North America — Volume 2

by Anthony Trollope

But the strong runner will rise again to his feet, even though he be stunned by his fall. He will rise again, and will have learned something by his sorrow. His anger will pass away, and he will again brace himself for his work. What great race has ever been won by any man, or by any nation, without some such fall during its course? Have we not all declared that some check to that career was necessary? Men in their pursuit of intelligence had forgotten to be honest; in struggling for greatness they had discarded purity. The nation has been great, but the statesmen of the nation have been little. Men have hardly been ambitious to govern, but they have coveted the wages of governors. Corruption has crept into high places,—into places that should have been high,—till of all holes and corners in the land they have become the lowest. No public man has been trusted for ordinary honesty. It is not by foreign voices, by English newspapers or in French pamphlets, that the corruption of American politicians has been exposed, but by American voices and by the American press. It is to be heard on every side. Ministers of the cabinet, senators, representatives, State legislatures, officers of the army, officials of the navy, contractors of every grade,—all who are presumed to touch, or to have the power of touching public money, are thus accused. For years it has been so. The word politician has stunk in men's nostrils. When I first visited New York, some three years since, I was warned not to know a man, because he was a "politician." We in England define a man of a certain class as a black-leg. How has it come about that in American ears the word politician has come to bear a similar signification?

The material growth of the States has been so quick, that the political growth has not been able to keep pace with it. In commerce, in education, in all municipal arrangements, in mechanical skill, and also in professional ability, the country has stalked on with amazing rapidity; but in the art of governing, in all political management and detail, it has made no advance. The merchants of our country and of that country have for many years met on terms of perfect equality, but it has never been so with their statesmen and our statesmen, with their diplomatists and our diplomatists. Lombard Street and Wall Street can do business with each other on equal footing, but it is not so between Downing Street and the State-office at Washington. The science of statesmanship has yet to be learned in the States,—and certainly the highest lesson of that science, which teaches that honesty is the best policy.

I trust that the war will have left such a lesson behind it. If it do so, let the cost in money be what it may, that money will not have been wasted. If the American people can learn the necessity of employing their best men for their highest work,—if they can recognize these honest men and trust them when they are so recognized,—then they may become as great in politics as they have become great in commerce and in social institutions.

St. Louis, and indeed the whole State of Missouri, was at the time of my visit under martial law. General Halleck was in command, holding his head-quarters at St. Louis, and carrying out, at any rate as far as the city was concerned, what orders he chose to issue. I am disposed to think that, situated as Missouri then was, martial law was the best law. No other law could have had force in a town surrounded by soldiers, and in which half of the inhabitants were loyal to the existing Government, and half of them were in favour of rebellion. The necessity for such power is terrible, and the power itself in the hands of one man must be full of danger; but even that is better than anarchy. I will not accuse General Halleck of abusing his power, seeing that it is hard to determine what is the abuse of such power and what its proper use. When we were at St. Louis a tax was being gathered of £100 a head from certain men presumed to be secessionists, and as the money was not of course very readily paid, the furniture of these suspected secessionists was being sold by auction. No doubt such a measure was by them regarded as a great abuse. One gentleman informed me that, in addition to this, certain houses of his had been taken by the Government at a fixed rent, and that the payment of the rent was now refused unless he would take the oath of allegiance. He no doubt thought that an abuse of power! But the worst abuse of such power comes not at first, but with long usage.

Up to the time however at which I was at St. Louis, martial law had chiefly been used in closing grog-shops and administering the oath of allegiance to suspected secessionists. Something also had been done in the way of raising money by selling the property of convicted secessionists; and while I was there eight men were condemned to be shot for destroying railway bridges. "But will they be shot?" I asked of one of the officers. "Oh, yes. It will be done quietly, and no one will know anything about it. We shall get used to that kind of thing presently." And the inhabitants of Missouri were becoming used to martial law. It is surprising how quickly a people can reconcile themselves to altered circumstances, when the change comes upon them without the necessity of any expressed opinion on their own part. Personal freedom has been considered as necessary to the American of the States as the air he breathes. Had any suggestion been made to him of a suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus, of a censorship of the press, or of martial law, the American would have declared his willingness to die on the floor of the House of Representatives, and have proclaimed with ten million voices his inability to live under circumstances so subversive of his rights as a man. And he would have thoroughly believed the truth of his own assertions. Had a chance been given of an argument on the matter, of stump speeches, and caucus meetings, these things could never have been done. But as it is, Americans are, I think, rather proud of the suspension of the habeas corpus. They point with gratification to the uniformly loyal tone of the newspapers, remarking that any editor who should dare to give even a secession squeak, would immediately find himself shut up. And now nothing but good is spoken of martial law. I thought it a nuisance when I was prevented by soldiers from trotting my horse down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, but I was assured by Americans that such restrictions were very serviceable in a community. At St. Louis martial law was quite popular. Why should not General Halleck be as well able to say what was good for the people as any law or any lawyer? He had no interest in the injury of the State, but every interest in its preservation. "But what," I asked, "would be the effect were he to tell you to put out all your fires at eight o'clock?" "If he were so to order, we should do it; but we know that he will not." But who does know to what General Halleck or other generals may come; or how soon a curfew-bell may be ringing in American towns? The winning of liberty is long and tedious, but the losing it is a downhill easy journey.

