have got typhus fever. I hope it may kill them all.” This was said by one of the most charming young persons possible, and uttered with unmistakeable sincerity, just as if she had said, “I hear all the snakes in Virginia are dying of poison.” I fear the young lady did not think very highly of me for refusing to sympathise with her wishes in that particular form. But all the ladies in Mobile belong to “The Yankee Emancipation Society.” They spend their days sewing cartridges, carding lint, preparing bandages, and I’m not quite sure that they don’t fill shells and fuses as well. Their zeal and energy will go far to sustain the South in the forthcoming struggle, and nowhere is the influence of women greater than in America.
As to Dr. Nott, his studies have induced him to take a purely materialist view of the question of slavery, and, according to him, questions of morals and ethics, pertaining to its consideration, ought to be referred to the cubic capacity of the human cranium—the head that can take the largest charge of snipe shot will eventually dominate in some form or other over the head of inferior capacity. Dr. Nott detests slavery, but he does not see what is to be done with the slaves, and how the four millions of negroes are to be prevented from becoming six, eight, or ten millions, if their growth is stimulated by high prices for Southern produce.
There is a good deal of force in the observation which I have heard more than once down here, that Great Britain could not have emancipated her negroes had they been dwelling within her border, say in Lancashire or Yorkshire. No inconvenience was experienced by the English people per se in consequence of the emancipation, which for the time destroyed industry and shook society to pieces in Jamaica. Whilst the States were colonies, Great Britain viewed the introduction of slaves to such remote dependencies with satisfaction, and when the United States had established their sovereignty they found the institution of slavery established within their own borders, and an important, if not essential, stratum in their social system. The work of emancipation would have then been comparatively easy, it now is a stupendous problem which no human being has offered to solve.
May 19th.—The heat out of doors was so great that I felt little tempted to stir out, but at 2 o’clock Mr. Magee drove me to a pretty place, called Spring Hill, where Mr. Stein, a German merchant of the city, has his country residence. The houses of Mobile merchants are scattered around the rising ground in that vicinity; they look like marble at a distance, but a nearer approach resolves them into painted wood. Stone is almost unknown on all this seaboard region. The worthy German was very hospitable, and I enjoyed a cool walk before dinner under the shade of his grapes, which formed pleasant walks in his garden. The Scuppernung grape, which grew in profusion—a native of North Carolina—has a remarkable appearance. The stalk, which is smooth, and covered with a close grained grey bark, has not the character of a vine, but grows straight and stiff like the branch of a tree, and is crowded with delicious grapes. Cherokee plum and rose-trees, and magnificent magnolias, clustered round his house, and beneath their shadow I listened to the worthy German comparing the Fatherland to his adopted country, and now and then letting out the secret love of his heart for the old place. He, like all of the better classes in the South, has the utmost dread of universal suffrage, and would restrict the franchise largely to-morrow if he could.
May 20.—I left Mobile in the steamer Florida for New Orleans this morning at eight o’clock. She was crowded with passengers, in uniform. In my cabin was a notice of the rules and regulations of the steamer. No. 6 was as follows: “All slave servants must be cleared at the Custom House. Passengers having slaves will please report as soon as they come on board.”
A few miles from Mobile the steamer, turning to the right, entered one of the narrow channels which perforate the whole of the coast, called “Grant’s Pass.” An ingenious person has rendered it navigable by an artificial cut; but as he was not an universal philanthropist, and possibly may have come from north of the Tweed, he further erected a series of barriers, which can only be cleared by means of a little pepper-castor iron lighthouse; and he charges toll on all passing vessels. A small island at the pass, just above water-level, about twenty yards broad and one hundred and fifty yards long, was being fortified. Some of our military friends landed here; and it required a good deal of patriotism to look cheerfully at the prospect of remaining cooped up among the mosquitos in a box, on this miserable sand-bank, which a shell would suffice to blow into atoms.
Having passed this channel, our steamer proceeded up a kind of internal sea, formed by the shore, on the right hand and on the left by a chain almost uninterrupted of reefs covered with sand, and exceedingly narrow, so that the surf of the ocean rollers at the other side could be seen through the foliage of the pine trees which line them. On our right the endless pines closed up the land view of the horizon; the beach was pierced by creeks without number, called bayous; and it was curious to watch the white sails of the little schooners gliding in and out among the trees along the green meadows that seemed to stretch as an impassable barrier to their exit. Immense troops of pelicans flapped over the sea, dropping incessantly on the fish which abounded in the inner water; and long rows of the same birds stood digesting their plentiful meals on the white beach by the ocean foam.
There was some anxiety in the passengers’ minds, as it was reported that the United States’ cruisers had been seen inside, and that they had even burned the batteries on Ship Island. We saw nothing of a character more formidable than coasting craft and a return steamer from New Orleans till we approached the entrance to Pontchartrain, when a large schooner, which sailed like a witch and was crammed with men, attracted our attention. Through the glass I could make out two guns on her deck, and quite reason enough for any well-filled merchantman sailing under the Stars and Stripes to avoid her close companionship.
