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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

GIFT OF

DANIEL C. OILMAN.

V.

-----

MY DIAEY

NOETH AND SOUTH.

WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL.

NEW YOEK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.

FRANKLIN SQUARE.

1863.

.3

..

TO

RICHARD QTJAIN, M.D.,

• Clrfe f atone is Mnrtrti

TESTIMONY OF THE REGARD AND GRATITUDE OF

THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTORY.

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

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

Had the pages been literally transcribed, without omitting a word, the fate
of one whose task it was to sift the true from the false and to avoid error in
statements of fact, in a country remarkable for the extraordinary fertility
with which the unreal is produced, would have excited some commiseration ;
but though there is much extenuated in these pages, there is not, I believe,
aught set down in malice. My aim has been to retain so much relating to
events passing under my eyes, or to persons who have become fa-mous 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 mil
lions have hailed with delight or witnessed with terror the advent of a shin
ing planet or a splendid comet, which a little observation has resolved into
watery nebulas. In the Southern hemisphere, Bragg and Beauregard have
given place to Lee and Jackson. In the North M'Dowell has faded away
before M'Clellan, who having been put for a short season in eclipse by Pope,
only to culminate with increased effulgence, has finally paled away before
Burnside. The heroes of yesterday are the martyrs or outcasts of to-day,
and no American general needs a slave behind him in the triumphal chariot
to remind him that he is a mortal. Had I foreseen such rapid whirls in
the wheel of fortune I might have taken more note of the men who were 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

viii INTRODUCTORY.

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 oppor
tunity of making the acquaintance of the man of the stonewalls of Winches
ter. But, on the whole, I have been fortunate in meeting many of the sol
diers and statesmen who have distinguished themselves in this unhappy war.

Although I have never for one moment seen reason to change the opinion
I expressed in the first letter I wrote from the States, that the Union as it
was could never be restored, I am satisfied the Free States of the North will
retain and gain great advantages by the struggle, if they will only set them
selves 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 dis
sertations on the present or future of the great republics, which have been
so loosely united by the Federal band, nor any description of the political
system, social life, manners or customs of the people, beyond those which
may be incidentally gathered from these pages.

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

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

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

London, December 8, 18G2.

MY DIARY

AND SOUTH.

CHAPTER I.

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

ON the evening of 3rd March, 1861, 1 was trans
ferred from the little steam-tender, which plies
between Cork and the anchorage of the Cunard
steamers at the entrance of the harbour, to the
deck of Ihe 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 super
fluous 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 having gained the summit, and settled for
an instant among the hissing sea-horses, ran
plunging headlong down to the encounter of
another wave, and thus went battling on with
heart of fire and breath of flame — igneus est ollis
vigor — hour after hour.

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

The Americans on board were, of course, the
most interesting passengers to one like myself,
who was going out to visit the great Kepublic
under very peculiar circumstances. There was,
first, Major Garnett, a Virginian, who was going
back to his State to follow her fortunes. He
was an officer of the regular army of the United
States, who had served with distinction in Mex
ico ; an accomplished, well-read man ; reserved,
and rather gloomy ; full of the doctrine of States'
Rights, and animated with a considerable feeling
of contempt for the New Englanders, and with
the strongest prejudices in favour of the institu
tion of slavery. He laughed to scorn the doc

trine that all men are born equal in the sense
of all men having equal rights. Some were
born to be slaves — some to be labourers in the
lower strata above the slaves — others to follow
useful mechanical arts — the rest were born to
rule and to own their fellow-men. There was
next a young Carolinian, who had left his post
as attache at St. Petersburg!! to return to his
State : thus, in all probability, avoiding the in
evitable supcrcession which awaited him at the
hands of the new Government at Washington.
He represented, in an intensified form, all the
Virginian's opinions, and held that Mr. Cal-
houn's interpretation of the Constitution was in-
controvertibly right. There were difficulties in
the way of State sovereignty, he confessed ; but
they were only in detail — the principle was un
assailable.

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 block
ade? — for instance, if their fleet attack your sea
port towns, and land men to occupy them?"
"Oh, in that case, we are quite certain of beat
ing 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 Cam
eron. "No gentleman could tolerate such a
Government."

An American family from Nashville, consist
ing of a lady and her son and daughter, were
warm advocates of a "gentlemanly" govern
ment, and derided the Yankees with great bit
terness. But they were by no means as ready
to encounter the evils of war, or to break up the
Union, as the South-Carolinian or the Virginian;
and in that respect they represented, I was told,
the negative feelings of the Border States, which
are disposed to a temporising, moderate course
of action, most distasteful to the passionate se-
ceders.

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 ques
tion of Secession, and regarded it merely in ref
erence to its bearing on the sugar crop, and the
security of slave property. Secession was re
garded by them as a very extreme and violent
measure, to which the State had resorted with
reluctance ; but it was obvious, at the same time,
that, in event of a general secession of the Slave
States from the North, Louisiana could neither
have maintained her connection with the North,
nor have stood in isolation from her sister States.

All these, and some others who were fellow
passengers, might be termed Americans — pur
sang. Garnett belonged to a very old family in
Virginia. Mitchell came from a stock of several

10

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

generations' residence in South Carolina. The
Tennessee family were, in speech and thought,
types of what Europeans consider true Ameri
cans to be. Now take the other side. First
there was an exceedingly intelligent, well-in
formed young merchant of New York — nephew
of an English county Member, known for his
wealth, liberality, and munificence. Educated
at a university in the Northern States, he had
lived a good deal in England, and was returning
to his father from a course of book-keeping in
the house of his uncle's firm in Liverpool. His
father and uncle were born near Coleraine, and
he had just been to see the humble dwelling,
close to the Giant's Causeway, which sheltered
their youth, and where their race was cradled.
In the war of 1812, the brothers were about sail
ing in a privateer fitted out to prey against the
British, when accident fixed one of them in Liv
erpool, where he founded the house which has
grown so greatly with the development of trade
between New York and Lancashire, whilst the
other settled in the States. Without being vio
lent 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 con
tinents a family of princely wealth, whose orig
inals had probably fought with bitterness in their
early youth against the union of Great Britain
and Ireland. But did Mr. Brown, or the other
Americans who shared his views, unreservedly
approve of American institutions, and consider
them faultless? By no means. The New York
ers especially were eloquent on the evils of the
suffrage, and of the licence of the Press in their
own city; and displayed much irritation on the
subject of naturalisation. The Irish were useful,
in their way, making roads and working hard,
for there were few Americans who condescended
to manual labour, or who could not make far
more money in higher kinds of work ; but it was
absurd to give the Irish votes which they used
to destroy the influence of native-born citizens,
and to sustain a corporation and local bodies of
unsurpassable turpitude, corruption, and ineffi
ciency.

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 ab-
. straction called the Union, and its representative
fact — the Federal Government. Thus the agri
culturist and the trader — the grower of raw prod
uce and the merchant who dealt in it — were at
opposite sides of the question — wide apart as the
Northern and Southern Poles, They sat apart,
ate apart, talked apart — two distinct nations, with
intense antipathies on the part of the South, which
was active and aggressive m all its demonstra
tions.

The Southerners have got a strange charge de
plus against the Irish. It appears that the reg
ular army of the United States is mainly com
posed of Irish and Germans; very few Ameri
cans indeed being low enough, or martially dis
posed enough, to " take the shilling." In case

of a conflict, which these gentlemen think inevi
table, "low Irish mercenaries would," they say,
"be pitted against the gentlemen of the South,
and the best blood in the States would be spilled
by fellows whose lives are worth nothing what
ever." Poor Paddy is regarded as a mere work
ing machine, fit, at best, to serve against Choc-
taws and S'eminoles. His facility of reproduc
tion has to compensate for fhe waste which is
caused by the development in his unhappy head
of the organs of combativeness and destructive-
ness. 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 num
ber 20,000 men, and their officers are not much
in love with the new Government. But can it
come to War ? Mr. Mitchell assures me I shall
see some "pretty tall fighting."

The most vehement Northerners in the steamer
are Germans, who are going to the States for the
first time, or returning there. They have become
satisfied, no doubt, by long process of reasoning,
that there is some anomaly in the condition of a
country which calls itself the land of liberty, and
is at the same time the potent palladium of serf
dom 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, mak
ing spasmodic efforts to smoke, blurt out between
the puff's, 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 earn
ing a living, or exercising the duties of citizen
ship ; and they seek in our country a licence de
nied them in their own, and the means of living
which they could not acquire anywhere else."

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

It was on the morning of the fourteenth day

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

11

that the shores of New York loomed through the
drift of a cold wintry sea, leaden-grey and com
fortless, and in a little time more the coast, cov
ered 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 cit
izens 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 mari
ners 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 newspa
pers to the captain, which were distributed among
the eager passengers, when each at once became
the centre of a spell-bound circle.

CHAPTER II.

Arrival at New York — Custom house — General impres
sions as to North and South— Street in New York — Ho
tel — Breakfast — American women and men — Visit to
Mr. Bancroft — Street railways.

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

It was dark as the steamer hauled up along

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

With Anglo-Saxon disregard of official insig
nia, American Custom House officers dress very
much like their British brethren, without any
sign of authority as faint as even the brass but
ton and crown, so that the stranger is somewhat
uneasy when he sees unauthorised-looking people
taking liberties with his plunder, especially after
the admonition 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 century, very high
in the axle, and weak in the springs, which plash
ed down towards the river through a crowd of
men shouting out, "You haven't paid me yet,
yer honour. You haven't given anything to your
own man that's been waiting here the last six
months for your honour!" "/'m the man that
put the lugidge up, sir," &c., &c. The coach
darted on board a great steam ferry-boat, which
had on board a number of similar vehicles, and
omnibuses, and the gliding, shifting lights, and
the deep, strong breathing of the engine, told me
I was moving and afloat before I was otherwise
aware of it. A few minutes brought us over to
the lights on the New York side — a jerk or two
up a steep incline — and we were rattling over a
most abominable pavement, plunging into mud-
holes, squashing through snow-heaps in ill-light
ed, narrow streets of low, mean-looking, wooden
houses, of which an unusual proportion appeared
to be lager-bier saloons, whisky-shops, oyster-
houses, and billiard and smoking establishments.

The crowd on the pavement were very much
what a stranger would be likely to see in a very
bad part of London, Antwerp, or Hamburg, with
a dash of the noisy exuberance which proceeds
from the high animal spirits that defy police reg
ulations and are superior to police force, called
" rowdyism." The drive was long and tortuous;
but by degrees the character of the thoroughfares
and streets improved. At last we turned into a
wide street with very tall houses, alternating with
far humbler erections, blazing with lights, gay
with shop-windows, thronged in spite of the mud
with well-dressed people, and pervaded by strings
of omnibuses — Oxford Street was nothing to it
for length. At intervals there towered up a
block of brickwork and stucco with long rows

12

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

of windows lighted up tier above tier, and a
swarming crowd passing in and out of the por
tals, which were recognised as the barrack-like
glory of American civilisation — a Broadway
monster hotel. More oyster -shops, lager -bier
saloons, concert-rooms of astounding denomina
tions, with external decorations very much in
the style of the booths at Bartholomew Fair
— churches, restaurants, confectioners, private-
houses ! again another series— they cannot go
on expanding for ever. The coach at last drives
into a large square, and lands me at the Claren
don Hotel.

Whilst I was crossing the sea., the President's
Inaugural Message, the composition of which is
generally attributed to Mr. Seward, had been de
livered, 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 ob
ligations with any other country. The South
Carolinian was nothing to us, quoad South Caro
lina — he was merely a citizen of the United States,
and we knew no more of him in any other ca
pacity than a French authority would know of a
British subject as a Yorkshireman or a Munster-
man.

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 cre
ated by revolt, has by the principles on which he
justifies his own revolution, placed between him
self 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 Car
olina should not use the rights claimed for each
of the thirteen colonies, "to alter and abolish a
form of government when it becomes destruct
ive of the ends for which it is established, and to
institute a new one." And the people must be
left to decide the question as regards their own
government for themselves, or the principle is
worthless. The arguments, however, which are
now going on are fast tending towards the ultima
ratio regum. At present I find public attention
is concentrated on the two Federal forts, Pickens
and Sumter, called after two officers of the rev
olutionary armies in the«old war. As Alabama
and South Carolina liave gone out, they now de
mand the possession of these forts, as of the soil
of their several states and attached to their sov
ereignty. On the other hand, the Government
of Mr. Lincoln considers it has no right to give
up any thing belonging to the Federal Govern
ment, but evidently desires to temporize and
evade any decision which might precipitate an
attack on the forts by the batteries and forces
pi-epared to act against them. There is not suf
ficient garrison in either for an adequate defence,
and the difficulty of procuring supplies is very
great. Under the circumstances every one is
asking what the Government is going to do ? The
Southern people have declared they will resist

any attempt to supply or reinforce the garrisons,
and in Charleston, at least, have shown they
nean to keep their word. It is a strange situa-
:ion. The Federal Government, afraid to speak,
and unable to act, is leaving the soldiers to do
is they please. In some instances, officers of
rank, such as General Twiggs, have surrendered
everything to the State authorities, and the treach
ery 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 pretend
ing to brush my clothes with a feeble twitch com
posed of fine fibre had vanished, was a procession
of men, forty or fifty perhaps, preceded by a small
band (by no excess of compliment can I say, of
music), trudging through the cold and slush two
and two : they wore shamrocks, or the best re
semblance thereto which the American soil can
produce, in their hats, and green silk^ashes em
blazoned with crownless harp upon their coats,
but it needed not these insignia to tell they were
Irishmen, and their solemn mien indicated that
they were going to mass. It was agreeable to
see them so well clad and respectable looking,
though occasional hats seemed as if they had just
recovered from severe contusions, and others had
the picturesque irregularity of outline now and
then observable in the old country. The aspect
of the street was irregular, and its abnormal look
was increased by the air of the passers-by, who
at that hour were domestics — very finely dressed
negroes, Irish, or German. The coloured ladies
made most elaborate toilettes, and as they held
up their broad crinolines over the mud looked not
unlike double-stemmed mushrooms. "They're
concayted poor craythures them niggers, male
and faymale," was the remark of the waiter as
he saw me watching them. " There seem to be
no sparrows in the streets," said I. " Sparras !"
he exclaimed; "and then how did you think
a little baste of a sparra could fly across the
ochean ?" I felt rather ashamed of myself.

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

Out of doors the weather was not tempting.
The snow lay in irregular layers and discoloured
mounds along the streets, and the gutters gorged
with "snow-bree" flooded the broken pavement.
But after a time the crowds began to issue from
the churches, and it was announced as the ne
cessity of the day, that we were to walk up and
down the Fifth Avenue and look at each other.
This is the west-end of London — its Belgravia
and Grosvenoria represented in one long street,
with offshoots of inferior dignity at right angles
to it. Some of the houses are handsome, but the
greater number have a compressed, squeezed-up

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

aspect, which aridfc from the compulsory nar
rowness of frontage in proportion to the height
of the building, and all of them are bright and
new, as if they were just finished to order, — a
most astonishing proof of the rapid development
of the city. As the hall door is made an import
ant feature in the residence, the front parlour is
generally a narrow, lanky apartment, struggling
for existence between the hall and the partition
of the next house. The outer door, which is al
ways provided with fine carved panels and mould
ings, is of some rich varnished wood, and looks
much better than our painted doors. It is gen
erously thrown open so as to show an inner door
with curtains and plate glass. The windows,
which are double on account of the climate, ai*e
frequently of plate glass also. Some of the doors
are on the same level as the street, with a base
ment story beneath ; others are approached by
flights of steps, the basement for servants having
the entrance below the steps, and this, I believe,
is the old Dutch fashion, and the name of "stoop"
is still retained for it.

No liveried servants are to be seen about the
streets, the doorways, or the area-steps. Black
faces in gaudy caps, or an unmistakeable "Bid
dy" 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 fig
ures which, if wanting somewhat in that round
ed fulness of the Medician 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 com
parisons in foot or hand with any daughter of
sEve, except, perhaps, the Hindoo.

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

My friend R , with whom I was walking,

knew every one in the Fifth Avenue, and we
worked our way through-- a succession of small
talk nearly as far as the end of the street, which
runs out among divers places in the State of New
York, through a debris of unfinished conceptions
in masonry. The abrupt transition of the city
into the country is not unfavourable to an idea

that the Fifth Avenue might have been trans
ported from some great workshop, where it had
been built to order by a despot, and dropped
among the Red men : indeed, the immense
growth of New York in this direction, although
far inferior to that of many parts of London, is
remarkable as the work of eighteen or twenty
years, and is rendered more conspicuous by be
ing developed in this elongated street, and its
contingents. I was introduced to many persons
to-day, and was only once or twice asked how I
liked New- York ; perhaps I anticipated the ques
tion by expressing my high opinion of the Fifth
Avenue. Those to whom I spoke had generally
something to say in reference to the troubled
condition of the country, but it was principally
of a self-complacent nature. " I suppose, sir,
you are rather surprised, coming from Europe,
to find us so quiet here in New York : we are a
peculiar people, and you don't understand us in
Europe."

In the afternoon I called on Mr. Bancroft, for
merly minister to England, whose work on Amer
ica must be rather rudely interrupted by this cri
sis. Any thing 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 set
tled conclusion, except that the republic, though
in danger, was the most stable and beneficial
form of government in the world, and that as a
Government it had no power to coerce the peo
ple of the South or to save itself from the dan
ger. I was indeed astonished to hear from him
and others so much philosophical abstract rea
soning as to the right of seceding, or, what is
next to it, the want of any power in the Govern
ment to prevent it.

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

I dined with a New York banker, who gave\
such a dinner as bankers generally give all over
the world. He is a man still young, very kind
ly, hospitable, well-informed, with a most charm
ing household — an American by theory, an En
glishman in instincts and tastes — educated in
Europe, and sprung from British stock. Con
sidering the enormous interests he has at stake,
I was astonished to perceive how calmly he spoke
of the impending troubles. His friends, all men
of position in New York society, had the same
dilettante tone, and were as little anxious for
the future, or excited by the present, as a party
of 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 So-

14

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

ciety of St. Patrick to-morrow at Astor House.
In what is called "the bar, "I met several gen
tlemen, one of whom said, "the majority of the
people of New York, and all the respectable peo
ple, were disgusted at the election of such a fel
low 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— Amer-
lean Constitution — General topics of conversation —
Public estimate of the Government— Evening party at
Mons. B 's.

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

After breakfast I struggled with a friend
through the crowd which thronged Union Square.
Bless them ! They were all Irish, judging from
speech, and gesture, and look ; for the most part
decently dressed, and comfortable, evidently bent
on enjoying the day in spite of the cold, and
proud of the privilege of interrupting all the
trade of the principal streets, in which the Yan
kees most do congregate, for the day. They
were on the door-steps, and on the pavement
men, women, and children, admiring the big po
licemen — 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 win
dows and steeples— and on the cold breeze came
the hammering of drums, and the blasts of many
wind instruments. The display, such as it was*,
partook of a military character, though not much
more formidable in that sense than the march
of the Trades Unions, or of Temperance Socie
ties. Imagine Broadway lined for the long

miles of its course by spectal^B mostly Hiberni
an, and the great gaudy stars and stripes, or as
one of the Secession journals I see styles it, the
"Sanguinary United States Gridiron" — waving
in all directions, whilst up its centre in the mud
march the children of Erin.

First came the acting Brigadier-General and
his staff, escorted by 40 lancers, very ill-dressed,
and worse mounted ; horses dirty, accoutrements
in the same condition, bits, bridles, and buttons
rusty and tarnished; uniforms ill-fitting, and
badly put on. But the red flags and the show
pleased the crowd, and they cheered " bould Nu
gent" right loudly. A band followed, some mem
bers of which had been evidently " smiling" with
each other ; and next marched a body of drum
mers in military uniform, rattling away in the
French fashion. Here comes the G9th N. Y.
State Militia Regiment — the battalion which
would not turn out when the Prince of Wales
was in New York, and whose Colonel, Corcoran,
is still under court-martial for his refusal. Well,
the Prince had no loss, and the Colonel may
have had other besides political reasons for his
dislike to parade his men.'

The regiment turned out, I should think, only
200 or 220 men, fine fellows enough, but not in
the least like soldiers or militia. The United
States uniform which most of the military bodies
wore, consists of a blue tunic and trousers, and a
kepi-like cap, with "U. S." in front for undress.
In full dress the officers wear large gold epau
lettes, 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 some
thing to finish off the collar and cuffs, render the
tunic very bald and unsightly. Another band
closed the rear of the 69th, and to eke out the
military show, which in all was less than 1,200
men, some companies were borrowed from an
other regiment of State Militia, and a troop of
very poor cavalry cleared the way for the Nap-
per-Tandy Artillery, which actually had three
whole guns with them ! It was strange to dwell
on some of the names of the societies which fol
lowed. For instance, there were the "Dungan-
non Volunteers of '82," prepared of course to vin
dicate the famous declaration that none should
make laws for Ireland, but the Queen, Lords,
and Commons of Ireland ! Every honest Cath
olic among them ignorant of the fact that the
Volunteers of '82 were all Protestants. Then
there was the " Sarsficld Guard!" One cannot
conceive anything more hateful to the fiery high-
spirited cavalier, than the republican form of
Government, which these poor Irishmen are,
they think, so fond of. A good deal of what
passes for national sentiment, is in reality dislike
to England and religious animosity.

It was much more interesting to see the long
string of Benevolent, Friendly and Provident
Societies, with bands, numbering many thou
sands, all decently clad, and marching in order
with banners, insignia, badges and ribands, and
the Irish flag flying alongside the "stars and
stripes." I cannot congratulate them on the
taste or good effect of their accessories — on their
symbolical standards, and ridiculous old harpers,
carried on stages in "bardic costume," very like
artificial white wigs and white cotton dressing-
gowns, but the actual good done by these socie-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

ties, is, I am told, very great, and their chanty
would cover i';ir 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 j
coul t make them. The Americans appeared to |
regard the whole thing very much as an ancient j
Roman might have looked on the Saturnalia; j
but Faddy was in the ascendant, and could not
be openly trifled with.

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

In the evening I went, according to invitation,
to the Astor House — a large hotel, with a front
like a railway terminus, in the Americo-Classical
style, with great Doric columns and portico, and
found, to my surprise, that the friendly party
was to be a great public dinner. The halls were
filled with the company, few or none in evening
dress ; and in a few minutes I was presented to
at least twenty-four gentlemen, whose names I
did not even hear. The use of badges, medals,
and ribands, might, at first, lead a stranger to
believe he was in very distinguished military so
ciety ; but he would soon learn that these insig
nia were the decorations of benevolent or con
vivial associations. There is a latent taste for
these things in spite of pure republicanism. At
the dinner there were Americans of Dutch and
English descent, some "Yankees," one or two
Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Welchmen. The
chairman, Judge Daly, was indeed a true son of
the soil, and his speeches were full of good hu
mour, fluency, and wit; but his greatest effect
was produced by the exhibition of a tuft of sham
rocks 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 ob
serve 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 na
tives of the British Isles should be animated with
a hostile feeling towards England, and that no
statesman has yet arisen who can devise a pan
acea for the evils of these passionate and un
meaning differences between races and religions.
Their strong antipathy is not diminished by the
impossibility of gratifying it. They live in hope,
and certainly the existence of these feelings is
not only troublesome to American statesmen,
but mischievous to the Irish themselves, inas
much as they are rendered with unusual readi
ness the victims of agitators or political intriguers.
The Irish element, as it is called, is much regard
ed 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. Undoubted

ly the mass of those I saw to-day were better
clad than they would have been if they remain
ed 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 assem
blage 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 speci
mens of the different versions which may be given
of the same matter. A "citizen" who was kind
enough to come in to shave me, paid me some
easy compliments, in the manner of the "Bar
ber of Seville," on what he termed the "ora
tion" 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 delivered to him to certify the fact,
which he produced after a lapse of five years,
when he might be registered as a voter; if he
omitted the process of registration, he could how
ever 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 call
ed, and made the kindest offers of service ; let
ters of introduction to all parts of the States ;
facilities of every description — all tendered with
frankness.

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

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

Among the guests were the Hon. Horatio Sey
mour, a former Governor of the State of New
York ; Mr. Tylden, an acute lawyer ; and Mr.

1C

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

Bancroft; the result left on my mind by their
conversations and arguments was that, accord
ing to the Constitution, the Government could
not employ force to prevent secession, or to com
pel 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 Con
federation. I do not think that any of the guests
sought to turn the channel of talk upon politics,
but the occasion offered itself to Mr. Horatio Sey
mour 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 "Con
stitution" for three cents in Broadway in the
forenoon, and had read it carefully, but I could
not find that it was self-expounding ; it referred
itself to the Supreme Court, but what was to sup
port the Supreme Court in a contest with armed
power, either of Government or people ? There
was not a man who maintained the Government
had any power to coerce the people of a State,
or to force a State to remain in the Union, or
under the action of the Federal Government; in
other words, the symbol of power at Washington
is not at all analogous to that which represents
an established Government in other countries.
Quid prosunt legis sine armis? Although they
admitted the Southern leaders had meditated
"the treason against the Union" years ago, they
could not bring themselves to allow their old op
ponents, the Republicans now in power, to dis
pose 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 enter
tained by his party ten years ago. Although se
cession would produce revolution, it was, never
theless, "a right," founded on abstract princi
ples, which could scarcely be abrogated consist
ently with .due regard to the original compact.
One of the company made a remark which was
trne enough, I dare say. We were talking of
the difficulty of relieving Fort Sumter — an in
fallible topic just now. "If the British or any
foreign power were threatening the fort," said
he, "our Government would find means of re
lieving it fast enough." In fact, the Federal
Government is groping in the dark ; and whilst
its friends are telling it to advance boldly, there
are myriad voices shrieking out in its ears, "If
you put out a foot you are lost." There is nei
ther army nor navy available, and the ministers
have no machinery of rewards, and means of in
trigue, or modes of gaining adherents known to
European administrations. The democrats be
hold 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 "Consti
tution" every time they rise to the surface and
begin to swim out.

New York society, however, is easy in its mind
just now, and the upper world of millionaire mer
chants, bankers, contractors, and great traders
are glad that the vulgar republicans are suffering
for their success. Not a man there but resented
the influence given by universal suffrage to the

mob of the city, and complained of the intoler
able effects of their ascendency — of the corrup
tion of the municipal bodies, the venality of elect
ors and elected, and the abuse, waste, and profli
gate outlay of the public funds. Of these there
were many illustrations given to me, garnished
with historiettes of some of the civic dignitaries,
and of their coadjutors in the press ; but it did
not require proof that universal suffrage in a city
of which perhaps three-fourths of the voters were
born abroad or of foreign parents, and of whom
many were the scum swept off the seethings of
European populations, must work most injurious
ly on property and capital. I confess it is to be
much wondered at that the consequences are not
more evil ; but no doubt the time is coming
when the mischief can no longer be borne, and a
social reform and revolution must be inevitable.

Within only a very few hundreds of yards
from the house and picture-gallery of Mons.

B , the representative of European millions,

are the hovels and lodgings of his equals in polit
ical power. This evening I visited the house of

Mons. B , where his wife had a reception, to

which nearly the whole of the party went. When
a man looks at a suit of armour made to order
by the first blacksmith in Europe, he observes
that the finish of the joints and hinges is much
higher than in the old iron clothes of the former
time. Possibly the metal is better, and the chas
ings and garniture as good as the work of Milan,
but the observer is not for a moment led to imag
ine that the fabric has stood proof of blows, or
that it smacks of ancient watch-fire. If he were
asked why it is so, he could not tell ; any more
perhaps than he could define exactly the differ
ence 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 gentle
man. Here was an elegant house — I use the
word in its real meaning — with pretty statues,
rich carpets, handsome furniture, and a gallery
of charming Meissoniers and genre pieces ; the
saloons admirably lighted — a fair fine large suite,
filled with the prettiest women in the most de
lightful toilettes, with a proper fringe of young
men, orderly, neat, and well turned-out, fretting
against the usual advanced posts of turbaned and
jewelled dowagers, and provided with every ac
cessory to make the whole good society ; for there
was wit, sense, intelligence, vivacity; and yet
there was something wanting — riot in host or
hostess, or company, or house — where was it? —
which was conspicuous by its absence. Mr. Ban
croft was kind enough to introduce me to the
most lovely faces and figures, and so far enabled
me to judge that nothing could be more beauti
ful, easy, or natural than the womanhood or girl
hood of New York. It is prettiness rather than
fineness ; regular, intelligent, wax - like faces,
graceful little figures ; none of the grandiose
Roman type which Von Raumer recognised in
London, as in the Holy City, a quarter of a cen
tury 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 noth
ing, and all very friendly and hospitable.

The club-house is remarkable as the mansion
of a happy man who invented or patented a wa-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

17

terproof hat-lining, whereby he built a sort of
Sallustian villa, with a central court-yard, a
1'Alhambra, with fountains and flowers, now
passed away to the New York Club. Here was
Pratt's, or the defunct Fielding, or the old
C. C. C.'s in disregard of time and regard of
drinks — and nothing more.

CHAPTER IV.

Streets and shops in New York— Literature— A funeral-
Dinner at Mr. H 's— Dinner at Mr. Bancroft's—

Political and social features — Literary breakfast; Hee-
nan and Sayers.

March 20th. — The papers are still full of Sum-
ter and Pickens. The reports that they are or
are not to be relieved are stated and contradict
ed in each paper without any regard to individ
ual consistency. The "Tribune" has an article
on my speech at the St. Patrick's dinner, to
which it is pleased to assign reasons and mo
tives 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, dis
tress, and suffering. In the afternoon went
down Broadway, which was crowded, notwith
standing the piles of blackened snow by the
kerbstones, and the sloughs of mud, and half
frozen pools at the crossings. Visited several
large stores or shops — some rival the best estab
lishments in Paris or London in richness and
in value, and far exceed them in size and splen
dour of exterior. Some on Broadway, built of
marble, or of fine cut stone, cost from GOOO/. to
8000/. a year in mere rent. Here, from the
base to the fourth or fifth story, are piled collec
tions of all the world can produce, often in ex
cess of all possible requirements of the country ;
indeed I was told that the United States have al
ways imported more goods than they could pay
for. Jewellers' shops are not numerous, but
there are two in Broadway which have splendid
collections of jewels, and of workmanship in
gold and silver, displayed to the greatest advan
tage in fine apartments decorated with black
marble, statuary, and plate-glass.
J New York has certainly all the air of a "nou-
veau riche." There is about it an utter absence
of any appearance of a grandfather — one does
not see even such evidences of eccentric taste as
are afforded in Paris and London, by the exist
ence of shops where the old families of a coun
try cast oif 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 enor
mous amount of ignorance or of bad taste. The
new arts, however, flourish ; the plague of pho
tography has spread through all the corners of
the city, and the shop-windows glare with fla
grant displays of the most tawdry art. In some
of the large booksellers' shops — Appleton's for
example — are striking proofs of the activity of
the American press, if hot of the vigour and
originality of the American intellect. I passed
down long rows of shelves laden with the works
of European authors, for the most part, oh
shame ! stolen and translated into American
B

type without the smallest compunction or scru
ple, and without the least intention 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 Ir
ving and Cooper in fiction, Longfellow and Ed
gar Poe in poetry, even Bryant and the respect
abilities in rhyme, and Emerson as essayist,
there is no reason why New York should be a
paltry imitation of Leipzig, without the good
faith of Tauchnitz.

I dined with a litterateur well known in En
gland to many people a year or two ago —
sprightly, loquacious, and well informed, if nei
ther witty nor profound — now a Southern man
with Southern proclivities, as Americans say ;
once a Southern man with such strong anti-
slavery convictions, that his expression of them
in an English quarterly had secured him the
hostility of his own people — one of the emana-
tjons of American literary life for which their
own country finds no fitting receiver. As the
best proof of his sincerity, he has just now aban
doned his connection with one of the New York
papers on the republican side, because he be
lieved that the course of the journal was dic
tated by anti-Southern fanaticism. He is, in
fact, persuaded that there will be a civil war,
and that the South will have much of the right
on its side in the contest. At his rooms were
Mons. B , Dr. Gwin, a Californian ex-sena
tor, Mr. Barlow, and several of the leading men
of a certain clique in New York. The Ameri
cans complain, or assert, that we do not under
stand them, and I confess the reproach, or state
ment, was felt to be well founded by myself at
all events, when I heard it declared and admit
ted that "if Mons. Belmont had not gone to the
Charleston Convention, the present crisis would
never have occurred."

March 22nd. — A snow-storm worthy of Mos
cow or Riga flew through New York all day, de
positing more food for the mud. I paid a visit
to Mr. Horace Greeley, and had a long conver
sation with him. He expressed great pleasurtf
at the intelligence that I was going to visit the
Southern States. "Be sure you examine the
slave-pens. They will be afraid to refuse you,
and you can tell the truth." As the capital and
the South form the chief attractions at present,
I am preparing to escape from "the divine
calm" and snows of New York. I was recom
mended 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 ob
durate offenders — torture by dropping cold wa
ter on them, torture by thumb-screws, and the
like — rather opposed to the views of prison phi
lanthropists in modern days.

March 23rd. — It is announced positively that

13

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

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

There is, in reality, very little done by New
York to support or encourage the Government
in any decided policy, and the journals are more
engaged now in abusing each other, and in small
party aggressive warfare, than in the perform
ance of the duties of a patriotic press, whose
mission at such a time is beyond all question the
resignation of little differences for the sake of
the whole country, and an entire devotion to its
safety, honour, and integrity. But the New York
people must have their intellectual drams every
morning, and it matters little what, the course of
Government may be, so long as the aristocratic
democrat can be amused by ridicule of the Great
Rail-Splitter, or a vivid portraiture of Mr. Hor
ace Greeley's old coat, hat, breeches, and um
brella. The coarsest personalities are read with
gusto, and attacks of a kind which would not
have been admitted into the "Age" or "Satir
ist" in their worst days, form the staple leading
articles of one or two of the most largely circu
lated journals in the city. " Slang" in its worst
Americanised form is freely used in sensation
headings and leaders, and a class of advertise
ments which are not allowed to appear in re
spectable English papers, have possession of col
umns of the principal newspapers, few, indeed,
excluding them. It is strange, too, to see in
journals which profess to represent the civilisa
tion 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 clair
voyants," " 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 doubt
ful "personals" addressed to "the young lady
with black hair and blue eyes, who 'got out of
the omnibus at the corner 'of 7th Street" — ap
peals 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 Now
York is a very pure city, for more than London

or Paris it is the sewer of nations. It is a city
of luxury also — French and Italian cooks and
milliners, German and Italian musicians, high
prices, extravagant tastes and dressing, money
readily made, a life in hotels, bar-rooms, heavy
gambling, sporting, and prize-fighting flourish
here, and combine to lower the standard of the
bourgeoisie at all events. Where wealth is the
sole aristocracy, there is great danger of mistak
ing 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, particu
larly at elections, when the power of a hard-hit
ting prize-fighter with a following makes itself
unmistakeably felt. Young America essays to
look like martial France in mufti, but the hat
and the coat suited to the Colonel of Carabiniers
en retraite do not at all become the thin, tall,
rather long-faced gentlemen one sees lounging
about Broadway. It is true, indeed, the type,
though not French, is not English. The char
acteristics of the American are straight hair,
keen, bright, penetrating eyes, and want of col
our in the cheeks.

March 25th. — I had an invitation to meet sev
eral members of the New York press association
at breakfast. Among the company were — Mr.
Bayard Taylor, with whose extensive notes of
travel his countrymen are familiar — a kind of
enlarged Inglis, fullj of the genial spirit which
makes travelling in dbmpany so agreeable, but he
has come back as travellers generally do, satis
fied 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. Olm-
sted, the indefatigable, able, and earnest writer,
whom to desci'ibe simply as an Abolitionist
would be to confound with ignorant if zealous,
unphilosophical, and impracticable men ; Mr.
Dana, of the "Tribune;" Mr. Hurlbert, of the
"Times ;" the Editor of the "Courier des Etats
Unis;" Mr. Young, of the "Albion," which is
the only English journal published in the States ;
and others. There was a good deal of pleasant
conversation, though every one differed with his
neighbour, as a matter of course, as soon as he
touched on politics. There was talk de omnibus
rebut (t quibusdam aliis, such as Heenan and
Savers, Secession and Sumter, the press, politi
cians, New York life, and so on. The first topic
occupied a larger place than it was entitled to,
because in all likelihood the sporting editor of
one of the papers who was present expressed,
perhaps, some justifiable feeling in reference to
the refusal of the belt to the American. All ad
mitted the courage and great endurance of his
antagonist, but seemed convinced that Heenan,
if not the better man, was at least the victor in
that particular contest. It would be strange to
see the great tendency of Americans to institute
comparisons with ancient and recognised stand
ards, if it were not that they are adopting the
natural mode of judging of their own capabili
ties. The nation is like a growing lad who is
constantly testing his powers in competition with
his elders. He is in his youth and nonage, and
he is calling down the Itines and alleys to nil

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

19

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 En
gland might dispute the right of the United
States Government to blockade the ports of her
own States, to which she was entitled to access
under treaty, and might urge that such a block
ade 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 South
ern 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— Eailway carriages— Philadel
phia — Washington — Willard's Hotel — Mr. Seward—
North and South — The ''State Department" at Wash
ington— President Lincoln — Dinner at Mr. Seward's.

AFTER our pleasant breakfast came that ne
cessity for activity which makes such meals dis
guised as mere light morning repasts take their
revenge. I had to pack up, and I am bound to
say the moral aid afforded me by the waiter,
who stood with a sympathising expression of
face, and looked on as I wrestled with boots,
books, and great coats, was of a most compre
hensive 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 unsympa
thetic, gloomy, dirty streets, and crowded* thor
oughfares, over jaw-wrenching street-railway
tracks, to a large wooden shed covered with in
scriptions respecting routes and destinations 6n
the bank of the river, which as far as the eye
could see, was bordered by similar establish
ments, where my baggage was deposited in the
mud. There were no porters, none of the rec
ognised and established aides to locomotion to
which we are accustomed in Europe, but a num
ber 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 docu
ment, full of the dreadful warnings and condi
tions, 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 passen
gers were moving out of the capacious ferry-boat
in a steady stream, and the steam throat and bell

of the engine were going whilst I was looking
for my porter; but at last a gentleman passing
said, "I guess y'ill remain here a considerable
time before y'ill get any one to come for that
bag of yours," and taking the hint, I just got off
in time to stumble into a long box on wheels,
with a double row of most uncomfortable seats,
and a passage down the middle, where I found
a place beside Mr. Sanford, the newly-appoint
ed 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 contin
uous line of pretty-looking villages of wooden
houses, two stories high, painted white, each with
its Corinthian portico, gave a most favourable
impression of the comfort and prosperity of the
people. The rail passed through the main street
of most of these hamlets and villages, and the
bell of the engine was tolled to warn the inhab
itants, who drew up on the side walks and let
us go by. Soon the white houses faded away
into faint blurred marks on the black ground of
the landscape, or twinkled with starlike lights,
and there was nothing more to see. The pas
sengers 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 ob
ject seemed to be to walk up the centre of the
carriage in order to go out of the opposite door
— occasionally it was the work of the newspaper
boy, with a sheaf of journals and trashy illus
trated papers under his arm. Now and then it
was the conductor; but the periodical visitor
was a young gentleman with a chain and rings,
who bore a tray before him, and solicited orders
for "gum drops," and "lemon drops," which,
with tobacco, apples, and cakes, were consumed
in great quantities by the passengers.