It was here, in St. Louis, that General Fremont had held his military court. He was a great man here during those hundred days through which his command lasted. He lived in a great house, had a bodyguard, was inaccessible as a great man should be, and fared sumptuously every day. He fortified the city,—or rather, he began to do so. He constructed barracks here, and instituted military prisons. The fortifications have been discontinued as useless, but the barracks and the prisons remain. In the latter there were 1200 secessionist soldiers who had been taken in the State of Missouri. "Why are they not exchanged?" I asked. "Because they are not exactly soldiers," I was informed. "The secessionists do not acknowledge them." "Then would it not be cheaper to let them go?" "No," said my informant; "because in that case we should have to catch them again." And so the 1200 remain in their wretched prison,—thinned from week to week and from day to day by prison disease and prison death.

I went out twice to Benton barracks, as the camp of wooden huts was called, which General Fremont had erected near the fair-ground of the city. This fair-ground, I was told, had been a pleasant place. It had been constructed for the recreation of the city, and for the purpose of periodical agricultural exhibitions. There is still in it a pretty ornamented cottage, and in the little garden a solitary Cupid stood dismayed by the dirt and ruin around him. In the fair-green are the round buildings intended for show cattle and agricultural implements, but now given up to cavalry horses and Parrott guns. But Benton barracks are outside the fair-green. Here on an open space, some half-mile in length, two long rows of wooden sheds have been built, opposite to each other, and behind them are other sheds used for stabling and cooking-places. Those in front are divided, not into separate huts, but into chambers capable of containing nearly two hundred men each. They were surrounded on the inside by great wooden trays, in three tiers,—and on each tray four men were supposed to sleep. I went into one or two while the crowd of soldiers was in them, but found it inexpedient to stay there long. The stench of those places was foul beyond description. Never in my life before had I been in a place so horrid to the eyes and nose as Benton barracks. The path along the front outside was deep in mud. The whole space between the two rows of sheds was one field of mud, so slippery that the foot could not stand. Inside and outside every spot was deep in mud. The soldiers were mud-stained from foot to sole. These volunteer soldiers are in their nature dirty, as must be all men brought together in numerous bodies without special appliances for cleanliness, or control and discipline as to their personal habits. But the dirt of the men in the Benton barracks surpassed any dirt that I had hitherto seen. Nor could it have been otherwise with them. They were surrounded by a sea of mud, and the foul hovels in which they were made to sleep and live were fetid with stench and reeking with filth. I had at this time been joined by another Englishman, and we went through this place together. When we inquired as to the health of the men, we heard the saddest tales,—of three hundred men gone out of one regiment, of whole companies that had perished, of hospitals crowded with fevered patients. Measles had been the great scourge of the soldiers here,—as it had also been in the army of the Potomac. I shall not soon forget my visits to Benton barracks. It may be that our own soldiers were as badly treated in the Crimea; or that French soldiers were treated worse on their march into Russia. It may be that dirt, and wretchedness, disease and listless idleness, a descent from manhood to habits lower than those of the beasts, are necessary in warfare. I have sometimes thought that it is so; but I am no military critic and will not say. This I say,—that the degradation of men to the state in which I saw the American soldiers in Benton barracks, is disgraceful to humanity.

General Halleck was at this time commanding in Missouri, and was himself stationed at St. Louis; but his active measures against the rebels were going on to the right and to the left. On the left shore of the Mississippi, at Cairo, in Illinois, a fleet of gun-boats was being prepared to go down the river, and on the right an army was advancing against Springfield, in the south-western district of Missouri, with the object of dislodging Price, the rebel guerilla leader there, and, if possible, of catching him. Price had been the opponent of poor General Lyon who was killed at Wilson's Creek, near Springfield, and of General Fremont, who during his hundred days had failed to drive him out of the State. This duty had now been intrusted to General Curtis, who had for some time been holding his head-quarters at Rolla, halfway between St. Louis and Springfield. Fremont had built a fort at Rolla, and it had become a military station. Over 10,000 men had been there at one time, and now General Curtis was to advance from Rolla against Price with something above that number of men. Many of them, however, had already gone on, and others were daily being sent up from St. Louis. Under these circumstances my friend and I, fortified with a letter of introduction to General Curtis, resolved to go and see the army at Rolla.

