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(Original cover)

MY DIARY
NORTH AND SOUTH.

BY

WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

BRADBURY AND EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET.

1863.

[The right of Translation is reserved.]

LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS

TO

RICHARD QUAIN, M.D.,

These Volumes are Dedicated

IN TESTIMONY

OF

THE REGARD AND GRATITUDE

OF

THE AUTHOR.

INTRODUCTORY.

A book which needs apologies ought never to have been written. This is a canon of criticism so universally accepted, that authors have abstained of late days from attempting to disarm hostility by confessions of weakness, and are almost afraid to say a prefatory word to the gentle reader.

It is not to plead in mitigation of punishment or make an appeal ad misericordiam, I break through the ordinary practice, but by way of introduction and explanation to those who may read these volumes, I may remark that they consist for the most part of extracts from the diaries and note-books which I assiduously kept whilst I was in the United States, as records of the events and impressions of the hour. I have been obliged to omit many passages which might cause pain or injury to individuals still living in the midst of a civil war, but the spirit of the original is preserved as far as possible, and I would entreat my readers to attribute the frequent use of the personal pronoun and personal references to the nature of the sources from which the work is derived, rather than to the vanity of the author.

Had the pages been literally transcribed, without omitting a word, the fate of one whose task it was to sift the true from the false and to avoid error in statements of fact, in a country remarkable for the extraordinary fertility with which the unreal is produced, would have excited some commiseration; but though there is much extenuated in these pages, there is not, I believe, aught set down in malice. My aim has been to retain so much relating to events passing under my eyes, or to persons who have become famous in this great struggle, as may prove interesting at present, though they did not at the time always appear in their just proportions of littleness or magnitude.

During my sojourn in the States, many stars of the first order have risen out of space or fallen into the outer darkness. The watching, trustful, millions have hailed with delight or witnessed with terror the advent of a shining planet or a splendid comet, which a little observation has resolved into watery nebulæ. In the Southern hemisphere, Bragg and Beauregard have given place to Lee and Jackson. In the North M‘Dowell has faded away before M‘Clellan, who having been put for a short season in eclipse by Pope, only to culminate with increased effulgence, has finally paled away before Burnside. The heroes of yesterday are the martyrs or outcasts of to-day, and no American general needs a slave behind him in the triumphal chariot to remind him that he is a mortal. Had I foreseen such rapid whirls in the wheel of fortune I might have taken more note of the men who were below, but my business was not to speculate but to describe.

The day I landed at Norfolk, a tall lean man, ill-dressed, in a slouching hat and wrinkled clothes, stood, with his arms folded and legs wide apart, against the wall of the hotel looking on the ground. One of the waiters told me it was “Professor Jackson,” and I have been plagued by suspicions that in refusing an introduction which was offered to me, I missed an opportunity of making the acquaintance of the man of the stonewalls of Winchester. But, on the whole, I have been fortunate in meeting many of the soldiers and statesmen who have distinguished themselves in this unhappy war.

Although I have never for one moment seen reason to change the opinion I expressed in the first letter I wrote from the States, that the Union as it was could never be restored, I am satisfied the Free States of the North will retain and gain great advantages by the struggle, if they will only set themselves at work to accomplish their destiny, nor lose their time in sighing over vanished empire or indulging in abortive dreams of conquest and schemes of vengeance; but my readers need not expect from me any dissertations on the present or future of the great republics, which have been so loosely united by the Federal band, nor any description of the political system, social life, manners or customs of the people, beyond those which may be incidentally gathered from these pages.

It has been my fate to see Americans under their most unfavourable aspect; with all their national feelings, as well as the vices of our common humanity, exaggerated and developed by the terrible agonies of a civil war, and the throes of political revolution. Instead of the hum of industry, I heard the noise of cannon through the land. Society convulsed by cruel passions and apprehensions, and shattered by violence, presented its broken angles to the stranger, and I can readily conceive that the America I saw, was no more like the country of which her people boast so loudly, than the St. Lawrence when the ice breaks up, hurrying onwards the rugged drift and its snowy crust of crags, with hoarse roar, and crashing with irresistible force and fury to the sea, resembles the calm flow of the stately river on a summer’s day.

The swarming communities and happy homes of the New England States—the most complete exhibition of the best results of the American system—it was denied me to witness; but if I was deprived of the gratification of worshipping the frigid intellectualism of Boston, I saw the effects in the field, among the men I met, of the teachings and theories of the political, moral, and religious professors, who are the chiefs of that universal Yankee nation, as they delight to call themselves, and there recognised the radical differences which must sever them for ever from a true union with the Southern States.

The contest, of which no man can predict the end or result, still rages, but notwithstanding the darkness and clouds which rest upon the scene, I place so much reliance on the innate good qualities of the great nations which are settled on the Continent of North America, as to believe they will be all the better for the sweet uses of adversity; learning to live in peace with their neighbours, adapting their institutions to their necessities, and working out, not in their old arrogance and insolence—mistaking material prosperity for good government—but in fear and trembling, the experiment on which they have cast so much discredit, and the glorious career which misfortune and folly can arrest but for a time.

W. H. RUSSELL.

London, December 8, 1862.

CONTENTS.

[ click here for larger image.]

MAP TO ACCOMPANY “MY DIARY NORTH & SOUTH”
WITH THE AUTHOR’S ROUTE COLOURED

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

CHAPTER I. Departure from Cork

Departure from Cork.—The Atlantic in March—Fellow-passengers—American politics and parties—The Irish in New York—Approach to New York.

On the evening of 3rd March, 1861, I was transferred from the little steam-tender, which plies between Cork and the anchorage of the Cunard steamers at the entrance of the harbour, to the deck of the good steamship Arabia, Captain Stone; and at nightfall we were breasting the long rolling waves of the Atlantic.

The voyage across the Atlantic has been done by so many able hands, that it would be superfluous to describe mine, though it is certain no one passage ever resembled another, and no crew or set of passengers in one ship were ever identical with those in any other. For thirteen days the Atlantic followed its usual course in the month of March, and was true to the traditions which affix to it in that month the character of violence and moody changes, from bad to worse and back again. The wind was sometimes dead against us, and then the infelix Arabia with iron energy set to work, storming great Malakhofs of water, which rose above her like the side of some sward-coated hill crested with snow-drifts; and having gained the summit, and settled for an instant among the hissing sea-horses, ran plunging headlong down to the encounter of another wave, and thus went battling on with heart of fire and breath of flame—igneus est ollis vigor—hour after hour.

The traveller for pleasure had better avoid the Atlantic in the month of March. The wind was sometimes with us, and then the sensations of the passengers and the conduct of the ship were pretty much as they had been during the adverse breezes before, varied by the performance of a very violent “yawing” from side to side, and certain squashings of the paddle-boxes into the yeasty waters, which now ran a race with us and each other, as if bent on chasing us down, and rolling their boarding parties with foaming crests down on our decks. The boss, which we represented in the stormy shield around us, still moved on; day by day our microcosm shifted its position in the ever-advancing circle of which it was the centre, with all around and within it ever undergoing a sea change.

The Americans on board were, of course, the most interesting passengers to one like myself, who was going out to visit the great Republic under very peculiar circumstances. There was, first, Major Garnett, a Virginian, who was going back to his State to follow her fortunes. He was an officer of the regular army of the United States, who had served with distinction in Mexico; an accomplished, well-read man; reserved, and rather gloomy; full of the doctrine of States’ Rights, and animated with a considerable feeling of contempt for the New Englanders, and with the strongest prejudices in favour of the institution of slavery. He laughed to scorn the doctrine that all men are born equal in the sense of all men having equal rights. Some were born to be slaves—some to be labourers in the lower strata above the slaves—others to follow useful mechanical arts—the rest were born to rule and to own their fellow-men. There was next a young Carolinian, who had left his post as attaché at St. Petersburgh to return to his State: thus, in all probability, avoiding the inevitable supercession which awaited him at the hands of the new Government at Washington. He represented, in an intensified form, all the Virginian’s opinions, and held that Mr. Calhoun’s interpretation of the Constitution was incontrovertibly right. There were difficulties in the way of State sovereignty, he confessed; but they were only in detail—the principle was unassailable.

To Mr. Mitchell, South Carolina represented a power quite sufficient to meet all the Northern States in arms. “The North will attempt to blockade our coast,” said he; “and in that case, the South must march to the attack by land, and will probably act in Virginia.” “But if the North attempts to do more than institute a blockade?—for instance, if their fleet attack your seaport towns, and land men to occupy them?” “Oh, in that case, we are quite certain of beating them.” Mr. Julian Mitchell was indignant at the idea of submitting to the rule of a “rail-splitter,” and of such men as Seward and Cameron. “No gentleman could tolerate such a Government.”

An American family from Nashville, consisting of a lady and her son and daughter, were warm advocates of a “gentlemanly” government, and derided the Yankees with great bitterness. But they were by no means as ready to encounter the evils of war, or to break up the Union, as the South Carolinian or the Virginian; and in that respect they represented, I was told, the negative feelings of the Border States, which are disposed to a temporising, moderate course of action, most distasteful to the passionate seceders.

There were also two Louisiana sugar-planters on board—one owning 500 slaves, the other rich in some thousands of acres; they seemed to care very little for the political aspects of the question of Secession, and regarded it merely in reference to its bearing on the sugar crop, and the security of slave property. Secession was regarded by them as a very extreme and violent measure, to which the State had resorted with reluctance; but it was obvious, at the same time, that, in event of a general secession of the Slave States from the North, Louisiana could neither have maintained her connection with the North, nor have stood in isolation from her sister States.

All these, and some others who were fellow-passengers, might be termed Americans—pur sang. Garnett belonged to a very old family in Virginia. Mitchell came from a stock of several generations’ residence in South Carolina. The Tennessee family were, in speech and thought, types of what Europeans consider true Americans to be. Now take the other side. First there was an exceedingly intelligent, well-informed young merchant of New York—nephew of an English county Member, known for his wealth, liberality, and munificence. Educated at a university in the Northern States, he had lived a good deal in England, and was returning to his father from a course of book-keeping in the house of his uncle’s firm in Liverpool. His father and uncle were born near Coleraine, and he had just been to see the humble dwelling, close to the Giant’s Causeway, which sheltered their youth, and where their race was cradled. In the war of 1812, the brothers were about sailing in a privateer fitted out to prey against the British, when accident fixed one of them in Liverpool, where he founded the house which has grown so greatly with the development of trade between New York and Lancashire, whilst the other settled in the States. Without being violent in tone, the young Northerner was very resolute in temper, and determined to do all which lay in his power to prevent the “glorious Union” being broken up.

The “Union” has thus founded on two continents a family of princely wealth, whose originals had probably fought with bitterness in their early youth against the union of Great Britain and Ireland. But did Mr. Brown, or the other Americans who shared his views, unreservedly approve of American institutions, and consider them faultless? By no means. The New Yorkers especially were eloquent on the evils of the suffrage, and of the licence of the Press in their own city; and displayed much irritation on the subject of naturalisation. The Irish were useful, in their way, making roads and working hard, for there were few Americans who condescended to manual labour, or who could not make far more money in higher kinds of work; but it was absurd to give the Irish votes which they used to destroy the influence of native-born citizens, and to sustain a corporation and local bodies of unsurpassable turpitude, corruption, and inefficiency.

Another young merchant, a college friend of the former, was just returning from a tour in Europe with his amiable sister. His father was the son of an Irish immigrant, but he did not at all differ from the other gentlemen of his city in the estimate in which he held the Irish element; and though he had no strong bias one way or other, he was quite resolved to support the abstraction called the Union, and its representative fact—the Federal Government. Thus the agriculturist and the trader—the grower of raw produce and the merchant who dealt in it—were at opposite sides of the question—wide apart as the Northern and Southern Poles. They sat apart, ate apart, talked apart—two distinct nations, with intense antipathies on the part of the South, which was active and aggressive in all its demonstrations.

The Southerners have got a strange charge de plus against the Irish. It appears that the regular army of the United States is mainly composed of Irish and Germans; very few Americans indeed being low enough, or martially disposed enough, to “take the shilling.” In case of a conflict, which these gentlemen think inevitable, “low Irish mercenaries would,” they say, “be pitted against the gentlemen of the South, and the best blood in the States would be spilled by fellows whose lives are worth nothing whatever.” Poor Paddy is regarded as a mere working machine, fit, at best, to serve against Choctaws and Seminoles. His facility of reproduction has to compensate for the waste which is caused by the development in his unhappy head of the organs of combativeness and destructiveness. Certainly, if the war is to be carried on by the United States’ regulars, the Southern States will soon dispose of them, for they do not number 20,000 men, and their officers are not much in love with the new Government. But can it come to War? Mr. Mitchell assures me I shall see some “pretty tall fighting.”

The most vehement Northerners in the steamer are Germans, who are going to the States for the first time, or returning there. They have become satisfied, no doubt, by long process of reasoning, that there is some anomaly in the condition of a country which calls itself the land of liberty, and is at the same time the potent palladium of serfdom and human chattelry. When they are not sea-sick, which is seldom, the Teutons rise up in all the might of their misery and dirt, and, making spasmodic efforts to smoke, blurt out between the puffs, or in moody intervals, sundry remarks on American politics. “These are the swine,” quoth Garnett, “who are swept out of German gutters as too foul for them, and who come over to the States and presume to control the fate and the wishes of our people. In their own country they proved they were incapable of either earning a living, or exercising the duties of citizenship; and they seek in our country a licence denied them in their own, and the means of living which they could not acquire anywhere else.”

And for myself I may truly say this, that no man ever set foot on the soil of the United States with a stronger and sincerer desire to ascertain and to tell the truth, as it appeared to him. I had no theories to uphold, no prejudices to subserve, no interests to advance, no instructions to fulfil; I was a free agent, bound to communicate to the powerful organ of public opinion I represented, my own daily impressions of the men, scenes, and actions around me, without fear, favour, or affection of or for anything but that which seemed to me to be the truth. As to the questions which were distracting the States, my mind was a tabula rasa, or, rather, tabula non scripta. I felt indisposed to view with favour a rebellion against one of the established and recognised governments of the world, which, though not friendly to Great Britain, nor opposed to slavery, was without, so far as I could see, any legitimate cause of revolt, or any injury or grievance, perpetrated or imminent, assailed by States still less friendly to us, which the slave States, pure and simple, certainly were and probably are. At the same time, I knew that these were grounds which I could justly take, whilst they would not be tenable by an American, who is by the theory on which he revolted from us and created his own system of government, bound to recognise the principle that the discontent of the popular majority with its rulers, is ample ground and justification for revolution.

It was on the morning of the fourteenth day that the shores of New York loomed through the drift of a cold wintry sea, leaden-grey and comfortless, and in a little time more the coast, covered with snow, rose in sight. Towards the afternoon the sun came out and brightened the waters and the sails of the pretty trim schooners and coasters which were dancing around us. How different the graceful, tautly-rigged, clean, white-sailed vessels from the round-sterned, lumpish billyboys and nondescripts of the eastern coast of our isle! Presently there came bowling down towards us a lively little schooner-yacht, very like the once famed “America,” brightly painted in green, sails dazzling white, lofty ponderous masts, no tops. As she came nearer, we saw she was crowded with men in chimney-pot black hats, and coats, and the like—perhaps a party of citizens on pleasure, cold as the day was. Nothing of the kind. The craft was our pilot-boat, and the hats and coats belonged to the hardy mariners who act as guides to the port of New York. Their boat was lowered, and was soon under our mainchains; and a chimney-pot hat having duly come over the side, delivered a mass of newspapers to the captain, which were distributed among the eager passengers, when each at once became the centre of a spell-bound circle.

CHAPTER II. Arrival at New York

Arrival at New York—Custom-house—General impressions as to North and South—Street in New York—Hotel—Breakfast—American women and men—Visit to Mr. Bancroft—Street-railways.

The entrance to New York, as it was seen by us on 16th March, is not remarkable for beauty or picturesque scenery, and I incurred the ire of several passengers, because I could not consistently say it was very pretty. It was difficult to distinguish through the snow the villas and country houses, which are said to be so charming in summer. But beyond these rose a forest of masts close by a low shore of brick houses and blue roofs, above the level of which again spires of churches and domes and cupolas announced a great city. On our left, at the narrowest part of the entrance, there was a very powerful case-mated work of fine close stone, in three tiers, something like Fort Paul at Sebastopol, built close to the water’s edge, and armed on all the faces—apparently a tetragon with bastions. Extensive works were going on at the ground above it, which rises rapidly from the water to a height of more than a hundred feet, and the rudiments of an extensive work and heavily armed earthen parapets could be seen from the channel. On the right hand, crossing its fire with that of the batteries and works on our left, there was another regular stone fort with fortified enceinte, and higher up the channel, as it widens to the city on the same side, I could make out a smaller fort on the water’s edge. The situation of the city renders it susceptible of powerful defence from the sea-side, and even now it would be hazardous to run the gauntlet of the batteries unless in powerful iron-clad ships favoured by wind and tide, which could hold the place at their mercy. Against a wooden fleet New York is now all but secure, save under exceptional circumstances in favour of the assailants.

It was dark as the steamer hauled up alongside the wharf on the New Jersey side of the river; but ere the sun set I could form some idea of the activity and industry of the people from the enormous ferry-boats moving backwards and forwards like arks on the water, impelled by the great walking-beam engines, the crowded stream full of merchantmen, steamers, and small craft, the smoke of the factories, the tall chimneys—the net-work of boats and rafts—all the evidences of commercial life in full development. What a swarming, eager crowd on the quay-wall! what a wonderful ragged regiment of labourers and porters, hailing us in broken or Hibernianized English! “These are all Irish and Germans,” anxiously explained a New Yorker. “I’ll bet fifty dollars there’s not a native-born American among them.”

With Anglo-Saxon disregard of official insignia, American Custom House officers dress very much like their British brethren, without any sign of authority as faint as even the brass button and crown, so that the stranger is somewhat uneasy when he sees unauthorised-looking people taking liberties with his plunder, especially after the admonitions he has received on board ship to look sharp about his things as soon as he lands. I was provided with an introduction to one of the principal officers, and he facilitated my egress, and at last I was bundled out through a gate into a dark alley, ankle deep in melted snow and mud, where I was at once engaged in a brisk encounter with my Irish porter-hood, and, after a long struggle, succeeded in stowing my effects in and about a remarkable specimen of the hackney-coach of the last century, very high in the axle, and weak in the springs, which plashed down towards the river through a crowd of men shouting out, “You haven’t paid me yet, yer honour. You haven’t given anything to your own man that’s been waiting here the last six months for your honour!” “I’m the man that put the lugidge up, sir,” &c., &c. The coach darted on board a great steam ferry-boat, which had on deck a number of similar vehicles, and omnibuses, and the gliding, shifting lights, and the deep, strong breathing of the engine, told me I was moving and afloat before I was otherwise aware of it. A few minutes brought us over to the lights on the New York side—a jerk or two up a steep incline—and we were rattling over a most abominable pavement, plunging into mud-holes, squashing through snow-heaps in ill-lighted, narrow streets of low, mean-looking, wooden houses, of which an unusual proportion appeared to be lager-bier saloons, whisky-shops, oyster-houses, and billiard and smoking establishments.

The crowd on the pavement were very much what a stranger would be likely to see in a very bad part of London, Antwerp, or Hamburg, with a dash of the noisy exuberance which proceeds from the high animal spirits that defy police regulations and are superior to police force, called “rowdyism.” The drive was long and tortuous; but by degrees the character of the thoroughfares and streets improved. At last we turned into a wide street with very tall houses, alternating with far humbler erections, blazing with lights, gay with shop-windows, thronged in spite of the mud with well-dressed people, and pervaded by strings of omnibuses—Oxford Street was nothing to it for length. At intervals there towered up a block of brickwork and stucco with long rows of windows lighted up tier above tier, and a swarming crowd passing in and out of the portals, which were recognised as the barrack-like glory of American civilisation—a Broadway monster hotel. More oyster-shops, lager-bier saloons, concert-rooms of astounding denominations, with external decorations very much in the style of the booths at Bartholomew Fair—churches, restaurants, confectioners, private-houses! again another series—they cannot go on expanding for ever. The coach at last drives into a large square, and lands me at the Clarendon Hotel.

Whilst I was crossing the sea, the President’s Inaugural Message, the composition of which is generally attributed to Mr. Seward, had been delivered, and had reached Europe, and the causes which were at work in destroying the cohesion of the Union, had acquired greater strength and violence.

Whatever force “the declaration of causes which induced the Secession of South Carolina” might have for Carolinians, it could not influence a foreigner who knew nothing at all of the rights, sovereignty, and individual independence of a state, which, however, had no right to make war or peace, to coin money, or enter into treaty obligations with any other country. The South Carolinian was nothing to us, quoad South Carolina—he was merely a citizen of the United States, and we knew no more of him in any other capacity than a French authority would know of a British subject as a Yorkshireman or a Munsterman.

But the moving force of revolution is neither reason nor justice—it is most frequently passion—it is often interest. The American, when he seeks to prove that the Southern States have no right to revolt from a confederacy of states created by revolt, has by the principles on which he justifies his own revolution, placed between himself and the European a great gulf in the level of argument. According to the deeds and words of Americans, it is difficult to see why South Carolina should not use the rights claimed for each of the thirteen colonies, “to alter and abolish a form of government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it is established, and to institute a new one.” And the people must be left to decide the question as regards their own government for themselves, or the principle is worthless. The arguments, however, which are now going on are fast tending towards the ultima ratio regum. At present I find public attention is concentrated on the two Federal forts, Pickens and Sumter, called after two officers of the revolutionary armies in the old war. As Alabama and South Carolina have gone out, they now demand the possession of these forts, as of the soil of their several states and attached to their sovereignty. On the other hand, the Government of Mr. Lincoln considers it has no right to give up any thing belonging to the Federal Government, but evidently desires to temporize and evade any decision which might precipitate an attack on the forts by the batteries and forces prepared to act against them. There is not sufficient garrison in either for an adequate defence, and the difficulty of procuring supplies is very great. Under the circumstances every one is asking what the Government is going to do? The Southern people have declared they will resist any attempt to supply or reinforce the garrisons, and in Charleston, at least, have shown they mean to keep their word. It is a strange situation. The Federal Government, afraid to speak, and unable to act, is leaving its soldiers to do as they please. In some instances, officers of rank, such as General Twiggs, have surrendered everything to the State authorities, and the treachery and secession of many officers in the army and navy no doubt paralyze and intimidate the civilians at the head of affairs.

Sunday, 17th March.—The first thing I saw this morning, after a vision of a waiter pretending to brush my clothes with a feeble twitch composed of fine fibre had vanished, was a procession of men, forty or fifty perhaps, preceded by a small band (by no excess of compliment can I say, of music), trudging through the cold and slush two and two: they wore shamrocks, or the best resemblance thereto which the American soil can produce, in their hats, and green silk sashes emblazoned with crownless harp upon their coats, but it needed not these insignia to tell they were Irishmen, and their solemn mien indicated that they were going to mass. It was agreeable to see them so well-clad and respectable-looking, though occasional hats seemed as if they had just recovered from severe contusions, and others had the picturesque irregularity of outline now and then observable in the old country. The aspect of the street was irregular, and its abnormal look was increased by the air of the passers-by, who at that hour were domestics—very finely dressed negroes, Irish, or German. The coloured ladies made most elaborate toilettes, and as they held up their broad crinolines over the mud looked not unlike double-stemmed mushrooms. “They’re concayted poor craythures them niggirs, male and faymale,” was the remark of the waiter as he saw me watching them. “There seem to be no sparrows in the streets,” said I. “Sparras!” he exclaimed; “and then how did you think a little baste of a sparra could fly across the ochean?” I felt rather ashamed of myself.

And so down-stairs where there was a table d’hôte room, with great long tables covered with cloths, plates, and breakfast apparatus, and a smaller room inside, to which I was directed by one of the white-jacketted waiters. Breakfast over, visitors began to drop in. At the “office” of the hotel, as it is styled, there is a tray of blank cards and a big pencil, whereby the cardless man who is visiting is enabled to send you his name and title. There is a comfortable “reception-room,” in which he can remain and read the papers, if you are engaged, so that there is little chance of your ultimately escaping him. And, indeed, not one of those who came had any but most hospitable intents.

