MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
MY DIARY
NORTH AND SOUTH
BY
(^WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL.
BOSTON:
T. O. H. P. BURNHAM
NEW YORK: O. S. FELT, 36 WALKER ST.
1863.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BT H. 0. HOUGHTOK.
To
RICHARD QUAIN, M. D.,
2TJ)fs Volume fs JBefcfcatetr
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 con-
fessions 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 vol-
umes, 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 impres-
sions 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
viii INTRODUCTORY.
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 re-
lating 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
nebula?. In the Southern hemisphere, Bragg and
Beauregard have given place to Lee and Jackson.
In the North, McDowell has faded away before
INTRODUCTORY. ix
McClellan, who having been put for a short season
in eclipse by Pope, only to culminate with in-
creased 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 be-
low, 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 ac-
quaintance of the man of the stonewalls of Win-
chester. 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 rea-
son to change the opinion I expressed in the first
letter I wrote from the States, that the Union as
X INTilODUCTOKY.
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 de-
scription 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 unfavorable aspect ; with all their na-
tional feelings, as well as the vices of our common
humanity, exaggerated and developed by the terri-
ble agonies of a civil war, and the throes of po-
litical revolution. Instead of the hum of industry,
I heard the noise of cannon through the land. So-
ciety convulsed by cruel passions and apprehensions,
and shattered by violence, presented its broken an-
gles 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
INTRODUCTORY. xi
onwards the rugged drift and its snowy crust of
crags, with hoarse roar, and crashing with irresist-
ible 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 ex-
hibition of the best results of the American system
it was denied me to witness ; but if I was de-
prived 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 profes-
sors, who are the chiefs of that universal Yankee
nation, as they delight to call themselves, and there
recognized the radical differences which must sever
them forever 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 Con-
tinent of North America, as to believe they will be
all the better for the sweet uses of adversity; learn-
ing to live in peace with their neighbors, adapting
their institutions to their necessities, and working
xii INTRODUCTORY.
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.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Departure from Cork The Atlantic in March Fellow passen-
gers American politics and parties The Irish in New-
York Approach to New York 1
CHAPTER II.
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. Ban-
croft Street railways 7
CHAPTER III.
"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 . 15
CHAPTER IV.
Streets and shops in New York Literature A funeral Din-
ner at Mr. H 's Dinner at Mr. Bancroft's Political
and social features Literary breakfast ; Heenan and Sayers . 24
CHAPTER V.
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 . ... 30
CHAPTER VI.
A state dinner at Mr. Abraham Lincoln's Mrs. Lincoln .The
Cabinet Ministers A newspaper correspondent Good Friday
at Washington 41
xiv CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VII.
PAGE
Barbers' shops Place-hunting The Navy Yard Dinner at
Lord Lyons' Estimate of Washington among his country-
men Washington's house and tomb The Southern Com-
missioners Dinner with the Southern Commissioners
Feeling towards England among the Southerners Animos-
ity between North and South 50
CHAPTER VIII.
New York Press Rumors as to the Southerners Visit to the
Smithsonian Institute Pythons Evening at Mr. Seward's
Rough draft of official despatch to Lord J. Russell Esti-
mate of its effect in Europe The attitude of Virginia . . 68
CHAPTER IX.
Dinner at General Scott's Anecdotes of General Scott's early
life The startling despatch Insecurity of the capital . . 72
CHAPTER X.
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 Gen-
eral feeling as to North and South Slavery First Impres-
sions of the city of Baltimore Departure by steamer '. . 76
CHAPTER XI.
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 80
CHAPTER XII.
Portsmouth Railway journey through the forest The great
Dismal Swamp American newspapers Cattle on the line
Negro labor On through the Pine Forest The Confede-
rate flag Goldsborough ; popular excitement Weldon
Wilmington The Vigilance Committee . . . .87
CHAPTER XIII.
Sketches round Wilmington Public opinion Approach to
Charleston and Fort Sumter Introduction to General Beaure-
gard Ex-Governor Manning Conversation on the chances
of the' war "King Cotton" and England Visit to Fort
Sumter Market-place at Charleston 95
CONTENTS. xv
CHAPTER XIV.
PAGE
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 101
CHAPTER XV.
Slaves, their Masters and Mistresses Hotels Attempted boat-
journey to Fort Moultrie Excitement at Charleston against
New York Preparations for war General Beauregard
Southern opinion as to the policy of the North, and estimate of
the effect of the war on England, through the cotton market
Aristocratic feeling in the South . 112
CHAPTER XVI.
Charleston : the Market-place Irishmen at Charleston Gov-
ernor Pickens : his political economy and theories News-
paper offices arid counting-houses Rumors as to the war
policy of the South 120
CHAPTER XVII.
Visit to a plantation ; hospitable reception By steamer to
Georgetown Description of the town A country mansion
Masters and slaves Slave diet Humming-birds Land
irrigation Negro quarters Back to Georgetown . . . 125
CHAPTER XVIII.
Climate of the Southern States General Beauregard Risks of
the post-office Hatred of New England By railway to Sea
Island plantation Sporting in South Carolina An hour on
board a canoe in the dark 135
CHAPTER XIX.
Domestic negroes Negro oarsmen Off to the fishing-grounds
The devil-fish Bad sport The drum-fish Negro quar-
ters Want of drainage Thievish propensities of the blacks
A Southern estimate of Southerners ... . 141
CHAPTER XX.
By railway to Savannah Description of the city Rumors of
the last few days State of affairs at Washington Prepara-
tions for war Cemetery of Bonaventure Road made of
oyster-shells Appropriate features of the Cemetery The
Tatnall family Dinner-party at Mr. Green's Feeling in
Georgia against the North 149
xvi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXI.
PAGE
The river at Savannah Commodore Tatnall Fort Pulaski
Want of a fleet to the Southerners Strong feeling of the
women Slavery considered in its results Cotton and Geor-
gia Off for Montgomery The Bishop of Georgia The
Bible and Slavery Macon Dislike of United States gold 155
CHAPTER XXII.
Slave-pens ; Negroes on sale or hire Popular feeling as to Se-
cession Beauregard and speech-making Arrival at Mont-
g'oTrmry- Bad hotel accommodation Knights of the Golden
Circle Reflections on Slavery Slave auction The Legis-
lative Assembly A " live chattel " knocked down Rumors
from the North (true and false) and prospects of war . . 162
CHAPTER XXIII.
Proclamation of war Jefferson Davis Interview with the
President of the Confederacy Passport and safe-conduct
Messrs. Wigfall, Walker, and Benjamin Privateering and
letters of marque A reception at Jefferson Davis's Dinner
at Mr. Benjamin's 172
CHAPTER XXIV.
Mr. Wigfall on the Confederacy Intended departure from the
South Northern apathy and Southern activity Future
prospects of the Union South Carolina and cotton The
theory of slavery Indifference at New York Departure
from Montgomery 179
CHAPTER XXV.
The River Alabama Voyage by steamer Selma Our cap-
tain and his slaves " Running " slaves Negro views of hap-
piness Mobile Hotel The city Mr. Forsy th . . 184
CHAPTER XXVI.
Visit to Forts Gaines and Morgan War to the knife the cry of
the South The " State " and the " States "Bay of Mobile
The forts and their inmates Opinions as to an attack on
Washington Rumors of actual war 192
CHAPTER XXVII.
Pensacola and Fort Pickens Neutrals and their friends Coast-
ing Sharks The blockading fleet The stars and stripes,
and stars and bars Domestic feuds caused by the war
Captain Adams and General Bragg Interior of Fort Pickens 197
CONTENTS. xvii
CHAPTER XXVIII.
PAGE
Bitters before breakfast An old Crimean acquaintance Earth-
works and batteries Estimate of cannons Magazines Hos-
pitality English and American introductions and leave-tak-
ings Fort Pickens : its interior Return towards Mobile
Pursued by a strange sail Running the blockade Landing
at Mobile 210
CHAPTER XXIX.
Judge Campbell Dr. Nott Slavery Departure for New Or-
leans Down the river Fear of cruisers Approach to
New Orleans Duelling Streets of New Orleans Un-
healthiness of the city Public opinion as to the war Happy
and contented negroes 225
CHAPTER XXX.
The first blow struck The St. Charles Hotel Invasion of Vir-
ginia by the Federals Death of Col. Ellsworth Evening
at Mr. Slidell's Public comments on the war Richmond
the capital of the Confederacy Military preparations Gen-
eral society Jewish element Visit to a battle-field of 1815 . 234
CHAPTER XXXI.
Carrying arms New Orleans jail Desperate characters
Executions Female maniacs and prisoners The river and
levee Climate of New Orleans Population General dis-
tress Pressure of the blockade Money Philosophy of
abstract rights The doctrine of State Rights Theoretical
defect in the Constitution 244
CHAPTER XXXII.
Up the Mississippi Free negroes and English policy Mo-
notony of the river scenery Visit to M. Roman Slave
quarters A slave-dance Slave-children Negro hospital
General opinion Confidence in Jefferson Davis . . . 253
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Ride through the maize-fields Sugar plantation : negroes at
work Use of the lash Feeling towards France Silence of
the country Negroes and dogs Theory of slavery Phys-
ical formation of the negro The defence of slavery The
masses for negro souls Convent of the Sacre Coeur Ferry
house A large land-owner . . . . . .261
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Negroes Sugar-cane plantations The negro and cheap labor
Mortality of blacks and whites Irish labor in Louisiana
A sugar-house Negro children Want of education Negro
diet Negro hospital Spirits in the morning Breakfast
More slaves Creole planters 270
xviii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXV.
PAGE
War-rumors, and military movements Governor Manning's
slave plantations Fortunes made by slave-labor Frogs tor
the table The forest Cotton and sugar A thunder-storm 280
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Visit to Mr. M'CalPs plantation Irish and Spaniards The
planter A Southern sporting man The Creoles Leave
Houmas Donaldson ville Description of the City Baton
Rouge Steamer to Natchez Southern feeling ; faith in Jef-
ferson Davis Rise and progress of prosperity for the plant-
ers Ultimate issue of the war to both North and South . . 284
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Down the Mississippi Hotel at Vicksburg Dinner Public
meeting News of the progress of the war Slavery an<
England Jackson Governor Pettus Insecurity of life -
Strong Southern enthusiasm Troops bound for the North
Approach to Memphis Slaves for sale Memphis General
Pillow 295
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Camp Randolph Cannon practice Volunteers " Dixie "
Forced return from the South Apathy of the North Gen-
eral retrospect of politics Energy and earnestness of the
South Fire-arms Position of Great Britain towards the bel-
ligerents Feeling towards the Old Country .... 309
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Heavy Bill Railway travelling Introductions Assassina-
tions Tennessee " Corinth " " Tory " " Humbolt "
" The Confederate Camp " Return Northwards Columbus
Cairo The Slavery Question Prospects of the War
Coarse journalism 322
CHAPTER XL.
Camp at Cairo The North and the South in respect to Eu-
rope Political reflections Mr. Colonel Oglesby My
speech Northern and Southern soldiers compared Amer-
ican country-walks Recklessness of life Want of cavalry
Emeute in the camp Defects of army medical department
Horrors of war Bad discipline 337
CHAPTER XLI.
Impending battle By railway to Chicago Northern enlighten-
ment Mound City " Cotton is King" Land in the
States Dead level of American society Return into the
Union American homes Across the Prairie White labor-
ers New pillager Lake Michigan 346
CONTENTS. xix
CHAPTER XLII.
PAGE
Progress of events Policy of Great Britain as regarded by the
North The American press and its comments Privacy a
luxury Chicago Senator Douglas and his widow Amer-
ican ingratitude Apathy in volunteering Colonel Tur-
chin's camp 354
CHAPTER XLIII.
Niagara Impression of the Falls Battle scenes in the neigh-
borhood A village of Indians General Scott Hostile
movements on both sides The Hudson Military school
at West Point Return to New York Altered appearance
of the city Misery and suffering Altered state of public
opinion, as to the Union and towards Great Britain . . . 860
CHAPTER XLIV.
Departure for Washington A " servant " The American
Press on the War Military aspect of the States Philadel-
phia Baltimore Washington Lord Lyons Mr. Sumner
Irritation against Great Britain "Independence" day
Meeting of Congress General state of affairs .... 373
CHAPTER XLV.
Interview with Mr. Seward My passport Mr. Seward's views
as to the war Illumination at Washington My " servant "
absents himself New York journalism The Capitol Inte-
rior of Congress The President's Message Speeches in
Congress Lord Lyons General McDowell Low standard
in the army Accident to the " Stars and Stripes " A street
row Mr. Bigelow Mr. N. P. Willis 380
CHAPTER XL VI.
Arlington Heights and the Potomac Washington The Fed-
eral camp General McDowell Flying rumors Newspaper
correspondents General Fremont Silencing the Press and
Telegraph A Loan Bill Interview with Mr. Cameron
Newspaper criticism on Lord Lyons Rumors about McClel-
lan The Northern army as reported and as it is General
McCleilan 393
CHAPTER XL VII.
Fortress Monroe General Butler Hospital accommodation
Wounded soldiers Aristocratic pedigrees A great gun
Newport News Fraudulent contractors General Butler
Artillery practice Contraband negroes Confederate lines
Tombs of American loyalists Troops and contractors Du-
ryea's New York Zouaves Military calculations A voyage
by steamer to Annapolis " 405
xx CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
PAGE
The "State House" at Annapolis Washington General Scott's
quarters Want of a staff Rival camps Demand for horses
Popular excitement Lord Lyons General McDowell's
movements Retreat from Fairfax Court House General
Scott's quarters General Mansfield Battle of Bull Run . 423
CHAPTER XLIX.
Skirmish at Bull's Run The Crisis in Congress Dearth of
horses War Prices at Washington Estimate of the effects
of Bull Run Password and Countersign Transatlantic View
of " The Times " Difficulties of a Newspaper Correspond-
ent in the Field 434
CHAPTER L.
To the scene of action The Confederate camp Centreville
Action at Bull Run Defeat of the Federals Disorderly re-
treat to Centreville My ride back to Washington . . . 442
CHAPTER LI.
A runaway crowd at Washington The army of the Potomac
in retreat Mail-day Want of order and authority News-
paper lies Alarm at Washington Confederate prisoners
General McClellan M. Mercicr Effects of the defeat on
Mr. Seward and the President McDowell General Patter-
son 467
CHAPTER LII.
Attack of illness General McClellan Reception at the White
House Drunkenness among the Volunteers Visit from Mr.
Olmsted Georgetown Intense heat McClellan and the
Newspapers Reception at Mr. Seward's Alexandria A
Storm Sudden Death of an English Officer The Maryland
Club A Prayer and Fast Day Financial Difficulties . . 479
CHAPTER LIII.
Return to Baltimore Colonel Carroll A Priest's view of the
Abolition of Slavery Slavery in Maryland Harper's Ferry
John Brown Back by train to Washington Further ac-
counts of Bull Run American Vanity My own unpopu-
larity for speaking the truth Killing a " Nigger " no murder
Navy Department 491
CHAPTER LIV.
A tour of inspection round the camp A troublesome horse
McDowell and the President My opinion of Bull Run
CONTENTS. xxi
PAGE
indorsed by American officers Influence of the Press
Newspaper correspondents Dr. Bray My letters Captain
Meagher Military adventures Probable duration of the
war Lord A. Vane Tempest The American journalist
Threats of assassination 505
CHAPTER LV.
Personal unpopularity American naval officers A gun levelled
at me in fun Increase of odium against me Success of the
Hatteras expedition General Scott and McClellan McClel-
lan on his camp-bed General Scott's pass refused Prospect
of an attack on Washington Skirmishing Anonymous let-
ters General Halleck General McClellan and the Sabbath
Rumored death of Jefferson Davis Spread of my unpop-
ularity An offer for my horse Dinner at the Legation
Discussion on Slavery 516
CHAPTER LVI.
A Crimean acquaintance Personal abuse of myself Close fir-
ing A reconnoissance Major-General Bell The Prince de
Joinville and his nephews American estimate of Louis Napo-
leon Arrest of members of the Maryland Legislature Life
at Washington War cries News from the Far West
Journey to the Western States Along the Susquehannah and
Juniata Chicago Sport in the prairie Arrested for shoot-
ing on Sunday The town of Dwight Return to Washing-
ton Mr. Seward and myself . . . . . . 531
CHAPTER LVII.
Another Crimean acquaintance Summary dismissal of a news-
paper correspondent Dinner at Lord Lyons' Review of
artillery " Habeas Corpus " The President's duties Mc-
Clellan's policy The Union army Soldiers and the patrol
Public men in America Mr. Seward and Lord Lyons
A judge placed under arrest Death and funeral of Senator
Baker Disorderly troops and officers Official fibs Duck-
shooting at Baltimore 548
CHAPTER LVIII.
General Scott's resignation Mrs. A. Lincoln Unofficial mis-
sion to Europe Uneasy feeling with regard to France Ball
given by the United States cavalry The United States army
Success at Beaufort Arrests Dinner at Mr. Seward's
News of Captain Wilkcs and the Trent Messrs. Mason and
Slidell Discussion as to Wilkes Prince de Joinville The
American press on the Trent affair Absence of thieves in
Washington " Thanksgiving Day " Success thus far in fa-
vor of the North . 560
xxii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER LIX.
via
A captain under arrest Opening of Congress Colonel D'Utas-
sy An ex-pugilist turned senator Mr. Cameron Ball in
the officers' huts Presentation of standards at Arlington
Dinner at Lord Lyons' Paper Currency A polyglot dinner
Visit to Washington's tomb Mr. Chase's report Colonel
Seaton Unanimity of the South The Potomac blockade
A Dutch- American Crimean acquaintance The American
lawyers on the Trent affair Mr. Sunnier McClellan's army
Impressions produced in America by the English press on
the affair of the Trent Mr. Sumner on the crisis Mutual
feelings between the two nations Rumors of war with Great
Britain . 579
CHAPTER LX.
News of the death of the Prince Consort Mr. Sumner and the
Trent affair Despatch to Lord Russell The Southern Com-
missioners given up Effects on the friends of the South
My own unpopularity at New York Attack of fever
My tour in Canada My return to New York in February
Successes of the Western States Mr. Stan ton succeeds Mr.
Cameron as Secretary of War Reverse and retreat of Mc-
Clellan My free pass The Merrimac and Monitor My
arrangement to accompany McClellan's head-quarters Mr.
Stanton refuses his sanction National vanity wounded by my
truthfulness My retirement and my return to Europe . .691
MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
CHAPTER I.
Departure from Cork The Atlantic in March Fellow passengers
American politics and parties The Irish in New York Ap-
proach to New York.
ON the evening of 3d March, 1861, 1 was transferred from
the little steam-tender, which plies between Cork and the an-
chorage of the Cunard steamers at the entrance of the harbor,
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 iden-
tical 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 hav-
ing gained the summit, and settled for an instant among the
hissing sea-horses, ran plunging headlong down to the en-
counter 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
1
2 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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
\vith 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 shitted
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 interest-
ing 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 \vas an officer of the
regular army of the United States, who had served with dis-
tinction 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 favor 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 laborers \
in the lower strata above the slaves others to follow useful p
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 attache at St. Petersburg!! to return to his
State: thus, in all probability, avoiding the inevitable super-
session which awaited him at the hands of the new Govern-
ment at Washington. He represented, in an intensified form,
all the Virginian's opinions, and held that Mr. Calhoun's in-
terpretation 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
PASSENGERS. AMERICAN POLITICS. 3
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 " gen-
tlemanly " government, and derided the Yankees with great
bitterness. But they were by no means as ready to encoun-
ter the evils of war, or to break up the Union, as the South-
Carolinian or the Virginian ; and in that respect they repre-
sented, I was told, the negative feelings of the Border States,
which are disposed to a temporizing, moderate course of ac-
tion, 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 refer-
ence 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 re-
luctance ; 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 Eng-
lish county Member, known for his wealth, liberality, and mu-
nificence. 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 dwell-
ing, 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
4 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
greatly with the development of trade between New York
and Lancashire, whilst the other settled in the States. With-
out being violent in tone, the young Northerner was very res-
olute 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 Amer-
icans who shared his views, unreservedly approve of Ameri-
can institutions, and consider them faultless ? By no means.
The New Yorkers especially were eloquent on the evils of the
suffrage, and of the license of the Press in their own city ;
and displayed much irritation on the subject of naturalization.
The Irish were useful, in their way, making roads and work-
ing hard, for there were few Americans who condescended to
manual labor, 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 un-
surpassable 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 represen-
tative fact the Federal Government. Thus the agricultur-
ist and the trader the grower of raw produce and the mer-
chant 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
NORTHERNERS. 5
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 re-
production has to compensate for the waste which is caused
by the development in his unhappy head of the organs of
cornbativeness 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 Ger-
mans, who are going to the States for the first time, or return-
ing there. They have become satisfied, no doubt, by long
process of reasoning, that there is some anomaly in the condi-
tion 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
license 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 sin- '
cerer 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, favor, or affec-
tion 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 favor a rebellion against one of the
established and recognized governments of the world, which,
though not friendly to Great Britain, nor opposed to slavery,
6 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
was without, so far as I could see, any legitimate cause of re-
volt, or any injury or grievance, perpetrated or imminent, as-
sailed 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 just-
ly 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 recognize 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-gray and comfortless, and in a little time more the
coast, covered with snow, rose in sight. Towards the after-
noon 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 cap-
tain, 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 Custom house General impressions as to
North and South Street in New York Hotel Breakfast-
American women and men Visit to Mr. Bancroft Street rail-
ways.
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 casemated 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, ap-
parently 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 rudi-
ments of an extensive work and heavily armed earthen para-
pets 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 en-
ceinte ; 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 seaside ; and even now it would
be hazardous to run the gauntlet of the batteries, unless in
powerful iron-clad ships favored 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 cir-
cumstances in favor 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
8 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
could form some idea of the activity and industry of the peo-
ple from the enormous ferry-boats moving backwards and for-
wards 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 evi-
dences of commercial life in full development. What a
swarming, eager crowd on the quay-wall ! What a wonderful
ragged regiment of laborers and porters, hailing us in broken
or Hibernianized English ! " These are all Irish and Ger-
mans," 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 un-
easy when he sees unauthorized-looking people taking liber-
ties 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 porterhood, and, after a
long struggle, succeeded in stowing my effects in and about a
remarkable specimen of the hackney-coach of the last cen-
tury, 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 honor. You
haven't given anything to your own man that's been waiting
here the last six months for your honor!" " 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 rat-
tling 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 un-
usual proportion appeared to be lager-bier saloons, whiskey-
shops, oyster-houses, and billiard and smoking establishments.
The crowd on the pavement were very much what a stran-
STREETS. 9
ger 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 "rowdy-
ism." 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, alter-
nating 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, Ox-
ford 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 recognized as
the barrack -like glory of American civilization, a Broad-
way 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 Bartholo-
mew Fair, churches, restaurants, confectioners, private
houses ! again another series, they cannot go on expanding
forever. 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 coun-
try. 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
1*
10 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 Caro-
lina 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 them-
selves, or the principle is worthless. The arguments, how-
ever, which are now going on are fast tending towards the
ultima ratio regum. At present I find public attention is con-
centrated 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 de^
mand the possession of these forts, as of the soil of their sev-
eral states and attached to their sovereignty. On the other
hand, the Government of Mr. Lincoln considers it has no right
to give up anything 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 suffi-
cient garrison in either for an adequate defence, and the diffi-
culty of procuring supplies is very great. Under the circum-
stances 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 Charles-
ton, 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 pro-
cession of men, forty or fifty perhaps, preceded by a small
band (by no excess of compliment can I say, of music), trudg-
ing through the cold and slush two and two : they wore sham-
rocks, or the best resemblance thereto which the American
soil can produce, in their hats, and green silk sashes embla-
zoned with crownless harp upon their coats, but it needed not
COSTUME. HOUSES. 1 1
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 occa-
sional hats seemed as if they had just recovered from severe
contusions, and others had the picturesque irregularity of out-
line 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 col-
ored ladies made most elaborate toilets, 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 wait-
er as he saw me watching them. " There seem to be no spar-
rows 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'hote room,
with great long tables covered with cloths, plates, and break-
fast apparatus, and a smaller room inside, to which I was di-
rected by one of the white-jacketed 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, where-
by 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 hos-
pitable intents.
Out of doors the weather was not tempting. The snow lay
in irregular layers and discolored 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 com-
pressed, squeezed-up aspect, which arises from the compulso-
ry 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
12 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
development of the city. As the hall-door is made an impor-
tant feature in the residence, the front parlor 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 mould-
ings, 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 plass. The
windows, which are double on account of the climate, are fre-
quently 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 be-
lieve, 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
door-ways, or the area-steps. Black faces in gaudy caps, or
an unmistakable "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 generalizing 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 prettiriess. Admitting a
certain pallor which the Russians, by the by, 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,
MR. BANCROFT. 13
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 den-
tists be granted naturally ill provided with what they take
so much pains, by eating bon-bons and confectionery, to de-
prive of their purity and color.
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 debris of unfinished conceptions in masonry.
The abrupt transition of the city into the country is not un-
favorable 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 : in-
deed, the immense growth of New York in this direction,
although far inferior to that of many parts of London, is re-
markable as the work of eighteen or twenty years, and is
rendered more conspicuous by being developed in this elon-
gated 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 sur-
prised, 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 minis-
ter 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 Goverment 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
14 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 f errata 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 pos-
sessed of much snow-droppings and mud on boots and cloth-
ing. 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 English-
man 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 po-
sition 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 savans chronicling the movements of a " mag-
netic 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-rnorrow at Astor
House. In what is called " the bar," I met several gentle-
men, 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 " in New York Public dinner American Con-
stitution 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 assem-
bling. They wore bear-skin caps, some turned brown, and
rusty green coatees, with white facings and crossbelts, a good
deal of gold-lace and heavy worsted epaulettes, and were
armed with ordinary muskets, some of them with flint-locks.
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 manor 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 inexpli-
cable manner. This gentleman was the officer in command
of the martial body, who were gathering to do honor to the
festival of the old country ; and the din and clamor 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 ribbons 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
16 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 stee-
ples 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, es-
corted 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 fol-
lowed, 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 mili-
tary 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
FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. 17
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 1200 men, some com-
panies 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 vindi-
cate 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 ani-
mosity.
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 ribbons, and the
Irish flag flying along-side the " stars and stripes." I cannot
congratulate them on the taste or good effect of their accesso-
ries on their symbolical standards, and ridiculous old harp-
ers, 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 proces-
sion 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
18 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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, med-
als, and ribbons, 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 " Yan-
kees," 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 humor, 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 grat-
ifying 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. Un-
OFFERS OF SERVICE. 19
doubtedly 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 compli-
ments, 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 privi-
leges of voting. When an. emigrant arrived, a paper was de-
livered to him to certify the fact, which he produced after
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 ten-
dered 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 " Hail-Splitter." " Oh yes," said the gentleman witli
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 favorable opportunity of hearing more of the special
20 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
pleading \vhich is brought to bear on the solution of the grav-
est political questions. It would seem as if a council of phy-
sicians 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 1 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 re-
garded with disfavor, or, at least, are not considered unjus-
tifiable.
Among the guests were the Hon. Horatio Seymour, a for-
mer 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 of-
fered 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 " Consti-
tution " for three cents in Broadway in the forenoon, and had
read it carefully, but I could not find that it was self-expound-
ing ; 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 anal-
ogous to that which represents an established Government in
other countries. Quid prosunt leges sine arim's ? Although
they admitted the Southern leaders had meditated " the trea-
son against the Union " years ago, they could not bring them-
selves to allow their old opponents, the Republicans now in
MR. SEYMOUR.
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 re-
gard to the original compact. One of the company made a
remark which was true enough, I dare say. We were talk-
ing 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 Gov-
ernment 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 Kuropean 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 millionnaire merchants, bankers, con-
tractors, 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 ascen-
dency 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 illus-
trations given to me. garnished with historietts 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 Pjuropean populations, must work most in-
juriously 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
22 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
be borne, and a social reform and revolution must be inev-
itable.
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
armor 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 ex-
actly 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 car-
pets, handsome furniture and a gallery of charming Meisso-
niers and genre pieces ; the saloons admirably lighted a fair
fine large suite, filled with the prettiest women in the most
delightful toilets, with a proper fringe of young men, or-
derly, neat, and well turned-out, fretting against the usual
advanced posts of turbaned and jewelled dowagers, and pro-
vided 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 enable me to
judge that nothing could be more beautiful, easy, or natural
than the womanhood or girlhood of New York. It is pretti-
ness rather than fineness ; regular, intelligent, wax-like faces,
graceful little figures ; none of the grandiose Roman type
which Von Raumer recognized 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. 23
The club-house is remarkable as the mansion of a happy
man who invented or patented a waterproof hat-lining, where-
by he built a sort of Sallustian villa, with a central court-
yard, a PAlhambra, with fountains, and flowers, now passed
away to the jNew York Club. Here was Pratt's, or the de-
funct 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 Literature A fufneral Dinner at
Mr. H 's Dinner at Mr. Bancroft's Political and social
features Literary breaklast ; Heenan and Sayers.
March 20th. The papers are still full of Surater 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 curbstones, and the sloughs
of mud, and half-frozen pools at the crossings. Visited sev-
eral large stores or shops some rival the best establish-
ments in Paris or London in richness and in value, and far
exceed them in size and splendor of exterior. Some on
Broadway, built of marble, or of fine cut stone, cost from
6,000 to 8,000 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. Jewel-
lers' 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 eccen-
NORTH AND SOUTH. 25
trie taste as are afforded in Paris and London, by the exist-
ence of shops where the old families of a country cast off
their "exuviae" 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 igno-
rance 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 booksellers' shops
Appleton's for example are striking proofs of the activ-
ity of the American press, if not of the vigor 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 in-
tention of ever yielding the most pitiful deodand to the au-
thors. 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*ho
reason why New York should be a paltry imitation of Leip-
sig, 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 in-
formed, if neither witty nor profound now a Southern man
with Southern proclivities, as Americans say ; once a South-
ern man with such strong anti-slavery convictions, that his ex-
pression of them in an English quarterly had secured him the
hostility of his own people one of the emanations of Amer-
ican 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.
2
26 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
At his rooms were Mons. B , Dr. Gwin, a Californian ex-
senator, Mr. Barlow, and several of the leading men of a cer-
tain clique in New York. The Americans complain, or as-
sert, that we do not understand them, and I confess the re-
proach, 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 22d. 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. 1 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 sys-
tem of torture prevails there for hardened or obdurate offend-
ders torture by dropping cold water on them, torture by
thumbscrews, and the like rather opposed to the views of
prison philanthropists in modern days.
March 23d. It is announced positively that the authori-
ties 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 drift-
ing 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 adjust-
ment 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 temporize, lest
AMERICAN JOURNALS. 27
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 sup-
port or encourage the Government in any decided policy, arid
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,
honor, 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 aris-
tocratic 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 Americanized form is freely used in sensation head-
ings and leaders, and a class of advertisements which are not
allowed to appear in respectable English papers, have posses-
sion of columns of the principal newspapers, few, indeed, ex-
cluding them. It is strange, too, to see in journals which
profess to represent the civilization 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
28 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
hotels, bar-rooms, heavy gambling, sporting, and prize-fight-
ing flourish here, and combine to lower the standard of the
bourgeoisie at all events. Where wealth is the sole aristoc-
racy, 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 prize-fighter
with a following makes itself unmistakably felt. Young
America essays to look like martial France in mufti, but the
hat and the coat suited to the Colonel of Carabiniers en re-
traite do not at all become the thin, tall, rather long-faced
gentlemen one sees lounging about Broadway. It is true, in-
deed, the type, though not French, is not English. The char-
acteristics of the American are straight hair, keen, bright,
penetrating eyes, and want of color in the cheeks.
March 25th. I had an invitation to meet several mem-
bers of the New York press association at breakfast. Among
the company were Mr. Bayard Taylor, with whose exten-
sive notes of travel his countrymen are familiar a kind of
enlarged Inglis, full of the genial spirit which makes travel-
ling in company so agreeable, but he has come back as trav-
ellers 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 Abolition-
ist would be to confound with ignorant if zealous, unphilo-
sophical, and impracticable men ; Mr. Dana, of the " Tri-
bune ;" Mr. Hnrlbut, 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 neighbor, as a matter of
course, as soon as he touched on politics. There was talk de
omnibus rebus et quibusdam altis, 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
LITERARY BREAKFAST. 22.