On our way down by the railway we encountered a young German officer, an aide-de-camp of the Federals, and under his auspices we saw Rolla to advantage. Our companions in the railway were chiefly soldiers and teamsters. The car was crowded and filled with tobacco smoke, apple peel, and foul air. In these cars during the winter there is always a large lighted stove, a stove that might cook all the dinners for a French hotel, and no window is ever opened. Among our fellow-travellers there was here and there a west-country Missouri farmer going down, under the protection of the advancing army, to look after the remains of his chattels,—wild, dark, uncouth, savage-looking men. One such hero I specially remember, as to whom the only natural remark would be that one would not like to meet him alone on a dark night. He was burly and big, unwashed and rough, with a black beard, shorn some two months since. He had sharp, angry eyes, and sat silent, picking his teeth with a bowie knife. I met him afterwards at the Rolla hotel, and found that he was a gentleman of property near Springfield. He was mild and meek as a sucking dove, asked my advice as to the state of his affairs, and merely guessed that things had been pretty rough with him. Things had been pretty rough with him. The rebels had come upon his land. House, fences, stock, and crop were all gone. His homestead had been made a ruin, and his farm had been turned into a wilderness. Everything was gone. He had carried his wife and children off to Illinois, and had now returned, hoping that he might get on in the wake of the army till he could see the debris of his property. But even he did not seem disturbed. He did not bemoan himself or curse his fate. "Things were pretty rough," he said; and that was all that he did say.

It was dark when we got into Rolla. Everything had been covered with snow, and everywhere the snow was frozen. We had heard that there was an hotel, and that possibly we might get a bedroom there. We were first taken to a wooden building, which we were told was the head-quarters of the army, and in one room we found a colonel with a lot of soldiers loafing about, and in another a provost-marshal attended by a newspaper correspondent. We were received with open arms, and a suggestion was at once made that we were no doubt picking up news for European newspapers. "Air you a son of the Mrs. Trollope?" said the correspondent. "Then, sir, you are an accession to Rolla." Upon which I was made to sit down, and invited to "loaf about" at the head-quarters as long as I might remain at Rolla. Shortly, however, there came on a violent discussion about waggons. A general had come in and wanted all the colonel's waggons, but the colonel swore that he had none, declared how bitterly he was impeded with sick men, and became indignant and reproachful. It was Brutus and Cassius again; and as we felt ourselves in the way, and anxious moreover to ascertain what might be the nature of the Rolla hotel, we took up our heavy portmanteaux—for they were heavy—and with a guide to show us the way, started off through the dark and over the hill up to our inn. I shall never forget that walk. It was up hill and down hill, with an occasional half-frozen stream across it. My friend was impeded with an enormous cloak lined with fur, which in itself was a burden for a coalheaver. Our guide, who was a clerk out of the colonel's office, carried an umbrella and a small dressing-bag, but we ourselves manfully shouldered our portmanteaux. Sydney Smith declared that an Englishman only wasted his time in training himself for gymnastic aptitudes, seeing that for a shilling he could always hire a porter. Had Sydney Smith ever been at Rolla he would have written differently. I could tell at great length how I fell on my face in the icy snow, how my friend stuck in the frozen mud when he essayed to jump the stream, and how our guide walked on easily in advance, encouraging us with his voice from a distance. Why is it that a stout Englishman bordering on fifty finds himself in such a predicament as that? No Frenchman, no Italian, no German, would so place himself, unless under the stress of insurmountable circumstances. No American would do so under any circumstances. As I slipped about on the ice and groaned with that terrible fardle on my back, burdened with a dozen shirts, and a suit of dress clothes, and three pair of boots, and four or five thick volumes, and a set of maps, and a box of cigars, and a washing-tub, I confessed to myself that I was a fool. What was I doing in such a galley as that? Why had I brought all that useless lumber down to Rolla? Why had I come to Rolla, with no certain hope even of shelter for a night? But we did reach the hotel; we did get a room between us with two bedsteads. And, pondering over the matter in my mind, since that evening, I have been inclined to think that the stout Englishman is in the right of it. No American of my age and weight will ever go through what I went through then; but I am not sure that he does not in his accustomed career go through worse things even than that. However, if I go to Rolla again during the war, I will at any rate leave the books behind me.