The approach to New Orleans is indicated by large hamlets and scattered towns along the sea-shore, hid in the piney woods, which offer a retreat to the merchants and their families from the fervid heat of the unwholesome city in summer time. As seen from the sea, these sanitary settlements have a picturesque effect, and an air of charming freshness and lightness. There are detached villas of every variety of architecture in which timber can be constructed, painted in the brightest hues—greens, and blues, and rose tints—each embowered in magnolias and rhododendrons. From every garden a very long and slender pier, terminated by a bathing-box, stretches into the shallow sea; and the general aspect of these houses, with the light domes and spires of churches rising above the lines of white railings set in the dark green of the pines, is light and novel. To each of these cities there is a jetty, at two of which we touched, and landed newspapers, received or discharged a few bales of goods, and were off again.
Of the little crowd assembled on each, the majority were blacks—the whites, almost without exception, in uniform, and armed. A nearer approach did not induce me to think that any agencies less powerful than epidemics and summer-heats could render Pascagoula, Passchristian, Mississippi City, and the rest of these settlements very eligible residences for people of an active turn of mind.
The live-long day my fellow-passengers never ceased talking politics, except when they were eating and drinking, because the horrible chewing and spitting are not at all incompatible with the maintenance of active discussion. The fiercest of them all was a thin, fiery-eyed little woman, who at dinner expressed a fervid desire for bits of “Old Abe”—his ear, his hair; but whether for the purpose of eating or as curious reliques, she did not enlighten the company.
After dinner there was some slight difficulty among the military gentlemen, though whether of a political or personal character, I could not determine; but it was much aggravated by the appearance of a six-shooter on the scene, which, to my no small perturbation, was presented in a right line with my berth, out of the window of which I was looking at the combatants. I am happy to say the immediate delivery of the fire was averted by an amicable arrangement that the disputants should meet at the St. Charles Hotel at 12 o’clock on the second day after their arrival, in order to fix time, place, and conditions of a more orthodox and regular encounter.
At night the steamer entered a dismal canal, through a swamp which is infamous as the most mosquito haunted place along the infested shore; the mouths of the Mississippi themselves being quite innocent, compared to the entrance of Lake Pontchartrain. When I woke up at daylight, I found the vessel lying alongside a wharf with a railway train alongside, which is to take us to the city of New Orleans, six miles distant.
A village of restaurants or “restaurats,” as they are called here, and of bathing boxes has grown up around the terminus; all the names of the owners, the notices and sign-boards being French. Outside the settlement the railroad passes through a swamp, like an Indian jungle, through which the overflowings of the Mississippi creep in black currents. The spires of New Orleans rise above the underwood and semi-tropical vegetation of this swamp. Nearer to the city lies a marshy plain, in which flocks of cattle, up to the belly in the soft earth are floundering among the clumps of vegetation. The nearer approach to New Orleans by rail lies through a suburb of exceedingly broad lanes, lined on each side by rows of miserable mean one-storied houses, inhabited, if I am to judge from the specimens I saw, by a miserable and sickly population.
A great number of the men and women had evident traces of negro blood in their veins, and of the purer blooded whites many had the peculiar look of the fishy-fleshy population of the Levantine towns, and all were pale and lean. The railway terminus is marked by a dirty, barrack-like shed in the city. Selecting one of the numerous tumble-down hackney carriages which crowded the street outside the station, I directed the man to drive me to the house of Mr. Mure, the British consul, who had been kind enough to invite me as his guest for the period of my stay in New Orleans.
The streets are badly paved, as those of most of the American cities, if not all that I have ever been in, but in other respects they are more worthy of a great city than are those of New York. There is an air thoroughly French about the people—cafés, restaurants, billiard-rooms abound, with oyster and lager-bier saloons interspersed. The shops are all magazins; the people in the streets are speaking French, particularly the negroes, who are going out shopping with their masters and mistresses, exceedingly well dressed, noisy, and not unhappy looking. The extent of the drive gave an imposing idea of the size of New Orleans—the richness of some of the shops, the vehicles in the streets and the multitude of well-dressed people on the pavements, an impression of its wealth and the comfort of the inhabitants. The Confederate flag was flying from the public buildings and from many private houses. Military companies paraded through the streets, and a large proportion of men were in uniform.
In the day I drove through the city, delivered letters of introduction, paid visits, and examined the shops and the public places; but there is such a whirl of secession and politics surrounding one it is impossible to discern much of the outer world.
