"Well, massa," replied the old servant, shaking his head oracularly, "I doesn't know about dat. War's comin' on, and dey might be killed. Ought to get Irishmen to do dat work, anyhow. I reckon you'd better not send any ob de boys—tell you what, massa, nigger property's mighty onsartin dese times!"
Scores of fugitives from the South arrive here daily, with the old stories of insult, indignity, and outrage. Several have come in with their heads shaved. To you, my reader, who have never seen a case of the kind, it may seem a trivial matter for a person merely to have one side of his head laid bare, but it is a peculiarly repulsive spectacle. The first time you look upon it, or on those worse cases, where free-born men of Saxon blood bear fresh marks of the lash, you will involuntarily clinch your teeth, and thank God that the system which bears such infernal fruits is rushing upon its own destruction.
June 8.
The heated term is upon us. We are amid upper, nether, and surrounding fires. At eight, this morning, the mercury indicated eighty degrees in the shade. How high it has gone since, I dare not conjecture; but a friend insists that the sun will roast eggs to-day upon any doorstep in town. I am a little incredulous as to that, though a pair of smarting, half-blistered hands—the result of a ten minutes' walk in its devouring breath—protest against absolute unbelief. Officers who served in the War with Mexico declare they never found the heat so oppressive in that climate as it is here. The raw troops on duty, who are sweltering in woolen shirts and cloth caps, bear it wonderfully well.
A number of Chicago ladies are already here, acting as nurses in the hospital. The dull eyes of the invalids brighten at their approach, and voices grow husky in attempting to express their gratitude. According to Carlyle, "in a revolution we are all savages still; civilization has only sharpened our claws;" but this tender care for the soldier is the one redeeming feature of modern war.
A Review of the Troops.
June 12.
A review of all the troops. The double ranks of well-knit men, with shining muskets and bayonets, stretch off in perspective for more than a mile. After preliminary evolutions, at the word of command, the lines suddenly break and wheel into column by companies, and marching commences. You see two long parallel columns of men moving in opposite directions, with an open space between. Their legs, in motion, look for all the world like the shuttles in some great Lowell factory.
The artillerists fire each of their six-pounders three times a minute. They discharge one, dismount it, lay it upon the ground, remove the wheels from the carriage, drop flat upon their faces, then spring up, remount the gun, ready for reloading or removing, all in forty-five seconds.
Standing three hundred yards from the cannon, the column of smoke, white at first, but rapidly changing to blue, shoots out twenty-five or thirty feet from the muzzle before you hear the report.