There is a great scarcity of powder, which is one of the reasons, perhaps, why it has not yet been expended as largely as might be expected from the tone and temper on both sides. There is no sulphur in the States—nitre and charcoal abound. The sea is open to the North. There is no great overplus of money on either side. In Missouri, the interest on the State debt due in July will be used to procure arms for the State volunteers to carry on the war. The South is preparing for the struggle by sowing a most unusual quantity of grain, and in many fields corn and maize have been planted instead of cotton. “Stay laws,” by which all inconveniences arising from the usual, dull, old-fashioned relations between debtor and creditor are avoided (at least by the debtor), have been adopted in most of the Seceding States. How is it that the State Legislatures seem to be in the hands of the debtors, and not of the creditors?
There are some who cling to the idea that there will be no war, after all; but no one believes that the South will ever go back of its own free will, and the only reason that can be given for those who hope rather than think in that way, is to be found in the faith that the North will accept some mediation, and will let the South go in peace. But could there, can there be peace? The frontier question, the adjustment of various claims, the demands for indemnity, or for privileges or exemptions, in the present state of feeling, can have but one result. The task of mediation is sure to be as thankless as abortive. Assuredly the proffered service of England would, on one side at least, be received with something like insult. Nothing but adversity can teach these people its own most useful lessons. Material prosperity has puffed up the citizens to an unwholesome state. The toils and sacrifices of the Old World have been taken by them as their birthright, and they have accepted the fruits of all that the science, genius, suffering, and trials of mankind in time past have wrought out, perfected, and won as their own peculiar inheritance, while they have ignorantly rejected the advice and scorned the lessons with which these were accompanied.
May 23.—The Congress at Montgomery, having sat with closed doors almost since it met, has now adjourned till July the 20th, when it will reassemble at Richmond, in Virginia, which is thus designated, for the time, capital of the Confederate States of America. Richmond, the principal city of the old Dominion, is about one hundred miles in a straight line south by west of Washington. The rival capitals will thus be in very close proximity by rail and by steam, by land and by water. The movement is significant. It will tend to hasten a collision between the forces which are collected on the opposite sides of the Potomac. Hitherto, Mr. Jefferson Davis has not evinced all the sagacity and energy, in a military sense, which he is said to possess. It was bad strategy to menace Washington before he could act. His Secretary of War, Mr. Walker, many weeks ago, in a public speech, announced the intention of marching upon the capital. If it was meant to do so, the blow should have been struck silently. If it was not intended to seize upon Washington, the threat had a very disastrous effect on the South, as it excited the North to immediate action, and caused General Scott to concentrate his troops on points which present many advantages in the face of any operations which may be considered necessary along the lines either of defence or attack. The movement against the Norfolk Navy Yard strengthened Fortress Monroe, and the Potomac and Chesapeake were secured to the United States. The fortified ports held by the Virginians and the Confederate States troops, are not of much value as long as the streams are commanded by the enemy’s steamers; and General Scott has shown that he has not outlived either his reputation or his vigor by the steps, at once wise and rapid, he has taken to curb the malcontents in Maryland, and to open his communications through the City of Baltimore. Although immense levies of men may be got together on both sides for purposes of local defence or for State operations, it seems to me that it will be very difficult to move these masses in regular armies. The men are not disposed for regular, lengthened service, and there is an utter want of field trains, equipment, and commissariat, which cannot be made good in a day, a week, or a month.
The bill passed by the Montgomery Congress, entitled “An act to raise an additional military force to serve during the war,” is, in fact, a measure to put into the hands of the Government the control of irregular bodies of men, and to bind them to regular military service. With all their zeal, the people of the South will not enlist. They detest the recruiting sergeant, and Mr. Davis knows enough of war to feel hesitation in trusting himself in the field to volunteers. The bill authorizes Mr. Davis to accept volunteers, who may offer their services, without regard to the place of enlistment, “to serve during the war, unless sooner discharged.” They may be accepted in companies, but Mr. Davis is to organize them into squadrons, battalions, or regiments, and the appointment of field and staff officers is reserved especially to him. The company officers are to be elected by the men of the company, but here again Mr. Davis reserves to himself the right of veto, and will only commission those officers whose election he approves.
