CHAPTER XXX. The first blow struck
The first blow struck—The St. Charles hotel—Invasion of Virginia by the Federals—Death of Col. Ellsworth—Evening at Mr. Slidell’s—Public comments on the war—Richmond the capital of the Confederacy—Military preparations—General society—Jewish element—Visit to a battle-field of 1815.
May 24th.—A great budget of news to-day, which with the events of the week may be briefly enumerated. The fighting has actually commenced between the United States steamers off Fortress Monroe, and the Confederate battery erected at Sewall’s point—both sides claim a certain success. The Confederates declare they riddled the steamer, and that they killed and wounded a number of the sailors. The captain of the vessel says he desisted from want of ammunition, but believes he killed a number of the rebels, and knows he had no loss himself. Beriah Magoffin, governor of the sovereign state of Kentucky, has warned off both Federal and Confederate soldiers from his territory. The Confederate congress has passed an act authorising persons indebted to the United States, except Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri and the district of Columbia, to pay the amount of their debts, to the Confederate treasury. The State convention of North Carolina has passed an ordinance of secession. Arkansas has sent its delegates to the Southern congress. Several Southern vessels have been made prizes, by the blockading squadron; but the event which causes the greatest excitement and indignation here, was the seizure, on Monday, by the United States’ marshals, in every large city throughout the Union, of the telegraphic despatches of the last twelve months.
In the course of the day, I went to the St. Charles Hotel, which is an enormous establishment, of the American type, with a Southern character about it. A number of gentlemen were seated in the hall, and front of the office, with their legs up against the wall, and on the backs of chairs, smoking, spitting, and reading the papers. Officers crowded the bar. The bustle and noise of the place would make it anything but an agreeable residence for one fond of quiet; but this hotel is famous for its difficulties. Not the least disgraceful among them, was the assault committed by some of Walker’s filibusters, upon Captain Aldham, of the Royal Navy.
The young artist, who has been living in great seclusion, was fastened up in his room; and when I informed him that Mr. Mure had despatches which he might take, if he liked, that night, he was overjoyed to excess. He started off north in the evening, and I saw him no more.
At half-past four, I went down by train to the terminus on the lake where I had landed, which is the New Orleans Richmond, or rather, Greenwich, and dined with Mr. Eustis, Mr. Johnson an English merchant, Mr. Josephs a New Orleans lawyer, and Mr. Hunt. The dinner was worthy of the reputation of the French cook. The terrapin soup excellent, though not comparable, as Americans assert, to the best turtle. The creature from which it derives its name, is a small tortoise, the flesh is boiled somewhat in the manner of turtle, but the soup abounds in small bones, and the black paws with the white nail-like stumps projecting from them, found amongst the disjecta membra, are not agreeable to look upon. The bouillabaisse was unexceptionable, the soft crab worthy of every commendation, but the best dish was, unquestionably, the pompinoe, an odd fish, something like an unusually ugly John Dory, but possessing admirable qualities in all that makes fish good. The pleasures of the evening were enhanced by a most glorious sunset, which cast its last rays through a wilderness of laurel roses in full bloom, which thronged the garden. At dusk, the air was perfectly alive with fire-flies and strange beetles. Flies and coleopters buzzed in through the open windows, and flopped among the glasses. At half-past nine, we returned home in cars drawn by horses along the rail.