At 10 o'clock, P.M., we crossed the river by a
ferry boat to Philadelphia, and djove through
the streets, stopping for supper a few moments
at the La Pierre Hotel. To judge from the vast
extent of the streets, of small, low, yet snug-look
ing houses, through which we passed, Philadel
phia must contain in comfort the largest number
of small householders of any city in the world.
At the other terminus of the rail, to which we
drove in a carriage, we procured for a small
sum, a dollar I think, berths in a sleeping car,
an American institution of considerable merit.
Unfortunately a party of prize-fighters had a
mind to make themselves comfortable, and the
result was anything but conducive to sleep.
They had plenty of whiskey, and were full of
song and fight, nor was it possible to escape their
urgent solicitations "to take a drink," by feign
ing the soundest sleep. One of these, a big man,
with a broken nose, a mellow eye, and a very
large display of rings, jewels, chains and pins,
was in very high spirits, and informed us he was
' ' Going to Washington to get a foreign mission
from Bill Seward. He wouldn't take Paris, as
he didn't care much about French or French-

20

MY DIARY NOKTH AND SOUTH.

men ; 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 Presi
dent) — "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 sover
eign contempt, but at last whiskey asserted its
supremacy, and having established the point that

they " would not sleep unless they pleased,"

they slept and snored.

At six, A.M., we were roused up by the arrival
of the train at Washington, having crossed great
rivers and traversed cities without knowing it
during the night. I looked out and saw a vast
mass of white marble towering above us on the
left, stretching out in colonnaded porticoes, and
long flanks of windowed masonry, and surmount
ed 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 vocif
erous 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 selanthus trees, each in a
white-washen wooded sentry box, and by most
irregularly-built houses in all kinds of material,
from deal plank to marble — of all heights, and
every sort of trade. Few shop-windows were
open, and the principal population consisted of
blacks, who were moving about on domestic af
fairs. At one end of the long vista there is the
Capitol ; and at the other, the Treasury build
ings — 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 Con
gress. It is a quadrangular mass of rooms, six
stories high, and some hundred yards square ;
and it probaoly 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 bed-room which had just been vacated by some
candidate — whether he succeeded or not I can
not tell, but if his testimonials spoke truth, he
ought to have been selected at once for the high
est office. The room was littered with printed
copies of letters testifying that J. Smith, of Hart
ford, Conn., was about the ablest, honestest, clev
erest, and best man the writers ever knew. Up
and down the long passages doors were opening
and shutting for men with papers bulging out of
their pockets, who hurried as if for their life in
and out, and the building almost shook with the
tread of the candidature, which did not always
in its present aspect justify the correctness of the
original appellation.

It was a remarkable sight, and difficult to un
derstand unless seen. From California, Texas,
from the Indian Reserves, and the Mormon ter
ritory, from Nebraska, as from the remotest bor

ders of Minniesota, from every portion of the
vast territories of the Union, except from the Se
ceded States, the triumphant republicans had
winged their way to the prey.

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

I dined at Mr. Sanford's, where I was intro
duced to Mr. Seward, Secretary of State ; Mr.
Truman Smith, an ex-senator, much respected
among the Republican party; Mr. Antony, a sen
ator of the United States, a journalist, a very in
telligent-looking man, with an Israelitish cast of
face ; Colonel Foster of the Illinois railway, of
reputation in the States as a geologist ; and" one
or two more gentlemen. Mr. Seward is a slight,
middle-sized man, of feeble build, with the stoop
contracted from sedentary habits and application
to the desk, and has a peculiar attitude when
seated, which immediately attracts attention. A
well-formed and large head is placed on a long,
slender neck, and projects over the chest in an
argumentative kind of way, as if the keen eyes
were seeking for an Adversary ; the mouth is re
markably flexible, large but well-formed, the nose
prominent and aquiline, the eyes secret, but pene
trating, and lively with humour of some kind
twinkling about them ; the brow bold and broad,
but not remarkably elevated ; the white hair sil
very and fine — a subtle, quick man, rejoicing in
power, given to perorate and to oracular utter
ances, fond of badinage, bursting with the im
portance of state mysteries, and with the dignity
of directing the foreign policy of the greatest

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

21

country — as all Americans think — in the world.
After dinner he told some stories of the pressure
on the President for place, which very much
amused the guests who knew the men, and talked
freely and pleasantly of many things — stating,
however, few facts positively. In reference to an
assertion in a New York paper, that orders had
been given to evacuate Sumter, "That, "he said,
"is a plain lie — no such orders have been given.
We will give up nothing we have — abandon noth
ing that has been entrusted to us. If people
would only read these statements by the light of
the President's inaugural, they would not be de
ceived." He wanted no extra session of Congress.
" History tells us that kings who call extra par
liaments 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 con
tempt for those who thought there was anything
serious in secession. "Why," said he, "I my
self, my brothers, and sisters, have been all seces
sionists — 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 af
firmed that the state of living and of society there
was something like that in the State of New York
sixty or seventy years ago. In the North all was
life, enterprise, industry, mechanical skill. In the
South there was dependence on black labour, and
an idle extravagance which was mistaken for ele
gant luxury — tumble-down old hackney-coaches,
such as had not been seen north of the Potomac
for half a century, harness never cleaned, un-
groomed horses, worked at the mill one day and
sent to town the next, badly furnished houses,
bad cookery, imperfect education. No parallel
could be drawn between them and the Northern
States at all. " You are all very angry," he said,
"about the Morrill tariff. You must, however,
let us bo best judges of our own affairs. If we
judge rightly, you have no right to complain ; if
we judge wrongly, we shall soon be taught by the
results, and shall correct our error. It is evident
that if the Morrill tariff fulfils expectations, and
raises a revenue, British manufacturers suffer
nothing, and we suffer nothing, for the revenue
is raised here, and trade is not injured. If the
tariff fails to create a revenue, we shall be driven
to modify or repeal it."

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

March 27th. — This morning, after breakfast,
Mr. Sanford called, according to promise, and
took me to the State department. It is a very

humble — in fact, dingy — mansion, two stories
high, and situated at the erfd of the magnified; t
line of colonnade in white marble, called the
Treasury, which is hereafter to do duty as the
head-quarters of nearly all the public depart
ments. People familiar with Downing Street,
however, cannot object to the dinginess of the
bureaux in which the foreign and state affairs cf
the American Republic are transacted. A flight
of steps leads to the hall-door, on which an an
nouncement in writing is affixed, to indicate the
days of reception for the various classes of per
sons 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 pas
sage of a Poor Law Board or a parish vestry.

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

I have already described Mr. Seward's per
sonal appearance ; his son, to whom he intro
duced me, is the Assistant-Secretary of State,
and is editor or proprietor of a journal in the
State of New York, which has a reputation for
ability and fairness. Mr. Frederick Seward is
a slight delicate-looking man, with a high fore
head, thoughtful brow, dark eyes, and amiable
expression ; his manner is very placid and mod
est, and, if not reserved, he is by no means lo
quacious. As we were speaking, a carriage
drove up to the door, and Mr. Seward exclaim
ed to his father, with something like dismay in
his voice, "Here comes the Chevalier in full
uniform!" — and in a few seconds in effect the
Chevalier Bertinatti made his appearance, in
cocked hat, white gloves, diplomatic suit of blue
and silver lace, sword, sash, and riband of the
cross of Savoy. I thought there was a quiet
smile on Mr. Seward's face as he saw his bril
liant 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 sec
onds 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 pro
vided with glass doors and plain heavy chairs
and forms. The domestic who was in attend
ance was dressed like any ordinary citizen, and
seemed perfectly indifferent to the high position
of the gfeat 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

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

gave increased effect to the gilt chairs and or
molu ornaments. Mr. Seward and the Cheva
lier stood in the centre of the room, whils 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 sham-
•/ bling, loose, irregular, almost unsteady gait, a
tall, lank, lean man, considerably over six feet
in height, with stooping shoulders, long pendu
lous arms, terminating in hands of extraordina
ry dimensions, which, however, were far exceed
ed in proportion by his feet. He was dressed
in an ill-fitting, wrinkled suit of black, which
put one in mind of an undertaker's uniform at
a funeral ; round his neck a rope of black silk
was knotted in a large bulb, with flying ends
projecting beyond the collar of his coat; his
turned -down shirt -collar disclosed a sinewy
muscular yellow neck, and above that, nestling
in a great black mass of hair, bristling and com
pact like a ruif of mourning pins, rose the
strange quaint face and head, covered with its
thatch of wild republican hair, of President Lin
coln. The impression produced by the size of
his extremities, and by his flapping and wide
projecting ears, may be removed by the appear
ance 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 prom
inent organ — stands out from the face with an
inquiring1, anxious air, as though it were snif
fing for some good thing in the wind ; the eyes
dark, full, and deeply set, are penetrating, but
full of an expression which almost amounts to
tenderness ; and above them projects the shaggv
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 whicli the head could dictate, but that
Mr. Lincoln would be ever more willing to tem
per justice with mercy, and to enjoy what he
considers the amenities of life, than to take a
harsh view of men's nature and of the world,
and to estimate things in an ascetic or puritan
spirit. A person who met Mr. Lincoln in the
street would not take him to be what — accord
ing to the usages of European society — is called
a "gentleman;" and, indeed, since I came to
the United States, I have heard more dispara
ging 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 evi
dently controlled a desire to shake hands all
round with everybody, and smiled good-humour-
cdly till he was suddenly brought up by the
staid deportment of Mr. Seward, and by the
profound diplomatic bows of the Chevalier Ber-
tinatti. Then, indeed, he suddenly jerked him
self back, and stood in front of the two minis
ters, with his body slightly drooped forward,
and his hands behind his back, his knees touch-

ing, and his feet apart. Mr. Seward formally
presented the minister, whereupon the President
made a prodigiously violent demonstration of his
body in a bow which had almost the effect of a
smack in its rapidity and abruptness, and, recov
ering himself, proceeded to give his utmost at
tention, whilst the Chevalier, with another bow,
read from a paper a long address in presenting
the royal letter accrediting him as "minister
resident;" and when he said that "the king
desired to give, under your enlightened admin
istration, 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 govern
ments and countries." After some words of
compliment, the President shook hands with
the minister, who soon afterwards retired. Mr.
Seward then took me by the hand and said —
" Mr. President, allow me to present to you Mr.
Russell, of the London 'Times.'" On which
Mr. Lincoln put out his hand in a very friendly
manner, and said,' "Mr. Russell, I am very
glad to make your acquaintance, and to sec 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 pow
er, — except perhaps the Mississippi. I am glad
to know you as its minister." Conversation en
sued for some minutes, which the President en
livened by two or three peculiar little sallies,
and I left agreeably impressed with his shrewd
ness, humour, and natural sagacity.

In the evening I dined with Mr. Seward, in
company with his son, Mr. Seward, junior, Mr.
Sanford, and a quaint, natural specimen of an
American rustic lawyer, who was going to Brus
sels 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, know ledge (if any) of French,
and of other things which it is generally consid
ered desirable that secretaries should know.

Very naturally, conversation turned on poli
tics. Although no man can foresee the nature
of the crisis whicli is coming, nor the mode in
which it is to be encountered, me faith of men
like Mr. Sanford and Mr. Seward in the ulti
mate success of their principles, and in the in-
tegrity of the Republic, is very remarkable ; and
the boldness of their language in reference to
foreign powers almost amounts to arrogance and
menace, if not to temerity. Mr. Seward assert-
ed that the Ministers of England or of France
had no right to make any allusion to the civil
war which appeared imminent ; and that the
Southern Commissioners who had been sent
abroad could not be received by the Government
of any foreign power, officially or otherwise, even
to Imnd in a document or to make a represcnta-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

23

tion, 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 mes
sage, however, there is no such very certain indi
cation, as Mr. Seward pretends to discover, of
the course to be pursued by Mr. Lincoln and the
cabinet. To an outside observer, like myself, it
seems as if they were waiting for events to de
velop themselves, and rested their policy rather
upon acts that had occurred, than upon any def
inite 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 in
troduced, and a quiet little rubber of whist fol
lowed. The Secretary is given to expatiate at
large, and told us many anecdotes of foreign
travel ; — if I am not doing him injustice, I would
say further, that he remembers his visit to Eng
land, artd the attention he received there, with
peculiar satisfaction. He cannot be found fault
with because he has formed a most exalted no
tion of the superior intelligence, virtue, happi
ness, and prosperity of his own people. He said
that it would not be proper for him to hold any
communication with the Southern Commission
ers then in Washington ; which rather surprised
me, after what I had heard from their friend,
Mr. Banks. On returning to my hotel, I found
a card from the President, inviting me to dinner
the following day.

CHAPTER VI.

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

March 28th. — I was honoured to-day by visits
from a great number of Members of Congress,
journalists, and others. Judging from the ex
pressions 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 partic
ular pleasure in telling how he came towards
the seat of his Government disguised in a Scotch
cap and cloak, whatever that may mean.

In the evening I repaired to the White House.
The servant who took my hat and coat was par
ticularly inquisitive as to my name and condi
tion 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 ,pf the cabinet, and their
wives and daughters, dining here to-day." Even
tually he relaxed — instructed me how to place
my hat so^that it would be exposed to no indig
nity, and informed me that I was about to par
ticipate in a prandial enjoyment of no ordinary

character. There was no parade or display, no
announcement — no gilded staircase, with its liv
eried heralds, transmitting and translating one's
name from landing to landing. From the un
pretending 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 in
terview yesterday.

Mrs. Lincoln was already seated to receive her
guests. She is of the middle age and height, of
a plumpness degenerating to the embonpoint nat
ural to her years ; her features are plain, her
nose and mouth of an ordinary type, and her
manners and appearance homely, stiffened, how
ever, by the consciousness that her position re
quires her to be something more than plain Mrs.
Lincoln, the wife of the Illinois lawyer ; she is
profuse in the introduction of the word " sir" in
every sentence, which is now almost an Ameri
canism confined to certain classes, although it
was once as common in England. Her dress I
shall not attempt to describe, though it was very
gorgeous and highly coloured. She handled a
fan with much energy, displaying a round, well-
proportioned arm, and was adorned with some
simple jewellery. Mrs. Lincoln struck me as be
ing desirous of making herself agreeable ; and I
own I was agreeably disappointed, as the Seces
sionist 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 wait
ed for General Scott, who seemed to be the rep
resentative man in Washington of the monarch
ical idea, and to absorb some of the feeling which
is lavished on the pictures and memory, if not on
the monument, of Washington. Whilst we were
waiting, Mr, Seward took me round, and intro
duced 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 per
sons 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 in
jury, that detracts from the agreeable effect of
his face ; but, on the whole, he is one who would
not pass quite unnoticed in a European crowd
of the same description.

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

Mr. Cameron, the Secretary for War, a slight
man, above the middle height, with grey hair,
deep-set keen grey eyes, and a thin mouth, gave
me the idea of a person of ability and adroitness.
His colleague, the Secretary of the Navy, a small
man, with ^ great long grey beard and specta
cles, did not look like one of much originality or
ability ; but people who know Mr. Welles de
clare that he is possessed of administrative pow
er, although they admit that he does not know
the stem from the stern of a ship, and are in
doubt whether he ever saw the sea in his life.

MY DIAEY NORTH AND SOUTH.

Mr. Smith, the Minister of the Interior, is a
bright-eyed, smart (I use the word in the Eng
lish sense) gentleman, with the reputation of be
ing one of the most conservative members of the
cabinet. Mr. Blair, the Postmaster-General, is
a person of much greater influence than his po
sition would indicate. He has the reputation of
being one of the most determined republicans in
the Ministry ; but he held peculiar notions with
reference to the black and the white races,
which, if carried out, would not by any means
conduce to the comfort or happiness of free ne
groes 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-Gen-
' eral. Some of the gentlemen were in evening
dress ; others wore black frock coats, which it
seems, as in Turkey, are considered to be en re
gie at a Republican Ministerial dinner.

In the conversation which occurred before din
ner, I was amused to observe the manner in
which Mr. Lincoln used the anecdotes for which
he is famous. Where men bred in courts, ac
customed to the world, or versed in diplomacy,
would use some subterfuge, or would make a po
lite speech, or give a shrug of the shoulders as
the means of getting out of an embarrassing po
sition, Mr. Lincoln raises a laugh by some bold
west-country anecdote, and moves off in the
cloud of merriment produced by his joke. Thus,
when Mr. Bates was remonstrating apparently
against the appointment of some indifferent law
yer to a place of judicial importance, the Presi
dent 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, Lin
coln ! 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 waggon struck a stump on one
side of the road ; then it hopped off to the oth
er. I looked out, and I saw the driver was jerk
ing from side to side in his seat ; so says I,
'Judge, I think your coachman has been taking
a little drop too much this morning.' ' Well I
declare, Lincoln,' said he, 'I should not much
wonder if you are right, for he has nearly upset
me half-a-dozen of times since starting.' So,
putting his head out of the window, he shouted,
'Why, you infernal scoundrel, you are drunk !'
Upon which, pulling up his horses, and turning
round with great gravity, the coachman said,
' By gorra ! that's the first rightful decision you
have given for the last twelvemonth.' " Whilst
the company were laughing, the President beat
a quiet retreat from the neighborhood of the
Attorney-General.

It was at last announced that General Scott
was unable to be present, and that, although
actually in the house, he had been compelled to
retire from indisposition, and we moved in to the
banquetting-hall. The first "state dinner," as

it is called, of the President was not remarkable
for ostentation. No liveried servants, no Persic
j splendour of ancient plate, or chefs d1 ceuvre of
j art glittered round the board. Vases of flowers
i decorated the table, combined with dishes in
what may be called the " Gallo- American" style,
• with wines which owed their parentage to France,
! and their rearing and education to the United
i States, which abound in cunning nurses for such
! productions. The conversation was suited to
the state dinner of a cabinet at which women
and strangers were present. I was seated next
Mr. Bates and the very agreeable and lively Sec
retary 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
i speaking English. I omitted the name of Mr.
j Hamlin, the Vice-President, as well as those of
j less remarkable people who were present ; but it
] would not be becoming to pass over a man dis-
| tinguished for nothing so much as his persistent
j and unvarying adhesion to one political doctrine^
j which has made him, in combination with the
j belief in his honesty, the occupant of a post
I 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 Min
isters, if not with all, from time to time, and I
was struck by the- uniform tendency of their re
marks in reference to the policy of Great Britain.
They seemed to think that England was bound
by her anti-slavery antecedents to discourage to
the utmost any attempts of the South to estab
lish 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 sup
pose, Mr. Russell, you do not admire that offi
cer?" "On the contrary," I said, "I think he
is a very fine-looking old man." " I don't mean
that," she replied; "but you know he can't be
very much liked by you, because he fought so
gallantly against you in the last war, as you must
know." I had not the courage to confess igno
rance 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 Or
leans and elsewhere, that is attributed to French
men respecting Waterloo.

On returning to Willard's Hotel, I was accost
ed by a gentleman who came out from the crowd
in front of the office. " Sir," he said, (i 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 corre
spondent of the New York ." "Then, sir,"

I replied, "k gives me satisfaction to tell you
that I think a great deal of Mr. Lincoln, and
that I am equally pleased with my dinner. I
have the honour to bid you good evening." The
same gentleman informed me afterwards that he

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

had created the office of "Washington Correspond
ent 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. Congress men contra
dicted me — issued cards — said they were not
facts. The public attention was attracted, and
I was told to go on ; and so the Washington cor
respondence became a feature in all the New
York papers by degrees." The hum and bustle
in the hotel to-night were wonderful. All the
office seekers were in the passages, hungering
after senators and representatives, and the ladies
in any way related to influential people, had an
entourage of courtiers sedulously paying their ^e-
spects. Miss Chase, indeed, laughingly told me
that she was pestered by applicants for her fa
ther's good offices, and by persons seeking intro
duction 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 illus
trated London paper during the Prince of Wales's
tour, and who had become acquainted with some
of my friends; and he requested permission to
call on me, which I gave without difficulty or
hesitation. He visited me this evening, poor
lad ! and told me a sad story of his struggles,
and of the dependence of his family on his efforts,
as a prelude to a request that I would allow him
to go South when I was making the tour there,
of which he had heard. He was under an en
gagement 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 responsi
ble for him.

March 23th, Good Friday. — The religious ob
servance of the day was not quite as strict as it
would be in England. The Puritan aversion to
ceremonials and formulary observances has ap
parently affected the American world, even as far
south as this. The people of colour were in the
streets dressed in their best. The first impres
sion produced by fine bonnets, gay shawls, bright
ly-coloured dresses, and silk brodequins, on black
faces, flat figures, and feet to match, is singular;
but, in justice to the backs of many of the gaudi
ly-dressed women, who, in little groups, were go
ing to church or chapel, it must be admitted that
this surprise only came upon one when he got a
front view. The men generally affected black
coats, silk or satin waistcoats, and parti-coloured
pantaloons. They carried Missal or Prayer-
book, pocket-handkerchief, cane or parasol, with
infinite affectation of correctness.

As I was looking out of the window, a very
fine, tall young negro, dressed irreproachably,
save as to hat and boots, passed by.' "I won
der what he is?" I exclaimed inquiringly to a
gentleman who stood beside me. "Well," he
said, "that fellow is not a free nigger; he looks
too respectable. I daresay you could get him for
1500 dollars, without his clothes. You know,"
continued he, "what our Minister said when

he saw a nigger at some Court in Europe, and
was asked what he thought of him : ' Well, I
guess,' said he, 'if you take off his fixings, he
may be worth 1000 dollars down.' In the course
of the day, Mr. Banks, a 'corpulent, energetic
young Virginian, of strong Southern views, again
called on me. As the friend of the Southern
Commissioners, he complained vehemently of the
refusal of Mr. Seward to hold intercourse with
him. "These fellows mean treachery, but we
will baulk them." In answer to a remark of
mine, that the English Minister would certainly
refuse to receive Commissioners from any part
of the Queen's dominions which had seized upon
the forts and arsenals of the empire and menaced
war, he replied: "The case is quite different.
The Crown claims a right to govern the whole
of your empire ; but the Austrian Government
could not refuse to receive a deputation from
Hungary for an adjustment of grievances ; nor
could any State belonging to the German Diet
attempt to claim sovereignty over another, be
cause they were members of the same Confeder
ation." I remarked "that his views of the ob
ligations of each State of the Union were per
fectly new to me, as a stranger ignorant of the
controversies which distracted tbem. An En
glishman had nothing to do with a Virginian
and New Yorkist, or a South Carolinian — he
scarcely knew anything of a Texan, or of an Ar-
kansasian ; 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 logic
ally 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 con
versation with Mr. Truman Smith, an old and
respected representative in former days, who gave
me a very different account of the matter; and
who maintained that by the Federal Compact
each State had delegated irrevocably the essence
of its sovereignty to a Government to be estab
lished in perpetuity for the benefit of the whole
body. The Slave States, seeing that the prog
ress of free ideas, and the material power of the
North, were obtaining an influence which must
be subversive of the supremacy they had so long
exercised in the Federal Government for theii
own advantage, had developed this doctrine of
States' Rights as a cloak to treason, preferring
the material advantages to be gained bv the ex
tension of their system to the grand moral posi
tion which they would occupy as a portion of the
United States in the face of all the world.

It is on such radical differences of ideas as
these, that the whole of the quarrel, which is
widening every dav, is founded. The Federal
Compact, at the very outset, was written on a
;orn 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
n it, which the heat and fury of faction have
widened into a fissure from top to bottom, never
to be closed again.

In the evening I had the pleasure of dining
with an American'gentleman who has seen much
f the world, travelled far and wide, who has
•ead much and beheld more, a scholar, a politi
cian, after his way, a poet, and an ologist — one
f those modern Grceculi, who is unlike his pro-

26

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

totype 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, philo
sophical, and cosmopolitan. From what I see,
success here may be obtained by refined men, if
they are dishonest, never by philosophical men,
unless they be corrupt — not by cosmopolitan men
under any circumstances whatever ; for to have
sympathies with any people, or with any nation
in the world, except his own, is to doom a states
man 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 peo
ple. At dinner there was the very largest naval
officer I have seen in company, although I must
own that our own service is not destitute of
some good specimens, and I have seen an Aus
trian admiral at Pola, and the superintendent of
the Arsenal at Tophaneh, who were not unfit to
be marshals of France. This Lieutenant, named
Nelson, was certainly greater in one sense than
his British namesake, for he weighed 260 pounds.

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

The Lieutenant was a strong Union man, and
he inveighed fiercely, and even coarsely, against
the members of his profession who had thrown
up their commissions. The superintendent of
the Washington Navy Yard is supposed to be
very little disposed in favour of this present Gov
ernment ; in fact, Capt. Buchanan may be called
a Secessionist, nevertheless, I am invited to the
\vedding 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 coun
try." In the evening, as we were going home,
notwithstanding the cold, we saw a number of
ladies sitting out on the door -steps, in white
dresses. The streets were remarkably quiet and
deserted ; all the coloured population had been
sent to bed long ago. Th9 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 oQth. — Descended into the barber's shop
off the hall of the hotel ; all the operators, men

of colour, mostly mulattoes, or yellow lads, good-
looking, dressed in clean white jackets and
aprons, were smart, quick, and attentive. Some
seven or eight shaving chairs were occupied by
gentlemen intent on early morning calls. Shav
ing is carried in all its accessories to a high de
gree of publicity, if not of perfection, in America ;
and as the poorest, or as I may call them with
out 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,
ami light; but the affectation of French names,
and the corruption of foreign languages, in which
the hairdressers and barbers delight, are exceed
ingly amusing. On my way down a small street
near the Capitol, I observed in a shop window,
"Rowland's make easier paste," which I attrib
ute 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 shav
ing paste, an address not at all suited to profane
uses. It appears that the trade of barber is al
most the birthright of the free negro or coloured
man in the United States. There is a striking
exemplification of natural equality in the use of
brushes, and the senator flops do*wn in the seat,
and has his noble nose seized by the same fingers
which the moment before were occupied by the
person and chin of an unmistakeable rowdy.

In the midst of the divine calm produced by
hard hand rubbing of my head, I was aroused by
a stout gentleman who sat in a chair directly op
posite. 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 open
ing on the outer world. Suddenly, with his face
half-covered with lather, and a bib tucked under
his chin, he got up from his seat exclaiming,
"Senator! Senator! hallo!" and made a dive
into the passage — whether he received a stern
rebuke, or became aware of his impropriety, I
know not, but in an instant he came back again,
and submitted quietly, till the work of the barber
was completed.

The great employment of four-fifths of the peo
ple at Willard's at present seems to be to hunt
senators and congress men through the lobbies.
Every man is heavy with documents — those
which he -cannot carry in his pockets and hat,
occupy his hands, or are thrust under his arms.
In the hall are advertisements announcing that
certificates, and letters of testimonial, and such
documents, are printed with expedition and neat
ness. From paper collars, and cards of address
to carriages, and new suites of clothes, and long
hotel bills, nothing is left untried or uninvigor-
ated. The whole city is placarded with an
nouncements of facilities for assaulting the pow
ers that be, among which must not be forgotten
the claims of the "excelsior card-writer, "-at
Willard's, who prepares names, addresses, styles,
and titles in superior penmanship. The men
who have got places, having been elected by the
people, must submit to the people, who think
thev have established a claim on them bv their

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

27

favours. The majority confer power, but they
seem to forget that it is only the minority who
can enjoy the first fruits of success. It is as if
the whole constituency of Marylebone insisted
on getting some office under the Crown the mo
ment a member was returned to Parliament.
There are men at Willard's who have come lit
erally thousands of miles to seek for places which
can only be theirs for four years, and who with
true American facility have abandoned the call
ing and pursuits of a lifetime for this doubtful
canvas ; and I was told of one gentleman, who
having been informed that he could not get a
judgeship, condescended to seek a place in the
Post Office, and finally applied to Mr. Chase to
be appointed keeper of a "lighthouse," he was
not particular where. In the forenoon I drove
to the Washington Navy Yard, in company with
Lieutenant Nelson and two friends. It is about
two miles outside the city, situated on a fork of
land projecting between a creek and the Potomac
river, which is here three-quarters of a mile
broad. If the French had a Navy Yard at Par-

*~is it could scarcely be contended that English,
Russians, or Austrians would not have been jus
tified in destroying it in case they got possession
of the city by force of arms, after a pitched bat
tle fought outside its gates. I confess I would
not give much for Deptford or Woolwich if an
American fleet succeeded in forcing its way up
the Thames ; but our American cousins, — a lit
tle more than kin and less than kind, who speak
with pride of Paul Jones and of their exploits
on the Lakes, — affect to regard the burning of
the Washington Navy Yard by us, in the last
war, as an unpardonable outrage on the law of
nations, and an atrocious exercise of power.
For all the good it did, for my own part, I think
it were as well had it never happened, but no

' jurisconsult will for a moment deny that it was
a legitimate, even if extreme, exercise of a bel
ligerent right in the case of an enemy who did
not seek terms from the conqueror ; and who,
after battle lost, fled arid abandoned the proper
ty of their state, which might be useful to them
in war, to the power of the victor. Notwith
standing all the unreasonableness of the Ameri
can people in reference to their relations with
foreign powers, it is deplorable such scenes should
ever have been enacted between members of the
human family so closely allied by all that shall
make them of the same household.

The Navy Yard is surrounded by high brick
walls ; in the gateway stood two sentries in dark
blue tunics, yellow facings, with eagle buttons,
brightly polished arms, and white Berlin gloves,
wearing a cap something like a French kepi, all
very clean and creditable. Inside are some few
trophies of guns taken from us at York Town,
and from the Mexicans in the land of Cortez.
The interior inclosure is surrounded by red brick
houses and stores and magazines, picked out with
white stone ; and two or three green grass-plots,
fenced in by pillars and chains and bordered by
trees, give an air of agreeable freshness to the
place. Close to the Viver are the workshops:
of course there is smoke ant] noise of steam and
machinei'y. In a modest office, surrounded by
bookg, papers, drawings, and models, as well as
by shell and shot and racks of arms of different
descriptions, we found Capt. Dnhlgren, the act
ing superintendent of the yard, and the inventor

' of the famous gun which bears his name, and is

: the favourite armament of the American navy.
By our own sailors they are irreverently term
ed "soda-water bottles," owing to their shape.
Capt. Dahlgren contends that guns capable of
throwing the heaviest shot may be constructed
of cast-iron, carefully prepared and moulded so
that the greatest thickness of metal maybe 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 con
fidence, and, above all, impressive, or they will
make little way in the conservative, status-quo-
loving world. Captain Dahlgren has certainly
most of these characteristics, but he has to fight
with his navy department, with the army, with

i boards and with commissioners, — in fact, with

I all sorts of obstructors. When I was going over
the yard, he deplored the parsimony of the de
partment, 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. Dahlgi'en
obligingly got one of the latter out to practice
for us — a 12-pounder howitzer, which can be car
ried in a boat, run on land on its carriage, which
is provided with wheels, and is so light that the
gun can be drawn readily about by the crew.
He made some good practice with shrapnel at a
target 1200 yards distant, firing so rapidly as to
keep tln-ee shells in the air at the same time.
Compared with our establishments, this dock
yard is a mere toy, and but few hands are em
ployed in it. One steam sloop, the "Pawnee,"
was under the shears, nearly ready for sea : the
frame of another was under the building-shed.
There are no facilities for making iron ships, or
putting on plate-armour here. Everything was
shown to us with the utmost frankness. The
fuse of the Dahlgren shell is constructed on the
vis inertia? principle, and is not unlike that of the
Armstrong.

On returning to the hotel, I found a magnifi-

1 cent bouquet of flowers, with a card attached to
them, with Mrs. Lincoln's compliments, and an-

| other card announcing that she had a "recep-

i tion" at 3 o'clock. It was rather late before I
could get to the White House, and there were
only two or three ladies in the drawing-roorn
when I arrived. I was informed afterwards
that the attendance was very scanty. The Wash
ington ladies have not yet made up their minds
that Mrs. Lincoln is the fashion. They miss
their Southern friends, and constantly draw com
parisons between them and the vulgar Yankee
women and men who are now in power. I do
not know enough to say whether the affectation

! of superiority be justified ; but assuredly if New
York' be Yankee, there is nothing in which it
does not far surpass this preposterous capital.

i 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 disor-

( dered, and circulation disturbed, by a rapid tran
sition, almost instantaneous, from a condition of
obscurity in a country town to be mistress of the
White House. Her smiles and her frowns be
come a matter of consequence to tire whole

28

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

American world. As the wife of the country
lawyer, or even of the congress man, her move
ments 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 spe
cial despatch, can give authentic particulars of
her destination and of her dress. The lady is
surrounded by flatterers and intriguers, seeking
for influence or such places as she can give. As
Selden says, " Those who wish to set a house on
fire begin'with the thatch."

March 31st, Easter Sunday. — I dined with
Lord Lyons and the members of the Legation ;
the only stranger present being Senator Sumner.
Politics were of cour§e eschewed, for Mr. Sum
ner is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Relations of the Senate, and Lord Lyons is a
very discreet Minister ; but still there crept in a
word of Pickens and Sumter, and that was all.
Mr. Fox, formerly of the United States' Navy,
and since that a master of a steamer in the com
mercial 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 de
clare 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 anx
iety to know what Virginia will do. General
Scott belongs to the State, and it is feared he
may be shaken if the State goes out. Already
the authorities of Richmond have intimated they
will not allow the foundry to furnish guns to the
seaboard forts, such as 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 re
fuse the Federal Government ? In fact, the Fed
eral system is radically defective against internal
convulsion, however excellent it is or may be for
purposes of external polity. I walked home with
Mr. Sumner to his rooms, and heard some of his
views, which were not so sanguine as those of
Mr. Seward, and I thought I detected a desire
to let the Southern States go out with their
slavery if they so desired it. Mr. Chase, by the
way, expressed sentiments of the same kind more
decidedly the other day.

April 1st. — On Easter Monday, after breakfast
with Mr. Olmsted, I drove over to visit Senator
Douglas. Originally engaged in some mechan
ical avocation, by his ability and eloquence he
has raised himself to the highest position in the
State short of the Presidency, which might have
been his but for the extraordinary success of his
opponent in a fortuitous suffrage scramble. He
is called the Little Giant, being modo bipedali
staturd, but his head entitles him to some recog
nition of intellectual height. His sketch of the
causes which have led to the present disruption
of parties, and the hazard of civil war, was most
vivid and able ; and for more than an hour he
spoke with a vigour of thought and terseness of
phrase which, even on such dreary and unin-
yiting themes as squatter sovereignty and the

Kansas-Nebraska question, interested a foreigner
in the man and the subject. Although his sym
pathies seemed to go with the South on the ques
tion of slavery and territorial extension, he con
demned altogether the attempt to destroy the
Union.

April 2nd. — The following day I started ear
ly, and performed my pilgrimage to "the shrine
of St. Washington," at Mount Vernon, as a for
eigner 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 extrava
gant in his expenses or wild in his manner of
living. But if he had any human frailties in
after life, they neither offended the morality of
his age, or shocked the susceptibility of his coun
trymen ; and from the time that the much ma
ligned and unfortunate Braddock gave scope to
his ability, down to his retirement into private
life, after a career of singular trials and extraor
dinary successes, his character acquired each
day greater altitude, strength, and lustre. Had"1
his work failed, had the Republic broken up into
small anarchical states, we should hear now lit
tle of Washington. But the principles of liber
ty 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 unprec
edented degree the material prosperity, which
Americans have mistaken for good government,
and the physical comforts which have made some
States in theXTnion the nearest approach to Uto
pia. The Federal Government hitherto "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 con
tent 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 Avith the assertion, that
he is "first in the hearts of his countrymen."
But he was not possessed of the highest military
qualities, if we are to judge from most of the reg
ular actions, in which the British had the best
of it ; and the final blow, when Cornwallis sur
rendered at York Town, was struck by the arm
of France, by Rochambeau and the French fleet,
rather than by Washington and his Americans.
He had all the qualities for the Avork for Avhich
he Avas designed, and is fairly entitled to the po
sition his countrymen haA^e given him as the im
mortal czar of the United States. His pictures
are visible eATeryAvhere — in the humblest inn, in
the Minister's bureau, in the millionaire's galle
ry. There are far more engravings of Wash
ington in America than there are of Napoleon
in France, and that is saying a good deal.

What have AVC here ? The steamer. Avhich has
been paddling doAvn the gentle current of the
Potomac, here a mile or more in breadth, bank
ed in by forest, through Avhich can be seen home
steads and white farm-houses, in the midst of
large clearings and corn-fields — has moved in
towards a high bluff, covered with trees, on the
summit of Avhich is visible the trace of some sort
of building — a ruined summer-house, rustic tern-

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SoUTH.

pie — whatever it may be ; and the bell on deck
begins to toll solemnly, and some of the pilgrim
uncover their heads for a moment. The boat
stops at a rotten, tumble-down little pier, which
leads to a waste of mud, and a path rudely cut
through the wilderness of briars on the hill-side.
The pilgrims, of whom there are some thirty or
forty, of both sexes, mostly belonging to the low
er classes of citizens, and comprising a few for
eigners like myself, proceed to climb this steep,
which seemed in a state of nature covered with
primeval forest, and tangled weeds and briars,
till the plateau, on which stands the house of
Washington and the domestic offices around it,
is reached. It is an oblong wooden house, of
two stories in height, with a colonnade towards
the river face, and a small balcony on the top
and on the level of the roof, over which rises a
little paltry gazebo. There are two windows, a
glass door at one end of the oblong, and a wood
en alcove extending towards the slave quarters,
which are very small sentry-box huts, that have
been recently painted, and stand at right angles
to the end of the house, with dog-houses and
poultry-hutches attached to them. There is no
attempt at neatness or order about the place;
though the exterior of the house is undergoing
repair, the grass is unkempt, the shrubs untrim-
xned, — neglect, squalor, and chicken feathers
have marked the lawn for their own. The house
is in keeping, and threatens to fall to ruin. I
entered the door, and found myself in a small
hall, stained with tobacco juice. An iron railing
ran across the entrance to the stairs. Here stood
a man at a gate, who presented a book to the
visitors, and pointed^ out the notice therein, that
"no person is permitted to inscribe his name in
this book who does not contribute to the Wash
ington Fund, and that any name put down with
out money would be erased." Notwithstanding
the warning, some patriots succeeded in record
ing their names without any pecuniary mulct,
and others did so at a most reasonable rate.
When I had contributed in a manner which
must have represented an immense amount of
Washingtoniolatry, estimated by the standard of
the day, I was informed I could not go upstairs,
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 pre
sented nothing worthy of notice — some lumber
ing, dusty, decayed furniture ; a broken harpsi
chord, dust, cobwebs — no remnant of the man
himself. But over the door of one room hung
the key of the Bastille.* The gardens, too, were
tabooed ; but through the gate I could see a wil
derness of neglected trees and shrubs, not un-
mingled with a suspicion of a present kitchen-
ground. Let us pass to the Tomb, which is some
distance from the house, beneath the shade of
some fine trees. It is a plain brick mausoleum,
with a pointed arch, barred by an iron grating,
through which the light penetrates a chamber or
small room containing two sarcophagi of stone.
Over the arch, on a slab let into the brick, are
the words: "Within this enclosure rest the re
mains of Gen. George Washington." The fallen

* Since borrowed, it is supposed, by Mr. Seward, and
handed over by him to Mr. Stanton. Lafayette gave it to
Washington, he also gave his name to the Fort which has

played so conspicuous a part in the war for liberty u La

liberte des deux moncles," might well sigh if he could seo
his work, and what it has led to.

leaves which had drifted into the chamber rested
thickly on the floor, and were piled up on the sar
cophagi, 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 out
side 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 Patriae," has been abused in
good set terms because he asked its value from
the country which has been so very mindful of
the services of his ancestor, and which is now
erecting by slow stages the overgrown Cleopatra's
needle that is to be a Washington monument
when it is finished. Mr. Everett has been lec
turing, the Ladies' Mount Vernon Association
has been working, and every one has been ad
juring 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, circum-
spice." But, at all events, there is a St. Paul's
round those words.

On the return of the steamer I visited ForU
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, arm
ed with revolvers, could have taken the whole
work ; and, for all the authorities knew, we might
have had that number of Virginians and the fa
mous Ben McCullough himself on board. Aft
erwards, when I ventured to make a remark to
General Scott as to the carelessness of the garri
son, he said ; "A few weeks ago it might have
been taken with a bottle of whiskey. The whole
garrison consisted of an old Irish pensioner."
Now at this very moment Washington is full of
rumours of desperate descents on the capital, and
an attack on the President and his Cabinet.
The long bridge across the Potomac into Vir
ginia is guarded, and the militia and volunteers
of the District of Columbia are to be called out
to resist McCullough and his Richmond despera
does.