The absence of cavalry and the deficiency of artillery may prevent either side obtaining any decisive results in one engagement, but no doubt there will be great loss whenever these large masses of men are fairly opposed to each other in the field. Of the character of the Northern regiments I can say nothing more from actual observation, nor have I yet seen in any place such a considerable number of the troops of the Confederate States moving together, as would justify me in expressing any opinion with regard to their capacity for organized movements such as regular troops in Europe are expected to perform. An intelligent and trustworthy observer, taking one of the New York State Militia regiments as a fair specimen of the battalions which will fight for the United States, gives an account of them which leads me to the conclusion that such regiments are much superior when furnished by the country districts to those raised in the towns and cities. It appears in this case, at least, that the members of the regular militia companies in general send substitutes to the ranks. Ten of these companies form the regiment, and in nearly every instance they have been doubled in strength by volunteers. Their drill is exceedingly incomplete, and in forming the companies there is a tendency for the different nationalities to keep themselves together. In the regiment in question, the rank and file often consists of quarrymen, mechanics, and canal boatmen, mountaineers from the Catskill, bark peelers and timber cutters—ungainly, square-built, powerful fellows, with a Dutch tenacity of purpose crossed with an English indifference to danger. There is no drunkenness and no desertion among them. The officers are almost as ignorant of military training as their men. The Colonel, for instance, is the son of a rich man in his district, well educated, and a man of travel. Another officer is a shipmaster. A third is an artist; others are merchants and lawyers, and they are all busy studying “Hardee’s Tactics,” the best book for infantry drill in the United States. The men have come out to fight for what they consider the cause of theo cuntry, and are said to have no particular hatred of the South or of its inhabitants, though they think they are “a darned deal too high and mighty, and require to be wiped down considerably.” They have no notion as to the length of time for which their services will be required, and I am assured that not one of them has asked what his pay is to be.
Reverting to Montgomery, one may say without offence, that its claims to be the capital of a Republic which asserts that it is the richest, and believes that it will be the strongest in the world, are not by any means evident to a stranger. Its central position, which has reference rather to a map than to the hard face of matter, procured for it a distinction to which it had no other claim. The accommodations which suited the modest wants of a State Legislature vanished or were transmuted into barbarous inconveniences by the pressure of a central government, with its offices, its departments, and the vast crowd of applicants which flocked thither to pick up such crumbs of comfort as could be spared from the Executive table. Never shall I forget the dismay of myself, and of the friends who were travelling with me, on our arrival at the Exchange Hotel, under circumstances with some of which you are already acquainted. With us were men of high position, Members of Congress, Senators, ex-Governors, and General Beauregard himself. But to no one was greater accommodation extended than could be furnished by a room held, under a sort of ryot-warree tenure, in common with a community of strangers. My room was shown to me. It contained four large fourpost beds, a ricketty table, and some chairs of infirm purpose and fundamental unsoundness. The floor was carpetless, covered with litter of paper and ends of cigars, and stained with tobacco juice. The broken glass of the window afforded no ungrateful means of ventilation. One gentleman sat in his shirt sleeves at the table reading the account of the marshalling of the Highlanders at Edinburgh in the Abbotsford edition of Sir Walter Scott; another, who had been wearied, apparently, by writing numerous applications to the Government for some military post, of which rough copies lay scattered around, came in, after refreshing himself at the bar, and occupied one of the beds, which, by-the-bye, were ominously provided with two pillows apiece. Supper there was none for us in the house, but a search in an outlying street, enabled us to discover a restaurant, where roasted squirrels and baked opossums figured as luxuries in the bill of fare. On our return we found that due preparation had been made in the apartment by the addition of three mattresses on the floor. The beds were occupied by unknown statesmen and warriors, and we all slumbered and snored in friendly concert till morning. Gentlemen in the South complain that strangers judge of them by their hotels, but it is a very natural standard for strangers to adopt, and in respect to Montgomery it is almost the only one that a gentleman can conveniently use; for, if the inhabitants of this city and its vicinity are not maligned, there is an absence of the hospitable spirit which the South lays claim to as one of its animating principles, and a little bird whispered to me that from Mr. Jefferson Davis down to the least distinguished member of his Government, there was reason to observe that the usual attentions and civilities offered by residents to illustrious stragglers had been “conspicuous for their absence.” The fact is, that the small planters, who constitute the majority of the land-owners, are not in a position to act the Amphytrion, and that the inhabitants of the district can scarcely aspire to be considered what we would call gentry in England, but are a frugal, simple, hog and hominy-living people, fond of hard work and, occasionally, of hard drinking.