May 25th.—Virginia has indeed been invaded by the Federals. Alexandria has been seized. It is impossible to describe the excitement and rage of the people; they take, however, some consolation in the fact that Colonel Ellsworth in command of a regiment of New York Zouaves, was shot by J. T. Jackson, the landlord of an inn in the city, called the Marshal House. Ellsworth, on the arrival of his regiment in Alexandria, proceeded to take down the secession flag, which had been long seen from the President’s windows. He went out upon the roof, cut it from the staff, and was proceeding with it down-stairs, when a man rushed out of a room, levelling a double-barrelled gun, shot Colonel Ellsworth dead, and fired the other barrel at one of his men, who had struck at the piece, when the murderer presented it at the Colonel. Almost instantaneously, the Zouave shot Jackson in the head, and as he was falling dead thrust his sabre bayonet through his body. Strange to say, the people of New Orleans, consider Jackson was completely right, in shooting the Federal colonel, and maintain that the Zouave, who shot Jackson, was guilty of murder. Their theory is that Ellsworth had come over with a horde of ruffianly abolitionists or, as the Richmond Examiner has it “the band of thieves, robbers and assassins, in the pay of Abraham Lincoln, commonly known as the United States’ Army,” to violate the territory of a sovereign state, in order to execute their bloody and brutal purposes, and that he was in the act of committing a robbery, by taking a flag which did not belong to him, when he met his righteous fate.
It is curious to observe how passion blinds man’s reason, in this quarrel. More curious still to see, by the light of this event, how differently the same occurrence is viewed by Northerners and Southerners respectively. Jackson is depicted in the Northern papers as a fiend and an assassin; even his face in death is declared to have worn a revolting expression of rage and hate. The Confederate flag which was the cause of the fatal affray, is described by one writer, as having been purified of its baseness, by contact with Ellsworth’s blood. The invasion of Virginia is hailed on all sides of the North with the utmost enthusiasm. “Ellsworth is a martyr hero, whose name is to be held sacred for ever.”
On the other hand, the Southern papers declare that the invasion of Virginia, is “an act of the Washington tyrants, which indicates their bloody and brutal purpose to exterminate the Southern people. The Virginians will give the world another proof, like that of Moscow, that a free people, fighting on a free soil, are invincible when contending for all that is dear to man.” Again—“A hand of execrable cut throats and jail birds, known as the Zouaves of New York, under that chief of all scoundrels, Ellsworth, broke open the door of a citizen, to tear down the flag of the house—the courageous owner met the favourite hero of the Yankees in his own hall, alone, against thousands, and shot him through the heart—he died a death which emperors might envy, and his memory will live through endless generations.” Desperate, indeed, must have been the passion and anger of the man who, in the fullest certainty that immediate death must be its penalty, committed such a deed. As it seems to me, Colonel Ellsworth, however injudicious he may have been, was actually in the performance of his duty when taking down the flag of an enemy.
In the evening I visited Mr. Slidell, whom I found at home, with his family, Mrs. Slidell and her sister Madame Beauregard, wife of the general, two very charming young ladies, daughters of the house, and a parlour full of fair companions, engaged, as hard as they could, in carding lint with their fair hands. Among the company was Mr. Slidell’s son, who had just travelled from school at the North, under a feigned name, in order to escape violence at the hands of the Union mobs which are said to be insulting and outraging every Southern man. The conversation, as is the case in most creole domestic circles, was carried on in French. I rarely met a man whose features have a greater finesse and firmness of purpose than Mr. Slidell’s; his keen grey eye is full of life, his thin, firmly-set lips indicate resolution and passion. Mr. Slidell, though born in a Northern state, is perhaps one of the most determined disunionists in the Southern confederacy; he is not a speaker of note, nor a ready stump orator, nor an able writer; but he is an excellent judge of mankind, adroit, persevering, and subtle, full of device, and fond of intrigue; one of those men, who, unknown almost to the outer world, organises and sustains a faction, and exalts it into the position of a party—what is called here a “wire-puller.” Mr. Slidell is to the South something greater than Mr. Thurlow Weed has been to his party in the North. He, like every one else, is convinced that recognition must come soon; but, under any circumstances, he is quite satisfied, the government and independence of the Southern confederacy are as completely established as those of any power in the world. Mr. Slidell and the members of his family possess naïveté, good sense, and agreeable manners; and the regrets I heard expressed in Washington society, at their absence, had every justification.
I supped at the club, which I visited every day since I was made an honorary member, as all the journals are there, and a great number of planters and merchants, well acquainted with the state of affairs in the South. There were two Englishmen present, Mr. Lingam and another, the most determined secessionists and the most devoted advocates of slavery I have yet met in the course of my travels.
