When I arrived at Houmas there was the greatest anxiety for rain, and over the vast level plateau every cloud was scanned with avidity. Now, a shower seemed bearing right down upon us, when it would break, like a flying soap-bubble, and scatter its treasures short of the parched fields in which we felt interested. The wind shifted, and hopes were raised that the next thunder-cloud would prove less illusory. But, no! “Kenner” has got it all. On the fifth day, however, the hearts of all the planters and their parched fields were gladdened by half a day of general and generous rain, beneath which our host’s cane fairly reeled and revelled. It was now safe for the season, and so was the corn. But “one man’s meat is another’s poison,” and we heard more than one “Jeremiad” from those whose fields had not been placed in the condition which enabled those of our friend to carry off a potation of twelve hours of tropical rain with the ease of an alderman or lord chancellor made happier or wiser by his three bottles of port.
What is termed hacienda in Cuba, rancho in Mexico, and “plantation” elsewhere, is styled “habitation” by the creoles of Louisiana, whose ancestors began more than a century ago to reclaim its jungles.
At last “venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus.” I had seen as much as might be of the best phase of the great institution—less than I could desire of a most exemplary, kind-hearted, clear-headed, honest man. In the calm of a glorious summer evening, arrayed in all the splendor of scenery that belongs to dreams in Cloudland, where mountains of snow, peopled by “gorgons and hydras and chimæras dire,” rise from seas of fire that bear black barks freighted with thunder before the breeze of battle, we crossed the Father of Waters, waving an adieu to the good friend who stood on the shore, and turning ever back to the home we had left behind us. It was dark when the boat reached Donaldsonville on the opposite “coast.” I should not be surprised to hear that the founder of this remarkable city, which once contained the archives of the state, now transferred to Baton Rouge, was a North Briton. There is a simplicity and economy in the plan of the place not unfavorable to that view, but the motives which induced Donaldson to found his Rome on the west of Bayou La Fourche from Mississippi must be a secret to all time. Much must the worthy Scot have been perplexed by his neighbors, a long-reaching colony of Spanish creoles who toil not and spin nothing but fishing-nets, and who live better than Solomon, and are probably as well dressed, minus the barbaric pearl and gold of the Hebrew potentate. Take the odd, little, retiring, modest houses which grow in the hollows of Scarborough, add to them the least imposing mansions in the natural town of Folkestone, cast them broadsown over the surface of the Essex marshes, plant a few trees in front of them, then open a few “café billards” of the camp sort along the main street, and you have done a very good Donaldsonville. A policeman welcomes us on the landing and does the honors of the market, which has a beggarly account of empty benches, a Texan bull done into beef, and a coffee-shop. The policeman is a tall, lean, west countryman; his story is simple, and he has it to tell. He was one of Dan Rice’s company—a travelling Astley. He came to Donaldsonville, saw, and was conquered by one of the Spanish beauties, married her, became tavern-keeper, failed, learned French, and was now constable of the parish. There was, however, a weight on his mind. He had studied the matter profoundly, but he was not near the bottom. How did the friends, relatives, and tribe of his wife live? No one could say. They reared chickens, and they caught fish; when there was a pressure on the planters, they turned out to work for 6s. 6d. a-day, but those were rare occasions. The policeman had become quite gray with excogitating the matter, and he had “nary notion of how they did it.” Donaldsonville has done one fine thing. It has furnished two companies of soldiers—all Irishmen—to the wars, and a third is in the course of formation. Not much hedging, ditching, or hard work these times for Paddy! The blacksmith, a huge tower of muscle, claims exemption on the ground that “the divil a bit of him comes from Oireland; he nivir hird af it, barrin’ from the buks he rid,” and is doing his best to remain behind, but popular opinion is against him. As the steamer would not be up till toward dawn, or later, it was a relief to saunter through Donaldsonville to see society, which consisted of several gentlemen and various Jews playing games unknown to Hoyle, in oaken bar-rooms flanked by billiard tables. My good friend the doctor whom I had met at Houmas, who had crossed the river to see patients suffering from an attack of eucre, took us round to a little club, where I was introduced to a number of gentlemen, who expressed great pleasure at seeing me, shook hands violently, and walked away; and finally we melted off into a cloud of mosquitos by the river bank, in a box prepared for them, which was called a bedroom. These rooms were built in wood on the stage close by the river. “Why can’t I have one of those rooms?” asked I, pointing to a large mosquito box. “It is engaged by ladies.” “How do you know?”