Whatever may be the number of the unionists or of the non-secessionists, a pressure too potent to be resisted has been directed by the popular party against the friends of the Federal government. The agent of Brown Brothers, of Liverpool and New York, has closed their office and is going away in consequence of the intimidation of the mob, or as the phrase is here, the “excitement of the citizens,” on hearing of the subscription made by the firm to the New York fund, after Sumter had been fired upon. Their agent in Mobile has been compelled to adopt the same course. Other houses follow their example, but as most business transactions are over for the season, the mercantile community hope the contest will be ended before the next season, by the recognition of Southern independence.
The streets are full of Turcos, Zouaves, Chasseurs; walls are covered with placards of volunteer companies there are Pickwick rifles, La Fayette, Beauregard, MacMahon guards, Irish, German, Italian and Spanish and native volunteers, among whom the Meagher rifles, indignant with the gentleman from whom they took their name, because of his adhesion to the North, are going to rebaptise themselves and to seek glory under one more auspicious. In fact, New Orleans looks like a suburb of the camp at Châlons. Tailors are busy night and day making uniforms. I went into a shop with the consul for some shirts—the mistress and all her seamstresses were busy preparing flags as hard as the sewing machine could stitch them, and could attend to no business for the present. The Irish population, finding themselves unable to migrate Northwards, and being without work, have rushed to arms with enthusiasm to support Southern institutions, and Mr. John Mitchell and Mr. Meagher stand opposed to each other in hostile camps.
May 22nd.—The thermometer to-day marked 95° in the shade. It is not to be wondered at that New Orleans suffers from terrible epidemics. At the side of each street a filthy open sewer flows to and fro with the tide in the blazing sun, and Mr. Mure tells me the city lies so low that he has been obliged to go to his office in a boat along the streets.
I sat for some time listening to the opinions of the various merchants who came in to talk over the news and politics in general. They were all persuaded that Great Britain would speedily recognise the South, but I cannot find that any of them had examined into the effects of such a recognition. One gentleman seemed to think to-day that recognition meant forcing the blockade; whereas it must, as I endeavoured to show him, merely lead to the recognition of the rights of the United States to establish a blockade of ports belonging to an independent and hostile nation. There are some who maintain there will be no war after all; that the North will not fight, and that the friends of the Southern cause will recover their courage when this tyranny is over. No one imagines the South will ever go back to the Union voluntarily, or that the North has power to thrust it back at the point of the bayonet.
The South has commenced preparations for the contest by sowing grain instead of planting cotton, to compensate for the loss of supplies from the North. The payment of debts to Northern creditors is declared to be illegal, and “stay laws” have been adopted in most of the seceding states, by which the ordinal laws for the recovery of debts in the States themselves are for the time suspended, which may lead one into the belief that the legislators themselves belong to the debtor instead of the creditor class.
May 23rd.—As the mail communication has been suspended between North and South, and the Express Companies are ordered not to carry letters, I sent off my packet of despatches to-day, by Mr. Ewell, of the house of Dennistoun & Co.; and resumed my excursions through New Orleans.
The young artist who is stopping at the St. Charles Hotel, came to me in great agitation to say his life was in danger, in consequence of his former connexion with an abolition paper of New York, and that he had been threatened with death by a man with whom he had had a quarrel in Washington. Mr. Mure, to calm his apprehensions, offered to take him to the authorities of the town, who would, no doubt, protect him, as he was merely engaged in making sketches for an English periodical, but the young man declared he was in danger of assassination. He entreated Mr. Mure to give him despatches which would serve to protect him, on his way Northward; and the Consul, moved by his mental distress, promised that if he had any letters of an official character for Washington he would send them by him, in default of other opportunities.
I dined with Major Ranney, the president of one of the railways, with whom Mr. Ward was stopping. Among the company were Mr. Eustis, son-in-law of Mr. Slidell; Mr. Morse, the attorney-general of the State; Mr. Moise, a jew, supposed to have considerable influence with the governor, and a vehement politician; Messrs. Hunt, and others. The table was excellent, and the wines were worthy of the reputation which our host enjoys, in a city where Sallusts and Luculli are said to abound. One of the slave servants who waited at table, an intelligent yellow “boy,” was pointed out to me as a son of General Andrew Jackson.
We had a full account of the attack of the British troops on the city, and their repulse. Mr. Morse denied emphatically that there was any cotton bag fortification in front of the lines, where our troops were defeated; he asserted that there were only a few bales, I think seventy-five, used in the construction of one battery, and that they and some sugar hogsheads, constituted the sole defences of the American trench. Only one citizen applied to the state for compensation, on account of the cotton used by Jackson’s troops, and he owned the whole of the bales so appropriated.
None of the Southern gentlemen have the smallest apprehension of a servile insurrection. They use the universal formula “our negroes are the happiest, most contented, and most comfortable people on the face of the earth.” I admit I have been struck by well-clad and good-humoured negroes in the streets, but they are in the minority; many look morose, ill-clad, and discontented. The patrols I know have been strengthened, and I heard a young lady the other night, say, “I shall not be a bit afraid to go back to the plantation, though mamma says the negroes are after mischief.”