May 26th.—The heat to-day was so great, that I felt a return of my old Indian experiences, and was unable to go, as I intended, to hear a very eminent preacher discourse on the war at one of the principal chapels.
All disposable regiments are on the march to Virginia. It was bad policy for Mr. Jefferson Davis to menace Washington before he could seriously carry out his threats, because the North was excited by the speech of his Secretary at War to take extraordinary measures for the defence of their capital; and General Scott was enabled by their enthusiasm not only to provide for its defence, but to effect a lodgment at Alexandria, as a base of operations against the enemy.
When the Congress at Montgomery adjourned, the other day, they resolved to meet on the 20th of July at Richmond, which thus becomes the capital of the Confederacy. The city is not much more than one hundred miles south of Washington, with which it was in communication by rail and river; and the selection must cause a collision between the two armies in front of the rival capitals. The seizure of the Norfolk navy yard by the Confederates rendered it necessary to reinforce Fortress Monroe; and for the present the Potomac and the Chesapeake are out of danger.
The military precautions taken by General Scott, and the movements attributed to him to hold Baltimore and to maintain his communications between Washington and the North, afford evidence of judgment and military skill. The Northern papers are clamouring for an immediate advance of their raw levies to Richmond, which General Scott resists.
In one respect the South has shown greater sagacity than the North. Mr. Jefferson Davis having seen service in the field, and having been Secretary of War, perceived the dangers and inefficiency of irregular levies, and therefore induced the Montgomery Congress to pass a bill which binds volunteers to serve during the war, unless sooner discharged, and reserves to the President of the Southern Confederacy the appointment of staff and field officers, the right of veto to battalion officers elected by each company, and the power of organising companies of volunteers into squadrons, battalions, and regiments. Writing to the Times at this date, I observed: “Although immense levies of men may be got together for purposes of local defence or aggressive operations, it will be very difficult to move these masses like regular armies. There is an utter want of field-trains, equipage, and commissariat, which cannot be made good in a day, a week, or a month. The absence of cavalry, and the utter deficiency of artillery, may prevent either side obtaining any decisive result in one engagement; but there can be no doubt large losses will be incurred whenever these masses of men are fairly opposed to each other in the open field.”
May 27th.—I visited several of the local companies, their drill-grounds and parades; but few of the men were present, as nearly all are under orders to proceed to the Camp at Tangipao or to march to Richmond. Privates and officers are busy in the sweltering streets purchasing necessaries for their journey. As one looks at the resolute, quick, angry faces around him, and hears but the single theme, he must feel the South will never yield to the North, unless as a nation which is beaten beneath the feet of a victorious enemy.
In every state there is only one voice audible. Hereafter, indeed, state jealousies may work their own way; but if words mean anything, all the Southern people are determined to resist Mr. Lincoln’s invasion as long as they have a man or a dollar. Still, there are certain hard facts which militate against the truth of their own assertions, “that they are united to a man, and prepared to fight to a man.” Only 15,000 are under arms out of the 50,000 men in the state of Louisiana liable to military service.
“Charges of abolitionism” appear in the reports of police cases in the papers every morning; and persons found guilty not of expressing opinions against slavery, but of stating their belief that the Northerners will be successful, are sent to prison for six months. The accused are generally foreigners, or belong to the lower orders, who have got no interest in the support of slavery. The moral suasion of the lasso, of tarring and feathering, head-shaving, ducking, and horse-ponds, deportation on rails, and similar ethical processes are highly in favour. As yet the North have not arrived at such an elevated view of the necessities of their position.
The New Orleans papers are facetious over their new mode of securing unanimity, and highly laud what they call “the course of instruction in the humane institution for the amelioration of the condition of northern barbarians and abolition fanatics, presided over by Professor Henry Mitchell,” who, in other words, is the jailer of the workhouse reformatory.