—“Parceque elles ont envoyé leurs butin.” It was delicious to meet the French “plunder” for baggage—an old phrase so nicely rendered in the mouth of the Mississippi boatman. Having passed a night of extreme discomfiture with the winged demons of the box, I was aroused toward dawn by the booming of the steam drum of the boat, dipped my head in water among drowned mosquitos, and went forth upon the landing. The policeman had just arrived. His eagle eye lighted upon a large flat, on the stern of which was inscribed, “Pork, corn, butter, beef,” etc. Several spry citizens were also on the platform. After salutations and compliments, policeman speaks—“When did she come in?” (meaning flat.) First citizen—“In the night, I guess.” Second citizen—“There’s a lot of whiskey aboord, too.” Policeman (with pleased surprise)—“You never mean it?” First citizen—“Yes, sir; one hundred and twenty gallons!” Policeman (inspired by a bright aspiration of patriotism)—“It’s a west country boat; why don’t the citizens seize it? And whiskey rising from 17c. to 35c. a gallon!” Citizens murmur approval, and I feel the whiskey part of the cargo is not safe. “Yes, sir,” says citizen three, “they seize all our property at Cairey (Cairo), and I’m for making an example of this cargo.” Further reasons for the seizure of the articles were adduced, and it is probable they were as strong as the whiskey, which has, no doubt, been drunk long ago on the very purest principles. In course of conversation with the committee of taste which had assembled, it was revealed to me that there was a strict watch kept over those boats which are freighted with whiskey forbidden to the slaves, and with principles, when they come from the west country, equally objectionable. “Did you hear, sir, of the chap over at Duncan Renmer’s as was caught the other day?” “No, sir, what was it?” “Well, sir, he was a man that came here and went over among the niggers at Renmer’s to buy their chickens from them. He was took up, and they found he’d a lot of money about him.” “Well, of course, he had money to buy the chickens.” “Yes, sir, but it looked suspic-ious. He was a west country fellow, tew, and he might have been tamperin’ with ’em. Lucky for him he was not taken in the arternoon.” “Why so?” “Because if the citizens had been drunk they’d have hung him on the spot.” The Acadia was now alongside, and in the early morning Donaldsonville receded rapidly into trees and clouds. To bed, and make amends for mosquito visits. On awaking, find that I am in the same place I started from; at least, the river looks just the same. It is difficult to believe that we have been going eleven miles an hour against the turbid river, which is of the same appearance as it was below—the same banks, bends, driftwood and trees.
Beyond the levees there were occasionally large clearings and plantations of corn and cane, of which the former predominated. The houses of the planters were not so large or so good as those on the lower banks. Large timber rafts, navigated by a couple of men, who stood in the shade of a few upright boards, were encountered at long intervals. The river was otherwise dead. White egrets and blue herons rose from the marshes where the banks had been bored through by crayfish, or crevasses had been formed by the waters. The fields were not much more lively, but at every landing the whites who came down were in some sort of uniform, and a few negroes were in attendance to take in or deliver goods. There were two blacks on board in irons—captured runaways—and very miserable they looked at the thought of being restored to the bosom of the patriarchial family from, which they had, no doubt, so prodigally eloped. I fear the fatted calfskin would not be applied to their backs. The river is about half a mile wide here, and is upwards of 1,000 feet deep. The planters’ houses in groves of pecan and mangolias, with verandah and belvedere, became more frequent as the steamer approached Baton Rouge, already visible in the distance over a high bank or bluff on the right hand side.