Out of doors the weather was not tempting. The snow lay in irregular layers and discoloured mounds along the streets, and the gutters gorged with “snow-bree” flooded the broken pavement. But after a time the crowds began to issue from the churches, and it was announced as the necessity of the day, that we were to walk up and down the Fifth Avenue and look at each other. This is the west-end of London—its Belgravia and Grosvenoria represented in one long street, with offshoots of inferior dignity at right angles to it. Some of the houses are handsome, but the greater number have a compressed, squeezed-up aspect, which arises from the compulsory narrowness of frontage in proportion to the height of the building, and all of them are bright and new, as if they were just finished to order,—a most astonishing proof of the rapid development of the city. As the hall-door is made an important feature in the residence, the front parlour is generally a narrow, lanky apartment, struggling for existence between the hall and the partition of the next house. The outer door, which is always provided with fine carved panels and mouldings, is of some rich varnished wood, and looks much better than our painted doors. It is generously thrown open so as to show an inner door with curtains and plate glass. The windows, which are double on account of the climate, are frequently of plate glass also. Some of the doors are on the same level as the street, with a basement story beneath; others are approached by flights of steps, the basement for servants having the entrance below the steps, and this, I believe, is the old Dutch fashion, and the name of “stoop” is still retained for it.

No liveried servants are to be seen about the streets, the doorways, or the area-steps. Black faces in gaudy caps, or an unmistakeable “Biddy” in crinoline are their substitutes. The chief charm of the street was the living ornature which moved up and down the trottoirs. The costumes of Paris, adapted to the severity of this wintry weather, were draped round pretty, graceful figures which, if wanting somewhat in that rounded fulness of the Medicean Venus, or in height, were svelte and well poised. The French boot has been driven off the field by the Balmoral, better suited to the snow; and one must at once admit—all prejudices notwithstanding—that the American woman is not only well shod and well gloved, but that she has no reason to fear comparisons in foot or hand with any daughter of Eve, except, perhaps, the Hindoo.

The great and most frequent fault of the stranger in any land is that of generalising from a few facts. Every one must feel there are “pretty days” and “ugly days” in the world, and that his experience on the one would lead him to conclusions very different from that to which he would arrive on the other. To-day I am quite satisfied that if the American women are deficient in stature and in that which makes us say, “There is a fine woman,” they are easy, well formed, and full of grace and prettiness. Admitting a certain pallor—which the Russians, by-the-bye, were wont to admire so much that they took vinegar to produce it—the face is not only pretty, but sometimes of extraordinary beauty, the features fine, delicate, well defined. Ruby lips, indeed, are seldom to be seen, but now and then the flashing of snowy-white evenly-set ivory teeth dispels the delusion that the Americans are—though the excellence of their dentists be granted—naturally ill provided with what they take so much pains, by eating bon-bons and confectionery, to deprive of their purity and colour.

My friend R——, with whom I was walking, knew every one in the Fifth Avenue, and we worked our way through a succession of small talk nearly as far as the end of the street which runs out among divers places in the State of New York, through a débris of unfinished conceptions in masonry. The abrupt transition of the city into the country is not unfavourable to an idea that the Fifth Avenue might have been transported from some great workshop, where it had been built to order by a despot, and dropped among the Red men: indeed, the immense growth of New York in this direction, although far inferior to that of many parts of London, is remarkable as the work of eighteen or twenty years, and is rendered more conspicuous by being developed in this elongated street, and its contingents. I was introduced to many persons to-day, and was only once or twice asked how I liked New York; perhaps I anticipated the question by expressing my high opinion of the Fifth Avenue. Those to whom I spoke had generally something to say in reference to the troubled condition of the country, but it was principally of a self-complacent nature. “I suppose, sir, you are rather surprised, coming from Europe, to find us so quiet here in New York: we are a peculiar people, and you don’t understand us in Europe.”

In the afternoon I called on Mr. Bancroft, formerly minister to England, whose work on America must be rather rudely interrupted by this crisis. Anything with an “ex” to it in America is of little weight—ex-presidents are nobodies, though they have had the advantage, during their four years’ tenure of office, of being prayed for as long as they live. So it is of ex-ministers, whom nobody prays for at all. Mr. Bancroft conversed for some time on the aspect of affairs, but he appeared to be unable to arrive at any settled conclusion, except that the republic, though in danger, was the most stable and beneficial form of government in the world, and that as a Government it had no power to coerce the people of the South or to save itself from the danger. I was indeed astonished to hear from him and others so much philosophical abstract reasoning as to the right of seceding, or, what is next to it, the want of any power in the Government to prevent it.

Returning home in order to dress for dinner, I got into a street-railway-car, a long low omnibus drawn by horses over a strada ferrata in the middle of the street. It was filled with people of all classes, and at every crossing some one or other rang the bell, and the driver stopped to let out or to take in passengers, whereby the unoffending traveller became possessed of much snow-droppings and mud on boots and clothing. I found that by far a greater inconvenience caused by these street-railways was the destruction of all comfort or rapidity in ordinary carriages.

I dined with a New York banker, who gave such a dinner as bankers generally give all over the world. He is a man still young, very kindly, hospitable, well-informed, with a most charming household—an American by theory, an Englishman in instincts and tastes—educated in Europe, and sprung from British stock. Considering the enormous interests he has at stake, I was astonished to perceive how calmly he spoke of the impending troubles. His friends, all men of position in New York society, had the same dilettante tone, and were as little anxious for the future, or excited by the present, as a party of savants chronicling the movements of a “magnetic storm.”

On going back to the hotel, I heard that Judge Daly and some gentlemen had called to request that I would dine with the Friendly Society of St. Patrick to-morrow at Astor House. In what is called “the bar,” I met several gentlemen, one of whom said, “the majority of the people of New York, and all the respectable people, were disgusted at the election of such a fellow as Lincoln to be President, and would back the Southern States, if it came to a split.”

CHAPTER III. St. Patrick’s day

“St. Patrick’s day” in New York—Public dinner—American Constitution—General topics of conversation—Public estimate of the Government—Evening party at Mons. B——’s.

Monday, 18th.—“St. Patrick’s day in the morning” being on the 17th, was kept by the Irish to-day. In the early morning the sounds of drumming, fifing, and bugling came with the hot water and my Irish attendant into the room. He told me: “We’ll have a pretty nice day for it. The weather’s often agin us on St. Patrick’s day.” At the angle of the square outside I saw a company of volunteers assembling. They wore bear-skin caps, some turned brown, and rusty green coatees, with white facings and cross-belts, a good deal of gold-lace and heavy worsted epaulettes, and were armed with ordinary muskets, some of them with flintlocks. Over their heads floated a green and gold flag with mystic emblems, and a harp and sunbeams. A gentleman, with an imperfect seat on horseback, which justified a suspicion that he was not to the manner born of Squire or Squireen, with much difficulty was getting them into line, and endangering his personal safety by a large infantry-sword, the hilt of which was complicated with the bridle of his charger in some inexplicable manner. This gentleman was the officer in command of the martial body, who were gathering to do honour to the festival of the old country, and the din and clamour in the streets, the strains of music, and the tramp of feet outside announced that similar associations were on their way to the rendezvous. The waiters in the hotel, all of whom were Irish, had on their best, and wore an air of pleased importance. Many of their countrymen outside on the pavement exhibited very large decorations, plates of metal, and badges attached to broad ribands over their left breasts.

After breakfast I struggled with a friend through the crowd which thronged Union Square. Bless them! They were all Irish, judging from speech, and gesture, and look; for the most part decently dressed, and comfortable, evidently bent on enjoying the day in spite of the cold, and proud of the privilege of interrupting all the trade of the principal streets, in which the Yankees most do congregate, for the day. They were on the door-steps, and on the pavement men, women, and children, admiring the big policemen—many of them compatriots—and they swarmed at the corners, cheering popular town-councillors or local celebrities. Broadway was equally full. Flags were flying from the windows and steeples—and on the cold breeze came the hammering of drums, and the blasts of many wind instruments. The display, such as it was, partook of a military character, though not much more formidable in that sense than the march of the Trades Unions, or of Temperance Societies. Imagine Broadway lined for the long miles of its course by spectators mostly Hibernian, and the great gaudy stars and stripes, or as one of the Secession journals I see styles it, the “Sanguinary United States Gridiron”—waving in all directions, whilst up its centre in the mud march the children of Erin.

First came the acting Brigadier-General and his staff, escorted by 40 lancers, very ill-dressed, and worse mounted; horses dirty, accoutrements in the same condition, bits, bridles, and buttons rusty and tarnished; uniforms ill-fitting, and badly put on. But the red flags and the show pleased the crowd, and they cheered “bould Nugent” right loudly. A band followed, some members of which had been evidently “smiling” with each other; and next marched a body of drummers in military uniform, rattling away in the French fashion. Here comes the 69th N. Y. State Militia Regiment—the battalion which would not turn out when the Prince of Wales was in New York, and whose Colonel, Corcoran, is still under court martial for his refusal. Well, the Prince had no loss, and the Colonel may have had other besides political reasons for his dislike to parade his men.

The regiment turned out, I should think, only 200 or 220 men, fine fellows enough, but not in the least like soldiers or militia. The United States uniform which most of the military bodies wore, consists of a blue tunic and trousers, and a kepi-like cap, with “U. S.” in front for undress. In full dress the officers wear large gold epaulettes, and officers and men a bandit-sort of felt hat looped up at one side, and decorated with a plume of black-ostrich feathers and silk cords. The absence of facings, and the want of something to finish off the collar and cuffs, render the tunic very bald and unsightly. Another band closed the rear of the 69th, and to eke out the military show, which in all was less than 1,200 men, some companies were borrowed from another regiment of State Militia, and a troop of very poor cavalry cleared the way for the Napper-Tandy Artillery, which actually had three whole guns with them! It was strange to dwell on some of the names of the societies which followed. For instance, there were the “Dungannon Volunteers of ’82,” prepared of course to vindicate the famous declaration that none should make laws for Ireland, but the Queen, Lords, and Commons of Ireland! Every honest Catholic among them ignorant of the fact that the Volunteers of ’82 were all Protestants. Then there was the “Sarsfield Guard!” One cannot conceive anything more hateful to the fiery high-spirited cavalier, than the republican form of Government, which these poor Irishmen are, they think, so fond of. A good deal of what passes for national sentiment, is in reality dislike to England and religious animosity.

It was much more interesting to see the long string of Benevolent, Friendly and Provident Societies, with bands, numbering many thousands, all decently clad, and marching in order with banners, insignia, badges and ribands, and the Irish flag flying alongside the “stars and stripes.” I cannot congratulate them on the taste or good effect of their accessories—on their symbolical standards, and ridiculous old harpers, carried on stages in “bardic costume,” very like artificial white wigs and white cotton dressing-gowns, but the actual good done by these societies, is, I am told, very great, and their charity would cover far greater sins than incorrectness of dress, and a proneness to “piper’s playing on the national bagpipes.” The various societies mustered upwards of 10,000 men, some of them uniformed and armed, others dressed in quaint garments, and all as noisy as music and talking could make them. The Americans appeared to regard the whole thing very much as an ancient Roman might have looked on the Saturnalia; but Paddy was in the ascendant, and could not be openly trifled with.

The crowds remained in the streets long after the procession had passed, and I saw various pickpockets captured by the big policemen, and conveyed to appropriate receptacles. “Was there any man of eminence in that procession,” I asked. “No; a few small local politicians, some wealthy store-keepers, and beer-saloon owners perhaps; but the mass were of the small bourgeoisie. Such a man as Mr. O’Conor, who may be considered at the head of the New York bar for instance, would not take part in it.”

In the evening I went, according to invitation, to the Astor House—a large hotel, with a front like a railway terminus, in the Americo-Classical style, with great Doric columns and portico, and found, to my surprise, that the friendly party was to be a great public dinner. The halls were filled with the company, few or none in evening dress; and in a few minutes I was presented to at least twenty-four gentlemen, whose names I did not even hear. The use of badges, medals, and ribands, might, at first, lead a stranger to believe he was in very distinguished military society; but he would soon learn that these insignia were the decorations of benevolent or convivial associations. There is a latent taste for these things in spite of pure republicanism. At the dinner there were Americans of Dutch and English descent, some “Yankees,” one or two Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen. The chairman, Judge Daly, was indeed a true son of the soil, and his speeches were full of good humour, fluency, and wit; but his greatest effect was produced by the exhibition of a tuft of shamrocks in a flower pot, which had been sent from Ireland for the occasion. This is done annually, but, like the miracle of St. Januarius, it never loses its effect, and always touches the heart.

I confess it was to some extent curiosity to observe the sentiment of the meeting, and a desire to see how Irishmen were affected by the change in their climate, which led me to the room. I came away regretting deeply that so many natives of the British Isles should be animated with a hostile feeling towards England, and that no statesman has yet arisen who can devise a panacea for the evils of these passionate and unmeaning differences between races and religions. Their strong antipathy is not diminished by the impossibility of gratifying it. They live in hope, and certainly the existence of these feelings is not only troublesome to American statesmen, but mischievous to the Irish themselves, inasmuch as they are rendered with unusual readiness the victims of agitators or political intriguers. The Irish element, as it is called, is much regarded in voting times, by suffraging bishops and others; at other times, it is left to its work and its toil—Mr. Seward and Bishop Hughes are supposed to be its present masters. Undoubtedly the mass of those I saw to-day were better clad than they would have been if they remained at home. As I said in the speech which I was forced to make much against my will, by the gentle violence of my companions, never had I seen so many good hats and coats in an assemblage of Irishmen in any other part of the world.

March 19. The morning newspapers contain reports of last night’s speeches which are amusing in one respect, at all events, as affording specimens of the different versions which may be given of the same matter. A “citizen” who was kind enough to come in to shave me, paid me some easy compliments, in the manner of the “Barber of Seville,” on what he termed the “oration” of the night before, and then proceeded to give his notions of the merits and defects of the American Constitution. “He did not care much about the Franchise—it was given to too many he thought. A man must be five years resident in New York before he is admitted to the privileges of voting. When an emigrant arrived, a paper was delivered to him to certify the fact, which he produced after a lapse of five years, when he might be registered as a voter; if he omitted the process of registration, he could however vote if identified by two householders, and a low lot,” observed the barber, “they are—Irish and such like. I don’t want any of their votes.”

In the afternoon a number of gentlemen called, and made the kindest offers of service; letters of introduction to all parts of the States; facilities of every description—all tendered with frankness.

I was astonished to find little sympathy and no respect for the newly installed Government. They were regarded as obscure or undistinguished men. I alluded to the circumstance that one of the journals continued to speak of “The President” in the most contemptuous manner, and to designate him as the great “Rail-Splitter.” “Oh yes,” said the gentleman with whom I was conversing, “that must strike you as a strange way of mentioning the Chief Magistrate of our great Republic, but the fact is, no one minds what the man writes of any one, his game is to abuse every respectable man in the country in order to take his revenge on them for his social exclusion, and at the same time to please the ignorant masses who delight in vituperation and scandal.”

In the evening, dining again with my friend the banker, I had a favourable opportunity of hearing more of the special pleading which is brought to bear on the solution of the gravest political questions. It would seem as if a council of physicians were wrangling with each other over abstract dogmas respecting life and health, whilst their patient was struggling in the agonies of death before them! In the comfortable and well-appointed house wherein I met several men of position, acquirements, and natural sagacity, there was not the smallest evidence of uneasiness on account of circumstances which, to the eye of a stranger, betokened an awful crisis, if not the impending dissolution of society itself. Stranger still, the acts which are bringing about such a calamity are not regarded with disfavour, or, at least, are not considered unjustifiable.

Among the guests were the Hon. Horatio Seymour, a former Governor of the State of New York; Mr. Tylden, an acute lawyer; and Mr. Bancroft; the result left on my mind by their conversation and arguments was that, according to the Constitution, the Government could not employ force to prevent secession, or to compel States which had seceded by the will of the people to acknowledge the Federal power. In fact, according to them, the Federal Government was the mere machine put forward by a Society of Sovereign States, as a common instrument for certain ministerial acts, more particularly those which affected the external relations of the Confederation. I do not think that any of the guests sought to turn the channel of talk upon politics, but the occasion offered itself to Mr. Horatio Seymour to give me his views of the Constitution of the United States, and by degrees the theme spread over the table. I had bought the “Constitution” for three cents in Broadway in the forenoon, and had read it carefully, but I could not find that it was self-expounding; it referred itself to the Supreme Court, but what was to support the Supreme Court in a contest with armed power, either of Government or people? There was not a man who maintained the Government had any power to coerce the people of a State, or to force a State to remain in the Union, or under the action of the Federal Government; in other words, the symbol of power at Washington is not at all analogous to that which represents an established Government in other countries. Quid prosunt leges sine armis? Although they admitted the Southern leaders had meditated “the treason against the Union” years ago, they could not bring themselves to allow their old opponents, the Republicans now in power, to dispose of the armed force of the Union against their brother democrats in the Southern States.

Mr. Seymour is a man of compromise, but his views go farther than those which were entertained by his party ten years ago. Although secession would produce revolution, it was, nevertheless, “a right,” founded on abstract principles, which could scarcely be abrogated consistently with due regard to the original compact. One of the company made a remark which was true enough, I dare say. We were talking of the difficulty of relieving Fort Sumter—an infallible topic just now. “If the British or any foreign power were threatening the fort,” said he, “our Government would find means of relieving it fast enough.” In fact, the Federal Government is groping in the dark; and whilst its friends are telling it to advance boldly, there are myriad voices shrieking out in its ears, “If you put out a foot you are lost.” There is neither army nor navy available, and the ministers have no machinery of rewards, and means of intrigue, or modes of gaining adherents known to European administrations. The democrats behold with silent satisfaction the troubles into which the republican triumph has plunged the country, and are not at all disposed to extricate them. The most notable way of impeding their efforts is to knock them down with the “Constitution” every time they rise to the surface and begin to swim out.

New York society, however, is easy in its mind just now, and the upper world of millionaire merchants, bankers, contractors, and great traders are glad that the vulgar republicans are suffering for their success. Not a man there but resented the influence given by universal suffrage to the mob of the city, and complained of the intolerable effects of their ascendancy—of the corruption of the municipal bodies, the venality of electors and elected, and the abuse, waste, and profligate outlay of the public funds. Of these there were many illustrations given to me, garnished with historiettes of some of the civic dignitaries, and of their coadjutors in the press; but it did not require proof that universal suffrage in a city of which perhaps three-fourths of the voters were born abroad or of foreign parents, and of whom many were the scum swept off the seethings of European populations, must work most injuriously on property and capital. I confess it is to be much wondered at that the consequences are not more evil; but no doubt the time is coming when the mischief can no longer be borne, and a social reform and revolution must be inevitable.

Within only a very few hundreds of yards from the house and picture-gallery of Mons. B——, the representative of European millions, are the hovels and lodgings of his equals in political power. This evening I visited the house of Mons. B——, where his wife had a reception, to which nearly the whole of the party went. When a man looks at a suit of armour made to order by the first blacksmith in Europe, he observes that the finish of the joints and hinges is much higher than in the old iron clothes of the former time. Possibly the metal is better, and the chasings and garniture as good as the work of Milan, but the observer is not for a moment led to imagine that the fabric has stood proof of blows, or that it smacks of ancient watch-fire. If he were asked why it is so, he could not tell; any more perhaps than he could define exactly the difference between the lustrous, highly-jewelled, well-greaved Achaian of New York and the very less effective and showy creature who will in every society over the world pass muster as a gentleman. Here was an elegant house—I use the word in its real meaning—with pretty statues, rich carpets, handsome furniture, and a gallery of charming Meissoniers and genre pieces; the saloons admirably lighted—a fair fine large suite, filled with the prettiest women in the most delightful toilettes, with a proper fringe of young men, orderly, neat, and well turned-out, fretting against the usual advanced posts of turbaned and jewelled dowagers, and provided with every accessory to make the whole good society; for there was wit, sense, intelligence, vivacity; and yet there was something wanting—not in host or hostess, or company, or house—where was it?—which was conspicuous by its absence. Mr. Bancroft was kind enough to introduce me to the most lovely faces and figures, and so far enabled me to judge that nothing could be more beautiful, easy, or natural than the womanhood or girlhood of New York. It is prettiness rather than fineness; regular, intelligent, wax-like faces, graceful little figures; none of the grandiose Roman type which Von Raumer recognised in London, as in the Holy City, a quarter of a century ago. Natheless, the young men of New York ought to be thankful and grateful, and try to be worthy of it. Late in the evening I saw these same young men, Novi Eboracenses, at their club, dicing for drinks and oathing for nothing, and all very friendly and hospitable.

The club-house is remarkable as the mansion of a happy man who invented or patented a waterproof hat-lining, whereby he built a sort of Sallustian villa, with a central court-yard, à l’Alhambra, with fountains and flowers, now passed away to the New York Club. Here was Pratt’s, or the defunct Fielding, or the old C. C. C.’s in disregard of time and regard of drinks—and nothing more.

CHAPTER IV. Streets and shops in New York

Streets and shops in New York—Literature—A funeral—Dinner at Mr. H——’s—Dinner at Mr. Bancroft’s—Political and social features—Literary breakfast; Heenan and Sayers.

March 20th.—The papers are still full of Sumter and Pickens. The reports that they are or are not to be relieved are stated and contradicted in each paper without any regard to individual consistency. The “Tribune” has an article on my speech at the St. Patrick’s dinner, to which it is pleased to assign reasons and motives which the speaker, at all events, never had in making it.

Received several begging letters, some of them apparently with only too much of the stamp of reality about their tales of disappointment, distress, and suffering. In the afternoon went down Broadway, which was crowded, notwithstanding the piles of blackened snow by the kerbstones, and the sloughs of mud, and half frozen pools at the crossings. Visited several large stores or shops—some rival the best establishments in Paris or London in richness and in value, and far exceed them in size and splendour of exterior. Some on Broadway, built of marble, or of fine cut stone, cost from 6000l. to 8000l. a year in mere rent. Here, from the base to the fourth or fifth story, are piled collections of all the world can produce, often in excess of all possible requirements of the country; indeed I was told that the United States have always imported more goods than they could pay for. Jewellers’ shops are not numerous, but there are two in Broadway which have splendid collections of jewels, and of workmanship in gold and silver, displayed to the greatest advantage in fine apartments decorated with black marble, statuary, and plate glass.

New York has certainly all the air of a “nouveau riche.” There is about it an utter absence of any appearance of a grandfather—one does not see even such evidences of eccentric taste as are afforded in Paris and London, by the existence of shops where the old families of a country cast off their “exuviæ” which are sought by the new, that they may persuade the world they are old; there is no curiosity shop, not to speak of a Wardour Street, and such efforts as are made to supply the deficiency reveal an enormous amount of ignorance or of bad taste. The new arts, however, flourish; the plague of photography has spread through all the corners of the city, and the shop-windows glare with flagrant displays of the most tawdry art. In some of the large book-sellers’ shops—Appleton’s for example—are striking proofs of the activity of the American press, if not of the vigour and originality of the American intellect. I passed down long rows of shelves laden with the works of European authors, for the most part, oh shame! stolen and translated into American type without the smallest compunction or scruple, and without the least intention of ever yielding the most pitiful deodand to the authors. Mr. Appleton sells no less than one million and a half of Webster’s spelling books a year; his tables are covered with a flood of pamphlets, some for, others against coercion; some for, others opposed to slavery,—but when I asked for a single solid, substantial work on the present difficulty, I was told there was not one published worth a cent. With such men as Audubon and Wilson in natural history, Prescott and Motley in history, Washington Irving and Cooper in fiction, Longfellow and Edgar Poe in poetry, even Bryant and the respectabilities in rhyme, and Emerson as essayist, there is no reason why New York should be a paltry imitation of Leipsig, without the good faith of Tauchnitz.

