At Lee's Station we met the morning train from Charleston. Within two yards of my window, I saw a dark object disappear under the cow-catcher; and a moment after, a woman, wringing her hands, shrieked:
"My God! My God! Mr. Lee killed!"
Lying on the track was a shapeless, gory mass, which only the clothing showed to be the remains of a human being. The station-keeper, attempting to cross the road just in advance of the train, was struck down and run over. His little son was standing beside him at the very moment, and two of his daughters looking on from the door of his residence, a few yards away. In the first bewilderment of terror, they now stood wildly beating their foreheads, and gasping for breath. In strange contrast with this scene, a martial band was discoursing lively music, and people were loudly cheering the soldiers. Buoyant Life and grim Death stood side by side and walked hand in hand.
Our train plunged into deep pine woods, and wended through large plantations, whose cool frame houses were shaded by palmetto-trees. The negro men and women, who stood in the fields persuading themselves that they were working, handled their hoes with indescribable awkwardness. A sketch of their exact positions would look ridiculously unnatural. They were in striking contrast with the zeal and activity of the northern laborer, who moves under the stimulus of freedom.
Looking at the Captured Fortress.
In the afternoon, we passed through the Magnolia Cemetery, and in view of the State Arsenal, with the palmetto flag waving over it. The Mills' House, in Charleston, was crowded with guests and citizens, half of them in uniform. After I registered my name, a brawny fellow, with a "plug-ugly" countenance, looked over my shoulder at the book, and then regarded me with a long, impudent, scrutinizing stare, which I endeavored to return with interest. In a few seconds his eyes dropped, and he went back to his seat.
I strolled down the narrow streets, with their antiquated houses, to the pleasant Battery, where several columbiads, with pyramidal piles of solid shot between them, pointed at Fort Sumter. Down the harbor, among a few snow-white sails, stood the already historic fortress. The line of broken roof, visible above the walls, was torn and ragged from Rebel shots. At the distance of two miles, it was impossible, with the naked eye, to identify the two flags above it. A bystander told me that they were the colors of South Carolina and of the Confederacy.
The devices of treason flaunting in the breeze where the Stars and Stripes, after being insulted for months, were so lately lowered in dishonor, were not a pleasant spectacle, and I turned slowly and sadly back to the hotel. In its reading-room, among the four or five papers on file, was a copy of The Tribune, whose familiar face was like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
A Short Stay in Charleston.
The city reeled with excitement. In the evening martial music and huzzas came floating up to my window from a meeting at the Charleston Hotel, where the young Virginian Hotspur, Roger A. Pryor, was one of the prominent speakers. Publicly and privately, the Charlestonians were boasting over their late Cadmean victory. They had not heard from the North.