Before noon the steamer hauled alongside a stationary hulk, which once “walked the waters” by the aid of machinery, but which was now used as a floating hotel, depot and storehouse—315 feet long, and fully thirty feet on the upper deck above the level of the river. Here were my quarters till the boat for Natchez should arrive. The proprietor was somewhat excited on my arrival, because one of his servants was away. “Where have you been, you ——?” “Away to buy de newspaper, Massa.” “For who, you ——?” “Me buy ’em for no one, Massa; me sell ’um agin, Massa.” “See, now, you ——, if ever you goes aboard to meddle with newspapers, I’m —— but I’ll kill you, mind that!” Baton Rouge is the capital of the State of Louisiana, and the State House is a quaint and very new example of bad taste. The Deaf and Dumb Asylum near it is in a much better style. It was my intention to visit the State Prison and Penitentiary, but the day was too hot, and the distance too great, and so I dined at the oddest little creole restaurant, with the funniest old hostess, and the strangest company in the world. On returning to the boat hotel, Mr. Conrad, one of the citizens of the place, and Mr. W. Avery, a judge of the court, were good enough to call to invite me to visit them, but I was obliged to decline. The old gentlemen were both members of the home guard, and drilled assiduously every evening. Of the 1,300 voters at Baton Rouge, more than 750 are already off to the wars, and another company is being formed to follow them. Mr. Conrad has three sons in the field already. The waiter who served out drinks in the bar wore a uniform, and his musket lay in the corner among the brandy bottles. At night a patriotic meeting of citizen soldiery took place in the bow, in which song and whiskey had much to do, so that sleep was difficult; but at seven o’clock on Wednesday morning the Mary T. came alongside, and soon afterward bore me on to Natchez, through scenery which became wilder and less cultivated as she got upwards. Of the 1,500 steamers on the river not a tithe are now in employment, and the owners are in a bad way. It was late at night when the steamer arrived at Natchez, and next morning early I took shelter in another engineless steamer, which was thought to be a hotel by its owners. Old negress on board, however, said, “There was nothing for breakfast; go to Curry’s on shore.” Walk up hill to Curry’s—a bar-room, a waiter and flies. “Can I have any breakfast?” “No, sir-ree; it’s over half an hour ago.” “Nothing to eat at all?” “No, sir.” “Can I get some anywhere else?” “I guess not.” It had been my belief that a man with money in his pocket could not starve in any country soi-disant civilized. Exceptions prove rules, but they are disagreeable things. I chewed the cud of fancy faute de mieux, and became the centre of attraction to citizens, from whose conversation I learned that this was “Jeff. Davis’ fast day.” Observed one, “It quite puts me in mind of Sunday; all the stores closed.” Said another, “We’ll soon have Sunday every day, then, for I ’spect it won’t be worth while for most shops to keep open any longer.” Natchez, a place of much trade and cotton export in the season, is now as dull—let us say as Harwich without a regatta. But it is ultra-Secessionist, nil obstante. My hunger was assuaged by a friend who drove me up to his comfortable mansion through a country not unlike the wooded parts of Sussex, abounding in fine trees, and in the only lawns and park-like fields I have yet seen in America. In the evening, after dinner, my host drove me over to visit a small encampment under a wealthy planter, who has raised, equipped and armed his company at his own expense.
We were obliged to get out at a narrow lane and walk toward the encampment on foot; a sentry stopped us, and we observed that there was a semblance of military method in the camp. The captain was walking up and down in the verandah of the poor, deserted hut, for which he had abandoned his splendid home. A book of tactics (Hardee’s)—which is, in part, a translation of the French manual—lay on the table. Our friend was full of fight, and said he would give all he had in the world to the cause. But the day before, and a party of horse, composed of sixty gentlemen in the district, worth from £20,000 to £50,000 each, had started for the war in Virginia. Every thing to be seen or heard testifies to the great zeal and resolution with which the South have entered upon the quarrel. But they hold the power of the United States, and the loyalty of the North to the Union at far too cheap a rate. Next day was passed in a delightful drive through cotton fields, Indian corn, and undulating woodlands, amid which were some charming residences. I crossed the river at Natchez, and saw one fine plantation, in which the corn, however, was by no means so fine as I have often seen. The cotton looks well, and some had already burst into flower—bloom, as it is called—which had turned to a flagrant pink, and seemed saucily conscious that its boll would play an important part in the world. In this part of Mississippi the secessionist feeling was not so overpowering at first as it has been since the majority declared itself, but the expression of feeling is now all one way. The rage of Southern sentiment is to me inexplicable, making every allowance for Southern exaggeration. It is sudden, hot, and apparently as causeless as summer lightning. From every place I touched at along the Mississippi, a large portion of the population has gone forth to fight, or is preparing to do so. The whispers which rise through the storm are few and feeble. Some there are who sigh for the peace and happiness they have seen in England. But they cannot seek those things; they must look after their property. Each man maddens his neighbor by desperate resolves, and