I dined with a litterateur well known in England to many people a year or two ago—sprightly, loquacious, and well-informed, if neither witty nor profound—now a Southern man with Southern proclivities, as Americans say; once a Southern man with such strong anti-slavery convictions, that his expression of them in an English quarterly had secured him the hostility of his own people—one of the emanations of American literary life for which their own country finds no fitting receiver. As the best proof of his sincerity, he has just now abandoned his connection with one of the New York papers on the republican side, because he believed that the course of the journal was dictated by anti-Southern fanaticism. He is, in fact, persuaded that there will be a civil war, and that the South will have much of the right on its side in the contest. At his rooms were Mons. B——, Dr. Gwin, a Californian ex-senator, Mr. Barlow, and several of the leading men of a certain clique in New York. The Americans complain, or assert, that we do not understand them, and I confess the reproach, or statement, was felt to be well founded by myself at all events, when I heard it declared and admitted that “if Mons. Belmont had not gone to the Charleston Convention, the present crisis would never have occurred.”

March 22nd.—A snow-storm worthy of Moscow or Riga flew through New York all day, depositing more food for the mud. I paid a visit to Mr. Horace Greeley, and had a long conversation with him. He expressed great pleasure at the intelligence that I was going to visit the Southern States. “Be sure you examine the slave-pens. They will be afraid to refuse you, and you can tell the truth.” As the capital and the South form the chief attractions at present, I am preparing to escape from “the divine calm” and snows of New York. I was recommended to visit many places before I left New York, principally hospitals and prisons. Sing-Sing, the state penitentiary, is “claimed,” as the Americans say, to be the first “institution” of its kind in the world. Time presses, however, and Sing-Sing is a long way off. I am told a system of torture prevails there for hardened or obdurate offenders—torture by dropping cold water on them, torture by thumb-screws, and the like—rather opposed to the views of prison philanthropists in modern days.

March 23rd.—It is announced positively that the authorities in Pensacola and Charleston have refused to allow any further supplies to be sent to Fort Pickens, the United States fleet in the Gulf, and to Fort Sumter. Everywhere the Southern leaders are forcing on a solution with decision and energy, whilst the Government appears to be helplessly drifting with the current of events, having neither bow nor stern, neither keel nor deck, neither rudder, compass, sails, or steam. Mr. Seward has declined to receive or hold any intercourse with the three gentlemen called Southern Commissioners, who repaired to Washington accredited by the Government and Congress of the Seceding States now sitting at Montgomery, so that there is no channel of mediation or means of adjustment left open. I hear, indeed, that Government is secretly preparing what force it can to strengthen the garrison at Pickens, and to reinforce Sumter at any hazard; but that its want of men, ships, and money compels it to temporise, lest the Southern authorities should forestall their designs by a vigorous attack on the enfeebled forts.

There is, in reality, very little done by New York to support or encourage the Government in any decided policy, and the journals are more engaged now in abusing each other, and in small party aggressive warfare, than in the performance of the duties of a patriotic press, whose mission at such a time is beyond all question the resignation of little differences for the sake of the whole country, and an entire devotion to its safety, honour, and integrity. But the New York people must have their intellectual drams every morning, and it matters little what the course of Government may be, so long as the aristocratic democrat can be amused by ridicule of the Great Rail Splitter, or a vivid portraiture of Mr. Horace Greeley’s old coat, hat, breeches, and umbrella. The coarsest personalities are read with gusto, and attacks of a kind which would not have been admitted into the “Age” or “Satirist” in their worst days, form the staple leading articles of one or two of the most largely circulated journals in the city. “Slang” in its worst Americanised form is freely used in sensation headings and leaders, and a class of advertisements which are not allowed to appear in respectable English papers, have possession of columns of the principal newspapers, few, indeed, excluding them. It is strange, too, to see in journals which profess to represent the civilisation and intelligence of the most enlightened and highly educated people on the face of the earth, advertisements of sorcerers, wizards, and fortune-tellers by the score—“wonderful clairvoyants,” “the seventh child of a seventh child,” “mesmeristic necromancers,” and the like, who can tell your thoughts as soon as you enter the room, can secure the affections you prize, give lucky numbers in lotteries, and make everybody’s fortunes but their own. Then there are the most impudent quack programmes—very doubtful “personals” addressed to “the young lady with black hair and blue eyes, who got out of the omnibus at the corner of 7th Street”—appeals by “a lady about to be confined” to any “respectable person who is desirous of adopting a child:” all rather curious reading for a stranger, or for a family.

It is not to be expected, of course, that New York is a very pure city, for more than London or Paris it is the sewer of nations. It is a city of luxury also—French and Italian cooks and milliners, German and Italian musicians, high prices, extravagant tastes and dressing, money readily made, a life in hotels, bar-rooms, heavy gambling, sporting, and prize-fighting flourish here, and combine to lower the standard of the bourgeoisie at all events. Where wealth is the sole aristocracy, there is great danger of mistaking excess and profusion for elegance and good taste. To-day as I was going down Broadway, some dozen or more of the most over-dressed men I ever saw were pointed out to me as “sports;” that is, men who lived by gambling-houses and betting on races; and the class is so numerous that it has its own influence, particularly at elections, when the power of a hard-hitting prizefighter with a following makes itself unmistakeably felt. Young America essays to look like martial France in mufti, but the hat and the coat suited to the Colonel of Carabiniers en retraite do not at all become the thin, tall, rather long-faced gentlemen one sees lounging about Broadway. It is true, indeed, the type, though not French, is not English. The characteristics of the American are straight hair, keen, bright, penetrating eyes, and want of colour in the cheeks.

March 25th.—I had an invitation to meet several members of the New York press association at breakfast. Among the company were—Mr. Bayard Taylor, with whose extensive notes of travel his countrymen are familiar—a kind of enlarged Inglis, full of the genial spirit which makes travelling in company so agreeable, but he has come back as travellers generally do, satisfied there is no country like his own—Prince Leeboo loved his own isle the best after all—Mr. Raymond, of the “New York Times” (formerly Lieutenant-Governor of the State); Mr. Olmsted, the indefatigable, able, and earnest writer, whom to describe simply as an Abolitionist would be to confound with ignorant if zealous, unphilosophical, and impracticable men; Mr. Dana, of the “Tribune;” Mr. Hurlbert, of the “Times;” the Editor of the “Courier des Etats Unis;” Mr. Young, of the “Albion,” which is the only English journal published in the States; and others. There was a good deal of pleasant conversation, though every one differed with his neighbour, as a matter of course, as soon as he touched on politics. There was talk de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, such as Heenan and Sayers, Secession and Sumter, the press, politicians, New York life, and so on. The first topic occupied a larger place than it was entitled to, because in all likelihood the sporting editor of one of the papers who was present expressed, perhaps, some justifiable feeling in reference to the refusal of the belt to the American. All admitted the courage and great endurance of his antagonist, but seemed convinced that Heenan, if not the better man, was at least the victor in that particular contest. It would be strange to see the great tendency of Americans to institute comparisons with ancient and recognised standards, if it were not that they are adopting the natural mode of judging of their own capabilities. The nation is like a growing lad who is constantly testing his powers in competition with his elders. He is in his youth and nonage, and he is calling down the lanes and alleys to all comers to look at his muscle, to run against or to fight him. It is a sign of youth, not a proof of weakness, though it does offend the old hands and vex the veterans.

Then one finds that Great Britain is often treated very much as an old Peninsula man may be by a set of young soldiers at a club. He is no doubt a very gallant fellow, and has done very fine things in his day, and he is listened to with respectful endurance, but there is a secret belief that he will never do anything very great again.

One of the gentlemen present said that England might dispute the right of the United States Government to blockade the ports of her own States, to which she was entitled to access under treaty, and might urge that such a blockade was not justifiable; but then, it was argued, that the President could open and shut ports as he pleased; and that he might close the Southern ports by a proclamation in the nature of an Order of Council. It was taken for granted that Great Britain would only act on sordid motives, but that the well known affection of France for the United States is to check the selfishness of her rival, and prevent a speedy recognition.

CHAPTER V. Off to the railway station

Off to the railway station—Railway carriages—Philadelphia—Washington—Willard’s Hotel—Mr. Seward—North and South—The “State Department” at Washington—President Lincoln—Dinner at Mr. Seward’s.

After our pleasant breakfast came that necessity for activity which makes such meals disguised as mere light morning repasts take their revenge. I had to pack up, and I am bound to say the moral aid afforded me by the waiter, who stood with a sympathising expression of face, and looked on as I wrestled with boots, books, and great coats, was of a most comprehensive character. At last I conquered, and at six o’clock P.M. I left the Clarendon, and was conveyed over the roughest and most execrable pavements through several miles of unsympathetic, gloomy, dirty streets, and crowded thoroughfares, over jaw-wrenching street-railway tracks, to a large wooden shed covered with inscriptions respecting routes and destinations on the bank of the river, which as far as the eye could see, was bordered by similar establishments, where my baggage was deposited in the mud. There were no porters, none of the recognised and established aides to locomotion to which we are accustomed in Europe, but a number of amateurs divided the spoil, and carried it into the offices, whilst I was directed to struggle for my ticket in another little wooden box, from which I presently received the necessary document, full of the dreadful warnings and conditions, which railway companies inflict on the public in all free countries.

The whole of my luggage, except a large bag, was taken charge of by a man at the New York side of the ferry, who “checked it through” to the capital—giving me a slip of brass with a number corresponding with a brass ticket for each piece. When the boat arrived at the stage at the other side of the Hudson, in my innocence I called for a porter to take my bag. The passengers were moving out of the capacious ferry-boat in a steady stream, and the steam throat and bell of the engine were going whilst I was looking for my porter; but at last a gentleman passing, said, “I guess y’ill remain here a considerable time before y’ill get any one to come for that bag of yours,” and taking the hint, I just got off in time to stumble into a long box on wheels, with a double row of most uncomfortable seats, and a passage down the middle, where I found a place beside Mr. Sanford, the newly-appointed United States Minister to Belgium, who was kind enough to take me under his charge to Washington.

The night was closing in very fast as the train started, but such glimpses as I had of the continuous line of pretty-looking villages of wooden houses, two stories high, painted white, each with its Corinthian portico, gave a most favourable impression of the comfort and prosperity of the people. The rail passed through the main street of most of these hamlets and villages, and the bell of the engine was tolled to warn the inhabitants, who drew up on the side walks, and let us go by. Soon the white houses faded away into faint blurred marks on the black ground of the landscape, or twinkled with starlike lights, and there was nothing more to see. The passengers were crowded as close as they could pack, and as there was an immense iron stove in the centre of the car, the heat and stuffiness became most trying, although I had been undergoing the ordeal of the stove-heated New York houses for nearly a week. Once a minute, at least, the door at either end of the carriage was opened, and then closed with a sharp crashing noise, that jarred the nerves, and effectually prevented sleep. It generally was done by a man whose sole object seemed to be to walk up the centre of the carriage in order to go out of the opposite door—occasionally it was the work of the newspaper boy, with a sheaf of journals and trashy illustrated papers under his arm. Now and then it was the conductor; but the periodical visitor was a young gentleman with a chain and rings, who bore a tray before him, and solicited orders for “gum drops,” and “lemon drops,” which, with tobacco, apples, and cakes, were consumed in great quantities by the passengers.

At 10 o’clock, P.M., we crossed the river by a ferry-boat to Philadelphia, and drove through the streets, stopping for supper a few moments at the La Pierre Hotel. To judge from the vast extent of the streets, of small, low, yet snug-looking houses, through which we passed, Philadelphia must contain in comfort the largest number of small householders of any city in the world. At the other terminus of the rail, to which we drove in a carriage, we procured for a small sum, a dollar I think, berths in a sleeping car, an American institution of considerable merit. Unfortunately a party of prize-fighters had a mind to make themselves comfortable, and the result was anything but conducive to sleep. They had plenty of whiskey, and were full of song and fight, nor was it possible to escape their urgent solicitations “to take a drink,” by feigning the soundest sleep. One of these, a big man, with a broken nose, a mellow eye, and a very large display of rings, jewels, chains and pins, was in very high spirits, and informed us he was “Going to Washington to get a foreign mission from Bill Seward. He wouldn’t take Paris, as he didn’t care much about French or Frenchmen; but he’d just like to show John Bull how to do it; or he’d take Japan if they were very pressing.” Another told us he was “Going to the bosom of Uncle Abe” (meaning the President)—“that he knew him well in Kentucky years ago, and a high-toned gentleman he was.” Any attempts to persuade them to retire to rest made by the conductors were treated with sovereign contempt, but at last whiskey asserted its supremacy, and having established the point that they “would not sleep unless they —— pleased,” they slept and snored.

At six, A.M., we were roused up by the arrival of the train at Washington, having crossed great rivers and traversed cities without knowing it during the night. I looked out and saw a vast mass of white marble towering above us on the left, stretching out in colonnaded porticoes, and long flanks of windowed masonry, and surmounted by an unfinished cupola, from which scaffold and cranes raised their black arms. This was the Capitol. To the right was a cleared space of mud, sand, and fields studded with wooden sheds and huts, beyond which, again, could be seen rudimentary streets of small red brick houses, and some church-spires above them.

Emerging from the station, we found a vociferous crowd of blacks, who were the hackney-coachmen of the place; but Mr. Sanford had his carriage in waiting, and drove me straight to Willard’s Hotel where he consigned me to the landlord at the bar. Our route lay through Pennsylvania avenue—a street of much breadth and length, lined with ælanthus trees, each in a whitewashed wooden sentry-box, and by most irregularly-built houses in all kinds of material, from deal plank to marble—of all heights, and every sort of trade. Few shop-windows were open, and the principal population consisted of blacks, who were moving about on domestic affairs. At one end of the long vista there is the Capitol; and at the other, the Treasury buildings—a fine block in marble, with the usual American classical colonnades.

Close to these rises the great pile of Willard’s Hotel, now occupied by applicants for office, and by the members of the newly-assembled Congress. It is a quadrangular mass of rooms, six stories high, and some hundred yards square; and it probably contains at this moment more scheming, plotting, planning heads, more aching and joyful hearts, that any building of the same size ever held in the world. I was ushered into a bed-room which had just been vacated by some candidate—whether he succeeded or not I cannot tell, but if his testimonials spoke truth, he ought to have been selected at once for the highest office. The room was littered with printed copies of letters testifying that J. Smith, of Hartford, Conn., was about the ablest, honestest, cleverest, and best man the writers ever knew. Up and down the long passages doors were opening and shutting for men with papers bulging out of their pockets, who hurried as if for their life in and out, and the building almost shook with the tread of the candidature, which did not always in its present aspect justify the correctness of the original appellation.

It was a remarkable sight, and difficult to understand unless seen. From California, Texas, from the Indian Reserves, and the Mormon territory, from Nebraska, as from the remotest borders of Minnesota, from every portion of the vast territories of the Union, except from the Seceded States, the triumphant republicans had winged their way to the prey.

There were crowds in the hall through which one could scarce make his way—the writing-room was crowded, and the rustle of pens rose to a little breeze—the smoking-room, the bar, the barbers, the reception-room, the ladies’ drawing-room—all were crowded. At present not less than 2,500 people dine in the public room every day. On the kitchen floor there is a vast apartment, a hall without carpets or any furniture but plain chairs and tables, which are ranged in close rows, at which flocks of people are feeding, or discoursing, or from which they are flying away. The servants never cease shoving the chairs to and fro with a harsh screeching noise over the floor, so that one can scarce hear his neighbour speak. If he did, he would probably hear as I did, at this very hotel, a man order breakfast, “Black tea and toast, scrambled eggs, fresh spring shad, wild pigeon, pigs’ feet, two robins on toast, oysters,” and a quantity of breads and cakes of various denominations. The waste consequent on such orders is enormous—and the ability required to conduct these enormous establishments successfully is expressed by the common phrase in the States, “Brown is a clever man, but he can’t manage an hotel.” The tumult, the miscellaneous nature of the company—my friends the prize-fighters are already in possession of the doorway—the heated, muggy rooms, not to speak of the great abominableness of the passages and halls, despite a most liberal provision of spittoons, conduce to render these institutions by no means agreeable to a European. Late in the day I succeeded in obtaining a sitting-room with a small bed-room attached, which made me somewhat more independent and comfortable—but you must pay highly for any departure from the routine life of the natives. Ladies enjoy a handsome drawing-room, with piano, sofas, and easy chairs, all to themselves.

I dined at Mr. Sanford’s, where I was introduced to Mr. Seward, Secretary of State; Mr. Truman Smith, an ex-senator, much respected among the Republican party; Mr. Anthony, a senator of the United States, a journalist, a very intelligent-looking man, with an Israelitish cast of face; Colonel Foster of the Illinois railway, of reputation in the States as a geologist; and one or two more gentlemen. Mr. Seward is a slight, middle-sized man, of feeble build, with the stoop contracted from sedentary habits and application to the desk, and has a peculiar attitude when seated, which immediately attracts attention. A well-formed and large head is placed on a long, slender neck, and projects over the chest in an argumentative kind of way, as if the keen eyes were seeking for an adversary; the mouth is remarkably flexible, large but well-formed, the nose prominent and aquiline, the eyes secret, but penetrating, and lively with humour of some kind twinkling about them; the brow bold and broad, but not remarkably elevated; the white hair silvery and fine—a subtle, quick man, rejoicing in power, given to perorate and to oracular utterances, fond of badinage, bursting with the importance of state mysteries, and with the dignity of directing the foreign policy of the greatest country—as all Americans think—in the world. After dinner he told some stories of the pressure on the President for place, which very much amused the guests who knew the men, and talked freely and pleasantly of many things—stating, however, few facts positively. In reference to an assertion in a New York paper, that orders had been given to evacuate Sumter, “That,” he said, “is a plain lie—no such orders have been given. We will give up nothing we have—abandon nothing that has been entrusted to us. If people would only read these statements by the light of the President’s inaugural, they would not be deceived.” He wanted no extra session of Congress. “History tells us that kings who call extra parliaments lose their heads,” and he informed the company he had impressed the President with his historical parallels.

All through this conversation his tone was that of a man very sanguine, and with a supreme contempt for those who thought there was anything serious in secession. “Why,” said he, “I myself, my brothers, and sisters, have been all secessionists—we seceded from home when we were young, but we all went back to it sooner or later. These States will all come back in the same way,” I doubt if he was ever in the South; but he affirmed that the state of living and of society there was something like that in the State of New York sixty or seventy years ago. In the North all was life, enterprise, industry, mechanical skill. In the South there was dependence on black labour, and an idle extravagance which was mistaken for elegant luxury—tumble-down old hackney-coaches, such as had not been seen north of the Potomac for half a century, harness never cleaned, ungroomed horses, worked at the mill one day and sent to town the next, badly furnished houses, bad cookery, imperfect education. No parallel could be drawn between them and the Northern States at all. “You are all very angry,” he said, “about the Morrill tariff. You must, however, let us be best judges of our own affairs. If we judge rightly, you have no right to complain; if we judge wrongly, we shall soon be taught by the results, and shall correct our error. It is evident that if the Morrill tariff fulfils expectations, and raises a revenue, British manufacturers suffer nothing, and we suffer nothing, for the revenue is raised here, and trade is not injured. If the tariff fails to create a revenue, we shall be driven to modify or repeal it.”

The company addressed him as “Governor,” which led to Mr. Seward’s mentioning that when he was in England he was induced to put his name down with that prefix in a hotel book, and caused a discussion among the waiters as to whether he was the “Governor” of a prison or of a public company. I hope the great people of England treated Mr. Seward with the attention due to his position, as he would assuredly feel and resent very much any slight on the part of those in high places. From what he said, however, I infer that he was satisfied with the reception he had met in London. Like most Americans who can afford it, he has been up the Nile. The weird old stream has great fascinations for the people of the Mississippi—as far at least as the first cataract.

March 27th.—This morning, after breakfast, Mr. Sanford called, according to promise, and took me to the State department. It is a very humble—in fact, dingy—mansion, two stories high, and situated at the end of the magnificent line of colonnade in white marble, called the Treasury, which is hereafter to do duty as the head-quarters of nearly all the public departments. People familiar with Downing Street, however, cannot object to the dinginess of the bureaux in which the foreign and state affairs of the American Republic are transacted. A flight of steps leads to the hall-door, on which an announcement in writing is affixed, to indicate the days of reception for the various classes of persons who have business with the Secretary of State; in the hall, on the right and left, are small rooms, with the names of the different officers on the doors—most of them persons of importance; half-way in the hall a flight of stairs conducts us to a similar corridor, rather dark, with doors on each side opening into the bureaux of the chief clerks. All the appointments were very quiet, and one would see much more bustle in the passages of a Poor Law Board or a parish vestry.

In a moderately-sized, but very comfortable, apartment, surrounded with book-shelves, and ornamented with a few engravings, we found the Secretary of State seated at his table, and enjoying a cigar; he received me with great courtesy and kindness, and after a time said he would take occasion to present me to the President, who was to give audience that day to the minister of the new kingdom of Italy, who had hitherto only represented the kingdom of Sardinia.

I have already described Mr. Seward’s personal appearance; his son, to whom he introduced me, is the Assistant-Secretary of State, and is editor or proprietor of a journal in the State of New York, which has a reputation for ability and fairness. Mr. Frederick Seward is a slight delicate-looking man, with a high forehead, thoughtful brow, dark eyes, and amiable expression; his manner is very placid and modest, and, if not reserved, he is by no means loquacious. As we were speaking, a carriage drove up to the door, and Mr. Seward exclaimed to his father, with something like dismay in his voice, “Here comes the Chevalier in full uniform!”—and in a few seconds in effect the Chevalier Bertinatti made his appearance, in cocked hat, white gloves, diplomatic suit of blue and silver lace, sword, sash, and riband of the cross of Savoy. I thought there was a quiet smile on Mr. Seward’s face as he saw his brilliant companion, who contrasted so strongly with the more than republican simplicity of his own attire. “Fred, do you take Mr. Russell round to the President’s, whilst I go with the Chevalier. We will meet at the White House.” We accordingly set out through a private door leading to the grounds, and within a few seconds entered the hall of the moderate mansion, White House, which has very much the air of a portion of a bank or public office, being provided with glass doors and plain heavy chairs and forms. The domestic who was in attendance was dressed like any ordinary citizen, and seemed perfectly indifferent to the high position of the great personage with whom he conversed, when Mr. Seward asked him, “Where is the President?” Passing through one of the doors on the left, we entered a handsome spacious room, richly and rather gorgeously furnished, and rejoicing in a kind of “demi-jour,” which gave increased effect to the gilt chairs and ormolu ornaments. Mr. Seward and the Chevalier stood in the centre of the room, whilst his son and I remained a little on one side: “For,” said Mr. Seward, “you are not to be supposed to be here.”

Soon afterwards there entered, with a shambling, loose, irregular, almost unsteady gait, a tall, lank, lean man, considerably over six feet in height, with stooping shoulders, long pendulous arms, terminating in hands of extraordinary dimensions, which, however, were far exceeded in proportion by his feet. He was dressed in an ill-fitting, wrinkled suit of black, which put one in mind of an undertaker’s uniform at a funeral; round his neck a rope of black silk was knotted in a large bulb, with flying ends projecting beyond the collar of his coat; his turned-down shirt-collar disclosed a sinewy muscular yellow neck, and above that, nestling in a great black mass of hair, bristling and compact like a ruff of mourning pins, rose the strange quaint face and head, covered with its thatch of wild republican hair, of President Lincoln. The impression produced by the size of his extremities, and by his flapping and wide projecting ears, may be removed by the appearance of kindliness, sagacity, and the awkward bonhommie of his face; the mouth is absolutely prodigious; the lips, straggling and extending almost from one line of black beard to the other, are only kept in order by two deep furrows from the nostril to the chin; the nose itself—a prominent organ—stands out from the face, with an inquiring, anxious air, as though it were sniffing for some good thing in the wind; the eyes dark, full, and deeply set, are penetrating, but full of an expression which almost amounts to tenderness; and above them projects the shaggy brow, running into the small hard frontal space, the development of which can scarcely be estimated accurately, owing to the irregular flocks of thick hair carelessly brushed across it. One would say that, although the mouth was made to enjoy a joke, it could also utter the severest sentence which the head could dictate, but that Mr. Lincoln would be ever more willing to temper justice with mercy, and to enjoy what he considers the amenities of life, than to take a harsh view of men’s nature and of the world, and to estimate things in an ascetic or puritan spirit. A person who met Mr. Lincoln in the street would not take him to be what—according to the usages of European society—is called a “gentleman;” and, indeed, since I came to the United States, I have heard more disparaging allusions made by Americans to him on that account than I could have expected among simple republicans, where all should be equals; but, at the same time, it would not be possible for the most indifferent observer to pass him in the street without notice.