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 recognized standards,
if it were not that they are adopting the natural mode of
judging of their own capabilities. The nation is like a grow-
ing 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 dis-
pute 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 Railway carriages Philadelphia
Washington Willard's Hotel Mr. Seward -A North and South
The " State Department " at Washington President Lincoln
Dinner at Mr. Se ward'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
1 am bound to say the moral aid afforded me by the waiter,
who stood with a sympathizing 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 re-
specting 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 recognized and established
aids 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 con-
ditions, 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
RAILWAY CARRIAGES. PHILADELPHIA. 31
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-ap-
pointed 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 favorable
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 sidewalks, 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 star-
like lights, and there was nothing more to see. The passen-
gers 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 a 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 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 ten o'clock, p. M., we crossed the river by a ferry-boat to
Philadelphia, and drove through the streets, stopping for sup-
per 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
32 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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, arid were full of song and light, 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 in-
formed us he was " Going to Washington to get a foreign mis-
sion 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 estab-
lished 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 win-
dowed 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 aelnnthus trees,
each in a white-washed wooden sentry-box, and by most irreg-
ularly-built houses in all kinds of material, from deal plank
WILLARD'S HOTEL. 33
to marble of all heights, and every sort of trade. Few
shop- windows were open, and the principal population con-
sisted 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, than any
building of the same size ever held in the world. I was
ushered into a bedroom 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 Hart-
ford, 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 pa-
pers 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 un-
less seen. From California, Texas, from the Indian Reserves,
and the Mormon Territory, from Nebraska, as from the re-
motest 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 barber's, 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 discours-
ing, 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 neighbor
2*
34 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 miscella-
neous 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 pas-
sages 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 bedroom 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-sena-
tor, much respected among the Republican party; Mr. An-
thony, a senator of the United States, a journalist, a very
intelligent-looking man, with an Israelitish cast of face ; Col-
onel 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 argu-
mentative 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 humor of some kind twin-
kling about them ; the brow bold and broad, but not remarka-
bly elevated; the white hair silvery and fine a subtle, quick
man, rejoicing in power, given to perorate and to oracular utter-
ances, 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 SECRETARY OF STATE. 35
\
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 intrusted 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 depend-
ence on black labor, and an idle extravagance which was mis-
taken 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, ungroorned horses, worked at
the mill one clay 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 Merrill 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 Mori-ill tariff ful-
fils 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 u 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
36 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 depart-
ment. 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 here-
after to do duty as the head-quarters of nearly all the public
departments. People familiar with Downing Street, how-
ever, 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 en-
gravings, 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 pre-
sent 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 appear-
ance ; 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 Ne\v York, which has a reputation for ability and
fairness. Mr. Frederick Seward is a slight delicate-looking
PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 37
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. Sew-
ard 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 ap-
pearance, in cocked hat, white gloves, diplomatic suit of blue
and silver lace, sword, sash, and ribbon 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, consid-
erably over six feet in height, with stooping shoulders, long
pendulous arms, terminating in hands of extraordinary dimen-
sions, 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 yel-
low 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
38 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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, l>ut 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 esti-
mated 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 per-
son 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-humoredly 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 liands behind
his back, his knees touching, and his feet apart. Mr. Sew-
ard formally presented the minister, whereupon the Presi-
dent 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
THE "TIMES." DINNER AT MR. SEWAKD'S. v39
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 administra-
tion, 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 compli-
ment, 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. Rus-
sell, 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 Missis-
sippi. 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 im-
pressed with his shrewdness, humor, 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 re-
40 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
markable ; 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 re-
ceived by the Government of any foreign power, officially or
otherwise, even to hand in a document or to make a represen-
tation, 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. Sew-
ard pretends to discover, of the course to be pursued by Mr.
Lincoln and the cabinet. To an outside observer, like my-
self, 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 ; it
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 1
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 Mrs. Lincoln The Cabinet
Ministers A newspaper correspondent Good Friday at Wash-
ington.
March 28th. I was honored 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 tow-
ards 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 ser-
vant 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 in-
formed me that I was about to participate in a prandial enjoy-
ment of no ordinary character. There was no parade or dis-
play, 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 degen-
erating 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 ;
42 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 colored. She handled a fan with much
energy, displaying a round, well-proportioned arm, and was
adorned with some simple jewelry. 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 monu-
ment, 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 descrip-
tion.
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 per-
sonal appearance.
Mr. Cameron, the Secretary of War, a slight man, above
the middle height, with gray hair, deep-set keen gray 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 gray 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 admin-
istrative power, although they admit that IM does not know
AMERICAN MINISTERS. 43
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 in-
fluence than his position would indicate. He has the repu-
tation 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 regie 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 em-
barrassing 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 remon-
strating apparently against the appointment of some indiffer-
ent 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 wagon. * Hollo, Lincoln ! Are you not going to the
court-house ? Come in, and I'll give you a seat.' Well, I
got in, and the judge went on reading his papers. Presently
the wagon struck a stump on one side of the road ; then it
hopped off to the other. I looked out, and I saw the driver
44 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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
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 Presi-
dent beat a quiet retreat from the neighborhood of the At-
torney-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 banqueting-hall. The first " state dinner," as it is
called, of the President, was not remarkable for ostentation,
No liveried servants, no Persic splendor of ancient plate, or
chefs d'ceuvre 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 edu-
cation to the United States, which abounds in cunning nurses
*br 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 agree-
able 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 occu-
pant 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
DINNER AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
(45)
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 discour-
age 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 con-
trary," 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 cour-
age 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 gentle-
man 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 honor 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 atten-
tion was attracted, and I was told to go on ; and so the Wash-
ington 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 cour-
tiers sedulously paying their respects. Miss Chase, indeed,
laughingly told me that she was pestered by applicants for her
46 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 with-
out difficulty or hesitation. He visited me this evening, poor
lad ! and told me a sad story of his struggles, and of the de-
pendence 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 engage-
ment 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 29/A, 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 observ-
ances has apparently affected the American world, even as
far south as this. The people of color were in the streets
dressed in their best. The first impression produced by fine
bonnets, gay shawls, brightly-colored dresses, and silk brode-
quins, 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-colored 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 dare say 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
STATE RIGHTS.
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 balk 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 arse-
nals 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 Arkansian ; 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 sover-
eignty 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 Govern-
ment 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 por-
tion of the United States in the face of all the world.
It is on such radical differences of ideas as these, that the
MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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
vlo be closed again.
In the evening I had the pleasure of dining with an Amer-
ican 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 Groeculi, 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 cir-
cumstances 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 Amer-
icans are much more precise than ourselves in the enumera-
tion 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, precis-
ion is a matter of importance. I was amused by a descrip-
tion 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 remark-
ably fine high-toned gentleman, and weighs 210 pounds."
AN AMERICAN NELSON". 49
The Lieutenant was a strong Union man, and he inveighed
fiercely, and even coarsely, against the members of his pro-
fession who had thrown up their commissions. The superin-
tendent of the Washington Navy Yard is supposed to be very
little disposed in favor 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 colored population had been sent to bed long
ago. The fire-bell, as usual, made an alarm or two about
midnight.
CHAPTER VII.
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 color, mostly mu-
lattoes, 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 in-
tent on early morning calls. Shaving is carried in all its ac-
cessories 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 affecta-
tion 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 colored 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
unmistakable rowdy.
In the midst of the divine calm produced by hard hand
PLACES WANTED. 51
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 re-
ceived 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 Wil-
lard'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 ad-
vertisements announcing that certificates, and letters of testi-
monial, and such documents, are printed with expedition and
neatness. From paper collars, and cards of address to car-
riages, and new suits 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 u ex-
celsior card-writer," at Willard's, who prepares names, ad-
dresses, 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 favors. 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 canvass ;
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 ap-
pointed keeper of a " lighthouse," he was not particular where.
In the forenoon I drove to the Washington Navy Yard, in
52 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 Eng-
lish, 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 con-
fess 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 juris-
consult 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 Amer-
ican 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 Yorktown, 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 glass-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 work-
shops : 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
THE NAVY YARD. 53
famous gun which bears his name, and is the favorite arma-
ment 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 throw-
ing 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, impres-
sive, or they will make little way in the conservative, status-
<yw0-loving world. Captain Dahlgren has certainly most of
these characteristics, but he has to fight with his navy depart-
ment, 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 practise
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 shrap-
nel 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-armor here. Every-
thing was shown to us with the utmost frankness. The fuse
of the Dahlgren shell is constructed on the vis inertice prin
ciple, 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 com-
pliments, and another card announcing that she had a " recep-
tion " at three 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 after-
wards that the attendance was very scanty. The Washington
MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
ladies have not yet made up their minds that Mrs. Lincoln is
Lthe fashion. They miss their Southern friends, and constantly
/draw comparisons between them and the vulgar Yankee
i (women and men who are now in power. I do not know
I enough to say whether the affectation of superiority be justi-
/ fied ; 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 transi-
tion, 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 congressman, 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, u Those who wish to set a
house on fire begin with the thatch."
March 3lst, JSaster 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 Sum-
ter, 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.
THE SHRINE OF WASHINGTON. 55
Already the authorities of Richmond have intimated they will
not allow the foundry to furnish guns to the seaboard forts,
such as Monroe 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 defec-
tive 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 elo-
quence he lias 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 staturd, 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 vigor 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 sympa-
thies seemed to go with the South on the question of slavery
and territorial extension, he condemned altogether the attempt
to destroy the Union.
April 2d. The following day I started early, and per-
formed 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, nor shocked the sus-
ceptibility of his countrymen; and from the time that the
56 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 anar-
chical 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 phys-
ical comforts which have made some States in the Union the
nearest approach to Utopia. The Federal Government hith-
erto " let the people alone," and they went on their way sing-
ing 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 country-
men." 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 Yorktown, 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,
v in the millionnaire'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 pad-
dling 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 blufr, covered with trees, on the summit of which is vis-
ible the trace of some sort of building a ruined summer-
house, rustic temple whatever it may be ; and the bell oa
WASHINGTON'S HOUSE. 57
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 briers 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 prime-
val forest, and tangled weeds and briers, till the plateau, on
which stands the house of Washington and the domestic of-
fices 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 win-
dows, a glass door at one end of the oblong, and a wooden al-
cove 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 keep-
ing, 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 pecu-
niary mulct, and others did so at a most reasonable rate.
When I had contributed in a manner which must have repre-
sented 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.*
* Since borrowed, it is supposed, by Mr. Seward. and handed over
3*
58 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 sar-
cophagi 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 Patrice," 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 over-
grown Cleopatra's needle that is to be a Washington Monu-
ment 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 quceris, 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 re-
volvers, could have taken the whole work ; and, for all the
by him to Mr. Stanton. Lafayette gave it to "Washington ; he also
gave his name to the Fort which lias played so conspicuous a part in
the war for liberty " La liberte des deux mondes," might well sigh
if he could see his work, and what it has led to.
THE SOUTHERN COMMISSIONERS.
authorities knew, we might have had that number of Virgin-
ians and the famous Ben McCullough himself on board. Af-
terwards, 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 whiskey.
The whole garrison consisted of an old Irish pensioner." Now
at this very moment Washington is full of rumors of desper-
ate 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 Dis-
trict of Columbia are to be called out to resist McCullough
and his Richmond desperadoes.
April 3d. I had an interview with the Southern Commis-\
sioners to-day, at their hotel. For more than an hour I heard, I
from men of position and of different sections in the South,
expressions which satisfied me the Union could never be re-
stored, 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 indig-
nation 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.l 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 pro-
visions, 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 attaches are deprived
of their friends who belonged to the old society in Washing-
ton, and who have either gone off to Secession, or sympathize
so deeply with the Southern States that it is scarcely becom-
ing to hold very intimate relations with them in the face of
\60j MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 strength-
ening 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 af-
fairs 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 materiel of the Union ; a Minister had stolen the public
funds for traitorous purposes in every port, in every de-
partment of the State, at home and abroad, on sea and by
land, men were placed who were engaged in this deep conspir-
acy 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 Pres-
ident'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 temporizing pol-
icy of inaction, which was forced upon them by circumstances,
and that they would deal vigorously with the Secession move-
ment as vigorously as Jackson did with nullification in South
Carolina, if they had the means. But what could they do
when such a man 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
MR. SE WARD'S VIEWS. 61
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 recognize 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 Fede-
ral 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 Fede-
ral 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 gray
trousers, 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 vari-
ous forms parading, marching, and trumpeting about the town
with a poor imitation of French pas and elan, 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 indica-
tion 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
62 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 wait-
ing 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 authorized it, but having mentioned in-
cidentally 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 Treas-
ury ; Mr. Smith, Secretary of the Interior ; Mr. Forsyth,
Southern Commissioner ; and several members of the Senate
and Congress. Mrs. Douglas did the honors of her house
with grace and charming good-nature. I observe a .great ten-
dency to abstract speculation and theorizing among Americans,
and their after-dinner conversation is apt to become didactic
and sententious. Few men speak better than Senator Doug-
las ; 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, imply-
ing that he had been treated differently in England, and per-
haps France. And yet, had Mr. Douglas become President
of the United States, his good-will towards Great Britain might
have been invaluable, and surely it had been cheaply pur-
THE SOUTHERN COMMISSIONERS.
(*>
chased by a little civility and attention to a distinguished citi-
zen and statesman of the Republic. Our Galleos very often
care for none of these things.
April oth. Dined with the Southern Commissioners and
a small party at Gautier's, a French restaurateur in Pennsyl-
vania 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 se-
verity with which the Federal authorities have acted towards
their political enemies, who were seeking their destruc-
tion, 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 cachet, 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 permit-
ted to mention that they were among the guests. I had pleasure
in making the acquaintance of Governor Roman. Mr. Craw-
ford, his brother commissioner, is a much younger man, of
considerably greater energy and determination, but proba-
bly of less judgment. The third commissioner, Mr. Forsyth, 1
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. Sew-
ard they evidently regarded as the ablest and most unscrupu-
lous of their enemies ; but the tone in which they alluded to
the whole of the Northern people indicated the clear convic-
tion 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 deep-
64 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
est animosity and most vindictive hate, certain it is there is a
degree of something like ferocity in the Southern mind tow-
lards 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 if
restrained in our own islands in the last century. In thi
course of conversation, one gentleman remarked that he con-
sidered it disgraceful for any man to take money for the dis-
honor of his wife or his daughter. " With us," he said, " there
is but one mode of dealing known. The man who dares tam-
per with the honor 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 allud-
ed 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 popu-
lation were white. Indeed, in this, as in some other matters
of a similar character, slavery is their summum bonum of mo-
rality, 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 mur-
derous use of the pistol and the dagger to defend it, was not
open to some doubt ; but I found there was very little sym-
pathy 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
THE SOUTHERN COMMISSIONERS. 65
I
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. Summer
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 gentleman
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 " rab-
bleclora " 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 gray-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 vehe-
mence ; it was not difficult to imagine he saw in that cause
the realization 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 speak-
ers 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 Repub-
66 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
licans in the Secession contest. Mr. Forsyth, struck me as
being the most astute, and perhaps most capable, of the gen-
tlemen 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 unem-
ployed 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 owr
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 colored 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 favor
the Southern side.
April Qth. 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 attach-
ment 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 w r ith the Southern Commissioners, and they will re-
tire 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 con-
OFFICE-SEEKERS. 67
sidered 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 politi-
cal 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 hos-
tile, and his policy, if he has any, is temporizing and timid. It
is perfectly wonderful to hear people using the word " Gov-
ernment " 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. principal 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 Rumors as to the Southerners Visit to the Smith-
sonian Institute Pythons Evening at Mr. Seward's Rough
draft of official despatch to Lord J. Russell Estimate of its effect
in Europe The attitude of Virginia.
April 1th. Raining all day, cold and wet. I am tired
and weary of this perpetual jabber about Fort 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 con-
tinual attacks on Mr. Lincoln and his government ; but the
majority of the New York papers are inclined to resist Seces-
sion and aid the Government. I dined with Lord Lyons in
the evening, and met Mr. Sumner, Mr. Blackwell, the man-
ager 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 Ameri-
cans 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 rumors 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,
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE. 69
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 re-
ceived 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 " treach-
ery " toward 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 Pro-
fessor 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 addi-
tion 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 labor, 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
70 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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. Sewarcl,
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 carre 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 favorable. But his talk was very interest-
ing. " All the preparations of which you hear mean this only.
The Government, finding the property of the State and Fed-
eral forts neglected and left without protection, are deter-
mined 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 inten-
tion 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 Secre-
tary then lit his cigar, gave one to me, and proceeded to read
slowly and with marked emphasis, a very long, strong, and
able despatch, 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 con-
tained 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 de-
spatch 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 Amer-
ican statesman, had a right to make but a secondary consider-
ation. By affecting to regard Secession as a mere political
heresy which can be easily confuted, and by forbidding foreign
MR. SEWARD AND SECESSION. 71
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 " reaction."
" 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 pro-
cess 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 th. A storm of rain, thunder, and lightning. The
streets are converted into watercourses. 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 re-
warded for his exertions at last. He has been standing drinks
all round till he is not able to stand himself, and he has ex-
pressed 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 Anecdotes of General Scott's Early Life
The Startling Despatch Insecurity of the Capital.
April Wth. To-day I devoted to packing up such things
as I did not require, and sending them to New York. I re-
ceived a characteristic note from General Scott, asking me to
dine with him to-morrow, and apologizing 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 Gen-
eral 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 writ-
ing. Some time ago he wrote a long letter to the " National
Intelligencer," in which he quoted Shakespeare 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 Gen-
eral's dinner hour was early ; and when I arrived at his mod-
est lodgings, which, however, were in the house of a famous
French cook, I found a troop of mounted volunteers of the
district, parading up arid 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 bad-
ly, wore long hair, their coats and buttons and boots were
unbrushed, and the horses' coats and accoutrements bore evi-
dence 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 inter-
rupted by cheering from the soldiers in the street, and by
clamors for " General Scott." He moves with difficulty,
owing to a fall from his horse, and from the pressure of in-
creasing years ; and he evidently would not have gone out
DINNER AT GENERAL SCOTT'S. 73
if he could have avoided it. But there is no privacy for pub-
lic men in America.
But 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 com-
pliment ; 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 un-
derwent 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 colored 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 pre-
cision, 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 sev-
74 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
enty-five men in the field." He told us bow, when the Brit-
ish men-of-war provoked general indignation in Virginia by
searching American vessels for deserters in the Chesapeake,
the State of Virginia organized 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 pa-
trols. 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 1 believe it is
the first instance of a man-of-war's boat being captured by
cavalry. The Legislature of Virginia, however, did not ap-
prove of the capture, and the officer was given up accord-
ingJj-
"Many years afterwards, when I visited Europe, I hap-
pened to be dining at the hospitable mansion of Lord Holland,
and observed during the banquet that a gentleman at table
was scrutinizing 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."
CONVERSATION AND ANECDOTES. 75
Whilst he was speaking, a telegraphic despatch was brought
in, which the General perused with evident uneasiness. He
apologized to me for reading it by saying the despatch 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 in 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 mel-
lowing.
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 enclo-
sure, 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 mo-
ment if they could. He would not hear of a guard, nor any
thing 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 enlight-
ened 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 remem-
bered that the bold bad men who were their enemies were
equally unprepared for active measures of aggression.
CHAPTER X.
Preparation for war at Charlestown My own departure for the South-
ern 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 12tk. 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 commu-
nication 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,
endeavoring to communicate with the fort, and have called out
and organized 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 Rich-
mond, 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.
ARRIVAL AT BALTIMORE. 77
"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 row-
dies ; 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 dis-
appointed place-hunters, and much discussion took place re-
specting 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 85. 4c?., 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 re-
turn to the hotel in Washington. On my arrival, the land-
lord, 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 bat-
teries have opened fire on Sumter because the Government
lias 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
rumor. 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 \th. The Eutaw House is not a very good speci-
men of an American hotel, but the landlord does his best to
78 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 under-
taking, 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 com-
petition in the towns. And Americans are so gregarious that
they will not patronize small establishments.
I was the more complimented by the landlord's attention
this morning when he came to the room, and in much excite-
ment 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 Balti-
more, 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 Mary-
lander is very tenacious about being a gentleman, and what he
does not consider gentlemanly is simply unfit for any thing, 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 para-
graphs in the papers again, and suggested there would be no
difficulty in his travelling by himself, if he pleased. He re-
plied 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 any thing 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'lemen of Baltimore will be quite
glad ov it. But maybe it'll come bad after all." I discovered
my barber had strong ideas that the days of slavery were
DESCRIPTION OF BALTIMORE. 79
drawing to an end. " And what will take place then, do you
think ? " " Wall, sare, 'spose colored 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 1 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 out-
side 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 " Georgiana."
CHAPTER XI.
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 mosquitoes, 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 whis-
tle 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 re-
luctance or hesitation. On my way to the upper deck I ob-
served the bar was crowded by gentlemen engaged in con-
suming, or wailing 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
NORFOLK NAVY YARD. 81
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 cen-
tral portico surmounted by a belvedere, destined for the
reception of the United States sailors in sickness, is a strik-
ing object in the landscape.
The steamer in a few minutes came along-side 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, nar-
row, 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 Ports-
mouth 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 com-
missioned, and used as receiving ship, was anchored along-
side the wall of the Navy Yard below us, lay the " Merri-
mac," apparently in ordinary. The only man-of-war fit for
sea was a curiosity a stumpy bluff-bowed, Dutch-built look-
ing 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 sailless observance of the Sunday, dotted the waters.
There was an ancient and fishlike smell about the town worthy
of its appearance and of its functions as a seaport. As the
vessel came close along-side, there was the usual greeting be-
tween friends, and many a cry, " Well, you've heard the news ?
The Yankees out of Sumter ! Isn't it fine ! " There were
4*
82 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 along-side, and the coxswain, a hand-
some, 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 along-side 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 cox-
swain 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 Hookey. They were in men-of-war too."
"What! five out of seven, British subjects!" "Oh, ay,
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 rickety 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 re-
markable. Although it was but seven o'clock every one had
his quid in working order, and the air was filled with yellow-
ish-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
THE ATLANTIC HOTEL. 83
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 vege-
tables 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 odors. The waiters were all slaves :
untidy, slipshod, and careless creatures. I was shut up in a
small room, with the usual notice on the door, that the propri-
etor 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 ". cit-
izens," 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 complex-
ions, 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 clergy-
man 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
door 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,
84 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 di-
minished by those who, having satisfied their curiosity, came
elbowing forth in a state of much excitement, exultation, and
perspiration. u 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 al-
leys 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 colors. Everywhere negroes, male and female, gaudily
dressed or in rags ; the door-steps of the narrow lanes swarrn-
ing with infant niggerdom big^stomached, curve-legged,
rugged-headed, and happy tumbling about dim-eyed tooth-
less hags, or thick-lipped mothers. Not a word were they
talking about Sumter. "Any news to-day?" said I to a re-
spectable-looking negro in a blue coat and brass buttons,
wonderful hat, and vest of amber silk, check trousers, 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
along-side 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 " chaf-
fing," as Cockneys would call it, the crew of the man-of-war
AN INCIPIENT ROW. 85
boat I had seen in the morning. The sailors were stretched
on the thwarts, some rather amused, others sullen at the or-
deal. " You better just pull down that cussed old rag of
yours, and bring your old ship over to the Southern Confed-
eracy. 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 Con-
federacy ! " 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 : u 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 min-
utes ; 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 tow-
ards 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 with-
drew, with his angry eyes fixed on the people, who gave him
a kind of groan ; but there were no oyster shells this time.
u 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 neighbor
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 exceed-
ingly. The superintendent of the Seaboard and Roanoke Rail-
way, having heard that I was about proceeding to Charleston,
86 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
called upon me to offer every facility in his power. Sent
Moses with letters to post-office. At night the mosquitoes
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 Railway journey through the forest The great Dis-
mal Swamp American newspapers Cattle on the line Ne-
gro labor 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 fur-
nace, and those next the tender being in danger of getting
logs of wood from it shaken down on their feet. Neverthe-
less 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
88 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
walked between the rails the latter, by the by, were always
the first to leave the negroes generally divided with the
pigs the honor 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 primeval
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
AN AMERICAN ENGINEER. 89
expressed its horrors before the railway had traversed its out-
skirts, 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 harbored, and once or twice assembled bands of depreda-
tors, 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 at-
tached to the literature, if not to the people, of the old coun-
try ; and so far satisfied that English engineers knew some-
thing of their business, as to be anxious to show that American
engineers were not behind them. He asked me about Wash-
ington 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 informa-
tion from gentlemen we meet travelling." Of the future he
spoke with apprehension ; " but," said he, " I am here repre-
senting the interests of a large number of Northern sharehold-
ers, 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 op-
pressive. 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 though 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
90 MY DIARY NORTH AXD SOUTH.
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 twenty feet
long by twelve feet 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 vapors. There was not an ar-
ticle of furniture, except a big deal chest and a small stool, in
the place ; a mug and a teacup 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 stop-
ping caused by the rapid consumption is one of the desagremens
of wood fuel. The wood is cut down and stacked on plat-
forms, at certain intervals along the line ; and the quantity
used is checked off against the company at the rate of so much
per cord. 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 laborers.
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 its real
condition. Here it was that the normal forest and swamp had
THE STARS AND BARS. 91
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, wip-
ing 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
colors, 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 odor of turpentine ; presently black streaks of
smoke floated out of the wood, and here and there we passed
cleared spaces, where in rude-looding furnaces and factories
people more squalid and miserable looking than before were
preparing pitch, tar, turpentine, rosin, 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 tap-
pings 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 cheer-
ed 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 colored bunting seem
to twine themselves through heart and brain.
The stations along the roadside now gradually grew in pro-
portion, and instead of a small sentry-box beside a wood pile,
there were three or four wooden houses, a platform, a booking
92 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 civilized
style. There were always some negroes, male and female, in
attendance on the voyagers, handling the baggage or the ba-
bies, and looking comfortable enough, but not happy. The
only evidence of the good spirits and happiness of these peo-
ple 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, colors were grinning from ear to
ear as they bade good-by. The negro likes the mild excite-
ment of sea fishing, and in pursuit of it he feels for the mo-
ment 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, belong-
ing to the Federal Government, and left unprotected and un-
defended. 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
WAR FEVER. 93
kinds of head-dress were visible, and caps, belts, ana 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 trousers thrust into his boots, came out of
Gris wold'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 El'r'rights ! " and tottered over to the carriage through
the crowd amid the violent vibration of all the ladies' hand-
kerchiefs 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 de-
graded forever, 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 dis-
tracted 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 piece de resistance being pig the attendants, comely,
well-dressed, clean negresses were slaves "worth a thousand
dollars each." I am not favorably 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 alle-
giance. 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 rny journey. One of them, who
told me he was a municipal dignitary of Weldon, having ex-
hausted all the inducements that he could think of to induce
94 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 archaeologists 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
neighbor 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 possi-
ble to give me one to myself; but at last I made a bargain
for exclusive possession. When the next train came in, how-
ever, 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 sta-
tion, 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 rne
in order to give rne 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 key-hole.
CHAPTER XIII.
Sketches round Wilmington Public opinion Approach to Charles-
ton 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 Mar-
ket-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-aboli-
tion pills," said my neighbor ; " 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 Wil-
mington, 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 " seces-
sion 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 militia-men 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 bluejackets, and yellow
braid and facings, handed round their swords to be admired
by the company. A few blades had flashed in obscure Mexi-
can skirmishes one, however, had been borne against " the
96 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
Britishers." I inquired of a fine, tall, fair-haired young fel-
low 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, partic-
ularly 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 Pedee 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 by-ways.
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 bombard-
ment and surrender of the fort. The hotel was full of nota-
bilities. I was introduced to ex-Governor Manning, Senator
Chestnut, Hon. Porcher Miles, on the staff of General Beau-
regard, and to Colonel Lucas, aide-de-camp to Governor
Pickens. I was taken after dinner and introduced to Gen-
eral Beauregard, who was engaged, late as it was, in his room
JOHN MANNING.
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 be-
fore 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 sci-
entific 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 ac-
count 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. Chestnut 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 rodomontade, 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 bet-
ter defend yourselves against invasion than the people of
France ? " " Well, no ; but we'd make it pretty hard busi-
ness for the Yankees." " Suppose the Yankees, as you call
them, come with such preponderance of men and materiel,
that they are three to your one, will you not be forced to sub-
mit ? " u Never." " Then either you are braver, better dis-
ciplined, 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
5
98 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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, 1 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 stim-
ulants 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 peo-
ple on this sole article of American cotton is fraught with the
utmost danger to our honor 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 de-
pendent on the national funds, or more properly on the prop-
erty 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 colored 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 march-
ing, and the hotel is crammed full with soldiers.
April Ylth. 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 ca-
rousings in tavern or private house, in tap-room, from cabaret
down narrow alleys, in the broad highway. Sumter has
VISIT TO FORT SUMTER. 99
set them distraught ; never was such a victory ; never such
brave lads; never such a fight. There are pamphlets al-
ready full of the incident. It is a bloodless Waterloo or Sol-
ferino.
After breakfast I went down to the quay, with a party of
the General's staff, to visit Fort Su rater. The senators and
governors turned soldiers wore blue military caps, with " pal-
metto " trees embroidered thereon ; blue frock-coats, with up-
right 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 trousers, with a
gold-lace cord, and brass spurs no straps. The day was
sweltering, but a strong breeze blew in the harbor, 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 by, is popular beyond
description. There are all kinds of doggerel rhymes in his
honor one with a refrain
" With cannon and musket, with shell and petard,
We salute the North with our Beau-regard "
is much in favor.
We passed through the market, where the stalls are kept
by fat negresses and old " unkeys." There is a sort of vul-
ture 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 com-
100 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
pletion, 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 treas-
ury 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 du-
ties long enough." An old gentleman here stopped us. " You
will do me the greatest favor," he said to one of our party who
knew him, " if you will get me something to do for our glori-
ous 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 for-
tune, two of whose sons were in camp at Morris' Island, but
that he was suspected of Union sentiments, as he had a North-
ern wife, and hence his extreme vehemence and devotion.
CHAPTER XIV.
Southern volunteers Unpopularity of the press Charleston
Fort Sumter Morris' Island Anti-union enthusiasm Anec-
dote 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, sup-
plies for the volunteer army on Morris' Island. I was amused
by the names of the various corps, " Tigers," " Lions," " Scor-
pions;" " Palmetto Eagles," " Guards," of Pickens, Sumter,
Marion, and of various other denominations, painted on the
boxes. The original formation of these volunteers is in com-
panies, 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," arid affected to look down on their
neighbors and comrades. Major Whiting told me there was
difficulty in getting them to obey orders at first, as each man
had an idea that lie 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 but-
tons 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 be-
low." " 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 Ma-
jor grumbled, and worse, and drew off.
Among the passengers were some brethren of mine belong-
102 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
ing 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 him-
self, probably in order to avenge himself on his military per-
secutors, 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 disfavor, and Major Whit-
ing, 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 confreres. " 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 as-
sassins. 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 contradic-
tion to most of the statements contained in " the full and accu-
rate particulars of the Bombardment and Fall of Fort Sum-
ter," 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 im-
mense 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
FORT SUMTER. 103
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 navi-
gation 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 wharves, and the bright colors 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 harbor floated the Confederate flag. Look-
ing to our right, the same standard was visible, waving on the
low, white parapets of the earthworks which had been engaged
in reducing Surnter.
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 Is-
land. It struck me at first as being like one of the smaller
forts off Cronstadt, but a closer inspection very much dimin-
ished its importance ; the material is brick, not stone, and the
size of the place is exaggerated by the low background, and
by contrast with the sea-line. The land contracts on both
sides opposite the fort, a projection of Morris' Island, called
" Cumrn ing's Point," running out on the left. There is a sim-
ilar 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
104 MY DIAEY NORTH AND SOUTH.
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 parpapet,
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 unau-
thorized persons from landing. They wore the universal coarse
gray jacket and trousers, with worsted braid and yellow fac-
ings, 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 indica-
tion 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
CAMP SCENES. (105
^^_^-
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. Remem-
ber 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 pates, 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 Yan-
kees ? " " 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 thev
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. -*
In one long tent there was a party of roystering young men,
opening claret, and mixing " cup " in large buckets ; whilst
others were helping the servants to set out a table for a ban-
quet to one of their generals. Such heat, tobacco-smoke,
clamor, toasts, drinking, hand-shaking, vows of friendship !