April 3rd. — I had an interview with the South
ern Commissioners to-day, at their hotel. For
more than an hour I heard, from men of position
and of different sections in the South, expres
sions which satisfied me the Union could never
be restored, if they truly represented the feelings
and opinions of their fellow-citizens. They have
the idea they are ministers of a foreign "power
treating with Yankeedom, and their indignation
is moved by the refusal of Government to nego
tiate with them, armed as they are with full au
thority to arrange all questions arising out of an
amicable separation — such as the adjustment of
Federal claims for property, forts, stores, public
works, debt, land purchases, and the like. One
of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the Uni
ted States, Mr. Campbell, is their intermediaiy,
and of course it is not known what hopes Mr.
Seward has held out to him ; but there is some

30

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

imputation of Punic faith against the Govern
ment on account of recent acts, and there is no
doubt the Commissioners hear, as I do, that
there are preparations at the Navy Yard and at
New York to relieve Sumter, at any rate, with
provisions, and that Fickens 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 even
ing. The diplomatic body in Washington con
stitute a small and very agreeable society of
their own, in which few Americans mingle ex
cept at the receptions and large evening assem
blies. As the people now in power are nov i hom
ines, the wives and daughters of ministers aud at
taches are deprived of their friends who belong
ed to the old society in Washington, and who
have cither gone off to Secession, or sympathise
so deeply with the Southern States that it is
scarcely becoming to hold very intimate relations
with them in the face of Government, From
the house of M. de Stoeckl I went to a party at
the residence of M. Tassara, the Spanish Minis
ter, where there was a crowd of diplomats, young
and old. Diplomatists seldom or never talk pol
itics, and so Pickens and Sumter were unheard
\>f ; but it is stated nevertheless that Virginia is
on the eve of secession, and will certainly go if
the President attempts to use force in relieving
and strengthening the Federal forts.

April Ith. — I had a long interview with Mr.
Seward ^o-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 pub
lic affairs at Washington. The last cabinet had
tampered with treason, and had contained trait
ors ; 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 dis
tant and scattered stations ; another had pur
posely placed the arms, ordnance, and munitions
of war in undue proportions in the Southern
States, and had weakened the Federal Govern
ment 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 department 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 un
der the most flimsy pretexts. The President's
duty was" clearly defined bv the Constitution. He
had to guard what he had, and to regain, if pos
sible, 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 were not account
able for the temporising policy of inaction, which
was forced upon them by circumstances, and that
they would deal vigorously with the Secession
movement — as vigorously as Jackson did with
nullification in South Carolina, if they had the
means. But what could they do when such
men as Twiggs surrendered his trust and sacri

ficed the troops to a crowd of Texans ; or when
naval and military officers resigned en masse, that
they might accept service in the rebel forces ?
All this excitement would come right in a very
short time — it was a brief madness, which would
pass away when the people had opportunity for
reflection. Meantime the danger was that for
eign 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 success
ful. 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 recog
nise the Government established at Montgomery,
and is ready, if needs be, to threaten Great Brit
ain with war as the consequence of such recog
nition. But he certainly assumed the existence
of strong Union sentiments in many of the se
ceded States, as a basis for his remarks, and ad
mitted 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 peo
ple. Therefore if the majority desire Secession,
Mr. Seward would let them have it — but he can
not believe in anything so monstrous, for to him
the Federal Government and Constitution, as in
terpreted by his party, are divine, heaven-born.
He is fond of repeating that the Federal Govern
ment never yet sacrificed any man's life on ac
count of his political opinions, but if this strug
gle goes on it will sacrifice thousands — tens of
thousands, to the idea of a Federal Union.
"Any attempt against us,"^ie said, "would re
volt the good men of the South, and arm all men
in the North to defend their Government."

But I had seen that day an assemblage of men
doing a goose-step march forth dressed in blue
tunics and grey trowsers, shakoes and cross-belts,
armed with musket and bayonet, cheering and
hurrahing in the square before the War Depart
ment, who were, I am told, the District of Co
lumbia volunteers and militia. They had in
deed been visible in various 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 appear
ance of military efficiency, or to the eye of the
anxious statesman any indication of the animus
pugnandi. Starved, washed-out creatures most
of them, interpolated with Irish and flat-footed,
stumpy Germans. It was matter for wonder
ment that the Foreign Minister of a nation
which was in such imminent danger in its very
capital, and which, with its chief and his cabi
net, was almost at the mercy of the enemy, should
hold the language I was aware he had transmit
ted to the most powerful nations of Europe.
Was it consciousness of the strength of a great
people, who would be united by the first appre
hension of foreign interference, or was it the pe
culiar emptiness of a bombast which is called
Buncombe ? In all sincerity I think Mr. Sew
ard meant it as it was written.

When I arrived at the hotel, I found our young
artist waiting for me, to entreat I would permit
him to accompany me to the South. I had been
annoyed by a paragraph which had appeared in
several papers, to the effect that "The talented
young artist, our gifted countryman, Mr. Deo-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

dore F. Moses, was about to accompany Mr. &c.
&c., in his tour through the South." I had in
formed the young gentleman that I could not
sanction such an announcement, whereupon he
assured me he had not in any way authorised it,
but having mentioned incidentally to a person
connected with the press that he was going to
travel southwards with me, the injudicious zeal
of his friend had led him to think he would do a
service to the youth by making the most of the
very trifling circumstance.

I dined with Senator Douglas, where there
was a large party, among whom were Mr. Chase,
Secretary of the Treasury ; Mr. Smith, Secretary
of the Interior ; Mr. Forsyth, Southern Commis
sioner ; and several members of the Senate and
Congress. Mrs. Douglas did the honours of her
house with grace and charming goodnature,
observe a great tendency to abstract speculation
and theorising among Americans, and their
after-dinner conversation is apt to become didac
tic and sententious. Few men speak better than
Senator Douglas : his words are well chosen, the
flow of his ideas even and constant, his intellect
vigorous, and thoughts well cut, precise, and vig
orous — 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 con
tinent, including Canada, which will fix public
attention everywhere, and may lead to a settle
ment of the Northern and Southern controver
sies. For his mind, as for that of many Amer
icans, the aristocratic idea embodied in Russia
is very seductive ; and he dwelt with pleasure on
the courtesies he had received at the court of the
Czar, implying that he had been treated differ
ently in England, and perhaps France. And
yet, had Mr. Douglas become President of the
United States, his goodwill towards Great Brit
ain might have been invaluable, and surely it had
been cheaply purchased by a little civility and
attention to a distinguished citizen and states
man of the Republic. Our Galleos very often
care for none of these things.

April oth. — Dined with the Southern Com
missioners and a small party at Gautier's, a
French restaurateur in Pennsylvania Avenue.
The gentlemen present were, I need not say, all
of one way of thinking ; but as these leaves will
sec the light before the civil war is at an end, it
is advisable not to give their names, for it would
expose persons resident in Washington, who may
not be suspected by the Government, to those
marks of attention which they have not yet ceased
to pay to their political enemies. Although I
confess that in my judgment too much stress has
been^laid in England on the severity with which
the Federal authorities have acted towards their
political enemies, who were seeking their de
struction, it may be candidly admitted, that they
have forfeited all claim to the lofty position they
once occupied as a Government existing by mor
al 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 permitted
to mention that they were among" the guests. I

! had pleasure in making the acquaintance of
Governor Roman. Mr. Crawford, his brother
commissioner, is a much younger man, of con
siderably greater energy and determination, but
probably of less judgment. The third commis
sioner, Mr. Forsyth, is fanatical in his opposi
tion to any suggestions of compromise or recon
struction ; but, indeed, upon that point, there is
little difference of opinion amongst any of the
real adherents of the South. Mr. Lincoln they
spoke of with contempt ; Mr. Seward they evi
dently regarded as the ablest and most unscru
pulous of their enemies; but the tone in which v
they alluded to the whole of the Northern people !
indicated the clear conviction that trade, com
merce, 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 conse
quence of some secret influence which slavery
has upon the minds of men, or that the aggres
sion of the North upon their institutions has been
of a nature to excite the deepest animosity and
most vindictive hate, certain it is there is a de
gree of something like ferocity in the Southern
mind towards New England which exceeds be
lief. I am persuaded that these feelings of con
tempt are extended towards England. They be
lieve 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 admit
ted that in the state of society which is reported
to exist in the Southern States, it is a useful
check on such men as it restrained in our own
islands in the last century. In the course of
conversation, one gentleman remarked, that he
considered it disgraceful for any man to take
money for the dishonour of his wife or his daugh- '
ter. "With us," he said, " there is but one mode
of dealing known. The man who dares tamper
with the honour of a white woman, knows what
he has to expect. We shoot him down like a
dog, and no jury in the South will ever find any
man guilty of murder for punishing such a scoun
drel." An argument which can scarcely be al
luded to was used by them, to show that these
offences in slave States had not the excuse which
might be adduced to diminish their gravity when
they occurred in States where all the population
were white. Indeed, in this, as in some other
matters of a similar character, slavery is their
summum bonum of morality, physical excellence,
and social purity. I was inclined to question
the correctness of the standard which they had
set up, and to inquire whether the virtue which
needed this murderous use of the pistol and the
dagger to defend it, was not open to some doubt ;
but I found there was very little sympathy with
my views among the company.

The gentlemen at table asserted that the white
men in the slave States are physically superior
to the men of the free States ; and indulged in
curious theories in morals and physics to which
I \yas a stranger. Disbelief of anything a North-
rn 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 ihe wickedness of
the Federal Government in refusing to give the

32

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

assurance Sumtcr 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
Congress-men have been insulted by Southern
men without calling them out, and Mr. Sumner's
case was quoted as the type of the affairs of the
kind between the two sides.
. I happened to say that I always understood
Mr. Sumner had been attacked suddenly and un
expectedly, 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 de
meanor. In reference to some remark made
about the cavaliers and their connection with the
South, I reminded the gentlemen that, after all,
the descendants of the Puritans were not to be
despised in battle ; and that the best gentry in
England were worsted at last by the train-bands
of London, and the "rabbledom" of Cromwell's
Independents.

Mr., or Colonel Pickett, is a tall, good-looking
man, of pleasant manners, and well educated.
But this gentleman was a professed buccaneer,
a friend of Walker, the grey-eyed man of destiny
— his comrade in his most dangerous razzie. He
was a newspaper writer, a soldier, a filibuster ;
and he now threw himself into the cause of the
South with vehemence ; it was not difficult to
imagine he saw in that cause the realisation of
the dreams of empire in the south of the Gulf,
and of conquest in the islands of the sea, which
have such a fascinating influence over the imag
ination of a large portion of the American peo
ple. 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 na
tional 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 ex
ceedingly instructive ; one could understand from
the vehemence and force of the speakers the full
meaning of the phrase of "firing the Southern
heart," so often quoted as an illustration of the
peculiar force of political passion to be brought
to bear against the Republicans in the Secession
'contest. Mr. Forsyth struck me as being the
most astute, and perhaps most capable, of the
gentlemen whose mission to Washington seems
likely to be so abortive. His name is historical
in America — his father filled high office, and his
son has also exercised diplomatic function. Des
potisms and Republics of the American model
approach each other closely. In Turkey the
Pasha unemployed sinks into insignificance, and
the son of the Pasha deceased is literally nobody.
Mr. Forsyth was not selected as Southern Com

missioner on account of the political status ac
quired by his father ; but the position gained by
his own ablility, as editor of "The Mobile Reg
ister," induced the Confederate authorities to se
lect him for the post. It is quite possible to have
made a mistake in such matters, but I am almost
certain that the coloured waiters who attended
us at table looked as sour and discontented as
could be, and seemed to give their service with a
sort of protest. I am told that the tradespeople
of Washington are strongly inclined to favour
the Southern side.

April 6th. — To-day I paid a second visit to
General Scott, who received me very kindly, and
made many inquiries respecting the events in the
Crimea and the Indian mutiny and rebellion.
He professed to have no apprehension for the
safety of the capital; but in reality there are
only some 700 or 800 regulars to protect it and
the Navy Yard, and two field - batteries, com
manded 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 definitely refused to hold any
intercourse whatever with the Southern Commis
sioners, and they will retire almost immediately
from the capital. As matters look very threat
ening, I must go South and see wilh my own
eyes how affairs stand there, before the two sec
tions 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 him
self! The Southern men come up to the North
ern 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 nev
er be considered as a free country till a man can
speak as freely in Charleston as he can in New
York or Boston.

I dined with Mr. Riggs, the banker, who had
an agreeable party to meet me. Mr. Corcoran,
his former partner, who was present, erected at
his own cost, and presented to the city, a fine
building, to be used as an art gallery and muse
um ; but as yet the arts which are to be found
in Washington are political and feminine only.
Mr. Corcoran has a private gallery of pictures,
and a collection, in which is the much-praised
Greek Slave of Hiram Powers. The gentry of
Columbia are thoroughly Virginian in sentiment,
and look rather south than north of the Potomac
for political results. The President, I hear this
evening, is alarmed lest Virginia should become
hostile, and his policy, if he has any, is tempor
ising and timid. It is perfectly wonderful to
hear people using the word " Government" at
all, as applied to the President and his cabinet —
a body which has no power "according to the
Constitution" to save the country governed or it
self from destruction. In fact, from the circum
stances 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 possi
ble amount of constriction on the internal rela
tions of the different States.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

In the hotel the roar of office-seekers is un
abated. Train after train adds to their numbers.
They cumber the passages. The hall is crowd
ed to such a degree that suffocation might de
scribe the degree to which the pressure readies,
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 — Rumourg as to the Southerners — Visit to
the Smithsonian Institute — Pythons — Evening at Mr.
Seward' s — Rough draft of official dispatch to Lord J.
Russell— Estimate of its effect in Europe— The attitude
of Virginia.

April 7th. — Raining all day, cold and wet. I
am tired and weary of this perpetual jabber about
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 peo
ple 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
ilorid accounts of their prospects, and making
continual attacks on Mr. Lincoln and his Gov
ernment; but the majority of the New York pa
pers are inclined to resist Secession and aid the
Government. I dined with Lord Lyons in the
evening, and met Mr. Sumner, Mr. Blackwell,
the manager of the Grand Trunk Railway of
Canada, his wife, and the members of the Lega
tion. After dinner I visited M. de Stoeckl, the
Russian Minister, and M. Tassara, the Minister
of Spain, who had small receptions. There were
few Americans present. As a rule, the diplo
matic circle, which has, by-the-by, no particular
centre, radii, or circumference, keeps its mem
bers pretty much within itself. The great peo
ple here are mostly the representatives of the
South American powers, who are on more inti
mate relations with the native families in Wash
ington than are the transatlantic ministers.

April 8th. — How it does rain! Last night
there were torrents of water in the streets liter
ally a foot deep. It still runs in muddy whirl
ing streams through the channels, and the rain
is falling incessantly from a dull leaden sky.
The air is warm and clammy. There are all
kind of rumours abroad, and the barbers' shops
shook with "shaves" this morning. Sumter, of
course, was the main topic. Some reported that
the President had promised the Southern Com
missioners, through their friend Mr. Campbell,
Judge of the Supreme Court, not to use force in
respect to Pickens or Sumter. I wrote to Mr.
Seward, to ask him if he could enable me to
make any definite statement on these important
matters. The Southerners are alarmed at the
accounts- they have received of great activity and
preparations in the Brooklyn and Boston navy
yards, and declare that " treachery" is meant.
I find myself quite incapable of comprehending
their position. How can the United States Gov
ernment be guilty of "treachery" towards sub
jects 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 ?
C

As soon as I had finished my letters, I drove
over to the Smithsonian Institute, and was most
kindly received by Professor Henry, who took
me through the library and museum, and intro
duced me to Professor Baird, who is great in
natural history, and more particularly in orni
thology. I promised the professors some skins of
Himalayan pheasants, as an addition to the col
lection. 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 pro
duce the quivering hissing noise. I was much
interested by Professor Henry's remarks on the
large map of the continent of North America in
his study : he pointed out the climatic conditions
which determined the use, profits, and necessity
of slave labour, and argued that the vast increase
of population anticipated in the valley of the Mis
sissippi, and the prophecies of imperial greatness
attached to it, were fallacious. He seems to be
of opinion that most of the good land of Ameri
ca 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 to 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 east
ern slope of the chain and the Mississippi, as
well as the district west of Minnesota, to be per
fectly dry and uninhabitable ; and, as far as we
know, it is as worthless as a moor, except for the
pasturage of wild cattle and the like.

On returning to my hotel, I found a note from
Mr. Seward, asking me to visit him at nine
o'clock. On going to his house, I was shown to
the drawing-room, and found there only the Sec
retary of State, his son, and Mrs. Seward. I
made & parti carrefor a friendly rubber of whist,
and Mr. Seward, who was my partner, talked as
he played, so that the score of the game was not
favourable. But his talk was very interesting.
"All the preparations of which you hear mean
this only. The Government, finding the prop
erty of the State and Federal forts neglected and
left without protection, are determined to take
steps to relieve them from that neglect, and to
protect them. But we are determined in doing
so to make no aggression. The President's in
augural clearly shadows out our policy. We
will not go beyond it — we have no intention of
doing so — nor will we withdraw from it." After
a time Mr. Seward put down his cards, and told
his son to go for a portfolio which he would find
in a drawer of his table. Mrs. Seward lighted
the drop light of the gas, and on her husband's
return with the paper left the room. The Sec
retary then lit his cigar, gave one to me, and pro
ceeded to read slowly and with marked empha
sis, a very long, strong, and able dispatch, which
he told me was to be read by Mr. Adams, the
American minister in London, to Lord John Rus-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

sell. It struck me that the tone of the paper
was hostile, that there was an undercurrent of
menace through it, and that it contained insinu
ations 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 dispatch 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 Ameri
can statesman, had a right to make but a sec
ondary consideration. By affecting to regard
Secession as a mere political heresy which can
be easily confuted, and by forbidding foreign
countries alluding to it, Mr. Seward thinks he
can establish the supremacy of his own Govern
ment, 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 avail
able for re-fusing the broken union into a mass
once more. However, the Secretary is quite con
fident in what he calls "re-action." "When the
Southern States," he says, "see that we mean
them no wrong — that we intend no violence to
persons, rights, or things — that the Federal Gov
ernment 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 antici
pates this process will at once begin, and that
Secession will all be done and over in three
months — at least, so he says. It was after mid
night ere our conversation was over, much of
which of course I cannot mention in these pages.

April 9th. — A storm of rain, thunder, and
lightning. The streets are converted into water
courses. From the country we hear of bridges
washed away by inundations, and roads render
ed impassable. Accounts from the South are
gloomy, but the turla 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-fight
ing friend of the battered nose has been reward
ed for his exertions at last. He has been stand
ing drinks all round till he is not able to stand
himself, and he has expressed his determination
never to forget all the people in the passage. I
dined at the Legation in the evening, where there
was a small party, and returned to the hotel in
torrents of rain.

CHAPTER IX.

Dinner at General Scott's— Anecdotes of General Scott's
early life— The startling dispatch— 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 received a characteristic
note from General Scott, asking me to dine with
him to-morrow, and apologising for the short
ness of his invitation, which arose from his only
having just heard that I was about to leave so
soon for the South. The General is much ad
mired 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 high
est standard. He likes to display his reading,
and is troubled with a desire to indulge in fine
writing. Some time ago he wrote a long letter
to the "National Intelligencer," in which he
quoted Shakspeare and Paley to prove that Pres
ident Buchanan ought to have garrisoned the
forts at Charleston and Fensacola, as he advised
him to do ; and he has been the victim of poetic
aspirations. The General's dinner hour was
early; and when I arrived at his modest lodg
ings, which, however, were in the house of a fa
mous French cook, I found a troop of mounted
volunteers of the district parading up and down
the street. They were not bad of their class, and
the horses, though light, were active, hardy, and
spirited ; but the men put on their uniforms bad
ly, wore long hair, their coats and buttons and
boots were unbrushed, and the horses' coats and
accoutrements bore evidence of neglect. The
General, who wore an undress blue frock-coat,
with eagle-covered brass buttons, and velvet col
lar and cuffs, was with Mr. Seward and Mr.
Bates, the Attorney-General, and received me
very courteously. He was interrupted by cheer
ing from the soldiers in the street, and by clam
ours for "General Scott." He moves with dif
ficulty, owing to a fall from his horse, and from
the pressure of increasing years ; and he evident
ly would not have gone out if he could have
avoided it. But there is no privacy for public
men in America.

Out the General went to them, and addressed
a few words to his audience in the usual style
about " rallying round," and " dying gloriously,"
and "old flag of our country," and all that kind
of thing ; after which, the band struck up " Yan
kee Doodle." Mr. Seward called out " General,
make them play the 'Star-Spangled Banner,'
and 'Hail Columbia.''" And so I was treated
to the strains of the old bacchanalian chant,
"When Bibo," &c., which the Americans have
impressed to do duty as a national air. Then
came an attempt to play " God save the Queen,"
which I duly appreciated as a compliment ; and
then followed dinner, which did credit to the
cook, and wine, which was most excellent, from
France, Spain, and Madeira. The only addi
tion to our party was Major Cullum, aide-de
camp to General Scott, an United States' en
gineer, educated at West Point. The General
underwent a little badinage about the phrase " a
hasty plate of soup," which he used in one of his
despatches during the Mexican War, and he ap
pealed to me to decide whether it was so erro
neous or ridiculous as Mr. Seward insisted. I
said I was not a judge, but certainly similar lib
eral usage of a well-known figure of prosody
might be found to justify the phrase. The only
attendants at table were the General's English
valet and a coloured servant ; and the table ap
paratus 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.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

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 Bat
tle 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 men were engaged. The Gen
eral made the most of his side: "We had, sir,
twenty-one hundred and seventy-five men in
the field." He told us how, when the British
men-of-war provoked general indignation in
Virginia by searching American vessels for de
serters in the Chesapeake, the State of Virginia
organised a volunteer force to guard the shores,
and, above all things, to prevent the country peo
ple sending down supplies to the vessels, in pur
suance of the orders of the Legislature and Gov
ernor. Young Scott, then reading for the bar,
became corporal of a troop of these patrols. One
night, as they were on duty by the banks of the
Potomac, they heard a boat with muffled oars
coming rapidly down the river, and soon saw her
approaching quite close to the shore under cover
of the trees. When she was abreast of the troop
ers, 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 w.as
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 sup
plies, and took possession of it ; and I believe it
is the first instance of a man-of-war's boat being
captured by cavalry. The Legislature of Vir
ginia, however, did not approve of the capture,
and the officer was given up accordingly.

"Many years afterwards, when I visited Eu
rope, I happened to be dining at the hospitable
mansion of Lord Holland, and observed during
the banquet that a gentleman at table was scru
tinising 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 Scot.' 'That
Corporal Scott, sir, and the individual who ad
dresses you, are identical one with the other.'
The officer whose acquaintance I thus so auspi
ciously renewed, was Captain Fox, a relation of
Lord Holland, and a post-captain in the British
navy. "

Whilst he was speaking, a telegraphic dispatch
was brought in, which the General perused with
evident uneasiness. He apologised to me for
'reading it by saying the dispatch was from the
President on Cabinet business, and then handed i

it across the table to Mr. Seward. The Secretary
read it, and became a little agitated, and raised
I his eyes inquiringly to the General's face, who
I only shook his head. Then the paper was given
I 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
i put it there, General, " interposed Mr. Seward;
"it will be getting lost, or into some other hands."
And so the General seemed to think, for he im
mediately threw it into the fire, before which
certain bottles of claret were gently mellowing.
The communication was evidently of a very un
pleasant character. In order to give the Minis-
| ters opportunity for a conference, I asked Major
j Cullum to accompany me into the garden, and
j lighted a cigar. As I was walking about in the
| twilight, I observed two figures at the end of the
little enclosure, standing as if in concealment
close to the wall. Major Cullum said " The men
you see are sentries I have thought it expedient
to place there for the protection of the General.
.The villains might assassinate him, and would
do it in a moment if they could. He would not
hear of a guard, nor anything of the sort, so,
without his knowing it, I have sentries posted all
round the house all night." This was a curious
state of things for the commander of the Ameri
can army, in the midst of a crowded city, the
capital of the free and enlightened Republic, to
be placed in ! On our return to the sitting-room,
the conversation was continued some hour or so
longer. I retired with Mr. Seward in his car
riage. As we were going up Pennsylvania Ave
nue — 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 despe
rado, had assembled 500 men at Richmond for
some daring enterprise : some said to carry off
the President, cabinet, and all. He replied that,
although the capital was almost defenceless, it
must be remembered that the bold bad men who
were their enemies were equally unprepared for
active measures of aggression.

CHAPTER X.

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

April 12th. — This morning I received an in
timation that the Government had resolved on
taking decisive steps which would lead to a de
velopment of events in the South and test the
sincerity of Secession. The Confederate general
at Charleston, Beauregard, has sent to the Fed
eral officer in command at Sumter, Major Ander
son, to say, that all communication between his
garrison and the city must cease ; and, at the
same time, or probably before it, the Government
at Washington informed the Confederate authori
ties that they intended to forward supplies to Ma
jor 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

36

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

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. t

I resolved therefore to start for the Southern
States to-day, proceeding by Baltimore to Norfolk
instead of going by Richmond, which was cut off
by the floods. Before leaving, I visited Lord
Lyons, Mr. Seward, the French and Russian Min
isters ; left cards on the President, Mrs. Lincoln,
General Scott, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Sumner, and
others. There was no appearance of any excite
ment in Washington, but Lord Lyons mentioned,
as an unusual circumstance, that he had received
no telegraphic communication from Mr. Bunch,
the British Consul at Charleston. Some ladies
said to me that when I came back I would find
some nice people at Washington, and that the
rail-splitter, his wife, the Sewards, and all the rest
of them, would be driven to the place where they
ought to be: " Varina Davis is a lady, at all
events, not like the other. We can't put up with
such people as these!" A naval officer whom I
met, told me, " if the Government are really gor
ing to try force at Charleston, you'll see they'll be
beaten, and we'll have a war between the gentle
men and the Yankee rowdies ; if they attempt
violence, you know how that will end." The Gov
ernment 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,manyof them disappointed place-
hunters, and much discussion took place respect
ing 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, see
ing I was a stranger, asked me two dollars, or
8s. 4d., to drive to the Eutaw House, a quarter
of a mile distant ; but I was not surprised, as I
had paid three-and-a-half and four dollars to go
to dinner and return to the 'hotel in Washing
ton. On my arrival, the landlord, no less a
person than a major or colonel, took me aside,
and asked me if I had heard the news. "No,
what is it ?" " The President of the Telegraph
Company tells me he has received a message
from his clerk at Charleston that the batteries
have opened fire on Sumter because the Gov
ernment has sent down a fleet to force in sup
plies." 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 au
thenticity of the rumour. There was nothing
surprising in the fact that the Charleston people
had resented any attempt to reinforce the forts,
as I was aware, from the language of the South
ern Commissioners, that they would resist any

such attempt to the last, and make it a casus
and causa belli.

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

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

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

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

At the black barber's I was meekly interro
gated by my attendant as to my belief in the
story of the bombardment. He was astonished
to find a stranger could think the event was
probable. "De gen'lmen of Baltimore will be
quite glad ov it. But maybe it'l corns bad after
all." I discovered my barber had strong ideas
that the days of slavery were drawing to an end.
"And what will take place then, do you think?"
' ' Wall, sare, 'spose coloured men will be good
as white men." That is it. They do not un
derstand what a vast gulf flows between them
and the equality of position with the white race
which most of those who have aspirations im
agine 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

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

37

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 pur-
poses.

Baltimore looks more ancient and respectable
than the towns I have passed through, and the
site on which it stands is undulating, so that the
houses have not that flatness and uniformity of
height which make the streets of New York and
Philadelphia resemble those of a toy city mag
nified. 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 col
umn 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 discre
tion, after a visit to the Maryland Club, of which
I was made an honorary member. At dark I
started for Norfolk, in the steamer " Georgi-
anna."

CHAPTER XL

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

Sunday, April 14. — A night of disturbed sleep,
owing to the ponderous thumping of the walking
beam close to my head, the whizzing of steam,
and the roaring of the steam-trumpet to warn
vessels out of the way — musquitoes, too, had a
good deal to say to me in spite of my dirty gauze
curtains. Soon after dawn the vessel ran along
side the jetty at Fortress Monroe, and I saw in
distinctly 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 deso
late. It has a fine bastioned profile, with moat
and armed lunettes — the casemates were bricked
up or occupied by glass windows, and all the
guns I could make out were on the parapets.
A few soldiers were lounging on the jetty, and
after we had discharged a tipsy old officer, a few
negroes, and some parcels, the steam-pipe brayed
— it does not whistle — again, and we proceeded
across the mouth of the channel and James'
River towards Elizabeth River, on which stand
Portsmouth and Gosport.

Just as I was dressing, the door opened, and a
tall, neatly dressed negress came in and asked
me for my ticket. She told me she was ticket-
collector for the boat, and that she was a slave.
The latter intelligence was given without any re
luctance or hesitation. On my way to the upper
deck I observed the bar was crowded by gentle
men engaged in consuming, or waiting for, cock
tails 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 Ameri
cans are ! I was asked to take as many as would
have rendered me incapable of drinking again ;
my excuse on the plea of inability to grapple

with cocktails and the like before breakfast, was
heard with surprise, and I was urgently entreat
ed 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 light
houses, hard set to preserve their equilibrium in
the muddy waters, and bent at various angles,
marked the narrow channels to the towns and
hamlets on the banks, the principal trade and
occupation of which are oyster selling and oyster
eating. We are sailing over wondrous deposits
and submarine crops of the much-loved bivalve.
Wooden houses painted white appear on the
shores, and one large building with wings and a
central portico surmounted by a belvedere, des
tined for the reception of the United States'
sailors in sickness, is a striking object in the
landscap^e.

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

Whilst we were waiting for the steam ferry
boat, which plies to Norfolk at the other side of
the creek, to take us over, a man-of-war-boat
pulled alongside, and the coxswain, a handsome,
fine-looking sailor, came on deck, and, as I hap
pened 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, ex
cept how many dollars they come to," and start
ed off to prosecute his inquiries among the other
passengers. The boat alongside was clean, and
was manned by six as stout fellows as ever han-

38

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

died an oar. Two I made sure of were English
men, and when the coxswain was retiring from
his fruitless search, I asked him where he hailed
from. "The Cove of Cork. I was in the navy
nine years, but when I got on the West Ingy
Station, I heerd how Uncle Sam treated his fel
lows, and so I joined him." "Cut and run, I
suppose?" "Well, not exactly. I got away,
sir. Emigrated, you know!" "Are there any
other Irishmen or Englishmen on board ?" "I
should think there was. That man in the bow
there is a mate of mine, from the sweet Cove of
Cork, Driscoll by name ; and there's a Belfast
man pulls number two ; and the stroke, and the
chap that pulls next to him is Englishmen, and
fine sailors they are, Bates and Rookey. They
were in men-of-war too." "What ! five out of
seven, British subjects !" " Oh, aye, that is — we
onst was — most of us now are 'Mericans, I think.
There's plenty more of us aboard the ship."

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

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

The people, I observe, are of a new and
marked type, — very tall, loosely yet powerfully
made, with dark complexions, "strongly-marked
features, prominent noses, large angular mouths
in square jaws, deep-seated bright eyes, low, nar

row foreheads, — and are all of them much given
to ruminate tobacco. The bells of the churches
were tolling, and I turned into one ; but the
heat, great enough outside, soon became nearly
intolerable ; nor was it rendered more' bearable
by my proximity to some blacks, who were, I
presume, servants or slaves of the great people
in the forward pews. The clergyman or minis
ter 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 influ
ence extended itself gradually, and all the men
near the doors were leaving rapidly. The min
ister, obviously interested, continued to read,
raising his eyes towards the door. At last the
persons near him rose up and walked boldly
forth, and 1 at length followed the example, and
getting into the street, saw men running towards
the hotel. "What is it?" exclaimed I to one.
"Come along, the telegraph's in at the Day
Book. The Yankees are whipped !" and so con
tinued. I came at last to a crowd of men, strug
gling, with their faces toward the wall of a shab-
bv house, increased by fresh arrivals, and dimin
ished by those who, having satisfied their curios
ity, came elbowing forth in a state of much ex
citement, exultation, and perspiration. "It's
all right enough!" "Didn't I tell you so?"
" Bully for Beauregard and the Palmetto State ?"
I shoved on, and read at last the programme of
the cannonade and bombardment, and of the ef
fects 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 gratifica
tion. Kow I confess I could not share in the
excitement at all. The act seemed to me the
prelude to certain war.

I walked up the main street, and turned up
some of the alleys to have a look at the town,
coming out on patches of water and bridges over
the creeks, or sandy lanes shaded by trees, and
lined here and there by pretty wooden villas,
painted in bright colours. Everywhere negroes,
male and female, gaudily dressed or in rags ;
the door-steps of the narrow lanes swarming
with infant niggerdom — big-stomached, curve-
legged, rugged-headed, and happy — tumbling
about dim-eyed toothless hags, or thick-lipped
mothers. Not a word were they talking about
Sumter. "Any news to-day?" said I to a re
spectable-looking negro in a blue coat and brass
buttons, wonderful hat, and vest of amber silk,
check trowsers, and very broken-down shoes.
"Well, sare, I tink nothin' much occur. Der
hem a fire at Squire Nichol's house last night;
Icastway 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 Wash
ington, Baltimore, and Richmond. Some brigs
and large vessels lay alongside the wharves and
large warehouses higher up the creek. Observ
ing a small group at the end of the pier I walk
ed on, and found that they consisted of fifteen or

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

twenty well-dressed mechanical kind of men,
Busily engaged in " chaffing, " as Cockneys would
call it, the crew of the man-of-war boat I had
seen in the morning. The sailors were stretched
on the thwarts, some rather amused, others sul
len at the ordeal. "You better just pull down
that cussed old rag of yours, and bring your old
ship over to the Southern Confederacy. I guess
we can take your ' Cumberland' whenever we
like ! Why don't you go, and touch off your
guns at Charleston?" Presently the coxswain
came down with a parcel under his arm, and
stepped into the boat. "Give way, my lads;"
and the oars dipped in the water. When the
boat had gone a few yards from the shore, the
crowd cried out : " Down with the Yankees !
Hurrah for the Southern Confederacy !" and
some among them threw oyster-shells at the
boat, one of which struck the coxswain on the
head. "Backwater! Back water all. Hard!"
he shouted ; and as the boat's stern neared the
land, he stood up and made a leap in among the

crowd like a tiger. " You cowardly d d set.

Who threw the shells ?" No one answered at
first, but a little wizened man at last squeaked
out : "I guess you'll have shells of another kind
if you remain here much longer." The sailor
howled with rage: "Why, you poor devils, I'd
whip any half dozen of you, — teeth, knives, and
all — in five minutes ; and my boys there in the
boat would clear your whole town. What do
you mean by barking at the Stars and Stripes ?
Do you see that ship?" he shouted, pointing to
wards 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 coining on?" The in
vitation 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. "In spite of his
blowing, I tell ycr," said one of them, "there's
some good men from old Virginny abo'rd o' that
ship that will never fire a shot agin us." " Oh,
we'll fix her right enough, " remarked another,
"when the time comes." I returned to my
room, sat down, and wrote for some hours. The
dinner in the Atlantic Hotel was of a description
to make one wish the desire for food had never
been invented. My neighbour said he was not
" quite content about this Sumter business.
There's nary one killed nor' wounded."

Sunday is a very dull day in Norfolk — no
mails, no post, no steamers ; and, at the best,
Norfolk must be dull exceedingly. The super
intendent of the Seaboard and Roanoke Railway,
having heard that I was about proceeding to
Charleston, called upon me to offer every facili
ty in his power. Sent Moses with letters to post-
office. At night the musquitoes were very ag
gressive 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 Dismal Swamp — American newspapers — Cattle
on the line — Negro labour — On through the Pine Forest
— The Confederate flag— Goldshorough ; popular excite
ment — Weldon — Wilmington— The Vigilance Commit
tee.

Monday, April 15. — Up at dawn. Crossed by

ferry to Portsmouth, and arrived at railway sta
tion, which was at no place in particular, in a
street down which the rails were laid. Mr. Rob
inson, the superintendent, gave me permission to
take a seat in the engine car, to which I mount
ed 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 en
gine with the tender, and projecting so as to in
clude the end of the boiler and the stoke-hole.
They protect the engineer from rain, storm, sun,
or dust. Windows at each side afford a clear
view in all directions, and the engineer can step
out on the engine itself by the doors on the front
part of the shed. There is just room for four
persons to sit uncomfortably, the persons next
the boiler being continually in dread of roasting
their legs at the furnace, and those next the ten
der being in danger of getting logs of wood from
it shaken down on their feet. Nevertheless I
rarely enjoyed anything more than that trip. It
is true one's enjoyment was marred by want of
breakfast, for I could not manage the cake of
dough and the cup of bitter, sour, greasy nasti-
ness, 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 threaten
ing death to the early pigs, cocks, hens, and ne
groes and dogs which walked between the rails
— the latter, by-the-bye, were always the first to
leave — the negroes generally divided with the
pigs the honour of making the nearest stand to
the train — nor do I speak of the miserable sub
urbs 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, throw
ing out a most luxuriant vegetation. The tres
tle-work over which the train was hung, judged
by the eye, was of the slightest possible construc
tion. 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 sur
face 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

40

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

by flood or the forgotten spoils of the lumberer.
On these lay tortoises, turtles, and enormous
frogs, which lifted their heads with a lazy curi
osity 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 re
ply to my question ; ' ' but I don't take much ac
count of them."

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

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

So we rattle on, till the scene, at first so at
tractive, becomes dreary and monotonous, and I
tire of looking out for larger turtles or more al
ligators. The silence of these woods is oppress
ive. There is no sign of life where the train
passes through the water, except among the am
phibious 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 en
gineer opens the valve ; the sonorous roar of the
engine echoes through the woods, and now and
then there is a little excitement caused by a race
between a pig and the engine, and a piggy is oc
casionally whipped off his legs by the cow-lifter,

and hoisted volatile into the ditch at one side.
When a herd of cattle, however, get on the line
and show fight, the matter is serious. The steam
horn is sounded, the bell rung, and steam is eased
off, and every means used to escape collision ; for
the railway company is obliged to pay the owner
for whatever animals the trains kill, and a cow's
body on one of these poor rails is an impediment
sufficient to throw the engine off, and "send us
to immortal smash."

It was long before we saw any workmen or
guards on the line ; but at one place I got out
to look at a shanty of one of the road watchmen.
It was a building of logs, some 20ft. long by
12ft. broad, made in the rudest manner, with an
earthen roof, and mud stuffed and plastered be
tween the logs to keep out the rain. Although
the day was exceedingly hot, there were two
logs blazing on the hearth, over which was sus
pended a pot of potatoes. The air inside was
stifling, and the black beams of the roof glisten
ed with a clammy sweat from smoke and un
wholesome vapours. There was not an article
of furniture, except a big deal chest and a small
stool, in the place ; a mug and a teacup stood on
i rude shelf nailed to the wall. The owner of
this establishment, a stout negro, was busily en
gaged with others in "wooding up" the engine
from the pile of cut timber by the roadside.
The necessity of stopping caused by the rapid
consumption is one of the desagrenicns of wood
fuel. The wood is cut down and .stacked on
platforms, at certain intervals along the line ;
and the quantity used is checked off against the
company at the rate of so much per cord. The
negro was one of many slaves let out to the com
pany. White men would not do the work, or
were too expensive ; but the overseers and gangs
men 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 la-

By degrees we got beyond the swamps, and
came upon patches of cleared land — that is, the
forest had been cut down, and the only traces
left of it were the stumps, some four or five feet
high, "snagging" up above the ground; or the
trees had been girdled round, so as to kill them,
and the black trunks and stiff arms gave an air
of meagre melancholy and desertion to the place,
which was quite opposite to their real condition.
Here it was that the normal forest and swamp
had been subjugated by man. Presently we
came in sight of a flag fluttering from a lofty
pine, which had been stripped of its branches,
throwing broad bars of red and white to the air,
with a blue square in the upper quarter contain
ing seven stars. "That's our flag," said the
engineer, who was a quiet man, much given to
turning steam cocks, examining gauges, wiping
his hands in fluffy impromptu handkerchiefs,
and smoking tobacco — "That's our flag! And
long may it wave — o'er the land of the free and
the home of the ber-rave !" As we passed, a
small crowd of men, women, and children, of all
colours, in front of a group of poor broken-down
shanties or log huts, cheered— to speak more cor-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

4i

rectly — whooped and yelled vehemently. The
cry was returned by the passengers in the train.
" We're all right sort hereabouts," said the engi
neer. "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 no
ticed bare-footed people. N

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

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

The stations along the roadside now gradual
ly grew in proportion, and instead of a small
sentry-box beside a wood-pile, there were three
or four wooden houses, a platform, a booking of
fice, an "exchange" or drinking room, and gen
eral 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, respect
able-looking men and women emerge out of the
"dismal swamp," and out of the depths of the
forest, with silk parasols and crinoline, bandbox
es and portmanteaux, in the most civilised style.
There were always some negroes, male and fe
male, in attendance on the voyagers, handling
the baggage or the babies, and looking comfort
able enough, but not happy. The only evidence
of the good spirits and happiness of these people
which I saw was on the part of a number of men
who were going off from the plantation for the
fishing on the coast. They and their wives and
sisters, arrayed in their best— which means their
brightest, colours — were grinning from ear to
ear as they bade good-bye. The negro likes the
mild excitement of sea fishing, and in pursuit of
it he feels for the moment free.