As he advanced through the room, he evidently controlled a desire to shake hands all round with everybody, and smiled good-humouredly till he was suddenly brought up by the staid deportment of Mr. Seward, and by the profound diplomatic bows of the Chevalier Bertinatti. Then, indeed, he suddenly jerked himself back, and stood in front of the two ministers, with his body slightly drooped forward, and his hands behind his back, his knees touching, and his feet apart. Mr. Seward formally presented the minister, whereupon the President made a prodigiously violent demonstration of his body in a bow which had almost the effect of a smack in its rapidity and abruptness, and, recovering himself, proceeded to give his utmost attention, whilst the Chevalier, with another bow, read from a paper a long address in presenting the royal letter accrediting him as “minister resident;” and when he said that “the king desired to give, under your enlightened administration, all possible strength and extent to those sentiments of frank sympathy which do not cease to be exhibited every moment between the two peoples, and whose origin dates back as far as the exertions which have presided over their common destiny as self-governing and free nations,” the President gave another bow still more violent, as much as to accept the allusion.

The minister forthwith handed his letter to the President, who gave it into the custody of Mr. Seward, and then, dipping his hand into his coat-pocket, Mr. Lincoln drew out a sheet of paper, from which he read his reply, the most remarkable part of which was his doctrine “that the United States were bound by duty not to interfere with the differences of foreign governments and countries.” After some words of compliment, the President shook hands with the minister, who soon afterwards retired. Mr. Seward then took me by the hand and said—“Mr. President, allow me to present to you Mr. Russell, of the London ‘Times.’” On which Mr. Lincoln put out his hand in a very friendly manner, and said, “Mr. Russell, I am very glad to make your acquaintance, and to see you in this country. The London ‘Times’ is one of the greatest powers in the world,—in fact, I don’t know anything which has much more power,—except perhaps the Mississippi. I am glad to know you as its minister.” Conversation ensued for some minutes, which the President enlivened by two or three peculiar little sallies, and I left agreeably impressed with his shrewdness, humour, and natural sagacity.

In the evening I dined with Mr. Seward, in company with his son, Mr. Seward, junior, Mr. Sanford, and a quaint, natural specimen of an American rustic lawyer, who was going to Brussels as Secretary of Legation. His chief, Mr. Sanford, did not appear altogether happy when introduced to his secretary, for he found that he had a very limited knowledge (if any) of French, and of other things which it is generally considered desirable that secretaries should know.

Very naturally, conversation turned on politics. Although no man can foresee the nature of the crisis which is coming, nor the mode in which it is to be encountered, the faith of men like Mr. Sanford and Mr. Seward in the ultimate success of their principles, and in the integrity of the Republic, is very remarkable; and the boldness of their language in reference to foreign powers almost amounts to arrogance and menace, if not to temerity. Mr. Seward asserted that the Ministers of England or of France had no right to make any allusion to the civil war which appeared imminent; and that the Southern Commissioners who had been sent abroad could not be received by the Government of any foreign power, officially or otherwise, even to hand in a document or to make a representation, without incurring the risk of breaking off relations with the Government of the United States. As regards the great object of public curiosity, the relief of Fort Sumter, Mr. Seward maintains a profound silence, beyond the mere declaration, made with a pleasant twinkle of the eye, that “the whole policy of the Government, on that and other questions, is put forth in the President’s inaugural, from which there will be no deviation.” Turning to the inaugural message, however, there is no such very certain indication, as Mr. Seward pretends to discover, of the course to be pursued by Mr. Lincoln and the cabinet. To an outside observer, like myself, it seems as if they were waiting for events to develop themselves, and rested their policy rather upon acts that had occurred, than upon any definite principle designed to control or direct the future.

I should here add that Mr. Seward spoke in high terms of the ability, dexterity, and personal qualities of Mr. Jefferson Davis, and declared his belief that but for him the Secession movement never could have succeeded as far as it has gone, and would, in all probability, indeed, have never taken place at all. After dinner cigars were introduced, and a quiet little rubber of whist followed. The Secretary is given to expatiate at large, and told us many anecdotes of foreign travel;—if I am not doing him injustice, I would say further, that he remembers his visit to England, and the attention he received there, with peculiar satisfaction. He cannot be found fault with because he has formed a most exalted notion of the superior intelligence, virtue, happiness, and prosperity of his own people. He said that it would not be proper for him to hold any communication with the Southern Commissioners then in Washington; which rather surprised me, after what I had heard from their friend, Mr. Banks. On returning to my hotel, I found a card from the President, inviting me to dinner the following day.

CHAPTER VI. A state dinner at the White House

A state dinner at the White House—Mrs. Lincoln—The Cabinet Ministers—A newspaper correspondent—Good Friday at Washington.

March 28th.—I was honoured to-day by visits from a great number of Members of Congress, journalists, and others. Judging from the expressions of most of the Washington people, they would gladly see a Southern Cabinet installed in their city. The cold shoulder is given to Mr. Lincoln, and all kinds of stories and jokes are circulated at his expense. People take particular pleasure in telling how he came towards the seat of his Government disguised in a Scotch cap and cloak, whatever that may mean.

In the evening I repaired to the White House. The servant who took my hat and coat was particularly inquisitive as to my name and condition in life; and when he heard I was not a minister, he seemed inclined to question my right to be there at all: “for,” said he, “there are none but members of the cabinet, and their wives and daughters, dining here to-day.” Eventually he relaxed—instructed me how to place my hat so that it would be exposed to no indignity, and informed me that I was about to participate in a prandial enjoyment of no ordinary character. There was no parade or display, no announcement—no gilded staircase, with its liveried heralds, transmitting and translating one’s name from landing to landing. From the unpretending ante-chamber, a walk across the lofty hall led us to the reception-room, which was the same as that in which the President held his interview yesterday.

Mrs. Lincoln was already seated to receive her guests. She is of the middle age and height, of a plumpness degenerating to the embonpoint natural to her years; her features are plain, her nose and mouth of an ordinary type, and her manners and appearance homely, stiffened, however, by the consciousness that her position requires her to be something more than plain Mrs. Lincoln, the wife of the Illinois lawyer; she is profuse in the introduction of the word “sir” in every sentence, which is now almost an Americanism confined to certain classes, although it was once as common in England. Her dress I shall not attempt to describe, though it was very gorgeous and highly coloured. She handled a fan with much energy, displaying a round, well-proportioned arm, and was adorned with some simple jewellery. Mrs. Lincoln struck me as being desirous of making herself agreeable; and I own I was agreeably disappointed, as the Secessionist ladies at Washington had been amusing themselves by anecdotes which could scarcely have been founded on fact.

Several of the Ministers had already arrived; by-and-by all had come, and the party only waited for General Scott, who seemed to be the representative man in Washington of the monarchical idea, and to absorb some of the feeling which is lavished on the pictures and memory, if not on the monument, of Washington. Whilst we were waiting, Mr. Seward took me round, and introduced me to the Ministers, and to their wives and daughters, among the latter, Miss Chase, who is very attractive, agreeable, and sprightly. Her father, the Finance Minister, struck me as one of the most intelligent and distinguished persons in the whole assemblage; tall, of a good presence, with a well-formed head, fine forehead, and a face indicating energy and power. There is a peculiar droop and motion of the lid of one eye, which seems to have suffered from some injury, that detracts from the agreeable effect of his face; but, on the whole, he is one who would not pass quite unnoticed in a European crowd of the same description.

In the whole assemblage there was not a scrap of lace or a piece of ribbon, except the gorgeous epaulettes of an old naval officer who had served against us in the last war, and who represented some branch of the naval department. Nor were the Ministers by any means remarkable for their personal appearance.

Mr. Cameron, the Secretary for War, a slight man, above the middle height, with grey hair, deep-set keen grey eyes, and a thin mouth, gave me the idea of a person of ability and adroitness. His colleague, the Secretary of the Navy, a small man, with a great long grey beard and spectacles, did not look like one of much originality or ability; but people who know Mr. Welles declare that he is possessed of administrative power, although they admit that he does not know the stem from the stern of a ship, and are in doubt whether he ever saw the sea in his life. Mr. Smith, the Minister of the Interior, is a bright-eyed, smart (I use the word in the English sense) gentleman, with the reputation of being one of the most conservative members of the cabinet. Mr. Blair, the Postmaster-General, is a person of much greater influence than his position would indicate. He has the reputation of being one of the most determined republicans in the Ministry; but he held peculiar notions with reference to the black and the white races, which, if carried out, would not by any means conduce to the comfort or happiness of free negroes in the United States. He is a tall, lean man, with a hard, Scotch, practical-looking head—an anvil for ideas to be hammered on. His eyes are small and deeply set, and have a rat-like expression; and he speaks with caution, as though he weighed every word before he uttered it. The last of the Ministers is Mr. Bates, a stout, thick-set, common-looking man, with a large beard, who fills the office of Attorney-General. Some of the gentlemen were in evening dress; others wore black frock coats, which it seems, as in Turkey, are considered to be en regle at a Republican Ministerial dinner.

In the conversation which occurred before dinner, I was amused to observe the manner in which Mr. Lincoln used the anecdotes for which he is famous. Where men bred in courts, accustomed to the world, or versed in diplomacy, would use some subterfuge, or would make a polite speech, or give a shrug of the shoulders as the means of getting out of an embarrassing position, Mr. Lincoln raises a laugh by some bold west-country anecdote, and moves off in the cloud of merriment produced by his joke. Thus, when Mr. Bates was remonstrating apparently against the appointment of some indifferent lawyer to a place of judicial importance, the President interposed with, “Come now, Bates, he’s not half as bad as you think. Besides that, I must tell you, he did me a good turn long ago. When I took to the law, I was going to court one morning, with some ten or twelve miles of bad road before me, and I had no horse. The judge overtook me in his waggon. ‘Hollo, Lincoln! Are you not going to the courthouse? Come in and I’ll give you a seat.’ Well, I got in, and the judge went on reading his papers. Presently the waggon struck a stump on one side of the road; then it hopped off to the other. I looked out, and I saw the driver was jerking from side to side in his seat; so says I, ‘Judge, I think your coachman has been taking a little drop too much this morning.’ ‘Well I declare, Lincoln,’ said he, ‘I should not much wonder if you are right, for he has nearly upset me half-a-dozen of times since starting.’ So, putting his head out of the window, he shouted, ‘Why, you infernal scoundrel, you are drunk!’ Upon which, pulling up his horses, and turning round with great gravity, the coachman said, ‘By gorra! that’s the first rightful decision you have given for the last twelvemonth.’” Whilst the company were laughing, the President beat a quiet retreat from the neighbourhood of the Attorney-General.

It was at last announced that General Scott was unable to be present, and that, although actually in the house, he had been compelled to retire from indisposition, and we moved in to the banquetting-hall. The first “state dinner,” as it is called, of the President was not remarkable for ostentation. No liveried servants, no Persic splendour of ancient plate, or chefs d’œuvre of art glittered round the board. Vases of flowers decorated the table, combined with dishes in what may be called the “Gallo-American” style, with wines which owed their parentage to France, and their rearing and education to the United States, which abound in cunning nurses for such productions. The conversation was suited to the state dinner of a cabinet at which women and strangers were present. I was seated next Mr. Bates and the very agreeable and lively Secretary of the President, Mr. Hay, and except when there was an attentive silence caused by one of the President’s stories, there was a Babel of small talk round the table, in which I was surprised to find a diversity of accent almost as great as if a number of foreigners had been speaking English. I omitted the name of Mr. Hamlin, the Vice-President, as well as those of less remarkable people who were present; but it would not be becoming to pass over a man distinguished for nothing so much as his persistent and unvarying adhesion to one political doctrine, which has made him, in combination with the belief in his honesty, the occupant of a post which leads to the Presidency, in event of any occurrence which may remove Mr. Lincoln.

After dinner the ladies and gentlemen retired to the drawing-room, and the circle was increased by the addition of several politicians. I had an opportunity of conversing with some of the Ministers, if not with all, from time to time, and I was struck by the uniform tendency of their remarks in reference to the policy of Great Britain. They seemed to think that England was bound by her anti-slavery antecedents to discourage to the utmost any attempts of the South to establish its independence on a basis of slavery, and to assume that they were the representatives of an active war of emancipation. As the veteran Commodore Stewart passed the chair of the young lady to whom I was speaking, she said, “I suppose, Mr. Russell, you do not admire that officer?” “On the contrary,” I said, “I think he is a very fine-looking old man.” “I don’t mean that,” she replied; “but you know he can’t be very much liked by you, because he fought so gallantly against you in the last war, as you must know.” I had not the courage to confess ignorance of the Captain’s antecedents. There is a delusion among more than the fair American who spoke to me, that we entertain in England the sort of feeling, morbid or wholesome as it may be, in reference to our reverses at New Orleans and elsewhere, that is attributed to Frenchmen respecting Waterloo.

On returning to Willard’s Hotel, I was accosted by a gentleman who came out from the crowd in front of the office. “Sir,” he said, “you have been dining with our President to-night.” I bowed. “Was it an agreeable party?” said he. “What do you think of Mr. Lincoln?” “May I ask to whom I have the pleasure of speaking?” “My name is Mr. ——, and I am the correspondent of the New York ——.” “Then, sir,” I replied, “it gives me satisfaction to tell you that I think a great deal of Mr. Lincoln, and that I am equally pleased with my dinner. I have the honour to bid you good evening.” The same gentleman informed me afterwards that he had created the office of Washington Correspondent to the New York papers. “At first,” said he, “I merely wrote news, and no one cared much; then I spiced it up, squibbed a little, and let off stories of my own. Congressmen contradicted me—issued cards—said they were not facts. The public attention was attracted, and I was told to go on; and so the Washington correspondence became a feature in all the New York papers by degrees.” The hum and bustle in the hotel to-night were wonderful All the office-seekers were in the passages, hungering after senators and representatives, and the ladies in any way related to influential people, had an entourage of courtiers sedulously paying their respects. Miss Chase, indeed, laughingly told me that she was pestered by applicants for her father’s good offices, and by persons seeking introduction to her as a means of making demands on “Uncle Sam.”

As I was visiting a book-shop to-day, a pert, smiling young fellow, of slight figure and boyish appearance came up and introduced himself to me as an artist who had contributed to an illustrated London paper during the Prince of Wales’s tour, and who had become acquainted with some of my friends; and he requested permission to call on me, which I gave without difficulty or hesitation. He visited me this evening, poor lad! and told me a sad story of his struggles, and of the dependence of his family on his efforts, as a prelude to a request that I would allow him to go South when I was making the tour there, of which he had heard. He was under an engagement with the London paper, and had no doubt that if he was with me his sketches would all be received as illustrations of the places to which my letters were attracting public interest in England at the time. There was no reason why I should be averse to his travelling with me in the same train. He could certainly go if he pleased. At the same time I intimated that I was in no way to be connected with or responsible for him.

March 29th, Good Friday.—The religious observance of the day was not quite as strict as it would be in England. The Puritan aversion to ceremonials and formulary observances has apparently affected the American world, even as far south as this. The people of colour were in the streets dressed in their best. The first impression produced by fine bonnets, gay shawls, brightly-coloured dresses, and silk brodequins, on black faces, flat figures, and feet to match, is singular; but, in justice to the backs of many of the gaudily-dressed women, who, in little groups, were going to church or chapel, it must be admitted that this surprise only came upon one when he got a front view. The men generally affected black coats, silk or satin waistcoats, and parti-coloured pantaloons. They carried Missal or Prayer-book, pocket-handkerchief, cane or parasol, with infinite affectation of correctness.

As I was looking out of the window, a very fine, tall young negro, dressed irreproachably, save as to hat and boots, passed by. “I wonder what he is?” I exclaimed inquiringly to a gentleman who stood beside me. “Well,” he said, “that fellow is not a free nigger; he looks too respectable. I daresay you could get him for 1500 dollars, without his clothes. You know,” continued he, “what our Minister said when he saw a nigger at some Court in Europe, and was asked what he thought of him: ‘Well, I guess,’ said he, ‘if you take off his fixings, he may be worth 1000 dollars down.’” In the course of the day, Mr. Banks, a corpulent, energetic young Virginian, of strong Southern views, again called on me. As the friend of the Southern Commissioners he complained vehemently of the refusal of Mr. Seward to hold intercourse with him. “These fellows mean treachery, but we will baulk them.” In answer to a remark of mine, that the English Minister would certainly refuse to receive Commissioners from any part of the Queen’s dominions which had seized upon the forts and arsenals of the empire and menaced war, he replied: “The case is quite different. The Crown claims a right to govern the whole of your empire; but the Austrian Government could not refuse to receive a deputation from Hungary for an adjustment of grievances; nor could any State belonging to the German Diet attempt to claim sovereignty over another, because they were members of the same Confederation.” I remarked “that his views of the obligations of each State of the Union were perfectly new to me, as a stranger ignorant of the controversies which distracted them. An Englishman had nothing to do with a Virginian and New Yorkist, or a South Carolinian—he scarcely knew anything of a Texan, or of an Arkansasian; we only were conversant with the United States as an entity; and all our dealings were with citizens of the United States of North America.” This, however, only provoked logically diffuse dissertations on the Articles of the Constitution, and on the spirit of the Federal Compact.

Later in the day, I had the advantage of a conversation with Mr. Truman Smith, an old and respected representative in former days, who gave me a very different account of the matter; and who maintained that by the Federal Compact each State had delegated irrevocably the essence of its sovereignty to a Government to be established in perpetuity for the benefit of the whole body. The Slave States, seeing that the progress of free ideas, and the material power of the North, were obtaining an influence which must be subversive of the supremacy they had so long exercised in the Federal Government for their own advantage, had developed this doctrine of States’ Rights as a cloak to treason, preferring the material advantages to be gained by the extension of their system to the grand moral position which they would occupy as a portion of the United States in the face of all the world.

It is on such radical differences of ideas as these, that the whole of the quarrel, which is widening every day, is founded. The Federal Compact, at the very outset, was written on a torn sheet of paper, and time has worn away the artificial cement by which it was kept together. The corner-stone of the Constitution had a crack in it, which the heat and fury of faction have widened into a fissure from top to bottom, never to be closed again.

In the evening I had the pleasure of dining with an American gentleman who has seen much of the world, travelled far and wide, who has read much and beheld more, a scholar, a politician, after his way, a poet, and an ologist—one of those modern Grœculi, who is unlike his prototype in Juvenal only in this, that he is not hungry, and that he will not go to heaven if you order him.

Such men never do or can succeed in the United States; they are far too refined, philosophical, and cosmopolitan. From what I see, success here may be obtained by refined men, if they are dishonest, never by philosophical men, unless they be corrupt—not by cosmopolitan men under any circumstances whatever; for to have sympathies with any people, or with any nation in the world, except his own, is to doom a statesman with the American public, unless it be in the form of an affectation of pity or good will, intended really as an offence to some allied people. At dinner there was the very largest naval officer I have ever seen in company, although I must own that our own service is not destitute of some good specimens, and I have seen an Austrian admiral at Pola, and the superintendent of the Arsenal at Tophaneh, who were not unfit to be marshals of France. This Lieutenant, named Nelson, was certainly greater in one sense than his British namesake, for he weighed 260 pounds.

It may be here remarked, passim and obiter, that the Americans are much more precise than ourselves in the enumeration of weights and matters of this kind. They speak of pieces of artillery, for example, as being of so many pounds weight, and of so many inches long, where we would use cwts. and feet. With a people addicted to vertical rather than lateral extension in everything but politics and morals, precision is a matter of importance. I was amused by a description of some popular personage I saw in one of the papers the other day, which after an enumeration of many high mental and physical attributes, ended thus, “In fact he is a remarkably fine high-toned gentleman, and weighs 210 pounds.”

The Lieutenant was a strong Union man, and he inveighed fiercely, and even coarsely, against the members of his profession who had thrown up their commissions. The superintendent of the Washington Navy Yard is supposed to be very little disposed in favour of this present Government; in fact, Capt. Buchanan may be called a Secessionist, nevertheless, I am invited to the wedding of his daughter, in order to see the President give away the bride. Mr. Nelson says, Sumter and Pickens are to be reinforced. Charleston is to be reduced to order, and all traitors hanged, or he will know the reason why; and, says he, “I have some weight in the country.” In the evening, as we were going home, notwithstanding the cold, we saw a number of ladies sitting out on the door-steps, in white dresses. The streets were remarkably quiet and deserted; all the coloured population had been sent to bed long ago. The fire bell, as usual, made an alarm or two about midnight.

CHAPTER VII. Barbers’ shops

Barbers’ shops—Place-hunting—The Navy Yard—Dinner at Lord Lyons’—Estimate of Washington among his countrymen—Washington’s house and tomb—The Southern Commissioners—Dinner with the Southern Commissioners—Feeling towards England among the Southerners—Animosity between North and South.

March 30th.—Descended into the barber’s shop off the hall of the hotel; all the operators, men of colour, mostly mulattoes, or yellow lads, good-looking, dressed in clean white jackets and aprons, were smart, quick, and attentive. Some seven or eight shaving chairs were occupied by gentlemen intent on early morning calls. Shaving is carried in all its accessories to a high degree of publicity, if not of perfection, in America; and as the poorest, or as I may call them without offence, the lowest orders in England have their easy shaving for a penny, so the highest, if there be any in America, submit themselves in public to the inexpensive operations of the negro barber. It must be admitted that the chairs are easy and well-arranged, the fingers nimble, sure, and light; but the affectation of French names, and the corruption of foreign languages, in which the hairdressers and barbers delight, are exceedingly amusing. On my way down a small street near the Capitol, I observed in a shop window, “Rowland’s make easier paste,” which I attribute to an imperfect view of the etymology of the great “Macassar;” on another occasion, I was asked to try Somebody’s “Curious Elison,” which I am afraid was an attempt to adapt to a shaving paste, an address not at all suited to profane uses. It appears that the trade of barber is almost the birthright of the free negro or coloured man in the United States. There is a striking exemplification of natural equality in the use of brushes, and the senator flops down in the seat, and has his noble nose seized by the same fingers which the moment before were occupied by the person and chin of an unmistakeable rowdy.

In the midst of the divine calm produced by hard hand rubbing of my head, I was aroused by a stout gentleman who sat in a chair directly opposite. Through the door which opened into the hall of the hotel, one could see the great crowd passing to and fro, thronging the passage as though it had been the entrance to the Forum, or the “Salle de pas perdus.” I had observed my friend’s eye gazing fixedly through the opening on the outer world. Suddenly, with his face half-covered with lather, and a bib tucked under his chin, he got up from his seat exclaiming, “Senator! Senator! hallo!” and made a dive into the passage—whether he received a stern rebuke, or became aware of his impropriety, I know not, but in an instant he came back again, and submitted quietly, till the work of the barber was completed.

The great employment of four-fifths of the people at Willard’s at present seems to be to hunt senators and congressmen through the lobbies. Every man is heavy with documents—those which he cannot carry in his pockets and hat, occupy his hands, or are thrust under his arms. In the hall are advertisements announcing that certificates, and letters of testimonial, and such documents, are printed with expedition and neatness. From paper collars, and cards of address to carriages, and new suites of clothes, and long hotel bills, nothing is left untried or uninvigorated. The whole city is placarded with announcements of facilities for assaulting the powers that be, among which must not be forgotten the claims of the “excelsior card-writer,” at Willard’s, who prepares names, addresses, styles, and titles in superior penmanship. The men who have got places, having been elected by the people, must submit to the people, who think they have established a claim on them by their favours. The majority confer power, but they seem to forget that it is only the minority who can enjoy the first fruits of success. It is as if the whole constituency of Marylebone insisted on getting some office under the Crown the moment a member was returned to Parliament. There are men at Willard’s who have come literally thousands of miles to seek for places which can only be theirs for four years, and who with true American facility have abandoned the calling and pursuits of a lifetime for this doubtful canvas; and I was told of one gentleman, who having been informed that he could not get a judgeship, condescended to seek a place in the Post Office, and finally applied to Mr. Chase to be appointed keeper of a “lighthouse,” he was not particular where. In the forenoon I drove to the Washington Navy Yard, in company with Lieutenant Nelson and two friends. It is about two miles outside the city, situated on a fork of land projecting between a creek and the Potomac river, which is here three-quarters of a mile broad. If the French had a Navy Yard at Paris it could scarcely be contended that English, Russians, or Austrians would not have been justified in destroying it in case they got possession of the city by force of arms, after a pitched battle fought outside its gates. I confess I would not give much for Deptford and Woolwich if an American fleet succeeded in forcing its way up the Thames; but our American cousins,—a little more than kin and less than kind, who speak with pride of Paul Jones and of their exploits on the Lakes,—affect to regard the burning of the Washington Navy Yard by us, in the last war, as an unpardonable outrage on the law of nations, and an atrocious exercise of power. For all the good it did, for my own part, I think it were as well had it never happened, but no jurisconsult will for a moment deny that it was a legitimate, even if extreme, exercise of a belligerent right in the case of an enemy who did not seek terms from the conqueror; and who, after battle lost, fled and abandoned the property of their state, which might be useful to them in war, to the power of the victor. Notwithstanding all the unreasonableness of the American people in reference to their relations with foreign powers, it is deplorable such scenes should ever have been enacted between members of the human family so closely allied by all that shall make them of the same household.