NEW ORLEANS, May 24, 1861.
It is impossible to resist the conviction that the Southern Confederacy can only be conquered by means as irresistible as those by which Poland was subjugated. The South will fall, if at all, as a nation prostrate at the feet of a victorious enemy. There is no doubt of the unanimity of the people. If words mean anything, they are animated by only one sentiment, and they will resist the North as long as they can command a man or a dollar. There is nothing of a sectional character in this disposition of the South. In every State there is only one voice audible. Hereafter, indeed, State jealousies may work their own way. Whatever may be the result, unless the men are the merest braggarts—and they do not look like it—they will fight to the last before they give in, and their confidence in their resources is only equalled by their determination to test them to the utmost. There is a noisy vociferation about their declarations of implicit trust and, reliance on their slaves, which makes one think they do “protest too much,” and it remains to be seen whether the slaves really will remain faithful to their masters should the Abolition army ever come among them as an armed propaganda. One thing is obvious here. A large number of men who might be usefully employed in the ranks are idling about the streets. The military enthusiasm is in proportion to the property interest of the various classes of the people; and the very boast that so many rich men are serving in the ranks is a significant proof either of the want of substratum, or of the absence of great devotion to the cause of any such layer of white people as may underlie the great slaveholding, mercantile, and planting oligarchy. The whole State of Louisiana contains about 50,000 men liable to serve when called on. Of that number only 15,000 are enrolled and under arms in any shape whatever; and if one is to judge of the state of affairs by the advertisements which appear from the Adjutant-General’s office, there was some difficulty in procuring the 3,000 men—merely 3,000 volunteers—“to serve during the war,” who are required by the Confederate Government. There is plenty of “prave lords,” and if fierce writing and talking could do work, the armies on both sides would have been killed and eaten long ago. It is found out that “the lives of the citizens” at Pensacola are too valuable to be destroyed in attacking Pickens. A storm that shall drive away the ships, a plague, yellow fever, mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, small-pox—any of these agencies is looked to with confidence to do the work of shot, shell, and bayonet. Our American “brethren in arms” have yet to learn that great law in American cookery, that “if they want to make omelets they must break eggs.” The “moral suasion” of the lasso, of head-shaving, ducking, kicking, and such processes, are, I suspect, used not unfrequently to stimulate volunteers; and the extent to which the acts of the recruiting officer are somewhat aided by the arm of the law, and the force of the policeman and the magistrate, may be seen from paragraphs in the morning papers now and then, to the effect that certain gentlemen of Milesian extraction, who might have been engaged in pugilistic pursuits, were discharged from custody, unpunished, on condition that they enlisted for the war. With the peculiar views entertained of freedom of opinion and action by large classes of people on this continent, such a mode of obtaining volunteers is very natural, but resort to it evinces a want of zeal on the part of some of the 50,000 who are on the rolls; and, from all I can hear—and I have asked numerous persons likely to be acquainted with the subject—there are not more than those 15,000 men of whom I have spoken in all the State under arms, or in training, of whom a considerable proportion will be needed for garrison and coast defence duties. It may be that the Northern States and Northern sentiments are as violent as the South, but I see some evidences to the contrary. For instance, in New York ladies and gentlemen from the South are permitted to live at their favorite hotels without molestation; and one hotel-keeper at Saratoga Springs advertises openly for the custom of his Southern patrons. In no city of the South which I have visited would a party of Northern people be permitted to remain for an hour if the “citizens” were aware of their presence. It is laughable to hear men speaking of the “unanimity” of the South. Just look at the peculiar means by which unanimity is enforced and secured. This is an extract from a New Orleans paper:
"Charges of Abolitionism.—Mayor Monroe has disposed of some of the cases brought before him on charges of this kind by sending the accused to the workhouse.
“A Mexican, named Bernard Cruz, born in Tampico, and living here with an Irish wife, was brought before the Mayor this morning, charged with uttering Abolition sentiments. After a full investigation, it was found that from the utterance of his incendiary language, that Cruz’s education was not yet perfect in Southern classics, and his Honor therefore directed that he be sent for six months to the Humane Institution for the Amelioration of the Condition of Northern Barbarians and Abolition Fanatics, presided over by Professor Henry Mitchell, keeper of the workhouse, and who will put him through a course of study on Southern ethics and institutions.