Many were the excuses made for the more demonstrative of the
Edonian youths by their friends. "Tom is a little cut, sir;
but he's a splendid fellow he's worth half-a-million of dol-
lars." This reference to a money standard of value was not
unusual or perhaps unnatural, but it was made repeatedly ;
and I was told wonderful tales of the riches of men who were
lounging round, dressed as privates, some of whom at that
season, in years gone by, were looked for at the watering
places as the great lions of American fashion. But Secession
is the fashion here. Young ladies sing for it ; old ladies pray
for it ; young men are dying to fight for it ; old men are ready
to demonstrate it. The founder of the school was St. Calhoun.
Here his pupils carry out their teaching in thunder and fire.
States' Rights are displayed after its legitimate teaching, and
the Palmetto flag and the red bars of the Confederacy are its
exposition. The utter contempt and loathing for the venerat-
ed Stars and Stripes, the abhorrence of the very words United
States, the intense hatred of the Yankee on the part of these
5*
106 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
people, cannot be conceived by any one wtio has not seen them.
I am more satisfied than ever that the Union can never be re-
stored as it was, and that it has gone to pieces, never to be put
together again, in the old shape, at all events, by any power
on earth.
After a long and tiresome promenade in the dust, heat, and
fine sand, through the tents, our party returned to the beach,
where we took boat, and pushed off for Fort Sumter. The
Confederate flag rose above the walls. On near approach the
marks of the shot against the pain coupe, and the embrasures
near the salient were visible enough ; but the damage done to
the hard brickwork was trifling, except at the angles : the edges
of the parapets were ragged and pock-marked, and the quay
wall was rifted here and there by shot; but no injury of a
kind to render the work untenable could be made out. The
greatest damage inflicted was, no doubt, the burning of the
barracks, which were culpably erected inside the fort, close
to the flank wall facing Cumrning's Point.
As the boat touched the quay of the fort, a tall, powerful-
looking man came through the shattered gateway, and with
uneven steps strode over the rubbish towards a skiff which
was waiting to receive him, and into which he jumped and
rowed off. Recognizing one of my companions as he passed
our boat he suddenly stood up, and with a leap and a scramble
tumbled in among us, to the imminent danger of upsetting
the party. Our new friend was dressed in the blue frock-coat
of a civilian, round which he had tied a red silk sash his
waistbelt supported a straight sword, something like those
worn with Court dress. His muscular neck was surrounded
with a loosely-fastened silk handkerchief ; and wild masses of
black hair, tinged with gray, fell from under a civilian's hat
over his collar; his unstrapped trousers were gathered up
high on his legs, displaying ample boots, garnished with for-
midable brass spurs. But his face was one not to be forgotten
a straight, broad brow, from which the hair rose up like the
vegetation on a river bank, beetling black eyebrows a mouth
coarse and grim, yet full of power, a square jaw a thick ar-
gumentative nose a new growth of scrubby beard and mus-
tache these were relieved by eyes of wonderful depth and
light, such as I never saw before but in the head of a wild
beast. If you look some day when the sun is not too bright
into the eye of the Bengal tiger, in the Regent's Park, as the
keeper is coming round, you will form some notion of the ex-
COLONEL WIGFALL. 107
pression I mean. It was flashing, fierce, yet calm with a
well of fire burning behind and spouting through it, an eye
pitiless in anger, which now and then sought to conceal its
expression beneath half-closed lids, and then burst out with an
angry glare, as if disdaining concealment.
This was none other than Louis T. Wigfall, Colonel (then
of his own creation) in the Confederate army, and Senator
from Texas in the United States a good type of the men
whom the institutions of the country produce or throw off
a remarkable man, noted for his ready, natural eloquence ; his
exceeding ability as a quick, bitter debater; the acerbity of his
taunts ; and his readiness for personal encounter. To the last
he stood in his place in the Senate at Washington, when
nearly every other Southern man had seceded, lashing with a
venomous and instant tongue, and covering with insults,
ridicule, and abuse, such men as Mr. Chandler, of Michigan,
and other Republicans : never missing a sitting of the House,
and seeking out adversaries in the bar-rooms or at gam-
bling tables. The other day, when the fire against Sumter
was at its height, and the fort, in flames, was reduced almost
to silence, a small boat put off from the shore, and steered
through the shot and the splashing waters right for the walls.
It bore the Colonel and a negro oarsman. Holding up a white
handkerchief on the end of his sword, Wigfall landed on the
quay, clambered through an embrasure, and presented himself
before the astonished Federals with a proposal to surrender,
quite unauthorized, and " on his own hook," which led to the
final capitulation of Major Anderson.
I am sorry to say, our distinguished friend had just been
paying his respects sans bornes to Bacchus or Bourbon, for he
was decidedly unsteady in his gait and thick in speech ; but his
head was quite clear, and he was determined 1 should know
all about his exploit. Major Whiting desired to show me
round the work, but he had no chance. " Here is where I got
in," quoth Colonel Wigfall. " I found a Yankee standing here
by the traverse, out of the way of our shot. He was pretty
well scared when he saw me, but I told him not to be alarmed,
but to take me to the officers. There they were, huddled up
in that corner behind the brickwork, for our shells were
tumbling into the yard, and bursting like " &c. (The Colonel
used strong illustrations and strange expletives in narrative.)
Major Whiting shook his military head, and said something un-
civil to me, in private, in reference to volunteer colonels and the
108 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
like, which gave him relief; whilst the martial Senator I forgot
to say that he has the name, particularly in the North, of having
killed more than half a dozen men in duels (I had an escape
of being another) conducted me through the casemates with
uneven steps, stopping at every traverse to expatiate on some
phase of his personal experiences, with his sword dangling
between his legs, and spurs involved in rubbish and soldiers'
blankets.
In my letter I described the real extent of the damage in-
flicted, and the state of the fort as I found it. At first the bat-
teries thrown up by the Carolinians were so poor, that the Unit-
ed States officers in the fort were mightily amused at them,
and anticipated easy work in enfilading, ricocheting, and batter-
ing them to pieces, if they ever dared to open fire. One
morning, however, Capt. Foster, to whom really belongs the
credit of putting Sumter into a tolerable condition of defence
with the most limited means, was unpleasantly surprised by
seeing through his glass a new work in the best possible situa-
tion for attacking the place, growing up under the strenuous
labors of a band of negroes. " I knew at once," he said, " the
rascals had got an engineer at last." In fact, the Carolinians
were actually talking of an escalade when the officers of the
regular army, who had " seceded," came down and took the
direction of affairs, which otherwise might have had very
different results.
There was a working party of volunteers clearing away
the rubbish in the place. It was evident they were not accus-
tomed to labor. And on asking why negroes were not em-
ployed, 1 was informed : " The niggers would blow us all up,
they're so stupid ; and the State would have to pay the owners
for any of them who were killed and injured." " In one re-
spect, then, white men are not' so valuable as negroes ? "
" Yes. sir. that's a fact."
Very few shell craters were visible in the terreplein ; the
military mischief, such as it was, showed most conspicuously
on the parapet platforms, over which shells had been burst as
heavily as could be, to prevent the manning of the barbette
guns. A very small affair, indeed, that shelling of Fort
Sumter. And yet who can tell what may arise from it?
" Well, sir," exclaimed one of my companions, " I thank God
for it, if it's only because we are beginning to have a history
for Europe. The universal Yankee nation swallowed us up."
Never did men plunge into unknown depth of peril and
COLONEL WIGFALL. 109
trouble more recklessly than these Carolinians. They fling
themselves against the grim, black future, as the Cavaliers
under Rupert may have rushed against the grirn, black Iron-
sides. Will they carry the image farther ? Well ! The
exploration of Suinter was finished at last, not till we had vis-
ited the officers of the garrison, who lived in a windowlese,
shattered room, reached by a crumbling staircase, and who
produced whiskey and crackers, many pleasant stories and
boundless welcome. One young fellow grumbled about pay.
He said : " I have not received a cent since I came to Charles-
ton for this business." But Major Whiting, some days after-
wards, told me he had not got a dollar on account of his pay,
though on leaving the United States army he had abandoned
nearly all his means of subsistence. These gentlemen were
quite satisfied it would all be right eventually ; and no one
questioned the power or inclination of the Government, which
had just been inaugurated under such strange auspices, to
perpetuate its principles and reward its servants.
After a time our party went down to the boats, in which we
were rowed to the steamer that lay waiting for us at Morris*
Island. The original intention of the officers was to carry us
over to Fort Moultrie, on the opposite side of the Channel,
and to examine it and the floating iron battery ; but it was too
late to do so when we got off, and the steamer only ran across
and swept around homewards by the other shore. Below, in
the cabin, there was spread a lunch or quasi dinner ; and the
party of Senators, past and present, aides-de-camp, journalists,
and flaneurs, were not indisposed to join it. For me there
was only one circumstance which marred the pleasure of that
agreeable reunion. Colonel and Senator Wigfall, who had not
sobered himself by drinking deeply, in the plenitude of his
exultation alluded to the assault on Senator Sumner as a type
of the manner in which the Southerners would deal with the
Northerners generally, and cited it as a good exemplification
of the fashion in which they would bear their " whipping."
Thence, by a natural digression, he adverted to the inevitable
consequences of the magnificent outburst of Southern indig-
nation against the Yankees on all the nations of the world, and
to the immediate action of England in the matter as soon as
the news came. Suddenly reverting to Mr. Sumner, whose
name he loaded with obloquy, he spoke of Lord Lyons in terms
so coarse, that, forgetting the condition of the speaker, I re-
sented the language applied to the English Minister, in a very
110 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
unmistakable manner ; and then rose and left the cabin. In
a moment I was followed on deck by Senator Wigfall : his
manner much calmer, his hair brushed back, his eye sparkling.
There was nothing left to be desired in his apologies, which
were repeated and energetic. We were joined by Mr. Man-
ning, Major Whiting, and Senator Chestnut, and others, to
whom I expressed my complete contentment with Mr. Wig-
fall's explanations. And so we returned to Charleston. The
Colonel and Senator, however, did not desist from his atten-
tions to the good or bad things below. It was a strange
scene these men, hot and red-handed in rebellion, with their
lives on the cast, trifling and jesting, and carousing as if they
had no care on earth all excepting the gentlemen of the
local press, who were assiduous in note and food-taking. It
was near nightfall before we set foot on the quay of Charles-
ton. The city was indicated by the blaze of lights, and by the
continual roll of drums, and the noisy music, and the yelling
cheers which rose above its streets. As I walked towards the
hotel, the evening drove of negroes, male and female, shuffling
through the streets in all haste, in order to escape the patrol
and the last peal of the curfew bell, swept by me ; and as 1
passed the guard-house of the police, one of my friends pointed
out the armed sentries pacing up and down before the porch,
and the gleam of arms in the room inside. Further on, a
squad of mounted horsemen, heavily armed, turned up a by-
'Street, and with jingling spurs and sabres disappeared in the
dust and darkness. That is the horse patrol. They scour the
country around the city, and meet at certain places during the
night to see if the niggers are all quiet. Ah, Fuscus ! these
are signs of trouble.
" Integer vitae, scelerisque purus %
Non eget Mauri jaculis neque arcu,
Nee venenatis gravidii sagittis,
Fusee, pharetra."
But Fuscus is going to his club ; a kindly, pleasant, chatty,
card-playing, cocktail-consuming place. He nods proudly to
an old white- woolled negro steward or head-waiter a slave
as a proof which I cannot accept, with the curfew tolling
in my ears, of the excellencies of the domestic institution.
The club was filled with officers ; one of them, Mr. Ransome
Calhoun,* asked me what was the object which most struck me
* Since killed in a duel by Mr. Rhett.
MENACING THE NORTH. Ill
at Morris' Island ; I tell him as was indeed the case that it
was a letter-copying machine, a case of official stationery, and
a box of Red Tape, lying on the beach, just landed and ready
to grow with the strength of the young independence.
But listen ! There is a great tumult, as of many voices
coming up the street, heralded by blasts of music. It is a
speech-making from the front of the hotel. Such an agitated,
lively multitude ! How they cheer the pale, frantic man, lim-
ber and dark-haired, with uplifted arms and clinched fists, who
is perorating on the balcony ! " What did he say ? " " Who
is he ? " " Why it's he again ! " " That's Roger Pryor he~\
says that if them Yankee trash don't listen to reason, and
stand from under, we'll march to the North and dictate the
terms of peace in Faneuil Hall ! Yes, sir and so we will
certa-i-n su-re ! " u No matter, for all that ; we have shown
we can whip the Yankees whenever we meet them at
Washington or down here." How much I heard of all this J
to-day how much more this evening ! The hotel as noisy
as ever more men in uniform arriving every few minutes,
and the hall and passages crowded with tall, good-looking
Carolinians.
CHAPTER XV.
Slaves, their Masters and Mistresses Hotels Attempted boat-
journey to Fort Moultrie Excitement at Charleston against
New York Preparations for war General Beauregard
Southern opinion as to the policy of the North, and estimate of
the effect of the war on England, through the cotton market
Aristocratic feeling in the South.
April l&th. It is as though we woke up in a barrack.
No ! There is the distinction, that in the passages slaves are
moving up and down with cups of iced milk or water for their
mistresses in the early morning, cleanly dressed, neatly clad,
with the conceptions of Parisian millinery adumbrated to their
condition, and transmitted by the white race, hovering round
their heads and bodies. They sit outside the doors, and chatter
in the passages ; and as the Irish waiter brings in my hot
water for shaving, there is that odd, round, oily, half-strangled,
chuckling, gobble of a laugh peculiar to the female Ethiop,
coming in through the doorway.
Later in the day, their mistresses sail out from the inner
harbors, and launch all their sails along the passages, down
the stairs, and into the long, hot, fluffy salle-a-manger, where,
blackened with flies which dispute the viands, they take their
tremendous meals. They are pale, pretty, svelte just as I
was about to say they were rather small, there rises before me
the recollection of one Titanic dame a Carolinian Juno,
with two lovely peacock daughters and I refrain from gener-
alizing. Exceedingly proud these ladies are said to be for
a generation or two of family suffice in this new country, if
properly supported by the possession of negroes and acres, 10
give pride of birth, and all the grandeur which is derived from
raising raw produce, cereals, and cotton sud terra. Their
enemies say that the grandfathers of some of these noble
people were mere pirates and smugglers, who dealt in a cava-
lier fashion with the laws and with the flotsam and jetsam of
fortune on the seas and reefs hereabouts. Cotton suddenly
MAJOR WHITING. 113
almost unnaturally, as far as the ordinary laws of commerce
are concerned, grew up whilst land was cheap, and slaves were
of moderate price the pirates, and piratesses had control of
both, and in a night the gourd swelled and grew to a prodig-
ious size. These are Northern stories. What the Southerners
say of their countrymen and women in the upper part of this
" blessed Union " I have written for the edification of people
at home.
The tables in the eating-room are disposed in long rows, or
detached so as to suit private parties. When I was coming
down to Charleston, one of my fellow-passengers told me he
was quite shocked the first time he saw white people acting as
servants ; but no such scruples existed in the Mills House, for
the waiters were all Irish, except one or two Germans. The
carte is much the same at all American hotels, the variations
depending on local luxuries or tastes. Marvellous exceedingly
is it to see the quantities of butter, treacle, and farinaceous
matters prepared in the heaviest form of fish, of many
meats, of eggs scrambled or scarred or otherwise prepared,
of iced milk and water, which an American will consume in a
few minutes in the mornings. There is, positively, no rest at
these meals no repose. The guests are ever passing in and
out of the room, chairs are forever pushed to and fro with a
harsh grating noise that sets the teeth on edge, and there is a
continual clatter of plates and metal. Every man is reading
his paper, or discussing the news with his neighbor. I was
introduced to a vast number of people and was asked many
questions respecting my views of Sumter, or what I thought
" old Abe and Seward would do ? " The proclamation calling
out 75,000 men issued by said old Abe, they treat with the
most profound contempt or unsparing ridicule, as the case may
be. Five out of six of the men at table wore uniforms this
morning.
Having made the acquaintance of several warriors, as well
as that of a Russian gentleman, Baron Sternberg, who was
engaged in looking about him in Charleston, and was, like most
foreigners, impressed with the conviction that actum est de Re-
publicd, I went out with Major Whiting* and Mr. Ward, the
former of whom was anxious to show me Fort Moultrie and
the left side of the Channel, in continuation of my trip yester-
day. It was arranged that we should go off as quietly as pos-
sible, " so as to prevent the newspapers knowing anything
* Now Confederate General.
114 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
about it." The Major has a great dislike to the gentlemen of
the press, and General Beauregard had sent orders for the
staff-boat to be prepared, so as to be quiet and private, but the
fates were against us. On going down to the quay, we learn-
ed that a gentleman had come down with an officer and had
gone off in our skiff, the boat-keepers believing they were the
persons for whom it was intended. In fact, our Russian friend,
Baron Sternberg, had stolen a march upon us.
After a time, the Major succeeded in securing the services
of the very smallest, most untrustworthy, and ridiculous-look-
ing craft ever seen by mortal eyes. If Charon had put a two-
horse power engine into his skiff, it might have borne some
resemblance to this egregious cymbalus, which had once been
a flat-bottomed, opened-decked cutter or galley, into the midst
of which the owner had forced a small engine and paddle-
wheels, and at the stern had erected a roofed caboose, or
oblong pantry, sacred to oil-cans and cockroaches. The crew
consisted of the first captain and the second captain, a lad of
tender years, and that was all. Into the pantry we scrambled,
and sat down knee to knee, whilst the engine was getting up
its steam : a very obstinate and anti-caloric little engine it
was puffing and squeaking, leaking, and distilling drops of
water, and driving out blasts of steam in unexpected places.
As long as we lay at the quay all was right. The Major
was supremely happy, for he could talk about Thackeray and
his writings a theme of which he never tired nay, on
which his enthusiasm reached the height of devotional fervor.
Did I ever know any one like Major Pendennis ? Was it
known who Becky Sharp was ? Who was the O'Mulligan ?
These questions were mere hooks on which to hang rhapsodies
and delighted dissertation. He might have got down as far as
Pendennis himself, when a lively swash of water flying over
the preposterous little gunwales, and dashing over our boots
into the cabin, announced that our bark was under way.
There is, we were told, for several months in the year, a brisk
breeze from the southward and eastward in and off Charles-
ton Harbor, and there was to-day a small joggle in the water
which would not have affected anything floating except our
steamer ; but as we proceeded down the narrow channel by
Castle Pinckney, the little boat rolled as if she would cap-
size every moment, and made no pretence at doing more than
a mile an hour at her best; and it became evident that our
voyage would be neither pleasant, prosperous, nor speedy.
AN ABORTIVE EXCURSION. 115
Still the Major went on between the lurches, and drew his
feet up out of the water, in order to have "a quiet chat," as
he said, " about my favorite author." My companion and my-
self could not condense our?elves or foreshorten our nether
limbs quite so deftly.
Standing out from the shelter towards Sumter, the sea
came rolling on our beam, making the miserable craft oscil-
late as if some great hand had caught her by the funnel
Yankeeice, smokestack and was rolling her backwards and
forwards, as a preliminary to a final keel over. The water
carne in plentifully, and the cabin was flooded with a small
sea : the latter partook of the lively character of the external
fluid, and made violent efforts to get overboard to join it, which
generally were counteracted by the better sustained and
directed attempts of the external to get inside. The captain
seemed very unhappy ; the rest of the crew our steerer
had discovered that the steamer would not steer at all, and
that we were rolling like a log on the water. Certainly
neither Pinckney, nor Sumter, nor Moultrie altered their
relative bearings and distances towards us for half an hour or
so, though they bobbed up and down continuously. " But it
is," said the Major, " in the character of Colonel Newcome
that Thackeray has, in my opinion, exhibited the greatest
amount of power ; the tenderness, simplicity, love, manliness,
and " Here a walloping muddy-green wave came " all
aboard," and the cymbalus gave decided indications of turning
turtle. \Ve were wet and miserable, and two hours or more
had now passed in making a couple of miles. The tide was
setting more strongly against us, and just off Moultrie, in the
tideway between its walls and Sumter, could be seen the heads
of the sea-horses unpleasantly crested. I know not what ot
eloquent disquisition I lost, for the Major was evidently in
his finest moment and on his best subject, but I ventured to
suggest that we should bout ship and return and thus arous-
ed him to a sense of his situation. And so we wore round
a very delicate operation, which, by judicious management in
getting side bumps of the sea at favorable movements, we
were enabled to effect in some fifteen or twenty minutes;
and then we became so parboiled by the heat from the engine,
that conversation was impossible.
How glad we were to land once more I need not say. As
I gave the captain a small votive tablet of metal, he said,
" I'm thinkin' it's very well yes turned back. Av we'd gone
116 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
any further, devil aback ever we'd have come." " Why didn't
you say so before ?" " Sure I didn't like to spoil the trip."
My gifted countryman and I parted to meet no more.
******
Second and third editions and extras! News of Secession
meetings and of Union meetings ! Every one is filled with
indignation against the city of New York, on account of the
way in which the news of the reduction of Fort Sumter has
been received there. New England has acted just as was ex-
pected, but better things were anticipated on the part of the
Empire City. There is no sign of shrinking from a contest :
on the contrary, the Carolinians are full of eagerness to test
their force in the field. " Let them come ! " is their boastful
mot cTordre.
The anger which is reported to exist in the North only adds
to the fury and animosity of the Carolinians. They are de-
termined now to act on their sovereign rights as a State, cost
what it may, and uphold the ordinance of secession. The
answers of several State Governors to President Lincoln's de-
mand for troops, have delighted our friends. Beriah Magoffin,
of Kentucky, declares he won't give any men for such a
wicked purpose ; and another gubernatorial dignitary laconi-
cally replied to the demand for so many thousand soldiers,
" Nary one." Letcher, Governor of Virginia, has also sent a
refusal. From the North comes news of mass-meetings, of
hauling down Secession colors, mobbing Secession papers, of
military bodies turning out, banks subscribing and lending.
Jefferson Davis has met President Lincoln's proclamation
by a counter manifesto, issuing letters of marque and reprisal
on all sides preparations for war. The Southern agents are
buying steamers, but they fear the Northern States will use
their navy to enforce a blockade, which is much dreaded, as it
will cut off supplies and injure the commerce, on which they
so much depend. Assuredly Mr. Seward cannot know any-
thing of the feeling of the South, or he would not be so con-
fident as he was that all would blow over, and that the States,
deprived of the care and fostering influences of the general
Government, would get tired of their Secession ordinances,
and of their experiment to maintain a national life, so that the
United States will be reestablished before long.
I went over and saw General Beauregard at his quarters.
He was busy with papers, orderlies, and despatches, and the
outer room was crowded with officers. His present task, he
GENERAL BEAUKEGARD. 117
told me, was to put Sumter in a state of defence, and to dis-
arm the works bearing on it, so as to get their fire directed on
the harbor-approaches, as " the North in its madness " might
attempt a naval attack on Charleston. His manner of trans-
acting business is clear and rapid. Two vases filled with
flowers on his table, flanking his maps and plans ; and a little
hand bouquet of roses, geraniums, and scented flowers lay on
a letter which he was writing as I came in, by way of paper
weight. He offered me every assistance and facility, relying,
of course, on my strict observance of a neutral's duty. I
reminded him once more, that as the representative of an Eng-
lish journal, it would be my duty to write freely to England
respecting what I saw ; and that I must not be held account-
able if on the return of my letters to America, a month after
they were written, it was found they contained information to
which circumstances might attach an objectionable character.
The General said, " I quite understand you. We must take
our chance of that, and leave you to exercise your discre-
tion."
In the evening I dined with our excellent Consul, Mr.
Bunch, who had a small and very agreeable party to meet
me. One very venerable old gentleman, named Huger (pro-
nounced as Hugee), was particularly interesting in appearance
and conversation. He formerly held some official appointment
under the Federal Government, but had gone out with his
State, and had been confirmed in his appointment by the Con-
federate Government. Still he was not happy at the pros-
pect before him or his country. " I have lived too long," he
exclaimed ; " I should have died ere these evil days arrived."
What thoughts, indeed, must have troubled his mind when he
reflected that his country was but little older than himself;
for he was one who had shaken hands with the framers of the
Declaration of Independence. But though the tears rolled
down his cheeks when he spoke of the prospect of civil war,
there was no symptom of apprehension for the result, or in-
deed of any regret for the contest, which he regarded as the
natural consequence of the insults, injustice, and aggression
of the North against Southern rights.
Only one of the company, a most lively, quaint, witty old
lawyer named Petigru, dissented from the doctrines of Seces-
sion ; but he seems to be treated as an amiable, harmless per-
son, who has a weakness of intellect or a " bee in his bonnet "
on this particular matter.
118 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
It was scarcely very agreeable to my host or myself to find
that no considerations were believed to be of consequence in
reference to England except her material interests, and that
these worthy gentlemen regarded her as a sort of appanage of
their cotton kingdom. " Why, sir, we have only to shut off
your supply of cotton for a few weeks, and we can create a
revolution in Great Britain. There are four millions of your
people depending on us for their bread, not to speak of the
many millions of dollars. No, sir, we know that England
must recognize us," &c.
Liverpool and Manchester have obscured all Great Britain
to the Southern eye. I confess the tone of my friends irri-
tated me. I said so to Mr. Bunch, who laughed and re-
marked, " You'll not mind it when you get as much accus-
tomed to this sort of thing as I am." I could not help saying,
that if Great Britain were such a sham as they supposed, the
sooner a hole was drilled in her, and the whole empire sunk
under water, the better for the world, the cause of truth, and
of liberty.
These tall, thin, fine-faced Carolinians are great materialists.
Slavery perhaps has aggravated the tendency to look at all the
world through parapets of cotton bales and rice bags, and though
more stately and less vulgar, the worshippers here are not less
prostrate before the " almighty dollar" than the Northerners.
Again cropping out of the dead level of hate to the Yankee,
grows its climax in the profession from nearly every one of
the guests, that he would prefer a return to British rule to any
reunion with New England. " The names in South Carolina
show our origin Charleston, and Ashley, and Cooper, &c.
Our Gadsden, Sumter and Pinckney were true cavaliers," &c.
They did not say anything about Pedee, or Tombigbee, or Sul-
livan's Island, or the like. We all have our little or big weak-
nesses.
I see no trace of cavalier descent in the names of Huger,
Rose, Manning, Chestnut, Pickens ; but there is a profession
of faith in the cavaliers and their cause among them because
it is fashionable in Carolina. They affect the agricultural
faith and the belief of a landed gentry. It is not only over
the wineglass why call it cup ? that they ask for a Prince
to reign over them ; I have heard the wish repeatedly ex-
pressed within the last two days that we could spare them one
of our young Princes, but never in jest or in any frivolous
manner.
CAKE OF SLAVES. 119
On my way home again, I saw the sentries on their march,
the mounted patrols starting on their ride, and other evidences
that though the slaves are " the happiest and most contented
race in the world," they require to be taken care of like less
favored mortals. The city watch-house is filled every night
with slaves, who are confined there till reclaimed by their
owners, whenever they are found out after nine o'clock, P. M.,
without special passes or permits. Guns are firing for the
Ordinance of Secession of Virginia.
CHAPTER XVI.
Charleston ; the Market-place Irishmen at Charleston Governor
Pickens : his political economy and theories Newspaper offices
and counting-houses Rumors as to the war policy of the South.
April \$th. An exceeding hot day. The sun pours on
the broad sandy street of Charleston with immense power, and
when the wind blows down the thoroughfare it sends before
it vast masses of hot dust. The houses are generally detached,
surrounded by small gardens, well provided with verandas to
protect the windows from the glare, and are sheltered with
creepers and shrubs and flowering plants, through which flit
humming-birds and fly-catchers. In some places the streets
and roadways are covered with planking, and as long as the
wood is sound they are pleasant to walk or drive upon.
I paid a visit to the markets ; the stalls are presided over by
negroes, male and female ; the colored people engaged in sell-
ing and buying are well clad ; the butchers' meat by no means
tempting to the eye, but the fruit and vegetable stalls well
filled. Fish is scarce at present, as the boats are not permit-
ted to proceed to sea lest they should be whipped up by the ex-
pected Yankee cruisers, or carry malecontents to communicate
with the enemy. Around the flesh-market there is a skirling
crowd of a kind of turkey-buzzard ; these are useful as scaven-
gers and are protected by law. They do their nasty work
very zealously, descending on the offal thrown out to them
with the peculiar crawling, puffy, soft sort of flight which is
the badge of all their tribe, and contending with wing and beak
against the dogs which dispute the viands with the harpies.
It is curious to watch the expression of their eyes as with out-
stretched necks they peer down from the ledge of the market
roof on the stalls and scrutinize the operations of the butchers
below. They do not prevent a disagreeable odor in the
vicinity of the markets, nor are they deadly to a fine and
active breed of rats.
Much drumming and marching through the streets to-day.
GOVERNOR PICKENS. 121
One very ragged regiment which had been some time at Mor-
ris' Island halted in the shade near me, and I was soon made
aware they consisted, for the great majority, of Irishmen.
The Emerald Isle, indeed, has contributed largely to the pop-
ulation of Charleston. In the principal street there is a
large and fine red-sandstone building with the usual Greek-
Yankee-composite portico, over which is emblazoned the
crownless harp and the shamrock wreath proper to a St.
Patrick's Hall, and several Roman Catholic churches also
attest the Hibernian presence.
I again called on General Beauregard, and had a few mo-
ments' conversation with him. He told me that an immense
deal depended on Virginia, and that as yet the action of the
people in that State had not been as prompt as might have
been hoped, for the President's proclamation was a declaration
of war against the South, in which all would be ultimately in-
volved. He is going to Montgomery to confer with Mr. Jeffer-
son Davis. I have no doubt there is to be some movement
made in Virginia. Whiting is under orders to repair there,
and he hinted that he had a task of no common nicety and diffi-
culty to perform. He is to visit the forts which had been seized
on the coast of North Carolina, and probably will have a look
at Portsmouth. It is incredible that the Federal authorities
should have neglected to secure this place.
Later I visited the Governor of the State, Mr. Pickens, to
whom I was conducted by Colonel Lucas, his aide-de-camp.
His palace was a very humble shed-like edifice with large
rooms, on the doors of which were pasted pieces of paper
with sundry high -reading inscriptions, such as "Adjutant
General's Dept.," " Quartermaster- General's Dept.," " Attor-
ney-General of State," &c. ; and through the doorways could
be seen men in uniform, and grave, earnest people busy at
their desks with pen, ink, paper, tobacco, and spittoons. The
governor, a stout man, of a big head, and a large, important-
looking face, with watery eyes and flabby features, was seated
in a barrack-like room, furnished . in the plainest way, and
decorated by the inevitable portrait of George Washington,
close to which was the " Ordinance of Secession of the State
of South Carolina" of last year.
Governor Pickens is considerably laughed at by his sub-
jects ; and I was amused by a little middy, who described with
much unction the Governor's alarm on his visit to Fort Pick-
ens, when he was told that there were a number of live shells
6
122 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
and a quantity of powder still in the place. He is said to
have commenced one of his speeches with " Born insensible
to fear," &c. To me the Governor was very courteous ; but I
confess the heat of the day did not dispose me to listen with
due attention to a lecture on political economy with which he
favored me. I was told, however, that he had practised with
success on the late Czar when he was United States Minister
to St. Petersburg, and that he does not suffer his immediate
staff to escape from having their minds improved on the rela-
tions of capital to labor, and on the vicious condition of capital
and labor in the North.
" In the North, then, you will perceive, Mr. Russell, they
have maximized the hostile condition of opposed interests in
the accumulation of capital and in the employment of labor,
whilst we in the South, by the peculiar excellence of our do-
mestic institution, have minimized their opposition and max-
imized the identity of interest by the investment of capital in
the laborer himself," and so on, or something like it. I could
not help remarking it struck me there was " another difference
betwixt the North and the South which he had overlooked,
the capital of the North is represented by gold, silver, notes,
and other exponents, which are good all the world over and
are recognized as such ; your capital has power of locomotion,
and ceases to exist the moment it crosses a geographical line."
" That remark, sir," said the Governor, " requires that I
should call your attention to the fundamental principles on
which the abstract idea of capital should be formed. In order
to clear the ground, let us first inquire into the soundness of
the ideas put forward by your Adam Smith." 1 had to
look at my watch and to promise I would come back to be
illuminated on some other occasion, and hurried off to keep
an engagement with myself to write letters by the next mail.