The Navy Yard is surrounded by high brick walls; in the gateway stood two sentries in dark blue tunics, yellow facings, with eagle buttons, brightly polished arms, and white Berlin gloves, wearing a cap something like a French kepi, all very clean and creditable. Inside are some few trophies of guns taken from us at York Town, and from the Mexicans in the land of Cortez. The interior inclosure is surrounded by red brick houses, and stores and magazines, picked out with white stone; and two or three green grass-plots, fenced in by pillars and chains and bordered by trees, give an air of agreeable freshness to the place. Close to the river are the workshops: of course there is smoke and noise of steam and machinery. In a modest office, surrounded by books, papers, drawings, and models, as well as by shell and shot and racks of arms of different descriptions, we found Capt. Dahlgren, the acting superintendent of the yard, and the inventor of the famous gun which bears his name, and is the favourite armament of the American navy. By our own sailors they are irreverently termed “soda-water bottles,” owing to their shape. Capt. Dahlgren contends that guns capable of throwing the heaviest shot may be constructed of cast-iron, carefully prepared and moulded so that the greatest thickness of metal may be placed at the points of resistance, at the base of the gun, the muzzle and forward portions being of very moderate thickness.

All inventors, or even adapters of systems, must be earnest self-reliant persons, full of confidence, and, above all, impressive, or they will make little way in the conservative, status-quo-loving world. Captain Dahlgren has certainly most of these characteristics, but he has to fight with his navy department, with the army, with boards and with commissioners,—in fact, with all sorts of obstructors. When I was going over the yard, he deplored the parsimony of the department, which refused to yield to his urgent entreaties for additional furnaces to cast guns.

No large guns are cast at Washington. The foundries are only capable of turning out brass field-pieces and boat-guns. Capt. Dahlgren obligingly got one of the latter out to practice for us—a 12-pounder howitzer, which can be carried in a boat, run on land on its carriage, which is provided with wheels, and is so light that the gun can be drawn readily about by the crew. He made some good practice with shrapnel at a target 1200 yards distant, firing so rapidly as to keep three shells in the air at the same time. Compared with our establishments, this dockyard is a mere toy, and but few hands are employed in it. One steam sloop, the “Pawnee,” was under the shears, nearly ready for sea: the frame of another was under the building-shed. There are no facilities for making iron ships, or putting on plate-armour here. Everything was shown to us with the utmost frankness. The fuse of the Dahlgren shell is constructed on the vis inertiæ principle, and is not unlike that of the Armstrong.

On returning to the hotel, I found a magnificent bouquet of flowers, with a card attached to them, with Mrs. Lincoln’s compliments, and another card announcing that she had a “reception” at 3 o’clock. It was rather late before I could get to the White House, and there were only two or three ladies in the drawing-room when I arrived. I was informed afterwards that the attendance was very scanty. The Washington ladies have not yet made up their minds that Mrs. Lincoln is the fashion. They miss their Southern friends, and constantly draw comparisons between them and the vulgar Yankee women and men who are now in power. I do not know enough to say whether the affectation of superiority be justified; but assuredly if New York be Yankee, there is nothing in which it does not far surpass this preposterous capital. The impression of homeliness produced by Mrs. Lincoln on first sight, is not diminished by closer acquaintance. Few women not to the manner born there are, whose heads would not be disordered, and circulation disturbed, by a rapid transition, almost instantaneous, from a condition of obscurity in a country town to be mistress of the White House. Her smiles and her frowns become a matter of consequence to the whole American world. As the wife of the country lawyer, or even of the congress man, her movements were of no consequence. The journals of Springfield would not have wasted a line upon them. Now, if she but drive down Pennsylvania Avenue, the electric wire thrills the news to every hamlet in the Union which has a newspaper; and fortunate is the correspondent who, in a special despatch, can give authentic particulars of her destination and of her dress. The lady is surrounded by flatterers and intriguers, seeking for influence or such places as she can give. As Selden says, “Those who wish to set a house on fire begin with the thatch.”

March 31st, Easter Sunday.—I dined with Lord Lyons and the members of the Legation; the only stranger present being Senator Sumner. Politics were of course eschewed, for Mr. Sumner is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, and Lord Lyons is a very discreet Minister; but still there crept in a word of Pickens and Sumter, and that was all. Mr. Fox, formerly of the United States’ Navy, and since that a master of a steamer in the commercial marine, who is related to Mr. Blair, has been sent on some mission to Fort Sumter, and has been allowed to visit Major Anderson by the authorities at Charleston; but it is not known what was the object of his mission. Everywhere there is Secession resignation, in a military sense of the word. The Southern Commissioners declare they will soon retire to Montgomery, and that any attempt to reinforce or supply the forts will be a casus belli. There is the utmost anxiety to know what Virginia will do. General Scott belongs to the State, and it is feared he may be shaken if the State goes out. Already the authorities of Richmond have intimated they will not allow the foundry to furnish guns to the seaboard forts, such as Munroe and Norfolk in Virginia. This concession of an autonomy is really a recognition of States’ Rights. For if a State can vote itself in or out of the Union, why can it not make war or peace, and accept or refuse the Federal Government? In fact, the Federal system is radically defective against internal convulsion, however excellent it is or may be for purposes of external polity. I walked home with Mr. Sumner to his rooms, and heard some of his views, which were not so sanguine as those of Mr. Seward, and I thought I detected a desire to let the Southern States go out with their slavery if they so desired it. Mr. Chase, by the way, expressed sentiments of the same kind more decidedly the other day.

April 1st.—On Easter Monday, after breakfast with Mr. Olmsted, I drove over to visit Senator Douglas. Originally engaged in some mechanical avocation, by his ability and eloquence he has raised himself to the highest position in the State short of the Presidency, which might have been his but for the extraordinary success of his opponent in a fortuitous suffrage scramble. He is called the Little Giant, being modo bipedali staturâ, but his head entitles him to some recognition of intellectual height. His sketch of the causes which have led to the present disruption of parties, and the hazard of civil war, was most vivid and able; and for more than an hour he spoke with a vigour of thought and terseness of phrase which, even on such dreary and uninviting themes as squatter sovereignty and the Kansas-Nebraska question, interested a foreigner in the man and the subject. Although his sympathies seemed to go with the South on the question of slavery and territorial extension, he condemned altogether the attempt to destroy the Union.

April 2nd.—The following day I started early, and performed my pilgrimage to “the shrine of St. Washington,” at Mount Vernon, as a foreigner on board called the place. Mr. Bancroft has in his possession a letter of the General’s mother, in which she expresses her gratification at his leaving the British army in a manner which implies that he had been either extravagant, in his expenses or wild in his manner of living. But if he had any human frailties in after life, they neither offended the morality of his age, or shocked the susceptibility of his countrymen; and from the time that the much maligned and unfortunate Braddock gave scope to his ability, down to his retirement into private life, after a career of singular trials and extraordinary successes, his character acquired each day greater altitude, strength, and lustre. Had his work failed, had the Republic broken up into small anarchical states, we should hear now little of Washington. But the principles of liberty founded in the original Constitution of the colonies themselves, and in no degree derived from or dependent on the revolution, combined with the sufferings of the Old and the bounty of nature in the New World to carry to an unprecedented degree the material prosperity, which Americans have mistaken for good government, and the physical comforts which have made some States in the Union the nearest approach to Utopia. The Federal Government hitherto “let the people alone,” and they went on their way singing and praising their Washington as the author of so much greatness and happiness. To doubt his superiority to any man of woman born, is to insult the American people. They are not content with his being great—or even greater than the great: he must be greatest of all;—“first in peace, and first in war.” The rest of the world cannot find fault with the assertion, that he is “first in the hearts of his countrymen.” But he was not possessed of the highest military qualities, if we are to judge from most of the regular actions, in which the British had the best of it; and the final blow, when Cornwallis surrendered at York Town, was struck by the arm of France, by Rochambeau and the French fleet, rather than by Washington and his Americans. He had all the qualities for the work for which he was designed, and is fairly entitled to the position his countrymen have given him as the immortal czar of the United States. His pictures are visible everywhere—in the humblest inn, in the Minister’s bureau, in the millionaire’s gallery. There are far more engravings of Washington in America than there are of Napoleon in France, and that is saying a good deal.

What have we here? The steamer, which has been paddling down the gentle current of the Potomac, here a mile and more in breadth, banked in by forest, through which can be seen homesteads and white farm-houses, in the midst of large clearings and corn-fields—has moved in towards a high bluff, covered with trees, on the summit of which is visible the trace of some sort of building—a ruined summer-house, rustic temple—whatever it may be; and the bell on deck begins to toll solemnly, and some of the pilgrims uncover their heads for a moment. The boat stops at a rotten, tumble-down little pier, which leads to a waste of mud, and a path rudely cut through the wilderness of briars on the hill-side. The pilgrims, of whom there are some thirty or forty, of both sexes, mostly belonging to the lower classes of citizens, and comprising a few foreigners like myself, proceed to climb this steep, which seemed in a state of nature covered with primæval forest, and tangled weeds and briars, till the plateau, on which stands the house of Washington and the domestic offices around it, is reached. It is an oblong wooden house, of two stories in height, with a colonnade towards the river face, and a small balcony on the top and on the level of the roof, over which rises a little paltry gazebo. There are two windows, a glass door at one end of the oblong, and a wooden alcove extending towards the slave quarters, which are very small sentry-box huts, that have been recently painted, and stand at right angles to the end of the house, with dog-houses and poultry-hutches attached to them. There is no attempt at neatness or order about the place; though the exterior of the house is undergoing repair, the grass is unkempt, the shrubs untrimmed,—neglect, squalor, and chicken feathers have marked the lawn for their own. The house is in keeping, and threatens to fall to ruin. I entered the door, and found myself in a small hall, stained with tobacco juice. An iron railing ran across the entrance to the stairs. Here stood a man at a gate, who presented a book to the visitors, and pointed out the notice therein, that “no person is permitted to inscribe his name in this book who does not contribute to the Washington Fund, and that any name put down without money would be erased.” Notwithstanding the warning, some patriots succeeded in recording their names without any pecuniary mulct, and others did so at a most reasonable rate. When I had contributed in a manner which must have represented an immense amount of Washingtoniolatry, estimated by the standard of the day, I was informed I could not go up-stairs as the rooms above were closed to the public, and thus the most interesting portion of the house was shut from the strangers. The lower rooms presented nothing worthy of notice—some lumbering, dusty, decayed furniture; a broken harpsichord, dust, cobwebs—no remnant of the man himself. But over the door of one room hung the key of the Bastille.[1] The gardens, too, were tabooed; but through the gate I could see a wilderness of neglected trees and shrubs, not unmingled with a suspicion of a present kitchen-ground. Let us pass to the Tomb, which is some distance from the house, beneath the shade of some fine trees. It is a plain brick mausoleum, with a pointed arch, barred by an iron grating, through which the light penetrates a chamber or small room containing two sarcophagi of stone. Over the arch, on a slab let into the brick, are the words: “Within this enclosure rest the remains of Gen. George Washington.” The fallen leaves which had drifted into the chamber rested thickly on the floor, and were piled up on the sarcophagi, and it was difficult to determine which was the hero’s grave without the aid of an expert, but there was neither guide nor guardian on the spot. Some four or five gravestones, of various members of the family, stand in the ground outside the little mausoleum. The place was most depressing. One felt angry with a people whose lip service was accompanied by so little of actual respect. The owner of this property, inherited from the “Pater Patriæ,” has been abused in good set terms because he asked its value from the country which has been so very mindful of the services of his ancestor, and which is now erecting by slow stages the overgrown Cleopatra’s needle that is to be a Washington monument when it is finished. Mr. Everett has been lecturing, the Ladies’ Mount Vernon Association has been working, and every one has been adjuring everybody else to give liberally; but the result so lately achieved is by no means worthy of the object. Perhaps the Americans think it is enough to say—“Si monumentum quæris, circumspice.” But, at all events, there is a St. Paul’s round those words.

On the return of the steamer I visited Fort Washington, which is situated on the left bank of the Potomac. I found everything in a state of neglect—gun carriages rotten, shot piles rusty, furnaces tumbling to pieces. The place might be made strong enough on the river front, but the rear is weak, though there is low marshy land at the back. A company of regulars were on duty. The sentries took no precautions against surprise. Twenty determined men, armed with revolvers, could have taken the whole work; and, for all the authorities knew, we might have had that number of Virginians and the famous Ben McCullough himself on board. Afterwards, when I ventured to make a remark to General Scott as to the carelessness of the garrison, he said: “A few weeks ago it might have been taken by a bottle of whisky. The whole garrison consisted of an old Irish pensioner.” Now at this very moment Washington is full of rumours of desperate descents on the capital, and an attack on the President and his Cabinet. The long bridge across the Potomac into Virginia is guarded, and the militia and volunteers of the District of Columbia are to be called out to resist McCullough and his Richmond desperadoes.

April 3rd.—I had an interview with the Southern Commissioners to-day, at their hotel. For more than an hour I heard, from men of position and of different sections in the South, expressions which satisfied me the Union could never be restored, if they truly represented the feelings and opinions of their fellow-citizens. They have the idea they are ministers of a foreign power treating with Yankeedom, and their indignation is moved by the refusal of Government to negotiate with them, armed as they are with full authority to arrange all questions arising out of an amicable separation—such as the adjustment of Federal claims for property, forts, stores, public works, debts, land purchases, and the like. One of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. Campbell, is their intermediary, and of course it is not known what hopes Mr. Seward has held out to him; but there is some imputation of Punic faith against the Government on account of recent acts, and there is no doubt the Commissioners hear, as I do, that there are preparations at the Navy Yard and at New York to relieve Sumter, at any rate, with provisions, and that Pickens has actually been reinforced by sea. In the evening I dined at the British Legation, and went over to the house of the Russian Minister, M. de Stoeckl, in the evening. The diplomatic body in Washington constitute a small and very agreeable society of their own, in which few Americans mingle except at the receptions and large evening assemblies. As the people now in power are novi homines, the wives and daughters of ministers and attachés are deprived of their friends who belonged to the old society in Washington, and who have either gone off to Secession, or sympathise so deeply with the Southern States that it is scarcely becoming to hold very intimate relations with them in the face of Government. From the house of M. de Stoeckl I went to a party at the residence of M. Tassara, the Spanish Minister, where there was a crowd of diplomats, young and old. Diplomatists seldom or never talk politics, and so Pickens and Sumter were unheard of; but it is stated nevertheless that Virginia is on the eve of secession, and will certainly go if the President attempts to use force in relieving and strengthening the Federal forts.

April 4th.—I had a long interview with Mr. Seward to-day at the State Department. He set forth at great length the helpless condition in which the President and the cabinet found themselves when they began the conduct of public affairs at Washington. The last cabinet had tampered with treason, and had contained traitors; a miserable imbecility had encouraged the leaders of the South to mature their plans, and had furnished them with the means of carrying out their design. One Minister had purposely sent away the navy of the United States to distant and scattered stations; another had purposely placed the arms, ordnance, and munitions of war in undue proportions in the Southern States, and had weakened the Federal Government so that they might easily fall into the hands of the traitors and enable them to secure the war matériel of the Union; a Minister had stolen the public funds for traitorous purposes—in every port, in every department of the State, at home and abroad, on sea and by land, men were placed who were engaged in this deep conspiracy—and when the voice of the people declared Mr. Lincoln President of the United States, they set to work as one man to destroy the Union under the most flimsy pretexts. The President’s duty was clearly defined by the Constitution. He had to guard what he had, and to regain, if possible, what he had lost. He would not consent to any dismemberment of the Union nor to the abandonment of one iota of Federal property—nor could he do so if he desired.

These and many more topics were presented to me to show that the Cabinet was not accountable for the temporising policy of inaction, which was forced upon them by circumstances, and that they would deal vigorously with the Secession movement—as vigorously as Jackson did with nullification in South Carolina, if they had the means. But what could they do when such men as Twiggs surrendered his trust and sacrificed the troops to a crowd of Texans; or when naval and military officers resigned en masse, that they might accept service in the rebel forces? All this excitement would come right in a very short time—it was a brief madness, which would pass away when the people had opportunity for reflection. Meantime the danger was that foreign powers would be led to imagine the Federal Government was too weak to defend its rights, and that the attempt to destroy the Union and to set up a Southern Confederacy was successful. In other words, again, Mr. Seward fears that, in this transition state between their forced inaction and the coup by which they intend to strike down Secession, Great Britain may recognise the Government established at Montgomery, and is ready, if needs be, to threaten Great Britain with war as the consequence of such recognition. But he certainly assumed the existence of strong Union sentiments in many of the seceded States, as a basis for his remarks, and admitted that it would not become the spirit of the American Government, or of the Federal system, to use armed force in subjugating the Southern States against the will of the majority of the people. Therefore if the majority desire Secession, Mr. Seward would let them have it—but he cannot believe in anything so monstrous, for to him the Federal Government and Constitution, as interpreted by his party, are divine, heaven-born. He is fond of repeating that the Federal Government never yet sacrificed any man’s life on account of his political opinions, but if this struggle goes on it will sacrifice thousands—tens of thousands, to the idea of a Federal Union. “Any attempt against us,” he said, “would revolt the good men of the South, and arm all men in the North to defend their Government.”

But I had seen that day an assemblage of men doing a goose-step march forth dressed in blue tunics and grey trowsers, shakoes and cross-belts, armed with musket and bayonet, cheering and hurrahing in the square before the War Department, who were, I am told, the District of Columbia volunteers and militia. They had indeed been visible in various forms parading, marching, and trumpeting about the town with a poor imitation of French pas and élan, but they did not, to the eye of a soldier, give any appearance of military efficiency, or to the eye of the anxious statesman any indication of the animus pugnandi. Starved, washed-out creatures most of them, interpolated with Irish and flat-footed, stumpy Germans. It was matter for wonderment that the Foreign Minister of a nation which was in such imminent danger in its very capital, and which, with its chief and his cabinet, was almost at the mercy of the enemy, should hold the language I was aware he had transmitted to the most powerful nations of Europe. Was it consciousness of the strength of a great people, who would be united by the first apprehension of foreign interference, or was it the peculiar emptiness of a bombast which is called Buncombe? In all sincerity I think Mr. Seward meant it as it was written.

When I arrived at the hotel, I found our young artist waiting for me, to entreat I would permit him to accompany me to the South. I had been annoyed by a paragraph which had appeared in several papers, to the effect that “The talented young artist, our gifted countryman, Mr. Deodore F. Moses, was about to accompany Mr. &c. &c., in his tour through the South.” I had informed the young gentleman that I could not sanction such an announcement, whereupon he assured me he had not in any way authorised it, but having mentioned incidentally to a person connected with the press that he was going to travel southwards with me, the injudicious zeal of his friend had led him to think he would do a service to the youth by making the most of the very trifling circumstance.

I dined with Senator Douglas, where there was a large party, among whom were Mr. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury; Mr. Smith, Secretary of the Interior; Mr. Forsyth, Southern Commissioner; and several members of the Senate and Congress. Mrs. Douglas did the honours of her house with grace and charming good nature. I observe a great tendency to abstract speculation and theorising among Americans, and their after-dinner conversation is apt to become didactic and sententious. Few men speak better than Senator Douglas: his words are well chosen, the flow of his ideas even and constant, his intellect vigorous, and thoughts well cut, precise, and vigorous—he seems a man of great ambition, and he told me he is engaged in preparing a sort of Zollverein scheme for the North American continent, including Canada, which will fix public attention everywhere, and may lead to a settlement of the Northern and Southern controversies. For his mind, as for that of many Americans, the aristocratic idea embodied in Russia is very seductive; and he dwelt with pleasure on the courtesies he had received at the court of the Czar, implying that he had been treated differently in England, and perhaps France. And yet, had Mr. Douglas become President of the United States, his goodwill towards Great Britain might have been invaluable, and surely it had been cheaply purchased by a little civility and attention to a distinguished citizen and statesman of the Republic. Our Galleos very often care for none of these things.

April 5th.—Dined with the Southern Commissioners and a small party at Gautier’s, a French restaurateur in Pennsylvania Avenue. The gentlemen present were, I need not say, all of one way of thinking; but as these leaves will see the light before the civil war is at an end, it is advisable not to give their names, for it would expose persons resident in Washington, who may not be suspected by the Government, to those marks of attention which they have not yet ceased to pay to their political enemies. Although I confess that in my judgment too much stress has been laid in England on the severity with which the Federal authorities have acted towards their political enemies, who were seeking their destruction, it may be candidly admitted, that they have forfeited all claim to the lofty position they once occupied as a Government existing by moral force, and by the consent of the governed, to which Bastilles and lettres de cachêt, arbitrary arrests, and doubtful, illegal, if not altogether unconstitutional, suspension of habeas corpus and of trial by jury were unknown.

As Col. Pickett and Mr. Banks are notorious Secessionists, and Mr. Phillips has since gone South, after the arrest of his wife on account of her anti-federal tendencies, it may be permitted to mention that they were among the guests. I had pleasure in making the acquaintance of Governor Roman. Mr. Crawford, his brother commissioner, is a much younger man, of considerably greater energy and determination, but probably of less judgment. The third commissioner, Mr. Forsyth, is fanatical in his opposition to any suggestions of compromise or reconstruction; but, indeed, upon that point, there is little difference of opinion amongst any of the real adherents of the South. Mr. Lincoln they spoke of with contempt; Mr. Seward they evidently regarded as the ablest and most unscrupulous of their enemies; but the tone in which they alluded to the whole of the Northern people indicated the clear conviction that trade, commerce, the pursuit of gain, manufacture, and the base mechanical arts, had so degraded the whole race, they would never attempt to strike a blow in fair fight for what they prized so highly in theory and in words. Whether it be in consequence of some secret influence which slavery has upon the minds of men, or that the aggression of the North upon their institutions has been of a nature to excite the deepest animosity and most vindictive hate, certain it is there is a degree of something like ferocity in the Southern mind towards New England which exceeds belief. I am persuaded that these feelings of contempt are extended towards England. They believe that we, too, have had the canker of peace upon us. One evidence of this, according to Southern men, is the abolition of duelling. This practice, according to them, is highly wholesome and meritorious; and, indeed, it may be admitted that in the state of society which is reported to exist in the Southern States, it is a useful check on such men as it restrained in our own islands in the last century. In the course of conversation, one gentleman remarked, that he considered it disgraceful for any man to take money for the dishonour of his wife or his daughter. “With us,” he said, “there is but one mode of dealing known. The man who dares tamper with the honour of a white woman, knows what he has to expect. We shoot him down like a dog, and no jury in the South will ever find any man guilty of murder for punishing such a scoundrel.” An argument which can scarcely be alluded to was used by them, to show that these offences in slave States had not the excuse which might be adduced to diminish their gravity when they occurred in States where all the population were white. Indeed, in this, as in some other matters of a similar character, slavery is their summum bonum of morality, physical excellence, and social purity. I was inclined to question the correctness of the standard which they had set up, and to inquire whether the virtue which needed this murderous use of the pistol and the dagger to defend it, was not open to some doubt; but I found there was very little sympathy with my views among the company.