threats and vows. Their faith is in Jefferson Davis’ strength, and in the necessities and weakness of France and England. The inhabitants of the tracts which lie on the banks of the Mississippi, and on the inland regions hereabout, ought to be, in the natural order of things, a people almost nomadic, living by the chase, and by a sparse agriculture, in the freedom which tempted their ancestors to leave Europe. But the Old World has been working for them. All its trials have been theirs; the fruits of its experience, its labors, its research, its discoveries, are theirs. Steam has enabled them to turn their rivers into highways, to open primeval forests to the light of day and to man. All these, however, would have availed them little had not the demands of manufacture abroad, and the increasing luxury and population of the North and West at home, enabled them to find in these swamps and uplands sources of wealth richer and more certain than all the gold mines of the world. But there must be gnomes to work those mines. Slavery was an institution ready to their hands. In its development there lay every material means for securing the prosperity which Manchester opened to them, and in supplying their own countrymen with sugar. The small, struggling, deeply-mortgaged proprietors of swamp and forest set their negroes to work to raise levees, to cut down trees, to plant and sow. As the negro became valuable by his produce, the Irish emigrant took his place in the severer labors of the plantation, and ditched and dug, and cut into the waste land. Cotton at ten cents a pound gave a nugget in every boll. Land could be had for a few dollars an acre. Negroes were cheap in proportion. Men who made a few thousand dollars invested them in more negroes, and more land, and borrowed as much again for the same purpose. They waxed fat and rich—there seemed no bounds to their fortune. But threatening voices came from the North—the echoes of the sentiments of the civilized world repenting of its evil pierced their ears, and they found their feet were of clay, and that they were nodding to their fall in the midst of their power. Ruin inevitable awaited them if they did not shut out these sounds and stop the fatal utterances. The issue is to them one of life and death. Whoever raises it hereafter, if it be not decided now, must expect to meet the deadly animosity which is displayed toward the North. The success of the South—if it can succeed—must lead to complications and results in other parts of the world, for which neither it nor Europe is now prepared. Of one thing there can be no doubt—a slave state cannot long exist without a slave trade. The poor whites who have won the fight will demand their share of the spoils. The land is abundant, and all that is wanted to give them fortunes is a supply of slaves. They will have that in spite of their masters, unless a stronger power prevents the accomplishment of their wishes.
CAIRO, ILL., June 20, 1861.
My last letter was dated from Natchez, but it will probably accompany this communication, as there are no mails now between the North and the South, or vice versa. Tolerably confident in my calculations that nothing of much importance could take place in the field till some time after I had reached my post, it appeared to me desirable to see as much of the South as I could, and to form an estimate of the strength of the Confederation, although it could not be done at this time of the year without considerable inconvenience, arising from the heat, which renders it almost impossible to write in the day, and from the mosquitos, which come out when the sun goes down and raise a blister at every stroke of the pen. On several days lately the thermometer has risen to 98 degrees, on one day to 105 degrees, in the shade.
On Friday evening, June 14, I started from Natchez for Vicksburgh, on board the steamer General Quitman, up the Mississippi. These long yellow rivers are very fine for patriots to talk about, for poets to write about, for buffalo fish to live in, and for steamers to navigate when there are no snags, but I confess the father of waters is extremely tiresome. Even the good cheer and comfort of the General Quitman could not reconcile me to the eternal beating of steam drums, blowing of whistles, bumping at landings, and the general oppression of levees, clearings and plantations, which marked the course of the river, and I was not sorry next morning when Vicksburgh came in sight, on the left bank of the giant stream—a city on a hill, not very large, be-steepled, be-cupolaed, large-hoteled. Here lives a man who has been the pioneer of hotels in the West, and who has now established himself in a big caravansery, which he rules in a curious fashion. M’Makin has, he tells us, been rendered famous by Sir Charles Lyell. The large dining-room—a stall à manger, as a friend of mine called it—is filled with small tables, covered with party-colored cloths. At the end is a long deal table, heavy with dishes of meat and vegetables, presided over by negresses and gentlemen of uncertain hue. In the centre of the room stood my host, shouting out at the top of his voice the names of the joints, and recommending his guests to particular dishes, very much as the chronicler tells us was the wont of the taverners in old London. Many little negroes ran about in attendance, driven hither and thither by the commands of their white Soulouque—white-teethed, pensive-eyed, but sad as memory. “Are you happy here?” asked I of one of them who stood by my chair. He looked uneasy and frightened. “Why don’t you answer?” “I’se afeared to tell dat to massa.” “Why, your master is kind to you?” “Berry good man, sir, when he not angry wid me!” And the little fellow’s eyes filled with tears at some recollection which pained him. I asked no more. Vicksburgh is