The Governor writes very good proclamations, neverthe-
less, and his confidence in South Carolina is unbounded. " If
we stand alone, sir, we must win. They can't whip us." A
gentleman named Pringle, for whom I had letters of intro-
duction, has come to Charleston to ask me to his plantation, but
there will be no boat from the port till Monday, and it is un-
certain then whether the blockading vessels, of which we hear
so much, may not be down by that time.
April 20th. I visited the editors of the " Charleston Mercu-
ry " and the " Charleston Courier " to-day at their offices. The
Rhett family have been active agitators for secession, and it is
AMONG THE CHARLESTONIANS. 123
said they are not over well pleased with Jefferson Davis for
neglecting their claims to office. The elder, a pompous, hard,
ambitious man, possesses ability. He is fond of alluding to
his English connections and predilections, and is intolerant of
New England to the last degree. I received from him, ere I
left, a pamphlet on his life, career and services. In the news-
paper offices there was nothing worthy of remark ; they were
possessed of that obscurity which is such a characteristic of
the haunts of journalism the clouds in which the lightning
is hiding. Thence to haunts more dingy still where Plutus
lives to the counting-houses of the cotton brokers, up many
pairs of stairs into large rooms furnished with hard seats, en-
gravings of celebrated clippers, advertisements of emigrant
agencies and of lines of steamers, little flocks of cotton, spec-
imens of rice, grain, and seed in wooden bowls, and clerks
living inside railings, with secluded spittoons, and ledgers, and
tumblers of water.
I called on several of the leading merchants and bankers,
such as Mr. Rose, Mr. Muir, Mr. Trenholm, and others.
With all it was the same story. Their young men were off
to the wars no business doing. In one office I saw an an-
nouncement of a company for a direct communication by
steamers between a southern port and Europe. " When do
you expect that line to be opened ? " I asked. " The United
States cruisers will surely interfere with it." " Why, I ex-
pect, sir," replied the merchant, " that if those miserable
Yankees try to blockade us, and keep you from our cotton,
you'll just send their ships to the bottom and acknowledge us.
That will be before autumn, I think." It was in vain I
assured him he would be disappointed. " Look out there," he
said, pointing to the wharf, on which were piled some cotton
bales ; " there's the key will open all our ports, and put us into
John Bull's strong box as well."
I dined to-day at the hotel, notwithstanding many hospita-
ble invitations, with Messrs. Manning, Porcher Miles, Reed,
and Pringle. Mr. Trescot, who was Under Secretary of State
in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, joined us, and I promised to visit
his plantation as soon as I have returned from Mr. Pringle's.
We heard much the same conversation as usual, relieved by
Mr. Trescot's sound sense and philosophy. He sees clearly
the evils of slavery, but is, like all of us, unable to discover
the solution and means of averting them.
The Secessionists are in great delight with Governor Letch-
124 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
er's proclamation, calling out troops and volunteers, and it is
hinted that Washington will be attacked, and the nest of
Black Republican vermin which haunt the capital, driven out.
Agents are to be at once despatched to get up a navy, and
every effort made to carry out the policy indicated in Jeff
Davis' s issue of letters of marque and reprisal. Norfolk har-
bor is blocked up to prevent the United States ships getting
away ; and at the same time we hear that the Unites States
officer commanding at the arsenal of Harper's Ferry has re-
tired into Pennsylvania, after destroying the place by fire.
How " old John Brown " would have wondered and rejoiced,
had he lived a few months longer !
CHAPTER XVII.
Visit to a plantation ; hospitable reception By steamer to George-
town Description of the town A country mansion Masters
and slaves Slave diet Humming-birds Land irrigation
Negro quarters Back to Georgetown.
April 21 st. In the afternoon I went with Mr. Porcher
Miles to visit a small farm and plantation, some miles from
the city, belonging to Mr. Crafts. Our arrival was unex-
pected, but the planter's welcome was warm. Mrs. Crafts
showed us round the place, of which the beauties were due to
nature rather than to art, and so far the lady was the fitting
mistress of the farm.
We wandered through tangled brakes and thick Indian-like
jungle, filled with disagreeable insects, down to the edge of a
small lagoon. The beach was perforated with small holes, in
which Mrs. Crafts said little crabs, called " fiddlers" from their
resemblance in petto to a performer on the fiddle make their
abode ; but neither them nor u spotted snakes " did we see.
And so to dinner, for which our hostess made needless ex-
cuses. " I am afraid I shall have to ask you to eke out your
dinner with potted meats, but I can answer for Mr. Crafts
giving you a bottle of good old wine." "And what better,
madam," quoth Mr. Miles, " what better can you offer a sol-
dier ? What do we expect but grape and canister ? "
Mr. Miles, who was formerly member of the United States
Congress, and who has now migrated to the Confederate
States of America, rendered himself conspicuous a few years
ago when a dreadful visitation of yellow fever came upon
Norfolk and destroyed one half of the inhabitants. At that
terrible time, when all who could move were flying from the
plague-stricken spot, Mr. Porcher Miles flew to it, visited the
hospitals, tended the sick ; and although a weakly, delicate
man, gave an example of such energy and courage as materi-
ally tended to save those who were left. I never heard him
say a word to indicate that he had been at Norfolk at all.
126 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
At the rear of the cottage-like residence (to the best of my
belief built of wood), in which the planter's family lived, was
a small enclosure, surrounded by a palisade, containing a
number of wooden sheds, which were the negro quarters ; and
after dinner, as we sat on the steps, the children were sent for
to sing for us. They came very shyly, and by degrees ; first
peeping round the corners and from behind trees, oftentimes
running away in spite of the orders of their haggard mammies,
till they were chased, captured, and brought back by their
elder brethren. They were ragged, dirty, shoeless urchins of
both sexes ; the younger ones abdominous as infant Hindoos,
and wild as if just caught. With much difficulty the elder
children were dressed into line ; then they began to shuffle
their flat feet, to clap their hands, and to drawl out in a mo-
notonous sort of chant something about the " River Jawdam,"
after which Mrs. Crafts rewarded them with lumps of sugar,
which were as fruitful of disputes as the apple of discord. A
few fathers and mothers gazed at the scene from a distance.
As we sat listening to the wonderful song of the mocking-
birds, when these young Sybarites had retired, a great, big,
burly red-faced gentleman, as like a Yorkshire farmer in high
perfection as any man I ever saw in the old country, rode up
to the door, and, after the usual ceremony of introduction and
the collating of news, and the customary assurance " They
can't whip us, sir ! " invited me then and there to attend a
fete champetre at his residence, where there is a lawn famous
for trees dating from the first settlement of the colony, and
planted by this gentleman's ancestor.
Trees are objects of great veneration in America if they
are of any size. There are perhaps two reasons for this. In
the first place, the indigenous forest trees are rarely of any
great magnitude. In the second place, it is natural to Amer-
icans to admire dimension and antiquity ; and a big tree grati-
fies both organs size and veneration.
I must record an astonishing feat of this noble Carolinian.
The heat of the evening was indubitably thirst-compelling,
and we went in to " have a drink." Among other things on
the table were a decanter of cognac and a flask of white cura-
coa. The planter filled a tumbler half full of brandy. "What's
in that flat bottle, Crafts ? " " That's white curacoa." The
planter tasted a little, and having smacked his lips and ex-
claimed " first-rate stuff," proceeded to water his brandy with
it, and tossed off a full brimmer of the mixture without any
EXCURSION TO GEORGETOWN. 127
remarkable ulterior results. They are a hard-headed race.
I doubt if cavalier or puritan ever drank a more potent bum-
per than our friend the big planter.
April 22e?. To-day was fixed for the visit to Mr. Prin-
gle's plantation, which lies above Georgetown near the Pedee
River. Our party, which consisted of Mr. Mitchell, an emi-
nent lawyer of Charleston, Colonel Reed, a neighboring plan-
ter, Mr. Ward, of New York, our host, and myself, were on
board the Georgetown steamer at seven o'clock, A. M., and
started with a quantity of commissariat stores, ammunition,
and the like, for the use of the troops quartered along the
coast. There was, of course, a large supply of newspapers
also. At that early hour invitations to the " bar " were not
uncommon, where the news was discussed by long-legged,
grave, sallow men. There was a good deal of joking about
" old Abe Lincoln's paper blockade," and the report that the
Government had ordered their cruisers to treat the crews of
Confederate privateers as " pirates " provoked derisive and
menacing comments. The full impulses of national life are
breathing through the whole of this people. There is their
flag flying over Sumter, and the Confederate banner is waving
on all the sand-forts and headlands which guard the approaches
to Charleston.
A civil war and persecution have already commenced.
"Suspected Abolitionists" are ill-treated in the South, and
" Suspected Secessionists " are mobbed and beaten in the
North. The news of the attack on the 6th Massachusetts, and
the Pennsylvania regiment, by the mob in Baltimore, has
been received with great delight ; but some long-headed peo-
ple see that it will only expose Baltimore and Maryland to
the full force of the Northern States. The riot took place on
the anniversary of Lexington.
The " Nina " was soon in open sea, steering northwards
and keeping four miles from shore in order to clear the shoals
and banks which fringe the low sandy coasts, and effectually
prevent even light gunboats covering a descent by their ord-
nance. This was one of the reasons why the Federal fleet
did not make any attempt to relieve Fort Sumter during the
engagement. On our way out we could see the holes made
in the large hotel and other buildings on Sullivan's Island be-
hind Fort Moultrie, by the shot from the fort, which caused
terror among the negroes " miles away." There was no sign
of any blockading vessel, but look-out parties were posted
128 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
along the beach, and as the skipper said we might have to
make our return-journey by land, every sail on the horizon
was anxiously scanned through our glasses.
Having passed the broad mouth of the Santee, the steamer
in three hours and a half ran up an estuary, into which the
Maccamaw River and the Pedee River pour their united
waters.
Our vessel proceeded along-shore to a small jetty, at the
end of which was a group of armed men, some of them being
part of a military post, to defend the coast and river, estab-
lished under cover of an earthwork and palisades constructed
with trunks of trees, and mounting three 32-pounders. Sev-
eral posts of a similar character lay on the river banks, and
from some of these we were boarded by men in boats hungry
for news and newspapers. Most of the men at the pier were
cavalry troopers, belonging to a volunteer association of the
gentry for coast defence, and they had been out night and day
patrolling the shores, and doing the work of common soldiers
very precious material for such work. They wore gray
tunics, slashed and faced with yellow, buff belts, slouched felt
hats, ornamented with drooping cocks' plumes, and long jack-
boots, which well became their fine persons and bold bearing,
and were evidently due to " Cavalier " associations. They
were all equals. Our friends on board the boat hailed them
by their Christian names, gave and heard the news. Among
the cases landed at the pier were certain of champagne and
pates, on which Captain Blank was wont to regale his com-
pany daily at his own expense, or that of his cotton broker.
Their horses picketed in the shade of trees close to the beach,
the parties of women riding up and down the sands, or driving
in light tax-carts, suggested images of a large picnic, and a
state of society quite indifferent to Uncle Abe's cruisers and
" Hessians." After a short delay here, the steamer proceeded
on her way to Georgetown, an ancient and once important set-
tlement and port, which was marked in the distance by the
little forest of masts rising above the level land, and the tops
of the trees beyond, and by a solitary church-spire.
As the " Nina " approaches the tumble-down wharf of the
old town, two or three citizens advance from the shade of
shaky sheds to welcome us, and a few country vehicles and
light phaetons are drawn forth from the same shelter to re-
ceive the passengers, while the negro boys and girls who have
been playing upon the bales of cotton and barrels of rice,
THE PLANTER'S HOUSE. 129
which represent the trade of the place on the wharf, take up
commanding positions for the better observation of our pro-
ceedings.
There is about Georgetown an air of quaint simplicity and
old-fashioned quiet, which contrasts refreshingly with the bus-
tle and tumult of American cities. While waiting for our
vehicle we enjoyed the hospitality of Colonel Reed, who took
us into an old-fashioned, angular, wooden mansion, more than
a century old, still sound in every timber, and testifying, in
its quaint wainscotings, and the rigid framework of door and
window, to the durability of its cypress timbers and the pre-
servative character of the atmosphere. In early days it was
the grand house of the old settlement, and the residence of
the founder of the female branch of the family of our host,
who now only makes it his halting-place when passing to and
fro between Charleston and his plantation, leaving it the year
round in charge of an old servant and her grandchild. Rose-
trees and flowering shrubs clustered before the porch and filled
the garden in front, and the establishment gave one a good
idea of a London merchant's retreat about Chelsea a hundred
and fifty years ago.
At length we were ready for our journey, and, in two light
covered gigs, proceeded along the sandy track which, after a
while, led us to a road cut deep in the bosom of the woods,
where silence was only broken by the cry of a woodpecker,
the scream of a crane, or the sharp challenge of the jay. For
miles we passed through the shades of this forest, meeting
only two or three vehicles containing female planterdom on
little excursions of pleasure or business, who smiled their wel-
come as we passed. Arrived at a deep chocolate-colored
stream, called Black River, full of fish and alligators, we find
a flat large enough to accommodate vehicles and passengers,
and propelled by two negroes pulling upon a stretched rope,
in the manner usual in the ferry-boats in Switzerland.
Another drive through a more open country, and we reach
a fine grove of pine and live-oak, which melts away into a
shrubbery guarded by a rustic gateway : passing through this,
we are brought by a sudden turn to the planter's house, buried
in trees, which dispute with the green sward and with wild
flower-beds the space between the hall-door and the waters of
the Pedee ; and in a few minutes, as we gaze over the ex-
panse of fields marked by the deep water-cuts, and bounded
by a fringe of unceasing forest, just tinged with green by the
6*
130 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
first life of the early rice-crops, the chimneys of the steamer
we had left at Georgetown, gliding as it were through the
fields, indicate the existence of another navigable river still
beyond.
Leaving the veranda which commanded this agreeable
foreground, we enter the mansion, and are reminded by its
low-browed, old-fashioned rooms, of the country houses yet to
be found in parts of Ireland or on the Scottish border, with
additions, made by the luxury and love of foreign travel, of
more than one generation of educated Southern planters.
Paintings from Italy illustrate the walls, in juxtaposition
with interesting portraits of early colonial governors and
their lovely womankind, limned with no uncertain hand, and
full of the vigor of touch and naturalness of drapery, of
which Copley has left us too few exemplars ; and one por-
trait of Benjamin West claims for itself such honor as his
own pencil can give. An excellent library filled with col-
lections of French and English classics, and with those pon-
derous editions of Voltaire, Rousseau, the " Memoires pour
Servir," books of travel and history which delighted our fore-
fathers in the last century, and many works of American and
general history affords ample occupation for a rainy day.
It was five o'clock before we reached our planter's house
White House Plantation. My small luggage was carried into
my room by an old negro in livery, who took great pains to
assure me of my perfect welcome, and who turned out to be a
most excellent valet. A low room hung with colored mezzo-
tints, windows covered with creepers, and an old-fashioned
bedstead and quaint chairs, lodged me sumptuously ; and after
such toilet as was considered necessary by our host for a
bachelor's party, we sat down to an excellent dinner, cooked
by negroes and served by negroes, and aided by claret mel-
lowed in Carolinian suns, and by Madeira brought down stairs
cautiously, as in the days of Horace and Maecenas, from the
cellar between the attic and the thatched roof.
Our party was increased by a neighboring planter, and
after dinner the conversation returned to the old channel
all the frogs praying for a king anyhow a prince to rule
over them. Our good host is anxious to get away to Europe,
where his wife and children are, and all he fears is being
mobbed at New York, where Southerners are exposed to in-
sult, though they may get off better in that respect than Black
Republicans would down South. Some of our guests talked
UNHEALTHY SEASON. 131
of the duello, and of famous hands with the pistol in these
parts. The conversation had altogether very much the tone
which would have probably characterized the talk of a group
of Tory Irish gentlemen over their wine some sixty years
ago, and very pleasant it was. Not a man no, not one
will ever join the Union again! "Thank God!" they say,
" we are freed from that tyranny at last." And yet Mr. Sew-
ard calls it the most beneficent government in the world, which
never hurt a human being yet !
But alas ! all the good things which the house affords, can
be enjoyed but for a brief season. Just as nature has ex-
panded every charm, developed every grace, and clothed the
scene with all the beauty of opened flower, of ripening grain,
and of mature vegetation, on the wings of the wind the poi-
soned breath comes borne to the home of the white man, and
he must fly before it or perish. The books lie unopened on
the shelves, the flower blooms and dies unheeded, and, pity
'tis, 'tis true, the old Madeira garnered 'neath the roof, settles
down for a fresh lease of life, and sets about its solitary task
of acquiring a finer flavor for the infrequent lips of its ban-
ished master and his welcome visitors. This is the story, at
least, that we hear on all sides, and such is the tale repeated to
us beneath the porch, when the moon while softening enhances
the loveliness of the scene, and the rich melody of mocking-
birds fills the grove.
Within these hospitable doors Horace might banquet better
than he did with Nasidienus, and drink such wine as can be
only found among the descendants of the ancestry who, improv-
ident enough in all else, learnt the wisdom of bottling up
choice old Bual and Sercial, ere the demon of oidium had dried
up their generous sources forever. To these must be added
excellent bread, ingenious varieties of the galette, compounded
now of rice and now of Indian meal, delicious butter and
fruits, all good of their kind. And is there anything better
rising up from the bottom of the social bowl ? My black
friends who attend on me are grave as Mussulman Khit-
mutgars. They are attired in liveries and wear white cravats
and Berlin gloves. At night when we retire, off they go to
their outer darkness in the small settlement of negro-hood,
which is separated from our house by a wooden palisade.
Their fidelity is undoubted. The house breathes an air of
security. The doors and windows are unlocked. There is
but one gun, a fowling-piece, on the premises. No planter
132 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
hereabouts has any dread of his slaves. But I have seen,
within the short time I have been in this part of the world,
several dreadful accounts of murder and violence, in which
masters suffered at the hands of their slaves. There is some-
thing suspicious in the constant^ never-ending statement that
" we are not afraid of our slaves." The curfew and the night
patrol in the streets, the prisons and watch-houses, and the
police regulations, prove that strict supervision, at all events,
is needed and necessary. My host is a kind man and a good
master. If slaves are happy anywhere, they should be so
with him.
These people are fed by their master. They have half a
pound per diem of fat pork, and corn in abundance. They
rear poultry and sell their chickens and eggs to the house.
They are clothed by their master. He keeps them in sick-
ness as in health. Now and then there are gifts of tobacco
and molasses for the deserving. There was little labor going
on in the fields, for the rice has been just exerting itself to get
its head above water. These fields yield plentifully ; the wa-
ters of the river are fat, and they are let in whenever the
planter requires it by means of floodgates and small canals,
through which the flats can carry their loads of grain to the
river for loading the steamers.
April 23d. A lovely morning grew into a hot day.
After breakfast, I sat in the shade watching the vagaries of
some little tortoises, or terrapins, in a vessel of water close at
hand, or trying to follow the bee-like flight of the humming-
birds. Ah me ! one wee brownie, with a purple head and red
facings, managed to dash into a small grape or flower conserv-
atory close at hand, and, innocent of the ways of the glassy
wall, he or she I am much puzzled as to the genders of
humming-birds, and Mr. Gould, with his wonderful mastery
of Greek prefixes and Latin terminations, has not aided me
much dashed up and down from pane to pane, seeking to
perforate each with its bill, and carrying death and destruction
among the big spiders and their cobweb-castles which for the
time barred the way.
The humming-bird had as the Yankees say, a bad time of
it, for its efforts to escape were incessant, and our host said
tenderly, through his mustaches, " Pooty little thing, don't
frighten it ! " as if he was quite sure of getting off to Saxony
by the next steamer. Encumbered by cobwebs and ex-
hausted, now and then our little friend toppled down among
HUMMING BIRDS. THE PLANTATION. 133
the green shrubs, and lay panting like a living nugget of ore.
Again he, she, or it took wing and resumed that mad career ;
but at last on some happy turn the bright head saw an open-
ing through the door, and out wings, body, and legs dashed,
and sought shelter in a creeper, where the little flutterer lay,
all but dead, so inanimate, indeed, that I could have taken the
lovely thing and put it in the hollow of my hand. What
would po^ts of Greece and Rome have said of the humming-
bird ? What would Hafiz, or Waller, or Spenser have sung,
had they but seen that offspring of the sun and flowers ?
Later in the day, when the sun was a little less fierce, we
walked out from the belt of trees round the house on the
plantation itself. At this time of year there is nothing to
recommend to the eye the great breadth of flat fields, sur-
rounded by small canals, which look like the bottoms of dried-
up ponds, for the green rice has barely succeeded in forcing its
way above the level of the rich dark earth. The river bounds
the estate, and when it rises after the rains, its waters, loaded
with loam and fertilizing mud, are let in upon the lands
through the small canals, which are provided with sluices and
banks and floodgates to control and regulate the supply.
The negroes had but little to occupy them now. The chil-
dren of both sexes, scantily clad, were fishing in the canals and
stagnant waters, pulling out horrible-looking little catfish.
They were so shy that they generally fled at our approach.
The men and women were apathetic, neither seeking nor shun-
ning us, and I found that their master knew nothing about
them. It is only the servants engaged in household duties
who are at all on familiar terms with their masters.
The bailiff or steward was not to be seen. One big slouch-
ing negro, who seemed to be a gangsman or something of the
kind, followed us in our walk, and answered any questions we
put to him very readily. It was a picture to see his face
when one of our party, on returning to the house, gave him a
larger sum of money than he had probably ever possessed
before in a lump. " What will he do with it ? " Buy sweet
things, sugar, tobacco, a penknife, and such things. " They
have few luxuries, and all their wants are provided for."
Took a cursory glance at the negro quarters, which are not
very enticing or cleanly. They are surrounded by high pal-
ings, and the entourage is alive with their poultry.
Very much I doubt whether Mr. Mitchell is satisfied the
Southerners are right in their present course, but he and Mr.
134 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
Petigru are lawyers, and do not take a popular view of the
question. After dinner the conversation again turned on the
resources and power of the South, and on the determination
of the people never to go back into the Union. Then cropped
out again the expression of regret for the rebellion of 1776,
and the desire that if it came to the worst, England would
receive back her erring children, or give them a prince under
whom they could secure a monarchical form of government.
There is no doubt about the earnestness with which these
things are said.
As the " Nina " starts down the river on her return voyage
from Georgetown to-night, and Charleston harbor may be
blockaded at any time, thus compelling us to make a long
detour by land, I resolve to leave by her, in spite of many
invitations and pressure from neighboring planters. At mid-
night our carriage came round, and we started in a lovely
moonlight to Georgetown, crossing the ferry after some delay,
in consequence of the profound sleep of the boatmen in their
cabins. One of them said to me, "Mus'n't go too near de
edge ob de boat, massa." " Why not ? " " Becas if massa
fall ober, he not come up agin likely, a bad ribber for
drowned, massa." He informed me it was full of alligators,
which are always on the look-out for the planters' and ne-
groes' dogs, and are hated and hunted accordingly.
The " Nina " was blowing the signal for departure, the
only sound we heard all through the night, as we drove
through the deserted streets of Georgetown, and soon after
three o'clock, A. M., we were on board and in our berths.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Climate of the Southern States General Beauregard Eisks of the
post-office Hatred of New England By railway to Sea Island
plantation Sporting in South Carolina An hour on board a
canoe in the dark.
April 24th. In the morning we found ourselves in chop-
ping little sea-way for which the " Nina " was particularly
unsuited, laden as she was with provisions and produce.
Eyes and glasses anxiously straining seawards for any trace
of the blockading vessels. Every sail scrutinized, but no
" stars and stripes " visible.
Our captain a good specimen of one of the inland-water
navigators, shrewd, intelligent, and active, told me a good
deal about the country. He laughed at the fears of the whites
as regards the climate. " Why, here am I," said he, " going
up the river, and down the river all times of the year, and
at times of day and night when they reckon the air is most
deadly, and I've done so for years without any bad effects.
The planters whose houses I pass all run away in May, and
go off to Europe, or to the piney wood, or to the springs, or
they think they'd all die. There's Captain Buck, who lives
above here, he comes from the State of Maine. He had
only a thousand dollars to begin with, but he sets to work and
gets land on the Maccamaw River at twenty cents an acre. It
was death to go nigh it, but it was first-rate rice land, and
Captain Buck is now worth a million of dollars. He lives
on his estate all the year round, and is as healthy a man as
ever you seen."
To such historiettes my planting friends turn a deaf ear.
" I tell you what," said Pringle, "just to show you what kind
our climate is. I had an excellent overseer once, who would
insist on staying near the river, and wouldn't go away. He
fought against it for more than five-and-twenty years, but he
went down with fever at last." As the overseer was more
than thirty years of age when he came to the estate, he had
136 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
not been cut off so very suddenly. I thought of the quack's
advertisement of the " bad leg of sixty years' standing." The
captain says the negroes on the river plantations are very
well off. Pie can buy enough of pork from the slaves on one
plantation to last his ship's crew for the whole winter. The
money goes to them, as the hogs are their own. One of the
stewards on board had bought himself and his family out of
bondage with his earnings. The State in general, however,
does not approve of such practices.
At three o'clock, p. M., ran into Charleston harbor, and
landed soon afterwards.
I saw General Beauregard in the evening : he was very
lively and in good spirits, though he admitted he was rather
surprised by the spirit displayed in the North. "A good
deal of it is got up, however," he said, " and belongs to that
washy sort of enthusiasm which is promoted by their lec-
turing and spouting." Beauregard is very proud of his per-
sonal strength, which for his slight frame is said to be very
extraordinary, and he seemed to insist on it that the Southern
men had more physical strength, owing to their mode of life
and their education, than their Northern " brethren." In the
evening held a sort of tabaks consilium in the hotel, where a
number of officers Manning, Lucas, Chestnut, Calhoun, &c.,
discoursed of the affairs of the nation. All my friends,
except Trescot, I think were elated at the prospect of hostili-
ties with the North, and overjoyed that a South Carolina reg-
iment had already set out for the frontiers of Virginia.
April 25th. Sent off my letters by an English gentleman,
who was taking despatches from Mr. Bunch to Lord Lyons, as
the post-office is becoming a dangerous institution. We hear
of letters being tampered with on both sides. Adams's Ex-
press Company, which acts as a sort of express post under
certain conditions, is more trustworthy ; but it is doubtful how
long communications will be permitted to exist between the
two hostile nations, as they may now be considered.
Dined with Mr. Petigru, who had most kindly postponed
his dinner party till my return from the plantations, and met
there General Beauregard, Judge King, and others, among
whom, distinguished for their esprit and accomplishments, were
Mrs. King and Mrs. Carson, daughters of my host. The dis-
like, which seems innate, to New England is universal, and
varies only in the form of its expression. It is quite true Mr.
Petigru is a decided Unionist, but he is the sole specimen of
BETWEEN CHARLESTON AND SAVANNAH. 137
the genus in Charleston, and he is tolerated on account of his
rarity. As the witty, pleasant old man trots down the street,
utterly unconscious of the world around him, he is pointed out
proudly by the Carolinians as an instance of forbearance on
their part, and as a proof, at the same time, of popular unan-
imity of sentiment.
There are also people who regret the dissolution of the
Union such as Mr. Huger, who shed tears in talking of it
the other night ; but they regard the fact very much as they
would the demolition of some article which never can be re-
stored and reunited, which was valued for the uses it rendered
and its antiquity.
General Beauregard is apprehensive of an attack by the
Northern " fanatics " before the South is prepared, and he con-
siders they will carry out coercive measures most rigorously.
He dreads the cutting of the levees, or high artificial works,
raised along the whole course of the Mississippi, for many
hundreds of miles above New Orleans, which the Federals
may resort to in order to drown the plantations and ruin the
planters.
We had a good-humored argument in the evening about the
ethics of burning the Norfolk navy yard. The Southerners
consider the appropriation of the arms, moneys, and stores of
the United States as_ rightful acts, inasmuch as they represent,
according to them, their contribution, or a portion of it, to the
national stock in trade. When a State goes out of the Union
she should be permitted to carry her forts, armaments, arse-
nals, &c., along with her, and it was a burning shame for the
Yankees to destroy the property of Virginia at Norfolk. These
ideas, and many like them, have the merit of novelty to Eng-
lish people, who were accustomed to think there were such
things as the Union and the people of the United States.
April 26th. Bade good-by to Charleston at 9 - 45 A. M., this
day, and proceeded by railway, in company with Mr. Ward,
to visit Mr. Trescot's Sea Island Plantation. Crossed the
river to the terminus in a ferry steamer. No blockading ves-
sels in sight yet. The water alive with small silvery fish, like
mullet, which sprang up and leaped along the surface inces-
santly. An old gentleman, who was fishing on the pier, com-
bined the pursuit of sport with instruction very ingeniously by
means of a fork of bamboo in his rod, just above the reel, into
which he stuck his inevitable newspaper, and read gravely in
his cane-bottomed chair till he had a bite, when the fork was
138 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
unhitched and the fish was landed. The negroes are very
much addicted to the contemplative man's recreation, and they
were fishing in all directions.
On the move again. Took our places in the Charleston
and Savannah Railway for Pocotaligo, which is the station
for Barnwell Island. Our fellow-passengers were all full of
politics the pretty women being the fiercest of all no !
the least good-looking were the most bitterly patriotic, as if
they hoped to talk themselves into husbands by the most un-
feminine expressions towards the Yankees.
The country is a dead flat, perforated by rivers and water-
courses, over which the rail is carried on long and lofty tres-
tle-work. But for the fine trees, the magnolias and live-oak,
the landscape would be unbearably hideous, for there are none
of the quaint, cleanly, delightful villages of Holland to relieve
the monotonous level of rice swamps and wastes of land and
water and mud. At the humble little stations there were in-
variably groups of horsemen waiting under the trees, and ladies
with their black nurses and servants who had driven over in
the odd-looking old-fashioned vehicles, which were drawn up
in the shade. Those who were going on a long journey,
aware of the utter barrenness of the land, took with them a
viaticum and bottles of milk. The nurses and slaves squatted
down by their side in the train, on perfectly well-understood
terms. No one objected to their presence on the contrary,
the passengers treated them with a certain sort of special con-
sideration, and they were on the happiest terms with their
charges, some of which were in the absorbent condition of life,
and dived their little white faces against the tawny bosom of
their nurses with anything but reluctance.
The train stopped, at 12-20, at Pocotaligo ; and there we
found Mr. Trescot and a couple of neighboring planters, fa-
mous as fishers for "drum," of which more by and by. I
had met old Mr. Elliot in Charleston, and his account of this
sport, and of the pursuit of an enormous sea monster called
the devil-fish, which he was one of the first to kill in these
waters, excited my curiosity very much. Mr. Elliot has writ-
ten a most agreeable account of the sports of South Carolina,
and I had hoped he would have been well enough to have
been my guide, philosopher, and friend in drum-fishing in
Port Royal ; but he sent over his son to say that he was too
unwell to come, and had therefore despatched most excellent
representatives in two members of his family. It was ar-
RAIN-CROWS AND SNAKE-HAWKS. 139
ranged that they should row down from their place and meet
us to-morrow morning at Trescot's Island, which lies above
Beaufort, in Port Royal Sound and River.
Got into Trescot's gig, and plunged into a shady lane with
wood on each side, through which we drove for some distance.
The country, on each side and beyond, perfectly flat all
rice lands few houses visible scarcely a human being on
the road drove six or seven miles without meeting a soul.
After a couple of hours or so, I should think, the gig turned
up by an open gateway on a path or road made through a
waste of rich black mud, " glorious for rice," and landed us at
the door of a planter, Mr. Heyward, who came out and gave
us a most hearty welcome, in the true Southern style. His
house is charming, surrounded with trees, and covered with
roses and creepers, through which birds and butterflies are
flying. Mr. Heyward took it as a matter of course that we
stopped to dinner, which we were by no means disinclined to
do, as the day was hot, the road was dusty, and his reception
frank and kindly. A fine specimen of the planter man ; and,
minus his broad-brimmed straw hat and loose clothing, not a
bad representative of an English squire at home.
Whilst we were sitting in the porch, a strange sort of boom-
ing noise attracted my attention in one of the trees. " It is a
rain-crow," said Mr. Heyward ; " a bird which we believe to
foretell rain. I'll shoot it for you." And, going into the hall,
he took down a double-barrelled fowling-piece, walked out, and
fired into the tree ; whence the rain-qrow, poor creature, fell
fluttering to the ground and died. It seemed to me a kind of
cuckoo the same size, but of darker plumage. I could
gather no facts to account for the impression that its call is a
token of rain.