I dined at the Lake with Mr. Mure, General Lewis, Major Ranney, Mr. Duncan Kenner a Mississippi planter, Mr. Claiborne, &c., and visited the club in the evening. Every night since I have been in New Orleans there have been one or two fires; to-night there were three—one a tremendous conflagration. When I inquired to what they were attributable, a gentleman who sat near, bent over, and looking me straight in the face, said, in a low voice, “The slaves.” The flues, perhaps, and the system of stoves, may also bear some of the blame. There is great enthusiasm among the townspeople in consequence of the Washington artillery, a crack corps, furnished by the first people in New Orleans, being ordered off for Virginia.
May 28th.—On dropping in at the Consulate to-day, I found the skippers of several English vessels who are anxious to clear out, lest they be detained by the Federal cruisers. The United States steam frigates Brooklyn and Niagara have been for some days past blockading Pass á l’outre. One citizen made a remarkable proposition to Mr. Mure. He came in to borrow an ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron for the purpose, he said, of hoisting it on board his yacht, and running down to have a look at the Yankee ships. Mr. Mure had no flag to lend; whereupon he asked for a description by which he could get one made. On being applied to, I asked “whether the gentleman was a member of the Squadron?” “Oh, no,” said he, “but my yacht was built in England, and I wrote over some time ago to say I would join the squadron.” I ventured to tell him that it by no means followed he was a member, and that if he went out with the flag and could not show by his papers he had a right to carry it, the yacht would be seized. However, he was quite satisfied that he had an English yacht, and a right to hoist an English flag, and went off to an outfitter’s to order a facsimile of the Squadron ensign, and subsequently cruised among the blockading vessels.
We hear Mr. Ewell was attacked by an Union mob in Tennessee, his luggage was broken open and plundered, and he narrowly escaped personal injury. Per contra, “charges of abolitionism” continue to multiply here, and are almost as numerous as the coroner’s inquests, not to speak of the difficulties which sometimes attain the magnitude of murder.
I dined with a large party at the Lake, who had invited me as their guest, among whom were Mr. Slidell, Governor Hebert, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Norton, Mr. Fellows, and others. I observed in New York that every man had his own solution of the cause of the present difficulty, and contradicted plumply his neighbour the moment he attempted to propound his own theory. Here I found every one agreed as to the righteousness of the quarrel, but all differed as to the best mode of action for the South to pursue. Nor was there any approach to unanimity as the evening waxed older. Incidentally we had wild tales of Southern life, some good songs, curiously intermingled with political discussions, and what the Northerns call hyphileutin talk.
When I was in the Consulate to-day, a tall and well-dressed, but not very prepossessing-looking man, entered to speak to Mr. Mure on business, and was introduced to me at his own request. His name was mentioned incidentally to-night, and I heard a passage in his life not of an agreeable character, to say the least of it. A good many years ago there was a ball at New Orleans, at which this gentleman was present; he paid particular attention to a lady who, however, preferred the society of one of the company, and in the course of the evening an altercation occurred respecting an engagement to dance, in which violent language was exchanged, and a push or blow given by the favoured partner to his rival, who left the room, and, as it is stated, proceeded to a cutler’s shop, where he procured a powerful dagger-knife. Armed with this, he returned, and sent in a message to the gentleman with whom he had quarrelled. Suspecting nothing, the latter came into the ante-chamber, the assassin rushed upon him, stabbed him to the heart, and left him weltering in his blood. Another version of the story was, that he waited for his victim till he came into the cloak-room, and struck him as he was in the act of putting on his overcoat. After a long delay, the criminal was tried. The defence put forward on his behalf was that he had seized a knife in the heat of the moment when the quarrel took place, and had slain his adversary in a moment of passion; but evidence, as I understand, went strongly to prove that a considerable interval elapsed between the time of the dispute and the commission of the murder. The prisoner had the assistance of able and ingenious counsel; he was acquitted. His acquittal was mainly due to the judicious disposition of a large sum of money; each juror, when he retired to dinner previous to consulting over the verdict, was enabled to find the sum of 1000 dollars under his plate; nor was it clear that the judge and sheriff had not participated in the bounty; in fact, I heard a dispute as to the exact amount which it is supposed the murderer had to pay. He now occupies, under the Confederate Government, the post at New Orleans which he lately held, as representative of the Government of the United States.