At Goldsborough, which is the first place of
importance on the line, the Avave 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 kigd 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 unpro
tected and undefended. The enthusiasm of the
" citizens" was unbounded, nor was it quite free
from a taint of alcohol. Many of the Volunteers
had flint firelocks, only a few had rifles. All
kinds of head-dress were visible, and caps, belts
nd pouches of infinite variety. A man in a
large wide-aAvake, with a cock's feather in it, a
blue frockcoat, with a red sash and a pair of cot
ton trowsers thrust into his boots, came out of
Griswold's hotel with a sword under his arm,
and an article, which might have been a napkin
of long, service, in one hand. He waved the ar
ticle enthusiastically, swaying to and fro on his
legs, and ejaculating " H'ra for Jeff Dav's — H'ra
for S'thern E'r'rights!" and tottered over to the
carriage through the crowd amid the violent vi- •
bration of all the ladies' handkerchiefs in the
balcony. Just as he got into the train, a man
in uniform dashed after him, and caught him by
the elbow, exclaiming, " Them's not the cars,
General! The cars this AV ay, General !" The
military dignitary, hoAvever, felt that if he per-,
mitted such liberties in the hour of victory he
Avas degraded for ever, so, screAving up his lips
and looking grave and grand, he proceeded as

folloAvs : "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 Avhere I please — to NCAV York,
sir, or NBAV Orleans, sir ! And sir, I'll ar
rest you." This famous idea distracted the Gen
eral's attention from his project of entering the
train, and muttering, "I'll arrest you," he tack
ed backwards and forwards to the hotel again.

As the train started on its journey, there was
reneAved yelling, Avhich 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, \vere slaves
— "Avorth a thousand dollars each." I am not
favourably impressed by either the food or the
mode of living, or the manners of the company.
One man made very coarse jokes about "Abe j
Lincoln" and "negro wenches," which nothing j
but extreme party passion and bad taste could !
tolerate. Several of the passengers had been"
clerks in GoArernment offices at Washington, and
had been dismissed because they would not take
the oath of allegiance. They Avere hurrying off
full of zeal and patriotism to tender their serv
ices to the Montgomery Government.

*****

I had been the object of many attentions and
civilities from gentlemen in the train during my

42

MY DIARY NOKTH AND SOUTH.

journey. One of them, who told me he was a
municipal dignitary of Weldon, having ^xhaust-
ed all the inducements that he could think of to
induce me to spend some time there, at last, in
desperation, said he would be happy to show me
" the antiquities of the place." Weldon is a re
cent 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 neigh
bour 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 disa
greeable extent when it is held to mean that any
man who comes to an inn has a right to share
your bed. I asked for a room, but I was told
that there were so many people moving about
just now that it was not possible to give me one
to myself; but at last I made a bargain for ex
clusive possession. When the next train came
in, however, the woman very coolly inquired
whether I had any objection to allow a passen
ger to divide my bed, and seemed very much dis
pleased 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, Avho had gone with my
letter to the post, returned, after a long absence,
pale and agitated. He said he had been pounced
upon by the Vigilance Committee, who were
rather drunk, and very inquisitive. They were
haunting the precincts of the Post-office and
the railway station, to detect Lincolnites and
Abolitionists, and were obliged to keep them
selves wide awake by frequent visits to the ad
jacent bars, and he had with difficulty dissuaded
them from paying me a visit. They cross-ex
amined him respecting my opinion of secession,
and desired to have an audience with me in or
der to give me any information which might be
required. I cannot say what reply was given
to their questioning ; but I certainly refused to
have any interview with the Vigilance Commit
tee 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 plat
form of the railway station outside. Trains
coming in and going out shook the room and
the bed on which I lay, and engines snorted,
puffed, roared, whistled, and rang bells close to
my keyhole.

CHAPTER XIII.

Sketches round Wilmington— Public opinion— Approach
to Charleston and Fort Sumter— Introduction to Gen
eral Beauregard — Ex-Governor Manning — Conversa
tion on the chances of the war — u King Cotton" and
England — Visit to Fort Sumter — Market - place at
Charleston.

EARLY next morning, soon after dawn, I
crossed the Cape Fear River, on which Wil
mington is situated, by a steam ferry-boat. On

the quay lay quantities of shot and shell. ' ' How-
came these here?" I inquired. "They're anti-
abolition pills," said my neighbour; "they've
been waiting here for two months back. 'but
now that Sumter's taken, I guess they won't be
wanted." To my mind, the conclusion was by
no means legitimate. From the small glance I
had of Wilmington, with its fleet of schooners
and brigs crowding the broad and rapid river, I
should think it was a thriving place. Confed
erate flags waved over the public buildings, and
I was informed that the Forts had been seized
without opposition or difficulty. I can see i.o
sign here of the " affection to the Union," which,
according to Mr. Reward, underlies all "seces
sion proclivities."

As we traversed the flat and uninteresting
country, through which the rail passes, Confed
erate flags and sentiments greeted us every
where; men and women repeated the national
,cry ; at every station militia men and volun
teers were waiting for the train, and the ever
lasting word " Sumter'' ran through all the con
versation 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 mus
cular animals, not remarkable for size, but
strong-looking and active. Some farmers in
bluejackets, and yellow braid and facings, hand
ed round their swords to be admired by the com
pany. A few blades had flashed in obscure
Mexican skirmishes — one, however, had been
borne against "the Britishers." I inquired of
a fine, tall, fair-haired young fellow whom they
expected to fight. "That's more than I can
tell," quoth he. "The Yankees ain't such
cussed fo'ols as to think they can come here and
whip us, let alone the British." "Why, what
have the British got to do with it?" "They
are bound to take our part : if they don't, we'll
just give them a hint about cotton, and that will
set matters right." This was said very much
with the air of a man who knows what he is
talking about, and who was quite satisfied "he
had you there." I found it was still displeasing
to most people, particularly one or two of the
fair sex, that more Yankees were not killed at
Sumter. All the people who addressed me pre
fixed my name, which they soon found out, by
"Major" or "Colonel" — "Captain" is very
low, almost indicative of contempt. The con
ductor who took our tickets was called ' ' Cap
tain."

At the Peedee river the rail is carried over
marsh and stream on trestle work for two miles.
"This is the kind of country we'll catch the
Yankees in, if they come to invade us. They'll
have some pretty tall swimming, and get knock
ed 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 fron
tiers of South Carolina, our baggage was regu
larly examined at the Custom House, but I did
not see any one pay duties. As the train ap
proached the level and marshy land near Charles
ton, 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. Out-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

side the village-like suburbs of the city a regi
ment was marching for old Virginny amid the
cheers of the people — cavalry were picketed in
the fields and gardens— tents and men were vis
ible in the byways.

It was nearly dark when we reached the sta
tion. I was recommended to go to the Mills
House, and on arriving there found Mr. Ward,
whom I had already met in New York and
Washington, and who gave me an account of
the bombardment and surrender of the fort.
The hotel was full of notabilities. I was intro
duced to ex-Governor Manning, Senator Ches-
nut, Hon. Forcher Miles, on the staff of General
Beauregard, and to Colonel Lucas, aide-de-camp
to Governor Fickens. I was taken after dinner
and introduced to General Beauregard, who was
engaged, late as it was, in his room at the Head
Quarters writing despatches. The General is
a small, compact man, about thirty-six years of
age, with a quick and intelligent eye and ac
tion, 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 en
gineer officer, Major Whiting, whom he assigned
to lead me over the works next day.

After some general conversation I took my
leave ; but before I went, the General said,
"You shall go everywhere and see everything;
we rely on. your discretion, and knowledge of
what is fair in dealing with what you see. Of
course you don't expect to find regular soldiers
in our camps or very scientific works." I an
swered 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 contra
ry, I shall write an account of all I see to the
other side of the water, and if, when it comes
back, there are things you would rather not have
known, you must not blame me." He smiled,
and said, "I dare say we'll have great changes
by that time."

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

I own it was a little irritating to me to hear
men indulge in extravagant broad menace and
rhodomontade, such as came from their lips.
"They would welcome the world in arms with
hospitable hands to bloody graves." "They
never could be conquered." "Creation could
not do it," and so on. I was obliged to handle
the question quietly at first— to ask them "if
they admitted the French were a brave and war
like people?" "Yes, certainly." "Do you think
you could better defend yourselves against inva
sion than the people of France?" "Well, no;
but we'd make it a pretty hard business for the
Yankees." "^ Suppose the Yankees, as you call
them, come with such preponderance of men and
materiel, that they are three to your one, will you
not be forced to- submit ?rf "Never." "Then
either you are braver, better disciplined, more
warlike than the people and soldiers of France,
or you alone, of all the nations in the world,
possess the means of resisting physical laws

which prevail in war, as in other affairs of life."
"No. The Yankees are cowardly rascals. We
have proved it by kicking and cuffing them till
we are tired of it ; besides, we know John Bull
very well. He will make a great fuss about
non-interference at first, but when he begins to
want cotton he'll come oft' his perch. "^ 1 found \
this was the fixed idea everywhere. £The doc- J
trine of "cotton is king," — to us who have not/
much considered the question a grievous delu
sion or an unmeaning babble — to them is a live
ly all-powerful faith without distracting heresies
or schisms7 They have in it enunciated their
full belief, and indeed there is some truth in it,
in so far as we year after year, by the stimulants
of coal, capital, and machinery, have been work
ing up a manufacture on which four or five mil
lions of our population depend for bread and life,
which cannot be carried on without the assist
ance 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 tremen
dous absurdities in practice. The dependence
of such a large proportion of the English people
on this sole article of American cotton is fraught
with the utmost danger to our honour and to our
prosperity. Here were these Southern gentle
men 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 im
mense proportion of her people — a nation of
manufacturers — into pauperism, which must
leave them dependent on the national funds, or
more properly on the property and accumulated
capital of the district.

About 8.30 P.M., a deep bell began to toll.
"What is that?" "It's for all the coloured
people to clear out of the streets and go home.
The guards will arrest any who are found out
without passes in half an hour." There was
much noise in the streets, drums beating, men
cheering, and marching, and the hotel is cram
med full with soldiers.

April \lth. — The streets of Charleston present
some such aspect as those of Paris in the last revo
lution. Crowds of armed men singing and prom-
enading the streets. The battle-blood running
through their veins — that hot oxygen which is
called "the flush of victory" on the check; res
taurants full, revelling in bar-rooms, club-rooms
crowded, orgies and carousings in tavern or pri
vate house, in tap-room, from cabaret — down
narrow alleys, in the broad highway. Sumter
has set them distraught; never was such a vic
tory ; never such brave lads ; never such a fight.
There are pamphlets already full of the incident.
It is a bloodless Waterloo or Solferino.

After breakfast I went down to the quay, with
a party of the General's staff, to visit Fort Sum
ter. The senators and governors turned soldiers
wore blue military caps, with "palmetto" trees
embroidered thereon ; blue frockcoats, with up
right collars, and shoulder-straps edged with lace,
and marke 1 with two silver bars, to designate
their rank of captain ; gilt buttons, with the pal
metto in relief; blue trowsers, with a gold-lace
cord, and brass spurs — no straps. The day was
sweltering, but a strong breeze blew in the bar-

44

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

bour, and puffed the dust of Charleston, coating
our clothes, and filling our eyes with powder.
The streets were crowded with lanky lads, clank
ing 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
towards the quay, where the steamer was lying,
numerous traces of the unsettled state of men's
minds broke out in the hurried conversations of
the various friends who stopped to speak for a
few moments. "Well, governor, the old Union
is gone at last!" "Have you heard what Abe
is going to do?" "I don't think Beauregard
will have much more fighting for it. What do
you think ?" And so on. Our little Creole
friend, by the bye, is popular beyond description.
There are all kinds of doggerel rhymes in his
honour — one with a refrain —

"With cannon and musket, with shell and petard,
We salute the North with our Beau-regard" —

is much in favour.

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

CHAPTER XIV.

Southern volunteers— Unpopularity of the press— Charles
ton — Fort Sumter — Morris' Island — Anti-union enthu
siasm— Anecdote of Colonel Wigfall— Interior view of
the fort — North versus South.

THERE was a large crowd around the pier
staring at the men in uniform on the boat,
which was filled with bales of goods, commis
sariat 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," "Scorpions," "Palmetto
Eaglos," "Guards," of Pickens, Sumter, Marion,

and of various other denominations, painted on
the boxes. The original formation of these vol
unteers is in companies, and they know nothing
of battalions or regiments. The tendency in
volunteer outbursts is sometimes to gratify the
greatest vanity of the greatest number. These
companies do not muster more than fifty or six
ty strong. Some were " dandies," and "swells,"
and affected to look down on their neighbours
and comrades. Major Whiting told me there
was difficulty in getting them to obey orders at
first, as each man had an idea that he was as
good an engineer as any body else, "and a good
deal better, if it came to that." It was easy to
perceive it was the old story of volunteer and
regular in this little army.

As we got on deck, the major saw a number
of rough, long-haired-looking fellows in coarse
gray tunics, with pewter buttons and worsted
braid lying on the hay-bales smoking their ci
gars. "Gentlemen," quoth he, very courteous
ly, "you'll oblige me by not smoking over the
hay. There's powder below." "I don't be
lieve we're going to burn the hay this time, ker
nel," was the reply, "and anyway, we'll put it
out afore it reaches the 'bustibles," and they
went on smoking. The major grumbled, and
worse, and dreAv off.

Among the passengers were some brethren of
mine belonging to the New York and local pa
pers. I saw a short time afterward a descrip
tion of the trip by one of these gentlemen, in
which he described it as an affair got up special
ly for himself, probably in order to avenge him
self on his military persecutors, for he had com
plained to me the evening before that the chief
of General Beauregard's staff told him to go to

, when he applied to head-quarters for some

information. I found, from the tone and looks
of my friends, that these literary gentlemen were
received with great disfavour, and Major 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 un
fortunate 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
assassins. Whiting comforted himself by the re
flection 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 unquali
fied contradiction to most of the statements con
tained in "the full and accurate particulars of
the Bombardment and Fall of Fort Sumter," in
the said journal, which the person in question
listened to with becoming meekness and contri
tion. " 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, "aft-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

45

er compliments," as the Orientals say, I was gen
erally asked, in the first place, what I thought of
the capture of Sumter, and in the second, what
England would do when the news reached the
other side. Already the Carolinians regard the
Northern States as an alien and detested enemy,
and entertain, or profess, an immense affection
for Great Britain.

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

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

That much-talked-of fortress lay some two
miles ahead of us now, rising up out of the water
near the middle of the passage out to sea between
James' Island and Sullivan's Island. It struck
me at first as being like one of the smaller forts
off' Cronstadt, but a closer inspection very much
diminished its importance ; the material is brick,
not stone, and the size of the place is exaggera
ted by the low back ground, and by contrast with
the sea-line. Th 3 land contracts on both sides
opposite the fort, a projection of Morris' Island,
called "Cumming's Point," running out on the
left. There is a similar promontory from Sulli
van's" Island, on which is erected Fort Moultrie,
on the right from the sea entrance. Castle Pinck-
ney, 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 dul the mischief were the batteries of sand
on Morris' Island, at Cumming's Point, and Fort
Moultrie. The floating battery, covered with
railroad-iron, lay a long way off, and could not
have contributed much to the result.

As we approached Morris' Island, which is an
accumulation of sand covered with mounds of
the same material, on which there is a scanty veg
etation alternating with salt-water marshes, we
could perceive a few tents in the distance among
the sand-hills. The sand-bag batteries, and an
ugly black parapet, with guns peering through
port -holes as if from a ship's side, lay before us.

Around them men were swarming like ants, and
a crowd in uniform were gathered on the beach
to receive us as we landed from the boat of the
steamer, all eager for news, and provisions, and
newspapers, of which an immense flight imme
diately fell upon them. A guard with bayonets
crossed in a very odd sort of manner, prevented
any unauthorised persons from landing. They
wore the universal coarse gray jacket and trou
sers, with worsted braid and yellow facings, un
couth caps, lead buttons stamped with the pal
metto-tree. Their un bronzed firelocks were cov
ered 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 enthu
siasm, not unaided, in some instances, by coarser
stimulus.

The day was exceedingly warm and unpleas
ant, 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 neces
sary to visit the batteries, so on we trudged into
one and out of another, walked up parapets, ex
amined profiles, looked along guns, and did ev
erything that could be required of us. The result
of the examination was to establish in my mind
the conviction, that if the commander of Sumter
had been allowed to open his guns on the island,
the first time he saw an indication of throwing
up a battery against him, he could have saved
his fort. Moultrie, in its original state, on the
opposite side, could have been readily demolished
by Sumter. The design of the works was better
than their execution — the sand-bags were rotten,
the sand not properly rivetted or banked up, and
the traverses imperfectly constructed. The bar
bette guns of the fort looked into many of the
embrasures, and commanded them.

The whole of the island was full of life and ex
citement. 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 or
der, and were of all shapes, hues, and sizes, many
I being disfigured by rude charcoal drawings out
side, and inscriptions such as "The Live Tigers,"
" Rattlesnake's-hole," "Yankee Smashers," &c.
The vicinity of the camps was in an intolerable
state, and on calling the attention of the medical
officer who was with me, to the danger arising
from such a condition of things, he said with a
sigh, "I know it all. But we can do nothing.
Remember they're all volunteers, and do just as
they please."

In every tent was hospitality, and a hearty wel
come to all comers. Cases of champagne and
claret, French pates, and the like,- were piled out
side 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 posses
sion of his senses coming in late to a wine party.
"Won't you drink with me, sir, to the — (some
thing awful) — of Lincoln and all Yankees?"
" No ! if you'll be good enough to excuse me."
" Well, I think you're the only Englishman who
won't." Our Carolinians are very fine fellows,
but a little given to the Bobadil style — hectoring
after a cavalier fashion, which they fondly be-
lieve to be theirs by hereditary right. They as-

46

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

sume that the British crown rests on a cotton
bale, as the Lord Chancellor sits on a pack of
wool.

1 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 banquet to one
of their generals. Such heat, tobacco-smoke,
clamour, 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
dollars." This reference to a money standard
of value was not unusual or perhaps unnatural,
but it was made repeatedly ; and I was told won
derful tales of the riches of men who were loung
ing round, di-essed as privates, some of whom at
that season, in years gone by, were looked for at
- the watering-places as the great lions of Ameri
can 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 arc
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 con
tempt and loathing for the venerated Stars and
Stripes, the abhorrence of the very words United
States, the intense hatred of the Yankee on the
part of these people, cannot be conceived by any
one who has not seen them. I am more satisfied
than ever that the Union can never be restored
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 Confed
erate flag rose above the walls. On near ap
proach 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 burn
ing of the barracks, which were culpably erected
inside the fort, close to the flank wall facing
Cumming'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 wait
ing to receive him, and into which he jumped
and rowed off. Recognising one of my compan
ions 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 par
ty. Our new friend was dressed i*i the blue
frockcoat 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 grey, fell from
under a civilian's hat over his collar; Iris un

strapped trousers were gathered up high on his
legs, displaying ample boots, garnished with for
midable brass spurs. But his face was not one
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 argumentative nose — a new growth of
scrubby beard and moustache— these were re
lieved 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 expres
sion 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 an
gry glare, as if disdaining concealment.

This was none other than Louis T. Wigfall,
Colonel (then of his own creation) in the Con
federate 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, nat
ural 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 Wash
ington, when nearly every other Southern man
had seceded, lashing with a venomous and in
stant tongue, and covering with insults, ridicule,
and abuse, such men as Mr. Chandler, of Michi
gan, and other Republicans: never missing a
sitting of the House, and seeking out adversaries
in the bar rooms or the gambling 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 tho
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 surren
der, quite unauthorized, s^nd "on his own hook,"
which led to the final capitulation of Major An
derson.

I am sorry to say, onr distinguished friend had
just been paying his respects sans bornes to Bac
chus or Bourbon, for he was decidedly unsteady
in his gait and thick in speech ; but his head was
quite clear, and he was determined I 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 Wig-
fall. " 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 of
ficers. There they were, huddled up in that cor
ner 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 uncivil to
me, in private, in reference to volunteer colonels
and the like, which gave him relief; whilst the
martial Senator — I forgot to say that he has the

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

47

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 ev
ery 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 inflicted, and the state of the fort as I
found°it. At first the batteries thrown up by
the Carolinians were so poor, that the United
States' officers in the fort were mightily amused
at them, and anticipated easy work in enfilading,
ricocheting, and battering them to pieces, if they
ever dared to open fire. One morning, howev
er, Captain Foster, to whom really belongs the
credit of putting Sumter into a tolerable condi
tion of defence with the most limited means, was
unpleasantly surprised by seeing through his glass
a new work in the best possible situation for at
tacking the place, growing up under the strenu
ous labours 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 accustomed to labour.
And on my asking why negroes were not em
ployed, I 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
vrho were killed and injured." " In one respect,
then, white men are not so valuable as negroes ?"
"Yes, sir, — that's a fact."

Very few shell craters were visible in the terre-
plein ; the military mischief, such as it was,
showed most conspicuously on the parapet plat
form, over which shells had been burst as heav
ily 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," exclaim
ed one of my companions, " I thank God for it,
if it's only because we arc beginning to have a
history for Europe. The universal Yankee na
tion swallowed us up."

Never did men plunge into unknown depth of
peril and trouble more recklessly than these Car
olinians. They fling themselves against the
grim, black future, as the cavaliers under Rupert
may have rushed against the grim, black Iron
sides. Will they carry the image farther ?
Well ! The exploration of Sumter\vas finished
at last, not till we had visited the officers of the
garrison, who lived in a windowless, shattered
room, reached by a crumbling staircase, and who
produced whiskey and crackers, many pleasant
stories and boundless welcome. One young fel
low grumbled about pay. He said: "I have
not received a cent since I came to Charleston
for this business." But Major Whiting, some
days afterwards, 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 eventu
ally ; and no one questioned the power or incli

nation of the Government, which had just been
inaugurated under such strange auspices, to per
petuate 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 Chan
nel, and to examine it and the floating iron bat
tery ; 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 ex
ultation alluded to the assault on Senator Sum-
ner as a type of the manner in which the South
erners would deal with the Northerners general
ly, and cited it as a good exemplification of the
fashion in which they would bear their "whip
ping." Thence, by a natural digression, he ad
verted to the inevitable consequences of the mag
nificent outburst of Southern indignation 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 ob
loquy, he spoke of Lord Lyons in terms so coarse,
that, forgetting the condition of the speaker, I
resented the language applied to the English
Minister in a very unmistakeable 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 de
sired in his apologies, which were repeated and
energetic. We were joined by Mr. 'Manning,
Major Whiting, and Senator Chesnut, and oth
ers, to whom I expressed my complete content
ment with Mr. WTigfall'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 Charleston. 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, shuf
fling 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 I passed the guard
house of the police, one of my friends pointed
out the armed sentries pacing up and down be
fore the porch, and the gleam of arms in the
room inside. Further on, a squad of mounted
horsemen, heavily armed, turned up a bye-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

48

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

see if the niggers are all right. Ah, Fuscus !
these are signs of trouble.

" Integer vita}, scelerjsque purus
Non eget Mauri jaculiu neque arcu,
Nee venenatis graVidu. sagittis,

Fusee, pharetra."

But Fuscus is going to his club ; a kindly, pleas
ant, chatty, card - playing, cocktail - consuming
place. He nods proudly to an old white-wooled
negro steward or head-waiter — a slave — as a
proof which I cannot accept, with the curfew toll
ing in my ears, of the excellencies of the domes
tic institution. The club was filled with officers ,
one of them, Mr. Ransome Calhoun,* asked me
what was the object which most struck me at
Morris1 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 t>each, just landed and ready to
grow with the strength of the young independ
ence.

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 mul
titude ! How they cheer the pale, frantic man,
limber and dark-haired, with uplifted arms and
clenched 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 !" "No
matter, for all that ; we have shown we can whip
the Yankees whenever we meet them — at Wash
ington or down here." How much I heard of
all this to-day — how much more this evening !
The hotel as noisy as ever — more men in uni
form 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 Charles
ton 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 18th. — 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 adum
brated to their condition, and transmitted by the
white race, hovering round their heads and bod
ies. 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 harbours, 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 rath
er small, there rises before me the recollection
of one Titanic dame — a Carolinian Juno, with
two lovely peacock daughters — and I refrain
from generalising. Exceedingly proud these la-
dies 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,
to give pride of birth, and all the grandeur which
is derived from raising raw produce, cereals, and
cotton — sua terra. Their enemies say that tlieT
grandfathers of some of these noble people were
mere pirates and smugglers, who dealt in a cav
alier fashion with the laws and with the flotsam
and jetsam of fortune on the seas and reefs here
abouts. Cotton suddenly — 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 prodigious size.
These are Northern stories. What the South
erners 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 par
ties. 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. Marvel
lous exceedingly is it to see the quantities of but
ter, 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 for ever 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 neighbour. 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 Sew-
ard 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 war
riors, as well as that of a Russian gentleman,
Baron Sternberg, who was engaged in looking
about him in Charleston, and was, like most for
eigners, impressed with the conviction that nctum
este de Republicd, I went out with Major Whit
ing* and Mr. Ward, the former of whom was
anxious to show to me Fort Moultrie and the
left side of the Channel, in continuation of my
trip yesterday. It was arranged that we should
go off as quietly as possible, "so as to prevent
the newspapers knowing anything about it."
The major has a great dislike to the gentlemen
of the press, and General Beauregard had sent

Since killed in a duel by Mr. Rhett.

* Now Confederate General.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

49

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 learned
that a gentleman had come down with an' officer
and gone off in our skiff, the boat-keepers believ
ing they were the persons for whom it was in
tended. 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 untrust
worthy, and ridiculous-looking 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 cymbal us,
which had once been a flat-bottomed, open deck
ed 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 cap
tain 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 en
thusiasm reached the height of devotional fer
vour. Did I ever know any one like Major Pen-
dennis? Was it known who Becky Sharp was?
Who was the O' Mulligan ? These questions were
mere hooks on which to hang rhapsodies and de
lighted dissertation. He might have got down
as far as Pendennis himself, when a lively swash
of water flying over the preposterous little gun
wales, and dashing over our boots into the cabin,
announced that our bark was under weigh.
There is, we were told, for several months in the
year, a brisk breeze from the southward and east
ward in and off Charleston Harbour, 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 nar
row channel by Castle Pinckney, the little boat
rolled as if she would capsize 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. 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 favourite author." My companion
and myself could not condense ourselves or fore
shorten our nether limbs quite so deftly.

Standing out from the shelter towards Sumter,
the sea came rolling on our beam, making the
miserable craft oscillate as if some great hand
had caught her by the funnel — Yankeeice, smoke^
stack — and was rolling her backwards and for
wards, as a preliminary to a final keel over. The
water came 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 unhap-
D

py ; the rest of the crew — our steerer — had dis
covered that the steamer would not steer at all,
and that we were rolling like a log on the water.
Certainly neither Finckney, nor Sumter, nor
Moultrie altered their relative bearings and dis
tances 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 Col
onel Newcome that Thackeray has, in my opin
ion, 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 indica
tions of turning turtle. We were wet and mis
erable, and two hours or more had now passed
in making a couple of miles. The tide was set-
ting more strongly against us, and just off Moul
trie, in the tideway between its walls and Sum
ter, could be seen the heads of the sea-horses un
pleasantly crested. I know not what of 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 aroused him to a sense of his
situation. An^l so we wore round — a very deli
cate operation, which, by judicious management
in getting side bumps of the sea at favourable
moments, we were enabled to effect in some fif
teen or twenty minutes ; and then we became so
parboiled by the heat from the engine, that con
versation 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 any fur
ther, 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 expected, but better things were an
ticipated 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 d'ordre.

The anger which is reported to exist in the
North only adds to the fury and animosity of the
Carolinians. They are determined 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 Pres
ident Lincoln's demand for troops have delight
ed our friends. Beriah Magoffin, of Kentucky,
declares he won't give any men for such a wick
ed purpose; and another gubernatorial digni
tary laconically 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 colours, mobbing Se
cession papers, of military bodies turning out,
banks subscribing and lending.

Jefferson Davis has met President Lincoln's
proclamation by a counter manifesto, issuing let
ters of marque and reprisal — on all sides prep-

50

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

arations for war. The Southern agents are buy
ing 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 de
pend. Assuredly Mr. Seward cannot know any
thing of the feeling of the South, or he would not
be so confident 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 re-estab
lished before long.

I went over and saw General Beauregard at
his quarters. He was busy wich papers, order
lies, and despatches, and the outer room was
crowded with officers. His present task, he told
me, wasv to put Sumter in a state of defence, and
to disarm the works bearing on it, so as to get
their fire directed on the harbour approaches,
as "the North in its madness" might attempt a
naval attack on Charleston. His manner of
transacting 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 as
sistance and facility, relying, of course, on my
strict observance of a neutral's duty. I remind
ed him once more, that as the representative of
an English journal, it would be my duty to write
freely to England respecting what I saw ; and
that I must not be held accountable if, on the re
turn of my letters to America, a month after they
were written, it was found they contained in
formation 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
discretion."

In the evening I dined with our excellent Con
sul, Mr. Bunch, who had a small and very agree
able party to meet me. One very venerable old
gentleman, named Huger (pronounced as Hu-
gee), was particularly interesting in appearance
and conversation. He formerly held some offi
cial appointment under the Federal Government,
but had gone out with his state, and had been
confirmed in his appointment by the Confederate
Government. Still he was not happy at the
prospect 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 re
flected that his country was but little older than
himself; for, he was one who had shaken hands
with the framers of the Declaration of Independ
ence. 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 indeed of any regret for the con
test, which he regarded as the natural conse
quence 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 Secession ; but he seems to be
treated as an amiable, harmless person, who has
a weakness of intellect or a " bee in his bonnet"
<on this particular matter.

It was scarcely very agreeable to. my host or
myself to find that no considerations were be
lieved to be of consequence in reference to En
gland 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 recognise us," &c.

Liverpool and Manchester have obscured all
Great Britain to the Southern eye. I confess
the tone of my friends irritated me. I said so to
Mr. Bunch, who laughed, and remarked, "You'll
not mind it when you get as much accustomed
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 aggra
vated 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 the British rule to any reunion
with New England. "The names in South
Carolina show our origin — Charleston, and Ash
ley, and Cooper, &c. Our Gadsden, Sumter, and
Pinckney were true cavaliers," &c. They did
not say anything about Pedee, or Tombigbee, or
Sullivan's Island, or the like. We all have our
little or big weaknesses.

I see no trace of cavalier descent in the names
of Huger, Rose, Manning, Chesnut, 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 wine-glass — why call it cup ? — that
they ask for a Prince to reign over them ; I have
heard the wish repeatedly expressed within the
last two days that we could spare them one of
our young Princes, but never in jest or in any
frivolous manner.

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 favoured mortals. The city watch-
house is filled every night with slaves, who are
confined there until 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 Ordjnance of Secession in Vir
ginia.

CHAPTER XVI.

Charleston ; the Market-place— Irishmen at Charleston—
Governor Pickens : his political economy and theories
— Newspaper offices and counting-houses — Rumours as
to the war policy of the South.
April 19tk. — An exceeding hot day. The sun

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

51

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 pro
vided with verandahs 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 plank
ing, 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
coloured people engaged in selling 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 permitted to proceed to sea
lest they should be whipped up by the expected
Yankee cruisers, or carry malcontents to com
municate with the enemy. Around the flesh-
market there is a skirling crowd of a kind of
turkey-buzzard ; these are useful as scavengers
and are protected by law. They do their nasty
work very zealously, descending on the offal
thrown out to them with the peculiar crawling,
puify, 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 expres
sion of their eyes as with outstretched necks they
peer down from the ledge of the market roof on
the stalls and scrutinise the operations of the
butchers below. They do not prevent a dis
agreeable odour 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. One very ragged regiment which
had been some time at Morris' Island halted in
the shade near me, and I was soon made aware
they consisted, for the great majority, of Irish
men. The Emerald Isle, indeed, has contributed
largely to the population of Charleston. In the
principal street there is a large and fine red sand
stone building with the usual Greek- Yankee-com
posite portico, over which is emblazoned the
crownless harp and the shamrock wreath proper
to a St. Patrick's Hall, and several Roman Catho
lic churches also attest the Hibernian presence.

I again called on General Beauregard, and
had a few moments' conversation with him. He
told me that an immense deal depended on Vir
ginia, 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 involved. He is going
to Montgomery to confer with Mr. Jefferson 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 difficulty 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 se
cure 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 "Ad
jutant General's Dept., Quartermaster-General's
Dept., Attorney General of State," &c., and
through the doorways could be seen men in uni
form, and grave, earnest people busy at their
desks with pen, ink, paper, tobacco, and spit
toons. 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 th.e State of South Carolina" of
last year.

Governor Pickens is considerably laughed at
by his subjects, and I was amused by a little
middy, who described with much unction the
governor's alarm on his visit to Fort Pickens,
when he was told that there were a number of
live shells 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 favoured me. I was told,
however, that he had practised with success on
the late Czar when he was United States Minis
ter to St. Petersburg, and that he does not suffer
his immediate staff to escape from having their
minds improved on the relations of capital to la
bour, and on the vicious condition of capital and
labour in the North.

• "In the North, then, you will perceive, Mr.
Russell, they have maximised the hostile condi
tion of opposed interests in the accumulation of
capital and in the employment of labour, whilst
we in the South, by the peculiar excellence of
our domestic institution, have minimised their
opposition and maximised the identity of inter
est by the investment of capital in the labourer
himself, " and so on, or something like it. I could
not help remarking it struck me there was " an
other difference betwixt the North and 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 recognised 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" — I 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 my
self to write letters by the next mail.

The Governor writes very good proclamations,
nevertheless, and his confidence in South Caro
lina 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 uncertain then wheth
er the blockading vessels, of which we hear so
much, may not be down by that time.

52

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

April 20tk. — I visited the editors of the
Charleston Mercury and the Charleston Courier
to-day at their offices. The Rhett family have
been active agitators for secession, and it is 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,^ca-
reer, and services. In the newspaper offices
there was nothing worthy of remark ; they were
possessed of that obscurity which is such a char
acteristic 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, engravings of celebrated clip
pers, advertisements of emigrant agencies and of
lines of steamers, little flocks of cotton, specimens
of rice, grain, and seed in wooden bowls, and
clerks living inside railings, with secluded spit
toons, and ledgers, and tumblers of water.

I called on several of the leading merchants
eind 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 communi
cation by steamers between a southern port and
Europe. "When do you expect that line to be
opened?" I asked. "The United States' cruis
ers 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; "therms
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 hospitable invitations, with Messrs. Man
ning, Porcher Miles, Reed, and Pringle. Mr.
Trescot, who was Under-Secretary-of-State in
Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, joined us, and I prom
ised to visit his plantation as soon as I have re
turned from Mr. Pringle's. We heard much the
same conversation as usual, relieved by Mr. Tres-
cot's sound sense and philosophy. He sees clear
ly the evils of slavery, but is, like all of us, un
able to discover the solution and means of avert
ing them.

The Secessionists are in great delight with
Governor Letcher'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 capi
tal driven out. Agents are to be at once de
spatched 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
harbour is blocked up to prevent the United
States ships getting away ; and at the same time
we hear that the United States officer command
ing at the arsenal of Harper's Ferry has retired
into Pennsylvania, after destroying 'the place by
fire. How " old John Brown" would have won

dered and rejoiced had he lived a few months
longer !

CHAPTER XVII.

Visit to a plantation ; hospitable reception— By steamer to
Georgetown — Description of the town — A country man
sion—Masters and slaves— Slave diet— Humming-birds
—Land irrigation — Negro quarters — Back to George-
town.

April 2\st. — In the afternoon I went with Mr.
Porcher Miles to visit a small farm and planta
tion, some miles from the city, belonging to Mr.
Crafts. Our arrival was unexpected, but the
planter's welcome was warm. Mrs. Crafts show
ed 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 beech was perforated with small holes, in
which Mrs. Crafts said little crabs, called "fid
dlers" from their resemblance in petto to a per
former on the fiddle, make their abode ; but nei
ther them nor "spotted snakes" did we see.
And so to dinner, for which our hostess made
needless excuses. "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 soldier ? What do we expect
but grape and canister ?"

Mr. Miles, who was formerly member of the
United States Congress, and who has now mi
grated 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 in
habitants. 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 weak
ly, delicate man, gave an example of such energy
and courage as materially tended to save those
who were left. I never heard him say a word
to indicate that he had been at Norfolk at all.

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, often
times running away in spite of the orders of their
haggard mammies, till they were chased, cap
tured, 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 monot
onous 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 mothei's gazed at the scene from a distance.

As we sat listening to the wonderful song of

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

53

the mocking-birds, when these young Sybarites
had retired, a great, big, burly red-faced gentle
man, as like a Yorkshire farmer in high perfec
tion as any man I ever saw in the old country,
rode up to the door, and, after the usual cere
mony 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 set
tlement of the colony, and planted by this gen
tleman's ancestor.

Trees are objects of great veneration in Amer
ica if they are of any size. There are perhaps
two reasons for this. In the first place, the in
digenous forest trees are rarely of any great
magnitude. In the second place, it is natural
to Americans to admire dimension and antiqui
ty; and a big tree gratifies both organs — size
and veneration.

I must record an astonishing feat of this noble
Carolinian. The heat of the evening was in
dubitably 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 cura9oa, The planter filled a tumbler
half full of brandy. "What's in that flat bot
tle, Crafts?" "That's white curasoa." The
planter tasted a little; and having smacked his
lips and exclaimed "first-rate stuff," proceeded
to water his brandy with it, and tossed off a full
brimmer of the mixture without any remarkable
ulterior results. They are a hard-headed race.
I doubt if cavalier or puritan ever drank a more
potent bumper than our friend the big planter.

