I am well aware of the danger of drawing summary conclusions off-hand from the windows of a railway, but there is also a right of sight which exists under all circumstances, and so one can determine if a man’s face be dirty as well from a glance as if he inspected it for half an hour. For instance, no one can doubt the evidence of his senses, when he sees from the windows of the carriages that the children are barefooted, shoeless, stockingless—that the people who congregate at the wooden huts and grog-shops of the stations are rude, unkempt, but great fighting material too—that the villages are miserable places, compared with the trim, snug settlements one saw in New Jersey from the carriage-windows. Slaves in the fields looked happy enough—but their masters certainly were rough-looking and uncivilised—and the land was but badly cleared. But then we were traversing the least fertile portions of the State—a recent acquirement—gained only one generation since.
The train halted at a snug little wood-embowered restaurant, surrounded by trellis and lattice-work, and in the midst of a pretty garden, which presented a marked contrast to the “surroundings” we had seen. The dinner, served by slaves, was good of its kind, and the charge not high. On tendering the landlord a piece of gold for payment, he looked at it with disgust, and asked, “Have you no Charleston money? No Confederate notes?” “Well, no! Why do you object to gold?” “Well, do you see, I’d rather have our own paper! I don’t care to take any of the United States’ gold. I don’t want their stars and their eagles; I hate the sight of them.” The man was quite sincere—my companion gave him notes of some South Carolina bank.
It was dark when the train reached Macon, one of the principal cities of the State. We drove to the best hotel, but the regular time for dinner hour was over, and that for supper not yet come. The landlord directed us to a subterranean restaurant, in which were a series of crypts closed in by dirty curtains, where we made a very extraordinary repast, served by a half-clad little negress, who watched us at the meal with great interest through the curtains—the service was of the coarsest description; thick French earthenware, the spoons of pewter, the knives and forks steel or iron, with scarce a pretext of being cleaned. On the doors were the usual warnings against pickpockets, and the customary internal police regulations and ukases. Pickpockets and gamblers abound in American cities, and thrive greatly at the large hotels and the lines of railways.
CHAPTER XXII. Slave-pens
Slave-pens; Negroes on sale or hire—Popular feeling as to Secession—Beauregard and speech-making—Arrival at Montgomery—Bad hotel accommodation—Knights of the Golden Circle—Reflections on Slavery—Slave auction—The Legislative Assembly—A “live chattel” knocked down—Rumours from the North (true and false) and prospects of war.
May 4th.—In the morning I took a drive about the city, which is loosely built in detached houses over a very pretty undulating country covered with wood and fruit-trees. Many good houses of dazzling white, with bright green blinds, verandahs, and doors, stand in their own grounds or gardens. In the course of the drive I saw two or three sign-boards and placards announcing that “Smith & Co. advanced money on slaves, and had constant supplies of Virginian negroes on sale or hire.” These establishments were surrounded by high walls enclosing the slave-pens or large rooms, in which the slaves are kept for inspection. The train for Montgomery started at 9·45 A.M., but I had no time to stop and visit them.
It is evident we are approaching the Confederate capital, for the candidates for office begin to show, and I detected a printed testimonial in my room in the hotel. The country, from Macon in Georgia to Montgomery in Alabama, offers no features to interest the traveller which are not common to the districts already described. It is, indeed, more undulating, and somewhat more picturesque, or less unattractive, but, on the whole, there is little to recommend it, except the natural fertility of the soil. The people are rawer, ruder, bigger—there is the same amount of tobacco chewing and its consequences—and as much swearing or use of expletives. The men are tall, lean, uncouth, but they are not peasants. There are, so far as I have seen, no rustics, no peasantry in America; men dress after the same type, differing only in finer or coarser material; every man would wear, if he could, a black satin waistcoat and a large diamond pin stuck in the front of his shirt, as he certainly has a watch and a gilt or gold chain of some sort or other. The Irish labourer, or the German husbandman is the nearest approach to our Giles Jolter or the Jacques Bonhomme to be found in the States. The mean white affects the style of the large proprietor of slaves or capital as closely as he can; he reads his papers—and, by-the-by, they are becoming smaller and more whitey-brown as we proceed—and takes his drink with the same air—takes up as much room, and speaks a good deal in the same fashion.
The people are all hearty Secessionists here—the Bars and Stars are flying at the road-stations and from the pine-tops, and there are lusty cheers for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy. Troops are flocking towards Virginia from the Southern States in reply to the march of Volunteers from Northern States to Washington; but it is felt that the steps taken by the Federal Government to secure Baltimore have obviated any chance of successfully opposing the “Lincolnites” going through that city. There is a strong disposition on the part of the Southerners to believe they have many friends in the North, and they endeavour to attach a factious character to the actions of the Government by calling the Volunteers and the war party in the North “Lincolnites,” “Lincoln’s Mercenaries,” “Black Republicans,” “Abolitionists,” and the like. The report of an armistice, now denied by Mr. Seward officially, was for some time current, but it is plain that the South must make good its words, and justify its acts by the sword. General Scott would, it was fondly believed, retire from the United States’ army, and either remain neutral or take command under the Confederate flag, but now that it is certain he will not follow any of these courses, he is assailed in the foulest manner by the press and in private conversation. Heaven help the idol of a democracy!
At one of the junctions General Beauregard, attended by Mr. Manning, and others of his staff, got into the car, and tried to elude observation, but the conductors take great pleasure in unearthing distinguished passengers for the public, and the General was called on for a speech by the crowd of idlers. The General hates speech-making, he told me, and he had besides been bored to death at every station by similar demands. But a man must be popular or he is nothing. So, as next best thing, Governor Manning made a speech in the General’s name, in which he dwelt on Southern Rights, Sumter, victory, and abolitiondom, and was carried off from the cheers of his auditors by the train in the midst of an unfinished sentence. There were a number of blacks listening to the Governor, who were appreciative.