The gentlemen at table asserted that the white men in the slave States are physically superior to the men of the free States; and indulged in curious theories in morals and physics to which I was a stranger. Disbelief of anything a Northern man—that is, a Republican—can say, is a fixed principle in their minds. I could not help remarking, when the conversation turned on the duplicity of Mr. Seward, and the wickedness of the Federal Government in refusing to give the assurance Sumter would not be relieved by force of arms, that it must be of very little consequence what promises Mr. Seward made, as, according to them, not the least reliance was to be placed on his word. The notion that the Northern men are cowards is justified by instances in which Congressmen have been insulted by Southern men without calling them out, and Mr. Sumner’s case was quoted as the type of the affairs of the kind between the two sides.

I happened to say that I always understood Mr. Sumner had been attacked suddenly and unexpectedly, and struck down before he could rise from his desk to defend himself; whereupon a warm refutation of that version of the story was given, and I was assured that Mr. Brooks, who was a very slight man, and much inferior in height to Mr. Sumner, struck him a slight blow at first, and only inflicted the heavier strokes when irritated by the Senator’s cowardly demeanor. In reference to some remark made about the cavaliers and their connection with the South, I reminded the gentlemen that, after all, the descendants of the Puritans were not to be despised in battle: and that the best gentry in England were worsted at last by the train-bands of London, and the “rabbledom” of Cromwell’s Independents.

Mr., or Colonel, Pickett, is a tall good-looking man, of pleasant manners, and well educated. But this gentleman was a professed buccaneer, a friend of Walker, the grey-eyed man of destiny—his comrade in his most dangerous razzie. He was a newspaper writer, a soldier, a filibuster; and he now threw himself into the cause of the South with vehemence; it was not difficult to imagine he saw in that cause the realisation of the dreams of empire in the south of the Gulf, and of conquest in the islands of the sea, which have such a fascinating influence over the imagination of a large portion of the American people. He referred to Walker’s fate with much bitterness, and insinuated he was betrayed by the British officer who ought to have protected him.

The acts of Mr. Floyd and Mr. Howell Cobb, which must be esteemed of doubtful morality, are here justified by the States’ Rights doctrine. If the States had a right to go out, they were quite right in obtaining their quota of the national property which would not have been given to them by the Lincolnites. Therefore, their friends were not to be censured because they had sent arms and money to the South.

Altogether the evening, notwithstanding the occasional warmth of the controversy, was exceedingly instructive; one could understand from the vehemence and force of the speakers the full meaning of the phrase of “firing the Southern heart,” so often quoted as an illustration of the peculiar force of political passion to be brought to bear against the Republicans in the Secession contest. Mr. Forsyth, struck me as being the most astute, and perhaps most capable, of the gentlemen whose mission to Washington seems likely to be so abortive. His name is historical in America—his father filled high office, and his son has also exercised diplomatic function. Despotisms and Republics of the American model approach each other closely. In Turkey the Pasha unemployed sinks into insignificance, and the son of the Pasha deceased is literally nobody. Mr. Forsyth was not selected as Southern Commissioner on account of the political status acquired by his father; but the position gained by his own ability, as editor of “The Mobile Register,” induced the Confederate authorities to select him for the post. It is quite possible to have made a mistake in such matters, but I am almost certain that the coloured waiters who attended us at table looked as sour and discontented as could be, and seemed to give their service with a sort of protest. I am told that the tradespeople of Washington are strongly inclined to favour the southern side.

April 6th.—To-day I paid a second visit to General Scott, who received me very kindly, and made many inquiries respecting the events in the Crimea and the Indian mutiny and rebellion. He professed to have no apprehension for the safety of the capital; but in reality there are only some 700 or 800 regulars to protect it and the Navy Yard, and two field-batteries, commanded by an officer of very doubtful attachment to the Union. The head of the Navy Yard is openly accused of treasonable sympathies.

Mr. Seward has definitively refused to hold any intercourse whatever with the Southern Commissioners, and they will retire almost immediately from the capital. As matters look very threatening, I must go South and see with my own eyes how affairs stand there, before the two sections come to open rupture. Mr. Seward, the other day, in talking of the South, described them as being in every respect behind the age, with fashions, habits, level of thought, and modes of life, belonging to the worst part of the last century. But still he never has been there himself! The Southern men come up to the Northern cities and springs, but the Northerner rarely travels southwards. Indeed, I am informed, that if he were a well-known Abolitionist, it would not be safe for him to appear in a Southern city. I quite agree with my thoughtful and earnest friend, Olmsted, that the United States can never be considered as a free country till a man can speak as freely in Charleston as he can in New York or Boston.

I dined with Mr. Riggs, the banker, who had an agreeable party to meet me. Mr. Corcoran, his former partner, who was present, erected at his own cost, and presented to the city, a fine building, to be used as an art gallery and museum; but as yet the arts which are to be found in Washington are political and feminine only. Mr. Corcoran has a private gallery of pictures, and a collection, in which is the much-praised Greek Slave of Hiram Powers. The gentry of Columbia are thoroughly Virginian in sentiment, and look rather south than north of the Potomac for political results. The President, I hear this evening, is alarmed lest Virginia should become hostile, and his policy, if he has any, is temporising and timid. It is perfectly wonderful to hear people using the word “Government” at all, as applied to the President and his cabinet—a body which has no power “according to the constitution” to save the country governed or itself from destruction. In fact, from the circumstances under which the constitution was framed, it was natural that the principle point kept in view should be the exhibition of a strong front to foreign powers, combined with the least possible amount of constriction on the internal relations of the different States.

In the hotel the roar of office-seekers is unabated. Train after train adds to their numbers. They cumber the passages. The hall is crowded to such a degree that suffocation might describe the degree to which the pressure reaches, were it not that tobacco-smoke invigorates and sustains the constitution. As to the condition of the floor it is beyond description.

CHAPTER VIII. New York Press

New York Press—Rumours as to the Southerners—Visit to the Smithsonian Institute—Pythons—Evening at Mr. Seward’s—Rough draft of official dispatch to Lord J. Russell—Estimate of its effect in Europe—The attitude of Virginia.

April 7th.—Raining all day, cold and wet. I am tired and weary of this perpetual jabber about Port Sumter. Men here who know nothing at all of what is passing send letters to the New York papers, which are eagerly read by the people in Washington as soon as the journals reach the city, and then all these vague surmises are taken as gospel, and argued upon as if they were facts. The “Herald” keeps up the courage and spirit of its Southern friends by giving the most florid accounts of their prospects, and making continual attacks on Mr. Lincoln and his Government; but the majority of the New York papers are inclined to resist Secession and aid the Government. I dined with Lord Lyons in the evening, and met Mr. Sumner, Mr. Blackwell, the manager of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, his wife, and the members of the Legation. After dinner I visited M. de Stoeckl, the Russian Minister, and M. Tassara, the Minister of Spain, who had small receptions. There were few Americans present. As a rule, the diplomatic circle, which has, by-the-by, no particular centre, radii, or circumference, keeps its members pretty much within itself. The great people here are mostly the representatives of the South American powers, who are on more intimate relations with the native families in Washington than are the transatlantic ministers.

April 8th.—How it does rain! Last night there were torrents of water in the streets literally a foot deep. It still runs in muddy whirling streams through the channels, and the rain is falling incessantly from a dull leaden sky. The air is warm and clammy. There are all kind of rumours abroad, and the barbers’ shops shook with “shaves” this morning. Sumter, of course, was the main topic. Some reported that the President had promised the Southern Commissioners, through their friend Mr. Campbell, Judge of the Supreme Court, not to use force in respect to Pickens or Sumter. I wrote to Mr. Seward, to ask him if he could enable me to make any definite statement on these important matters. The Southerners are alarmed at the accounts they have received of great activity and preparations in the Brooklyn and Boston navy yards, and declare that “treachery” is meant. I find myself quite incapable of comprehending their position. How can the United States Government be guilty of “treachery” towards subjects of States which are preparing to assert their independence, unless that Government has been guilty of falsehood or admitted the justice of the decision to which the States had arrived?

As soon as I had finished my letters, I drove over to the Smithsonian Institute, and was most kindly received by Professor Henry, who took me through the library and museum, and introduced me to Professor Baird, who is great in natural history, and more particularly in ornithology. I promised the professors some skins of Himalayan pheasants, as an addition to the collection. In the library we were presented to two very fine and lively rock snakes, or pythons, I believe, some six feet long or more, which moved about with much grace and agility, putting out their forked tongues and hissing sharply when seized by the hand or menaced with a stick. I was told that some persons doubted if serpents hissed; I can answer for it that rock snakes do most audibly. They are not venomous, but their teeth are sharp and needle like. The eye is bright and glistening; the red forked tongue, when protruded, has a rapid vibratory motion, as if it were moved by the muscles which produce the quivering hissing noise. I was much interested by Professor Henry’s remarks on the large map of the continent of North America in his study: he pointed out the climatic conditions which determined the use, profits, and necessity of slave-labour, and argued that the vast increase of population anticipated in the valley of the Mississippi, and the prophecies of imperial greatness attached to it, were fallacious. He seems to be of opinion that most of the good land of America is already cultivated, and that the crops which it produces tend to exhaust it, so as to compel the cultivators eventually to let it go fallow or to use manure. The fact is, that the influence of the great mountain-chain in the west, which intercepts all the rain on the Pacific side, causes an immense extent of country between the eastern slope of the chain and the Mississippi, as well as the district west of Minnesota, to be perfectly dry and uninhabitable; and, as far as we know, it is as worthless as a moor, except for the pasturage of wild cattle and the like.

On returning to my hotel, I found a note from Mr. Seward, asking me to visit him at nine o’clock. On going to his house, I was shown to the drawing-room, and found there only the Secretary of State, his son, and Mrs. Seward. I made a parti carré for a friendly rubber of whist, and Mr. Seward, who was my partner, talked as he played, so that the score of the game was not favourable. But his talk was very interesting. “All the preparations of which you hear mean this only. The Government, finding the property of the State and Federal forts neglected and left without protection, are determined to take steps to relieve them from that neglect, and to protect them. But we are determined in doing so to make no aggression. The President’s inaugural clearly shadows out our policy. We will not go beyond it—we have no intention of doing so—nor will we withdraw from it.” After a time Mr. Seward put down his cards, and told his son to go for a portfolio which he would find in a drawer of his table. Mrs. Seward lighted the drop light of the gas, and on her husband’s return with the paper left the room. The Secretary then lit his cigar, gave one to me, and proceeded to read slowly and with marked emphasis, a very long, strong, and able dispatch, which he told me was to be read by Mr. Adams, the American Minister in London, to Lord John Russell. It struck me that the tone of the paper was hostile, that there was an undercurrent of menace through it, and that it contained insinuations that Great Britain would interfere to split up the Republic, if she could, and was pleased at the prospect of the dangers which threatened it.

At all the stronger passages Mr. Seward raised his voice, and made a pause at their conclusion as if to challenge remark or approval. At length I could not help saying, that the despatch would, no doubt, have an excellent effect when it came to light in Congress, and that the Americans would think highly of the writer; but I ventured to express an opinion that it would not be quite so acceptable to the Government and people of Great Britain. This Mr. Seward, as an American statesman, had a right to make but a secondary consideration. By affecting to regard Secession as a mere political heresy which can be easily confuted, and by forbidding foreign countries alluding to it, Mr. Seward thinks he can establish the supremacy of his own Government, and at the same time gratify the vanity of the people. Even war with us may not be out of the list of those means which would be available for re-fusing the broken union into a mass once more. However, the Secretary is quite confident in what he calls “re-action.” “When the Southern States,” he says, “see that we mean them no wrong—that we intend no violence to persons, rights, or things—that the Federal Government seeks only to fulfil obligations imposed on it in respect to the national property, they will see their mistake, and one after another they will come back into the union.” Mr. Seward anticipates this process will at once begin, and that Secession will all be done and over in three months—at least, so he says. It was after midnight ere our conversation was over, much of which of course I cannot mention in these pages.

April 9th.—A storm of rain, thunder, and lightning. The streets are converted into water-courses. From the country we hear of bridges washed away by inundations, and roads rendered impassable. Accounts from the South are gloomy, but the turba Remi in Willard’s are as happy as ever, at least as noisy and as greedy of place. By-the-by, I observe that my prize-fighting friend of the battered nose has been rewarded for his exertions at last. He has been standing drinks all round till he is not able to stand himself, and he has expressed his determination never to forget all the people in the passage. I dined at the Legation in the evening, where there was a small party, and returned to the hotel in torrents of rain.

CHAPTER IX. Dinner at General Scott’s

Dinner at General Scott’s—Anecdotes of General Scott’s early life—The startling dispatch—Insecurity of the Capital.

April 10th.—To-day I devoted to packing up such things as I did not require, and sending them to New York. I received a characteristic note from General Scott, asking me to dine with him to-morrow, and apologising for the shortness of his invitation, which arose from his only having just heard that I was about to leave so soon for the South. The General is much admired by his countrymen, though they do not spare some “amiable weaknesses;” but, in my mind, he can only be accused of a little vanity, which is often found in characters of the highest standard. He likes to display his reading, and is troubled with a desire to indulge in fine writing. Some time ago he wrote a long letter to the “National Intelligencer,” in which he quoted Shakspere and Paley to prove that President Buchanan ought to have garrisoned the forts at Charleston and Pensacola, as he advised him to do; and he has been the victim of poetic aspirations. The General’s dinner hour was early; and when I arrived at his modest lodgings, which, however, were in the house of a famous French cook, I found a troop of mounted volunteers of the district, parading up and down the street. They were not bad of their class, and the horses, though light, were active, hardy, and spirited; but the men put on their uniforms badly, wore long hair, their coats and buttons and boots were unbrushed, and the horses’ coats and accoutrements bore evidence of neglect. The General, who wore an undress blue frock-coat, with eagle-covered brass buttons, and velvet collar and cuffs, was with Mr. Seward and Mr. Bates, the Attorney-General, and received me very courteously. He was interrupted by cheering from the soldiers in the street, and by clamours for “General Scott.” He moves with difficulty, owing to a fall from his horse, and from the pressure of increasing years; and he evidently would not have gone out if he could have avoided it. But there is no privacy for public men in America.

Out the General went to them, and addressed a few words to his audience in the usual style about “rallying round,” and “dying gloriously,” and “old flag of our country,” and all that kind of thing; after which, the band struck up “Yankee Doodle.” Mr. Seward called out “General, make them play the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’ and ‘Hail Columbia.’” And so I was treated to the strains of the old bacchanalian chant, “When Bibo,” &c., which the Americans have impressed to do duty as a national air. Then came an attempt to play “God save the Queen,” which I duly appreciated as a compliment; and then followed dinner, which did credit to the cook, and wine, which was most excellent, from France, Spain, and Madeira. The only addition to our party was Major Cullum, aide-de-camp to General Scott, an United States’ engineer, educated at West Point. The General underwent a little badinage about the phrase “a hasty plate of soup,” which he used in one of his despatches during the Mexican War, and he appealed to me to decide whether it was so erroneous or ridiculous as Mr. Seward insisted. I said I was not a judge, but certainly similar liberal usage of a well-known figure of prosody might be found to justify the phrase. The only attendants at table were the General’s English valet and a coloured servant; and the table apparatus which bore such good things was simple and unpretending. Of course the conversation was of a general character, and the General, evidently picking out his words with great precision, took the lead in it, telling anecdotes of great length, graced now and then with episodes, and fortified by such episodes as—“Bear with me, dear sir, for a while, that I may here diverge from the main current of my story, and proceed to mention a curious——” &c., and so on.

To me his conversation was very interesting, particularly that portion which referred to his part in the last war, where he was wounded and taken prisoner. He gave an account of the Battle of Chippewa, which was, he said, fought on true scientific principles; and in the ignorance common to most Englishmen of reverses to their arms, I was injudicious enough, when the battle was at its height, and whole masses of men were moving in battalions and columns over the table, to ask how many were engaged. The General made the most of his side: “We had, sir, twenty-one hundred and seventy-five men in the field.” He told us how, when the British men-of-war provoked general indignation in Virginia by searching American vessels for deserters in the Chesapeake, the State of Virginia organised a volunteer force to guard the shores, and, above all things, to prevent the country people sending down supplies to the vessels, in pursuance of the orders of the Legislature and Governor. Young Scott, then reading for the bar, became corporal of a troop of these patrols. One night, as they were on duty by the banks of the Potomac, they heard a boat with muffled oars coming rapidly down the river, and soon saw her approaching quite close to the shore under cover of the trees. When she was abreast of the troopers, Scott challenged “What boat is that?” “It’s His Majesty’s ship ‘Leopard,’ and what the d—— is that to you? Give way, my lads!” “I at once called on him to surrender,” said the General, “and giving the word to charge, we dashed into the water. Fortunately, it was not deep, and the midshipman in charge, taken by surprise by a superior force, did not attempt to resist us. We found the boat manned by four sailors, and filled with vegetables and other supplies, and took possession of it; and I believe it is the first instance of a man-of-war’s boat being captured by cavalry. The Legislature of Virginia, however, did not approve of the capture, and the officer was given up accordingly.

“Many years afterwards, when I visited Europe, I happened to be dining at the hospitable mansion of Lord Holland, and observed during the banquet that a gentleman at table was scrutinising my countenance in a manner indicative of some special curiosity. Several times, as my eye wandered in his direction, I perceived that he had been continuing his investigations, and at length I rebuked him by a continuous glance. After dinner, this gentleman came round to me and said, ‘General Scott, I hope you will pardon my rudeness in staring at you, but the fact is that you bear a most remarkable resemblance to a great overgrown, clumsy, country fellow of the same name, who took me prisoner in my boat when I was a midshipman in the “Chesapeake,” at the head of a body of mounted men. He was, I remember quite well, Corporal Scott,’ ‘That Corporal Scott, sir, and the individual who addresses you, are identical one with the other.’ The officer whose acquaintance I thus so auspiciously renewed, was Captain Fox, a relation of Lord Holland, and a post-captain in the British navy.”

Whilst he was speaking, a telegraphic dispatch was brought in, which the General perused with evident uneasiness. He apologised to me for reading it by saying the dispatch was from the President on Cabinet business, and then handed it across the table to Mr. Seward. The Secretary read it, and became a little agitated, and raised his eyes inquiringly to the General’s face, who only shook his head. Then the paper was given to Mr. Bates, who read it, and gave a grunt, as it were, of surprise. The General took back the paper, read it twice over, and then folded it up and put it in his pocket. “You had better not put it there, General,” interposed Mr. Seward; “it will be getting lost, or into some other hands.” And so the General seemed to think, for he immediately threw it into the fire, before which certain bottles of claret were gently mellowing.

The communication was evidently of a very unpleasant character. In order to give the Ministers opportunity for a conference, I asked Major Cullum to accompany me into the garden, and lighted a cigar. As I was walking about in the twilight, I observed two figures at the end of the little enclosure, standing as if in concealment close to the wall. Major Cullum said “The men you see are sentries I have thought it expedient to place there for the protection of the General. The villains might assassinate him, and would do it in a moment if they could. He would not hear of a guard, nor anything of the sort, so, without his knowing it, I have sentries posted all round the house all night.” This was a curious state of things for the commander of the American army, in the midst of a crowded city, the capital of the free and enlightened Republic, to be placed in! On our return to the sitting-room, the conversation was continued some hour or so longer. I retired with Mr. Seward in his carriage. As we were going up Pennsylvania Avenue—almost lifeless at that time—I asked Mr. Seward whether he felt quite secure against any irruption from Virginia, as it was reported that one Ben McCullough, the famous Texan desperado, had assembled 500 men at Richmond for some daring enterprise: some said to carry off the President, cabinet, and all. He replied that, although the capital was almost defenceless, it must be remembered that the bold bad men who were their enemies were equally unprepared for active measures of aggression.

CHAPTER X. Preparations for war at Charleston

Preparations for war at Charleston—My own departure for the Southern States—Arrival at Baltimore—Commencement of hostilities at Fort Sumter—Bombardment of the Fort—General feeling as to North and South—Slavery—First impressions of the City of Baltimore—Departure by steamer.

April 12th.—This morning I received an intimation that the Government had resolved on taking decisive steps which would lead to a development of events in the South and test the sincerity of Secession. The Confederate general at Charleston, Beauregard, has sent to the Federal officer in command at Sumter, Major Anderson, to say, that all communication between his garrison and the city must cease; and, at the same time, or probably before it, the Government at Washington informed the Confederate authorities that they intended to forward supplies to Major Anderson, peaceably if permitted, but at all hazards to send them. The Charleston people are manning the batteries they have erected against Sumter, have fired on a vessel under the United States flag, endeavouring to communicate with the fort, and have called out and organised a large force in the islands opposite the place and in the city of Charleston.

I resolved therefore to start for the Southern States to-day, proceeding by Baltimore to Norfolk instead of going by Richmond, which was cut off by the floods. Before leaving, I visited Lord Lyons, Mr. Seward, the French and Russian Ministers; left cards on the President, Mrs. Lincoln, General Scott, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Sumner, and others. There was no appearance of any excitement in Washington, but Lord Lyons mentioned, as an unusual circumstance, that he had received no telegraphic communication from Mr. Bunch, the British Consul at Charleston. Some ladies said to me that when I came back I would find some nice people at Washington, and that the rail-splitter, his wife, the Sewards, and all the rest of them, would be driven to the place where they ought to be: “Varina Davis is a lady, at all events, not like the other. We can’t put up with such people as these!” A naval officer whom I met, told me, “if the Government are really going to try force at Charleston, you’ll see they’ll be beaten, and we’ll have a war between the gentlemen and the Yankee rowdies; if they attempt violence, you know how that will end.” The Government are so uneasy that they have put soldiers into the Capitol, and are preparing it for defence.

At 6 P.M. I drove to the Baltimore station in a storm of rain, accompanied by Mr. Warre, of the British Legation. In the train there was a crowd of people, many of them disappointed place-hunters, and much discussion took place respecting the propriety of giving supplies to Sumter by force, the weight of opinion being against the propriety of such a step. The tone in which the President and his cabinet were spoken of was very disrespectful. One big man, in a fur coat, who was sitting near me, said, “Well, darn me if I wouldn’t draw a bead on Old Abe, Seward—aye, or General Scott himself, though I’ve got a perty good thing out of them, if they due try to use their soldiers and sailors to beat down States’ Rights. If they want to go they’ve a right to go.” To which many said, “That’s so! That’s true!”

When we arrived at Baltimore, at 8 P.M., the streets were deep in water. A coachman, seeing I was a stranger, asked me two dollars, or 8s. 4d., to drive to the Eutaw House, a quarter of a mile distance; but I was not surprised, as I had paid three-and-a-half and four dollars to go to dinner and return to the hotel in Washington. On my arrival, the landlord, no less a person than a major or colonel, took me aside, and asked me if I had heard the news. “No, what is it?” “The President of the Telegraph Company tells me he has received a message from his clerk at Charleston that the batteries have opened fire on Sumter because the Government has sent down a fleet to force in supplies.” The news had, however, spread. The hall and bar of the hotel were full, and I was asked by many people whom I had never seen in my life, what my opinions were as to the authenticity of the rumour. There was nothing surprising in the fact that the Charleston people had resented any attempt to reinforce the forts, as I was aware, from the language of the Southern Commissioners, that they would resist any such attempt to the last, and make it a casus and causa belli.

April 14.—The Eutaw House is not a very good specimen of an American hotel, but the landlord does his best to make his guests comfortable, when he likes them. The American landlord is a despot who regulates his dominions by ukases affixed to the walls, by certain state departments called “offices” and “bars,” and who generally is represented, whilst he is away on some military, political, or commercial undertaking, by a lieutenant; the deputy being, if possible, a greater man than the chief. It requires so much capital to establish a large hotel, that there is little fear of external competition in the towns. And Americans are so gregarious that they will not patronise small establishments.

I was the more complimented by the landlord’s attention this morning when he came to the room, and in much excitement informed me the news of Fort Sumter being bombarded by the Charleston batteries was confirmed, “And now,” said he, “there’s no saying where it will all end.”

After breakfast I was visited by some gentlemen of Baltimore, who were highly delighted with the news, and I learned from them there was a probability of their State joining those which had seceded. The whole feeling of the landed and respectable classes is with the South. The dislike to the Federal Government at Washington is largely spiced with personal ridicule and contempt of Mr. Lincoln. Your Marylander is very tenacious about being a gentleman, and what he does not consider gentlemanly is simply unfit for anything, far less for place and authority.