My attention was also called to a curious kind of snake-
killing hawk, or falcon, which makes an extraordinary noise
by putting its wings point upwards, close together, above its
back, so as to offer no resistance to the air, and then, begin-
ning to descend from a great height, with fast-increasing rapid-
ity, makes, by its rushing through the air, a strange loud hum,
till it is near the ground, when the bird stops its downward
swoop and flies in a curve over the meadow. This I saw two
of these birds doing repeatedly to-night.
After dinner, at which Mr. Heyward expressed some alarm
lest Secession would deprive the Southern States of " ice," we
continued our journey towards the river. There is still a re-
140 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
markable absence of population or life along the road, and
even the houses are either hidden or lie too far off to be seen.
The trees are much admired by the people, though they would
not be thought much of in England.
At length, towards sundown, having taken to a track by a
forest, part of which was burning, we came to a broad muddy
river, with steep clay banks. A canoe was lying in a little
harbor formed by a slope in the bank, and four stout negroes,
who were seated round a burning log, engaged in smoking and
eating oysters, rose as we approached, and helped the party
into the " dug-out," or canoe, a narrow, long, and heavy boat,
with wall sides and a flat floor. A row of one hour, the latter
part of it in darkness, took us to the verge of Mr. Trescot's
estate, Barnwell Island; and the oarsmen, as they bent to
their task, beguiled the way by singing in unison a real negro
melody, which was as unlike the works of the Ethiopian Ser-
enaders as anything in song could be unlike another. It was
a barbaric sort of madrigal, in which one singer beginning
was followed by the others in unison, repeating the refrain in
chorus, and full of quaint expression and melancholy :
" Oh, your soul ! oh, my soul ! I'm going to the churchyard to lay
this body down ;
Oh, my soul ! oh, your soul ! we're going to the churchyard
to lay this nigger down."
And then some appeal to the difficulty of passing " the Jaw-
dam," constituted the whole of the song, which continued with
unabated energy through the whole of the little voyage. To
me it was a strange scene. The stream, dark as Lethe, flow-
ing between the silent, houseless, rugged banks, lighted up
near the landing by the fire in the woods, which reddened the
sky the wild strain, and the unearthly adjurations to the
singers' souls, as though they were palpable, put me in mind
of the fancied voyage across the Styx.
" Here we are at last." All I could see was a dark shadow
of trees and the tops of rushes by the river side. " Mind
where you step, and follow me close." And so, groping along
through a thick shrubbery for a short space, I came out on a
garden and enclosure, in the midst of which the white outlines
of a house were visible. Lights in the drawing-room a
lady to receive and welcome us a snug library tea, and
to bed : but not without more talk about the Southern Con-
federacy, in which Mrs. Trescot explained how easily
could feed an army, from her experience in feeding her
groes.
she
ne-
CHAPTER XIX.
Domestic negroes Negro oarsmen Off to the fishing grounds
The devil-fish Bad sport The drum-fish Negro quarters
Want of drainage Thievish propensities of the blacks A
Southern estimate of Southerners.
April 27th. Mrs. Trescot, it seems, spent part of her
night in attendance on a young gentleman of color, who was
introduced into the world in a state of servitude by his poor
chattel of a mother. Such kindly acts as these are more
common than we may suppose ; and it would be unfair to put
a strict or unfair construction on the motives of slave owners
in paying such attention to their property. Indeed, as Mrs.
Trescot says, "When people talk of my having so many
slaves, I always tell them it is the slaves who own me. Morn-
ing, noon, and night, I'm obliged to look after them, to doctor
them, and attend to them in every way." Property has its
duties, you see, madam, as well as its rights. J*
The planter's house is quite new, and was built by himself;
the principal material being wood, and most of the work being
done by his own negroes. Such work as window-sashes and
panellings, however, was executed in Charleston. A pretty
garden runs at the back, and from the windows there are
wide stretches of cotton-fields visible, and glimpses of the
river to be seen.
After breakfast our little party repaired to the river side,
and sat under the shade of some noble trees waiting for the
boat which was to bear us to the fishing grounds. The wind
blew up stream, running with the tide, and we strained our
eyes in vain for the boat. The river is here nearly a mile
across, a noble estuary rather, with low banks lined with
forests, into which the axe has made deep forays and clearings
for cotton-fields.
It would have astonished a stray English traveller, if, pen-
etrating the shade, he heard in such an out-of-the-way place
familiar names and things spoken of by the three lazy persons
142 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
who were stretched out cigar in mouth on the ant-haunt-
ed trunks which lay prostrate by the seashore. Mr. Trescot
spent some time in London as attache to the United States
Legation, was a club man, and had a large circle of acquaint-
ance among the young men about town, of whom he remem-
bered many anecdotes and peculiarities, and little adventures.
Since that time he was Under-Secretary of State in Mr.
Buchanan's administration, and went out with Secession. He
is the author of a very agreeable book on a dry subject, " The
History of American Diplomacy," which is curious enough as
an unconscious exposition of the anti-British jealousies, and
even antipathies, which have animated American statesmen
since they were created. In fact, much of American diplo-
macy means hostility to England, and the skilful employment
of the anti-British sentiment at their disposal in their own
country and elsewhere. Now he was talking pleasantly of
people he had met many of them mutual friends.
" Here is the boat at last ! " I had been sweeping the
broad river with my glass occasionally, and at length detected
a speck on its broad surface moving down towards us, with a
white dot marking the foam at its bows. Spite of wind and
tideway, it came rapidly, and soon approached us, pulled by
six powerful negroes, attired in red-flannel jackets and white
straw hats with broad ribbons. The craft itself a kind ot
monster canoe, some forty-five feet long, narrow, wall-sided,
with high bow and raised stern lay deep in the water, for
there were extra negroes for the fishing, servants, baskets of
provisions, water buckets, stone jars of less innocent drinking,
and abaft there was a knot of great strong planters, Elliots
all cousins, uncles, and brothers. A friendly hail as they
swept up along-side, an exchange of salutations.
" Well, Trescot, have you got plenty of Crabs ? "
A groan burst forth at his insouciant reply. He had been
charged to find bait, and he had told the negroes to do so, and
the negroes had not done so. The fishermen looked grievous-
ly at each other, and fiercely at Trescot, who assumed an air
of recklessness, and threw doubts on the existence of fish in
the river, and resorted to similar miserable subterfuges ; in-
deed, it was subsequently discovered that he was an utter
infidel in regard to the delights of piscicapture.
" Now, all aboard ! Over, you fellows, and take these
gentlemen in ! " The negroes were over in a moment, waist
deep, and, each taking one on his back, deposited us dry in
DEVIL-FISH. 143
the boat. I only mention this to record the fact, that I was
much impressed by a practical demonstration from my bearer
respecting the strong odor of the skin of a heated African. I
have been wedged up in a column of infantry on a hot day,
and have marched to leeward of Ghoorkhas in India, but the
overpowering pungent smell of the negro exceeds everything
of the kind I have been unfortunate enough to experience.
The vessel was soon moving again, against a ripple, caused
by the wind, which blew dead against us ; and, notwithstand-
ing the praises bestowed on the boat, it was easy to perceive
that the labor of pulling such a dead-log-like thing through
the water told severely on the rowers, who had already come
some twelve miles, I think. Nevertheless, they were told to
sing, and they began accordingly one of those wild Baptist
chants about the Jordan in which they delight, not destitute
of music, but utterly unlike what is called an Ethiopian mel-
ody.
The banks of the river on both sides are low ; on the left
covered with wood, through which, here and there, at inter-
vals, one could see a planter's or overseer's cottage. The
course of this great combination of salt and fresh water some-
times changes, so that houses are swept away and plantations
submerged ; but the land is much valued nevertheless, on
account of the fineness of the cotton grown among the islands.
" Cotton at twelve cents a pound, and we don't fear the
world."
As the boat was going to the fishing ground, which lay
towards the mouth of the river at Hilton Head, our friends
talked politics and sporting combined, the first of the usual
character, the second quite new.
I heard much of the mighty devil-fish which frequents
these waters. One of our party, Mr. Elliot, sen., a tall,
knotty, gnarled sort of man, with a mellow eye and a hearty
voice, was a famous hand at the sport, and had had some
hair-breadth escapes in pursuit of it. The fish is described
as of enormous size and strength, a monster ray, which pos-
sesses formidable antenna3-like horns, and a pair of huge fins,
or flappers, one of which rises above the water as the creature
moves below the surface. The hunters, as they may be call-
ed, go out in parties, three or four boats, or more, with
good store of sharp harpoons and tow-lines, and lances. When
they perceive the creature, one boat takes the lead, and
moves down towards it, the others following, each with a
144 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
harpooner standing in the bow. The devil-fish sometimes is
wary, and dives, when it sees a boat, taking such a long spell
below that it is never seen again. At other times, however,
it backs, and lets the boat come so near as to allow of the
harpooner striking it, or it dives for a short way and comes
up near the boats again. The moment the harpoon is fixed,
the line is paid out by the rush of the creature, which is
made with tremendous force, and all the boats at once hurry
up, so that one after another they are made fast to that in
which the lucky sportsman is seated. At length, when the
line is run out, checked from time to time as much as can be
done with safety, the crew take their oars and follow the
course of the ray, which swims so fast, however, that it keeps
the line taut, and drags the whole flotilla seawards. It de-
pends on its size and strength to determine how soon it rises
to the surface; by degrees the line is warped in and hove
short till the boats are brought near, and when the ray comes
up it is attacked with a shower of lances and harpoons, and
dragged off into shoal water to die.
On one occasion, our Nirarod told us, he was standing in
the bows of the boat, harpoon in hand, when a devil-fish came
up close to him ; he threw the harpoon, struck it, but at the
same time the boat ran against the creature with a shock
which threw him right forward on its back, and in an instant
it caught him in its horrid arms and plunged down with him
to the depths. Imagine the horror of the moment ! Imagine
the joy of the terrified drowning, dying man, when, for some
inscrutable reason, the devil-fish relaxed its grip, and enabled
him to strike for the surface, where he was dragged into
the boat more dead than alive by his terror-smitten compan-
ions, the only man who ever got out of the embraces of
the thing alive. " Tom is so tough that even a devil-fish
could make nothing out of him."
At last we came to our fishing ground. There was a sub-
stitute found for the favorite crab, and it was fondly hoped our
toils might be rewarded with success. And these were toils
for the water is deep and the lines heavy. But to alleviate
them, some hampers were produced from the stern, and wor
derful pies from Mrs. Trescot's hands, and from those of fail
ladies up the river whom we shall never see, were spread out
and bottles which represented distant cellars in friendly nool
far away. "No drum here! Up anchor, and pull away
few miles lower down." Trescot shook his head, and agaii
DRUM-FISH. 145
asserted his disbelief in fishing, or rather in catching, and in-
deed made a sort of pretence at arguing that it was wiser to
remain quiet and talk philosophical politics ; but, as judge of
appeal, I gave it against him, and the negroes bent to their
oars, and we went thumping through the spray, till, rounding
a point of land, we saw pitched on the sandy shore ahead of
us, on the right bank, a tent, and close by t\vo boats. " There
is a party at it ! " A fire was burning on the beach, and as we
came near, Tom and Jac -'ssfully identi-
fied. " There's no take on, or they would not be on shore.
This is very unfortunate."
All the regret of my friends was on my account, so to ease
their minds I assured them I did not mind the disappointment
much. "Hallo Dick! Caught any drum ?" " A few this
morning; bad sport now, and will be till tide turns again."
I was introduced to all the party from a distance, and present-
ly I saw one of them raising from a boat something in lo'ok
and shape and color like a sack of flour, which he gave to a
negro, who proceeded to carry it towards us in a little skiff.
"Thank you, Charley. I just want to let Mr. Russell see a
drum-fish." And a very odd fish it was, a thick lumpish
form, about four and a half feet long, with enormous head and
scales, and teeth like the grinders of a ruminant animal, acting
on a great pad of bone in the roof of the mouth, a very un-
lovely thing, swollen with roe, which is the great delicacy.
" No chance till the tide turned," but that would be too
late for our return, and so unwillingly we were compelled to
steer towards home, hearing now and then the singular noise
like the tap on a large unbraced drum, from which the fish
takes its name. At first, when I heard it, I was inclined to
think it was made by some one in the boat, so near and close
did it sound ; but soon it came from all sides of us, and evi-
dently from the depths of the water beneath us, not a sharp
rat-tat-tap, but a full muffled blow with a heavy thud on the
sheepskin. Mr. Trescot told me that on a still evening by the
river side the effect sometimes is most curious, the rolling
and pattering is audible at a great distance. Our friends were
in excellent humor with everything and everybody, except the
Yankees, though they had caught no fish, and kept the negroes
at singing and rowing till at nightfall we landed at the island,
und so to bed after supper and a little conversation, in which
Mrs. Trescot again explained how easily she could maintain
r* battalion on the island by her simple commissariat, already
146 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
adapted to the niggers, and that it would therefore be very
easy for the South to feed an army, if the people were
friendly.
April 28th. The church is a long way off, only available
by a boat and then a drive in a carriage. In 'the morning a
child brings in my water and boots an intelligent, curly-
headed creature, dressed in a sort of sack, without any par-
ticular waist, barefooted. I imagined it was a boy till it told
me it was a erirl. I asked if 1 bhe was going to church, which
seemed to puzzle her exceedingly ; but she told me finally she
would hear prayers from " uncle " in one of the cottages.
This use of the words " uncle " and " aunt " for old people
is very general. Is it because they have no fathers and
mothers? In the course of the day, the child, who was four-
teen or fifteen years of age, asked me " whether I would not
buy her. She could wash and sew very well, and she thought
missus wouldn't want much for her." The object she had in
view leaked out at last. It was a desire to see the glories
of Beaufort, of which she had heard from the fishermen ; and
she seemed quite wonderstruck when she was informed I did
not live there, and had never seen it. She had never been
outside the plantation in her life.
After breakfast we loitered about the grounds, strolling
through the cotton-fields, which had as yet put forth no bloom
or flower, and corning down others to the thick fringes of
wood and sedge bordering the marshy banks of the island.
The silence was profound, broken only by the husky mid-day
crowing of the cocks in the negro quarters.
In the afternoon I took a short drive " to see a tree," which
was not very remarkable, and looked in at the negro quarters
and the cotton-mill. The old negroes were mostly indoors,
and came shambling out to the doors of their wooden cottages,
making clumsy bows at our approach, but not expressing any
interest or pleasure at the sight of their master and the strang-
ers. They were shabbily clad ; in tattered clothes, bad straw
hats and felt bonnets, and broken shoes. The latter are expen-
sive articles, and negroes cannot dig without them. Trescot
sighed as he spoke of the increase of price since the troubles
broke out.
The huts stand in a row, like a street, each detached, witli
a poultry-house of rude planks behind it. The mutilations
which the poultry undergo for the sake of distinction are
striking. Some are deprived of a claw, others have the wat-
A SEA-ISLAND PLANTATION. 147
ties cut, and tails and wings suffer in all ways. No attempt
at any drainage or any convenience existed near them, and
the same remark applies to very good houses of white people
in the south. Heaps of oyster shells, broken crockery, old
shoes, rags, and feathers were found near each hut. The huts
were all alike windowless, and the apertures, intended to be
glazed some fine day, were generally filled up with a deal
board. The roofs were shingle, and the whitewash which
had once given the settlement an air of cleanliness, was now
only to be traced by patches which had escaped the action of
the rain. I observed that many of the doors were fastened
by a padlock and chain outside. " Why is that ? " " The
owners have gone out, and honesty is not a virtue they have
towards each other. They would find their things stolen if
they did not lock their doors." Mrs. Trescot, however, in-
sisted on it that nothing could exceed the probity of the slaves
in the house, except in regard to sweet things, sugar, and the
like ; but money and jewels were quite safe. It is obvious
that some reason must exist for this regard to the distinctions
twixt meurn and tuum in the case of masters and mistresses,
when it does not guide their conduct towards each other, and
I think it might easily be found in the fact that the negroes
could scarcely take money without detection. Jewels and
jewelry would be of little value to them ; they could not
wear them, could not part with them. The system has made
the white population a police against the black race, and the
punishment is not only sure but grievous. Such things as
they can steal from each other are not to be so readily
traced.
One particularly dirty looking little hut was described to
me as " the church." Jt was about fifteen feet square, be-
grimed with dirt and smoke, and windowless. A few benches
were placed across it, and " the preacher," a slave from
another plantation, was expected next week. These preach-
ings are not encouraged in many plantations. They " do the
niggers no good" "they talk about things that are going on
elsewhere, and get their minds unsettled," and so on.
On our return to the house, I found that Mr. Edmund
Rhett, one of the active and influential political family of that
name, had called a very intelligent and agreeable gentle-
man, but one of the most ultra and violent speakers against
the Yankees I have yet heard. He declared there were few
persons in South Carolina who would not sooner ask Great
148 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
Britain to take back the State than submit to the triumph
of the Yankees. " We are an agricultural people, pursuing
our own system, and working out our own destiny, breeding
up women and men with some other purpose than to make
them vulgar, fanatical, cheating Yankees hypocritical, if as
women they pretend to real virtue ; and lying, if as men they
pretend to be honest. We have gentlemen and gentlewomen
in your sense of it. We have a system which enables us to
reap the fruits of the earth by a race which we save from
barbarism in restoring them to their real place in the world as
laborers, whilst we are enabled to cultivate the arts, the
graces, and accomplishments of life, to develop science, to
apply ourselves to the duties of government, and to under-
stand the affairs of the country."
This is a very common line of remark here. The South-
erners also take pride to themselves, and not unjustly, for
their wisdom in keeping in Congress those men who have
proved themselves useful and capable. " We do not," they
say, " cast able men aside at the caprices of a mob, or in obe-
dience to some low party intrigue, and hence we are sure of
the best men, and are served by gentlemen conversant with
public affairs, far superior in every way to the ignorant clowns
who are sent to Congress by the North. Look at the fellows
who are sent out by Lincoln to insult foreign courts by their
presence." I said that I understood Mr. Adams and Mr.
Dayton were very respectable gentlemen, but I did not re-
ceive any sympathy ; in fact, a neutral who attempts to mod-
erate the violence of either side, is very like an ice between
two hot plates. Mr. Rhett is also persuaded that the Lord
Chancellor sits on a cotton bale. " You must recognize us,
sir, before the end of October." In the evening a distant
thunder-storm attracted me to the garden, and I remained out
watching the broad flashes and sheets of fire worthy of
tropics till it was bedtime.
CHAPTER XX.
By railway to Savannah Description of the city Rumors of the
last few days State of affairs at Washington Preparations for
war Cemetery of Bonaventure Road made of oyster-shells
Appropriate features of the Cemetery The Tatnall family >
Dinner-party at Mr. Green's Feeling in Georgia against the
North.
April 29^. This morning up at six, A. M., bade farewell
to our hostess and Barn well Island, and proceeded with Tres-
cot back to the Pocotaligo station, which we reached at 12'20.
On our way Mr. Heyward and his son rode out of a field,
looking very like a couple of English country squires in all but
hats and saddles. The young gentleman was good enough
to bring over a snake-hawk he had shot for me. At the
station, to which the Heywards accompanied us, were the
Elliotts and others, who had come over with invitations and
adieux ; and I beguiled the time to Savannah reading the
very interesting book by Mr. Elliott, senior, on the Wild
Sports of Carolina, which was taken up by some one when
I left the carriage for a moment and not returned to me. The
country through which we passed was flat and flooded as
usual, and the rail passed over dark deep rivers on lofty
trestle-work, by pine wood and dogwood*tree, by the green
plantation clearing, with mud bank, dike, and tiny canal mile
by mile, the train stopping for the usual freight of ladies, and
negro nurses, and young planters, all very much of the same
class, till at three o'clock, p. M., the cars rattled up along-side
a large shed, and we were told we had arrived at Savannah.
Here was waiting for me Mr. Charles Green, who had al-
ready claimed me and my friend as his guests, and I found in
his carriage the young American designer, who had preceded
me from Charleston, and had informed Mr. Green of my
coming. ^
The drive through such portion of Savannah as lay be-
tween the terminus and Mr. Green's house, soon satisfied my
eyes that it had two peculiarities. In the first place, it had
150 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
the deepest sand in the streets I have ever seen ; and next,
the streets were composed of the most odd, quaint, green-win-
dowed, many-colored little houses I ever beheld, with an odd
population of lean, sallow, ill-dressed unwholesome-looking
whites, lounging about the exchanges and corners, and a busy,
well-clad, gayly-attired race of negroes, working their way
through piles of children, under the shade of the trees which
bordered all the streets. The fringe of green, and the height
attained by the live-oak, Pride of India, and magnolia, give
a delicious freshness and novelty to the streets of Savannah,
which is increased by the great number of squares and open-
ings covered with something like sward, fenced round by
white rail, and embellished with noble trees to be seen at
every few hundred yards. It is difficult to believe you are
in the midst of a city, and I was repeatedly reminded of the
environs of a large Indian cantonment the same kind of
churches and detached houses, with their plantations and gar-
dens not unlike. The wealthier classes, however, have houses
of the New York Fifth Avenue character : one of the best of
these, a handsome mansion of rich red-sandstone, belonged to
my host, who coming out from England many years ago,
raised himself by industry and intelligence to the position
of one of the first merchants in Savannah. Italian statuary
graced the hall ; finely carved tables and furniture, stained
glass, and pictures from Europe set forth the sitting-rooms ;
and the luxury of bath-rooms and a supply of cold fresh water,
rendered it an exception to the general run of Southern edi-
fices. Mr. Green drove me through the town, which im-
pressed me more than ever with its peculiar character. We
visited Brigadier- General Lawton, who is charged with the
defences of the place against the expected Yankees, and found
him just setting out to inspect a band of volunteers, whose
drums we heard in the distance, and whose bayonets were
gleaming through the clouds of Savannah dust, close to the
statue erected to the memory of one Pulaski, a Pole, who
was mortally wounded in the unsuccessful defence of the city
against the British in the War of Independence. He turned
back and led us into his house. The hall was filled with
little round rolls of flannel. " These," said he, " are car-
tridges for cannon of various calibres, made by the ladies
of Mrs. Lawton's 'cartridge class.'" There were more
cartridges in the back parlor, so that the house was not
quite a safe place to smoke a cigar in. The General has
NEWS FROM THE NORTH. 151
been in the United States' army, and has now come forward
to head the people of this State in their resistance to the
Yankees.
We took a stroll in the park, and I learned the news of the
last few days. The people of the South, I find, are delighted
at a snubbing which Mr. Seward has given to Governor
Hicks of Maryland, for recommending the arbitration of
Lord Lyons, and he is stated to have informed Governor
1 licks that "our troubles could not be referred to foreign ar-
bitration, least of all to that of the representative of a Euro-
pean monarchy." The most terrible accounts are given of
the state of things in Washington. Mr. Lincoln consoles
himself for his miseries by drinking. Mr. Seward follows
suit. The White House and capital are full of drunken bor-
der ruffians, headed by one Jim Lane, of Kansas. But, on
the other hand, the Yankees, under one Butler, a Massachu-
setts lawyer, have arrived at Annapolis, in Maryland, secured
the " Constitution " man-of-war, and are raising masses of
mem for the invasion of the South all over the States. The
most important thing, as it strikes me, is the proclamation of
the Governor of Georgia, forbidding citizens to pay any
money on account of debts due to Northerners, till the end of the
war. General Robert E. Lee has been named Commander-
in-Chief of the Forces of the Commonwealth of Virginia,
and troops are flocking to that State from Alabama and other
States. Governor Ellis has called out 30,000 volunteers in
North Carolina, and Governor Rector of Arkansas has seized
the United States' military stores at Napoleon. There is a
rumor that Fort Pickens has been taken also, but it is very
probably untrue. In Texas and Arkansas the United States
regulars have not made an attempt to defend any of the forts.
In the midst of all this warlike work, volunteers drilling,
bands playing, it was pleasant to walk in the shady park, with
its cool fountains, and to see the children playing about
many of them, alas ! " playing at soldiers " in charge of
their nurses. Returning, sat in the veranda and smoked a
cigar ; but the mosquitoes were very keen and numerous.
My host did not mind them, but my cuticle will never be
sting-proof.
April 30th. At 1-30 p. M. a small party started from Mr.
Green's to visit the cemetery of Bonaventure, to which every
visitor to Savannah must pay his pilgrimage ; difficiles aditus
primes habet a deep sandy road which strains the horses
152 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
and the carriages ; but at last " the shell road is reached a
highway several miles long, consisting of oyster shells the
pride of Savannah, which eats as many oysters as it can to
add to the length of this wonderful road. There is no stone
in the whole of the vast alluvial ranges of South Carolina and
Maritime Georgia, and the only substance available for mak-
ing a road is the oyster-shell. There is a toll-gate at each end
to aid the oyster-shells. Remember they are three times the
size of any European crustacean of the sort.
A pleasant drive through the shady hedgerows and border-
ing trees lead to a dilapidated porter's lodge and gateway,
within which rose in a towering mass of green one of the fin-
est pieces of forest architecture possible ; nothing to be sure
like Burnham Beeches, or some of the forest glades of Wind-
sor, but possessed, nevertheless, of a character quite its own.
What we gazed upon was, in fact, the ruin of grand avenues
of live-oak, so well-disposed that their peculiar mode of
growth afforded an unusual development of the " Gothic idea,"
worked out and elaborated by a superabundant fall from the
overlacing arms and intertwined branches of the tillandsia. or
Spanish moss, a weeping, drooping, plumaceous parasite, which
does to the tree what its animal type, the yellow fever
vomitoprieto does to man clings to it everlastingly, drying
up sap, poisoning blood, killing the principle of life till it dies.
The only differ, as they say in Ireland, is, that the tillandsia
all the time looks very pretty, and that the process lasts very
long. Some there are who praise this tillandsia, hanging like
the tresses of a witch's hair over an invisible face, but to me it
is a paltry parasite, destroying the grace and beauty of that
it preys upon, and letting fall its dull tendrils over the fresh
lovely green, as clouds drop over the face of some beautiful
landscape. Despite all this, Bonaventure is a scene of re-
markable interest ; it seems to have been intended for a place
of tombs. The Turks would have filled it with turbaned
white pillars, and with warm ghosts at night. The French
would have decorated it with interlaced hands of stone, with
tears of red and black on white ground, with wreaths of im-
mortelles. I am not sure that we would have done much
more than have got up a cemetery company, interested Shil-
liber, hired a beadle, and erected an iron paling. The Sa-
vannah people not following any of these fashions, all of which
are adopted in Northern cities, have left everything to nature
and the gatekeeper, and to the owner of one of the hotels, who
THE TATNALLS. 153
has got up a grave-yard in the ground. And there, scattered
up and down under the grand old trees, which drop tears of
Spanish moss, and weave wreaths of Spanish moss, and
shake plumes of Spanish moss over them, are a few monu-
mental stones to certain citizens of Savannah. There is a
melancholy air about the place independently of these emblems
of our mortality, which might recommend it specially for pic-
nics. There never was before a cemetery where nature
seemed to aid the effect intended by man so thoroughly.
Every one knows a weeping willow will cry over a wedding
party if they sit under it, as well as over a grave. But here
the Spanish moss looks like weepers wreathed by some fan-
tastic hand out of the crape of dreamland. Lucian's Ghost-
lander, the son of Skeleton of the Tribe of the Juiceless, could
tell us something of such weird trappings. They are known,
indeed as the best bunting for yellow fever to fight under.
Wherever their flickering horsehair tresses wave in the breeze,
taper end downwards, Squire Black Jack is bearing lance and
sword. One great green oak says to the other, " This fellow
is killing me. Take his deadly robes off my limbs ! " " Alas !
see how he is ruining me ! 1 have no life to help you." It
is, indeed, a strange and very ghastly place. Here are so
many querci virentes, old enough to be strong, and big, and
great, sapful, lusty, wide-armed, green-honored all dying
out slowly beneath tillandsia, as if they were so many mon-
archies perishing of decay -^ or so many youthful republics
dying of buncombe brag, richness of blood, and other diseases
fatal to overgrown bodies politic.
The void left in the midst of all these designed walks and
stately avenues, by the absence of any suitable centre, increases
the seclusion and solitude. A house ought to be there some-
where you feel in fact there was once the mansion of the Tat-
nalls, a good old English family, whose ancestors came from the
old country, ere the rights of man were talked of, and lived
among the Oglethorpes, and such men of the pigtail school,
who would have been greatly astonished at finding themselves
in company with Benjamin Franklin or his kind. I don't
know anything of old Tatnall. Indeed who does ? But he
had a fine idea of planting trees, which he never got in Amer-
ica, where he would have received scant praise for anything
but hi.s power to plant cotton or sugar-cane just now. In his
knee breeches, and top boots, I can fancy the old gentleman
reproducing some home scene, and boasting to himself, " I will
7*
154 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
make it as fine as Lord Nihilo's park." Could he see it now ?
A decaying army of the dead. The mansion was burned
down during a Christmas merrymaking, and was never built
again, and the young trees have grown up despite the Spanish
moss, and now they stand, as it were in cathedral aisles, around
the ruins of the departed house, shading the ground, and en-
shrining its memories in an antiquity which seems of the
remotest, although it is not as ancient as that of the youngest
oak in the Squire's park at home.
I have before oftentimes in my short voyages here, won-
dered greatly at the reverence bestowed on a tree. In fact,
it is because a tree of any decent growth is sure to be older
than anything else around it ; and although young America
revels in her future, she is becoming old enough to think
about her past.
In the evening Mr. Green gave a dinner to some very
agreeable people, Mr. Ward, the Chinese Minister (who
tried, by the by, to make it appear that his wooden box was
the Pekin State carriage for distinguished foreigners) Mr.
Locke, the clever and intelligent editor of the principal jour-
nal in Savannah, Brigadier Lawton, one of the Judges, a
Britisher, owner of the once renowned America which, under
the name of Camilla, was now lying in the river (not perhaps
without reference to a little speculation in running the block-
ade, hourly expected), Mr. Ward and Commodore Tatnall, so
well known to us in England for his gallant conduct in the
Peiho affair, when he offered and gave our vessels aid, though
a neutral, and uttered the exclamation in doing so, in his
despatch at all events, " that blood was thicker than water."
Of our party was also Mr. Hodgson, well known to most of
our Mediterranean travellers some years back, when he was
United States Consul in the East. He amuses his leisure
still by inditing and reading monographs on the languages of
divers barbarous tribes in Numidia and Mauritania.
The Georgians are not quite so vehement as the South
Carolinians in their hate of the Northerners ; but they are
scarcely less determined to fight President Lincoln and all his
men. And that is the test of this rebellion's strength. I did
not hear any profession of a desire to become subject to Eng-
land, or to borrow a prince of us ; but I have nowhere seen
stronger determination to resist any reunion with the New
England States. " They can't conquer us, sir ? " " If they
try it, we'll whip them."
CHAPTER XXI.
The river at Savannah Commodore Tatnall Fort Pulaski Want
of a fleet to the Southerners Strong feeling of the women
Slavery considered in its result Cotton and Georgia Off for
Montgomery The Bishop of Georgia The Bible and Slavery
Macon Dislike of United States gold.
May Day. Not unworthy of the best effort of English
fine weather before the change in the calendar robbed the
poets of twelve days, but still a little warm for choice. The
young American artist Moses, who was to have called our
party to meet the officers who were going to Fort Pulaski,
for some reason known to himself remained on board the
Camilla, and when at last we got down to the river side I
found Commodore Tatnall and Brigadier Lawton in full uni-
form waiting for me.
The river is about the width of the Thames below Graves-
end, very muddy, with a strong current, and rather fetid.
That effect might have been produced from the rice-swamps
at the other side of it, where the land is quite low, and stretches
away as far as the sea in one level green, smooth as a billiard-
cloth. The bank at the city side is higher, so that the houses
stand on a little eminence over the stream, affording con-
venient wharfage and slips for merchant vessels.
Of these there were few indeed visible nearly all had
cleared out for fear of the blockade ; some coasting vessels
were lying idle at the quay side, and in the middle of the
stream near a floating dock the Camilla was moored, with her
club ensign flying. These are the times for bold ventures,
and if Uncle Sam is not very quick with his blockades, there
will be plenty of privateers and the like under C. S. A. colors,
looking out for his fat merchantmen all over the world.
I have been trying to persuade my friends here they will
find very few Englishmen willing to take letters of marque
and reprisal.
