Hitherto they have been dependent on the North for the very necessaries of their industrial life. These States were so intent on gathering in money for their produce, expending it luxuriously, and paying it out for Northern labour, that they found themselves suddenly in the condition of a child brought up by hand, whose nurse and mother have left it on the steps of the poor-house. But they have certainly essayed to remedy the evil and are endeavouring to make steam-engines, gunpowder, lamps, clothes, boots, railway carriages, steel springs, glass, and all the smaller articles for which even Southern households find a necessity.
The peculiar character of this contest develops itself in a manner almost incomprehensible to a stranger who has been accustomed to regard the United States as a nation. Here is General Pillow, for example, in the State of Tennessee, commanding the forces of the State, which, in effect, belongs to the Southern Confederacy; but he tells me that he cannot venture to move across a certain geographical line, dividing Tennessee from Kentucky, because the State of Kentucky, in the exercise of its sovereign powers and rights, which the Southern States are bound specially to respect, in virtue of their championship of States’ rights, has, like the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, declared it will be neutral in the struggle; and Beriah Magoffin, Governor of the aforesaid State, has warned off Federal and Confederate troops from his territory.
General Pillow is particularly indignant with the cowardice of the well-known Secessionists of Kentucky; but I think he is rather more annoyed by the accumulation of Federal troops at Cairo, and their recent expedition to Columbus on the Kentucky shore, a little below them, where they seized a Confederate flag.
CHAPTER III. Heavy Bill
Heavy Bill —Railway travelling —Introductions —Assassinations —Tennessee —“Corinth” —“Troy” —“Humbolt” —“The Confederate Camp” —Return Northwards —Columbus —Cairo —The Slavery Question —Prospects of the War —Coarse Journalism.
June 19th. It is probable the landlord of the Gayoso House was a strong Secessionist, and resolved, therefore, to make the most out of a neutral customer like myself—certainly Herodotus would have been astonished if he were called upon to pay the little bill which was presented to me in the modern Memphis; and had the old Egyptian hostelries been conducted on the same principles as those of the Tennessean Memphis, the “Father of History” would have had to sell off a good many editions in order to pay his way. I had to rise at three o’clock a.m., to reach the train, which started before five. The omnibus which took us to the station was literally nave deep in the dust; and of all the bad roads and dusty streets I have yet seen in the New World, where both prevail, North and South, those of Memphis are the worst. Indeed, as the citizen, of Hibernian birth, who presided over the luggage of the passengers on the roof, declared, “The streets are paved with waves of mud, only the mud is all dust when it’s fine weather.”
By the time I had arrived at the station my clothes were covered with a fine alluvial deposit in a state of powder; the platform was crowded with volunteers moving off for the wars, and I was obliged to take my place in a carriage full of Confederate officers and soldiers who had a large supply of whisky, which at that early hour they were consuming as a prophylactic against the influence of the morning dews, which hereabouts are of such a deadly character that, to be quite safe from their influence, it appears to be necessary, judging from the examples of my companions, to get as nearly drunk as possible. Whisky, by-the-by, is also a sovereign specific against the bites of rattlesnakes. All the dews of the Mississippi and the rattlesnakes of the prairie might have spent their force or venom in vain on my companions before we had got as far as Union City.
I was evidently regarded with considerable suspicion by my fellow passengers, when they heard I was going to Cairo, until the conductor obligingly informed them who I was, whereupon I was much entreated to fortify myself against the dews and rattlesnakes, and received many offers of service and kindness.
Whatever may be the normal comforts of American railway cars, they are certainly most unpleasant conveyances when the war spirit is abroad, and the heat of the day, which was excessive, did not contribute to diminish the annoyance of foul air—the odour of whisky, tobacco, and the like, combined with innumerable flies. At Humbolt, which is eighty-two miles away, there was a change of cars, and an opportunity of obtaining some refreshment,—the station was crowded by great numbers of men and women dressed in their best, who were making holiday in order to visit Union City, forty-six miles distant, where a force of Tennesseean and Mississippi regiments are encamped. The ladies boldly advanced into carriages which were quite full, and as they looked quite prepared to sit down on the occupants of the seats if they did not move, and to destroy them with all-absorbing articles of feminine warfare, either defensive or aggressive, and crush them with iron-bound crinolines, they soon drove us out into the broiling sun.