The young draftsman, of whom I spoke, turned up this morning, having pursued me from Washington. He asked me whether I would still let him accompany me. I observed that I had no objection, but that I could not permit such paragraphs in the papers again, and suggested there would be no difficulty in his travelling by himself, if he pleased. He replied that his former connection with a Black Republican paper might lead to his detention or molestation in the South, but that if he was allowed to come with me, no one would doubt that he was employed by an illustrated London paper. The young gentleman will certainly never lose anything for the want of asking.

At the black barber’s I was meekly interrogated by my attendant as to my belief in the story of the bombardment. He was astonished to find a stranger could think the event was probable. “De gen’lmen of Baltimore will be quite glad ov it. But maybe it’l come bad after all.” I discovered my barber had strong ideas that the days of slavery were drawing to an end. “And what will take place then, do you think?” “Wall, sare,’spose coloured men will be good as white men.” That is it. They do not understand what a vast gulf flows between them and the equality of position with the white race which most of those who have aspirations imagine to be meant by emancipation. He said the town slave-owners were very severe and harsh in demanding larger sums than the slaves could earn. The slaves are sent out to do jobs, to stand for hire, to work on the quays and docks. Their earnings go to the master, who punishes them if they do not bring home enough. Sometimes the master is content with a fixed sum, and all over that amount which the slave can get may be retained for his private purposes.

Baltimore looks more ancient and respectable than the towns I have passed through, and the site on which it stands is undulating, so that the houses have not that flatness and uniformity of height which make the streets of New York and Philadelphia resemble those of a toy city magnified. Why Baltimore should be called the “Monumental City” could not be divined by a stranger. He would never think that a great town of 250,000 inhabitants could derive its name from an obelisk cased in white marble to George Washington, even though it be more than 200 feet high, nor from the grotesque column called “Battle Monument,” erected to the memory of those who fell in the skirmish outside the city in which the British were repulsed in 1814. I could not procure any guide to the city worth reading, and strolled about at discretion, after a visit to the Maryland Club, of which I was made an honorary member. At dark I started for Norfolk, in the steamer “Georgianna.”

CHAPTER XI. Scenes on board an American steamer

Scenes on board an American steamer—The “Merrimac”—Irish sailors in America—Norfolk—A telegram on Sunday; news from the seat of war—American “chaff” and our Jack Tars.

Sunday, April 14.—A night of disturbed sleep, owing to the ponderous thumping of the walking-beam close to my head, the whizzing of steam, and the roaring of the steam-trumpet to warn vessels out of the way—musquitoes, too, had a good deal to say to me in spite of my dirty gauze curtains. Soon after dawn the vessel ran alongside the jetty at Fortress Monroe, and I saw indistinctly the waterface of the work which is in some danger of being attacked, it is said, by the Virginians. There was no flag on the staff above the walls, and the place looked dreary and desolate. It has a fine bastioned profile, with moat and armed lunettes—the casemates were bricked up or occupied by glass windows, and all the guns I could make out were on the parapets. A few soldiers were lounging on the jetty, and after we had discharged a tipsy old officer, a few negroes, and some parcels, the steam-pipe brayed—it does not whistle—again, and we proceeded across the mouth of the channel and James’ River towards Elizabeth River, on which stand Portsmouth and Gosport.

Just as I was dressing, the door opened, and a tall, neatly dressed negress came in and asked me for my ticket. She told me she was ticket-collector for the boat, and that she was a slave. The latter intelligence was given without any reluctance or hesitation. On my way to the upper deck I observed the bar was crowded by gentlemen engaged in consuming, or waiting for, cocktails or mint-juleps. The latter, however, could not be had just now in such perfection as usual, owing to the inferior condition of the mint. In the matter of drinks, how hospitable the Americans are! I was asked to take as many as would have rendered me incapable of drinking again; my excuse on the plea of inability to grapple with cocktails and the like before breakfast, was heard with surprise, and I was urgently entreated to abandon so bad a habit.

A clear, fine sun rose from the waters of the bay up into the purest of pure blue skies. On our right lay a low coast fringed with trees, and wooded densely with stunted forest, through which creeks could be seen glinting far through the foliage. Anxious-looking little wooden lighthouses, hard set to preserve their equilibrium in the muddy waters, and bent at various angles, marked the narrow channels to the towns and hamlets on the banks, the principal trade and occupation of which are oyster selling and oyster eating. We are sailing over wondrous deposits and submarine crops of the much-loved bivalve. Wooden houses painted white appear on the shores, and one large building with wings and a central portico surmounted by a belvedere, destined for the reception of the United States’ sailors in sickness, is a striking object in the landscape.

The steamer in a few minutes came alongside a dirty, broken-down, wooden quay, lined with open booths, on which a small crowd, mostly of negroes, had gathered. Behind the shed there rose tiled and shingled roofs of mean dingy houses, and we could catch glimpses of the line of poor streets, narrow, crooked, ill-paved, surmounted by a few church-steeples, and the large sprawling advertisement-boards of the tobacco-stores and oyster-sellers, which was all we could see of Portsmouth or Gosport. Our vessel was in a narrow creek; at one side was the town—in the centre of the stream the old “Pennsylvania,” intended to be of 120 guns, but never commissioned, and used as receiving-ship, was anchored—alongside the wall of the Navy Yard below us, lay the “Merrimac,” apparently in ordinary. The only man-of-war fit for sea was a curiosity—a stumpy bluff-bowed, Dutch-built-looking sloop, called the “Cumberland.” Two or three smaller vessels, dismasted, were below the “Merrimac,” and we could just see the building-sheds in which were one or two others, I believe, on the stocks. A fleet of oyster-boats anchored, or in sail-less observance of the Sunday, dotted the waters. There was an ancient and fish-like smell about the town worthy of its appearance and of its functions as a seaport. As the vessel came close alongside, there was the usual greeting between friends, and many a cry, “Well, you’ve heard the news? The Yankees out of Sumter! Isn’t it fine!” There were few who did not participate in that sentiment, but there were some who looked black as night and said nothing.

Whilst we were waiting for the steam ferry-boat, which plies to Norfolk at the other side of the creek to take us over, a man-of-war boat pulled alongside, and the coxswain, a handsome, fine-looking sailor, came on deck, and, as I happened to be next him, asked me if Captain Blank had come down with us? I replied, that I did not know, but that the captain could tell him no doubt. “He?” said the sailor, pointing with great disgust to the skipper of the steamer, “Why he knows nothin’ of his passengers, except how many dollars they come to,” and started off to prosecute his inquiries among the other passengers. The boat alongside was clean, and was manned by six as stout fellows as ever handled an oar. Two I made sure of were Englishmen, and when the coxswain was retiring from his fruitless search, I asked him where he hailed from. “The Cove of Cork. I was in the navy nine years, but when I got on the West Ingy Station, I heerd how Uncle Sam treated his fellows, and so I joined him.” “Cut and run, I suppose?” “Well, not exactly. I got away, sir. Emigrated, you know!” “Are there any other Irishmen or Englishmen on board?” “I should think there was. That man in the bow there is a mate of mine, from the sweet Cove of Cork; Driscoll by name, and there’s a Belfast man pulls number two; and the stroke, and the chap that pulls next to him is Englishmen, and fine sailors they are, Bates and Rookey. They were in men-of-war too.” “What! five out of seven, British subjects!” “Oh, aye, that is—we onst was—most of us now are ’Mericans, I think. There’s plenty more of us aboard the ship.”

The steam ferry was a ricketty affair, and combined with the tumble-down sheds and quays to give a poor idea of Norfolk. The infliction of tobacco juice on board was remarkable. Although it was but seven o’clock every one had his quid in working order, and the air was filled with yellowish-brown rainbows and liquid parabolas, which tumbled in spray or in little flocks of the weed on the foul decks. As it was Sunday, some of the numerous flagstaffs which adorn the houses in both cities displayed the United States’ bunting; but nothing could relieve the decayed air of Norfolk. The omnibus which was waiting to receive us must have been the earliest specimen of carriage building in that style on the Continent; and as it lunged and flopped over the prodigious bad pavement, the severe nature of which was aggravated by a street-railway, it opened the seams as if it were going to fall into firewood. The shops were all closed, of course; but the houses, wooden and brick, were covered with signs and placards indicative of large trade in tobacco and oysters.

Poor G. P. R. James, who spent many years here, could have scarce caught a novel from such a place, spite of great oysters, famous wild fowl, and the lauded poultry and vegetables which are produced in the surrounding districts. There is not a hill for the traveller to ascend towards the close of a summer’s day, nor a moated castle for a thousand miles around. An execrable, tooth-cracking drive ended at last in front of the Atlantic Hotel, where I was doomed to take up my quarters. It is a dilapidated, uncleanly place, with tobacco-stained floor, full of flies and strong odours. The waiters were all slaves: untidy, slip-shod, and careless creatures. I was shut up in a small room, with the usual notice on the door, that the proprietor would not be responsible for anything, and that you were to lock your doors for fear of robbers, and that you must take your meals at certain hours, and other matters of the kind. My umbra went over to Gosport to take some sketches, he said; and after a poor meal, in a long room filled with “citizens,” all of them discussing Sumter, I went out into the street.

The people, I observe, are of a new and marked type,—very tall, loosely yet powerfully made, with dark complexions, strongly-marked features, prominent noses, large angular mouths in square jaws, deep-seated bright eyes, low, narrow foreheads,—and are all of them much given to ruminate tobacco. The bells of the churches were tolling, and I turned into one; but the heat, great enough outside, soon became nearly intolerable; nor was it rendered more bearable by my proximity to some blacks, who were, I presume, servants or slaves of the great people in the forward pews. The clergyman or minister had got to the Psalms, when a bustle arose near the door which attracted his attention, and caused all to turn round. Several persons were standing up and whispering, whilst others were stealing on tiptoe out of the church. The influence extended itself gradually and all the men near the doors were leaving rapidly. The minister, obviously interested, continued to read, raising his eyes towards the door. At last the persons near him rose up and walked boldly forth, and I at length followed the example, and getting into the street, saw men running towards the hotel. “What is it?” exclaimed I to one. “Come along, the telegraph’s in at the Day Book. The Yankees are whipped!” and so continued. I came at last to a crowd of men, struggling, with their faces toward the wall of a shabby house, increased by fresh arrivals, and diminished by those who, having satisfied their curiosity, came elbowing forth in a state of much excitement, exultation, and perspiration. “It’s all right enough!” “Didn’t I tell you so?” “Bully for Beauregard and the Palmetto State!” I shoved on, and read at last the programme of the cannonade and bombardment, and of the effects upon the fort, on a dirty piece of yellowish paper on the wall. It was a terrible writing. At all the street corners men were discussing the news with every symptom of joy and gratification. Now I confess I could not share in the excitement at all. The act seemed to me the prelude to certain war.

I walked up the main street, and turned up some of the alleys to have a look at the town, coming out on patches of water and bridges over the creeks, or sandy lanes shaded by trees, and lined here and there by pretty wooden villas, painted in bright colours. Everywhere negroes, male and female, gaudily dressed or in rags; the door-steps of the narrow lanes swarming with infant niggerdom—big-stomached, curve-legged, rugged-headed, and happy—tumbling about dim-eyed toothless hags, or thick-lipped mothers. Not a word were they talking about Sumter. “Any news to-day?” said I to a respectable-looking negro in a blue coat and brass buttons, wonderful hat, and vest of amber silk, check trowsers, and very broken-down shoes. “Well, sare, I tink nothin’ much occur. Der hem a fire at Squire Nichol’s house last night; leastway so I hear, sare.” Squire, let me say parenthetically, is used to designate justices of the peace. Was it a very stupid poco-curante, or a very cunning, subtle Sambo?

In my walk I arrived at a small pier, covered with oyster shells, which projected into the sea. Around it, on both sides, were hosts of schooners and pungys, smaller half-decked boats, waiting for their load of the much-loved fish for Washington, Baltimore, and Richmond. Some brigs and large vessels lay alongside the wharves and large warehouses higher up the creek. Observing a small group at the end of the pier I walked on, and found that they consisted of fifteen or twenty well-dressed mechanical kind of men, busily engaged in “chaffing,” as Cockneys would call it, the crew of the man-of-war boat I had seen in the morning. The sailors were stretched on the thwarts, some rather amused, others sullen at the ordeal. “You better just pull down that cussed old rag of yours, and bring your old ship over to the Southern Confederacy. I guess we can take your ‘Cumberland’ whenever we like! Why don’t you go, and touch off your guns at Charleston?” Presently the coxswain came down with a parcel under his arm, and stepped into the boat. “Give way, my lads;” and the oars dipped in the water. When the boat had gone a few yards from the shore, the crowd cried out: “Down with the Yankees! Hurrah for the Southern Confederacy!” and some among them threw oyster shells at the boat, one of which struck the coxswain on the head. “Back water! Back water all. Hard!” he shouted; and as the boat’s stern neared the land, he stood up and made a leap in among the crowd like a tiger. “You cowardly d——d set. Who threw the shells?” No one answered at first, but a little wizened man at last squeaked out: “I guess you’ll have shells of another kind if you remain here much longer.” The sailor howled with rage: “Why, you poor devils, I’d whip any half dozen of you,—teeth, knives, and all—in five minutes; and my boys there in the boat would clear your whole town. What do you mean by barking at the Stars and Stripes? Do you see that ship?” he shouted, pointing towards the “Cumberland.” “Why the lads aboard of her would knock every darned seceder in your State into a cocked hat in a brace of shakes! And now who’s coming on?” The invitation was not accepted, and the sailor withdrew, with his angry eyes fixed on the people, who gave him a kind of groan; but there were no oyster shells this time. “In spite of his blowing, I tell yer,” said one of them, “there’s some good men from old Virginny abo’rd o’ that ship that will never fire a shot agin us.” “Oh, we’ll fix her right enough,” remarked another, “when the time comes.” I returned to my room, sat down, and wrote for some hours. The dinner in the Atlantic Hotel was of a description to make one wish the desire for food had never been invented. My neighbour said he was not “quite content about this Sumter business. There’s nary one killed nor wownded.”

Sunday is a very dull day in Norfolk—no mails, no post, no steamers; and, at the best, Norfolk must be dull exceedingly. The superintendent of the Seaboard and Roanoke Railway, having heard that I was about proceeding to Charleston, called upon me to offer every facility in his power. Sent Moses with letters to post-office. At night the musquitoes were very aggressive and successful. This is the first place in which the bedrooms are unprovided with gas. A mutton dip almost made me regret the fact.

CHAPTER XII. Portsmouth

Portsmouth—Railway journey through the forest—The great Dismal Swamp—American newspapers—Cattle on the line—Negro labour—On through the Pine Forest—The Confederate flag—Goldsborough; popular excitement—Weldon—Wilmington—The Vigilance Committee.

Monday, April 15.—Up at dawn. Crossed by ferry to Portsmouth, and arrived at railway station, which was at no place in particular, in a street down which the rails were laid. Mr. Robinson, the superintendent, gave me permission to take a seat in the engine car, to which I mounted accordingly, was duly introduced to, and shook hands with the engineer and the stoker, and took my seat next the boiler. Can any solid reason be given why we should not have those engine sheds or cars in England? They consist of a light frame placed on the connection of the engine with the tender, and projecting so as to include the end of the boiler and the stoke-hole. They protect the engineer from rain, storm, sun, or dust. Windows at each side afford a clear view in all directions, and the engineer can step out on the engine itself by the doors on the front part of the shed. There is just room for four persons to sit uncomfortably, the persons next the boiler being continually in dread of roasting their legs at the furnace, and those next the tender being in danger of getting logs of wood from it shaken down on their feet. Nevertheless I rarely enjoyed anything more than that trip. It is true one’s enjoyment was marred by want of breakfast, for I could not manage the cake of dough and the cup of bitter, sour, greasy nastiness, called coffee, which were presented to me in lieu of that meal this morning.

But the novelty of the scene through which I passed atoned for the small privation. I do not speak of the ragged streets and lines of sheds through which the train passed, with the great bell of the engine tolling as if it were threatening death to the early pigs, cocks, hens, and negroes and dogs which walked between the rails—the latter, by-the-bye, were always the first to leave—the negroes generally divided with the pigs the honour of making the nearest stand to the train—nor do I speak of the miserable suburbs of wooden shanties, nor of the expanse of inundated lands outside the town. Passing all these, we settled down at last to our work: the stoker fired up, the engine rattled along over the rugged lane between the trees which now began to sweep around us from the horizon, where they rose like the bank of a river or the shores of a sea, and presently we plunged into the gloom of the primæval forest, struggling as it were, with the last wave of the deluge.

The railroad, leaving the land, boldly leaped into the air, and was carried on frailest cobweb-seeming tracery of wood far above black waters, from which rose a thick growth and upshooting of black stems of dead trees, mingled with the trunks and branches of others still living, throwing out a most luxuriant vegetation. The trestle-work over which the train was borne, judged by the eye, was of the slightest possible construction. Sometimes one series of trestles was placed above another, so that the cars ran on a level with the tops of the trees; and, looking down, we could see before the train passed the inky surface of the waters, broken into rings and agitated, round the beams of wood. The trees were draped with long creepers and shrouds of Spanish moss, which fell from branch to branch, smothering the leaves in their clammy embrace, or waving in pendulous folds in the air. Cypress, live oak, the dogwood, and pine struggled for life with the water, and about their stems floated balks of timber, waifs and strays carried from the rafts by flood or the forgotten spoils of the lumberer. On these lay tortoises, turtles, and enormous frogs, which lifted their heads with a lazy curiosity when the train rushed by, or flopped into the water as if the sight and noise were too much for their nerves. Once a dark body of greater size plashed into the current which marked the course of a river. “There’s many allygaitors come up here at times,” said the engineer, in reply to my question; “but I don’t take much account of them.”

When the trestle-work ceased, the line was continued through the same description of scenery, generally in the midst of water, on high embankments which were continually cut by black rapid streams, crossed by bridges on trestles of great span. The strange tract we are passing through is the “Dismal Swamp,” a name which must have but imperfectly expressed its horrors before the railway had traversed its outskirts, and the canal, which is constructed in its midst, left traces of the presence of man in that remnant of the world’s exit from the flood. In the centre of this vast desolation there is a large loch, called “Lake Drummond,” in the jungle and brakes around which the runaway slaves of the plantations long harboured, and once or twice assembled bands of depredators, which were hunted down, broken up, and destroyed like wild beasts.

Mr. Robinson, a young man some twenty-seven years of age, was an excellent representative of the young American—full of intelligence, well-read, a little romantic in spite of his practical habits and dealing with matters of fact, much attached to the literature, if not to the people, of the old country; and so far satisfied that English engineers knew something of their business, as to be anxious to show that American engineers were not behind them. He asked me about Washington politics with as much interest as if he had never read a newspaper. I made a remark to that effect. “Oh, sir, we can’t believe,” exclaimed he, “a word we read in our papers. They tell a story one day, to contradict it the next. We never know when to trust them, and that’s one reason, I believe, you find us all so anxious to ask questions and get information from gentlemen we meet travelling.” Of the future he spoke with apprehension; “but,” said he, “I am here representing the interests of a large number of Northern shareholders, and I will do my best for them. If it comes to blows after this, they will lose all, and I must stand by my own friends down South, though I don’t belong to it.”

So we rattle on, till the scene, at first so attractive, becomes dreary and monotonous, and I tire of looking out for larger turtles or more alligators. The silence of these woods is oppressive. There is no sign of life where the train passes through the water, except among the amphibious creatures. After a time, however, when we draw out of the swamp and get into a dry patch, wild, ragged-looking cattle may be seen staring at us through the trees, or tearing across the rail, and herds of porkers, nearly in the wild-boar stage, scuttle over the open. Then the engineer opens the valve; the sonorous roar of the engine echoes through the woods, and now and then there is a little excitement caused by a race between a pig and the engine, and piggy is occasionally whipped off his legs by the cow-lifter, and hoisted volatile into the ditch at one side. When a herd of cattle, however, get on the line and show fight, the matter is serious. The steam horn is sounded, the bell rung, and steam is eased off, and every means used to escape collision; for the railway company is obliged, to pay the owner for whatever animals the trains kill, and a cow’s body on one of these poor rails is an impediment sufficient to throw the engine off, and “send us to immortal smash.”

It was long before we saw any workmen or guards on the line; but at one place I got out to look at a shanty of one of the road watchmen. It was a building of logs, some 20ft. long by 12ft. broad, made in the rudest manner, with an earthen roof, and mud stuffed and plastered between the logs to keep out the rain. Although the day was exceedingly hot, there were two logs blazing on the hearth, over which was suspended a pot of potatoes. The air inside was stifling, and the black beams of the roof glistened with a clammy sweat from smoke and unwholesome vapours. There was not an article of furniture, except a big deal chest and a small stool, in the place; a mug and a tea-cup stood on a rude shelf nailed to the wall. The owner of this establishment, a stout negro, was busily engaged with others in “wooding up” the engine from the pile of cut timber by the roadside. The necessity of stopping caused by the rapid consumption is one of the désagréments of wood fuel. The wood is cut down and stacked on platforms, at certain intervals along the line; and the quantity used is checked off against the company at the rate of so much per chord. The negro was one of many slaves let out to the company. White men would not do the work, or were too expensive; but the overseers and gangsmen were whites. “How can they bear that fire in the hut?” “Well. If you went into it in the very hottest day in summer, you would find the niggers sitting close up to blazing pine logs, and they sleep at night, or by day when they’ve fed to the full, in the same way.” My friend, nevertheless, did not seem to understand that any country could get on without negro labourers.

By degrees we got beyond the swamps, and came upon patches of cleared land—that is, the forest had been cut down, and the only traces left of it were the stumps, some four or five feet high, “snagging” up above the ground; or the trees had been girdled round, so as to kill them, and the black trunks and stiff arms gave an air of meagre melancholy and desertion to the place, which was quite opposite to their real condition. Here it was that the normal forest and swamp had been subjugated by man. Presently we came in sight of a flag fluttering from a lofty pine, which had been stripped of its branches, throwing broad bars of red and white to the air, with a blue square in the upper quarter containing seven stars. “That’s our flag,”—said the engineer, who was a quiet man, much given to turning steam cocks, examining gauges, wiping his hands in fluffy impromptu handkerchiefs, and smoking tobacco—“That’s our flag! And long may it wave—o’er the land of the free and the home of the ber-rave!” As we passed, a small crowd of men, women, and children, of all colours, in front of a group of poor broken-down shanties or log huts, cheered—to speak more correctly—whooped and yelled vehemently. The cry was returned by the passengers in the train. “We’re all the right sort hereabouts,” said the engineer. “Hurrah for Jeff Davis!” The right sort were not particularly flourishing in outward aspect, at all events. The women, pale-faced, were tawdry and ragged; the men, yellow, seedy looking. For the first time in the States, I noticed barefooted people.

Now began another phase of scenery—an interminable pine forest, far as the eye could reach, shutting out the light on each side by a wooden wall. From this forest came the strongest odour of turpentine; presently black streaks of smoke floated out of the wood, and here and there we passed cleared spaces, where in rude-looking furnaces and factories people more squalid and miserable looking than before were preparing pitch, tar, turpentine, resin, and other naval stores, for which this part of North Carolina is famous. The stems of the trees around are marked by white scars, where the tappings for the turpentine take place, and many dead trunks testified how the process ended.

Again, over another log village, a Confederate flag floated in the air; and the people ran out, negroes and all, and cheered as before. The new flag is not so glaring and gaudy as the Stars and Stripes; but, at a distance, when the folds hang together, there is a considerable resemblance in the general effect of the two. If ever there is a real sentiment du drapeau got up in the South, it will be difficult indeed for the North to restore the Union. These pieces of coloured bunting seem to twine themselves through heart and brain.

