"Shet up, you drunken cuss. Hurrah for Jeff Davis!" was the response of another blear-eyed, tipsy loafer.
The steamer Storm was tolling its bell as the Gray Eagle came to the landing at Evansville, bound for Green River. Her decks were piled with bags of corn and coffee. A barge was tethered to her side, loaded with bundle hay and a half-dozen ambulances. We were just in time to reach the deck before the plank was drawn in. Then with hoarse puffs the heavily laden old craft swung into the stream and surged slowly against the swollen tide of the Ohio. Green River joins the Ohio ten miles above Evansville. It is a beautiful stream, with forest-bordered banks. At that season of the year there was nothing particularly inspiring to the muse along this stream, unless one can kindle a poetic flame in swamps, lagoons, creeks, and log-cabins standing on stilts, with water beneath, around, and often within them. On the spit of land between the Ohio and Green rivers, on posts several feet under water, was a log-cabin; a row-boat was tied to the steps, a woman and a half-dozen children stared at us from the open door. All around was forest. A gentleman on board said it was a fishing family. If so, the family, little ones and all, might ply the piscatory art from doors and windows. A more dreary, watery place cannot be imagined.
The Storm was not a floating palace with gilded saloons, velvet tapestry carpets, French mirrors, and a grand piano, but an old wheezy tow-boat, with great capacity below and little above. There was a room for the gentlemen, and a little box of a place for any ladies who might be under the necessity of patronizing the craft.
There were no soldiers on board, but thirty or forty passengers. We were a hard-looking set. Our clothes were muddy, our beards shaggy, our countenances far from being Caucasian in color, with sundry other peculiarities of dress, feature, and demeanor.
There was one stout man with an enormous quantity of brown hair, and a thick yellow beard, belonging to Hopkinsville, near the Tennessee line, who had been compelled to flee for his life.
"We got up a cannon company, and I was captain. We had as neat a little six-pounder as you ever saw; but I was obliged to cut and run when the Rebels came in December; but I buried the pup and the Secessionists don't know where she is! If I ever get back there I'll make some of them cusses—my old neighbors—bite the dust. I have just heard that they have tied my brother up and almost whipped him to death. They gouged out his eyes, stamped in his face, and have taken all his property."
Here he was obliged to stop his narrative and give vent to a long string of oaths, consigning the Rebels to all the tortures and pains of the bottomless pit forever. Having disgorged his wrath, he said,—
"Now, sir, there is a grave judicial question on my mind, and I would like your opinion upon it. If you owned a darkey who should get over into Indiana, a bright, intelligent darkey, and he should take with him ten niggers from your secession neighbors, and you should happen to know it, would you send them back?"
"No, sir; I should not."
"That is my mind 'zactly. I knew you was a good Union man the moment I sot my eyes on ye." Then came an interesting explanation. He had one slave, a devoted fellow, who had become an active conductor on the underground railroad. The slave had been often to Evansville and knew the country, and had enticed away ten negroes belonging to the Secessionists in the vicinity of Hopkinsville. He had seen them all that morning, and more, had given each of them a hearty breakfast! "You see," said he, "if they belonged to Union men I would have sent 'em back; but they belonged to the —--Secessionists who have driven me out, taken all my property, and do you think I'd be mean enough to send the niggers back?"