The steamer which was waiting to receive us had the Con-
156 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
federate flag flying, and Commodore Tatnall, pointing to a
young officer in a naval uniform, told me he had just "come
over from the other side," and that he had pressed hard fo be
allowed to hoist a Commodore or flag-officer's ensign in honor
of the visit and of the occasion. I was much interested in the
fine white-headed, blue-eyed, ruddy-cheeked old man who
suddenly found himself blown into the air by a great political
explosion, and in doubt and wonderment was floating to shore,
under a strange flag in unknown waters. He was full of
anecdote too, as to strange flags in distant waters and well-
known names. The gentry of Savannah had a sort of Celtic
feeling towards him in regard of his old name, and seemed de-
termined to support him.
He has served the Stars and Stripes for three fourths of a
long life his friends are in the North, his wife's kindred are
there, and so are all his best associations but his State has
gone out. How could he fight against the country that gave
him birth ! The United States is no country, in the sense
we understand the words. It is a corporation or a body cor-
porate for certain purposes, and a man might as well call him-
self a native of the common council of the city of London, or
a native of the Swiss Diet, in the estimation of our Americans,
as say he is a citizen of the United States ; though it answers
very well to say so when lie is abroad, or for purposes of a
legal character.
Of Fort Pulaski itself I wrote on my return a long account
to the " Times."
When I was venturing to point out to General Lawton the
weakness of Fort Pulaski, placed as it is in low land, accessi-
ble to boats, and quite open enough for approaches from the city
side, he said, " Oh, that is true enough. All our seacoast
works are liable to that remark, but the Commodore will take
care of the Yankees at sea, and we shall manage them on
land." These people all make a mistake in referring to the
events of the old war. " We beat off the British fleet at
Charleston by the militia ergo, we'll sink the Yankees now."
They do not understand the nature of the new shell and
heavy vertical fire, or the effect of projectiles from great dis-
tances falling into works. The Commodore afterwards,
smiling, remarked, " I have no fleet. Long before the South-
ern Confederacy lias a fleet that can cope with the Stars and
Stripes, my bones will be white in the grave."
We got back by eight o'clock, p. M., after a pleasant day.
CIVILIZING EFFECT OF SLAVERY. 157
What I saw did not satisfy me that Pulaski was strong, or
Savannah very safe. At Bonaventure, yesterday, I saw a
poor fort, called " Thunderbolt," on an inlet from which the
city was quite accessible. It could be easily menaced from
that point, while attempts at landing were made elsewhere, as
soon as Pulaski is reduced. At dinner met a very strong
and very well-informed Southerner there are some who are
neither or either whose name was spelled Gourdin, and
pronounced Go-dine just as Huger is called Hugee and
Tagliuferro, Telfer, in these parts.
May 2d. Breakfasted with Mr. Hodgson, where I met
Mr. Locke, Mr. Ward, Mr. Green, and Mrs. Hodgson and
her sister. There were in attendance some good-looking
little negro boys and men dressed in liveries, which smacked
of our host's Orientalism ; and they must have heard our dis-
cussion, or rather allusion, to the question which would decide
whether we thought they are human beings or black two-
legged cattle, with some interest, unless indeed the boast of
their masters, that slavery elevates the character and civilizes
the mind of a negro, is another of the false pretences on
which the institution is rested by its advocates. The native
African, poor wretch, avoids being carried into slavery totis
viribus, and it would argue ill for the effect on his mind of
becoming a slave, if he prefers a piece of gaudy calico even
to his loin-cloth and feather head-dress. This question of
civilizing the African in slavery, is answered in the assertion
of the slave owners themselves, that if the negroes were left
to their own devices by emancipation, they would become the
worst sort of barbarians a veritable Quasheedom, the like
of which was never thought of by Mr. Thomas Carlyle. I
doubt if the aboriginal is not as civilized, in the true sense of
the word, as any negro, after three degrees of descent in
servitude, whom I have seen on any of the plantations
even though the latter have leather shoes and fustian or cloth
raiment and felt hat, and sings about the Jordan. He is ex-
empted from any bloody raid indeed, but he is liable to be
carried from his village and borne from one captivity to an-
other, and his family are exposed to the same exile in America
as in Africa. The extreme anger with which any unfavorable
comment is met publicly, shows the sensitiveness of the slave
owners. Privately, .they affect philosophy ; and the blue
books, and reports of Education Commissions and Mining
Committees, furnish them with an inexhaustible source of ar-
158 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
gument, if you once admit that the summum bonum lies in a
certain rotundity of person, and a regular supply of coarse
food. A long conversation on the old topics old to me, but
of only a few weeks' birth. People are swimming with the
tide. Here are many men, who would willingly stand aside
if they could, and see the battle between the Yankees, whom
they hate, and the Secessionists. But there are no women in
this party. Wo betide the Northern Pyrrhus, whose head is
within reach of a Southern tile and a Southern woman's
arm !
I revisited some of the big houses afterwards, and found
the merchants not cheerful, but fierce and resolute. There is
a considerable population of Irish and Germans in Savannah,
who to a man are in favor of the Confederacy, and will fight
to support it. Indeed, it is expected they will do so, and there
is a pressure brought to bear on them by their employers
which they cannot well resist. The negroes will be forced
into the place the whites hitherto occupied as laborers only
a few useful mechanics will be kept, and the white population
will be obliged by a moral force drafting to go to the wars.
The kingdom of cotton is most essentially of this world, and it
will be fought for vigorously. On the quays of Savannah,
and in the warehouses, there is not a man who doubts that he
ought to strike his hardest for it, or apprehends failure. And
then, what a career is before them ! All the world asking
for cotton, and England dependent on it. What a change since
Whitney first set his cotton-gin to work in this state close by
us ! Georgia, as a vast country only partially reclaimed, yet
looks to a magnificent future. In her past history the Florida
wars, and the treatment of the unfortunate Cherokee Indians,
who were expelled from their lands as late as 1838, show the
people who descended from old Oglethorpe's band were fierce
and tyrannical, and apt at aggression, nor will slavery im-
prove them. I do not speak of the cultivated and hospitable
citizens of the large towns, but of the bulk of the slaveless
whites.
May 3d. I bade good-by to Mr. Green, who with several
of his friends came down to see me off, at the terminus or
" depot " of the Central Railway, on my way to Montgomery
and looked my last on Savannah, its squares and leafy-
streets, its churches, and institutes, with a feeling of regret
that I could not see more of them, and that I was forced to be
content with the outer aspect of the public buildings. I had
EPISCOPAL SANCTION OF SLAVERY. 159
been serenaded and invited out in all directions, asked to visit
plantations and big trees, to make excursions to famous or
beautiful spots, and especially warned not to leave the State
without visiting the mountain district in the northern and west-
ern portion ; but the march of events called me to Mont-
gomery.
From Savannah to Macon, 191 miles, the road passes
through level country only partially cleared. That is, there
are patches of forest still intruding on the green fields, where
the jagged black teeth of the destroyed trees rise from above
the maize and cotton. There were but few negroes visible at
work, nor did the land appear rich, but I was told the rail was
laid along the most barren part of the country. The Indians
had roamed in these woods little more than twenty years ago
now the wooden huts of the planters' slaves, and the larger
edifice with its veranda and timber colonnade stood in the
place of their wigwam.
Among the passengers to whom I was introduced was the
Bishop of Georgia, the Rev. Mr. Elliott, a man of exceeding
fine presence, of great stature, and handsome face, with a
manner easy and graceful, but we got on the unfortunate
subject of slavery, and I rather revolted at hearing a Christian ,
prelate advocating the institution on scriptural grounds. -*
This affectation of Biblical sanction and ordinance as the
basis of slavery was not new to me, though it is not much
known at the other side of the Atlantic. I had read in a work
on slavery, that it was permitted by both the Scriptures and the
Constitution of the United States, and that it must, therefore,
be doubly right. A nation that could approve of such inter-
pretations of the Scriptures and at the same time read the
" New York Herald." seemed ripe for destruction as a corpo-
rate existence. The malum prohibitum was the only evil its
crass senses could detect, and the malum per se was its good,
if it only came covered with cotton or gold. The miserable
sophists who expose themselves to the contempt of the world
by their paltry thesicles on the divine origin and uses of
shivery, are infinitely more contemptible than the wretched
bigots who published themes long ago on the propriety of
burning witches, or on the necessity for the offices of the In-
quisition.
Whenever the Southern Confederacy shall achieve its ind(P
pendence no matter what its resources, its allies, or its aims
it will have to stand face to face with civilized Europe on
1GO MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
this question of slavery, and the strength which it derived from
the aegis of the Constitution "the league with the devil and
covenant with Hell" will be withered and gone.
^T I am well aware of the danger of drawing summary con-
clusions off-hand from the windows of a railway, but there is
also a right of sight which exists under all circumstances, and
so one can determine if a man's face be dirty as well from a
glance as if he inspected it for half an hour. For instance,
no one can doubt the evidence of his senses, when he sees
from the windows of the carriages that the' children are bare-
footed, shoeless, stockingless that the people who congregate
at the wooden huts and grog-shops of the stations are rude, un-
kempt, but great fighting material, too that the villages are
miserable places, compared with the trim, snug settlements
one saw in New Jersey from the carriage windows. Slaves
in the fields looked happy enough but their masters certainly
were rough looking and uncivilized and the land was but
badly cleared. But then we were traversing the least fertile
portions of the State a recent acquirement gained only
one generation since.
^>-J The train halted at a snug little wood-embowered restaurant,
surrounded by trellis and lattice-work, and in the midst of a
pretty garden, which presented a marked contrast to the " sur-
roundings " we had seen. The dinner, served by slaves, was
good of its kind, and the charge not high. On tendering the
landlord a piece of gold for payment, he looked at it with dis-
gust, and asked, " Have you no Charleston money ? No Con-
federate notes ? " " Well, no ! Why do you object to gold ? "
" Well, do you see, I'd rather have our own paper ! I don't
care to take any of the United States gold. I don't want their
stars and their eagles ; I hate the sight of them." The man
was quite sincere my companion gave him notes of some
South Carolina bank.
It was dark when the train reached Macon, one of the prin-
cipal cities of the State. We drove to the best hotel, but the
regular time for dinner hour was over, and that for supper not
yet come. The landlord directed us to a subterranean restau-
rant, in which were a series of crypts closed in by dirty cur-
tains, where we made a very extraordinary repast, served by
a half-clad little negress, who watched us at the meal with
great interest through the curtains the service was of the
coarsest description ; thick French earthenware, the spoons
of pewter, the knives and forks steel or iron, with scarce a
MACON HOTEL. 161
pretext of being cleaned. On the doors were the usual warn-
ings against pickpockets, and the customary internal policed
regulations and ukases. Pickpockets and gamblers abound
in American cities, and thrive greatly at the large hotels and
the lines of railways. ,
CHAPTER XXII.
Slave-pens ; Negroes on sale or hire Popular feeling as to Secession
Beauregard and speech-making Arrival at Montgomery
Bad hotel accommodation Knights of the Golden Circle Re-
flections on Slavery Slave auction The Legislative Assembly
A " live chattel " knocked down Rumors from the North
(true and false) and prospects of war.
May 4th. In the morning I took a drive about the city,
which is loosely built in detached houses over a very pretty
undulating country covered with wood and fruit-trees. Many
good houses of dazzling white, with bright green blinds, veran-
das, and doors, stand in their own grounds or gardens. In
the course of the drive I saw two or three signboards and
placards announcing that " Smith & Co. advanced money on
slaves, and had constant supplies of Virginian negroes on sale
or hire." These establishments were surrounded by high
walls enclosing the slave-pens or large rooms, in which the
slaves are kept for inspection. The train for Montgomery
started at 9*45 A. M., but I had no time to stop and visit them.
It is evident we are approaching the Confederate capital,
for the candidates for office begin to show, and I detected a
printed testimonial in my room in the hotel. The country,
from Macon, in Georgia, to Montgomery, in Alabama, offers no
features to interest the traveller which are not common to the
districts already described. It is, indeed, more undulating,
and somewhat more picturesque, or less unattractive, but, on
the whole, there is little to recommend it, except the natural
fertility of the soil. The people are rawer, ruder, bigger
there is the same amount of tobacco chewing and its conse-
quences and as much swearing or use of expletives. The
men are tall, lean, uncouth, but they are not peasants. There
are, so far as I have seen, no rustics, no peasantry in America ;
men dress after the same type, differing only in finer or coarser
material ; every man would wear, if he could, a black satin
waistcoat and a large diamond pin stuck in the front of his
POPULAR FEELING. 163
shirt, as he certainly has a watch and a gilt or gold chain of
some sort or other. The Irish laborer, or the German hus-
bandman is the nearest approach to our Giles Jolter or the
Jacques Bonhomme to be found in the States. The mean
white affects the style of the large proprietor of slaves or cap-
ital as closely as lie can ; he reads his papers and, by the
by, they are becoming smaller and more whitey-brown as we
proceed and takes his drink with the same air takes up
as much room, and speaks a good deal in the same fashion.
The people are all hearty Secessionists here the Bars and
Stars are flying at the road-stations and from the pine-tops,
and there are lusty cheers for Jeff Davis and the Southern
Confederacy. Troops are flocking towards Virginia from the
Southern States in reply to the march of Volunteers from
Northern States to Washington ; but it is felt that the steps
taken by the Federal Government to secure Baltimore have
obviated any chance of successfully opposing the " Lincolnites"
going through that city. There is a strong disposition on the
part of the Southerners to believe they have many friends in
the North, and they endeavor to attach a factious character
to the actions of the Government by calling the Volunteers
and the war party in the North " Lincolnites," " Lincoln's
Mercenaries," " Black Republicans," " Abolitionists," and the
like. The report of an armistice, now denied by Mr. Seward
officially, was for some time current, but it is plain that the South
must make good its words, and justify its acts by the sword.
General Scott would, it was fondly believed, retire from the
United States army, and either remain neutral or take com-
mand under the Confederate flag, but now that it is certain he
will not follow any of these courses, he is assailed in the foulest
manner by the press and in private conversation. Heaven
help the idol of a democracy !
At one of the junctions General Beauregard, attended by
Mr. Manning, and others of his staff, got into the car, and
tried to elude observation, but the conductors take great pleas-
ure in unearthing distinguished passengers for the public, and
the General was called on for a speech by the crowd of idlers.
The General hates speech-making, he told me, and he had
besides been bored to death at every station by similar de-
mands. But a man must be popular or he is nothing. So,
as next best thing, Governor Manning made a speech in the
General's name, in which he dwelt on Southern Rights, Sumter,
victory, and abolitiondom, and was carried off from the cheers
164 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
of his auditors by the train in the midst of an unfinished
sentence. There were a number of blacks listening to the
Governor, who were appreciative.
Towards evening, having thrown out some slight outworks,
against accidental sallies of my fellow-passengers' saliva, I
went to sleep, and woke up at eleven p. M., to hear we were in
Montgomery. A very rickety omnibus took the party to the
hotel, which was crowded to excess. The General and his
friends had one room to themselves. Three gentlemen and
myself were crammed into a filthy room which already con-
tained two strangers, and as there were only three beds in the
apartment it was apparent that we were intended to " double
up considerably ; " but after strenuous efforts, a little bribery
and cajoling, we succeeded in procuring mattresses to put on
the floor, which was regarded by our neighbors as a proof of
miserable aristocratic fastidiousness. Had it not been for the
flies, the fleas would have been intolerable, but one nuisance
neutralized the other. Then, as to food nothing could be
had in the hotel but one of the waiters led us to a restau-
rant, where we selected from a choice bill of fare, which con-
tained, I think, as many odd dishes as ever I saw, some un-
known fishes, oyster-plants, 'possums, raccoons, frogs, and other
delicacies, and, eschewing toads and the like, really made a
good meal off dirty plates on a vile table-cloth, our appetites
being sharpened by the best of condiments.
Colonel Pickett has turned up here, having made his escape
from Washington just in time to escape arrest travelling
in disguise on foot through out-of-the-way places till he got
among friends.
I was glad when bedtime approached, that I was not among
the mattress men. One of the gentlemen in the bed next
the door was a tremendous projector in the tobacco juice line :
his final rumination ere he sank to repose was a masterpiece
of art a perfect liquid pyrotechny, Roman candles and
falling stars. A horrid thought occurred as I gazed and won-
dered. In case he should in a supreme moment turn his
attention my way ! I was only seven or eight yards off,
and that might be nothing to him ! I hauled down my mos-
quito curtain at once, and watched him till, completely satia-
ted, he slept.
May 5th. Very warm, and no cold water, unless one went
to the river. The hotel baths were not promising. This
hotel is worse than the Mills House or Willard's. The feeding
INNER VIEW OF SLAVERY. 165
and the flies are intolerable. One of our party comes in to
say that he could scarce get down to the hall on account of
the crowd, and that all the people who passed him had very
hard, sharp bones. He remarks thereupon to the clerk at the
bar, who tells him that the particular projections he alludes to
are implements of defence or offence, as the case may be, and
adds, " I suppose you arid your friends are the only people
in the house who haven't a bowie-knife, or a six-shooter, or
Derringer about them." The house is full of Confederate
congressmen, politicians, colonels, and place-men with or
without places, and a vast number of speculators, contractors,
and the like, attracted by the embryo government. Among
the visitors are many filibusters, such as Henningsen, Pick-
ett, Tochman, Wheat.* I hear a good deal about the associa-
tion called the Knights of the Golden Circle, a Protestant
association for securing the Gulf provinces and States, includ-
ing which has been largely developed by recent events
them in the Southern Confederacy, and creating them into an
independent government.
Montgomery has little claims to be called a capital. The
streets are very hot, unpleasant, and uninteresting. I have
rarely seen a more dull, lifeless place ; it looks like a small
Russian town in the interior. The names of the shopkeepers
indicate German and French origin. I looked in at one or
two of the slave magazines, which are not unlike similar estab-
lishments in Cairo and Smyrna. A certain degree of free-
dom is enjoyed by some of the men, who lounge about the
doors, and are careless of escape or liberty, knowing too well
the difficulties of either.
It is not in its external aspects generally that slavery is so
painful. The observer must go with Sterne, and gaze in on
the captives' dungeons through the bars. The condition of a
pig in a sty is not, in an animal sense, anything but good.
Well fed, over fed, covered from the winds and storms of
heaven, with clothing, food, medicine, provided, children taken
care of, aged relatives and old age itself succored and guarded
is not this ? Get thee behind us, slave philosopher !
The hour comes when the butcher steals to the sty, and the
knife leaps from the sheath.
Now there is this one thing in being an ara dvSpwv, that
be the race of men bad as it may, a kind of grandiose charac-
ter is given to their leader. The stag which sweeps his rivals
* Since killed in action.
166 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
from his course is the largest of the herd ; but a man who
drives the largest drove of sheep is no better than he who
drives the smallest. The flock he compels, must consist of
human beings to develop the property of which I speak, and
so the very superiority of the slave master in the ways and
habits of command proves that the negro is a man. But, at
the same time the law which regulates all these relations be-
tween man and his fellows, asserts itself here. The dominant
race becomes dependent on some other body of men, less mar-
tial, arrogant, and wealthy, for its elegances, luxuries, and
necessaries. The poor villeins round the Norman castle forge
the armor, make the furniture, and exercise the mechanical
arts which the baron and his followers are too ignorant and
too proud to pursue ; if there is no population to serve this
purpose, some energetic race comes in their place, and the
Yankee does the part of the little hungry Greek to the
Roman patrician.
The South has at present little or no manufactures, takes
everything from the Yankee outside or the mean white within
her gates, and despises both. Both are reconciled by interest.
The one gets a good price for his manufacture and the fruit
of his ingenuity from a careless, spendthrift proprietor ; the
other hopes to be as good as his master some day, and sees
the beginning of his fortune in the possession of a negro. It
is fortunate for our great British Catherine-wheel, which is
continually throwing off light and heat to the remotest parts
of the world I hope not burning down to a dull red cinder
in the centre at last that it had not to send its emigrants to
the Southern States, as assuredly the emigration would soon
have been checked. The United States has been represented
to the British and Irish emigrants by the Free States the
Northern States and the great West and the British and
German emigrant who finds himself in the South, has drifted
there through the Northern States, and either is a migratory
laborer, or hopes to return with a little money to the North
and West, if he does not see his way to the possession of land
and negroes.
After dinner at the hotel table, which was crowded with
officers, and where 1 met Mr. Howell Cobb and several sena-
tors of the new Congress, I spent the evening with Colonel
Deas, Quartermaster-General, and a number of his staff, in
their quarters. As I was walking over to the house, one of
the detached villa-like residences so common in Southern cities,
COTTON, LAND, AND NEGROES. 167
I perceived a crowd of very well-dressed negroes, men and
women, in front of a plain brick building which I was inform-
ed was their Baptist meeting-house, into which white people
rarely or never intrude. These were domestic servants, or
persons employed in stores, and their general appearance indi-
cated much comfort and even luxury. I doubted if they all
were slaves. One of my companions went up to a young
woman in a straw-hat, with bright red-and-green ribbon trim-
mings and artificial flowers, a gaudy Paisley shawl, and a rain-
bow-like gown, blown out over her yellow boots by a prodig-
ious crinoline, and asked her " Whom do you belong to ? " She
replied, " I b'long to Massa Smith, sar." Well, we have men
who " belong " to horses in England. I am not sure if
Americans, North and South, do not consider their superiority
to all Englishmen so thoroughly established, that they can
speak of them as if they were talking of inferior animals.
To-night, for example, a gallant young South Carolinian,
one Ransome Calhoun,* was good enough to say that " Great
Britain was in mortal fear of France, and was abjectly subdued
by her great rival." Hence came controversy, short and acri-
monious.
May Qth. I forgot to say that yesterday before dinner I
drove out with some gentlemen and the ladies of the family of
Mr. George N. Sanders, once United States consul at Liver-
pool, now a doubtful man here, seeking some office from the
Government, and accused by a portion of the press of being
a Confederate spy Porcus de grcge epicuri but a learned
pig withal, and weatherwise, and mindful of the signs of the
times, catching straws and whisking them upwards to detect
the currents. Well, in this great moment I am bound to say
there was much talk of ice. The North owns the frozen cli-
mates ; but it was hoped that Great Britain, to whom belongs
the North Pole, might force the blockade and send aid.
The environs of Montgomery are agreeable well-wooded,
undulating, villas abounding, public gardens, and a large negro
and mulatto suburb. It is not usual, as far as I can judge, to
see women riding on horseback in the South, but on the road
here we encountered several.
After breakfast I walked down with Senator Wigfall to the
capitol of Montgomery one of the true Athenian Yankee-
ized structures of this novo-classic land, erected on a site
worthy of a better fate and edifice. By an open cistern, on
* Since killed.
168 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
I
our way, I came on a gentleman engaged in disposing of some
living ebony carvings to a small circle, who had more curiosity
than cash, for they did not at all respond to the energetic
appeals of the auctioneer.
The sight was a bad preparation for an introduction to the
legislative assembly of a Confederacy which rests on the In-
stitution as the corner-stone of the social and political arch
which maintains it. But there they were, the legislators or
conspirators, in a large room provided with benches and seats,
and listening to such a sermon as a Balfour of Burley might have
preached to his Covenanters resolute and massive heads,
and large frames such men as must have a faith to inspire
them. And that is so. Assaulted by reason, by logic, argu-
ment, philanthropy, progress directed against his peculiar in-
stitutions, the Southerner at last is driven to a fanaticism a
sacred faith which is above all reason or logical attack in the
propriety, righteousness, and divinity of slavery.
The chaplain, a venerable old man, loudly invoked curses
on the heads of the enemy, and blessings on the arms and
councils of the New State. When he was done, Mr. Howell
Cobb, a fat, double-chinned, mellow-eyed man, rapped with
his hammer on the desk before the chair on which he sat
as speaker of the assembly, and the house proceeded to bus-
iness. I could fancy that, in all but . garments, they were
like the men who first conceived the great rebellion which led
to the independence of this wonderful country so earnest,
so grave, so sober, and so vindictive at least, so embittered
against the power which they consider tyrannical and insulting.
The word " liberty " was used repeatedly in the short time
allotted to the public transaction of business and the reading
of documents ; the Congress was anxious to get to its work,
and Mr. Howell Cobb again thumped his desk and announced
that the house was going into " secret session," which inti-
mated that all persons who were not members should leave. I
was introduced to what is called the floor of the house, and had
a delegate's chair, and of course I moved away with the others,
and with the disappointed ladies and men from the galleries ;
but one of the members, Mr. Rhett, I believe, said jokingly :
" 1 think you ought to retain your seat. If the ' Times ' will
support the South, we'll accept you as a delegate." I replied
that I was afraid I could not act as a delegate to a Congress
of Slave States. And, indeed, I had been much affected at
the slave auction held just outside the hotel, on the steps of
NEGRO AUCTION. 169
the public fountain, which I had witnessed on my way to the
capitol. The auctioneer, who was an ill-favored, dissipated-
looking rascal, had his " article " beside him, on, not in, a deal
packing-case a stout young negro badly dressed and ill-shod,
who stood with all his goods fastened in a small bundle in his
hand, looking out at the small and listless gathering of men,
who, whittling and chewing, had moved out from the shady side
of the street as they saw the man put up. The chattel charac-
ter of slavery in the States renders it most repulsive. What a
pity the nigger is not polypoid so that he could be cut up
in junks, and each junk should reproduce itself.
A man in a cart, some volunteers in coarse uniforms, a few
Irish laborers in a long van, and four or five men in the usual
black coat, satin waistcoat, and black hat, constituted the au-
dience, whom the auctioneer addressed volubly : " A prime field
hand ! Just look at him good-natered, well-tempered ; no
marks, nary sign of bad about him ! En-i-ne hunthered
only nine hun-ther-ed and fifty dol'rs for 'em ! Why, it's quite
rad-aklous ! Nine hundred and fifty dol'rs ! I can't raly
That's good. Thank you, sir. Twenty-five bid nine hun-
therd and seventy-five dol'rs for this most useful hand. The
price rose to one thousand dollars, at which the useful
hand was knocked down to one of the black hats near me.
The auctioneer and the negro and his buyer all walked off to-
gether to settle the transaction, and the crowd moved away.
" That nigger went cheap," said one of them to a compan-
ion, as he walked towards the shade. " Yes, Sirr ! Niggers
is cheap now that's a fact." I must admit that I felt my-
self indulging in a sort of reflection whether it would not be
nice to own a man as absolutely as one might possess a horse
to hold him subject to my will and pleasure, as if he were
a brute beast without the power of kicking or biting to
make him work for me to hold his fate in my hands : but
the thought was for a moment. It was followed by disgust.
I have seen slave markets in the East, where the traditions
of the race, the condition of family and social relations divest
slavery of the most odious characteristics which pertain to it
in the States ; but the use of the English tongue in such a
transaction, and the idea of its taking place among a civilized
Christian people, produced in me a feeling of inexpressible
loathing and indignation. Yesterday I was much struck by
the intelligence, activity, and desire to please of a good-look-
ing colored waiter, who seemed so light-hearted and light-
8
170 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
colored I could not imagine he was a slave. So one of our
party, who was an American, asked him : " "What are you,
boy a free nigger ? " Of course he knew that in Alabama
it was most unlikely he could reply in the affirmative. The
young man's smile died away from his lips, a flush of blood
embrowned the face for a moment, and he answered in a sad,
low tone : " No, sir ! I b'long to Massa Jackson," and left the
room at once. As I stood at an upper window of the capitol,
and looked on the wide expanse of richly-wooded, well-culti-
vated land which sweeps round the hill-side away to the hori-
zon, I could not help thinking of the misery and cruelty which
must have been borne in tilling the land and raising the
houses and streets of the dominant race before whom one na-
tionality of colored people has perished within the memory of
man. The misery and cruelty of the system are established
by the advertisements for runaway negroes, and by the de-
scription of the stigmata on their persons whippings and
brandings, scars and cuts though these, indeed, are less
frequent here than in the border States.
On my return, the Hon. W. M. Browne, Assistant-Secre-
tary of State, came to visit me a cadet of an Irish family,
who came to America some years ago, and having lost his
money in land speculations, turned his pen to good account
as a journalist, and gained Mr. Buchanan's patronage and
support as a newspaper editor in Washington. There he be-
came intimate with the Southern gentlemen, with whom he
naturally associated in preference to the Northern members ;
and when they went out, he walked over along with them.
He told me the Government had already received numerous
I think he said 400 letters from ship-owners applying
for letters of marque and reprisal. Many of these applica-
tions were from merchants in Boston, and other maritime
cities in the New England States. He further stated that
the President was determined to take the whole control of the
army, and the appointments to command in all ranks of offi-
cers into his own hands.
There is now no possible chance of preserving the peace or
of averting the horrors of war from these great and prosper-
ous communities. The Southern people, right or wrong, are
bent on independence and on separation, and they will fight
to the last for their object.
The press is fanning the flame on both sides : it would be
difficult to say whether it or the telegraphs circulate lies most
NOW AND EIGHTY-SIX YEARS SINCE. 171
largely ; but that as the papers print the telegrams they must
have the palm. The Southerners are told there is a reign of ter-
ror in New York that the 7th New York Regiment has been
captured by the Baltimore people that Abe Lincoln is
always drunk that General Lee has seized Arlington Heights,
and is bombarding Washington. The New York people are
regaled with similar stories from the South. The coincidence
between the date of the skirmish at Lexington and of the at-
tack on the 6th Massachusetts Regiment at Baltimore is not
so remarkable as the fact, that the first man who was killed at
the latter place, 86 years ago, was a direct descendant of the
first of the colonists who was killed by the royal soldiery.
Baltimore may do the same for the South which Lexington
did for all the Colonies. Head-shaving, forcible deportations,
tarring and feathering are recommended and adopted as spe-
cifics to produce conversion from erroneous opinions. The
President of the United States has called into service of the
Federal Government 42,000 volunteers, and increased the reg-
ular army by 22,000 men, and the navy by 18,000 men. If
the South secede, they ought certainly to take over with them
some Yankee hotel keepers. This " Exchange " is in a fright-
ful state nothing but noise, dirt, drinking, wrangling.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Proclamation of war Jefferson Davis Interview with the Presi-
dent of the Confederacy Passport and safe-conduct Messrs.
Wigfall, Walker, and Benjamin Privateering and letters of
marque A reception at Jefferson Davis's Dinner at Mr. Ben-
jamin's.
May Qth. To-day the papers contain a proclamation by
the President of the Confederate States of America, declar-
ing a state of war between the Confederacy and the United
States, and notifying the issue of letters of marque and repri-
sal. I went out with Mr. Wigfall in the forenoon to pay my
respects to Mr. Jefferson Davis at the State Department.
Mr. Seward told me that but for Jefferson Davis the Seces-
sion plot could never have been carried out. No other man
of the party had the brain, or the courage and dexterity, to
bring it to a successful issue. All the persons in the Southern
States spoke of him with admiration, though their forms of
speech and thought generally forbid them to be respectful to
any one.
There before me was " Jeff Davis's State Department" a
large brick building, at the corner of a street, with a Confed-
erate flag floating above it. The door stood open, and " gave"
on a large hall whitewashed, with doors plainly painted be-
longing to small rooms, in which was transacted most impor-
tant business, judging by the names written on sheets of paper
and applied outside, denoting bureaux of the highest functions.
A few clerks were passing in and out, and one or two gentlemen
were on the stairs, but there was no appearance of any bustle
in the building.
We walked straight up-stairs to the first floor, which was
surrounded by doors opening from a quadrangular platform.
On one of these was written simply, " The President." Mr.
Wigfall went in, and after a moment returned and said, " The
President will be glad to see you ; walk in, sir." When I
entered, the President was engaged with four gentlemen, who
MR. JEFFERSON DAVIS. 173
were making some offer of aid to him. He was thanking
them " in the name of the Government." Shaking hands
with each, he saw them to the door, howed them and Mr.
Wigfall out, and turning to me, said, " Mr. Russell, I am glad
to welcome you here, though I fear your appearance is a
symptom that our affairs are not quite prosperous," or words
to that effect. He then requested me to sit down close to his
own chair at his office-table, and proceeded to speak on gen-
eral matters, adverting to the Crimean War and the Indian
Mutiny, and asking questions about Sebastopol, the Redan,
and the Siege of Lucknow.