April 22nd. — To-day was fixed for the visit
to Mr. Pringle's plantation, which lies above
Georgetown near the Peedee River. Our party,
which consisted of Mr. Mitchell, an eminent
lawyer of Charleston, Colonel Reed, a neigh
bouring planter, 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 block
ade," and the report that the Government had
ordered their cruisers to treat the crew of Con
federate privateers as "pirates" provoked de
risive and menacing comments. The full im
pulses of national life are breathing through the
whole of this people. There is their flag flying
over Sumter, and the Confederate banner is wav
ing 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 Secession
ists" are mobbed and beaten in the North. The
news of the attack on the 6th Massachusetts, and
the Pennsylvania regiment, by the mob in Balti
more, has been received with great delight ; but
some long-headed people say 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 pre
vent even light gunboats covering a descent by
their ordnance. This was one of the reasons
why the Federal fleet did not make anv 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 behind Fort Moultrie, by the shot from
the fort, which caused terror among the negroes
"miles away." There was no sign of any block
ading vessel, but look-out parties were posted
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 Peedee 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, established under
cover of an earthwork and palisades constructed
with trunks of trees, and mounting three 32-
pounders. Several posts of a similar character
lay on the river banks, and from some of these
AVC were boarded by men in boats hungry for
news and newspapers. Most of the men at the
pier were cavalry troopers, belonging to a volun
teer association of the gentry for coast defence,
and they had been out night and day patrolling
the shores, and doing the work of common sol
diers — very precious material for such work.
They wore grey 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 " Cava
lier" associations. They were all equals. Our
friends on board the boat hailed them by their
Christian names, and gave and heard the news.
Among the cases landed at the pier were cer
tain of champagne and pates, on which Captain
Blank was wont to regale his company 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 pic-nic, and a state
of society quite indifferent to Uncle Abe's cruis
ers and "Hessians." After a short delay here,
the steamer proceeded on her way to George
town, an ancient and once important settlement
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 ad
vance 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
iris who have been playing upon the bales of
cotton and barrels of rice, which represent the
trade of the place on the wharf, take up com
manding positions for the better observation of
our proceedings.

There is about Georgetown an air of quaint

54

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

simplicity and old-fashioned quiet, which con
trasts refreshingly with the bustle 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 wain-
scotings, and the rigid framework of door and
window, to the durability of its cypress timbers
and the preservative character of the atmosphere.
In early days it was the grand house of the old set
tlement, and the residence of the founder of the
female branch of the family of our host, who now
onlv 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 wood
pecker, the screams of a crane, or the sharp chal
lenge 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 welcome as we passed. Arrived at
a deep chocolate-coloured stream, called Black
River, full of fish and alligators, we find a flat
large enough to accommodate vehicles and pas
sengers, and propelled by two negroes pulling
upon a stretched rope, in the manner usual in the
ferry-boats of 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 be
tween the hall-door and the waters of the Pee-
dee ; and in a few minutes, as we gaze over the
expanse of fields marked by the deep water-cuts,
and bounded by a fringe of unceasing forest, just
tinged with green by the 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 navi
gable river still beyond.

Leaving the verandah 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 illus
trate the walls, in juxta-position with interesting
portraits of early colonial governors and their
womankind, limned with no uncertain hand, and
full of the vigour of touch and naturalness of
drapery, of which Copley has left us too few ex
emplars ; and one portrait of Benjamin West
claims for itself such honour as his own pencil
can give. An excellent library — filled with col-
lections of French and English classics, and with

those ponderous editions of Voltaire, Rousseau,
the " Me'moires pour Servir," books of travel and
history which delighted our forefathers 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 plant
er's house — White House Plantation. My small
luggage was carried into my room by an old ne
gro 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
coloured mezzotints, windows covered with creep
ers, and an old-fashioned bedstead and quaint
chairs, lodged me sumptuously; and after such
toilette as was considered necessary by our host
for a bachelor's party, we sat down to an excel
lent dinner, cooked by negroes and served by ne
groes, and aided by claret mellowed in Carolinian
suns, and bv Madeira brought down stairs cau
tiously, 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 re
turned 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 insult, though they may get off
better in that respect than Black Republicans
would down South. Some of our guests talked
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. Seward 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 expanded every charm, devel
oped 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 poisoned 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 flavour 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 grave.

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, improvident
enough in all else, learnt the wisdom of bottling
up choice old Bual and Sercial, ere the demon
of oiclium had dried up their generous sources
for ever. To these must be added excellent

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

65

bread, ingenious varieties of the galette, com
pounded 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
Khitmutgars. They are attired in liveries and
wear white cravats and Berlin gloves. At night
when we retire, off they go to their outer dark
ness 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 plant
er 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 ac
counts of murder and violence, in which masters
suffered at the hands of their slaves. There is
something suspicious in the constant never-end
ing 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 labour going on in the fields, for the
rice has been just exerting itself to get its head
above water. These fields yield plentifully ; the
waters 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 2'3rd. — 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 hum
ming-birds. Ah me ! one wee brownie, with a
purple head and red facings, managed to dash
into a small grape or flower conservatory 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 in
cessant, and our host said tenderly, through his
moustaches, " Pooty little thing, don't frighten
it !" as if he was quite sure of getting off to Sax
ony by the next steamer. Encumbered by cob
webs and exhausted, -«ow and then our little
friend toppled down among 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 opening 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 hol
low of my hand. What would poets 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 the year there is nothing to recommend to the
eye the great breadth of flat fields, surrounded
by small canals, which look like the bottoms of
dried-up ponds, for the green rice has barely suc
ceeded 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, load
ed with loam and fertilising 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 children 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 ap
proach. The men and women were apathetic,
neither seeking nor shunning 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 mas
ters.

The bailiff or steward was not to be seen.
One big slouching 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 ever probably 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 palings,
and the entourage is alive with their poultry.

Very much I doubt whether Mr. Mitchell is
satisfied the Southerners are right in their pres
ent course, but he and Mr. 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 1
would receive back her erring children, or gire 1
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 Harbour 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 neighbour
ing planters. At midnight our carriage came
round, and we started in a lovely moonlight to

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

Georgetown, crossing the ferry after some de
lay, in consequence of the profound sleep of the
boatmen in their cabins. One of them said to
me, "Musn'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 negroes' dogs, and are
hated and hunted accordingly.

The "Nina" was blowing the signal for de
parture, 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—
Risk* 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 24:th. — In the morning we found our
selves in chopping 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 scrutinised,
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, "go
ing up the river, and down the river all times
of the year, and at times of day and night when
they re'ckon the air is most deadly, and I've done
so for years without any bad effects. The plant
ers 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'd all die. There's Captain
Buck, who lives above here, — he comes from the
State of Maine. He had only a thousand dol
lars 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 Fringle,
"just to show you what kind our climate is. I
had an excellent overseer once, who would in
sist 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
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. He 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 5tre their own. One of the stewards on
board had bought himself and his family out of
.bondage with his earnings. The State in gen
eral, however, does not approve of such practices.

At three o'clock, P.M., rail into Charleston
harbour, and landed BOOH 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 lecturing and spouting." Beauregard is
very proud of his personal 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, Chesnut, Calhoun, &c. — dis
coursed of the affairs of the nation. All my
friends, except Trescot, I think were elated at
the prospect of hostilities with the North, and
overjoyed that a South Carolina regiment 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 be
coming a dangerous institution. We hear of let
ters being tampered with on both sides. Adams's
Express Company, which acts as a sort of ex
press post under certain conditions, is more trust
worthy ; but it is doubtful how long communica
tions 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 Beaure
gard, Judge King, and others, among whom, dis
tinguished for their esprit and accomplishments,
were Mrs. King and Mrs. Carson, daughters of
my host. The dislike, 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 the genus in Charleston, and he is
tolerated on account of his rarity. As the wit
ty, pleasant old man trots down the street, utter
ly unconscious of the world around him, he is
pointed out proudly by the Carolinians as an in
stance of forbearance on their part, and as a
proof at the same time of popular unanimity of
sentiment.

There are also people who regret the dissolu
tion 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 can never be
restored and reunited, which was valued for the
uses it rendered and its antiquity.

General Beauregard is apprehensive of an at
tack by the Northern "fanatics" before the South
is prepared, and he considers 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-humoured argument in the
evening about the ethics of burning the Norfolk
navy yard. The Southerners consider the ap
propriation of the arms, moneys, and stores of
the United States as rightful acts, inasmuch as
they represent, according to them, their contribu
tion, or a portion of it, to the national stock in
trade. When a State goes out of the Union she

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

57

should be permitted to carry her forts, arma
ments, arsenals, &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
English 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
vessels in sight yet. The water alive with small
silvery fish, like mullet, which sprang up and
leaped along the surface incessantly. 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 unhitched and the fish was landed.
The negroes are very much addicted to the con
templative man's recreation, and they were fish
ing in all directions.

On the move again. Took our places in the
Charleston and Savannah Railway for Pocotali-
go, 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 unfeminine expressions
towards the Yankees.

The country is a dead flat, perforated by riv
ers and watercourses, over which the rail is car
ried on long and lofty trestle-work. But for the
fine trees, the magnolias and live oak, the land
scape 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 invari
ably 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 jour
ney, 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 consideration, 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 neighbouring planters, famous as fishers for
' ' drum, "of which more by-and-bye. 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 written 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 un
well to come, and had therefore dispatched most
excellent representatives in two members of his
family. It was arranged 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 coun
try, 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 Hey-
ward, 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. Hayward 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 re
ception frank and kindly. A fine specimen of
the planter man ; and, minus his broad-brimmed
straw hat and loose clothing, not a bad repre
sentative of an English squire at home.

Whilst we were sitting in the porch, a strange
sort of booming noise attracted my attention in
one of the trees. " It is a rain-crow," said Mr.
Hey ward ; "a bird which we believe to foretell
rain. I'll shoot it for you." And, going into
the hall, he took down a double-barreled fowl
ing-piece, walked out, and fired into the tree ;
whence the rain-crow, poor creature, fell flutter
ing 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 it's 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, beginning
to descend from a great height, with fast-increas
ing rapidity, 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 express
ed some alarm lest Secession would deprive the
Southern States of "ice," we continued our jour
ney towards the river. There is still a remark
able 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 harbour
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

58

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

"dug-out," or canoe, a narrow, long, and heavy
boat, with wall sides arid 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 Serenaders 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 church
yard to lay this body down ;

Oh, my soul ! oh, your soul ! we're going to the church
yard to lay this nigger down."

And then some appeal to the difficulty of passing
"the Jawdam," constituted the whole of the
song, which continued with unabated energy
during the whole of the little "voyage. To me
it was a strange scene. The stream, dark as
Lethe, flowing between the silent, houseless, rug
ged banks, lighted up near the landing by the
fire in the woods, which reddened the sky — the
wild strain, aud the unearthly adjurations to the
singers' souls, as though they were palpable, put
me in mind of the fancied voyage across the
Styx.

"Here v/e 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 wel
come 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 she could feed an army, from her experi
ence in feeding her negroes.

CHAPTER XIX.

Domestic negroes — Negro oarsmen — Off to the fishing-
grounds -=-Tlie devil-fish -— Bad sport — The drum-fish
— Negro«quarters — Want of drainage — Thievish pro
pensities of the blacks— A Southern estimate of South
erners.

April 27tk. — Mrs. Trescot, it seems, spent part
of her night in attendance on a young gentleman
of colour, who was introduced into the world in
a state of servitude by his poor chattel of a moth
er. 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 al
ways tell them it is the slaves who own me.
Morning, 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.

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 ne-
;roes. Such work as window-sashes and panel-
jngs, 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
rees waiting for the boat which was to bear us to
the fishing-grounds. The wind blew up stream,
i-unning 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
aanks lined with forests, into which the axe has
made deep forays and clearings for cotton-fields.

It would have astonished a stray English trav
eller, if, penetrating the shade, he heard in such
an out-of-the-way place familiar names and
things spoken of by the three lazy persons who
were stretched out — cigar in mouth — on the ant-
haunted trunks which lay prostrate by the sea
shore. Mr. Trescot spent some time in London
as attache to the United States Legation, Avas a
club man, and had a large circle of acquaintance
among the young men about town, of whom he
remembered many anecdotes and peculiarities,
and little adventures. Since that time he was
Under- Secretary of State in Mr. Buchanan's ad
ministration, and went out with Secession. He
is the author of a very agreeable book on a diy
subject, "The History of American Diplomacy,"
which is curious enough as an unconscious ex
position of the anti-British jealousies, and even
antipathies, which have animated American
statesmen since they were created. In fact,
much of American diplomacy 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 sweep
ing the broad river with my glass occasionally,
and at length detected a speck on its broad sur
face moving down towards us, with a white dot
marking the foam at its bows. Spite of wind
and tideway, it came rapidly, and soon approach
ed us, pulled by six powerful negroes, attired in
red flannel jackets and white straw hats with
broad ribands. The craft itself — a kind of mon
ster 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 drink
ing, and abaft there was a knot of great strong
planters — Elliots all — cousins, uncles, and broth
ers. A friendly hail as they swept up alongside,
— 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 grievously
at each other, and fiercely at Trescot, who as
sumed an air of recklessness, and threw doubts
on the existence of fish in the river, and resorted
to similar miserable subterfuges ; indeed, it was
subsequently discovered that he was an utter in
fidel 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 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 odour of
the skin of a heated African. I have been

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

59

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 notwithstanding the praises be
stowed on the boat, it was easy to perceive that
the labour 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 be
gan accordingly one of those wild Baptist chants
about the Jordan in which they delight, — not
destitute of music, but utterly unlike what is call
ed an Ethiopian melody.

The banks of the river on both sides are low ;
on the left covered with wood, through which,
here and there, at intervals, 'one could see a
planter's or overseer's cottage. The course of
this great combination of salt and fresh water
sometimes 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 12 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 Hil
ton Head, our friends talked politics and sport
ing 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 possesses formidable anten
nae-like horns, and a pair of huge fins, or flap
pers, one of which rises above the water as the
creature moves below the surface. The hunt
ers, as they may be called, 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 fol
lowing, each with a 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
taught, and drags the whole flotilla seawards.
It depends on its size and strength to determ
ine 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 Nimrod 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 hor
rid 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 companions, — the only man who ever
got out of the embraces of the thing alive.
" Tom is so tough that even the devil-fish could
make nothing out of him."

At last we cajne to our fishing-ground. There
was a substitute found for the favourite crab, and
it was fondly hoped our toils might be rewarded
with success. And these were toils, for the wa
ter is deep and the lines heavy. But to alleviate
them, some hampers were produced from the
stern, and wonderful pies from Mrs. Trescot's
hands, and from those of fair ladies up the river
whom we shall never see, wrere spread out, and
bottles which represented distant cellars in friend
ly nooks far away. "No drum here! Up an
chor, and pull away a few miles lower down."
Trescot shook his head, and again 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
shoi*e ahead of us, on the right bank, a tent, and
close by two boats. "There is a party at it!"
A fire was burning on the beach, and as we came
near, Tom and Jack and Harry were successive
ly identified. "There's no take on, or they
would not be on shore. This is very unfor
tunate."

All the regret of my friends was on my ac
count, so to ease their minds I assured them I
did not mind the disappointment much. ' ' Hallo,
Dick ! Caught any drum ?" "A few this morn
ing ; bad sport now, and will be till tide turns
again." I was introduced to all the party from
a distance, and presently I saw one of them rais
ing from a boat something in look and shape and
colour 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
4J feet long, with enormous head and scales, and
teeth like the grinders of a ruminant animal, act
ing on a great pad of bone in the roof of the
mouth, — a very unlovely 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 unwill
ingly we were compelled to steer towards home,
hearing now and then the singular noise lik'e the
tap on a large unbi'aced 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

60

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

in the boat, so near and close did it sound ; but
soon it came from all sides of us, and evidently
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 humour with every
thing 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, and so to bed after supper and a little
conversation, in which Mrs. Trescot again ex
plained how easily she could maintain a battal
ion on the island by her simple commissariat,
already 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
particular waist, barefooted. I imagined it was
a boy till it told me it was a girl. I asked if she
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. The use of the words "uncle" and
"aunt" for old people is very general. Is it be
cause they have no fathers and mothers ? In the
course of the day, the child, who was fourteen
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 wonder-
struck 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 coming
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 strangers. They
were shabbily clad ; in tattered clothes, bad straw
hats and felt bonnets, and broken shoes. The
latter are expensive 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 de
tached, with a poultry-house of rude planks be
hind it. The mutilations which the poultry un
dergo for the sake of distinction are striking.
Some are deprived of a claw, others have the wat
tles 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 windowlcss, and the aper
tures, 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 es-
! caped the action of the rain. I observed that
i many of the doors were fastened by a padlock
land chain outside. "Why is that?" "The
j owners have gone out, and honesty is not a vir
tue they have towards each other. They would
find their things stolen if they did not lock their
doors." Mrs. Trescot, however, insisted 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 jew
els were quite safe. It is obvious that some rea
son must exist for this regard to the distinctions
twixt meum and tuum in the case of masters
and mistresses, when it does not guide their con
duct 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 jewellery would be of little value to them ;
they could not wear them, could not part with
them. The system has made the white poj.ula-
tion a police against the black race, and the pun
ishment 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." It was about
fifteen feet square, begrimed with dirt and smoke,
and windowless. A few benches were placed
across it, and "the preacher, "a slave from an
other plantation, was expected next week. These
preachings are not encouraged in many planta
tions. 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 gentleman, 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 Britain to take back the
State than submit to the triumph of the Yan
kees. " We are an agricultural people, pursuing
our own system, and working out our own des
tiny, breeding up women and men with some
other purpose than to make them vulgar, fanati
cal, 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 barbar
ism in restoring them to their real place in the
world as laborers, whilst we arc enabled to cul
tivate the arts, the graces, and accomplishments
of life, to develop science, to apply ourselves to
the duties of government, and to understand the
affairs of the country."

This is a very common line of remark here.
The Southerners also take pride to themselves,
and not unjustly, for their wisdom in keeping in

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

61

Congress those men who have proved themselves
useful and capable. "We do not, ); they say,
4 'cast able men aside at the caprices of a mob,
or in obedience 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. Drayton were
very respectable gentlemen, but I did not receive
any sympathy ; in fact, a neutral who attempts
to moderate the violence of either side, is very
like an ice between two hot plates. Mr. Rhett is
also persuaded that the Lord Chancellor sfts on
a cotton-bale. ''You must recognise us, sir, be
fore the end of October." In the evening a dis
tant thunder-storm attracted me to the garden,
and I remained out watching the broad flashes
and sheets of fire worthy of the tropics till it was
bed-time.

CHAPTER XX.

By railway to Savannah— Description of the city — Ru
mours of the last few days— State of affairs at Washing
ton— 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.

April2Qth. — This morning up at 6 A.M., bade
farewell to our hostess and Barnwell Island, and
proceeded with Trescot back to the Pocotaligo
station, which we reached at 12.20. On our way
Mr. Hey ward 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
Elliots and others, who had come over with in
vitations and adieux ; and I beguiled the time
to Savannah reading the very interesting book
by Mr. Elliot, senior, on the Wild Sports of Caro
lina, which was taken up by some one when I left
the car-carriage for n 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 planta
tion clearing, with mud hank, dyke, 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 3 o'clock P.M., the cars rattled up along
side a large shed, and we were told we had ar
rived at Savannah.

Here was waiting for me Mr. Charles Green,
who had already 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 between the terminus and Mr. Green's
house, soon satisfied my eyes that it had two pe
culiarities. In the first-place, it had the deepest
sand in the streets I have ever seen ; and next,
the streets were composed of the most odd,
quaint, green -windowed, many- coloured little
houses I ever beheld, with an odd population of
lean, sallow, ill - dressed unwholesome - looking

whites, lounging about the exchanges and cor
ners, and a busy, well-clad, gaily-attired race of
negroes, working their way through piles of chil
dren, under the shade of the trees which border
ed 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 in
creased 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 en
virons of a large Indian cantonment — the same
kind of churches and detached houses, with their
plantations and gardens not unlike. The wealthi
er classes, however, have houses of the New York
Fifth Avenue character : one of the best of these,
i handsome mansion of rich red sandstone, be-
ongcd to my host, who coming out from En-
jland many years ago, raised himself by industry
and intelligence to tlue 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 edifices.
Mr. Green drove me through the town, which im
pressed me more than ever with its peculiar char
acter. 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 mortal
ly wounded in the unsuccessful defence of the
city against the British in the war of Independ
ence. He turned back and led us into his house.
The hall was filled with little round rolls of
flannel. "These," said he, "are cartridges for
cannon of various calibres, made by the ladies
of Mrs. Lawton's ' cartridge class.' " There were
more cartridges in the back parlour, so that the
house was not quite a safe place to smoke a ci
gar in. The General has 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 Hicks that "our troubles could not be
referred to foreign arbitration, least of all to that
of the representatives of a European 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 border ruffians, headed by one
Jim Lane of Kansas. But, on the other hand,
the Yankees, under one Butler, a Massachusetts
lawyer, have arrived at Annapolis, in Maryland,
secured the "Constitution" man-of-war, and are
raising masses of men for the invasion of the
South all over the States. The most important

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

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 North
erners, 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 Ala
bama 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 rumour that Fort Fickens 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, volun
teers 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 verandah
and smoked a cigar; but the musquitoes 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 start
ed from Mr. Green's to visit the cemetery of Bon-
aventure, to which every visitor to Savannah
must pay hrs pilgrimage ; difficiles aditus primos
kabet — a deep sandy road which strains the horses
and the carriages; but at last "the shell road"
is reached — a highway several miles long, con
sisting 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 making 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 crus
tacean of the sort.

A pleasant drive through the shady hedgerows
and bordering trees lead to a dilapidated porter's
lodge and gateway, within which rose in a tower
ing mass of green one of the finest pictures of
forest architecture possible ; nothing to be sure
like Burnham Beeches, or some of the forest
glades of Windsor, 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 develop
ment of the "Gothic idea," worked out and elab
orated by a superabundant fall from the over-
lacing arms and intertwined branches of the til-
Ian dsia, or Spanish moss, a weeping, drooping,
plumaceous parasite, which does to the tree what
its animal type, the yellow fever — vomito prieto —
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, hang
ing like the tresses of a witch's hair over an in
visible 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 preen, as clouds drop over the face
of some beautiful landscape. Despite all this,
Bonaventure is a scene of remarkable 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 Shillibeer, hired a beadle,
and erected an iron paling. The Savannah peo
ple 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 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 monumental stones to
certain citizens of Savannah. There is a mel
ancholy air about the place independently of
these emblems of our mortality, which might' rec
ommend it specially for picnics. 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 fantastic 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. Wher
ever their flickering horsehair tresses wave in the
breeze, taper ends 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 ! I 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, sap-
full, lusty, wide-armed, green-honoured — all dy
ing out slowly beneath tillandsia, as if they were
so many monarchies perishing of decay — or so
many youthful republics dying of buncombe brag,
richness of blood, and other diseases fatal to over
grown 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 soli
tude. A house ought to be there somewhere
you feel — in fact there was once the mansion of
the Tatnalls, 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 Benja
min Franklin or his kind. I don't know any
thing of old Tatnall. Indeed who does? But
he had a fine idea of planting trees, which he
never got in America, where he would have re
ceived scant praise for anything but his power to
plant cotton or sugar-cane just now. In his
kneebreecb.es and top boots, I can fancy the old
gentleman reproducing some home scene, and
boasting to himself, "I will 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,

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

63

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 enshrining 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, wondered greatly at the reverence bestow
ed 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 rev
els 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 Chi
nese Minister — (who tried, by-the-bye, 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 journal in Savannah, Brigadier Law-
ton, 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 per
haps without reference to a little speculation in
running the blockade, 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 ves
sels aid, though a neutral, and uttered the excla
mation 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 read
ing monographs on the languages of divers bar
barous tribes in Numidia and Mauritania.

The Georgians are not quite so vehement as
the South Carolinians in their hate of the North
erners ; 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 England, 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 Pulas
ki — Want of a fleet to the Southerners — Strong feeling
of the women — Slavery considered in its results — Cot
ton and Georgia— Off for Montgomery— The Bishop of
Georgia— The Bible and Slavery— Macon— Dislike of
United States' gold.

May Lay. — Not unworthy of the best effort of
English fine weather before the change in the
kalendar robbed the poets of twelve days, but
still a little warm for choice. The young Arn^r-
ican 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 Commo
dore Tatnall and Brigadier Lawton in full uni
form waiting for me.

The river is about the width of the Thames
below Graresend, very muddy, with a strong cur

rent, and rather fetid. That effect might have
been produced from the rice-swamps at the oth
er 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
convenient wharfage and slips for merchant ves
sels.

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 veuy quick with
his blockades, there will be plenty of privateers
and the like under C. S. A. colours 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 Confederate 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 to
be allowed to hoist a Commodore or flag-officer's
ensign in honour of the visit and of the occasion.
I was much interested in the fine white-headed,
blue-eyed, ruddy-cheeked old man — who sud
denly found himself blown into the air by a great
political explosion, and in doubt and wonder
ment 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 re
gard of his old name, and seemed determined 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 corporate for cer
tain 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 citi
zen of the United States ; though it answers very
well to say so when he 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, accessible to boats, and quite
open enough for approaches from the city side,
he said, "Oh, that is true enough. All our sea-
coast 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 Brit
ish fleet at Charleston by the militia — ergo, we'll
sink the Yankees now." They do not under
stand the nature of the new shell and heavy ver
tical fire, or the effect of projectiles from great
distances falling into open works. The Com-

64

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

modore afterwards, smiling, remarked, "I have
no fleet. Long before the Southern Confedera
cy has 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. What I saw did not satisfy me j
that Pulaski was strong, or Savannah very safe, j
At Bonaventure yesterday I saw a poor fort call- !
ed "Thunderbolt," on an inlet from which the i
city was quite accessible. It could be easily j
menaced from that point, while attempts at land
ing were made elsewhere as soon as Pulaski was i
reduced. At dinner met a very strong and very
well informed Southerner — there are some who j
are neither — or either — whose name was spelled
Gourdin and pronounced Go-dine — just as Hu-
ger is called Hugee — and Tagliaferro, Telfer in
these parts.

May 2nd. — 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 j
boys and men dressed in liveries, which smacked !
of our host's Orientalism, and they must have
heard our discussion, or rather allusion, to the |
question which would decide whether we thought j
they are human beings or black two-legged cat- I
tie, with some interest, unless indeed the boast
of their masters, that slavery elevates the char
acter and civilises the mind of a negro, is anoth
er of the false pretences on which the institution
is rested by its advocates. The native African,
poor wretch, avoids being carried into slavery
toils 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 civilising
the African in slavery is answered in the asser
tion of the slave-owners themselves, that if the
negroes were left to their own devices by eman
cipation, they would become the worst sort of
barbarians — a veritable Quasheedom, the like of I
which was never thought of by Mr. Thomas Car- !
lyle. I doubt if the aboriginal is not as civilised,
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 exempted 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 unfavourable comment is
met publicly, shows the sensitiveness of the slave
owners. Privately, they affect philosophy ; and
the blue books, and reports of Education Com
missions and Mining Committees, furnish them
with an inexhaustible source of argument if you
once admit that the summum bonum lies in a cer
tain 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 Yan
kees, whom they hate, and the Secessionists.
But there are no women in this party. Wo be
tide the Northern Pyrrhus whose head is within
reach of a Southern tile and a Southern wom
an's arm !

I re-visited some of the big houses afterwards,
and found the merchants not cheerful, but fierce
and resolute. There is a considerable popula
tion of Irish and Germans in Savannah, who to
a man are in favour of the Confederacy, and will
fight to support it. Indeed, it ig expected they
will do so, and there is a pressure brought to
bear on them by their employers which they can-^
not well resist. The negroes will be forced into
the place the whites hitherto occupied as labour
ers — only a few useful mechanics will be kept,
and the white population will be obliged by a
moral force draughting 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 de
pendent 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 partial-
ly 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 improve
them. I do not speak of the cultivated and hos
pitable citizens of the large towns, but of the bulk
of the slaveless whites.

May 3?Y/. — 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 look
ed 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 as
pect of the public buildings. I had been sere
naded and invited out in all directions, asked to
visit plantations and big trees, to make excur
sions to famous or beautiful spots, and specially
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 Montgomery.

From Savannah to Macon, 191 miles, the road
passes through level country only partially clear
ed. That is, there are patches of forest still in
truding on the green fields, where the jagged
black teeth of the destroyed trees rise from above
the maize and cotton. There were but few ne
groes 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 twen
ty years ago — now the wooden huts of the plant
ers' slaves and the larger edifice with its veran
dah and timber colonnade stood in the place of
their wigwam.

Among the passengers to whom I was intro
duced 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 sub
ject of slavery, and I rather revolted at hearing
a Christian prelate advocating the institution on
scriptural grounds.

This application of biblical sanction and ordi-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

65

nance 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 sla
very, that it was permitted by both the Scriptures
and the Constitution of the United States, and
that it must, therefore, bo doubly right. A na
tion that could approve of such interpretations
of the Scriptures and at the same time read the
"New York Herald," seemed ripe for destruc
tion as a corporate existence. The malum pro-
hibitum 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 toThlT
cdnTempt of the world by their paltry thesicle_s'
on the divine origin and uses of slavery, are in
finitely 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 Inquisition.
"""vVhTnicver the Southern Confederacy shall
achieve its independence — no matter what its
resources, its allies, or its aims — it will have to
stand face to face with civilized Europe on this
question of slavery, and the strength which it de
rived from the ajgis of the Constitution — "the
league with the devil and covenant with Hell"
— will be withered and gone.

I am well aware of the danger of drawing
summary conclusions 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 evi
dence of his senses, when he sees from the win
dows of the carnages 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, unkempt, but great
fighting material too — that the villages are mis
erable places, compared with the trim, snug set
tlements one saw in New Jersey from the car
riage-windows. Slaves in the fields looked hap
py enough — but their masters certainly were
rough-looking and uncivilised — 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.
The train halted at a snug little wood-embow
ered restaurant, surrounded by trellis and lattice
work, and in tho midst of a pretty garden, which
presented a marked contrast to the "surround
ings" 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 disgust, and asked,
"Have you no Charleston money? No Con
federate notes?" " Well, no ! Why do you ob
ject 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 principal 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 sub
terranean restaurant, in which were a series of
crypts closed in by dirtv curtains, where we made
E

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 %:prelGxt^ttt; ->^,
being cleaned. On the door? were the usual ^^"
warnings against pickpockets, and the customa
ry internal police regulations and ukases. Pick
pockets and gamblers abound in American cities,
and thrive greatly at tljt large hotels mid .^he-
lines of railways. >^

CHAPTER XXII.

Slave-pens ; Negroes on sale or hire — Popular feeling ns
to Secession — Beauregard and speech-making — Arrival
at Montgomery — Bad hotel accommodation— Knights
of the Golden Circle — Reflections on Slavery — Slave
auction— The Legislative Assembly— A "live chattel"
knocked down — Rumours from the North (true and
false) and prospects of war.

May 1th. — In the morning I took a drive about
the city, which is loosely built in detached houses
over a pretty undulating country covered with
wood and fruit-trees. Many good houses of daz
zling white, with bright green blinds, verandahs,
and doors, stand in their own grounds or gar
dens. 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 sur
rounded 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 1 had no time to stop and visit
them.

It is evident we aVe approaching the Confed
erate capital, for the candidates for office begin
to show, and I detected a printed testimonial in
my room in the hotel. The country, from Ma-
con in Georgia to Montgomery in Alabama,, of
fers 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 raw
er, ruder, bigger — there is the same amount of
tobacco-chewing and its consequences — 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 shirt, as he certainly has a watch */
and a gilt or gold chain of some sort or other.
The Irish labourer, or the German husbandman
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 capital as closely as he
can ; he reads his papers — and, by-the-by, they
are becoming smaller and more whitey-brown a*s
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

66

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

and from the pine-tops, and there are lusty
cheers for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confed
eracy. Troops are flocking towards Virginia
from the Southern States in reply to the march
of Volunteers from Northern States to Washing
ton ; 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 South
erners to believe they have many friends in the
North, and they endeavour 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 cur
rent, 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, re
tire from the United States' army, and either re
main neutral or take command under the Con
federate 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 democ
racy !

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 pleasure in unearth
ing distinguished passengers for the public, and
the General was called on for a speech by the
crowd of idlers. The General hates speech-mak
ing, he told me, and he had besides been bored
to death at every station by similar demands.
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
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 ap
preciative.

Towards evening, having thrown out some
slight outworks against accidental sallies of my
fellow-passengers' saliva, I went to sleep, and
woke up at 11 P.M. to hear we were in Mont
gomery. A very ricketty omnibus took the party
to the hotel, which was crowded to excess. The
General and his friends had one room to them
selves. Three gentlemen and myself were cram
med into a filthy room which already contained
two strangers, and as there were only three beds
in the apartment it was apparent that we were
intended to "double up considerably;" but aft
er strenuous efforts, a little bribery and cajoling,
we succeeded in procuring mattresses to put on
the floor, which was regarded by our neighbours
as a proof of miserable aristocratic fastidiousness.
Had it not been for the flies, the fleas would have
been intolerable, but one nuisance neutralised the
other. Then, as to food — nothing could be had
in the hotel — but one of the waiters led us to a
restaurant, where we selected from a choice bill
of fare, which contained, I think, as many odd
dishes as ever I saw, some unknown fishes, oys
ter-plants, 'possums, racoons, 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 bed-time approached, that I
was not among the mattress men. One of the
gentlemen in the bed next the door was a tre
mendous projector in the tobacco-juice line : his
final rumination ere he sank to repose was a mas
terpiece of art — a perfect liquid pyrotechny, Ro
man candles and falling stars. A horrid thought
occurred as I gazed and wondered. 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 musqnito curtain at once, and watched
him till, completely satiated, he slept.

May 5th. — Very warm, and no cold water, un
less one went to the river. The hotel baths were
not promising. This hotel is worse than Mill's
House or Willard's. The feeding 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. Pie re
marks thereupon to the clerk at the bar, who
tells him that the particular projections he al
ludes to are implements of defence or offence, as
the case may be, and adds, "I suppose you and
your friends are the only people in the house who
haven't a bowie-knife, or a six-shooter, or Der
ringer about them." The house is full of Con
federate Congress men, politicians, colonels, and
placemen with OP without places, and a vast, num
ber of speculators, contractors, and the like, at
tracted by the embryo government. Among the
visitors are many fillibusters, such as Henning-
sen, Pickett, Tochman, Wheat.* I hear a good
deal about the association called the Knights of
the Golden Circle, a Protestant association for
securing the Gulf provinces and states, including
— 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 shop
keepers indicate German and French origin. I
looked in at one or two of the slave mngazines,
which are not unlike similar establishments 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' dun
geons through the bars. The condition of a pig
in a stye 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 succoured and guard
ed — is not this ? Get thee behind us, slave

philosopher ! The hour comes when the butch-

Since killed in action.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

67

er steals to the stye, and the knife leaps from the
sheath.

Now tbere is this one thing in being a dva%
avdpwv, that be the race of men bad as it may,
a kind of grandiose character is given to their
leader. The stag which sweeps his rivals 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 devel
op 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 between man and his
fellows, asserts itself here. The dominant race
becomes dependent on some other body of men,
less martial, arrogant, and wealthy, for its ele
gances, luxuries, and necessaries. The poor vil
leins round the Norman castle forge the armour,
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> -manu
factures, takes everything from the Yankee out
side or the mean white within her gates, and de
spises 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 be
ginning of his fortune ia the possession of a ne
gro. It is fortunate for our great British Cath
erine-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 him
self in the South, has drifted there through the
Northern States, and either is a migratory la
bourer, 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 I met Mr. How-
ell Cobb and several senators of the new Con
gress, 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 resi
dences so common in Southern cities, I per
ceived a crowd of very well-dressed negroes,
men and women, in front of a plain brick build
ing which I was informed 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 indicated 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 riband
trimmings and artificial flowers, a gaudy Paisley
shawl, and a rainbow-like gown, blown out over

her yellow boots by a prodigious crinoline, and
asked her " Whom do you belong to ?" She re
plied, "I b'long to Massa Smith, sar." Well,
we have men who " belong" to horses in Eng
land. 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 in
ferior animals. To-night, for example, a gal
lant young South Carolinian, one Ransome Cal-
houn,* 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 acrimonious.

May Qth. — I forgot to say that yesterday be
fore dinner I drove out with some gentlemen and
the ladies of the family of Mr. George N. Sand
ers, once United States' consul at Liverpool,
now a doubtful man here, seeking some office
from the Government, and accused by a por
tion of the press of being a Confederate spy —
Porcus de grege epicuri — but a learned pig withal,
and weather-wise, 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
climates ; but it was hoped that Great Britain,
to whom belongs the North Pole, might force
the blockade and send aid.

The environs of Montgomery a*re agreeable —
well-wooded, undulating, villas abounding, pub
lic gardens, and a large negro and mulatto sub
urb. 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 Yankeeizcd structures of this
novo-classic land, erected on a site worthy of a
better fate and edifice. By an open cistern, on
our way, I came on a gentjeman engaged in dis
posing 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 intro
duction to the legislative assembly of a Confed
eracy which rests on the Institution as the cor
nerstone of the social and political arch which
maintains it. But there they were, the legisla
tors 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 mass
ive heads, and large frames — such men as must
have a faith to inspire them. And that is sov
Assaulted by reason, by logic, argument, philan
thropy, progress directed against his peculiar in
stitutions, the Southerner at last is driven to a
fanaticism — a sacred faith which is above* all rea
son or logical attack in the propriety, righteous
ness, and divinity of slavery.

The chaplain, a venerable old man, loudly in
voked 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 business. I could fancy that,

Since killed.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

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 Con
gress was anxious to get to its work, and Mr.
Howell Cobb again thumped his desk and an
nounced that the house was- going into "secret
session," which intimated that all persons who
were not members should leave. I was intro
duced 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 : " I
think you ought to Detain 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
aifected at the slave auction held just outside the
hotel, on the steps of the public fountain, which
I had witnessed on my way to the capitol. The
auctioneer, who was an ill-favoured, 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 character of slav
ery 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
uniform, a few Irish labourers in a long van, and
four or five men in the usual black coat, satin
waistcoat, and black hat, constituted the audi
ence, 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 together to settle the
transaction, and the crowd moved away.

"That nigger went cheap," said one of them
to a companion, as he walked towards the shade.
"Yes, Sirr ! Niggers is cheap now — that's a
fact." I must admit that I felt myself 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 transactions, and the idea of its taking place
among a civilized Christian people, produced in*
me a feeling of inexpressible loathing and in
dignation. Yesterday I was much struck by the
intelligence, activity, and desire to please of a
good-looking coloured waiter, who seemed so
light-hearted and light - coloured 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 em-
I browned the face for a moment, and he answered
j 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 horizon, 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
nationality of coloured people have perished with
in the memory of man. The misery and cruelty
of the system are established by the advertise
ments for runaway negroes, and by the descrip
tion of the stigmata on their persons — whippings
and brandings, scars and cuts — though these, in
deed, arc less frequent here than in the border
States.

On my return, the Hon. W. M. Browne, As
sistant Secretary 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 ac
count as a journalist, and gained Mr. Buchan
an's patronage and support as a newspaper editor
in Washington. There he became intimate with
the Southern gentlemen, with whom he natural
ly associated in preference to the Northern mem
bers ; and when they went out, he walked over
along with them. He told me the Government
had already received numerous — I think he said
j 400 — letters from shipowners applying for letters
of marque and reprisal. Many of these applica-
1 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 officers
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 prosperous communities. The
Southern people, right or wrong, are bent on in
dependence 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 tel
egraphs circulate lies most largely ; but that as
the papers print the telegrams they must have
the palm. The Southerners are told there is a
reign of terror in New York — that the 7th New
York Regiment has been captured by the Balti
more people — that Abe Lincoln is always drunk
— that General Lee has seized Arlington heights,
I and is bombarding Washington. The New York
| people are regaled with similar stories from the

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

South. The coincidence between the date of
the skirmish at Lexington and of the attack on
the 6th Massachusetts Regiment at Baltimore is
hot 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 colo
nists who was killed by the royal soldiery. Bal
timore may do the same for the South which
Lexington did for all the Colonies. Head-
shaving, forcible deportations, tarring and feath
ering are recommended and adopted as specifics
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 regular 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 frightful state — noth
ing but noise, dirt, drinking, wrangling.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Proclamation of war — Jefferson Davis— Interview with
the President of the Confederacy — Passport and safe-
conduct — Messrs. Wigfall, Walker, and Benjamin — Pri
vateering and letters of marque — A reception at Jeffer
son Davis' 3— Dinner at Mr. Benjamin's.
May 9th. — To-day the papers contain a proc
lamation by the President of the Confederate
States of America, declaring a state of war be
tween the Confederacy and the United States,
and notifying the issue of letters of marque and
reprisal. 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 De
partment" — a large brick building, at the corner
of a street, with a Confederate flag floating above
it. The door stood open, and "gave" on a large
hall white-washed, with doors plainly painted
belonging to small rooms, in which was trans
acted most important business, judging by the
names written on sheets of paper and applied
outside, denoting bureaux of the highest func
tions. 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 plat-form. 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 en
gaged with four gentlemen, who 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, bowed
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 symp
tom 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 general mat
ters, adverting to the Crimean War and the In
dian Mutiny, and asking questions about Sebas-
topol, the Redan, and the Siege of Lucknow.