After dinner I went in company of some of my hosts to the Boston Club, which has, I need not say, no connection with the city of that name. More fires, the tocsin sounding, and so to bed.
May 29th.—Dined in the evening with M. Aristide Milten-berger, where I met His Excellency Mr. Moore, the Governor of Louisiana, his military secretary, and a small party.
It is a strange country, indeed; one of the evils which afflicts the Louisianians, they say, is the preponderance and influence of South Carolinian Jews, and Jews generally, such as Moise, Mordecai, Josephs, and Judah Benjamin, and others. The subtlety and keenness of the Caucasian intellect give men a high place among a people who admire ability and dexterity, and are at the same time reckless of means and averse to labour. The Governor is supposed to be somewhat under the influence of the Hebrews, but he is a man quite competent to think and to act for himself—a plain, sincere ruler of a slave state, and an upholder of the patriarchal institute. After dinner we accompanied Madame Milten-berger (who affords in her own person a very complete refutation of the dogma that American women furnish no examples of the charms which surround their English sisters in the transit from the prime of life towards middle age), in a drive along the shell road to the lake and canal; the most remarkable object being a long wall lined with a glorious growth of orange trees: clouds of mosquitoes effectually interfered with an enjoyment of the drive.
May 30th.—Wrote in the heat of the day, enlivened by my neighbour, a wonderful mocking-bird, whose songs and imitations would make his fortune in any society capable of appreciating native-born genius. His restlessness, courage, activity, and talent ought not to be confined to Mr. Mure’s cage, but he seems contented and happy. I dined with Madame and M. Milten-berger, and drove out with them to visit the scene of our defeat in 1815, which lies at the distance of some miles down the river.
A dilapidated farmhouse surrounded by trees and negro huts marks the spot where Pakenham was buried, but his body was subsequently exhumed and sent home to England. Close to the point of the canal which constitutes a portion of the American defences, a negro guide came forth to conduct us round the place, but he knew as little as most guides of the incidents of the fight. The most remarkable testimony to the severity of the fire to which the British were exposed, is afforded by the trees in the neighbourhood of the tomb. In one live oak there are no less than eight round shot embedded, others contain two or three, and many are lopped, rent, and scarred by the flight of cannon ball. The American lines extended nearly three miles, and were covered in the front by swamps, marshes, and water cuts, their batteries and the vessels in the river enfiladed the British as they advanced to the attack.
Among the prominent defenders of the cotton bales was a notorious pirate and murderer named Lafitte, who with his band was released from prison on condition that he enlisted in the defence, and did substantial service to his friends and deliverers.
Without knowing all the circumstances of the case, it would be rash now to condemn the officers who directed the assault; but so far as one could judge from the present condition of the ground, the position must have been very formidable, and should not have been assaulted till the enfilading fire was subdued, and a very heavy covering fire directed to silence the guns in front. The Americans are naturally very proud of their victory, which was gained at a most trifling loss to themselves, which they erroneously conceive to be a proof of their gallantry in resisting the assault. It is one of the events which have created a fixed idea in their minds that they are able to “whip the world.”
On returning from my visit I went to the club, where I had a long conversation with Dr. Rushton, who is strongly convinced of the impossibility of carrying on government, or conducting municipal affairs, until universal suffrage is put down. He gave many instances of the terrorism, violence, and assassinations which prevail during election times in New Orleans. M. Milten-berger, on the contrary, thinks matters are very well as they are, and declares all these stories are fanciful: Incendiarism rife again. All the club windows crowded with men looking at a tremendous fire, which burned down three or four stores and houses.