I had an opportunity of observing the President very
closely: he did not impress me as favorably as I had ex-
pected, though he is certainly a very different looking man
from Mr. Lincoln. He is like a gentleman has a slight,
light figure, little exceeding middle height, and holds himself
erect and straight. He was dressed in a rustic suit of slate-
colored stuff, with a black silk handkerchief round his neck ;
his manner is plain, and rather reserved and drastic ; his
head is well formed, with a fine full forehead, square and
high, covered with innumerable fine lines and wrinkles, fea-
tures regular, though the cheek-bones are too high, and the
jaws too hollow to be handsome ; the lips are thin, flexible, and
curved, the chin square, well defined ; the nose very regular,
with wide nostrils ; and the eyes deep-set, large and full
one seems nearly blind, and is partly covered with a film,
owing to excruciating attacks of neuralgia and tic. Wonder-
ful to relate, he does not chew, and is neat and clean-looking,
with hair trimmed, and boots brushed. The expression of his
face is anxious, he has a very haggard, care-worn, and pain-
drawn look, though no trace of anything but the utmost con-
fidence and the greatest decision could be detected in his con-
versation. He asked me some general questions respecting
the route I had taken in the States.
I mentioned that I had seen great military preparations
through the South, and was astonished at the alacrity with
which the people sprang to arms. " Yes, sir," he remarked,
and his tone of voice and manner of speech are rather re-
markable for what are considered Yankee peculiarities, " In
Eu-rope" (Mr. Seward also indulges in that pronunciation)
" they laugh at us because of our fondness for military titles
and displays. All your travellers in this country have com-
mented on the number of generals and colonels and majors
174 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
all over the States. But the fact is, we are a military peo-
ple, and these signs of the fact were ignored. We are not
less military because we have had no great standing armies.
But perhaps we are the only people in the world where gen-
tlemen go to a military academy who do not intend to follow
the profession of arms."
In the course of our conversation, I asked him to have the
goodness to direct that a sort of passport or protection should
be given to me, as I might possibly fall in with some guerrilla
leader on my way northwards, in whose eyes I might not be
entitled to safe conduct. Mr. Davis said, " I shall give such
instructions to the Secretary of War as shall be necessary.
But, sir, you are among civilized, intelligent people who under-
stand your position, and appreciate your character. We do
not seek the sympathy of England by unworthy means, for
we respect ourselves, and we are glad to invite the scrutiny
of men into our acts ; as for our motives, we meet the eye of
Heaven." I thought I could judge from his words that he
had the highest idea of the French as soldiers, but that his
feelings and associations were more identified with England,
although he was quite aware of the difficulty of conquering
the repugnance which exists to slavery.
Mr. Davis made no allusion to the authorities at Washing-
ton, but he asked me if I thought it was supposed in England
there would be war between the two States ? I answered,
that I was under the impression the public thought there
would be no actual hostilities. " And yet you see we are
driven to take up arms for the defence of our rights and lib-
erties."
As I saw an immense mass of papers on his table, I rose
and made my bow, and Mr. Davis, seeing me to the door,
gave me his hand and said, " As long as you may stay among
us you shall receive every facility it is in our power to afford
to you, and I shall always be glad to see you." Colonel Wig-
fall was outside, and took me to the room of the Secretary of
War, Mr. Walker, whom we found closeted with General
Beauregard and two other officers in a room full of maps and
plans. He is the kind of man generally represented in our
types of a " Yankee " tall, lean, straight-haired, angular,
with fiery, impulsive eyes and manner a ruminator of to-
bacco and a profuse spitter a lawyer, I believe, certainly
not a soldier ; ardent, devoted to the cause, and confident to
the last degree of its speedy success.
MR. BENJAMIN. 175
The news that two more States had joined the Confederacy,
making ten in all, was enough to put them in good humor.
" Is it not too bad these Yankees will not let us go our own
way, and keep their cursed Union to themselves ? If they
force us to it, we may be obliged to drive them beyond the
Susquehanna." Beauregard was in excellent spirits, busy
measuring off miles of country with his compasses, as if he
were dividing empires.
From this room I proceeded to the office of Mr. Benjamin,
the Attorney- General of the Confederate States, the most
brilliant perhaps of the whole of the famous Southern orators.
He is a short, stout man, with a full face, cdive-colored, and
most decidedly Jewish features, with the brightest large black
eyes, one of which is somewhat diverse from the other, and a
brisk, lively, agreeable manner, combined with much vivacity
of speech and quickness of utterance. He is one of the first
lawyers or advocates in the United States, and had a large
practice at Washington, where his annual receipts from his
profession were not less than 8,000 to 10,000 a year. But
his love of the card-table rendered him a prey to older and
cooler hands, who waited till the sponge was full at the end
of the session, and then squeezed it to the last drop.
Mr. Benjamin is the most open, frank, and cordial of the
Confederates whom I have yet met. In a few seconds he was
telling me all about the course of Government with respect to
privateers and letters of marque and reprisal, in order prob-
ably to ascertain what were our views in England on the sub-
ject. I observed it was likely the North would not respect
their flag, and would treat their privateers as pirates. " We
have an easy remedy for that. For any man under our flag
whom the authorities of the United States dare to execute, we
shall hang two of their people." " Suppose, Mr. Attorney-
General, England, or any of the great powers which decreed
the abolition of privateering, refuses to recognize your flag ? "
" We intend to claim, .and do claim, the exercise of all the
rights and privileges of an independent sovereign State, and
any attempt to refuse us the full measure of those rights would
be an act of hostility to our country." " But if England, for
example, declared your privateers were pirates ? " " As the
United States never admitted the principle laid down at the
Congress of Paris, neither have the Confederate States. If
England thinks fit to declare privateers under our flag pirates,
it would be nothing more or less than a declaration of war
176 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
against us, and we must meet it as best we can." In fact,
Mr. Benjamin did not appear afraid of anything ; but his con-
fidence respecting Great Britain was based a good deal, no
doubt, on his firm faith in cotton, and in England's utter sub-
jection to her cotton interest and manufactures. "All this
coyness about acknowledging a slave power will come ri<rht at
last. We hear our commissioners have gone on to Paris,
which looks as if they had met with no encouragement at
London ; but we are quite easy in our minds on this point at
present."
So Great Britain is in a pleasant condition. Mr. Seward
is threatening us with war if we recognize the South, and the
South declares that if we don't recognize their flag, they will
take it as an act of hostility. Lord Lyons is pressed to give
an assurance to the Government at Washington, that under
no circumstances will Great Britain recognize the Southern
rebels ; but, at the same time, Mr. Seward refuses to give any
assurance whatever, that the right of neutrals will be respected
in the impending struggle.
As I was going down stairs, Mr. Browne called me into his
room. He said that the Attorney-General and himself were
in a state of perplexity as to the form in which letters of
marque and reprisal should be made out. They had con-
sulted all the books they could get, but found no examples to
suit their case, and he wished to know, as I was a barrister,
whether I could aid him. I told him it was not so much my
regard to my own position as a neutral, as the vafri inscitia
juris which prevented me throwing any light on the subject.
There are not only Yankee ship-owners but English firms
ready with sailors and steamers for the Confederate Govern-
ment, and the owner of the Camilla might be tempted to part
with his yacht by the offers made to him.
Being invited to attend a levee or reception held by Mrs.
Davis, the President's wife, I returned to the hotel to prepare
for the occasion. On my way I passed a company of volun-
teers, one hundred and twenty artillerymen, and three field-
pieces, on their way to the station for Virginia, followed by a
crowd of " citizens " and negroes of both sexes, cheering vo-
ciferously. The band was playing that excellent quick-step
" Dixie." The men were stout, fine fellows, dressed in coarse
gray tunics with yellow facings, and French caps. They
were armed with smooth-bore muskets, and their knapsacks
were unfit for marching, being water-proof bags slung from
MR. JEFFERSON DAVIS AT HOME. 177
the shoulders. The guns had no caissons, and the shoeing
of the troops was certainly deficient in soling. The Zouave
mania is quite as rampant here as it is in New York, and the
smallest children are thrust into baggy red breeches, which
the learned Lipsius might have appreciated, and are sent out
with flags and tin swords to impede the highways.
The modest villa in which the President lives is painted
white, another "White House," and stands in a small
garden. The door was open. A colored servant took in our
names, and Mr. Browne presented me to Mrs. Davis, whom I
could just make out in the demi-jour of a moderately-sized
parlor, surrounded by a few ladies and gentlemen, the former
in bonnets, the latter in morning dress a la midi. There
was no affectation of state or ceremony in the reception.
Mrs. Davis, whom some of her friends call " Queen Varina,"
is a comely, sprightly woman, verging on matronhood, of good
figure and manners, well-dressed, ladylike, and clever, and she
seemed a great favorite with those around her, though I
did hear one of them say, " It must be very nice to be the
President's wife, and be the first lady in the Confederate
States." Mrs. Davis, whom the President C. S. married en
secondes noces, exercised considerable social influence in Wash-
ington, where I met many of her friends. She was just now
inclined to be angry, because the papers contained a report
that a reward was offered in the North for the head of the
arch rebel Jeff Davis. " They are quite capable, I believe,"
she said, " of such acts." There were not more than eighteen
or twenty persons present, as each party came in and staid
only for a few moments, and, after a time, I made my bow
and retired, receiving from Mrs. Davis an invitation to come
in the evening, when I would find the President at home.
At sundown, amid great cheering, the guns in front of the
State Department, fired ten rounds to announce that Tennessee
and Arkansas had joined the Confederacy.
In the evening I dined with Mr. Benjamin and his brother-
in-law, a gentleman of New Orleans, Colonel Wigfall coming
in at the end of dinner. The New Orleans people of French
descent, or " Creoles," as they call themselves, speak French
in preference to English, and Mr. Benjamin's brother-in-law
labored considerably in trying to make himself understood in
our vernacular. The conversation, Franco-English, very
pleasant, for Mr. Benjamin is agreeable and lively. He is
certain that the English law authorities must advise the Gov-
8*
178 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
ernment that the blockade of the Southern ports is illegal so
long as the President claims them to be ports of the United
States. " At present," he said, " their paper blockade does no
harm ; the season for shipping cotton is over ; but in October
next, when the Mississippi is floating cotton by the thousands
of bales, and all our wharves are full, it is inevitable that the
Yankees must come to trouble with this attempt to coerce us."
Mr. Benjamin walked back to the hotel with me, and we found
our room full of tobacco-smoke, filibusters, and conversation, in
which, as sleep was impossible, we were obliged to join. I
resisted a vigorous attempt of Mr. G. N. Sanders and a friend
of his to take me to visit a planter who had a beaver-dam
some miles outside Montgomery. They succeeded in capturing
Mr. Deasy.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Mr. Wigfall on the Confederacy Intended departure from the South
Northern apathy and Southern activity Future prospects of
the Union South Carolina and cotton The theory of slavery
Indifference at New York Departure from Montgomery.
May 8th. I tried to write, as I have taken my place in the
steamer to Mobile to-morrow, and I was obliged to do my best
in a room full of people, constantly disturbed by visitors.
Early this morning, as usual, my faithful Wigfall comes in
and sits by my bedside, and passing his hands through his
locks, pours out his ideas with wonderful lucidity and odd
affectation of logic all his own. " We are a peculiar people,
sir ! You don't understand us, and you can't understand us,
because we are known to you only by Northern writers and
Northern papers, who know nothing of us themselves, or mis-
represent what they do know. We are an agricultural people ;
we are a primitive but a civilized people. We have no cities
we don't want them. We have no literature we don't need
any yet. We have no press we are glad of it. We do not
require a press, because we go out and discuss all public ques-
tions from the stump with our people. We have no com-
mercial marine no navy we don't want them. We are
better without them. Your ships carry our produce, and you
can protect your own vessels. We want no manufactures :
we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes.
As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our
cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from
those nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up
money besides. But with the Yankees we will never trade
never. Not one pound of cotton shall ever go from the South
to their accursed cities ; not one ounce of their steel or their
manufactures shall ever cross our border." And so on. What
the Senator who is preparing a bill for drafting the people
into the army fears is, that the North will begin active opera-
tions before the South is ready for resistance. " Give us till
180 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
November to drill our men, and we shall be irresistible."
He deprecates any offensive movement, and is opposed to
an attack on Washington, which many journals here advocate.
Mr. Walker sent me over a letter recommending me to all
officers of the Confederate States, and I received an invitation
from the President to dine with him to-morrow, which I was
much chagrined to be obliged to refuse. In fact, it is most im-
portant to complete my Southern tour speedily, as all mail
communication will soon be suspended from the South, and
the blockade effectually cuts off any communication by sea.
Rails torn up, bridges broken, telegraphs down trains
searched the war is begun. The North is pouring its hosts
to the battle, and it has met the paeans of the conquering
Charlestonians with a universal yell of indignation and an
oath of vengeance.
I expressed a belief in a letter, written a few days after my
^arrival (March 27th), that the South would never go back
into the Union. The North think that they can coerce the
South, and I am not prepared to say they are right or wrong ;
but I am convinced that the South can only be forced back by
such a conquest as that which laid Poland prostrate at the
feet of Russia. It may be that such a conquest can be made
by the North, but success must destroy the Union as it has
been constituted in times past. A strong Government must
be the logical consequence of victory, and the triumph of
the South will be attended by a similar result, for which,
indeed, many Southerners are very well disposed. To the
people of the Confederate States there would be no terror in
such an issue, for it appears to me they are pining for a
strong Government exceedingly. The North must accept it,
f whether they like it or not.
Neither party if such a term can be applied to the rest
of the United States, and to those States which disclaim the
authority of the Federal Government was prepared for
the aggressive or resisting power of the other. Already
the Confederate States perceive that they cannot carry all
before them with a rush, while the North have learned
that they must put forth all their strength to make good a
tithe of their lately uttered threats. But the Montgomery
Government are anxious to gain time, and to prepare a
regular army. The North, distracted by apprehensions of
vast disturbance in their complicated relations, are clamoring
for instant action and speedy consummation. The counsels
*
THE FAITH OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 181
of moderate men, as they were called, have been utterly
overruled.
The whole foundation on which South Carolina rests is
cotton and a certain amount of rice ; or rather she bases
her whole fabric on the necessity which exists in Europe for
those products of her soil, believing and asserting, as she
does, that England and France cannot and will not do without
them. Cotton, without a market, is so much flocculent matter
encumbering the ground. Rice, without demand for it, is un-
salable grain in store and on the field. Cotton at ten cents
a pound is boundless prosperity, empire, and superiority, and
rice or grain need no longer be regarded. -\
In the matter of slave-labor, South Carolina argues pretty 1
much in the following manner: England and France (she
says) require our products. In order to meet their wants, we
must cultivate our soil. There is only one way of doing so.
The white man cannot live on our land at certain seasons of
the year ; he cannot work in the manner required by the crops.
He must, therefore, employ a race suited to the labor, and that
is a race which will only work when it is obliged to do so.
That race was imported from Africa, under the sanction of the
law, by our ancestors, when we were a British colony, and it
has been fostered by us, so that its increase here has been as
great as that of the most flourishing people in the world. In
other places, where its labor was not productive or imperative-
ly essential, that race has been made free, sometimes with dis-
astrous consequences to itself and to industry. But we will
not make it free. We cannot do so. We hold that slavery is
essential to our existence as producers of what Europe re-
quires ; nay more, we maintain it is in the abstract right in
principle ; and some of us go so far as to maintain that the
only proper form of society, according to the law of God and
the exigencies of man, is that which has slavery as its basis.
As to the slave, he is happier far in his state of servitude,
more civilized and religious, than he is or could be if free or in
his native Africa. For this system we will fight to the end. ^
In the evening I paid farewell visits, and spent an hour with
Mr. Toombs, who is unquestionably one of the most original,
quaint, and earnest of the Southern leaders, and whose elo-
quence and power as a debater are greatly esteemed by his
countrymen. He is something of an Anglo-maniac, and an
Anglo-phobist a combination not unusual in America
that is, he is proud of being connected with and descended
182 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
from respectable English families, and admires our mixed con-
stitution, whilst he is an enemy to what is called English pol-
icy, and is a strong pro-slavery champion. Wigfall and he are
very uneasy about the scant supply of gunpowder in the
Southern States, and the difficulty of obtaining it.
In the evening had a little reunion in the bedroom as be-
fore. Mr. Wigfall, Mr. Keitt, an eminent Southern politi-
cian, Col. Pickett, Mr. Browne, Mr. Benjamin, Mr. George
Sanders, and others. The last-named gentleman was dismissed
or recalled from his post at Liverpool, because he fraternized
with Mazzini and other Red Republicans a ce qu y on dit.
Here he is a slavery man, and a friend of an oligarchy. Your
" Rights of Man " man is often most inconsistent with himself,
and is generally found associated with the men of force and
violence.
May 9th. My faithful Wigfall was good enough to come
in early, in order to show me some comments on my letters in
the " New York Times." It appears the papers are angry
because I said that New York was apathetic when I landed,
and they try to prove I was wrong by showing there was a
"glorious outburst of Union feeling," after the news of the
fall of Sumter. But I now know that the very apathy of
which I spoke was felt by the Government of Washington,
and was most weakening and embarrassing to them. What
would not the value of "the glorious outburst" have been, had
it taken place before the Charleston batteries had opened on
Sumter when the Federal flag, for example, was fired on,
flying from the " Star of the West," or when Beauregard cut
off supplies, or Bragg threatened Pickens, or the first shovel
of earth was thrown up in hostile battery ? But no ! New
York was then engaged in discussing State rights, and in
reading articles to prove the new Government would be traitors
if they endeavored to reinforce the Federal forts, or were
perusing leaders in favor of the Southern Government.
Haply, they may remember one, not so many weeks old, in
which the " New York Herald " compared Jeff Davis and his
Cabinet to the " Great Rail Splitter," and Seward, and Chase,
and came to the conclusion that the former " were gentlemen "
(a matter of which it is quite incompetent to judge)
" and would, and ought to succeed." The glorious outburst of
" Union feeling " which threatened to demolish the " Herald "
office, has created a most wonderful change in the views of the
proprietor, whose diverse-eyed vision is now directed solely to
FAREWELL LEVEE. 183
the beauties of the Union, and whose faith is expressed in " a
hearty adhesion to the Government of our country." New
York must pay the penalty of its indifference, and bear the
consequences of listening to such counsellors.
Mr. Deasy, much dilapidated, returned about twelve o'clock
from his planter, who was drunk when he went over, and
would not let him go to the beaver-dam. To console him, the
planter stayed up all night drinking, and waking him up at
intervals, that he might refresh him with a glass of whiskey.
This man was well off, owned land, and a good stock of slaves,
but he must have been a "mean white," who had raised him-
self in the world. He lived in a three-roomed wooden cabin,
and in one of the rooms he kept his wife shut up from the
stranger's gaze. One of his negroes was unwell, and he took
Deasy to see him. The result of his examination was, " Nig-
ger ! I guess you won't live more than an hour." His diagnosis
was quite correct.
Before my departure I had a little farewell levee Mr.
Toombs, Mr. Browne, Mr. Benjamin, Mr. Walker, Major
Deas, Col. Pickett, Major Calhoun, Captain Ripley, and
others who were exceedingly kind with letters of introduc-
tion and offers of service. Dined as usual on a composite
dinner Southern meat and poultry bad at three o'clock,
and at four, p. M., drove down to the steep banks of the Alabama
River, where the castle-like hulk of the " Southern Republic "
was waiting to receive us. I bade good-by to Montgomery
without regret. The native people were not very attractive,
and the city has nothing to make up for their deficiency, but
of my friends there I must always retain pleasant memories,
and, indeed, I hope some d%y I shall be able to keep my
promise to return and see more of the Confederate ministers
and their chief.
CHAPTER XXV.
The River Alabama Voyage by steamer Selma Our captain
and his slaves " Running " slaves Negro views of happiness
Mobile Hotel The city Mr. Forsyth.
THE vessel was nothing more than a vast wooden house, of
three separate stories, floating on a pontoon which upheld the
engine, with a dining-hall or saloon on the second story sur-
rounded by sleeping-berths, and a nest of smaller rooms up-
stairs ; on the metal roof was a " musical " instrument called
a " calliope," played like a piano by keys, which acted on
levers and valves, admitting steam into metal cups, where it
produced the requisite notes, high, resonant, and not un-
pleasing at a moderate distance. It is 417 miles to Mobile ;
but at this season the steamer can maintain a good rate of
speed, as there is very little cotton or cargo to be taken on
board at the landings, and the stream is full.
The river is about 200 yards broad, and of the color of
chocolate and milk, with high, steep, wooded banks, rising so
much above the surface of the stream that a person on the
upper deck of the towering " Southern Republic" cannot get a
glimpse of the fields and country beyond. High banks and
bluffs spring up to the height of 150 or even 200 feet above
the river, the breadth of which is so uniform as give the
Alabama the appearance of a canal, only relieved by sudden
bends and rapid curves. The surface is covered with masses
of drift-wood, whole trees, and small islands of branches.
Now and then a sharp, black, fang-like projection standing
stiffly in the current gives warning of a snag, but the helms-
man, who commands the whole course of the river, from an
elevated house amidships on the upper deck, can see these in
time ; and at night pine-boughs are lighted in iron cressets at
the bows to illuminate the water.
The captain, who was not particular whether his name was
spelt Maher, or Meaner, or Meagher (les trois se disent), was
evidently a character, perhaps a good one. One with a
THE "SOUTHERN REPUBLIC." 185
gray eye full of cunning and of some humor, strongly marked
features, and a very Celtic mouth of the Kerry type. He
soon attached himself to me, and favored me with some won-
derful yarns, which I hope he was not foolish enough to think
I believed. One relating to a wholesale destruction and mas-
sacre of Indians, he narrated with evident gusto. Pointing
to one of the bluffs, he said that, some thirty years ago, the
whole of the Indians in the district being surrounded by the
whites, betook themselves to that spot, and remained there
without any means of escape, till they were quite starved out.
So they sent down to know if the whites would let them go,
and it was agreed that they should be permitted to move down
the river in boats. When the day came, and they were all
afloat, the whites anticipated the boat-massacre of Nana Sahib
at Cawnpore, and destroyed the helpless red skins. Many
hundreds thus perished, and the whole affair was very much
approved of.
The value of land on the sides of this river is great, as it
yields nine to eleven bales of cotton to the acre, worth 10
a bale at present prices. The only evidences of this wealth
to be seen by us consisted of the cotton sheds on the top of
the banks, and slides of timber, with steps at each side down
to the landings, so constructed that the cotton bales could be
shot down on board the vessel. These shoots and staircases
are generally protected by a roof of planks, and lead to un-
known regions inhabited by niggers and their masters, the
latter all talking politics. They never will, never can be con-
quered, nothing on earth could induce them to go back
into the Union. They will burn every bale of cotton, and
fire every house, and lay waste every field and homestead,
before they will yield to the Yankees. And so they talk
through the glimmering of bad cigars for hours.
The management of the boat is dexterous, as she ap-
proaches a landing-place, the helm is put hard over, to the
screaming of the steam-pipe and the wild strains of " Dixie "
floating out of the throats of the calliope, and as the engines
are detached, one wheel is worked forward, and the other
backs water, so she soon turns head up stream, and is then
gently paddled up to the river bank, to which she is just kept
up by steam the plank is run ashore, and the few passen-
gers who are coming in or out are lighted on their way by the
flames of pine in an iron basket, swinging above the bow by a
long pole. Then we see them vanishing into black darkness
186 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
up the steps, or coming down clearer and clearer till they
stand in the full blaze of the beacon which casts dark shadows
on the yellow water. The air is glistening with fire-flies,
which dot the darkness with specks and points of flame, just
as sparks fly through the embers of tinder or half-burnt paper.
Some of the landings were by far more important than
others. There were some, for example, where an iron rail-
road was worked down the bank by windlasses for hoisting
up goods ; others where the negroes half-naked leaped ashore,
and rushing at piles of firewood, tossed them on board to feed
the engine, which, all uncovered and open to the lower deck,
lighted up the darkness by the glare from the stoke-holes,
which cried forever, " Give, give ! " as the negroes cease-
lessly thrust the pine-beams into their hungry maws. I could
understand how easily a steamer can "burn up," and how
hopeless escape would be under such circumstances. The
whole framework of the vessel is of the lightest resinous pine,
so raw that the turpentine oozes out through the paint ; the
hull is a mere shell. If the vessel once caught fire, all that
could be done would be to turn her round, and run her to the
bank, in the hope of holding there long enough to enable the
people to escape into the trees ; but if she were not near a
landing, many must be lost ; as the bank is steep down, the
vessel cannot be run aground ; and in some places the trees
are in eight and ten feet of water. A few minutes would suf-
fice to set the vessel in a blaze from stem to stern ; and if there
were cotton on board, the bales would burn almost like pow-
der. The scene at each landing was repeated, with few vari-
ations, ten times till we reached Selma, 110 miles distance, at
11.30 at night.
Selma, which is connected with the Tennessee and Missis-
sippi rivers by railroad, is built upon a steep, lofty bluff, and
the lights in the windows, and the lofty hotels above us, put
me in mind of the old town of Edinburgh, seen from Prince's
Street. Beside us there was a huge storied wharf, so that our
passengers could step on shore from any deck they pleased.
Here Mr. Deasy, being attacked by illness, became alarmed
at the idea of continuing his journey without any opportunity
of medical assistance, and went on shore.
May Wth. The cabin of one of these steamers, in the
month of May, is not favorable to sleep. The wooden beams
of the engines creak and scream " consumedly," and the great
engines themselves throb as if they would break through their
ON BOARD THE STEAMER. 187
thin, pulse covers of pine, and the whistle sounds, and the
calliope shrieks out " Dixie " incessantly. So, when I was up
and dressed, breakfast was over, and I had an opportunity of
seeing the slaves on board, male and female, acting as stew-
ards and stewardesses, at their morning meal, which they took
with much good spirits and decorum. They were nicely
dressed clean and neat. I was forced to admit to myself
that their Ashantee grandsires and grandmothers, or their
Kroo and Dahomey progenitors were certainly less comforta-
ble and well clad, and that these slaves had other social ad-
vantages, though I could not recognize the force of the Bishop
of Georgia's assertion, that from slavery must come the sole
hope of, and machinery for, the evangelization of Africa. I
confess I would not give much for the influence of the stew-
ards and stewardesses in Christianizing the blacks.
The river, the scenery, and the scenes were just the same
as yesterday's high banks, cotton-slides, wooding stations,
cane brakes and a very miserable negro population, if the
specimens of women and children at the landings fairly repre-
sented the mass of the slaves. They were in strong contrast
to the comfortable, well-dressed domestic slaves on board, and
it can well be imagined there is a wide difference between the
classes, and that those condemned to work in the open fields
must suffer exceedingly.
A passenger told us the captain's story. A number of
planters, the narrator among them, subscribed a thousand dol-
lars each to get up a vessel for the purpose of running a cargo
of slaves, with the understanding they were to pay so much
for the vessel, and so much per head if she succeeded, and so
much if she was taken or lost. The vessel made her voyage
to the coast, was laden with native Africans, and in due time
made her appearance off Mobile. The collector heard of her,
but, oddly enough, the sheriff was not about at the time, the
United States Marshal was away, and as the vessel could not
be seen next morning, it was fair to suppose she had gone up
the river, or somewhere or another. But it so happened that
Captain Maher, then commanding a river steamer called the
Czar (a name once very appropriate for the work, but since the
serf emancipation rather out of place), found himself in the
neighborhood of the brig about nightfall ; next morning, in-
deed, the Czar was at her moorings in the river ; but Captain
Maher began to grow rich, he had fine negroes fresh run on
his land, and bought fresh acres, and finally built the " South-
188 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
era Republic." The planters asked him for their share of the
slaves. Captain Maher laughed pleasantly ; he did not under-
stand what they meant. If he had done anything wrong, they
had their legal remedy. They were completely beaten ; for
they could not have recourse to the tribunals in a case which
rendered them liable to capital punishment. And so Captain
Maher, as an act of grace, gave them a few old niggers, and
kept the rest of the cargo.
It was worth while to see the leer with which he listened to
this story about himself. " Wall now ! You think them niggers
I've abord came from Africa ! I'll show you. Jist come up
here, Bully ! " A boy of some twelve years of age, stout, fat,
nearly naked, came up to us ; his color was jet black, his wool
close as felt, his cheeks were marked with regular parallel
scars, and his teeth very white, looked as if they had been
filed to a point, his belly was slightly protuberant, and his
chest was marked with tracings of tattoo marks.
" What's your name, sir ? "
" My name Bully."
" Where were you born ? "
" Me born Sout Karliner, sar ! '
" There, you see he wasn't taken from Africa," exclaimed
the Captain, knowingly. " I've a lot of these black South
Caroliny niggers abord, haven't I, Bully ? "
" Yas, sar."
" Are you happy, Bully ? "
Yas, sar."
" Show how you're happy."
Here the boy rubbed his stomach, and grinning with delight,
said, " Yummy ! yummy ! plenty belly full."
" That's what I call a real happy feelosophical chap," quoth
the Captain. " I guess you've got a lot in your country can't
pat their stomachs and say, ' yummy, yummy, plenty belly
" Where did he get those marks on his face ? "
" Oh, them ? Wall, it's a way them nigger women has of
marking their children to know them ; isn't it, Bully ? "
" Yas, sar ! me 'spose so ! "
" And on his chest ? "
" Wall, r'ally I do b'l'eve them's marks agin the smallpox."
" Why are his teeth filed ? "
" Ah, there now ! You'd never have guessed it ; Bully
done that himself, for the greater ease of biting his vittels."
MOBILE. 189
In fact, the lad, and a good many of the hands, were the
results of Captain Maher's little sail in the Czar.
" We're obleeged to let 'em in some times to keep up the
balance agin the niggers you run into Canaydy."
From 1848 to 1852 there were no slaves run ; but since
the migrations to Canada and the personal liberty laws, it has
been found profitable to run them. There is a bucolic ferocity
about these Southern people which will stand them good stead
in the shock of battle. How the Spartans would have fought
against any barbarians who came to emancipate their slaves,
or the Romans have smitten those who would manumit slave
and creditor together !
To-night, on the lower deck, amid wood fagots, and barrels,
a dance of negroes was arranged by an enthusiast, who desired
to show how " happy they were." That is the favorite theme
of the Southerners ; the gallant Captain Maher becomes quite
eloquent when he points to Bully's prominent " yummy," and
descants on the misery of his condition if he had been left to
the precarious chances of obtaining such developments in his
native land ; then turns a quid, and, as if uttering some sacred
refrain to the universal hymn of the South, says, " Yes, sir,
they're the happiest people on the face of the airth ! "
There was a fiddler, and also a banjo-player, who played
uncouth music to the clumsiest of dances, which it would be
insulting to compare to the worst Irish jig ; and the men with
immense gravity and great effusion of sudor, shuffled and cut
and heeled and buckled to each other with an overwhelming
solemnity, till the rum-bottle warmed them up to the lighter
graces of the dance, when they became quite overpowering.
'* Yes, sir, jist look at them, how they're enjoying it ; they're
the happiest people on the face of the airth." When " wood-
ing " and firing up, they don't seem to be in the possession of
the same exquisite felicity.
May llth. At early dawn the steamer went its way
through a broad bay of snags, bordered with drift-wood, and
with steam-trumpet and calliope announced its arrival at the
quay of Mobile, which presented a fringe of tall warehouses,
and shops along-side, over which were names indicating Scotch,
Irish, English, many Spanish, German, Italian, and French
owners. Captain Maher at once set off to his plantation,
and we descended the stories of the walled castle to the beach,
and walked on towards the " Battle House," so called from
the name of its proprietor, for Mobile has not yet had its
190 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
fight, like New Orleans. The quays, which usually, as we
were told, are lined with stately hulls and a forest of masts,
were deserted ; although the port was not actually blockaded,
there were squadrons of the United States ships at Pensacola,
on the east, and at New Orleans, on the west.
The hotel, a fine building of the American stamp, was the
seat of a Vigilance Committee, and as we put down our names
in the book, they were minutely inspected by some gentlemen
who came out of the parlor. It was fortunate they did not
find traces of Lincolnism about us, as it appeared by the papers
that they were busy deporting " Abolitionists " after certain
preliminary processes supposed to
" Give them a rise, and open their eyes
To a sense of their situation."
The citizens were busy in drilling, marching, and drum-beat-
ing, and the Confederate flag flew from every spire and
steeple. The day was so hot, that it was little more inviting
to go out. in the sun than it would be in the dogdays at
Malaga, to which, by the by, Mobile bears some "kinder-
sorter" resemblance; but, nevertheless, I sallied forth, and
had a drive on a shell road by the head of the bay, where
there were pretty villarettes in charming groves of magnolia,
orange-trees, and lime-oaks. "Wide streets of similar houses
spring out to meet the country through sandy roads ; some
worthy of Streatham or Belham, and all surrounded in such
vegetation as Kew might envy.