I had an opportunity of observing the Presi
dent very closely : he did not impress me as fa
vourably as Iliad expected, though he is certainly
a very different looking man from Mr. Lincoln,
He is like a gentleman — has a slight, light fig
ure, little exceeding middle height, and holds
himself erect and straight. He was dressed in
a rustic suit of slate-coloured 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, features regular, though the check-
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 reg
ular, 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. Wonderful to re
late, 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 detect
ed in his conversation. He asked me .some
questions respecting the route I had taken in the
States.

I mentioned that I had seen great military
preparations through the South, and was aston
ished 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 pe
culiarities, "in Eu-rope" (Mr. Seward also in
dulges in that pronunciation) " they laugh at us
because of our fondness for military titles and
displays. All your travellers in this country
have commented on the number of generals, and
colonels, and majors all over the States. But
the fact is, we are a military people, 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 gentlemen go to a military
academy, who do not intend to follow the profes
sion of arms."

In the course of our conversation, I asked him
to have the goodness to direct that a sort of pass
port or protection should be given to me, as I
might possibly fall in with some guerilla 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 civilised, intelligent people who under
stand your position, and appreciate your charac
ter. We do not seek the sympathy of England1
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 asso
ciations were more identified with England, al-

70

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

though he was quite aware of the difficulty of
conquering the repugnance which exists to slav
ery.

Mr. Davis made no allusion to the authorities
at Washington, but he asked me if I thought it
was supposed in England there would be war be
tween 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 liberties."

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
vou." Colonel Wigfall 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 gen
erally 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.

The news that two more States had joined the
Confederacy, making ten in all, was enough to
put them in good humour. "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 compass, as if he were divid
ing empires.

From this room I proceeded to the office of
Mr. Benjamin, the Attorney-General of the Con
federate States, the most brilliant perhaps of the
whole of the famous Southern orators. He is a
short, stout man, with a full face, olive-coloured,
and most decidedly Jewish features, with the
brightest large black eyes, one of which is some
what 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 prafctice at Washington,
where his annual receipts from his profession
were not less than £8000 to £10,000 a year.
But his love of the card-table renderedjiim 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 subject. 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 peo
ple." "Suppose, Mr. Attorney -General, En-
gland, or any of the great p6wers which decreed :
the abolition of privateering, refuses to recog

nise your flag ?" "We intend to claim, and do
claim, the exercise of all the rights and privi
leges 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 coun
try." "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 Confed
erate States. If England thinks fit to declare pri
vateers under our flag pirates, it would be noth
ing more or less than a declaration of war against
us, and we must meet it as best we can."! In
fact, Mr. Benjamin did not appear afraid of any
thing ; but his confidence respecting Great Brit
ain was based a good deal, no doubt, on his firm
faith in cotton, and in England's utter subjection
to her cotton interest and manufactures. "All
this coyness about acknowledging a slave power
will come right at last. We hear our commis
sioners have gone on to Paris, which Ic^ks as if
they had met with no encouragement at Lon
don ; 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 rec
ognise the South, and the South declares that if
we don't recognise their flag, they will take it as
an act of hostility. Lord Lyons is pressed to
give an assurance to the Government at Wash
ington, that under no circumstances will Great
Britain recognise 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 call
ed me into his room. He said that the Attor
ney-General and himself were in a state of per
plexity 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 ?'q/H in-
sdtia juris which prevented me throwing any
light on the subject. There are not only Yan
kee shipowners but English firms ready with sail
ors and steamers for the Confederate Govern
ment, and the owner of the Camilla might be
tempted to part witu 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 re
turned to .the hotel to prepare for the occasion.
On my way I passed a company of volunteers,
one hundred and twenty artillerymen, and three
field-pieces, on their way to the station for Vir
ginia, followed by a crowd of "citizens" and ne
groes of both sexes, cheering vociferously. The
band was playing that excellent quick - step
"Dixie." Th*e men were stout, fine fellows,
dressed in coarse grey tunics with yellow fac
ings, and French caps. They were armed with
smooth-bore muskets, and their knapsacks were
unfit for marching, being water-proof bags slung
from the shoulders. The guns had no caissons,
and the shoeing of the troops was certainly defi
cient in soloing. The Zouave mania is quite as
rampant here as it is in New York, and the
smallest children are thrust into baggy red breech
es, which the learned Lipsius might have appro-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

71

ciated. 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 coloured servant took in our names, and Mr.
Browne presented me to Mrs. Davis, whom ]
could just make out in the demi-jour of a mod
erately-sized parlour, surrounded by a few ladies
and gentlemen, the former in bonnets, the latter
in morning dress a la midi. There was no affect
ation of state or ceremony in the reception. Mrs.
Davis, whom some of her friends call " Queen
Varina," is a comely, sprightly woman, verging
on matronhopd, of good figure and manners,
well-dressed, fady-like, and clever, and she seem
ed a great favourite 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, ex
ercised considerable social influence in Washing
ton, where I met many of her friends. She was
just now inclined to be angry, because the pa
pers 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, receiv
ing 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 laboured 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 Government 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 out
side Montgomery. They succeeded in captur
ing 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 cot-
ton— 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 peo
ple, 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 Avith won
derful 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 North
ern writers and Northern papers, who know noth
ing of us themselves, or misrepresent what they
do know. We are an agricultural people ; we
are a primitive but a civilised people. We have
no cities — we don't want them. We have no lit
erature — 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
questions from the stump with our people. We
have no commercial marine — no navy — we don't
want them. WTe are better without them. Your
ships carry our produce, and you can protect your
own vessels. We want no manufactures : we de
sire 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 na
tions 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 man
ufactures 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 operations be
fore the South is ready for resistance. "Give
us till November to drill our men, and we shall
be irresistible." He deprecates any offensive
movement, and is opposed to an attack on Wash
ington, which many journals here advocate.

Mr. Walker sent me over a letter recommend
ing 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 important 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 pagans 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
x>rced back by such a conquest as that which laid
Poland prostrate at the feet of Russia. • It may
ae that such a conquest can be made .by the
Sorth, but success must destroy the Union as it
ins been constituted in times past. A strong
novernment must be the logical consequence of

72

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

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 exceed
ingly. The North must accept it, 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 Fed
eral Government — was prepared for the aggress
ive or resisting power of the other. Already the
Confederate States perceive that they cannot car
ry all before them with a rush, while the North
have learnt that they must put forth all their
strength to make good a tithe of their lately ut
tered threats. But the Montgomery Government
are anxious to gain time, and to prepare a regu
lar army. The North, distracted by apprehen
sions of vast disturbance in their complicated re
lations, are clamouring for instant action and
speedy consummation. The counsels of moder
ate men, as they were called, have been utterly
overruled.

The whole foundation on which South Caro
lina rests is cotton and a certain amount of rice ;
or rather she bases her whole fabric on the ne
cessity 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 unsaleable grain
in store and on the field. Cotton at ten cents
a pound is boundless prosperity, empire and su
periority, and rice or grain need no longer be re
garded.

In the matter of slave-labour, South Carolina
argues pretty much in the following manner:
England and France (she says) require our prod
ucts. In order to meet their wants, we must
cultivate our soil. There is only one way of do
ing so. The white man cannot live on our land
I 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 labour,
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 flour
ishing people in the world . In other places, where
its labour was not productive or imperatively es
sential, that race has been made free, sometimes
with disastrous consequences to itself and to in
dustry. But we will not make it free. We can
not 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 ab
stract 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 ex
igencies of man, is that which has slavery as its
basis. As to the slave, he is happier far in his
state of servitude, more civilised and religious,
than he is or could be if free or in his native Af
rica. 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 eloquence 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 from respect
able English families, and admires our mixed ^
constitution, whilst he is an enemy to what is
called English policy, 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 bed
room as before — Mr. Wigfall, Mr. Keitt, an em
inent Southern politician, Colonel Pickett, Mr.
Browne, Mr. Benjamin, Mr. George Sanders,
and others. The last-named gentleman was dis
missed or recalled from his post at Liverpool,
because he fraternised with Mazzini and other
Red Republicans a ce qu1 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 the 9^.— 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 be
cause 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 Washing
ton, 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 endeav
oured to reinforce the Federal forts, or were pe
rusing leaders in favor of the Southern Govern
ment. Haply, they may remember one, not so
many weeks old, in which the " New York Her
ald" 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 incom
petent to judge) — " and would, and ought to suc
ceed." The glorious outburst of "Union feel
ing" 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 the beauties of
the Union, and whose faith is expressed in "a
hearty adhesion to the Government of our coun
try." New York must pay the penalty of its in
difference, and bear the consequences of listen
ing 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 whisky. This man was well orT, owned

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

73

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 strangers' gaze. One
of his negroes was unwell, and he took Deasy to
see him. The result of his examination was,
"Nigger! 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, Colonel Pickett, Major
Calhoun, Captain Ripley, and others — who were
exceedingly kind with letters of introduction and
offers of service. Dined as usual on a composite
dinner — Southern meat and poultry bad — at
three o'clock, and at four r.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 Mont
gomery 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 day 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 — Otir
captain and his slaves — " Running" slaves — Negro
views of happiness — Mobile — Hotel — The city — Mr.
Forsyth.

THE vessel was nothing more than a vast wood
en house, of three separate storeys, floating on a
pontoon which upheld the engine, with a dining-
hall or saloon on the second storey surrounded
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 pi
ano by keys, which acted on levers and valves,
admitting steam into metal cups, where it pro
duced the requisite notes — high, resonant, and
not unpleasing at a moderate distance. It is
417 miles to Mobile, but at this season the steam
er 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
colour 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
1 50 or even 200 feet above the river, the breadth
of which is so uniform as to give the Alabama
the appearance of a canal, only relieved by sud
den bends and rapid curves. The surface is cov
ered 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
helmsman, 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 Mealier, or Meagh-
er (Yes trois se disent), was evidently a character

— perhaps a good one. One with a grey eye full
of cunning and of some humour, strongly-mark
ed features, and a very Celtic mouth of the Ker
ry type. He soon attached himself to me, and
favoured me with some wonderful yarns, which I
hope he was not foolish enough to think I be
lieved. One relating to a wholesale destruction
and massacre of Indians he narrated with evi
dent 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 re
mained 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 antici
pated the boat-massacre of Nana Sahib at Cawn-
pore, 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 unknown regions inhabited by niggers
and their masters, the latter all talking politics.
They never will, never can be conquered — noth
ing on earth could induce them to go back into
the Union. They will burn every bale of cot
ton, and fire every house, and lay waste every
field and homestead before they will yield to the
Yankees. And so they talk through the glim
mering of bad cigars for hours.

The management of the boat is dexterous, — as
she approaches 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 passengers
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 up the
steps, or coming clown 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 im
portant than others. There were some, for ex
ample, 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 for ever " Give, give !" as the

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

negroes ceaselessly thrust the pine-beams into
their hungry maws. I could understand how
easily a steamer can "burn up," and how hope
less 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 8 and 10 feet of water.
A few minutes would suffice to set the vessel in
a blaze from stem to stern ; and if there were
cotton on board, the bales would burn almost
like powder. The scene at each landing was
repeated, with few variations, ten times till we
reached Selma, 110 miles distance, at 11.30 at
night. ,

Selma, which is connected with the Tennessee
and Mississippi 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 Princes
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 10th. — The cabin of one of these steamers,
in the month of May, is not favourable 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 thin, pulse covers of pine,— and the whistle
sounds, and the calliope shrieks out " Dixie" in
cessantly . So, when I was up and dressed, break
fast was over, and I had an opportunity of see
ing the slaves on board, male and female, acting
as stewards 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 cer
tainly less comfortable and well clad, and that
these slaves had other social advantages, though
I could not recognise the force of the Bishop of
Georgia's assertion, that from slavery must come
the sole hope of, and machinery for, the evan-
gelis'ation of Africa. I confess I would not give
much for the influence of the stewards and stew
ardesses in Christianising 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 rep
resented 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 dollars 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 com
manding a river steamer called the Czar (a name
once very appropriate for the work, but since the
serf emancipation rather out of place), found him
self in the neighbourhood of the brig about night
fall ; next morning, indeed, the Czar was at her
moorings in the river; but Captain Maher be
gan to grow rich, he had fine negroes fresh run
on his land, and bought fresh acres, and finally
built the "Southern 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 any
thing wrong they had their legal remedy. They
were completely beaten ; for they could not haVe
recourse to the tribunals in a case which render
ed 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. Just come up here,
Bully !" A boy of some twelve years of age,
stout, fat, nearly naked, came up to us ; his col
our 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 pro
tuberant, 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 Afri
ca, "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 grin
ning with delight, said, "Y"ummy! yummy!
plenty belly full."

"That's what I call a real happy feelosoph-
ical 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 full?'"

"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 J"

"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

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

75

it ; Bully done that himself, for the greater ease
of biting his vittels."

In fact, the lad, and a good many of the
hands, were the results of Captain Maher's little
sail in the Czar.

1 "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 per-
\ sonal liberty laws, it has been found profitable to
V run them. There is a bucolic ferocity about
these Southern people which will stand them
good stead in the shock of battle. Haw the
Spartans would have fought against any bar
barians 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 fag
gots and barrels, a dance of negroes was ar
ranged by an enthusiast, who desired to show
how "happy they were." That is the favourite
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 de
velopments 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 " wooding" 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 cal
liope announced its arrival at the quay of Mo
bile, which presented a fringe of tall warehouses,
and shops alongside, over whicli were names in
dicating 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 propri
etor, for Mobile has not yet had its 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 parlour. It was fortunate
they did not find traces of Lincolnism about us,
as it appeared by the papers they were busy de

porting "Abolitionists" after certain preliminary
processes supposed to

u Give them a rise, and open their eyes
To a sense of their situation."

The citizens were busy in drilling, marching, and
drum-beating, 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 dog-days at Malaga,
to which, by-the-bye, Mobile bears some " kinder
! sorter" resemblance, but, nevertheless, I sallied
I forth, and had a drive on a shell road by the
head of the bay, where there were pretty villa-
rettes 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 Bal-
ham, 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 act
ing 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 ethnol
ogists for his work on the "Types of Mankind,"
written conjointly with the late Mr. Gliddon,
dined with me, and I learned from them that,
notwithstanding the intimate commercial rela
tions between Mobile and the Great Northern
cities, the people here are of the most ultra-se
cessionist doctrines. The wealth and manhood
of the city will be devoted to repel the "Lincoln-
ite mercenaries" to the last.

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
Saturday right, crowded with negroes, mulat-
toes, quadroons, and mestizos of all sorts, Span
ish, 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, remarkable fojr novelty, ugli
ness, 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 pud
dings, 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, 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 ex
ceedingly well furnished in the German fashion,
with French pendule and mirrors. The charge
for a private room varies from I/, to ll. 5s. a
day ; the bed-room and board are .charged sepa
rately, from 10s. Qd. to 12s. Qd. a day, but meals
j served in the private room are charged extra,
' and heavily too. Exclusiveness is an aristocratic
taste which must be paid for.

76

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Visit to Forts Gaines and Morgan— War to the knife the
cry of the South— The u State" and the u States"— Bay
of Mobile — The forts and their inmates — Opinions as to
an attack on Washington — Rumours of actual war.

May 12th. — 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 mer
chants 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 rep
resentatives of the third greatest port of the Unit
ed States, will perish ere they submit to the Yan
kees 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 senti
ment, 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 existence.

Those who might have at one time opposed
secession, have now bowed their heads to the
majesty of the' majority ; and with the coward
ice, 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 di
vinity doth hedge" the mob here, which is om
nipotent and all good. The majority in each
State determines its political status according to
Southern views. The Northerners are endeav
ouring to maintain that the majority of the peo
ple in the mass of the States generally shall
regulate that point for each State individually
and collectively. If there be any party in the
Southern States which thinks such an attempt
justifiable, it sits silent, and fearful, and hope
less, 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 South
ern papers as an infamous hoAry traitor 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 extra zeal in the cause of secession.

Our merry company comprised naval and mili
tary officers in the service of the Confederate
States, journalists,- politicians, 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 upholders 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 river, 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 masters, 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 fierce
ness 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 alongside a jetty at Fort Gaines, which is on
the right hand or western exit of the harbour,
and would command, were it finished, the light
draft channel ; it is now merely a shell of ma
sonry, 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 possessed 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 mod
erate calibre were mounted on the sandhills and
on the beach. We entered the unfinished work,
and were received with a salute. The men felt
difficulty in combining discipline with citizen
ship. They were "bored" with their sandhill,
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 sympa
thise with the feelings of the young officer who
said he would sooner have a day with the Lin-
colnites, than a week with the musquitoes. 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 curtains, and has
a regular bastioned trace. It has one row of
casemates, armed with 32 and 42-pounders. The
barbette guns are 8-inch and 10-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 bat
tery, on a flanking bastion, in our honour.

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 ; dress
ed in homespun coarse grey suits, with blue and
yellow worsted facings and stripes — to European
eyes not very respectful to their officers, but very
obedient, I am told, and very peremptorily or
dered about, as I heard.

There were 700 or 800 men in the work, and
an undue proportion of officers, all of whom

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

77

were introduced to the strangers in turn. The
officers were a very gentlemanly,jiice-looking set
of young fellows, and some of them had just
come over from Europe to take up arms for their
State. I forget the name of the officer in com
mand, though I cannot forget his courtesy, nor
an excellent lunch he gave us in his casemate
after a hot walk round the parapets, and some
practice 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 ingen
ious and clever officer ; the utmost harmony,
kindliness, and devotion to the cause prevailed
among the garrison, from the chief down to the
youngest ensign. In its present state the Fort
would suffer exceedingly from a heavy bombard
ment — 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 dinner, we had the inevitable discus
sion of the Northern and Southern contest. Mr.
Forsyth, the editor and proprietor of the "Mo
bile Register," is impassioned for the cause,
though he was not at one time considered a pure
Southerner. There is difference of opinion rel
ative to an attack on Washington. General St.
George Cooke, commanding the army of Vir
ginia on the Potomac, declares there is no in
tention 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 Myr
midons,*" " the Border Ruffians and Cassius M.
Clay," from the capital. Butler has seized on
the Relay House, on the junction of the Balti
more and Ohio Railroad, with the rail from
Washington, and has displayed a good deal of
vigour since his arrival at Annapolis. He is a
democrat, and a celebrated criminal lawyer in
Massachusetts. Troops are pouring into New
York, and are preparing to attack Alexandria,
on the Virginia side, below Washington and the
Navy Yard, where a large Confederate flag is fly
ing, which can be seen from the President's win
dows 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. Gregory, 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 gladiators are ap
proaching—Washington, Annapolis, Pennsylva
nia are military departments, each with a chief
and Staff, to which is now added that of Ohio,
under Major G. B. M'Clellan, Major General of
Ohio Volunteers at Cincinnati. The authorities
on each side are busy administering oaths of al
legiance.

The harbour 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 attacked and
dispersed a body of State Militia under one Brig
adier 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, arid could take it back if she
pleased, and was certainly competent to prevent
the United States' troops stirring beyond the Ar
senal.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Pensacola and Fort Pickens — Neutrals and their friends —
Coasting— Sharks— The blockading fleet— The stars and
stripes, and stars and bars — Domestic fends caused by
the war — Captain Adams and General Bragg— Interior
of Fort Pickens.

May 13th. — 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 re
spects, 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 attempt, and
after a long search I heard of a schooner which
was ready for the voyage at a reasonable rate,
all things considered.

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 an
nouncement that "Braxton Bragg is ready,"
and his present state of preparation must be be
yond all conception. But here was a difficulty.
I told Mr. Forsyth that I could not possibly as
sent to any persons coming with me who were
not neutrals, or prepared to adhere to the obli
gations of neutrals. There was a suggestion
that I should say these gentlemen were my
friends, but as I had only seen two of them on
board the steamer yesterday, I could not accede
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 hang
ed ; 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 connected with the Con
federate 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.

78

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Ravesies, and a couple of
gentlemen 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 Illustrated London
News, and called my attention to the announce
ment 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 afore
said. 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 Avas furnishing
sketches to the London Neivs. 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 advertise
ment and sketch, declared that he had renounced
all connection with Harper, that he was sketch
ing for the Illustrated London News, and that
the advertisement was contrary to fact, and ut
terly 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 intoxi
cation." 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 rne 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 of the swarming
black population.

May \±th. — Down to our yacht, the Diana,
which is to be ready this afternoon, and saw her
cleared out a little — a broad-beamed, flat-floored
schooner, some fifty tons burthen, with a centre
board, badly caulked, and dirty enough — unfa
miliar with paint. The skipper was a long-leg
ged, ungainly young fellow, with long hair and
an inexpressive face, just relieved by the twinkle
of a very "Yankee" eye ; but that was all of the
hated creature about him, for a more earnest se-
ceder I never heard.

His crew consisted of three rough, mechanical
sort of men and a negro cook. Having freight
ed the vessel with a small stock of stores, a Brit
ish flag, kindly lent by the acting Consul, 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 art
ist, weighed from the quay of Mobile at five
o'clock in the evening, with the manifest appro
bation of the small crowd who had assembled to
see us off, the rumour having spread through the
town that we were bound to see the great fight.
The breeze was favourable and steady ; at nine
o'clock P.M., the lights of Fort. Morgan were on
our port beam, and for some time we were ex
pecting 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
favoured us, or the sentries were remiss ; at all
events, we were soon creeping 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 delight
ful, and blew directly off the low shore, in a line
parallel to which we were moving. When the

evening vapours 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 ripple 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 phos
phorescent 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 Morgan, 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
Perdida, 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, however, by
the filibusters and by the pirates of the Spanish
Main.

If the musquitoes were as numerous and as
persecuting in those days as they are at present,
the most adventurous youth would have soon re
pented the infatuation which led him to join the-
brethren of the Main. The musquito 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 Dijpa 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 out
line was revealed close to us — a monster shark
— which accompanied us with an easy play of
the fin, distinctly visible in the wonderful phos
phorescence, now shooting on ahead, now drop
ping 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 musquitoes, 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 resolved 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 'con-
noitering' for a road to Mobile." There was an
old iron cannonade on board, and it struck me
as a curious exemplification of the recklessness
of our American 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

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

79

would have done, seconded by one of our party,
who drew his revolver to contribute to the broad
side, but that I represented to them it was just
as likely to be a party out from the camp at Pen-
sacola, "and that, anyhow, I strongly objected 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 de
clared 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 horizon 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 con
sist of a sailing frigate, a sloop, and three steam
ers ; and as we are scrutinising them, a small
schooner glides from under the shelter of the
guardship, 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 alongside
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 wear
ing his bcai'd as officers of the United States
navy generally do, fixed his eye upon the skip
per — 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,
"Hallo, sir, I think I have seen you before:
what schooner is this?" "The Diana of Mo
bile." "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 Powhatan." The Captain did not look at
all happy when the officer called his attention to
the indorsement on his papers ; nor did the Mo
bile party seem very comfortable when he re
marked, "I suppose, gentlemen, you are quite
well aware there is a strict blockade of this
port ?"

In half an hour the schooner lay under the
guns of the Powhatan, which is a stumpy, thick
set, powerful steamer of-the old paddle-wheel
kind, something like our Leopard. We pro
ceeded alongside in the cutter's boat, and were
ushered into the cabin, where the officer com
manding, 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 instruc
tions as to our disposal. Nothing could exceed
his courtesy; and I was most favourably im
pressed by himself, his officers, and crew. He
took me over the ship, which is armed with 10-
inch Dahlgrens and an 11-inch pivot gun, 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
harbour examining 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 vari
ous 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 Powhatan,
the master of which stood rubbing his knuckles
into his eyes, and uttering dolorous expressions
in broken English and Italian, for he was a no
ble Roman of Civita Vecchia. Lieutenant Por
ter let me into the secret. These small traders
at Mobile, pretending great zeal for the Confed
erate cause, load their vessels with fruit, vegeta
bles, 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 declare they have
been plundered by the Yankees. If they get in,
they demand still higher prices from the Confed
erates, and lay claim to the most exalted patriot
ism.

By signal from the flag-ship Sabine, we were
ordered to repair on board to see the senior offi
cer, Captain Adams; and for the first time since
I trod the deck of the old Leander in Balaklava
harbour, I stood on board a 50-gun sailing frig
ate. Captain Adams, a grey -haired veteran
of very gentle manners and great urbanity, re
ceived us in his cabin, and listened to my expla
nation of the cause of my visit with interest.
About myself there was no difficulty ; but he
very justly observed he did not think it would be
right to let the gentlemen from Mobile examine
Fort Pickens, and then go among the Confeder
ate camps. I am bound to say these gentlemen
scarcely seemed to desire or anticipate such a
favour.

Major Vogdes, an engineer officer from the
fort, who happened to be on board, volunteered
to take a letter from me to Colonel Harvey
Browne, requesting permission to I isit it ; and I
finally arranged with Captain Adams that the
Diana was to be permitted to pass the blockade
into Pensacola harbour, and thence to return to
Mobile, my visit to Pickens depending 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 unfounded attacks. Gen
tlemen of the press in our country care little
about private character, and are, I fear, rather
unscrupulous in what they say ; but I rely upon
your character that no improper use shall be

80

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

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 block
ade a declaration 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 illus
tration of the miseries of this cruel conflict — of
the unspeakable desolation of homes, of the bit
terness of feeling engendered in families. A
Pennsylvania!! by birth, he married long ago a
lady of Louisiana, where he resided on his plant
ation till his ship was commissioned. He was
absent on foreign service when the feud first be
gan, and received orders at sea, on the South
American station, to repair 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 Vir
ginia ; 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 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 Lin
coln'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 acquaintance with his old
comrades to take a glance round the ship.
Wherever they came from, four hundred moi-e
sailor-like, strong,, handy young fellows could
not be seen than the crew ; and the officers were
as hospitable as their limited resources in whis
ky 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 earnest nature of the im
pending conflict. May the kindly good old man
be shielded on the day of battle !

A ten-oared barge conveyed us to the Orient
al, which, with flowing sheet, ran down to the
Powhatan. There I saw Captain Porter, and
told him that Captain Adams had given me per
mission to visit the Confederate camp, and that
I had written 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 Brook
lyn. "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 fPoore, that there is no editor of a
Southern newspaper in my company."

The boat which took us from the Powhatan
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 Mobile men, who had now recovered their
equanimity, and were indulging in what is call
ed chaff about the blockade. "Well," he said,
"you were the first to begin it ; let us see wheth
er 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 re
peated 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 harbour.

As we got abreast of Fort Pickens, I ordered
table-cloth No. 1 to be hoisted to the peak ; and
through the glass I saw that our appearance at
tracted 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 Picken?, but it is supported by the old Span
ish fort of Barrancas upon high ground further
inland, and by numerous batteries at the water-
line, and partly concealed amid the woods which
fringe the shore as far as the navy yard of War-
rington, near Pensacola. The wind was light,
but the tide bore us on 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 mar
tial appearance to the place in unison with the
black muzzles of the guns which peeped from the
white sand batteries from the entrance of the
harbour 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 commencement, 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 batteries, till he has as
sumed so formidable an attitude, that I doubt
very much whether the fort and the fleet com
bined 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 adding to the collection,
and numerous light craft gave evidence that all
trade had not ceased. Indeed, inside Santa Rosa
Island, which runs for forty-five miles from Pick-
ens eastward parallel to the shore, there is a con
siderable coasting traffic carried on for the bene
fit of the Confederates.

The skipper went ashore with my letters to
General Bragg, and speedily returned with an
orderly, who brought permission for the Diana
to come alongside the wharf. The Mobile gen
tlemen 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 Gen
eral Bragg.

The navy yard is surrounded by a high wall,
the gates closely guarded by sentries ; the houses,
gardens, Avorkshops, factories, forges, slips, and
building-sheds are complete of their kind, and
cover upwards of three hundred acres ; and with
the forts which protect the entrance, cost the
United States Government not less than six mil
lions sterling. Inside these was the greatest ac
tivity and life, — Zouave, Chasseurs, and all kind

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

of military eccentricities — were drilling, parad
ing, exercising, sitting in the shade, loading tum
brils, 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 as
signed, were models of neatness, with gardens in
front, filled with glorious tropical flowers. They
were painted green and white, provided with por
ticoes, Venetian blinds, verandahs, and colon
nades, to protect the inmates 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 pour
ing to the batteries. Piles of cannon-balls d'ot
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 sha
dy 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
comfortable dinner, with abundance of cham
pagne, claret, beer, and ice. They were all
young, full of life and spirits, except three or
four graver and older men, who were Europe
ans. One, a Dane, had fought against the Prus
sians and Schleswig-Holsteiners at Idstedt and
Friederichstadt ; another, an Italian, seemed to
have been indifferently engaged in fighting all
over the South American continent ; a third, a
Pole, had been at Comorn, and had participated
in the revolutionary guerilla of 1848. From
these officers I learned that Mr. Jefferson Davis,
his wife, Mr. Wigfall, and Mr. Mallory, Secretary
to 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 ac
company him to the commanding officer's quar
ters. 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, trowsers with a gold stripe
and gilt buttons, rode past, followed by an or
derly, who looked more like a dragoon than any
thing I have yet seen in the States. "There's
General Bragg," quoth the aide, and I was duly
presented to the General, who reined up by the
waggon. He sent his orderly off at once for a
light cart drawn by a pair of mules, in which I
completed my journey, and was safely decarted
at the door of a substantial house surrounded by
trees of lime, oak, and sycamore.

Led horses and orderlies thronged the front of
the portico, and gave it the usual head-quarter-
like aspect. General Bragg received me at the
steps, and took me to his private room, where we
remained for a long time in conversation. He
had retired from the United States army after
the Mexican war — in which, by the way, he play
ed a distinguished part, his name being general
ly coupled with the phrase " a little more grape,
Captain Bragg," used in one of the hottest en
counters of that campaign — to his plantation in
F

Louisiana ; but suddenly the Northern States de
clared their intention of using force to free and
sovereign states, which were exercising their con
stitutional rights to secede from the Federal
Union.

Neither he nor his family were responsible for
the system of slavery. His ancestors found it
established by law and flourishing, and had left
him property, consisting of slaves, which was
granted to him by the laws and constitution of
the -United States. Slaves were necessary for
the actual cultivation of the soil in the South ;
Europeans and Yankees who settled there speed
ily became convinced of that ; and if a Northern
population were settled in Louisiana to-morrow,
they would discover that they must till the land
by the labour of the black race, and that the
only mode of making the black race work was
to hold them in a condition of involuntary serv
itude. "Only the other day, Colonel Harvey
Browne, at Pickens, over the way, carried off a
number of negroes from Tortugas, and put them
to work at Santa Rosa. Why? Because his
white soldiers were not able for it. No. The
North was bent on subjugating the South, and
as long as he had a drop of blood in his body, he
would resist such an infamous attempt."

Before supper General Bragg opened his maps,
and pointed out to me in detail the position of
all his works, the line of fire of each gun, and
the particular object to be expected from its ef
fects. " I know every inch of Pickens," he said,
" for I happened to be stationed there as soon as
I left West Point, and I don't think there is a
stone in it that I am not as well acquainted with
as Harvey Browne."

His staff, consisting of four intelligent young
men, two of them lately belonging to .the United
States army, supped with us, and after a very
agreeable evening, horses were ordered round to
the door, and I returned to the navy yard at
tended by the General's orderly, and provided
with a pass and countersign. As a mark of
complete confidence, General Bragg told me, for
my private ear, that he had no present intention
whatever of opening fire, and that his batteries
were far from being in a state, either as regards
armament or ammunition, which would justify
him in meeting the fire of the forts and the ships.

And so we bade good-by. "To-morrow,"
said the General, "I will send down one of my
best horses and Mr. Ellis, my aide-de-camp, to
take you over all the works and batteries." As
I rode home with my honest orderly beside in
stead of behind me, for he was of a conversa
tional turn, I was much perplexed in my mind,
endeavouring to determine which was right and
which was wrong in this quarrel, and at last, as
at Montgomery, I was forced to ask myself if
right and wrong were geographical expressions
depending for extension or limitation on certain
conditions of climate and lines of latitude and
longitude. Here was the General's orderly be
side me, an intelligent middle-aged man, who
had come to do battle with as much sincerity —
aye, and religious confidence — as ever actuated
old John Brown or any New England puritan to
make war against slavery. "I have left my old
woman and the children to the care of the nig
gers ; I have turned up all my cotton land and
planted it with corn, and I don't intend to go
back alive till I've seen the back of the last Yan-

82

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

kee in our Southern States." "And are wife
and children alone with the negroes?" "Yes,
sir. There's only one white man on the plan
tation, an overseer sort of chap." "Are not you
afraid of the slaves rising?" "They're ignorant
poor creatures, to be sure, but as yet they're
faithful. Any way, I put my trust in God, and
I know He'll watch over the house while I'm
away fighting for this good cause !" This man
came from Mississippi, and had twenty -five
slaves, which represented a money value of at
least £5000. He was beyond the age of enthu
siasm, and was actuated, no doubt, by strong
principles, to him unquestionable and sacred.

My pass and countersign, which were only
once' demanded, took me through the sentries,
and I got on board the schooner shortly before
midnight, and found nearly all the party on deck,
enchanted with their reception. More than once
we were awoke by the vigilant sentries, who
would not let what Americans call "the bal
ance" of our friends on board till they had seen
my authority to receive them.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Bitters before breakfast — An old Crimean acquaintance —
Earthworks and batteries— Estimate of cannons— Mag
azines — Hospitality — English and American introduc
tions and leave-takings— Kort Pickens; its interior-
Return towards Mobile — Pursued by a strange sail —
Running the blockade — Landing at Mobile.

May 16M. — The re'veille of the Zouaves, note
for note the same as that which, in the Crimea,
so often woke up poor fellows who slept the long
sleep ere nightfall, roused us this morning early,
and then the clang of trumpets and the roll of
drums beating French calls summoned the vol
unteers to early parade. As there was a heavy
dew, and many winged things about last night,
I turned in to my berth below, where four hu
man beings were supposed to lie in layers, like
mummies beneath a pyramid, and there, after
contention with cockroaches, sank to rest. No
wonder I was rather puzzled to know where I
was now ; for in addition to the music and the
familiar sounds outside, I was somewhat perturb
ed in my mental calculations by bringing my
head sharply in contact with a beam of the deck,
which had the best of it ; but, at last, facts ac
complished themselves and got into place, much
aided by the appearance of the negro cook with
a cup of coffee in his hand, who asked, " Mosieu !
Capitaine vant to ax vedder you take some bit
ter, sar! Lisbon bitter, sar." I saw the cap
tain on deck busily engaged in the manufacture
of a liquid which I was adjured by all the party
on deck to take, if I wished to make a Redan or
a Malakhoff of my stomach, and accordingly I
swallowed a. petit verre of a very strong, intense
ly bitter preparation of brandy and tonic roots,
sweetened with sugar, for which Mobile is famous.

The noise of our arrival had gone abroad ;
haply the report of the good things with which
the men of Mobile had laden the craft, for a few
officers came aboard even at that early hour, and
we asked two who wore known to our friends to
stay for breakfast. That meal, to which the ne
gro cook applied his whole mind and all the gal
ley, consisted of an ugly-looking but well-flavor
ed fish from the waters outside us, fried ham and
onions, biscuit, coffee, iced water and Bordeaux,

served with charming simplicity, and no way
calculated to move the ire of Horace by a dis-
)lay of Persic apparatus.

A more greasy, oniony meal was never better
enjoyed. One of our guests was a jolly York-
ihire farmer-looking man, up to about 1C stone
weight, with any hounds, dressed in a tunic of
green baize or frieze, with scarlet worsted braid
down the front, gold lace on the cuffs and collar,
and a felt wide-awake, with a bunch of feathers
n it. He wiped the sweat off his brow, and
swore that he would never give in, and that the
whole of the company of riflemen whom he com
manded, if not as heavy, were quite as patriotic.
He was evidently a kindly affectionate man,
without a trace of malice in his composition, but
his sentiments were quite ferocious when he came
to speak of the Yankees. He was a large slave
owner, and therefore a man of fortune, and he
spoke with all the fervour of a capitalist men
aced by a set of Red Republicans.

His companion, who wore a plain blue uni
form, spoke sensibly about a matter with which,
sense has rarely anything to do — namely uni
form. Many of the United States volunteers
adopt the same grey colours so much in vogue
among the Confederates. The officers of both
armies were similar distinguishing marks of rank,
and he was quite right in supposing that in night
marches, or in serious actions on a large scale,
much confusion and loss would be caused by men
of the same army firing on each other, or mis
taking enemies for friends.

Whilst we were talking, large shoals of mullet
and other fish were flying before the porpoises,
red fish, and other enemies, in the tide-way
astern of the schooner. Once, as a large white
fish came leaping up to the surface, a gleam of
something still whiter shot through the waves,
and a boiling whirl, tinged with crimson, which
gradually melted off in the tide, marked where
the fish had been.

" There's a ground sheark as has got his break
fast," quoth the Skipper. "There's quite a many
of them about here." Now and then a turtle
showed his head, exciting desideriuvi tarn cari
capitis, above the envied flood which he honour
ed with his presence.

Far away, towards Pensacola, floated three
British ensigns, from as many merchantmen,
which as yet had fifteen days to clear out from
the blockaded port. Fort Pickens had hoisted
the stars and stripes to the wind, and Fort M'Rae,
as if to irritate its neighbour, displayed a flag al
most identical, but for the "lone star," which
the glass detected instead of the ordinary galaxy
— the star of Florida.

Lieutenant Ellis, General Bragg's aide-de
camp, came on board at an eai'ly hour, in order
to take me round the works, and I was soon on
the back of the General's charger, safely en
sconced between the raised pummel and cantle
of a great brass-bound saddle, with emblazoned
saddle-cloth and mighty stirrups of brass, fit for
the fattest marshal that ever led an army of
France to victory ; but General Bragg is longer
in the leg than the Duke of Malakhoff or Marshal
Canrobert, and all my efforts to touch with my
toe the wonderful supports which, in consonance
with the American idea, dangled far beneath,
were ineffectual.

As our road lay by head-quarters, the aide-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

83

de-camp took me into the court and called out
"Orderly;" and at the summons a smart sol
dier-like "young fellow came to the front, took me
three holes up, and as I was riding away touch
ed his cap and said, "I beg your pardon, sir, but
I often saw you in the Crimea." He had been
in the llth Hussars, and on the day of Bala-
klava he was following close to Lord Cardigan
and Captain Nolan, when his horse was killed
by a round shot. As he was endeavouring to es
cape on foot the Cossacks took him prisoner, and
he remained for eleven months in captivity in
Russia, till he was exchanged at Odessa, towards
the close of the war ; then, being one of two ser
geants who were permitted to get their discharge,
he left the service. "But here you are again,"
said I, "soldiering once more, and merely act
ing as an orderly !" " Well, that's true enough :
but I came over here, thinking to better myself
as some of our fellows did, and then the war
broke out, and I entered one of what they called
their cavalry regiments — Lord bless you, sir, it
would just break your, heart to see them — and-
here I am now, and the general has made me an
orderly. He is a kind man, sir, and the pay is
good, but they are not like the old lot ; I do not
know what my lord would think of them." The
man's name was Montague, and he told me his
father lived "at a place called Windsor," twen
ty-one miles from London. Lieutenant Ellis
said he was a very clean, smart, well-conducted
soldier.

From head-quarters we started on our little
tour of inspection of the batteries. Certainly,
anything more calculated to shake confidence
in American journalism could not be seen; for
I had been led to believe that the works were
of the most formidable description, mounting
hundreds of guns. Where hundreds was writ
ten, tens would have been nearer the truth.