secessionist. There were hundreds of soldiers in the streets, many in the hotel, and my host said some hundreds of Irish had gone off to the wars, to fight for the good cause. If Mr. O’Connell were alive, he would surely be pained to see the course taken by so many of his countrymen on this question. After dinner I was invited to attend a meeting of some of the citizens, at the railway station, where the time passed very agreeably till four o’clock, when the train started for Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, and after a passage of two hours, through a poor, clay country, seared with water-courses and gullies, with scanty crops of Indian corn and very backward cotton, we were deposited in that city. It must be called a city. It is the state capital, but otherwise there is no reason why, in strict nomenclature, it should be designated by any such title. It is in the usual style of the “cities” which spring up in the course of a few years amid the stumps of half-cleared fields in the wilderness—wooden houses, stores kept by Germans, French, Irish, Italians; a large hotel swarming with people, with a noisy billiard-room and a noisier bar, the arena and the cause of “difficulties;” wooden houses, with portentous and pretentious white porticoes, and pillars of all the Grecian orders; a cupola or two, and two or three steeples, too large for the feeble bodies beneath—hydrocephalic architecture; a state-house, looking well in the distance, ragged, dirty, and mean within; groups of idlers in front of the “Exchange,” where the business transacted consists in a barter between money, or credit, and “drinks” of various stimulants; a secluded telegraph-office round a corner; a forward newspaper-office in the street, and a population of negroes, shuffling through the thick dust which forms the streets. I called on Mr. Pettus, the governor of the state of Mississippi, according to invitation, and found him in the state-house, in a very poor room, with broken windows and ragged carpets, and dilapidated furniture. He is a grim, silent man, tobacco-ruminant, abrupt-speeched, firmly believing that the state of society in which he exists, wherein there are monthly foul murders perpetrated at the very seat of government, is the most free and civilized in the world. He is easy of access to all, and men sauntered in and out of his office just as they would walk into a public-house. Once on a time, indeed, the governor was a deer-hunter, in the forest, and lived far away from the haunts of men, and he is proud of the fact. He is a strenuous seceder, and has done high-handed things in his way—simple apparently, honest probably, fierce certainly—and he lives, while he is governor, on his salary of four thousand dollars a year, in the house provided for him by the state. There was not much to say on either side. I can answer for one. Next day being Sunday, I remained at rest in the house of a friend listening to local stories—not couleur de rose, but of a deeper tint—blood-red;—how such a man shot another, and was afterward stabbed by a third; how this fellow and his friends hunted down, in broad day, and murdered one obnoxious to them—tale after tale, such as I have heard through the South and seen daily narratives of in the papers. Aceldama! No security for life! Property is quite safe. Its proprietor is in imminent danger, were it only from stray bullets, when he turns a corner. The “bar,” the “drink,” the savage practice of walking about with pistol and poniard—ungovernable passions, ungoverned because there is no law to punish the deeds to which they lead—these are the causes of acts which would not be tolerated in the worst days of Corsican vendette, and which must be put down, or the countries in which they are unpunished will become as barbarous as jungles of wild beasts. In the evening I started, by railroad, for the city of Memphis, in Mississippi. There was a sleeping-car on the train, but the flying-bug and the creature less volatile, more pungent and persistent, which bears its name, murdered sleep; and when Monday morning came, I was glad to arise and get into one of the carriages, although it was full of noisy soldiers, bound to the camp at Corinth, in the state of Mississippi, who had been drinking whiskey all night, and were now screaming for water and howling like demons. At Holly Springs, where a rude breakfast awaited us, the warriors got out on the top of the carriages and performed a war-dance to the music of their band, which was highly creditable to the carriage-maker’s workmanship. Along the road, at all the settlements and clearings, the white people cheered, and the women waved white things, and secession flags floated. There is no doubt of the state of feeling in this part of the country; and yet it does not look much worth fighting for—an arid soil, dry water-courses, clay ravines, light crops. Perhaps it will be better a month hence, and negroes may make it pay. There were many in the fields, and it struck me they looked better than those who work in gangs on the larger and richer plantations. Among our passengers were gentlemen from Texas, going to Richmond to offer service to Mr. Davis. They declared the feeling in their state was almost without exception in favor of secession. It is astonishing how positive all these people are that England is in absolute dependence on cotton for her national existence. They are at once savage and childish. If England does not recognize the Southern Confederacy pretty quick, they will pass a resolution not to let her have any cotton, except, &c. Suppose England does ever recognize a Confederation based on the principles of the South, what guarantee is there that in her absolute dependence, if it exists, similar coercive steps may not be taken against her? “Oh! we shall be friends, you know;” and so on.