Most of the traveling in Italy was in private carriage, and only in daylight. In Naples, Rome, and Florence I remained a month each. From London I went to Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Toulon, Naples, Rome, Florence, Pisa, Modena, Bologna, Mantua, Verona, Venice, Milan, Como, Isola Madre, Isola Bella, Simplon Pass, Domo-dosola, Martigny, Chamoni, Geneva, Bienne, Berne, Interlaken, Wingen Alps, Grindenwald, Basle, Baden-Baden, Ulm, Munich, Salzburg, Ischl, Lintz, Danube River to Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Potsdam, Frankfort, Wiesbaden down the Rhine, Cologne, Liege, Brussels, Waterloo, Paris, London, Windsor Castle, Birmingham, Sheffield, Doncaster, Carlisle, Edinburgh, Sterling, Callander, The Trosacks, Lake Katrine, Dunbarton, Glasgow, Belfast, Irish Causeway, Dublin, Chester, Liverpool, home.
Soon after my return from Europe I was kindly invited by Benjamin Gould to make him a visit in Boston. His son, N. Goddard Gould, had, as I have stated, been my traveling companion for many months. Their home was in Penberton Square. The family was composed of charming, refined, cultured people, and I retain only pleasant recollections of their kindness.
I passed the winter in San Antonio, Tex., and the summer at Rye Beach, N. H. This year (1859) some notable events occurred that had important bearings in shaping the history, if not the destiny, of the country.
Harriet Beecher Stowe's publication of an imaginative work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Hinton Helper's pamphlet called a manifesto, and John Brown's raid in Virginia, to raise an insurrection among the slaves and to kill the whites, like distant thunder, presaged the coming storm. His purposes of murder were well known to many prominent abolitionists of the North, who assisted him by contributions to obtain arms to carry out his murderous designs. The party consisted of the old murderer, his three sons, thirteen white men, and five negroes from the North. They obtained possession of the armory at Harper's Ferry October 16, killing a negro, the mayor of the town, and other citizens. On arrival of the United States troops under Col. R. E. Lee, the armory was captured. Some were killed in the assault, and the remainder taken prisoners. These were tried and hung.
This infamous outrage on the State of Virginia, instead of being condemned by the people of the North, won their admiration, sympathy, and love for John Brown, and by some he is compared to our Saviour, and "his soul is still marching on," without peace or rest, like the wandering Jew—on, on—a punishment for his crimes. These events induced an uncalled for and unjust feeling of hatred toward the South, and the intensity of this hatred is most significantly displayed in the apotheosis of this murderer, and the consecration of his crimes. Could this be otherwise than a warning to the Southern people? The statutes made by the Northern States for the abolition of slavery never set free a living slave. They emancipated only the unborn. Now you can comprehend the difference between abolition and emancipation.
After the war began many unusual expedients were resorted to designed to increase the wild frenzy of the people North. Among them was the spectacle of Henry Ward Beecher selling slaves from the pulpit stage of his Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. So noted was this exhibition that it is related as one of the eight notable events of the nineteenth century. I attribute this act of his to heredity.
CHAPTER X.
Canada, Boston, Rye Beach—Antislavery Party Nominates Lincoln for President—His Election Evidence of Hostility to the South—Mississippi Secedes—Gov. Pettus—Appointed Colonel and Chief of Ordnance in the Army of the State of Mississippi—State Had No Arms—Governor Sends an Agent to Europe to Purchase Arms—Laboratory for Making Ammunition—Flannel and Paper to Make Cartridges—Cartridges and Horse Collars—Only Old Flint Muskets—Old Shotguns—Governor Objects to the State Troops Going out of the State—Visit Home—Am Offered the Appointment of Brigadier General, Confederate States of America.
I spent the summer of 1860 at Rye Beach, Boston, and in Canada. When I returned I found the animosity between the two great political parties very bitter. Slavery, for the first time in the history of the United States, had consolidated all the "isms" and all parties against the South, and nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency, save only the Democratic party, and that was divided. On my journey home I found intense excitement all the way on account of a sectional nomination for President, and the election of Lincoln was deemed an open declaration of hostility to the people of the South, and drove them to the act of secession. And the people of Mississippi, in convention assembled, repealed all the laws and ordinances by which she became a member of the Federal Union, and on January 9, 1861, she was a sovereign and independent State.
About the middle of February I received a verbal message from the Governor, J. J. Pettus, that he wished to see me, and soon after I went to Jackson. The Governor informed me that I had been appointed a lieutenant colonel and chief of ordnance in the army of the State of Mississippi on February 12, 1861.