“Give them a rise, and open their eyes
To a sense of their situation.”
The citizens were busy in drilling, marching, and drum-beating, and the Confederate flag flew from every spire and steeple. The day was so hot that it was little more inviting to go out in the sun than it would be in the dog-days at Malaga, to which, by-the-bye, Mobile bears some “kinder sorter” resemblance, but, nevertheless, I sallied forth, and had a drive on a shell road by the head of the bay, where there were pretty villarettes in charming groves of magnolia, orange-trees, and lime oaks. Wide streets of similar houses spring out to meet the country through sandy roads; some worthy of Streatham or Balham, and all surrounded in such vegetation as Kew might envy.
Many Mobilians called, and among them the mayor, Mr. Forsyth, in whom I recognised the most remarkable of the Southern Commissioners I had met at Washington. Mr. Magee, the acting British Consul was also good enough to wait upon me, with offers of any assistance in his power. I hear he has most difficult questions to deal with, arising out of the claims of distressed British subjects, and disputed nationality. In the evening the Consul and Dr. Nott, a savant and physician of Mobile, well known to ethnologists for his work on the “Types of Mankind,” written conjointly with the late Mr. Gliddon, dined with me, and I learned from them that, notwithstanding the intimate commercial relations between Mobile and the great Northern cities, the people here are of the most ultra-secessionist doctrines. The wealth and manhood of the city will be devoted to repel the “Lincolnite mercenaries” to the last.
After dinner we walked through the city, which abounds in oyster saloons, drinking-houses, lager-bier and wine-shops, and gambling and dancing places. The market was well worthy of a visit—something like St. John’s at Liverpool on a Saturday night, crowded with negroes, mulattoes, quadroons, and mestizos of all sorts, Spanish, Italian, and French, speaking their own tongues, or a quaint lingua franca, and dressed in very striking and pretty costumes. The fruit and vegetable stalls displayed very fine produce, and some staples, remarkable for novelty, ugliness, and goodness. After our stroll we went into one of the great oyster saloons, and in a room up-stairs had opportunity of tasting those great bivalvians in the form of natural fish puddings, fried in batter, roasted, stewed, devilled, broiled, and in many other ways, plus raw. I am bound to observe that the Mobile people ate them as if there was no blockade, and as though oysters were a specific for political indigestions and civil wars; a fierce Marseillais are they—living in the most foreign-looking city I have yet seen in the States. My private room in the hotel was large, well-lighted with gas, and exceedingly well furnished in the German fashion, with French pendule and mirrors. The charge for a private room varies from 1l. to 1l. 5s. a-day; the bed-room and board are charged separately, from 10s. 6d. to 12s. 6d. a-day, but meals served in the private room are all charged extra, and heavily too. Exclusiveness is an aristocratic taste which must be paid for.
CHAPTER XXVI. Visit to Forts Gaines and Morgan
Visit to Forts Gaines and Morgan—War to the knife the cry of the South—The “State” and the “States”—Bay of Mobile—The forts and their inmates—Opinions as to an attack on Washington—Rumours of actual war.
May 12th. Mr. Forsyth had been good enough to invite me to an excursion down the Bay of Mobile, to the forts built by Uncle Sam and his French engineers to sink his Britishers—now turned by “C. S. A.” against the hated Stars and Stripes. The mayor and the principal merchants and many politicians—and are not all men politicians in America?—formed the party. If any judgment of men’s acts can be formed from their words, the Mobilites, who are the representatives of the third greatest port of the United States, will perish ere they submit to the Yankees and people of New York. I have now been in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and in none of these great States have I found the least indication of the Union sentiment, or of the attachment for the Union which Mr. Seward always assumes to exist in the South. If there were any considerable amount of it, I was in a position as a neutral to have been aware of its existence.
Those who might have at one time opposed secession, have now bowed their heads to the majesty of the majority; and with the cowardice, which is the result of the irresponsible and cruel tyranny of the multitude, hasten to swell the cry of revolution. But the multitude are the law in the United States. “There’s a divinity doth hedge” the mob here, which is omnipotent and all good. The majority in each State determines its political status according to Southern views. The Northerners are endeavouring to maintain that the majority of the people in the mass of the States generally, shall regulate that point for each State individually and collectively. If there be any party in the Southern States which thinks such an attempt justifiable, it sits silent, and fearful, and hopeless in darkness and sorrow hid from the light of day. General Scott, who was a short time ago written of in the usual inflated style, to which respectable military mediocrity and success are entitled in the States, is now reviled by the Southern papers as an infamous hoary traitor and the like. If an officer prefers his allegiance to the United States’ flag, and remains in the Federal service after his State has gone out, his property is liable to confiscation by the State authorities, and his family and kindred are exposed to the gravest suspicion, and must prove their loyalty by extra zeal in the cause of secession.