The stations along the roadside now gradually grew in proportion, and instead of a small sentry-box beside a wood pile, there were three or four wooden houses, a platform, a booking office, an “exchange” or drinking room, and general stores, like the shops of assorted articles in an Irish town. Around these still grew the eternal forest, or patches of cleared land dotted with black stumps. These stations have very grand names, and the stores are dignified by high-sounding titles; nor are “billiard saloons” and “restaurants” wanting. We generally found a group of people waiting at each; and it really was most astonishing to see well-dressed, respectable-looking men and women emerge out of the “dismal swamp,” and out of the depths of the forest, with silk parasols and crinoline, bandboxes and portmanteaux, in the most civilised style. There were always some negroes, male and female, in attendance on the voyagers, handling the baggage or the babies, and looking comfortable enough, but not happy. The only evidence of the good spirits and happiness of these people which I saw was on the part of a number of men who were going off from a plantation for the fishing on the coast. They and their wives and sisters, arrayed in their best—which means their brightest, colours—were grinning from ear to ear as they bade good-bye. The negro likes the mild excitement of sea fishing, and in pursuit of it he feels for the moment free.

At Goldsborough, which is the first place of importance on the line, the wave of the secession tide struck us in full career. The station, the hotels, the street through which the rail ran was filled with an excited mob, all carrying arms, with signs here and there of a desire to get up some kind of uniform—flushed faces, wild eyes, screaming mouths, hurrahing for “Jeff Davis” and “the Southern Confederacy,” so that the yells overpowered the discordant bands which were busy with “Dixie’s Land.” Here was the true revolutionary furor in full sway. The men hectored, swore, cheered, and slapped each other on the backs; the women, in their best, waved handkerchiefs and flung down garlands from the windows. All was noise, dust, and patriotism.

It was a strange sight and a wonderful event at which we were assisting. These men were a levy of the people of North Carolina called out by the Governor of the State for the purpose of seizing upon forts Caswell and Macon, belonging to the Federal Government, and left unprotected and undefended. The enthusiasm of the “citizens” was unbounded, nor was it quite free from a taint of alcohol. Many of the Volunteers had flint firelocks, only a few had rifles. All kinds of head-dress were visible, and caps, belts and pouches of infinite variety. A man in a large wide-awake, with a cock’s feather in it, a blue frock-coat, with a red sash and a pair of cotton trowsers thrust into his boots, came out of Griswold’s hotel with a sword under his arm, and an article, which might have been a napkin of long service, in one hand. He waved the article enthusiastically, swaying to and fro on his legs, and ejaculating “H’ra for Jeff Dav’s—H’ra for S’thern E’r’rights!” and tottered over to the carriage through the crowd amid the violent vibration of all the ladies’ handkerchiefs in the balcony. Just as he got into the train, a man in uniform dashed after him, and caught him by the elbow, exclaiming, “Them’s not the cars, General! The cars this way, General!” The military dignitary, however, felt that if he permitted such liberties in the hour of victory he was degraded for ever, so, screwing up his lips and looking grave and grand, he proceeded as follows: “Sergeant, you go be ——. I say these are my cars! They’re all my cars! I’ll send them where I please—to —— if I like, sir. They shall go where I please—to New York, sir, or New Orleans, sir! And —— sir, I’ll arrest you.” This famous idea distracted the General’s attention from his project of entering the train, and muttering, “I’ll arrest you,” he tacked backwards and forwards to the hotel again.

As the train started on its journey, there was renewed yelling, which split the ear—a savage cry many notes higher than the most ringing cheer. At the wayside inn, where we dined—pièce de résistance being pig—the attendants, comely, well-dressed, clean negresses were slaves—“worth a thousand dollars each.” I am not favourably impressed by either the food or the mode of living, or the manners of the company. One man made very coarse jokes about “Abe Lincoln” and “negro wenches,” which nothing but extreme party passion and bad taste could tolerate. Several of the passengers had been clerks in Government offices at Washington, and had been dismissed because they would not take the oath of allegiance. They were hurrying off full of zeal and patriotism to tender their services to the Montgomery Government.

I had been the object of many attentions and civilities from gentlemen in the train during my journey. One of them, who told me he was a municipal dignitary of Weldon, having exhausted all the inducements that he could think of to induce me to spend some time there, at last, in desperation, said he would be happy to show me “the antiquities of the place.” Weldon is a recent uprising in wood and log houses from the swamps, and it would puzzle the archæologists of the world to find anything antique about it.

At nightfall the train stopped at Wilmington, and I was shot out on a platform under a shed, to do the best I could. In a long, lofty, and comfortless room, like a barn, which abutted on the platform, there was a table covered with a dirty cloth, on which lay little dishes of pickles, fish, meat, and potatoes, at which were seated some of our fellow-passengers. The equality of all men is painfully illustrated when your neighbour at table eats with his knife, dips the end of it into the salt, and disregards the object and end of napkins. But it is carried to a more disagreeable extent when it is held to mean that any man who comes to an inn has a right to share your bed. I asked for a room, but I was told that there were so many people moving about just now that it was not possible to give me one to myself; but at last I made a bargain for exclusive possession. When the next train came in, however, the woman very coolly inquired whether I had any objection to allow a passenger to divide my bed, and seemed very much displeased at my refusal; and I perceived three big-bearded men snoring asleep in one bed in the next room to me as I passed through the passage to the dining-room.

The ‘artist’ Moses, who had gone with my letter to the post, returned, after a long absence, pale and agitated. He said he had been pounced upon by the Vigilance Committee, who were rather drunk, and very inquisitive. They were haunting the precincts of the Post-office and the railway station, to detect Lincolnites and Abolitionists, and were obliged to keep themselves wide awake by frequent visits to the adjacent bars, and he had with difficulty dissuaded them from paying me a visit. They cross-examined him respecting my opinion of secession, and desired to have an audience with me in order to give me any information which might be required. I cannot say what reply was given to their questioning; but I certainly refused to have any interview with the Vigilance Committee of Wilmington, and was glad they did not disturb me. Rest, however, there was little or none. I might have as well slept on the platform of the railway station outside. Trains coming in and going out shook the room and the bed on which I lay, and engines snorted, puffed, roared, whistled, and rang bells close to my keyhole.

CHAPTER XIII. Sketches round Wilmington

Sketches round Wilmington—Public opinion—Approach to Charleston and Fort Sumter—Introduction to General Beauregard—Ex-Governor Manning—Conversation on the chances of the war—“King Cotton” and England—Visit to Fort Sumter—Market-place at Charleston.

Early next morning, soon after dawn, I crossed the Cape Fear River, on which Wilmington is situated, by a steam ferry-boat. On the quay lay quantities of shot and shell. “How came these here?” I inquired. “They’re anti-abolition pills,” said my neighbour; “they’ve been waiting here for two months back, but now that Sumter’s taken, I guess they won’t be wanted.” To my mind, the conclusion was by no means legitimate. From the small glance I had of Wilmington, with its fleet of schooners and brigs crowding the broad and rapid river, I should think it was a thriving place. Confederate flags waved over the public buildings, and I was informed that the Forts had been seized without opposition or difficulty. I can see no sign here of the “affection to the Union,” which, according to Mr. Seward, underlies all “secession proclivities.”

As we traversed the flat and uninteresting country, through which the rail passes, Confederate flags and sentiments greeted us everywhere; men and women repeated the national cry; at every station militiamen and volunteers were waiting for the train, and the everlasting word “Sumter” ran through all the conversation in the cars.

The Carolinians are capable of turning out a fair force of cavalry. At each stopping-place I observed saddle-horses tethered under the trees, and light driving vehicles, drawn by wiry muscular animals, not remarkable for size, but strong-looking and active. Some farmers in blue jackets, and yellow braid and facings, handed round their swords to be admired by the company. A few blades had flashed in obscure Mexican skirmishes—one, however, had been borne against “the Britishers.” I inquired of a fine, tall, fair-haired young fellow whom they expected to fight. “That’s more than I can tell,” quoth he. “The Yankees ain’t such cussed fools as to think they can come here and whip us, let alone the British.” “Why, what have the British got to do with it?” “They are bound to take our part: if they don’t, we’ll just give them a hint about cotton, and that will set matters right.” This was said very much with the air of a man who knows what he is talking about, and who was quite satisfied “he had you there.” I found it was still displeasing to most people, particularly one or two of the fair sex, that more Yankees were not killed at Sumter. All the people who addressed me prefixed my name, which they soon found out, by “Major” or “Colonel”—“Captain” is very low, almost indicative of contempt. The conductor who took our tickets was called “Captain.”

At the Peedee River the rail is carried over marsh and stream on trestle-work for two miles. “This is the kind of country we’ll catch the Yankees in, if they come to invade us. They’ll have some pretty tall swimming, and get knocked on the head, if ever they gets to land. I wish there was ten thousand of the cusses in it this minute.” At Nichol’s station on the frontiers of South Carolina, our baggage was regularly examined at the Custom House, but I did not see any one pay duties. As the train approached the level and marshy land near Charleston, the square block of Fort Sumter was seen rising above the water with the “stars and bars” flying over it, and the spectacle created great enthusiasm among the passengers. The smoke was still rising from an angle of the walls. Outside the village-like suburbs of the city a regiment was marching for old Virginny amid the cheers of the people—cavalry were picketed in the fields and gardens—tents and men were visible in the byways.

It was nearly dark when we reached the station. I was recommended to go to the Mills House, and on arriving there found Mr. Ward, whom I had already met in New York and Washington, and who gave me an account of the bombardment and surrender of the fort. The hotel was full of notabilities. I was introduced to ex-Governor Manning, Senator Chesnut, Hon. Porcher Miles, on the staff of General Beauregard, and to Colonel Lucas, aide-de-camp to Governor Pickens. I was taken after dinner and introduced to General Beauregard, who was engaged, late as it was, in his room at the Head Quarters writing despatches. The General is a small, compact man, about thirty-six years of age, with a quick, and intelligent eye and action, and a good deal of the Frenchman in his manner and look. He received me in the most cordial manner, and introduced me to his engineer officer, Major Whiting, whom he assigned to lead me over the works next day.

After some general conversation I took my leave; but before I went, the General said, “You shall go everywhere and see everything; we rely on your discretion, and knowledge of what is fair in dealing with what you see. Of course you don’t expect to find regular soldiers in our camps or very scientific works.” I answered the General, that he might rely on my making no improper use of what I saw in this country, but, “unless you tell me to the contrary, I shall write an account of all I see to the other side of the water, and if, when it comes back, there are things you would rather not have known, you must not blame me.” He smiled, and said, “I dare say we’ll have great changes by that time.”

That night I sat in the Charleston club with John Manning. Who that has ever met him can be indifferent to the charms of manner and of personal appearance, which render the ex-Governor of the State so attractive? There were others present, senators or congressmen, like Mr. Chesnut, and Mr. Porcher Miles. We talked long, and at last angrily, as might be between friends, of political affairs.

I own it was a little irritating to me to hear men indulge in extravagant broad menace and rhodomontade, such as came from their lips. “They would welcome the world in arms with hospitable hands to bloody graves.” “They never could be conquered.” “Creation could not do it,” and so on. I was obliged to handle the question quietly at first—to ask them “if they admitted the French were a brave and warlike people!” “Yes, certainly.” “Do you think you could better defend yourselves against invasion than the people of France?” “Well, no; but we’d make it a pretty hard business for the Yankees.” “Suppose the Yankees, as you call them, come with such preponderance of men and matériel, that they are three to your one, will you not be forced to submit?” “Never,” “Then either you are braver, better disciplined, more warlike than the people and soldiers of France, or you alone, of all the nations in the world, possess the means of resisting physical laws which prevail in war, as in other affairs of life.” “No. The Yankees are cowardly rascals. We have proved it by kicking and cuffing them till we are tired of it; besides, we know John Bull very well. He will make a great fuss about non-interference at first, but when he begins to want cotton he’ll come off his perch.” I found this was the fixed idea everywhere. The doctrine of “cotton is king,”—to us who have not much considered the question a grievous delusion or an unmeaning babble—to them is a lively all-powerful faith without distracting heresies or schisms. They have in it enunciated their full belief, and indeed there is some truth in it, in so far as we year after year by the stimulants of coal, capital, and machinery have been working up a manufacture on which four or five millions of our population depend for bread and life, which cannot be carried on without the assistance of a nation, that may at any time refuse us an adequate supply, or be cut off from giving it by war.

Political economy, we are well aware, is a fine science, but its followers are capable of tremendous absurdities in practice. The dependence of such a large proportion of the English people on this sole article of American cotton is fraught with the utmost danger to our honour and to our prosperity. Here were these Southern gentlemen exulting in their power to control the policy of Great Britain, and it was small consolation to me to assure them they were mistaken; in case we did not act as they anticipated, it could not be denied Great Britain would plunge an immense proportion of her people—a nation of manufacturers—into pauperism, which must leave them dependent on the national funds, or more properly on the property and accumulated capital of the district.

About 8·30 P.M. a deep bell began to toll. “What is that?” “It’s for all the coloured people to clear out of the streets and go home. The guards will arrest any who are found out without passes in half an hour.” There was much noise in the streets, drums beating, men cheering, and marching, and the hotel is crammed full with soldiers.

April 17th.—The streets of Charleston present some such aspect as those of Paris in the last revolution. Crowds of armed men singing and promenading the streets. The battle-blood running through their veins—that hot oxygen which is called “the flush of victory” on the cheek; restaurants full, revelling in bar-rooms, club-rooms crowded, orgies and carousings in tavern or private house, in tap-room, from cabaret—down narrow alleys, in the broad highway. Sumter has set them distraught; never was such a victory; never such brave lads; never such a fight. There are pamphlets already full of the incident. It is a bloodless Waterloo or Solferino.

After breakfast I went down to the quay, with a party of the General’s staff, to visit Fort Sumter. The senators and governors turned soldiers wore blue military caps, with “palmetto” trees embroidered thereon; blue frock-coats, with upright collars, and shoulder-straps edged with lace, and marked with two silver bars, to designate their rank of captain; gilt buttons, with the palmetto in relief; blue trowsers, with a gold-lace cord, and brass spurs—no straps. The day was sweltering, but a strong breeze blew in the harbour, and puffed the dust of Charleston, coating our clothes, and filling our eyes with powder. The streets were crowded with lanky lads, clanking spurs, and sabres, with awkward squads marching to and fro, with drummers beating calls, and ruffles, and points of war; around them groups of grinning negroes delighted with the glare and glitter, a holiday, and a new idea for them—secession flags waving out of all the windows—little Irish boys shouting out, “Battle of Fort Sumter! New edishun!”—As we walked down towards the quay, where the steamer was lying, numerous traces of the unsettled state of men’s minds broke out in the hurried conversations of the various friends who stopped to speak for a few moments. “Well, governor, the old Union is gone at last!” “Have you heard what Abe is going to do?” “I don’t think Beauregard will have much more fighting for it. What do you think?” And so on. Our little Creole friend, by-the-bye, is popular beyond description. There are all kinds of doggerel rhymes in his honour—one with a refrain—

“With cannon and musket, with shell and petard,

We salute the North with our Beau-regard”—

is much in favour.

We passed through the market, where the stalls are kept by fat negresses and old “unkeys.” There is a sort of vulture or buzzard here, much encouraged as scavengers, and—but all the world has heard of the Charleston vultures—so we will leave them to their garbage. Near the quay, where the steamer was lying, there is a very fine building in white marble, which attracted our notice. It was unfinished, and immense blocks of the glistening stone destined for its completion, lay on the ground. “What is that?” I inquired. “Why, it’s a custom-house Uncle Sam was building for our benefit, but I don’t think he’ll ever raise a cent for his treasury out of it.” “Will you complete it?” “I should think not. We’ll lay on few duties; and what we want is free-trade, and no duties at all, except for public purposes. The Yankees have plundered us with their custom-houses and duties long enough.” An old gentleman here stopped us. “You will do me the greatest favour,” he said to one of our party who knew him, “if you will get me something to do for our glorious cause. Old as I am, I can carry a musket—not far, to be sure, but I can kill a Yankee if he comes near.” When he had gone, my friend told me the speaker was a man of fortune, two of whose sons were in camp at Morris’ Island, but that he was suspected of Union sentiments, as he had a Northern wife, and hence his extreme vehemence and devotion.

CHAPTER XIV. Southern volunteers

Southern volunteers—Unpopularity of the press—Charleston—Fort Sumter—Morris’ Island—Anti-union enthusiasm—Anecdote of Colonel Wigfall—Interior view of the fort—North versus South.

There was a large crowd around the pier staring at the men in uniform on the boat, which was filled with bales of goods, commissariat stores, trusses of hay, and hampers, supplies for the volunteer army on Morris’ Island. I was amused by the names of the various corps, “Tigers,” “Lions,” “Scorpions,” “Palmetto Eagles,” “Guards,” of Pickens, Sumter, Marion, and of various other denominations, painted on the boxes. The original formation of these volunteers is in companies, and they know nothing of battalions or regiments. The tendency in volunteer outbursts is sometimes to gratify the greatest vanity of the greatest number. These companies do not muster more than fifty or sixty strong. Some were “dandies,” and “swells,” and affected to look down on their neighbours and comrades. Major Whiting told me there was difficulty in getting them to obey orders at first, as each man had an idea that he was as good an engineer as anybody else, “and a good deal better, if it came to that.” It was easy to perceive it was the old story of volunteer and regular in this little army.

As we got on deck, the major saw a number of rough, long-haired-looking fellows in coarse gray tunics, with pewter buttons and worsted braid lying on the hay-bales smoking their cigars. “Gentlemen,” quoth he, very courteously, “You’ll oblige me by not smoking over the hay. There’s powder below.” “I don’t believe we’re going to burn the hay this time, kernel,” was the reply, “and anyway, we’ll put it out afore it reaches the ’bustibles,” and they went on smoking. The major grumbled, and worse, and drew off.

Among the passengers were some brethren of mine belonging to the New York and local papers. I saw a short time afterwards a description of the trip by one of these gentlemen, in which he described it as an affair got up specially for himself, probably in order to avenge himself on his military persecutors, for he had complained to me the evening before, that the chief of General Beauregard’s staff told him, to go to ——, when he applied at head-quarters for some information. I found from the tone and looks of my friends, that these literary gentlemen were received with great disfavour, and Major Whiting, who is a bibliomaniac, and has a very great liking for the best English writers, could not conceal his repugnance and antipathy to my unfortunate confrères. “If I had my way, I would fling them into the water; but the General has given them orders to come on board. It is these fellows who have brought all this trouble on our country.”

The traces of dislike of the freedom of the press, which I, to my astonishment, discovered in the North, are broader and deeper in the South, and they are not accompanied by the signs of dread of its power which exist in New York, where men speak of the chiefs of the most notorious journals very much as people in Italian cities of past time might have talked of the most infamous bravo or the chief of some band of assassins. Whiting comforted himself by the reflection that they would soon have their fingers in a vice, and then pulling out a ragged little sheet, turned suddenly on the representative thereof, and proceeded to give the most unqualified contradiction to most of the statements contained in “the full and accurate particulars of the Bombardment and Fall of Fort Sumter,” in the said journal, which the person in question listened to with becoming meekness and contrition. “If I knew who wrote it,” said the major, “I’d make him eat it.”

I was presented to many judges, colonels, and others of the mass of society on board, and, “after compliments,” as the Orientals say, I was generally asked, in the first place, what I thought of the capture of Sumter, and in the second, what England would do when the news reached the other side. Already the Carolinians regard the Northern States as an alien and detested enemy, and entertain, or profess, an immense affection for Great Britain.

When we had shipped all our passengers, nine-tenths of them in uniform, and a larger proportion engaged in chewing, the whistle blew, and the steamer sidled off from the quay into the yellowish muddy water of the Ashley River, which is a creek from the sea, with a streamlet running into the head waters some distance up.

The shore opposite Charleston is more than a mile distant, and is low and sandy, covered here and there with patches of brilliant vegetation, and long lines of trees. It is cut up with creeks, which divide it into islands, so that passages out to sea exist between some of them for light craft, though the navigation is perplexed and difficult. The city lies on a spur or promontory between the Ashley and the Cooper rivers, and the land behind it is divided in the same manner by similar creeks, and is sandy and light, bearing, nevertheless, very fine crops, and trees of magnificent vegetation. The steeples, the domes of public buildings, the rows of massive warehouses and cotton stores on the wharfs, and the bright colours of the houses, render the appearance of Charleston, as seen from the river front, rather imposing. From the mastheads of the few large vessels in harbour floated the Confederate flag. Looking to our right, the same standard was visible, waving on the low, white parapets of the earthworks which had been engaged in reducing Sumter.

That much-talked-of fortress lay some two miles ahead of us now, rising up out of the water near the middle of the passage out to sea between James’ Island and Sullivan’s Island. It struck me at first as being like one of the smaller forts off Cronstadt, but a closer inspection very much diminished its importance; the material is brick, not stone, and the size of the place is exaggerated by the low back ground, and by contrast with the sea-line. The land contracts on both sides opposite the fort, a projection of Morris’ Island, called “Cumming’s point,” running out on the left. There is a similar promontory from Sullivan’s Island, on which is erected Fort Moultrie, on the right from the sea entrance. Castle Pinckney, which stands on a small island at the exit of the Cooper River, is a place of no importance, and it was too far from Sumter to take any share in the bombardment: the same remarks apply to Fort Johnson on James’ Island, on the right bank of the Ashley River below Charleston. The works which did the mischief were the batteries of sand on Morris’ Island, at Cumming’s Point, and Fort Moultrie. The floating battery, covered with railroad-iron, lay a long way off, and could not have contributed much to the result.

As we approached Morris’ Island, which is an accumulation of sand covered with mounds of the same material, on which there is a scanty vegetation alternating with salt-water marshes, we could perceive a few tents in the distance among the sand-hills. The sand-bag batteries, and an ugly black parapet, with guns peering through port-holes as if from a ship’s side, lay before us. Around them men were swarming like ants, and a crowd in uniform were gathered on the beach to receive us as we landed from the boat of the steamer, all eager for news, and provisions, and newspapers, of which an immense flight immediately fell upon them. A guard with bayonets crossed in a very odd sort of manner, prevented any unauthorised persons from landing. They wore the universal coarse gray jacket and trousers, with worsted braid and yellow facings, uncouth caps, lead buttons stamped with the palmetto-tree. Their unbronzed firelocks were covered with rust. The soldiers lounging about were mostly tall, well-grown men, young and old, some with the air of gentlemen; others coarse, long-haired fellows, without any semblance of military bearing, but full of fight, and burning with enthusiasm, not unaided, in some instances, by coarser stimulus.

The day was exceedingly warm and unpleasant, the hot wind blew the fine white sand into our faces, and wafted it in minute clouds inside eyelids, nostrils, and clothing; but it was necessary to visit the batteries, so on we trudged into one and out of another, walked up parapets, examined profiles, looked along guns, and did everything that could be required of us. The result of the examination was to establish in my mind the conviction, that if the commander of Sumter had been allowed to open his guns on the island, the first time he saw an indication of throwing up a battery against him, he could have saved his fort. Moultrie, in its original state, on the opposite side, could have been readily demolished by Sumter. The design of the works was better than their execution—the sand-bags were rotten, the sand not properly revetted or banked up, and the traverses imperfectly constructed. The barbette guns of the fort looked into many of the embrasures, and commanded them.

The whole of the island was full of life and excitement. Officers were galloping about as if on a field-day or in action. Commissariat carts were toiling to and fro between the beach and the camps, and sounds of laughter and revelling came from the tents. These were pitched without order, and were of all shapes, hues, and sizes, many being disfigured by rude charcoal drawings outside, and inscriptions such as “The Live Tigers,” “Rattlesnake’s-hole,” “Yankee Smashers,” &c. The vicinity of the camps was in an intolerable state, and on calling the attention of the medical officer who was with me, to the danger arising from such a condition of things, he said with a sigh, “I know it all. But we can do nothing. Remember they’re all volunteers, and do just as they please.”

In every tent was hospitality, and a hearty welcome to all comers. Cases of champagne and claret, French pâtés, and the like, were piled outside the canvas walls, when there was no room for them inside. In the middle of these excited gatherings I felt like a man in the full possession of his senses coming in late to a wine party. “Won’t you drink with me, sir, to the—(something awful)—of Lincoln and all Yankees?” “No! if you’ll be good enough to excuse me.” “Well, I think you’re the only Englishman who won’t.” Our Carolinians are very fine fellows, but a little given to the Bobadil style—hectoring after a cavalier fashion, which they fondly believe to be theirs by hereditary right. They assume that the British crown rests on a cotton bale, as the Lord Chancellor sits on a pack of wool.