I visited ten out of the thirteen batteries which
General Bragg has erected against Fort Pick-
ens. I saw but five heavy siege guns in the
whole of the works among the fifty or fifty-five
pieces with which they were armed. There
may be about eighty altogether on the lines,
which describe an arc of 135 degrees for about
three miles round Pickens, at an average dis
tance of a mile and one-third. I was rather in
terested with Fort Barrancas, built by the Span
iards long ago — an old work on the old plan,
weakly armed, but possessing a tolerable com
mand from the face of fire.

In all the batteries there were covered galler
ies in the rear, connected with the magazines,
and called "rat-holes," intended by the con
structors as a refuge for the men whenever a
shell from Piekens dropped in. The rush to
the rat-hole does not impress one as being very
conducive to a sustained and heavy fire, or at
all likely to improve the morale of the gunners.
The working parties, as they were called — vol
unteers from Mississippi and Alabama, great
long-bearded fellows in flannel shirts and slouch
ed hats, uniformless in all save brightly burnish
ed arms and resolute purpose — were lying about
among the works, or contributing languidly to
their completion.

Considerable improvements were in the course
of execution ; but the officers were not always
agreed as to the work to be done. Captain A.,
at the wheelbarrows: "Now then, you men,

wheel up these sandbags, and range them just
at this corner." Major B. : " My good Captain
A. , what do you want the bags there for ? Did
I not tell you, these merlons were not to be fin
ished till we had completed the parapet on the
front?" Captain A.: "Well, Major, so you
did, and your order made me think you knew
darned little about your business ; and so I am
going to do a little engineering of my own."

Altogether, I was quite satisfied General
Bragg was perfectly correct in refusing to open
his fire on Fort Pickens and on the fleet, which
ought certainly to have knocked his works about
his ears, in spite of his advantages of position,
and of some well-placed mortar batteries among
the brushwood, at distances from Pickens of
2500 and 2800 yards. The magazines of the
batteries I visited did not contain ammunition
for more than one day's ordinary firing. The
shot were badly cast, with projecting flanges
from the mould, which would be very injurious
to soft metal guns in firing. As to men, as in
guns, the Southern papers had lied consumedly.
I could not say how many were in Pensacola it
self, for I did not visit the camp : at the outside
guess of the numbers there was 2000. I saw,
however, all the camps here, and I doubt ex
ceedingly if General Bragg — who at this time
is represented to have any number from 30,000
to 50,000 men under his command— has 8000
troops to support his batteries, or 10,000, in
cluding Pensacola, all told.

If hospitality consists in the most liberal par
ticipation of all the owner has with his visitors,
here, indeed, Philemon has his type in every
tent. As we rode along through every battery,
by every officer's quarters, some great Mississip-
pian or Alabamian came forward with " Captain
Ellis, I am glad to see you." "Colonel, "to
me, "won't you get down and have a drink?"
Mr. Ellis duly introduces me. The Colonel
with effusion grasps my hand and says, as, if he
had just gained the particular object of his ex
istence, "Sir, I am very glad to know you. I
hope you have been pretty, well since you have
been in our country, sir. Here, Pompey, take
the colonel's horse. Step in, sir, and have a
drink." Then comes out the great big whisky
bottle, and an immense amount of adhesion to
the first law of nature is required to get you
off with less than half a pint of "Bourbon;"
but the most trying thing to a stranger is the
fact that when he is going away, the officer,
who has been so delighted to see him, does not
seem to care a farthing for his 'guest or his
health.

The truth is, these introductions are ceremo
nial observances, and compliances with the uni
versal curiosity of Americans to know people
they meet. The Englishman bows frigidly to
his acquaintance on the first introduction, and
if he likes him shakes hands with him on leav
ing — a much more sensible and justifiable pro
ceeding. The American's warmth at the first
interview must be artificial, and the indifference
at parting is ill-bred and in bad taste. I had
already observed this on many occasions, espe
cially at Montgomery, where I noticed it to Col
onel Wigfall, but the custom is not incompatible
with the most profuse hospitality, nor with the
desire to render service.

On my return to head-quarters I found Gen-

MY DIAEY NOKTH AND SOUTH.

eral Bragg in his room, engaged writing an of
ficial letter in reply to my request to be permit
ted to visit Fort Pickens, in which he gave me
full permission to do as I pleased. Not only
this, but he had prepared a number of letters
of introduction to the military authorities, and
to his personal friends at New Orleans, request
ing them to give me every facility and friendly
assistance in their power. He asked me my
opinion about the batteries and their arma
ment, which I freely gave him quantum vakat.
"Well," he said, "I think your conclusions
are pretty just ; but, nevertheless, some fine day
I shall be forced to try the mettle of our friends
on the opposite side." All I could say was,
"May God defend the right." "A good say
ing, to which I say, Amen. And drink with
you to it."

There was a room outside, full of generals and
colonels, to whom I Avas duly introduced ; but
the time for departure had come, and I bade
good-by to the general and rode down to the
wharf. I had always heard, during' my brief
sojourn in the North, that the Southern people
were exceedingly illiterate and ignorant. It
may be so, but I am bound to say that I ob
served a large proportion of the soldiers, on their
way to the navy yard, engaged in reading news
papers, though they did not neglect the various
drinking bars and exchanges, which were only
too numerous in the vicinity of the camps.

The schooner was all ready for sea, but the
Mobile gentlemen had gone off to Pensacola,
and as I did not desire to invite them to visit
Fort Pickens — where, indeed, they would have
most likely met with a refusal — I resolved to
sail without them and to return to the navy yard
in the evening, in order to take them back on
our homeward voyage. "Now then, captain,
cast loose ; we are going to Fort Pickens."
The worthy seaman had by this time become ut
terly at sea, and did not appear to know wheth
er he belonged to the Confederate States, Abra
ham Lincoln, or the British navy. But this or
der roused him a little, and looking at me with
all his eyes, he exclaimed, "Why, you don't
mean to say you are going to make me bring the
Diana alongside that darned Yankee Fort!"
Our tablecloth, somewhat maculated with gravy,
was hoisted once more to the peak, and, after
some formalities between the guardians of the
jetty and ourselves, the schooner canted round
in the tideway, and with a fine light breeze ran
down towards the stars and stripes.

"What magical power there is in the colours
of a piece of bunting ! My companions, I dare
say, felt as proud of their flag as if their ances
tors had fought under it at Acre or Jerusalem.
And yet how fictitious its influence ! Death,
and dishonor worse than death, to desert it one
day! Patriotism and glory to leave it in the
dust, and fight under its rival, the next ! How
indignant would George Washington have been,
if the Frenchman at Fort Du Quesne had asked
him to abandon the old rag which Braddock
held aloft in the wilderness, and to serve under
the \z\yfleur-de-lys which the same great George
hailed with so much joy but a few years after
wards, when it was advanced to the front at
York Town, to win one of its few victoi'ies over
the Lions and the Harp. And in this Confed
erate flag there is a meaning which cannot die

— it marks the birthplace of a new nationality,
and its place must know it for ever. Even the
nag of a rebellion leaves indelible colours in the
political atmosphere. The hopes that sustained
it may vanish in the gloom of night, but the na
tional faith still believes that its sun will rise on
some glorious morrow. Hard must it be for this
race, so arrogant, so great, to see stripe and star
torn from the fair standard with which they
would fain have shadowed all the kingdoms of
the world; but their great continent is large
enough for many nations.

"And now," said the skipper, "I think we'd
best lie to — them cussed Yankees on the beach
is shouting to us." And so they were. A sen
try on the end of a wooden jetty sung out,
" Hallo you there'! Stand off or I'll fire," and
"drew a bead-line on us." At the same time
the skipper hailed, "Please to send a boat off to
go ashore." "No, sir ! Come in your own boat !"
cried the officer of the guard. Our own boat !
A very skiff of Charon ! Leaky, rotten, lop
sided. We were a hundred yards from the
beach, and it was to be hoped that with all its
burthen, it could not go down in such a short
row. As I stepped in, however, followed by my
two companions, the water flew in as if forced by
a pump, and when the sailors came after us the
skipper said, through a mouthful of juice, "Dee-
vid ! pull your hardest, for there an't a more
terrible place for shearks along the whole coast."
Deevid and his friend pulled like men, and our
hopes rose with the water in the boat and the
decreasing distance to shore. They worked like
Doggett's badgers, and in five minutes we were
out of "sheark" depth and alongside the jetty,
where Major Vogdes, Mr. Brown, of the Orient^
al, and an officer, introduced as Captain Barry
of the United States artillery, were waiting to
receive us. Major Vogdes said that Colonel
Brown would most gladly permit me to go over
the fort, but that he could not receive any of the
other gentlemen of the party ; they were permit
ted to wander about at their discretion. Some
friends whom they picked up amongst the offi
cers took them on a ride along the island, which
is merely a sand-bank covered with coarse veg-
elation, a few trees, and pools of brackish water.

If I were selecting a summer habitation I
should certainly not choose Fort Pickens. It is,
like all other American works I have seen,
strong on the sea faces and weak towards the
land. The outer gate was closed, but at a talis-
manic knock from Captain Barry, the wicket
was thrown open by the guard, and we passed
through a vaulted gallery into the parade-ground,
which was full of men engaged in strengthening
the place, and digging deep pits in the centre as
shell traps. The men were United States regu
lars, not comparable in physique to the Southern
volunteers, but infinitely superior in cleanliness
and soldierly smartness. The officer on duty
led me to one of the angles of the fort and turn
ed in to a covered way, which had been ingen
iously contrived by tilting up the gun platforms
and beams of wood at an angle against the wall,
and piling earth and sand banks against them
for several feet in thickness. The casemates,
which otherwise would have been exposed to a
plunging fire in the rear, were thus effectually
protected.

Emerging from this dark passage I entered

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

85

one of the bomb-proofs, fitted up as a bed-room,
and thence proceeded to the casemate, in which
Colonel Harvey Browne has his head-quarters.
After some conversation, he took me out upon
the parapet and went all over the defences.

Fort Pickens is an oblique, and somewhat nar
row parallelogram, with one obtuse angle facing
the sea and the other towards the land. The
bastion at the acute angle towards Barrancas is
the weakest part of the work, and men were en
gaged in throwing up an extempore glacis to
cover the wall and the casemates from fire.
The guns were of -what is considered small cali
bre in these days, 32 and 42 pounders, with four
or five heavy columbiads. An immense amount
of work has been done within' the last three
weeks, but as yet the preparations are by no
means complete. From the walls, which are
made of a hard-baked brick, nine feet in thick
ness, there is a good view of the enemy's posi
tion. There is a broad ditch round the work,
now dry, and probably not intended for water.
The cuvette has lately been cleared out, and in
proof of the agreeable nature of the locality, the
officers told me that sixty very fine rattlesnakes
were killed by the workmen during the opera
tion.

As I was looking at the works from the wall,
Captain Vogdes made a sly remark now and
then, blinking his eyes and looking closely at my
face to see if he could extract any information.
"There are the quarters of your friend General
Bragg ; he pretends, we hear, that it is an hos
pital, but we will soon have him out when we
open fire." " Oh, indeed." "That's their best
battery beside the lighthouse ; we can't well
make out whether there are ten, eleven, or twelve
guns in it." Then Captain Vogdes became
quite meditative, and thought aloud, " Well, I'm
sure, Colonel, they've got a strong entrenched
camp in that wood behind their mortar batter
ies. I'm quite sure of it — we must look to that
with our long-range guns." What the engineer
saw, must have been certain absurd little fur
rows in the sand, which the Confederates have
thrown up about three feet in front of their tents,
but whether to carry off or to hold rain water,
or as cover for rattlesnakes, the best judge can
not determine.

The Confederates have been greatly delighted
with the idea that Pickens will be almost un
tenable during the summer for the United States
troops, on account of the heat and musquitoes,
not to speak of yellow fever ; but in fact they
are far better off than the troops on the shore —
the casemates are exceedingly well ventilated,
light and airy. Musquitoes, yellow fever, and
dysentery will make no distinction between Tro
jan and Tyrinn. On the whole, I should pre
fer being inside, to being outside of Pickens, in
case of a bombardment; and there can be no
doubt the entire destruction of the navy yard
ind station by the Federals can be accomplished
whenever they please. Colonel Browne pointed
3ut the tall chimney at Warrington smoking
jway, and said, "There, sir, is the whole reason
of Bragg's forbearance, as it is called. Do you
Bee? — they are casting shot and shell there as
fast as they can. They know well if thev opened
a gun on us I could lay that yard and'all their
works there in ruin;" arid" Colonel Harvey
Browne seems quite the man for the work — a

resolute, energetic veteran, animated by the ut
most dislike to secession and its leaders, and full
of what are called "Union Principles," which
are rapidly becoming the mere expression of a
desire to destroy life, liberty, property, anything
in fact which opposes itself to the consolidation
of the Federal government.

Probably no person has ever been permitted to
visit two hostile camps within sight of each other
save myself. I was neither spy, herald, nor am
bassador ; and both sides trusted to me fully on
the understanding that I would not make use of
any information here, but that it might be com
municated to the world at the other side of the
Atlantic.

Apropos of this, Colonel Browne told me an
amusing story, which shows that 'cuteness is not
altogether confined to the Yankees. Some days
ago a gentleman was found wandering about the
island, who stated he was a correspondent of a
New York paper. Colonel Browne was not sat
isfied with the account he gave of himself, and
sent him on board one of the ships of the fleet,
to be confined as a prisoner. Soon afterwards a
flag of truce came over from the Confederates,
carrying a letter from General Bragg, request
ing Colonel Browne to give up the prisoner, as
he had escaped to the island after committing a
felony, and enclosing a warrant signed by a just
ice of the peace for his arrest. Colonel Browne
laughed at the ruse, and keeps his prisoner.

As it was approaching evening and I had seen
everything in the fort, the hospital, casemates,
magazines, bakehouses, tasted the rations, and
drank the whisky, I set out for the schooner,
accompanied by Colonel Browne and Captain
Barry and other officers, and picking up my
friends at the bakehouse outside.

Having bidden our acquaintances good-by, we
get on board the Diana, which steered towards
the Warrington navy yard, to take the rest of the
party on board. The sentries along the beach
and on the batteries grounded arms, and stared
with surprise as the Diana, with her tablecloth
flying, crossed over from Fort Pickens, and ran
slowly along the Confederate works. Whilst we
were spying for the Mobile gentlemen, the mate
took it into his head to take up the Confederate
bunting, and wave it over the quarter. " Hollo,
what's that you're doing?" "It's only a signal
to the gentlemen on shore." " Wave some oth
er flag, if you please, when we are in these wa
ters, with a flag of truce flying."

After standing off and on for some time, the
Mobilians at last boarded us in a boat. They
were full of excitement, quite eager to stay and
see the bombardment, which must come off in
twenty-four hours. Before we had left Mobile
harbour I had made a bet for a small sum that
neither side would attack within the next few
days; but now I could not even shake my head
one way or the other, and it required the utmost
self-possession and artifice of which I was mas
ter to evade the acute inquiries and suggestions
of my good friends. I was determined to go —
they were equally bent upon remaining ; and so
we parted after a short but very pleasant cruise
together.

We had arranged with Mr. Brown that we
would look out for him on leaving the harbour,
and a bottle of wine was put in the remnants of
our ice to drink farewell ; but it was almost dark

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

as the Diana shot out seawards between Pickehs
and M'Rae ; and for some anxious minutes we
were doubtful which would be the first to take a
shot at us. Our tablecloth still fluttered ; but
the colour might be invisible. A lantern was
hoisted astern by my order as soon as the schoon
er was clear of the forts ; and with a cool sea-
breeze we glided out into the night, the black
form of the Fowhatan being just visible, the rest
of the squadron lost in the darkness. We strained
our eyes for the Oriental, bu^ in vain; and it
occurred to us that it would scarcely be a very
safe proceeding to stand from the Confederate
forts down toward the guardship, unless under
the convoy of the Oriental. It seemed quite cer
tain she must be cruising some way to the west
ward, waiting for us.

The wind was from the north, on the best
point for our return ; and the Diana, heeling
over in the smooth water, proceeded on her way
towards Mobile, running so close to the shore
that I could shy a biscuit on the sand. She
seemed to breathe the wind through her sails,
and flew with a crest of flame at her bow, and a
bubbling wake of meteor-like streams flowing
astern, as though liquid metal were flowing from
a furnace.

The night was exceedingly lovely, but after
the heat of the day the horizon was somewhat
hazy. "No sign of the Oriental on our lee-
bow'?" "Nothing at all in sight, sir, ahead or
astern." Sharks and large fish ran off from the
shallows as we passed, and rushed out seawards
in runs of brilliant light. The Perdida was left
far astern.

On sped the Diana, but no Oriental came in
view. I felt exceedingly tired, heated, and
fagged ; had been up early, ridden in a broiling
sun, gone through batteries, examined forts,
sailed backwards and forwards, so I was glad to
turn in out of the night dew, and leaving injunc
tions to the captain to keep a bright look-out for
the Federal boarding schooner, I went to sleep
without the smallest notion that I had seen my
last of Mr. Brown.

I had been two or three hours asleep when I
was awoke by the negro cook, who was leaning
over the berth, and, with teeth chattering, said,
"Monsieur! nous sommes perdus ! on bailment
de guerre nous poursuit — il va tirer bientot.
Nous serons coule ! 0*h, Mon Dieu ! Oh, Mon
Dieu!" I started up and popped my head
through the hatchway. The skipper himself
was at the helm, glancing from the compass to the
quivering reef-points of the mainsail. " What's
the matter, captain." "Waal, sir," said the
captain, speaking very slowly, "there has been
a something a running after us for nigh the last
two hours, but he ain't a gaining on us. I don't
think he'll kitch us up nohow this time ; if the
wind holds this pint a leetle, Diana will beat
him."

The confidence of coasting captains in their
own craft is an hallucination which no risk or
danger* will ever prevent them from cherishing
most tenderly. There's not a skipper from
Hartlepool to Whitstable who does not believe
his Maryanne Smith or the Two Grandmothers
is able, "on certain pints," to bump her fat bows,
and drag her coal-scuttle-shaped stern faster
through the sea than any clipper afloat. I was
once told by the captain of a Margate Billy Boy

he believed he could run to windward of any
frigate in Her Majesty's service.

" But, good heavens, man, it may be the Ori
ental — no doubt it is Mr. Brown who is looking
after us." "Ah! Waal, may be. Whoever it
is, he creeped quite close up on me in the dark.
It give me quite a sterk when I seen him. ' May
be,' says I, 'he is a privateering — pirating —
chap.' So I runs in shore as close as I could ;
gets my centre board in, and, says I, ' I'll see
what you're made of, my boy.' And so we goes
on. He ain't a gaining on us, I can tell you."

I looked through the glass, and could just
make out, half or three-quarters of a mile astern,
and to leeward, a vessel, looking quite black,
which seemed to be standing on in pursuit of us.
The shore was so close, we could almost have
leaped into the surf, for when the centre board
was up the Diana did not draw much more than
four feet water. The skipper held grimly on.
"You had better shake your wind, and see who
it is; it may be Mr. Brown." "No, sz>, Mr.
Brown or no, I can't help carrying on now ;
there's a bank runs all along outside of us, and
if I don't hold my course I'll be on it in one
minute." I confess I was rather annoyed, but
the captain was master of the situation. He
said, that if it had been the Oriental she would
have fired a blank gun to bring us to as soon as
she saw us. To my inquiries why he did not
awaken me when she was first made out, he in
nocently replied, "You was in such a beautiful
sleep, I thought it would be regular cruelty to
disturb you."

By creeping close inshore the Diana was en
abled to keep to windward of the stranger, who
was seen once or twice to bump or strike, for her
sails shivered. "There, she's struck again."
" She's off once more," and the chase is renew
ed. Every moment I expected to have my eyes
blinded by the flash of her bow gun, but for some
reason or another, possibly because she did not
wish to check her way, the Oriental — privateer,
or whatever it was — saved her. powder.

A stern chase is a long chase. It is two o'clock
in the morning — the skipper grinned with de
light. "I'll lead him into a pretty mess if he
follows me through the ' Swash,' whoever he is."
We were but ten miles from Fort Morgan.
Nearer and nearer to the shore creeps the
Diana.

"Take a cast of the lead, John." "Nine
feet." "Good. Again." "Seven feet." "Again."
"Five feet." " Charlie, bring the lantern."
We were now in the "Swash," with a boiling
tideway.

Just at the moment that the negro uncovered
the lantern, out it went, a fact which elicited the
most remarkable amount of imprecations ear ever
heard. The captain went dancing mad in in
tervals of deadly calmness, and gave his com
mands to the crew, and strange oaths to the
cook alternately, as the mate sung out, "Five
feet and a half." "About she goes ! ' Confound
you, you black scoundrel, I'll teach you," &c., &c.
"Six feet! Eight feet and a half!" "About
she comes again." "Five feet ! Four feet and
a half." (Oh, Lord ! Six inches under our
keel !) And so we went, with a measurement
between us and death of inches, not by any means
agreeable, in which the captain showed remark
able coolness and skill in the management of his

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

87

craft, combined with a most unseemly animosity
towards his unfortunate cook.

It was very little short of a miracle that we
got past the "Elbow, "as the most narrow part
of the channel is called, for it was just at the
critical moment the binnacle light was extin
guished, and went out with a splutter, and there
we were left in darkness in a channel not one
hundred yards wide and only six feet deep. The
centre board also got jammed once or twice when
it was most important to lie as close to the wind
as possible ; but at last the captain shouted out,
" It's all right, we're in deep water," and calling
the mate to the helm, proceeded to relieve his
mind by chasing Charlie into a corner and be
labouring him with a dead shark or dog-fish,
about four feet long, which he picked up from
the deck, as the handiest weapon he could find.
For the whole morning, henceforth, the captain
found great comfort in making constant charges
on the hapless cook, who at last slyly threw the
shark overboard at a favourable opportunity, and
forced his master to resort to other varieties of
Rhadamantine implements. But where was the
Oriental all this time ? No one could say ; but
Charlie, who seemed an authority as to her
movements, averred she put her helm round as
soon as we entered the " Swash," and disappear
ed in black night.

The Diana" had thus distinguished herself by
running the blockade of Fensacola, but a new
triumph awaited her. As we approached Fort
Morgan, a grey streak in the East just offered
light enough to distinguish the outlines of the
fort and of the Confederate flag which waved
above it. A fair breeze carried us abreast of the
signal station, one solitary light gleamed from
the walls, but neither guard boat put off to board
us, nor did sentry hail, nor was gun fired — still
we stood on. "Captain, had you not better lie
to? They'll be sending a round shot after us
presently." "No, sir. They are all asleep in
that fort," replied the indomitable skipper.

Down went his helm, and away ran the Diana
into Mobile Bay, and was soon safe in the haze
beyond shot or shell, running towards the opposite
shore. This was glory enough for the Diana of
Mobile. The wind blew straight from the North
into our teeth, and at bright sunrise she was only
a few miles inside the bay.

All the livelong day was spent in tacking from
one low shore to another low shore, through wa^r
which looked like pea soup. We had to be sure
the pleasure of seeing Mobile from every point of
view, east and west, with all the varieties between
northing and southing, and numerous changes in
the position of steeples, sandhills, and villas, the
sun roasting us all the time and boiling the pitch
out of the seams.

The greatest excitement of the day was an en
counter with a young alligator, making an in
voluntary voyage out to sea in the tide-way. The
crew said he was drowning, having lost his way
or being exhausted by struggling with the cur
rent. He was about ten feet long, and appeared
to be so utterly done up that he would willingly
have come aboard as he-passed within two yards
of us ; but desponding as he was, it would have
been positive cruelty to have added him to the
number of our party.

The next event of the day was dinner, in which
Charlie outrivalled himself by a tremendous fry

of onions and sliced Bologna sausage, and a piece
of pig, which had not decided whether it was to
be pork or bacon.

Having been fourteen hours beating some twen
ty-seven miles, I was landed at last at a wharf in
the suburbs of the town about five o'clock in the
evening. On my way to the Battle House I met
seven distinct companies marching through the
streets to drill, and the air was filled with sounds
of bugling and drumming. In the evening a
number of gentlemen called upon me to inquire
what I thought of Fort Pickens and Pensacola,
and I had some difficulty in parrying their very
home questions, but at last adopted a formula
which appeared to please them — I assured my
friends I thought it would be an exceedingly
tough business "whenever the bombardment took
place.

One of the most important steps which I have
yet heard of has excited little attention, namely,
the refusal of the officer commanding Fort Mac
Henry, at Baltimore, to obey the writ of habeas
corpus issued by a judge of that city for the per
son of a soldier of his garrison. This military
officer takes upon himself to aver there is a state
of civil war in Baltimore, which he considers suf
ficient legal cause for the suspension of the writ.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Judge Campbell— Dr. Nott— Slavery— Departure for New-
Orleans — Down the ri\rer — Tear of Cruiser? — Approach
to New Orleans— Duelling — Streets of New Orleans —
Unhealthiness of the city — Public opinion as to the war
— Happy and contented negroes.

May 18th. — An exceedingly hot day, which
gives bad promise of comfort for the Federal sol
diers, who are coming, as the Washington Gov
ernment asserts, to put down the rebellion in these
quarters. The musquitoes are advancing in num
bers and force. The day I first came I asked the
waiter if they were numerous. " I wish they
were a hundred times as many," said he. On
inquiring i'f he had any possible reason for such
an extraordinary aspiration, he said, "Because
we would get rid of these darned black republi
cans out of Fort Pickens all the sooner." The
man seemed to infer they would not bite the Con
federate soldiers.

I dined at Dr Nott's, and met Judge Camp
bell, who has resigned his high post as one of
the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United
States, and explained his reasons for doing so in
a letter, charging Mr. Seward with treachery,
dissimulation, and falsehood. He seemed to me
a great casuist rather than a profound lawyer,
and to delight in subtle distinctions and techni
cal abstractions; but I had the advantage of
hearing from him at great length the whole his
tory of the Dred Scot case, and a recapitulation
of the arguments used on both sides, the force of
which, in his opinion, was irresistibly in favor of
the decision of the Court. Mr. Forsyth, Colonel
Hardee, and others were of the company.

To me it was very painful to hear a sweet ring
ing silvery voice, issuing from a very pi-etty mouth,
"I'm so delighted to hear that the Yankees in
Fortress Monroe have got typhus fever. I hope
it may kill them all." This was said by one of
the most charming young persons possible, and
uttered with unmistakeable sincerity, just as if
she had said, "I hear all the snakes in Virginia

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

are dying of poison." I fear the young lady did
not think very highly of me for refusing to sym
pathise with her wishes in that particular form.
But all the ladies in Mobile belong to "The
Yankee Emancipation Society." They spend
their days sewing cartridges, carding lint, pre
paring bandages, and I'm not quite sure that
they don't fill shells and fuses as well. Their
zeal and energy will go far to sustain the South
in the forthcoming struggle, and nowhere is the
influence of women greater than in America.

As to Dr. Nott, his studies have induced him
to take a purely materialist view of the question
of slavery, and, according to him, questions of
morals and ethics, pertaining to its consideration,
ought to be referred to the cubic capacity of the
human cranium — the head that can take the
largest charge of snipe-shot will eventually dom
inate in some form or other over the head of in
ferior capacity. Dr. Nott detests slavery, but he
does not see what is to be done with the slaves,
and how the four millions of negroes are to be
prevented from becoming six, eight, or ten mill
ions, if their growth is stimulated by high prices
for Southern produce.

There is a good deal of force in the observa
tion which I have heard more than once down
here, that Great Britain could not have emanci
pated her negroes had they been dwelling with
in her border, say in Lancashire or Yorkshire.
No inconvenience was experienced by the En
glish people per se in consequence of the eman
cipation, which for the time destroyed industry
and shook society to pieces in Jamaica. Whilst
the States were colonies, Great Britain viewed
the introduction of slaves to such remote depend
encies with satisfaction, and when the United
States had established their sovereignty they
found the institution of slavery established with
in their own borders, and an important, if not
essential, stratum in their secial system. The
work of emancipation would have then been com-
paratively easy, it now is a stupendous problem
which no human being has offered to solve.

May 19</i. — The heat out of doors was so great
that I felt little tempted to stir out, but at two
o'clock Mr. Magee drove me to a pretty place,
called Spring Hill, where Mr. Stein, a German
merchant of the city, has his country residence.
The houses of Mobile merchants are scattered
around the rising ground in that vicinity ; they
look like marble at a distance, but a nearer ap
proach resolves them into painted wood. Stone
is almost unknown on all this seaboard region.
The worthy German was very hospitable, and I
enjoyed a cool walk before dinner under the
shade of his grapes, which formed pleasant walks
in his garden. The Scuppernung grape, which
grew in profusion — a native of North Carolina —
has a remarkable appearance. The stalk, which
is smooth, and covered with a close-grained grey
bark, has not the character of a vine, but grows |
straight and stiff like the branch of a tree, and
Is crowded with delicious grapes. Cherokee plum
and rose trees, and magnificent magnolias, clus
tered round his house, and beneath their shadow I
I listened to the worthy German comparing the J
Fatherland to his adopted country, and now and
then letting out the secret love of his heart for
the old place. He, like all the better classes in
the South, has the utmost dread of universal suf
frage, and would restrict the franchise largely
to-morrow if he could.

May 20th. — I left Mobile in the steamer Flori
da for New Orleans this morning at eight o'clock.
She was crowded with passengers in uniform.
In my cabin was a notice of the rules and regu
lations of the steamer. No. 6 was as follows :
"All slave servants must be cleared at the Cus
tom House. Passengers having slaves will please
report as soon as they come on board."

A few miles from Mobile the steamer, turning
to the right, entered one of the narrow channels
which perforate the whole of the coast, called
" Grant's Pass." An ingenious person has ren
dered it navigable by an artificial cut ; but as he
was not an universal philanthropist, and possibly
may have come from north of the Tweed, he fur
ther erected a series of barriers, which can only
be cleared by means of a little pepper-castor iron
lighthouse; and he charges toll on all passing
vessels. A small island at the pass, just above
water-level, about twenty yards broad and one
hundred and fifty yards long, was being fortified.
Some of our military friends landed here ; and it
required a good deal of patriotism to look cheer
fully at the prospect of remaining cooped up
among the musquitoes in a box, on this miser
able sand-bank, which a shell would suffice to
blow into atoms.

Having passed this channel, our steamer pro
ceeded up a kind of internal sea, formed by the
shore, on the right hand and on" the left by^a
chain almost uninterrupted of reefs covered with
sand, and exceedingly narrow, so that the surf
of the ocean rollers at the other side could be
seen through the foliage of the pine trees which
line them. On our right the endless pines' closed
up the land view of the horizon ; the beach was
pierced by creeks without number, called bayous;
and it was curious to watch the white sails of the
little schooners gliding in and out among the
trees, along the green meadows that seemed to
stretch as an impassable barrier to their exit.
Immense troops of pelicans flapped over the sea,
dropping incessantly on the fish which abounded
in the inner water ; and long rows of the same
birds stood digesting their plentiful meals on the
white beach by the ocean foam.

There was some anxiety in the passengers'
minds, as it was reported that the United States'
cruisers had been seen inside, and that they had
even burned the batteries on Ship Island. We
saw nothing of a character more formidable than
coasting craft and a return steamer from New
Orleans till we approached the entrance to Pont-
chartrain, when a large schooner, which sailed
like a witch and was crammed with men, at
tracted our attention. Through the glass I could
make out two guns on her deck, and quite rea
son enough for any well-filled merchantman sail
ing under the Stars and Stripes to avoid her
close companionship.

The approach to New Orleans is indicated by
large hamlets and scattered towns along the sea
shore, hid in the piney woods, which offer a re
treat to the merchants and their families from
the fervid heat of the unwholesome city in sum
mer time. As seen from the sea, these sanitary
settlements have a picturesque effect, and an air
of charming freshness and lightness. There are
detached villas of every variety of architecture
in which timber can be constructed, painted in
the brightest hues — greens, and blues, and rose
tints — each embowered in magnolias and rho-

MY DIARY NOKTH AND SOUTH.

dodendrons. From every garden a very long
and slender pier, terminated by a bathing-box,
stretches into the shallow sea ; and the general
aspect of these houses, with the light domes and
spires of churches rising above the lines of white
railings set in the dark green of the pines, is
light and novel. To each of these cities there is
a jetty, at two of which we touched, and landed
newspapers, received or discharged a few bales
of goods, and were off again.

Of the little crowd assembled on each, the ma
jority were blacks — the whites, almost without
exception, in uniform, and armed. A nearer
approach did not induce me to think that any
agencies less powerful than epidemics and sum
mer-heats could render Pascagoula, Passchris-
tian, Mississippi City, and the rest of these set
tlements very eligible residences for people of an
active turn of mind.

The live-long day my fellow-passengers never
ceased talking politics, except when they were
eating and drinking, because the horrible chew
ing and spitting are not at all incompatible with
the maintenance of active discussion. The
fiercest of them all was a thin, fiery-eyed little
woman, who at dinner expressed a fervid desire
for bits of " Old Abe" — his ear, his hair ; but
whether for the purpose of eating or as curious
reliques, she did not enlighten the company.

After dinner there was some slight difficulty
among the military gentlemen, though whether
of a political or personal character I could not
determine ; but it was much aggravated by the
appearance of a six-shooter on the scene, w'hich,
to my no small perturbation, was presented in a
right line with my berth, out of the window of
which I was looking at the combatants. I am
happy to say the immediate delivery of the fire
was averted by an amicable arrangement that
the disputants should meet at the St. Charles
Hotel at 12 o'clock on the second day after their
arrival, in order to fix time, place, and condi
tions of a more orthodox and regular encounter.

At night the steamer entered a dismal canal,
through a swamp which is infamous as the most
musquito haunted place along the infested shore ;
the mouths of the Mississippi themselves being
quite innocent, compared to the entrance of
Lake Pontchartrain. When I woke up at day
light, I found the vessel lying alongside a wharf
with a railway train alongside, which is to take
us to the city of New Orleans, six miles distant.

A village of restaurants or "restaurats" as
they are called here, and of bathing-boxes, has
grown up around the terminus ; all the names
of the owners, the notices and sign-boards, being
French. Outside the settlement the railroad
passes through a swamp, like an Indian jungle,
through which the overflowings of the Mississip
pi creep in black currents. The spires of New
Orleans rise above the underwood . arid semi-
tropical vegetation of this swamp. Nearer to the
city lies a marshy plain, in which flocks of cat
tle, up to the belly in the soft earth, are floun
dering among the clumps of vegetation. The
nearer approach to New Orleans by rail lies
through a suburb of exceedingly broad lanes,
lined on each side by rows of miserable mean
one-storied houses, inhabited, if I am to judge
from the specimens I saw, by a miserable and
sickly population.

A great number of the men and women had

evident traces of negro blood in their veins, and
of the purer blooded whites many had the pe
culiar look of the fishy-fleshy population of the
Levantine towns, and all were pale and lean.
The railway terminus is marked by a dirty, bar
rack-like shed in the city. Selecting one of the
numerous tumble-down hackney carriages which
crowded the street outside the station, I directed
the man to drive me to the house of Mr. Mure,
the British consul, who had been kind enough to
invite me as his guest for the period of my stay
in New Orleans.

The streets are badly paved, as those of most
of the American cities, if not all that I have ever
been in, but in other respects they are more wor
thy of a great city than are those of New York.
There is an air thoroughly French about the peo
ple — cafe's, restaurants, billiard - rooms abound,
with oyster and lager-bier saloons interspersed.
The shops are all magazins ; the people in the
streets are speaking French, particularly the
negroes, who are going out shopping with their
masters and mistresses, exceedingly well dressed,
noisy, and not unhappy looking. The extent of
the drive gave an imposing idea of the size of
New Orleans — the richness of some of the shops,
the vehicles in the streets, and the multitude of
well-dressed people on the pavements, an impres
sion of its wealth and the comfort of the inhab
itants. The Confederate flag was flying from
the public buildings and from many private
houses. Military companies paraded through
the streets, and a large proportion of the men
were in uniform.

In the day I drove through the city, delivered
letters of introduction, paid visits, and examined
the shops and the public places ; but there is
such a whirl of secession and politics surround
ing one it is impossible to discern much of the
outer world.

Whatever may be the number of the unionists
or of the non-secessionists, a pressure too potent
to be resisted has been directed by the popular
party against the friends of the Federal govern
ment. The agent of Brown Bi-others, of Liver
pool and New York, has closed their office, and
is going away in consequence of the intimidation
of the mob, or as the phrase is here, the "excite
ment of the citizens," on hearing of the subscrip
tion made by the firm to the New York fund,
after Sumter had been fired upon. Their agent
in Mobile has been compelled to adopt the same
course. Other houses follow their example, but
as most business transactions are over for the
season, the mercantile community hope the con
test will be ended before the next season, by the
recognition of Southern independence.

The streets are full of Turcos, Zouaves, Chas
seurs ; walls are covered with placards of volun
teer companies ; there are Pickwick rifles, La
Fayette, Beauregard, MacMah0*i guards, Irish,
German, Italian, and Spanish, and native volun
teers, among whom the Meagher rifles, indignant
with the gentleman from whom they took their
name, because of his adhesion to the North, are
going to rebaptise themselves and to seek glory-
under one more auspicious. In fact, New Or
leans looks like a suburb of the camp at Chalons.
Tailors are busy night and day making uniforms.
I went into a shop with the consul for some
shirts — the mistress and all her seamstresses were
busy preparing flags as hard as the sewing ma-

90

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

chine could stitch them, and could attend to no
business for the present. The Irish population,
finding themselves unable .to migrate North
wards, and being without work, have rushed to
arms with enthusiasm to support Southern insti
tutions, and Mr. John Mitchell and Mr. Meagher
stand opposed to each other in hostile camps.

May 22nd. — The thermometer to-day marked
95° in the shade. It is not to be wondered at
that New Orleans suffers from terrible epidemics.
At the side of each street a filthy open sewer
flows to and fro with the tide in the blazing sun,
and Mr. Mure tells me the city lies so low that
he has been obliged to go to his office in a boat
along the streets.

I sat for some time listening to the opinions
of the various merchants who came to talk over
the news and politics in general. They were all
persuaded that Great Britain would speedily rec
ognise the South, but I cannot find that any of
them had examined into the effects of such a
recognition. One gentleman seemed to think
to-day that recognition meant forcing the block
ade ; whereas it must, as I endeavoured to show
him, merely lead to the recognition of the rights
of the United States to establish a blockade of
ports belonging to an independent and hostile
nation. There are some who maintain that
there will be no war after all; that the North
will not fight, and that the friends of the South
ern cause will recover their courage when this
tyranny is over. No one imagines the South
will ever go back to the Union voluntarily, or
that the North has power to thrust it back at the
point of the bayonet.

The South has commenced preparations for
the contest by sowing grain instead of planting
cotton, to compensate for the loss of supplies
from the North. The payment of debts to North
ern creditors is declared to be illegal, and "stay
laws" have been Adopted in most of the seceding
states, by which the ordinary laws for the recov
ery of debts in the States themselves are for the
time suspended, which may lead one into the be
lief that the legislators themselves belong to the
debtor instead of the creditor class.

May 23rd. — As the mail communication has
been suspended between North and South, and
the Express Companies are ordered not to carry
letters, I sent off my packet of despatches to-day
by Mr. Ewell, of the house of Dennistoun & Co. ;
and resumed my excursions through New Or
leans.

The young artist who is stopping at the St.
Charles Hotel, came to me in great agitation to
say his life was in danger, in consequence of his
former connexion with an abolition paper of
New York, and that he had been threatened with
death by a man with whom he had had a quar
rel in Washington. Mr. Mure, to calm his ap
prehensions, offered to take him to the authori
ties of the town, who wouldj no doubt, protect
him, as he was merely engaged in making sketch
es for an English periodical, but the young man
declared he was in danger of assassination. He
entreated Mr. Mure to give him despatches which
would serve to protect him, on his way North
ward ; and the Consul, moved by his mental dis
tress, promised that if he had any letters of an
official character for Washington, he would send
them by him, in default of other opportunities.

