General Hawley, commanding at Wilmington, had come down to Fort Fisher, on hearing of the arrival of our party, accompanied by General Abbott, General Dodge, and a number of prominent citizens of North Carolina. They were all transferred to our vessel, and, with the tide in her favor, and under sail, the “Wayanda” astonished us all by steaming up the river at the rate of fourteen knots an hour. Captain Merryman, however, insisted she could do as much any time, only it wasn’t always convenient to get her best speed out of her! And, of course, we were bound to believe the Captain. Do we not make it a point of patriotic duty to believe all the brilliant reports of the running capacity displayed by our iron-clads and double-enders?
Blockade runners had been sunk for miles up the river, and in some places the hulls and machinery still formed a partial obstruction to navigation. Torpedoes, fished out by the navy, lay here and there along the banks, and a few, it was said, were still in the channel, unless, as was hoped, the tide had washed them away.
Among the North Carolinians accompanying General Hawley, were a couple of gentlemen from Raleigh—Mr. Moore, a leading lawyer there, and Mr. Pennington, the editor of the Raleigh Progress—who had come down to Wilmington to see Chief Justice Chase. Another gentleman in the company, introduced as “Mr.” Baker—a tall, slender man, of graceful manners, and evident culture and experience—had been through nearly the whole war as Colonel of a North Carolina Rebel regiment.
Strangely enough, Colonel Baker claimed to have been a Union man all the time, from which some idea may be had of the different phases Unionism in the South has assumed. His father had been a Unionist of unquestioned firmness; but the son, returning from Europe in the midst of the secession enthusiasm, found the social pressure of his circle too much to withstand. “I was forced,” he naively said, “to raise a regiment in order to retain my influence in the community!” And, with equal naïveté, he added, that if he had not thus retained his influence, he could now have been of no use in aiding to compose these difficulties! He pointed out a fine rice plantation on the bank of the river, which he had owned, but about his title to which, now, he seemed to have some doubts. He claimed, and other Wilmingtonians agreed with him, that the rice grown here is superior to that of South Carolina and Georgia, and that its culture, in spite of the latitude, is quite as profitable.[[7]]
The gentlemen from Raleigh and Colonel Baker seemed each to be a representative of a different phase of North Carolina Unionism. The editor had always opposed secession till it was accomplished. Then he was compelled to go with the current, but as soon as the first fury was over, and the reaction began, he became openly anti-Davis, and as much anti-war as he dared. He was an enthusiastic admirer of General Sherman; thought the censure by the Northern press, of his arrangement with Johnston, very unjust; was anxious now for the speediest possible restoration of civil authority, and believed the people stood willing to acquiesce in whatever basis of reorganization the President would prescribe. If he had his way, he would have no negro suffrage; even that would be preferable to remaining unorganized, and would be accepted by the people, though it would cause great dissatisfaction.
The lawyer, on the other hand, insisted that none would revolt, with more loathing, from the bare idea of negro suffrage, than the best Union men in the State, who had suffered the most for their devotion to the Government and opposition to the war. “It would not even be satisfactory,” he insisted, “to leave the negroes, like other non-voting classes, to take care of themselves. To leave them absolutely without any control, save such as the law extends to white people, also, would be unendurable. Either you must take pity,” he exclaimed, “on those of us who, for four years, have endured everything for the sake of the old flag, and send the negroes out of the country altogether, or you must place them under the control of the Legislature.” “What policy toward them would the Legislature be apt to adopt?” “It ought to provide against vagrancy; adopt measures to require them to fulfill their contracts for labor, and authorize their sale, for a term of years, for breaches of order.[[8]] Either do that, and so protect us against an intolerable nuisance, or colonize them out of the country.”
The Colonel was not so emphatic in favor of this virtual re-enslavement of the negroes, nor so peremptory in his condemnation of negro suffrage; but he thought it would be wise to conciliate as much as possible, and to avoid deep-seated prejudices. It was easy to see that he was looking to what would be the least unpopular with the people of North Carolina; and, indeed, I heard later in the evening, that he was not unwilling to ask them to send him to Congress.
Clearly enough, few Union men in the South, who have political aspirations, can be safely expected to advocate justice, much less generosity, to the negro, or severity to the Rebels. The latter are sure to be voters—many of them now, after carelessly taking oaths of allegiance—all of them some day; and politicians are not likely to make haste in doing that which they know to be odious to the men whose votes they want.
At a dinner party at General Hawley’s, and subsequently at a little party, later in the evening, we saw and heard a good deal of the feelings of the people. The women are very polite to Yankee officers in particular, but very bitter against Yankees in general. Negro troops are their especial detestation; and for the monstrosity of attempting to teach negroes to read and write, they could find no words to express their scorn. A young officer told me that he had been “cut” by some ladies, with whom he had previously been on very cordial terms, because they had seen him going into one of the negro schools! The men of North Carolina may be “subjugated,” but who shall subjugate the women?