Many Mobilians called, and among them the mayor, Mr.
Forsyth, in whom I recognized the most remarkable of the
Southern Commissioners I had met at Washington. Mr.
Magee, the acting British Consul, was also good enough to
wait upon me, with offers of any assistance in his power. I
hear he has most difficult questions to deal with, arising out
of the claims of distressed British subjects, and disputed
nationality. In the evening, the Consul and Dr. Nott, a
savant, and physician of Mobile, well known to the ethnolo-
gists for his work on the " Types of Mankind," written con-
jointly with the late Mr. Gliddon, dined with me, and I
learned from them that, notwithstanding the intimate commer.
cial relations between Mobile and the great Northern cities,
the people here are of the most ultra-secessionist doctrines.
The wealth and manhood of the city will be devoted to repel
the " Lincolnite mercenaries " to the last.
MOBILE. 191
After dinner we walked through the city, which abounds in
oyster saloons, drinking-houses, lager-bier and wine shops, and
gambling and dancing places. The market was well worthy
of a visit something like St. John's at Liverpool on a Sat-
urday night, crowded with negroes, mulattoes, quadroons, and
mestizos of all sorts, Spanish, Italian, and French, speaking
their own tongues, or a quaint lingua franca, and dressed in
very striking and pretty costumes. The fruit and vegetable
stalls displayed very fine produce, and some staples, remark-
able for novelty, ugliness, and goodness. After our stroll
we went into one of the great oyster saloons, and in a room
up-stairs had opportunity of tasting those great bivalvians
in the form of natural fish puddings, fried in batter, roasted,
stewed, devilled, broiled-, and in many other ways, plus raw.
I am bound to observe that the Mobile people ate them as if
there was no blockade, and as though oysters were a specific
for political indigestions and civil wars ; a fierce Marseillais
are they living in the most foreign-looking city I have yet
seen in the States. My private room in the hotel was large,
well-lighted with gas, and exceedingly well furnished in the
German fashion, with French pendule and mirrors. The
charge for a private room varies from 1 to 1 5*. a day ; the
bedroom and board are charged separately, from 10-5. $d. to
12s. Qd. a day, but meals served in the private room are all
charged extra, and heavily too. Exclusiveness is an aristo-
cratic taste which must be paid for.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Visit to Forts Gaines and Morgan War to the knife the cry of the
South The " State " and the " States "Bay of Mobile The
forts and their inmates Opinions as to an attack on Washington
Rumors of actual war.
MayA2tk. Mr. Forsyth had been good enough to invite me
to an excursion down the Bay of Mobile, to the forts built by
Uncle Sam and his French engineers to sink his Britishers
now turned by " C. S. A." against the hated Stars and Stripes.
The mayor and the principal merchants and many politicians
and are not all men politicians in America ? formed the
party. If any judgment of men's acts can be formed from
their words, the Mobilites, who are the representatives of the
third greatest part of the United States, will perish ere they
submit to the Yankees and people of New York. I have
now been in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ala-
bama, and in none of these great States have I found the
least indication of the Union sentiment, or of the attachment
for the Union which Mr. Seward always assumes to exist in
the South. If there were any considerable amount of it, I
was in a position as a neutral to have been aware of its exist-
ence.
Those who might have at one time opposed secession, have
now bowed their heads to the majesty of the majority ; and
with the cowardice, which is the result of the irresponsible
and cruel tyranny of the multitude, hasten to swell the cry of
revolution. But the multitude are the law in the United States.
" There's a divinity doth hedge " the mob here, which is omni-
potent and all good. The majority in each State determines its
political status according to Southern views. The Northerners
are endeavoring to maintain that the majority of the people in
the mass of the States generally shall regulate the point for
each State individually and collectively. If there be any party
in the Southern States which thinks such an attempt justifiable,
FORT GAINES, FORT MORGAN. 193
it sits silent and fearful and hopeless in darkness and sorrow
hid from the light of day. General Scott, who was a short time
ago written of in the usual inflated style, to which respectable
military mediocrity and success are entitled in the States, is
now reviled by the Southern papers as an infamous hoary trai-
tor and the like. If an officer prefers his allegiance to the
United States flag, and remains in the Federal service after
his State has gone out, his property is liable to confiscation by
the State authorities, and his family and kindred are exposed
to the gravest suspicion, and must prove their loyalty by ex-
tra zeal in the cause of Secession.
Our merry company comprised naval and military officers
in the service of the Confederate States, journalists, politi-
cians, professional men, merchants, and not one of them had
a word but of hate and execration for the North. The Brit-
ish and German settlers are quite as vehement as the natives
in upholding States' rights, and among the most ardent up-
holders of slavery are the Irish proprietors and mercantile
classes.
The Bay of Mobile, which is about thirty miles long, with
a breadth varying from three to seven miles, is formed by the
outfall of the Alabama and of the Tombigbee Rivers, and is
shallow and dangerous, full of banks and trees, embedded in
the sands ; but all large vessels lie at the entrance between
Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, to the satisfaction of the mas-
ters, who are thus spared the trouble with their crews which
occurs in the low haunts of a maritime town. The cotton is
sent down in lighters, which employ many hands at high
wages. The shores are low wooded, and are dotted here and
there with pretty villas ; but present no attractive scenery.
The sea-breeze somewhat alleviated the fierceness of the
sun, which was however too hot to be quite agreeable. Our
steamer, crowded to the sponsons, made little way against the
tide ; but at length, after nearly four hours' sail, we hauled up
along-side a jetty at Fort Gaines, which is on the right hand or
western exit of the harbor, and would command, were it fin-
ished, the light-draft channel ; it is now merely a shell of*
masonry, but Colonel Hardee, who has charge of the defences
of Mobile, told me that they would finish it speedily.
The Colonel is an agreeable, delicate-looking man, scarcely
of middle age, and is well known in the States as the author
of " The Tactics," which is, however, merely a translation of
the French manual of arms. He does not appear to be pos-
9
194 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
sessed of any great energy or capacity, but is, no doubt, a
respectable officer.
Upon landing we found a small body of men on guard in
the fort. A few cannon of moderate calibre were mounted on
the sand-hills and on the beach. We entered the unfinished
work, and were received with a salute. The men felt difficulty
in combining discipline with citizenship. They were " bored "
with their sand-hill, and one of them asked me when I " thought
them damned Yankees were coming. He wanted to touch off
a few pills he knew would be good for their complaint." I
must say I could sympathize with the feelings of the young
officer who said he would sooner have a day with the Lincoln-
ites, than a week with the mosquitoes for which this locality is
famous.
From Fort Gaines the steamer ran across to Fort Morgan,
about three miles distant, passing in its way seven vessels,
mostly British, at anchor, where hundreds may be seen, I am
told, during the cotton season. This work has a formidable
sea face, and may give great trouble to Uncle Sam, when he
wants to visit his loving subjects in Mobile in his gunboats. It
is the work of Bernard, I presume, and like most of his designs
has a weak long base towards the land ; but it is provided with
a wet ditch and drawbridge, with demi lunes covering the cur-
tains, and has a regular bastioncd trace. It has one row of
casemates, armed with thirty-two and forty-two pounders. The
barbette guns are eight-inch and ten-inch guns ; the external
works at the salients, are armed with howitzers and field-pieces,
and as we crossed the drawbridge, a salute was fired from a
field battery, on a flanking bastion, in our honor.
Inside the work was crammed with men, some of whom
slept in the casemates others in tents in the parade grounds
and enceinte of the fort. They were Alabama Volunteers,
and as sturdy a lot of fellows as ever shouldered musket ;
dressed in homespun coarse gray suits, with blue and yellow
worsted facings and stripes to European eyes not very re-
spectful to their officers, but very obedient, I am told, and very
peremptorily ordered about, as I heard.
There were 700 or 800 men in the work, and an undue
proportion of officers, all of whom were introduced to the
strangers in turn. The officers were a very gentlemanly,
nice-looking set of young fellows, and several of them had
just come over from Europe to take up arms for their State.
I forget the name of the officer in command, though I cannot
NEWS FROM THE NORTH. 195
forget his courtly, nor an excellent lunch he gave us in his
casemate after a hot walk round the parapets, and some prac-
tice with solid shot from the barbette guns, which did not tend
to make me think much of the greatly-be-praised Columbiads.
One of the officers named Maury, a relative of " deep-sea
Maury," struck me as an ingenious and clever officer; the
utmost harmony, kindliness, and devotion to the cause prevailed
among the garrison, from the chief down to the youngest en-
sign. In its present state the Fort would suffer exceedingly
from a heavy bombardment the magazines would be in
danger, and the traverses are inadequate. All the barracks
and wooden buildings should be destroyed if they wish to
avoid the fate of Sumter.
On our cruise homewards, in the enjoyment of a cold din-
ner, we had the inevitable discussion of the Northern and
Southern contest. Mr. Forsyth, the editor and proprietor of
the " Mobile Register," is impassioned for the cause, though
he was not at one time considered a pure Southerner. There
is difference of opinion relative to an attack on Washington.
General St. George Cooke, commanding the army of Virginia
on the Potomac, declares there is no intention of attacking it,
or any place outside the limits of that free and sovereign State.
But then the conduct of the Federal Government in Mary-
land is considered by the more fiery Southerners to justify the
expulsion of " Lincoln and his Myrmidons," " the Border
Ruffians and Cassius M. Clay," from the capital. Butler has
seized on the Relay House, on the junction of the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, with the rail from Washington, and has
displayed a good deal of vigor since his arrival at Annapolis.
He is a Democrat, and a celebrated criminal lawyer in Massa-
chusetts. Troops are pouring into New York, and are pre-
paring to attack Alexandria, on the Virginia side, below
Washington and the Navy Yard, where a large Confederate
flag is flying, which can be seen from the President's windows
in the White House.
There is a secret soreness even here at the small effect
produced in England compared with what they anticipated by
the attack on Sumter ; but hopes are excited that Mr. Greg-
ory, who was travelling through the States some time ago,
will have a strong party to support his forthcoming motion
for a recognition of the South. The next conflict which takes
place will be more bloody than that at Sumter. The gladia-
tors are approaching Washington, Annapolis, Pennsylvania
196 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
are military departments, each with a chief and Staff, to which
is now added that of Ohio, under Major G. B. McClellan,
Major-General of Ohio Volunteers at Cincinnati. The au-
thorities on each side are busy administering oaths of alle-
giance.
The harbor of Charleston is reported to be under blockade
by the Niagara steam frigate ; and a force of United States
troops at St. Louis, Missouri, under Captain Lyon, has at-
tacked and dispersed a body of State Militia under one Briga-
dier-General Frost, to the intense indignation of all Mobile.
The argument is, that Missouri gave up the St. Louis Arsenal
to the United States Government, and could take it back if
she pleased, and was certainly competent to prevent the
United States troops stirring beyond the Arsenal.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Pensacola and Fort Pickens Neutrals and their friends Coasting
Sharks The blockading fleet The stars and stripes, and
stars and bars Domestic feuds caused by the war Captain
Adams and General Bragg Interior of Fort Pickens.
May \3th. I was busy making arrangements to get to
Pensacola, and Fort Pickens, all day. The land journey was
represented as being most tedious and exceedingly comfortless
in all respects, through a waste of sand, in which we ran the
chance of being smothered or lost. And then I had set my
mind on seeing Fort Pickens as well as Pensacola, and it
would be difficult, to say the least of it, to get across from an
enemy's camp to the Federal fortress, and then return again.
The United States squadron blockaded the port of Pensacola,
but I thought it likely they would permit me to run in to visit
Fort Pickens, and that the Federals would allow me to sail
thence across to General Bragg, as they might be assured I
would not communicate any information of what I had seen in
my character as neutral to any but the journal in Europe,
which I represented, and in the interests of which I was
bound to see and report all that I could as to the state of both
parties. It was, at all events, worth while to make the at-
tempt, and after a long search I heard of a schooner which
was ready for the voyage at a reasonable rate, all things con-
sidered.
Mr. Forsyth asked if I had any objection to take with me
three gentlemen of Mobile, who were anxious to be of the
party, as they wanted to see their friends at Pensacola, where
it was believed a " fight" was to come off immediately. Since
I came South I have seen the daily announcement that " Braxton
Bragg is ready," and his present state of preparation must be
beyond all conception. But here was a difficulty. I told Mr.
Forsyth that I could not possibly assent to any persons coming
with me who were not neutrals, or prepared to adhere to the
obligations of neutrals. There was a suggestion that I should
say these gentlemen were my friends, but as I had only seen
198 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
two of them on board the steamer yesterday, I could not ac-
cede to that idea. " Then if you are asked if Mr. Ravesies
is your friend, you will say he is not." " Certainly." " But
surely you don't wish to have Mr. Ravesies hanged ? " " No,
I do not, and I shall do nothing to cause him to be hanged ;
but if he meets that fate by his own act, I can't help it. I
will not allow him to accompany me under false pretences."
At last it was agreed that Mr. Ravesies and his friends, Mr.
Bartre and Mr. Lynes, being in no way employed by or con-
nected with the Confederate Government, should have a place
in the little schooner which we had picked out at the quayside
and hired for the occasion, and go on the voyage with the plain
understanding that they were to accept all the consequences of
being citizens of Mobile.
Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Ravesies, and a couple of gentlemeu
dined with me in the evening. After dinner., Mr. Forsyth,
who, as mayor of the town, is the Executive of the Vigilance
Committee, took a copy of " Harper's Illustrated Paper,"
which is a very poor imitation of the " London Illustrated
News," and called my attention to the announcement that Mr.
Moses, their special artist, was travelling with me in the
South, as well as to an engraving, which purported to be by
Moses aforesaid. I could only say that I knew nothing of the
young designer, except what he told me, and that he led me
to believe he was furnishing sketches to the " London News."
As he was in the hotel, though he did not live with me, I sent
for him, and the young gentleman, who was very pale and
agitated on being shown the advertisement and sketch, declared
that he had renounced all connection with Harper, that he
was sketching for the " Illustrated London News," and that
the advertisement was contrary to fact, and utterly unknown
to him ; and so he was let go forth, and retired uneasily.
After dinner I went to the Bienville Club. " Rule No. 1 " is,
" No gentleman shall be admitted in a state of intoxication."
The club very social, very small, and very hospitable.
Later paid my respects to Mrs. Forsyth, whom I found
anxiously waiting for news of her young son, who had gone
off to join the Confederate Army. She told me that nearly
all the ladies in Mobile are engaged in making cartridges,
and in preparing lint or clothing for the army. Not the
smallest fear is entertained for the swarming black population.
May l&h. Down to our yacht, the Diana, which is to be
ready this afternoon, and saw her cleared out a little a
THE NIGHT CRUISE. 199
broad-beamed, flat-floored schooner, some fifty tons burden,
with a centre-board, badly calked, and dirty enough unfa-
miliar with paint. The skipper was a long-legged, ungainly
young fellow, with long hair and an inexpressive face, just re-
lieved by the twinkle of a very " Yankee " eye ; but that was
all of the hated creature about him, for a more earnest seceder
I never heard.
His crew consisted of three rough, mechanical sort of men
and a negro cook. Having freighted the vessel with a small
stock of stores, a British flag, kindly lent by the acting Con-
sul, Mr. Magee, and a tablecloth to serve as a flag of truce,
our party, consisting of the gentlemen previously named, Mr.
Ward, and the young artist, weighed from the quay of Mobile
at five o'clock in the evening, with the manifest approbation
of the small crowd who had assembled to see us off, the rumor
having spread through the town that we were bound to see
the great fight. The breeze was favorable and steady ; at
nine o'clock, p. M., the lights of Fort Morgan were on our
port beam, and for some time we were expecting to see the
flash of a gun, as the skipper confidently declared they would
never allow us to pass unchallenged.
The darkness of the night might possibly have favored us,
or the sentries were remiss ; at all events, we were soon creep-
ing through the " Swash," which is a narrow channel over
the bar, through which our skipper worked us by means of a
sounding pole. The air was delightful, and blew directly off
the low shore, in a line parallel to which we were moving.
When the evening vapors passed away, the stars shone out
brilliantly, and though the wind was strong, and sent us at a
good eight knots through the water, there was scarcely a rip-
ple on the sea. Our course lay within a quarter of a mile of
the shore, which looked like a white ribbon fringed with fire,
from the ceaseless play of the phosphorescent surf. Above this
belt of sand rose the black, jagged outlines of a pine forest,
through which steal immense lagoons and marshy creeks.
Driftwood and trees strew the beach, and from Fort Mor-
gan, for forty miles, to the entrance of Pensacola, not a human
habitation disturbs the domain sacred to alligators, serpents,
pelicans, and wild-fowl. Some of the lagoons, like the Per-
dida, swell into inland seas, deep buried in pine woods, and
known only to the wild creatures swarming along its brink
and in its waters ; once, if report says true, frequented, how-
ever, by the filibusters and by the pirates of the Spanish
Main.
200 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
If the mosquitoes were as numerous and as persecuting in
those days as they are at present, the most adventurous youth
would have soon repented the infatuation which led him to
join the brethren of the Main. The mosquito is a great
enemy to romance, and our skipper tells us that there is no
such place known in the world for them as this coast.
As the Diana flew along the grim shore, we lay listlessly
on the deck admiring the excessive brightness of the stars, or
watching the trailing fire of her wake. Now and then great
fish flew off from the shallows, cleaving their path in flame ;
and one shining gleam came up from leeward like a watery
comet, till its horrible outline was revealed close to us a
monster shark which accompanied us with an easy play of
the fin, distinctly visible in the wonderful phosphorescence,
now shooting on ahead, now dropping astern, till suddenly it
dashed off seaward with tremendous rapidity and strength
on some errand of destruction, and vanished in the waste of
waters. Despite the multitudes of fish on the coast, the
Spaniards who colonize this ill-named Florida must have had
a trying life of it between the Indians, now hunted to death
or exiled by rigorous Uncle Sam, the mosquitoes, and the
numberless plagues which abound along these shores.
Hour after hour passed watching the play of large fish and
the surf on the beach ; one by one the cigar-lights died out ;
and muffling ourselves up on deck, or creeping into the little
cabin, the party slumbered. I was awoke by the Captain
talking to one of his hands close to me, and on looking up saw
that he was staring through a wonderful black tube, which he
denominated his " tallowscope," at the shore.
Looking in the direction, I observed the glare of a fire in
the wood, which on examination through an opera-glass re-
solved itself into a steady central light, with some smaller
specks around it, " Wa'll," said the Captain, " I guess it is
just some of them d d Yankees as is landed from their
tarnation boats, and is * conoitering ' for a road to Mobile."
There was an old iron carronade on board, and it struck me
as a curious exemplification of the recklessness of our Amer-
ican cousins, when the skipper said, " Let us put a bag of
bullets in the ould gun, and touch it off at them ; " which he
no doubt would have done, seconded by one of our party, who
drew his revolver to contribute to the broadside, but that I
represented to them it was just as likely to be a party out from
the camp at Pensacola, and that, anyhow, I strongly objected
FORT M'RAE AND FORT PICKENS. 201
to any belligerent act whilst I was on board. It was very
probably, indeed, the watchfire of a Confederate patrol, for
the gentry of the country have formed themselves into a body
of regular cavalry for such service ; but the skipper declared
that our chaps knew better than to be showing their lights in
that way, when we were within ten miles of the entrance to
Pensacola.
The skipper lay-to, as he, very wisely, did not like to run
into the centre of the United States squadron at night ; but
just at the first glimpse of dawn the Diana resumed her
course, and bowled along merrily till, with the first rays of
the sun, Fort M'Rae, Fort Pickens, and the masts of the
squadron were visible ahead, rising above the blended hori-
zon of land and sea. We drew upon them rapidly, and soon
could make out the rival flags the Stars and Bars and Stars
and Stripes flouting defiance at each other.
On the land side on our left is Fort M'Rae, and on the end
of the sand-bank, called Santa Rosa Island, directly opposite,
rises the outline of the much-talked-of Fort Pickens, which is
not unlike Fort Paul on a small scale. Through the glass
the blockading squadron is seen to consist of a sailing frigate,
a sloop, and three steamers ; and as we are scrutinizing them,
a small schooner glides from under the shelter of the guard-
ship, and makes towards us like a hawk on a sparrow. Hand
over hand she comes, a great swaggering ensign at her peak,
and a gun all ready at her bow ; and rounding up along-side
us a boat manned by four men is lowered, an officer jumps in,
and is soon under our counter. The officer, a bluff, sailor-like
looking fellow, in a uniform a little the worse for wear, and
wearing his beard as officers of the United States navy gener-
ally do, fixed his eye upon the skipper who did not seem
quite at his ease, and had, indeed, confessed to us that he had
been warned off by the Oriental, as the tender was named,
only a short time before and said, u Hallo, sir, I think I
have seen you before: what schooner is this?" "The Diana
of Mobile." " I thought so." Stepping on deck, he said,
" Gentlemen, I am Mr. Brown, Master in the United States
navy, in charge of the boarding schooner Oriental." We each
gave our names ; whereupon Mr. Brown says, " I have no
doubt it will be all right, be good enough to let me have your
papers. And now, sir, make sail, and lie-to under the quarter
of that steamer there, the Powhattan." The Captain did not
look at all happy when the officer called his attention to the
9*
202 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
indorsement on his papers ; nor did the Mobile party seem
very comfortable when he remarked, " I suppose, gentlemen,
you are quite well aware there is a strict blockade of this
port?"
In half an hour the schooner lay tinder the guns of the
Powhattan, which is a stumpy, thick -set, powerful steamer of
the old paddle-wheel kind, something like the Leopard. We
proceeded along-side in the cutter's boat, and were ushered
into the cabin, where the officer commanding, Lieutenant
David Porter, received us, begged us to be seated, and then
inquired into the object of our visit, which he communicated
to the flag-ship by signal, in order to get instructions as to
our disposal. Nothing could exceed his courtesy ; and I was
most favorably impressed by himself, his officers, and crew.
He took me over the ship, which is armed with ten-inch Dahl-
grens and eleven-inch pivot guns, with rifled field-pieces and
howitzers on the sponsons. Her boarding nettings were triced
up, bows and weak portions padded with dead wood and old
sails, and everything ready for action.
Lieutenant Porter has been in and out of the harbor ex-
amining the enemy's works at all hours of the night, and he
has marked off on the chart, as he showed me, the bearings
of the various spots where he can sweep or enfilade their
works. The crew, all things considered, were very clean,
and their personnel exceedingly fine.
"We were not the only prize that was made by the Oriental
this morning. A ragged little schooner lay at the other side
of the Powhattan, the master of which stood rubbing his
knuckles into his eyes, and uttering dolorous expressions in
broken English and Italian, for he was a noble Roman of
Civita Vecchia. Lieutenant Porter let me into the secret.
These small traders at Mobile, pretending great zeal for the
Confederate cause, load their vessels with fruit, vegetables,^
and things of which they know the squadron is much in want,
as well as the garrison of the Confederate forts. They set
out with the most valiant intention of running the blockade,
and are duly captured by the squadron, the officers of which
are only too glad to pay fair prices for the cargoes. They
return to Mobile, keep their money in their pockets, and de-
clare they have been plundered by the Yankees. If they
get in, they demand still higher prices from the Confederates,
and lay claim to the most exalted patriotism.
By signal from the flag-ship, Sabine, we were ordered to
THE FLAG-SHIP. 203
repair on board to see the senior officer, Captain Adams ; and
for the first time since I trod the deck of the old Leander in
Balaklava harbor, I stood on board a fif.y-gun sailing frigate.
Captain Adams, a gray-haired veteran of very gentle man-
ners and great urbanity received us in his cabin, and listened
to my explanation of the cause of my visit with interest.
About myself there was no difficulty ; but he very justly ob-
served he did not think it would be right to let the gentle-
men from Mobile examine Fort Pickens, and then go among
the Confederate camps. I am bound to say these gentlemen
scarcely seemed to desire or anticipate such a favor.
Major Vogdes, an engineer officer from the fort, who hap-
pened to be on board, volunteered to take a letter from me to
Colonel Harvey Browne, requesting permission to visit it ;
and I finally arranged with Captain Adams that the Diana
was to be permitted to pass the blockade into Pensacola har-
bor, and thence to return to Mobile, my visit to Pickens de-
pending on the pleasure of the Commandant of the place.
" I fear, Mr. Russell," said Captain Adams, " in giving you
this permission, I expose myself to misrepresentation and un-
founded attacks. Gentlemen of the press in our country care
little about private character, and are, I fear, rather unscrupu-
lous in what they say ; but I rely upon your character that no
improper use shall be made of this permission. You must
hoist a flag of truce, as General Bragg, who commands over
there, has sent me word he considers our blockade a declara-
tion of war, and will fire upon any vessel which approaches him
from our fleet.
In the course of conversation, whilst treating me to such
man-of-war luxuries as the friendly officer had at his disposal,
he gave me an illustration of the miseries of this cruel con-
flict of the unspeakable desolation of homes, of the bitter-
ness of feeling engendered in families. A Pennsylvanian by
birth, he married long ago a lady of Louisiana, where he re-
sided on his plantation till his ship was commissioned. He
was absent on foreign service when the feud first began, and
received orders at sea, on the South American station, to re-
pair direct to blockade Pensacola. He has just heard that
one of his sons is enlisted in the Confederate army, and that
two others have joined the forces in Virginia ; and as he said
sadly, " God knows, when I open my broadside, but that I
may be killing my own children." But that was not all.
One of the Mobile gentlemen brought him a letter from his
204 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
daughter, in which she informs him that she has been elected
vivandiere to a New Orleans regiment, with which she intends
to push on to Washington, and get a lock of old Abe Lincoln's
hair ; and the letter concluded with the charitable wish that
her father might starve to death if he persisted in his wicked
blockade. But not the less determined was the gallant old
sailor to do his duty.
Mr. Ward, one of my companions, had sailed in the Sabine
in the Paraguay expedition, and I availed myself of his ac-
quaintance with his old comrades to take a glance round the
ship. Wherever they came from, four hundred more sailor-
like, strong, handy young fellows could not be seen than the
crew ; and the officers were as hospitable as their limited re-
sources in whiskey grog, cheese, and junk allowed them to be.
With thanks for his kindness and courtesy, I parted from
Captain Adams, feeling more than ever the terrible and ear-
nest nature of the impending conflict. May the kindly good
old man be shielded on the day of battle !
A ten-oared barge conveyed us to the Oriental, which, with
flowing sheet, ran down to the Powhattan. There I saw Cap-
tain Porter, and told him that Captain Adams had given me
permission to ^sit the Confederate camp, and that I had writ-
ten for leave to go on shore at Fort Pickens. An officer was
in his cabin, to whom I was introduced as Captain Poore, of
the Brooklyn. " You don't mean to say, Mr. Russell," said
he, " that these editors of Southern newspapers who are with
you have leave to go on shore ? " This was rather a fishing
question. " I assure you, Captain Poore, that there is no
editor of a Southern newspaper in my company."
The boat which took us from the Powhattan to the Diana
was in charge of a young officer related to Captain Porter,
who amused me by the spirit with which he bandied remarks
about the war with the Mobile men, who had now recovered
their equanimity, and were indulging in what is called chatF
about the blockade. " Well," he said, " you were the first to
begin it ; let us see whether you won't be the first to leave it
off. I guess our Northern ice will pretty soon put out your
Southern fire."
When we came on board, the skipper heard our orders to
up stick and away with an air of pity and incredulity ; nor
was it till I had repeated it, he kicked up his crew from their
sleep on deck, and with a " Wa'll, really, I never did see sich
a thing ! " made sail towards the entrance to the harbor.
THE FLAG OF TRUCE. 205
As we got abreast of Fort Pickens, I ordered tablecloth
No. 1 to be hoisted to the peak ; and through the glass I saw
that our appearance attracted no ordinary attention from the
garrison of Pickens close at hand on our right, and the more
distant Confederates on Fort M'Rae and the sand-hills on our
left. The latter work is weak and badly built, quite under the
command of Pickens, but it is supported by the old Spanish
fort of Barrancas upon high ground further inland, and by nu-
merous batteries at the water-line and partly concealed amidst
the woods which fringe the shore as far as the navy yard of
Warrington, near Pensacola. The wind was light, but the
tide bore us onwards towards the Confederate works. Arms
glanced in the blazing sun where regiments were engaged at
drill, clouds of dust rose from the sandy roads, horsemen riding
along the beach, groups of men in uniform, gave a martial ap-
pearance to the place in unison with the black muzzles of the
guns which peeped from the white sand batteries from the en-
trance of the harbor to the navy yard now close at hand. As
at Sumter Major Anderson permitted the Carolinians to erect
the batteries he might have so readily destroyed in the com-
mencement, so the Federal officers here have allowed General
Bragg to work away at his leisure, mounting cannon after
cannon, throwing up earthworks, and strengthening his batte-
ries, till he has assumed so formidable an attitude, that I doubt
very much whether the fort and the fleet combined can silence
his fire.
On the low shore close to us were numerous wooden houses
and detached villas, surrounded by orange groves. At last the
captain let go his anchor off the end of a wooden jetty, which
was crowded with ammunition, shot, shell, casks of provisions,
and commissariat stores. A small steamer was engaged in add-
ing to the collection, and numerous light craft gave evidence
that all trade had not ceased. Indeed, inside Santa Rosa Is-
land, which runs for forty-five miles from Pickens eastward
parallel to the shore, there is a considerable coasting traffic
carried on for the benefit of the Confederates.
The skipper went ashore with my letters to General Bragg,
and speedily returned with an orderly, who brought permis-
sion for the Diana to come along-side the wharf. The Mobile
gentlemen were soon on shore, eager to seek their friends ;
and in a few seconds the officer of the quartermaster-general's
department on duty came on board to conduct me to the
officers' quarters, whilst waiting for my reply from General
Bragg.
20 G MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.
The navy yard is surrounded by a high wall, the gates
closely guarded by sentries ; the houses, gardens, workshops,
factories, forges, slips, and building sheds are complete of
their kind, and cover upwards of three hundred acres ; arid
with the forts which protect the entrance, cost the United
States Government not less than six millions sterling. Inside
these was the greatest activity and life, Zouave, Chasseurs,
and all kind of military eccentricities were drilling, parad-
ing, exercising, sitting in the shade, loading tumbrils, playing
cards, or sleeping on the grass. Tents were pitched under the
trees and on the little lawns and grass-covered quadrangles.
The houses, each numbered and marked with the name of the
functionary to whose use it was assigned, were models of neat-
ness, with gardens in front, filled with glorious tropical flowers.
They were painted green and white, provided with porticoes,
Venetian blinds, verandas, and colonnades, to protect the in-
mates as much as possible from the blazing sun, which in the
dog-days is worthy of Calcutta. The old Fulton is the only
ship on the stocks. From the naval arsenal quantities of shot
and shell are constantly pouring to the batteries. Piles of
cannon-balls dot the grounds, but the only ordnance I saw
were two old mortars placed as ornaments in the main avenue,
one dated 1776.
The quartermaster conducted me through shady walks into
one of the houses, then into a long room, and presented me
en masse to a body of officers, mostly belonging to a Zouave
regiment from New Orleans, who were seated at a very com-
fortable dinner, with abundance of champagne, claret, beer,
and ice. They were all young, full of life and spirits, except
three or four graver and older men, who were Europeans.
One, a Dane, had fought against the Prussians and Schleswig-
Holsteiners at Idstedt and Friederichstadt ; another, an Ital-
ian, seemed to have been engaged indifferently in fighting all
over the South American continent ; a third, a Pole, had been
at Comorn, and had participated in the revolutionary guerrilla
of 1848. From these officers I learned that Mr. Jefferson
Davis, his wife, Mr. Wigfall, and Mr. Mailory, Secretary of
the Navy, had come down from Montgomery, and had been
visiting the works all day.
Every one here believes the attack so long threatened is to
come off at last and at once.
After dinner an aide-de-camp from General Bragg entered
with a request that I would accompany him to the command-
GENERAL BRAGG ON SLAVERY. 207
ing officer's quarters. As the sand outside the navy yard was
deep, and rendered walking very disagreeable, the young
officer stopped a cart, into which we got, and were proceeding
on our way, when a tall, elderly man, in a blue frock-coat with
a gold star on the shoulder, trousers with a gold stripe and
gilt buttons rode past, followed by an orderly, who looked
more like a dragoon than anything I have yet seen in the
States. " There's General Bragg," quoth the aide, and I was
duly presented to th