I dined with Major Ranney, the president of

one of the railways, with whom Mr. Ward was
stopping. Among the company were Mr. Eus-
tis, son-in-law of Mr. Slidell ; Mr. Morse, the
attorney-general of the State ; Mr. Moise, a Jew,
supposed to have considerable influence with the
governor, and a vehement politician ; Messrs.
Hunt, and others. The table was excellent, and
the wines were worthy of the reputation which
our host enjoys, in a city where Sallusts and Lu-
culli are said to abound. One of the slave serv
ants who waited at table, an intelligent yellow
" boy," was pointed out to me as a son of Gen
eral Andrew Jackson.

We had a full account of the attack of the
British troops on the city, and their repulse. Mr.
Morse denied emphatically that there was any
cotton-bag fortification in front of the lines, where
our troops were defeated ; he asserted that there
were only a few bales, I think seventy-five, used
in the construction of one battery, and that they
and some sugar hogsheads constituted the sole
defences of the American trench. Only one citi
zen applied to the state for compensation on ac
count of the cotton used by Jackson's troops, and
he owned the whole of the bales so appropriated.

None of the Southern gentlemen have the
smallest apprehension of a servile insurrection.
They use the universal formula " our negroes are
the happiest, most contented, and most comfort
able people on the face of the earth." I admit
I have been struck by well-clad and good-hu
moured negroes in the streets, but they are in
the minority; many look morose, ill-clad, and
discontented. The patrols I know have been
strengthened, and I heard a young lady the other
night say, " I shall not be a bit afraid to go back
to the plantation, though mamma says the ne
groes are after mischief. "

CHAPTER XXX.

The first blow struck— The St. Charles hotel— Invasion of
Virginia by the Federals— Death of Colonel Ellsworth-
Evening at Mr. Slidell's — Public comments on the war
— Richmond the capital of the Confederacy — Military
preparations— General society— Jewish element — Visit
to a battle-field of 1815.

May 21th. — A great budget of news to-day,
which with the events of the week may be brief
ly enumerated. The fighting has actually com
menced between the United States steamers off
Fortress Monroe, and the Confederate battery
erected at Sewall's point — both sides claim a
certain success. The Confederates declare they
riddled the steamer, and that they killed and
wounded a number of the sailors. The captain
of the vessel says he desisted from want of am
munition, but believes he killed a number of the
rebels, and knows he had no loss himself. Be-
riah Magoffin, governor of the sovereign state of
Kentucky, has warned off both Federal and Con
federate soldiers from his territory. The Con
federate congress has passed an act authorizing
persons indebted to the United States, except
Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and
the district of Columbia, to pay the amount of
their debts to the Confederate treasury. The
State Convention of North Carolina has passed
an ordinance of secession. Arkansas has sent
its delegates to the Southern congress. Several
Southern vessels have been made prizes by the
blockading squadron ; but the event which causes

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

91

the greatest excitement and indignation here,
was the seizure, on Monday, by the United
States' marshals, in every large city thoughout
the Union, of the telegraphic despatches of the
last twelve months.

In the course of the day, I went to the St.
Charles Hotel, which is an enormous establish
ment, of the American type, with a Southern
character about it. A number of gentlemen
were seated in the hall, and front of the office,
with their legs up against the wall, and on the
backs of chairs, smoking, spitting, and reading
the papers. Officers crowded the bar. The bus
tle and noise of the place would make it any
thing but an agreeable residence for one fond
of quiet ; but this hotel is famous for its diffi
culties. Not the least disgraceful among them
was the assault committed by some of Walker's
filibusters upon Captain Aldham, of the R. Navy.

The young artist, who has been living in great
seclusion, was fastened up in his room ; and
when I informed him that Mr. Mure had de
spatches, which he might take, if he liked, that
night, he was overjoyed to excess. He started
off north in the evening, and I saw him no
more.

At half-past four, I went down by train to the
terminus on the lake where I had landed, which
is the New Orleans Richmond, or rather, Green
wich, and dined with Mr. Eustis, Mr. Johnson
an English merchant, Mr. Josephs a New Or
leans lawyer, and Mr. Hunt. The dinner was
worthy of the reputation of the French cook.
The terrapin sonp excellent, though not com
parable, as Americans assert, to the best turtle.
The creature from which it derives its name, is
a small tortoise, the flesh is boiled somewhat in
the manner of turtle, but the soup abounds in
small bones, and the black paws with the white
nail-like stumps projecting from them, found
amongst the disjecta membra, arc not agreeable
to look upon. The bouillabaisse was unexcep
tionable, the soft crab worthy of every com
mendation, but the best dish was, unquestiona
bly, the pompinoe, an odd fish, something like
an unusually ugly John Dory, but possessing ad
mirable qualities in all that makes fish good.
The pleasures of the evening were enhanced by
a most glorious sunset, which cast its last rays
through a wilderness of laurel roses in full bloom,
which thronged the garden. At dusk, the air
was perfectly alive with fire-flies and strange
beetles. Flies and coleopters buzzed in through
the open windows, and flopped among the glass
es. At half-past nine we returned home in cars
drawn by horses along the rail.

May 25th. — Virginia has indeed been invaded
by the Federals. Alexandria has been seized.
It is impossible to describe the excitement and
rage of the people; they take, however, some
consolation in the fact that Colonel Ellsworth,
in command of a regiment of New York Zouaves,
was shot by J. T. Jackson, the landlord of an
inn in the city, called the Marshal Plouse.
Ellsworth, on the arrival of his regiment in Al
exandria, proceeded to take down the secession
flag, which had been long seen from the Presi
dent's windows. He went out upon the roof,
cut it from the staff, and was proceeding with it
down stairs, when a man rushed out of a room,
levelling a double-barrelled gun, shot Colonel
Ellsworth dead, and fired the other barrel at one

of his men, who had struck at the piece when
the murderer presented it at the Colonel. Al
most instantaneously, the Zouave shot Jackson
in the head, and as he was falling dead thrust his
sabre bayonet through his body. Strange to say,
the people of New Orleans consider Jackson was
completely right in shooting the Federal colo
nel, and maintain that the Zouave, who shot
Jackson, was guilty of murder. Their theory is
that Ellsworth had come over with a horde of
ruffianly abolitionists, or, as the Richmond Exam
iner has it, " the band of thieves, robbers and as
sassins, in the pay of Abraham Lincoln, com
monly known as the United States' Army," to
violate the territory of a sovereign state, in order
to execute their bloody and brutal purposes, and
that he was in the act of committing a robbery,
by taking a flag which did not belong to him,
when he met his righteous fate.

It is curious to observe how passion blinds
man's reason in this quarrel. More curious still
to see, by the light of this event, how differently
the same occurrence is viewed by Northerners
and Southerners respectively. Jackson is de
picted in the Northern papers as a fiend and an
assassin; even his face in death is declared to
have worn a revolting expression of rage and
hate. The Confederate flag, which was the cause
of the fatal affray, is described by one writer as
having been purified of its baseness by contact
with Ellsworth's blood. The invasion of Virginia
is hailed on all sides of the North with the ut
most enthusiasm. " Ellsworth is a martyr hero,
whose name is to be held sacred forever."

On the other hand, the Southern papers de
clare that the invasion of Virginia is "an act
of the Washington tyrants, which indicates their
bloody and brutal purpose to exterminate the
Southern people. The Virginians will give the
world another proof, like that of Moscow, that
a free people, fighting on a free soil, are invin
cible when contending for all that is dear to
man." Again — "A band of execrable cut
throats and jail-birds, known as the Zouaves of
New York, under that chief of all scoundrels,
Ellsworth, broke open the door of a citizen, to
tear down the flag of the house — the courageous
owner met the favorite hero of the Yankees in
his own hall, alone, against thousands, and shot
him through the heart — he died a death which
emperors might envy, and his memory will live
through endless generations." Desperate, in
deed, must have been the passion and anger of
the man who, in the fullest certainty that imme
diate death must be its penalty, committed such
a deed. As it seems U> me, Colonel Ellsworth,
however injudicious he may have been, was act
ually in the performance of his duty when tak
ing down the flag of an enemy.

In the evening I visited Mr. Slidell, whom I
found at home, with his family, Mrs. Slidell and
her sister Madame Beauregard, wife of the gen
eral, two very charming young ladies, daughters
of the house, and a parlour full of fair compan
ions, engaged, as hard as they could, in carding
lint with their fair hands. Among the compa
ny was Mr. Slidell's son, who had just travelled
from school at the North, under a feigned name,
in order to escape violence at the hands of the
Union mobs which are said to be insulting and
outraging every Southern man. The conversa
tion, as is the case in most Creole domestic cir-

92

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

cles, was carried on in French. I rarely met a
man whose features have a greater finesse and
firmness of purpose than Mr. SlidelFs ; his keen
grey eye is full of life, his thin, firmly-set lips
indicate resolution and passion. Mr. Slidell,
though born in a Northern state, is perhaps one
of the most determined disunionists in the South
ern confederacy; he is not a speaker of note, j
nor a ready stump orator, nor an able writer ; '
but he is an excellent judge of mankind, adroit,
persevering, and subtle, full of device, and fond
of intrigue; one of those men who, unknown
almost to the outer world, organises and sustains
a faction, and exalts it into the position of a par
ty — what is called here a "wire-puller." Mr.
Slidell is to the South something greater than
Mr. Thurlow Weed has been to his party in the
North. He, like every one else, is convinced
that recognition must come soon; but, under
any circumstances, he is quite satisfied the gov
ernment and independence of the Southern con
federacy are as completely established as those
of any power in the world. Mr. Slidell and the I
members of his family possess naivete, good sense, I
and agreeable manners ; and the regrets I heard j
expressed in Washington society at their absence
had every justification.

I supped at the club, which I visited every day
since I was made an honorary member, as all
the journals are there, and a great number of
planters and merchants, well acquainted with
the state of affairs in the South. There were
two Englishmen present, Mr. Lingam and an
other, the 'most determined secessionists and the
most devoted advocates of slavery I have yet
met in the course of my travels.

May 26th. — The heat to-day was so great that
I felt a return of my old Indian experiences, and
was unable to go, as I intended, to hear a very
eminent preacher discourse on the war at one
of the principal chapels.

All disposable regiments are on the march to
Virginia. It was bad policy for Mr. Jefferson
Davis to menace Washington before he could se
riously carry out his threats, because the North
was excited by the speech of his Secretary at War
to take extraordinary measures for the defence
of their capital ; and General Scott was enabled
by their enthusiasm not only to provide for its
defence, but to effect a lodgment at Alexandria,
as a base of operations against the enemy.

When the Congress at Montgomery adjourn
ed, the other day, they resolved to meet on the
20th of July at Richmond, which thus becomes
the capital of the Confederacy. The city is not
much more than one hundred miles south of
Washington, with which it was in communica
tion by rail and river ; and the selection must
cause a collision between the two armies in front
of the rival capitals. The seizure of the Norfolk
navy yard by the Confederates rendered it nec
essary to reinforce Fortress Monroe ; and for the
present the Potomac and the Chesapeake are out
of danger.

The military precautions taken by General
Scott, and the movements attributed to him to
hold Baltimore and to maintain his communica
tions between Washington and the North, afford
evidence of judgment and military skill. The
Northern papers are clamouring for an immedi
ate advance of their raw levies to Richmond,
which General Scott resists.

In one respect the South has shown greater
sagacity than the North. Mr. Jefferson Davis
having seen service in the field, and having been
Secretary of War, perceived the dangers and in
efficiency of irregular levies, and therefore in
duced the Montgomery Congress to pass a bill
which binds volunteers to serve during the war,
unless sooner discharged, and reserves to the
President of the Southern Confederacy the ap
pointment of staff and field officers, the right of
veto to battalion officers elected by each com
pany, and the power of organising companies of
volunteers into squadrons, battalions, and regi
ments. Writing to the Times at this date, I ob
served: "Although immense levies of men may
be got together for purposes of local defence or
aggressive operations, it will be very difficult to
move these masses like regular armies. There
is an utter want of field-trains, equipage, and
commissariat, which cannot be made good in a
day, a week, or a month. The absence of cav
alry, and the utter deficiency of artillery, may
prevent either side obtaining any decisive result
in one engagement ; but there, can be no doubt
large losses will be incurred whenever these
masses of men are fairly opposed to each other
in the open field."

May 27th. — I visited several of the local com
panies, their drill-grounds and parades ; but few
of the men were present, as nearly all are under
orders to proceed to the Camp at Tangipao or to
march to Richmond. Privates and officers are
busy in the sweltering streets purchasing neces
saries for their journey. As one looks at the res
olute, quick, angry faces around him, and hears
but the single theme, he must feel the South will
never yield to the North, unless as a nation which
is beaten beneath the feet of a victorious enemy.

In every state there is only one voice audible.
Hereafter, indeed, state jealousies may work their
own way; but if words mean anything, all the
Southern people are determined to resist Mr.
Lincoln's invasion as long as they have a man or
a dollar. Still, there are certain hard facts which
militate against the truth of their own assertions,
"that they are united to a man, and prepared to
fight to a man." Only 15,000 are under arms
out of the 50,000 men in the state of Louisiana
liable to military service.

"Charges of abolitionism" appear in the re
ports of police cases in the papers every morn
ing ; and persons found guilty not of expressing
opinions against slavery, but of stating their be
lief that the Northerners will be successful, are
sent to prison for six months. The accused are
generally foreigners, or belong to the lower or
ders, who have got no interest in the support of
slavery. The moral suasion of the lasso, of tar
ring and feathering, head-shaving, ducking, and
horse -ponds, deportation on rails, and similar
ethical processes, are highly in favor. As yet the
North have not arrived at such an elevated view
of the necessities of their position.

The New Orleans papers are facetious over
their new mode of securing unanimity, and high
ly laud what they call " the course of instruction
in the humane institution for the amelioration of
the condition of northern barbarians and aboli
tion fanatics, presided over by Professor Henry
Mitchell," who, in other words, is the jailer of
the workhouse reformatory.

I dined at the Lake with Mr. Mure, General

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

Lewis, Major Ranney, Mr. Duncan Kenner a
Mississippi planter, Mr. Claiborne, &c., and visit
ed the club in the evening. Every night since I
have been in New Orleans there have been one
or two fires ; to-night there were three — one a
tremendous conflagration. When I inquired to
what they were attributable, a gentleman who
sat near, bent over, and looking me straight in
the face, said, in a low voice, "The slaves."
The flues, perhaps, and the system of stoves, may
also bear some of the blame. There is great en
thusiasm among the townspeople in consequence
of the Washington artillery, a crack corps, fur
nished by the first people in New Orleans, being
ordered off for Virginia.

May 28th. — On dropping in at the Consulate
to-day, I found the skippers of several English
vessels who are anxious to clear out, lest they be
detained by the Federal cruisers. The United
States steam frigates Brooklyn and Niagara have
been for some days past blockading Pass a 1'outre.
One citizen made a remarkable proposition to
Mr. Mure. He came in to borrow an ensign of
the Royal Yacht Squadron for the purpose, he
said, of hoisting it on board his yacht, and run
ning down to have a look at the Yankee ships^
Mr. Mure had no flag to lend ; whereupon he
asked for a description by which he could get
one made. On being applied to, I asked ' ' wheth
er the gentleman was a member of the Squad
ron?" "Oh, no," said he, "but my yacht was
built in England, and I wrote over some time
ago to say I would join the squadron." I ven
tured to tell him that it by no means followed he
was a member, and that if he went out with the
flag and could not show "by his papers he had a
right to carry it, the yacht would be seized. How
ever, he was quite satisfied that he had an En
glish yacht, and a right to hoist an English flag,
and went off to an outfitter's to order a facsimile
of the Squadi'on ensign, and subsequently cruised
among the blockading vessels.

We hear Mr. Ewell was attacked by an Union
mob in Tennessee, his luggage was broken open i
and plundered, and he narrowly escaped personal
injury. Per contra, "charges of abolitionism"
continue to multiply here, and are almost as nu
merous as the coroner's inquests, not to speak
of the difficulties which sometimes attain the
magnitude of murder.

I dined with a large party at the Lake, who
had invited me as their guest, among whom were
Mr. Slidell, Governor Hebert, Mr. Hunt, Mr.
Norton, Mr. Fellows, and others. I observed in \
New York that every man had his own solution j
of the cause of the present difficulty, and contra- j
dieted plumply his neighbor the moment he at- ;
tempted to propound his own theory. Here I
found every one agi-eed as to the righteousness |
of the quarrel, but all differed as to the best mode I
of action for the South to pursue. Nor was there !
any approach to unanimity as the evening waxed |
older. Incidentally we had wild tales of South- 1
ern life, some good songs, curiously intermingled ;
with political discussions, and what the North- !
erns call hifalutin talk.

When I was in the Consulate to-day, a tall '
and well-dressed, but not very prepossessing- '
looking man, entered to speak to Mr. Mure on I
business, and was introduced to me at his own
request. His name was mentioned incidentally
to-night, and I heard a passage in his life not of

an agreeable character, to say the least of it. A
good many years ago there was a ball at New
Orleans, at which this gentleman was present ;
he paid particular attention to a lady wiio, how
ever, preferred the society of one of the com
pany, and in the course of the evening an alter
cation occurred respecting an engagement to
dance, in which violent language was exchanged,
and a push or blow given by the favoured part
ner to his rival, who left the room, and, as it is
stated, proceeded to a cutler's shop, where he
procured a powerful dagger-knife. Armed with
this, he returned, and sent in a message to the
gentleman with whom he had quarrelled. Sus
pecting nothing, the latter came into the ante
chamber, the assassin rushed upon him, stabbed
him to the heart, and left him weltering in his
blood. Another version of the story was, that
he waited for his victim till he came into the
cloak-room, and struck him as he was in the act
of putting on his overcoat. After a long delay,
the criminal was tried. The defence put forward
on his behalf was that he had seized a knife in
the heat of the moment when the quarrel took
place, and had slain his adversary in a moment
of passion ; but evidence, as I understand, went
strongly to prove that a considerable interval
elapsed between the time of the dispute and the
commission of the murder. The prisoner had
the assistance of able and ingenious counsel ; he
was acquitted. His acquittal was mainly due to
the judicious disposition of a large sum of money ;
each juror, when he retired to dinner previous to
consulting over the verdict, was enabled to find
the sum of 1000 dollars under his plate; nor
was it clear that the judge and sheriff had not
participated in the bounty ; in fact, I heard a
dispute as to the exact amount which it is sup
posed the murderer had to pay. Jle now occu
pies, under the Confederate Government, the post
at. New Orleans which he lately held as represent
ative of the Government of the United States.

After dinner I went in company of some of
my hosts to the Boston Club, which has, I need
not say, no connection with the city of that,
name. * More fires, the tocsin sounding, and so
to bed.

May 29th. — Dined in the evening with M.
Aristide Milten-berger, where I met His Ex
cellency Mr. Moore, the Governor of Louisiana,
his military secretary, and a small party.

It is a strange country, indeed ; one of the
evils which afflicts the Louisianians, they say, ii
the preponderance and influence of South Caro
linian Jews, and Jews generally, such as Moise,
Mordecai, Josephs, and Judah Benjamin, and
others. The subtlety and keenness of the Cau
casian intellect give men a high place among a
people who admire ability and dexterity, and
are at the same time reckless of means and
averse to labour. The Governor is supposed to
be somewhat under the influence of the He
brews, but he is a man quite competent to think
and to act for himself — a plain, sincere ruler of
a slave state, and an upholder of the patriarchal
institute. After dinner we accompanied Mad
ame Milten-berger (who affords in her own per
son a very complete refutation of the dogma
that American women furnish no examples of
the charms which surround their English sisters
in the transit from the prime of life toward mid
dle age), in a drive along the shell road to the

94

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

lake and canal ; the most remarkable object be
ing a long wall lined with a glorious growth of
orange trees: clouds of musquitoes effectually
interfered with an enjoyment of the drive.

May SQth. — Wrote .in the heat of the day, en
livened by my neighbour, a wonderful mocking
bird, whose songs and imitations would make
his fortune in any society capable of appreciat
ing native-born genius. His restlessness, cour
age, activity, and talent ought not to be con
fined to Mr. Mure's cage, but he seems content
ed and happy. I dined with Madame and M.
Milten-berger, and drove out with them to visit
the scene of our defeat in 1815, which lies at
the distance of some miles down the river.

A dilapidated farmhouse surrounded by trees
and negro huts marks the spot where Pakenham
was buried, but his body was subsequently ex
humed and sent home to England. Close to
the point of the canal which constitutes a por
tion of the American defences, a negro guide
came forth to conduct us round the place, but
he knew as little as most guides of the incidents
of the fight. The most remarkable testimony
to the severity of the fire to which the British
were exposed, is afforded by the trees in the
neighbourhood of the tomb. In one live oak
there are no less than eight round shot embed
ded, others contain two or three, and many are
lopped, rent, and scarred by the flight of can
non ball. The American lines extended nearly
three miles, and were covered in the front by
swamps, marshes, and water-cuts ; their batteries
and the vessels in the river enfiladed the British
as they advanced to the attack.

Among the prominent defenders of the cot
ton-bales was a notorious pirate and murderer
named Lafitte, who with his band was released
from prison on condition that he enlisted in .the
defence, and did substantial service to his friends
and deliverers.

Without knowing all the circumstances of the
case, it would be rash now to condemn the offi
cers who directed the assault ; but so far as one
could judge from the present condition of the
ground, the position must have been very for
midable, and should not have been assaulted till
the enfilading fire was subdued, and a very heavy
covering fire directed to silence the guns in front.
The Americans are naturally very proud of their
victory, which was gained at a most trifling loss
to themselves, which they erroneously conceive
to be a proof of their gallantry in resisting the
assault. It is one of the events which have cre
ated a fixed idea in their minds that they are
able to " whip the world."

On returning from my visit I went to the club,
where I had a long conversation with Dr. Rush-
ton, who is strongly convinced of the impossi
bility of carrying on government, or conducting
municipal affairs, until universal suffrage is put
down. He gave many instances of the terror
ism, violence, and assassinations which prevail
during election-times in New Orleans. M. Mil
ten-berger, on the contrary, thinks matters are
very well as they are, and declares all these sto
ries are fanciful : Incendiarism rife again. All
the club windows crowded with men looking at
a tremendous fire, which burned down three or
four stores and houses.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Carrying arms— New Orleans jail— Desperate characters-
Executions — Female maniacs and prisoners The river

and levee — Climate of New Orleans — Population Gen
eral distress — Pressure of the blockade— Money Phi
losophy of abstract rights — The doctrine of state rights
— Theoretical defect in the constitution.
May 3lst. — I went with Mr. Mure to visit the
jail.. We met the sheriff, according to appoint
ment, at the police court. Something like a
sheriff— a great, big, burly, six-foot man, with
revolvers stuck in his belt, and strength and
arms quite sufficient to enable him to execute
his office in its highest degree. Speaking of the
numerous crimes committed in New Orleans, he
declared it was a perfect hell upon earth, and
that nothing would ever put an end to murders,
manslaughters, and deadly assaults till it was
made penal to carry arms ; but by law every
American citizen may walk with an armoury
round his waist if he likes. Bar-rooms, cock
tails, mint juleps, gambling-houses, political dis
cussions, and imperfect civilization do the rest.
The jail is a square white-washed building,
with cracked walls and barred windows. In
front of the open door were seated four men on
chairs, with their legs cocked against the wall,
Imoking and reading newspapers. ' • Well, what
do you want?" said one of them, without rising.
"To visit the prison." "Have you got friends
inside, or do you carry an order?" The neces
sary document from our friend the sheriff was
produced. We entered through the doorway,
into a small hall, at the end of which was an
iron grating and door. A slightly-built young
man, who was lolling in his shirt sleeves on a
chair, rose and examined the order, and, taking
down a bunch of keys from a hook, and intro
ducing himself to us as one of the warders,
opened the iron door, and preceded us through
a small passage into a square court-yard, formed
on one side by ja. high wall, and on the other
three by windowed walls and cells, with doors
opening on the court. It was filled with a crowd
of men and boys ; some walking up and down,
others sitting, and groups on the pavement ;
some moodily apart, smoking or chewing; one
or two cleaning their clothes or washing at a
small tank. WTe walked into the "midst of them,
and the warder, smoking his cigar and looking
coolly about him, pointed out the most despe
rate criminals.

This crowded and most noisome place was

filled with felons of every description, as well as

with poor wretches merely guilty of larceny.

j Hardened murderers, thieves, and assassins were

here associated with boys in their teens who

were undergoing imprisonment for some trifling

robbery. It was not pleasant to rub elbows with

S miscreants who lounged past, almost smiling de-

; fiance, whilst the slim warder, in his straw hat,

shirt sleeves, and drawers, told you how such a

; fellow had murdered his mother, how another

had killed a policeman, or a third had destroyed

no less than three persons in a few moments.

Here were seventy murderers, pirates, burglars,

violaters, and thieves circulating among men

who had been proved guilty of no offence, but

were merely waiting for their trial.

A verandah ran along one side of the wall,
above a row of small cells, containing truckle-
beds for the inmates. " That's a desperate cha.p,
I can tell you," said the warder, pointing to a

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

95

man who, naked to his shirt, was sitting on the
floor, with heavy irons on his legs, which they
chafed notwithstanding the bloody rags around
them, engaged in playing cards with a fellow-
prisoner, and smoking with an air of supreme
contentment. The prisoner turned at the words,
and gave a kind of grunt and chuckle, and then
played his next card. "That," said the war
der, in the proud tone of a menagerie keeper
exhibiting his fiercest wild beast, " is a real des
perate character ; his name is Gordon : I guess
he comes from your country ; he made a most
miraculous attempt to escape, and all but suc
ceeded ; and you would never believe me if I
told you that he hooked on to that little spout,
climbed up the angle of that wall there, and
managed to get across to the ledge of that win
dow1 over the outside wall before he was discov
ered." And indeed it did require the corrobora
tive twinkle in the fellow's eye, as he heard of
his own exploit, to make me believe that the feat
thus indicated could be performed by mortal man.

" There's where we hang them," continued he,
pointing to a small black door, let into the wall,
about 18 feet from the ground, with some iron
hooks above it. "They walk out on the door,
which is shot on a bolt, and when the rope is
round their necks from the hook, the door's let
flop, and they swing over the court-yard." The
prisoners are shut up in their cells during the
execution, but they can see what is passing, at
least those who get good places at the windows.
"Some of them," added the warder, "do die
very brave indeed. Some of them abuse as you
never heard. But most of them don't seem to
like it."

Passing from the yard, we proceeded upstairs
to the first floor, where were the debtors' rooms.
These were tolerably comfortable, in comparison
to the wretched cells we had seen; but the poorer
debtors were crowded together, three or four in
a room. As far as I could ascertain, there is no
insolvency law, but the debtor is free, after ninety
days' imprisonment, if his board and lodging be
paid for. "And what if they are not ?" " Oh,
well, in that case we keep them till all is paid,
adding of course for every day they are kept."

In one of these rooms, sitting on his bed, look
ing wicked and gloomy, and with a glare like
that of a wild beast in his eyes, was a Doctor
Withers, who a few days ago murdered his son-
in-law and his wife, in a house close to Mr. Mure's.
He was able to pay for this privilege, and "as
he is a respectable man, "said the warder, "per
haps he may escape the worst."

Turning from this department into another
gallery, the warder went to an iron door, above
which was painted a death's head and cross-bones,
beneath were the words "condemned cell."

He opened the door, which led to a short, nar
row covered gallery, one side of which looked
into a court-yard, admitting light into two small
chambers, in which were pallets of straw covered
with clean counterpanes.

Six men wei-e walking up and down in the
passage. In the first room there was a table, on
which were placed missals, neatly bound, and
very clean religious books, a crucifix, and Agnus
Dei. The whitewashed wall of this chamber was
covered with most curions drawings in charcoal
or black chalk, divided into compartments, and
representing scenes in the life of the unhappy

artist, a Frenchman, executed some years ago
for murdering his mistress, depicting his tempta
tions — his gradual fall from innocence — his soci
ety with abandoned men and women — inter
mingled with Scriptural subjects, Christ walking
on the waters, and holding out his hand to the
culprit — the murderer's corpse in the grave —
angels visiting and lamenting over it; — finally,
the resurrection, in which he is seen ascending
to heaven !

My attention was attracted from this extraor
dinary room to an open gallery at the other side
of the courtyard, in which were a number of
women with dishevelled hair and torn clothes,
some walking up and down restlessly, others
screaming loudly, while some with indecent ges
tures were yelling to the wretched men opposite
to them, as they were engaged in their misera
ble promenade.

Shame and hoi-ror to a Christian land ! These
women were maniacs ! They are kept here until
there is room for them at the State Lunatic
Asylum. Night and day their terrible cries and
ravings echo through the dreary, waking hours
and the fitful slumbers of the wretched men so
soon to die.

Two of those who walked in that gallery are
to die to-morrow.

What a mockery — the crucifix ! — the Agnus
Dei! — the holy books! I turned with sickness
and loathing from the dreadful place. "But,"
said the keeper, apologetically, "there's not one
of them believes he'll be hanged."

*******

We next visited the women's gallery, where
female criminals of all classes are huddled to
gether indiscriminately. On opening the door,
the stench from the open verandah, in which the
prisoners were sitting, was so vile that I could
not proceed further-; but I saw enough to con
vince me that the poor, erring woman who was
put in there for some trifling offence, and placed
in contact with the beings who were uttering
such language as we heard, might indeed leave
hope behind her.

The prisoners have no beds to sleep upon, not
even a blanket, and are thrust in to lie as they
please, five in each small cell. It mav be im
agined what the tropical heat produces under
such conditions as these ,- but as the surgeon was
out, I could obtain no information respecting
the rates of sickness or mortality.

I next proceeded to a yard somewhat smaller
than that appropriated to serious offenders, in
which were confined prisoners condemned for
short sentences, for such offences as drunken
ness, assault, and the like. Among the prison
ers were some English sailors, confined for as
saults on their officers, or breach of articles ; all
of whom had complaints to make to the Consul,
as to arbitrary anvsts and unfounded charges.
Mr. Mure told me that when the port is full he
is constantly engaged inquiring into such cases;
and I am sorry to learn that the men of our
commercial marine occasion a good deal of
trouble to the authorities.

I left the prison in no very charitable mood
towards the people who sanctioned such a dis
graceful institution, and proceeded to complete
my tour of the city.

The "Levee," which is an enormous embank
ment to prevent the inundation of the river, is

96

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

now nearly deserted except by the river steam
ers, and those which have been unable to run
the blockade. As New Orleans is on an aver
age three feet below the level of the river at high
water, this work requires constant supervision ;
it is not less than fifteen feet broad, and rises
five or six feet above the level of the adjacent
street, and it is continued in an almost unbroken
line for several hundreds of miles up the course
of the Mississippi. When the bank gives way,
or a "crevasse," as it is technically called, oc
curs, the damage done to the plantations has
sometimes to be calculated by millions of dollars.
When the river is very low there is a new form
of danger, in what is called the "caving in" of
the bank, which, left without the support of the
water pressure, slides into the bed of the giant
river.

New Orleans is called the "crescent city" in
consequence of its being built on a curve of the
river, which is here about the breadth of the
Thames at Gravesend, and of great depth. Enor
mous cotton presses are erected near the banks,
where the bales are compressed by machinery
before stowage on shipboard, at a heavy cost to
the planter.

The custom-house, the city hall, and the Uni
ted States mint, are fine buildings, of rather pre
tentious architecture. The former is the largest
building in the States, next the capitol. I was
informed that on the levee, now almost deserted,
there is during the cotton and sugar season a
scene of activity, life, and noise, the like of which
is not in the world. Even Canton does not show
so many boats on the river, not to speak of steam
ers, tugs, flat-boats, and the like ; and it may be
easily imagined that such is the case, when we
know that the value of the cotton sent in the
year from this port alone exceeds twenty millions
sterling, and that the other exports are of the
value of at least fifteen millions sterling, whilst
the imports amount to nearly four millions.

As the city of New Orleans is nearly 1700
miles south of New York, it is not surprising
that it rejoices in a semi-tropical climate. The
squares are surrounded with lemon-trees, orange-
groves, myrtle, and magnificent magnolias. Pal-
mettoes and peach-trees are found in all the gar
dens, and in the neighbourhood are enormous
cypresses, hung round with the everlasting Span
ish moss.

The streets of the extended city are different
in character from the narrow chausse's of the old

town, and the general rectangular arrangement j Powers next October. They have among them
common in the United States, Russia, and Brit- j men who refuse to pay their debts to Northern
ish Indian cantonments is followed as much as | houses, but they deny that they intend to repu-
possible. The markets are excellent, each mu- diate, and promise to pay all who are not black
nicipality, or grand division, being provided with Republicans when the war is over. Repudia-
its own. They swarm with specimens of the tion is a word out of favour, as they feel the
composite races which inhabit the city, from the I character of the Southern States and of Mr.
thorough-bred, woolly-headed negro, Avho is sus- Jefferson Davis himself has been much injured
piciously like a native-born African, to the Cre- ! in Europe by the breach of honesty and honour
ole who boasts that every drop of blood in his of which they have been guilty ; but I am as
sured on all sides that every State will eventual
ly redeem all its obligations. Meantime, money
here is fast vanishing. Bills on New York are

able citizen, who had a little affair of his own on
Sunday morning.

Mr. Bibb was coming from market, and had
secured an early copy of a morning paper.
Three citizens, anxious for news, or, as Bibb
avows, for his watch and purse, came up and in
sisted that he should read the paper for them.
Bibb declined, whereupon the three citizens, in
the full exercise of their rights as a majority,
proceeded to coerce him ; but Bibb had a casual
revolver in his pocket, and in a moment he shot
one of his literary assailants dead, and wounded
the two others severely, if not mortally. The
paper which narrates the circumstances, in stat
ing that the successful combatant had been com
mitted to prison, adds, "great sympathy is felt
for Mr. Bibb." If the Southern minority is
equally successful in its resistance to force ina-
jeurens this eminent citizen, the fate of the Con
federacy cannot long be doubtful.

June 1st. — The respectable people of the city
are menaced with two internal evils in conse
quence of the destitution caused by the stoppage
of trade with the North and with Europe. The
municipal authorities, for want of funds, threat
en to close the city schools, and to disband the
police ; at the same time, employers refuse to
pay their workmen on the ground of inability.
The British Consulate was thronged to-day by
Irish, English, and Scotch, entreating to be sent
North or to Europe. The stories told by some
of these poor fellows were most pitiable, and
were vouched for by facts and papers ; but Mr.
Mure has no funds at his disposal to enable him
to comply with their prayers. Nothing remains
for them* but to enlist. For the third or fourth
time I heard cases of British subjects being for
cibly carried off to fill the ranks of so-called vol
unteer companies and regiments. In some in
stances they have been knocked down, bound,
and confined in barracks, till in despair they
consented to serve. Those who have friends
aware of their condition were relieved by the in
terference of the Consul ; but there are many,
no doubt, thus coerced and placed in involuntary
servitude without his knowledge. Mr. Mure has
acted with energy, judgment, and success on these
occasions ; but I much wish he could have, from
national sources, assisted the many distressed
English subjects who thronged his office.

The great commercial community of New Or-'
leans, which now feels the pressure of the block
ade, depends on the interference of the European

veins is purely French.

I Avas struck by the absence of any whites of
the labouring classes ; and when I inquired what

had become of the men who work on the levee
and at the cotton presses in competition with the
negroes, I was told that they had been enlisted
for the war.

I forgot to mention that among the criminals
in the prison there was one Mr. Bibb, a respect-

worth nothing, and bills on England are at 18
per cent, discount from the par value of gold ; <
but the people of this city will endure all this and
much more to escape from the hated rule of the ,
Yankees.

Through the present gloom come the rays of

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

a glorious future, which shall see a grand slave
confederacy enclosing the Gulf in its arms, and
swelling to the shores of the Potomac and Chesa
peake, with the entire control of the Mississippi
and a monopoly of the great staples on which so
much of the manufactures and commerce of Eng
land and France depend. They believe them
selves, in fact, to be masters of the destiny of the
world. Cotton is king — not alone king, but czar ;
and coupled with the gratification and profit to
be derived from this mighty agency, they look
forward with intense satisfaction to the complete
humiliation of their hated enemies in the New
England States, to the destruction of their usu
rious rival New York, and to the impoverishment
and ruin of the states which have excited their
enmity by personal liberty bills, and have out
raged and insulted them by harbouring aboli
tionists and an anti-slavery press.

The abolitionists have said, "We will never
rest till every slave is free in the United States."
Men of larger views than those have declared,
" They will never rest from agitation until a man
may as freely express his opinions, be they what
they 'may, on slavery, or anything else, in the
streets of Charleston or of New Orleans as in
those of Boston or New York." "Our rights
are guaranteed by the Constitution," exclaim
the South. "The Constitution," retorts Wen
dell Phillips, "is a league with the devil — a cov
enant with hell."

The doctrine of State Rights has been consist-
ently advocated not only by Southern statesmen,
but by the great party who have ever maintain
ed there was danger to liberty in the establish
ment of a strong central Government ; but the
contending interests and opinions on both sides
had hitherto been kept from open collision by
artful compromises and by ingenious contrivan
ces, which ceased with the election of Mr. Lin
coln.

There was in the very corner-stone of the re
publican edifice a small fissure, which has been
widening as the grand structure increased in
height and weight. The early statesmen and
authors of the Republic knew of its existence,
but left to posterity the duty of dealing with it
and guarding against its consequences. Wash
ington himself was perfectly aware of the danger ;
and he looked forward to a duration of some
sixty or seventy years only for the great fabric
he contributed to erect. He was satisfied a crisis
must come, when the States whom in his fare
well address he warned against rivalry and fac
tion would be unable to overcome the animosi
ties excited by different interests, and the pas
sions arising out of adverse institutions ; and
now that the separation has come, there is not,
in the Constitution, or out of it, power to cement
the broken fragments together.

It 'is remarkable that in New Orleans, as in
New York, the opinion of the most wealthy and
intelligent men in the community, so far as I can
judge, regards universal suffrage as organised
confiscation, legalised violence and corruption, a
mortal disease in the body politic. The other
night, as I sat in the club-house, I heard a dis
cussion in reference to the operations of the
Thugs in this city, a band of native-born Amer
icans, who at election-times were wont deliberate
ly to shoot down Irish and German voters occu
pying positions as leaders of their mobs. These

Thugs were only suppressed by an armed vigi
lance committee, of which a physician who sat
at table was one of the members.

Having made some purchases, and paid all
my visits, I returned to prepare for my voyage
up the Mississippi and visits to several planters
on its banks — my first being to Governor Roman.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Up the Mississippi — Free negroes and English policy —
Monotony of the river scenery — Visit to M. Roman —
Slave quarters— A slave dance— Slave children— Negro
hospital — General opinion — Confidence in Jefferson
Davis.

June 2nd. — My good friend the Consul was up
early to see me off; and we drove together to
the steamer J. L. Gotten. The people were go
ing to mass as we passed through the streets ;
and it was pitiable to see the children dressed
out as Zouaves, with tin swords and all sorts of
pseudo-military tomfoolery ; streets crowded with
military companies ; bands playing on all sides.

Before we left the door a poor black sailor
came up to entreat Mr. Mure's interference. He
had been sent by Mr. Magee, the Consul at Mo
bile, by land to New Orleans, in the hope that
Mr. Mure would be able to procure him a free
passage to some British port. He had served in
the Royal Navy, and had received a wound in the
Russian war. The moment he arrived in New
Orleans he had been seized by the police. On
his stating that he was a free-born British sub
ject, the authorities ordered him to be taken to
Mr. Mure ; he could not be allowed to go at lib
erty on account of his colour ; the laws of the
State forbad such dangerous experiments on the
feelings of the slave population ; and if the Con
sul did not provide for him, he would be arrest
ed and kept in prison, if no worse fate befell him.
He was suffering from the effect of his wound,
and was evidently in ill health. Mr. Mure gave
him a letter to the Sailors' Hospital, and some
relief out of his own pocket. The police came
as far as the door with him, and remained out
side to arrest him if the Consul did not afford
him protection and provide for him, so that he
should not be seen at large in the streets of the
city. The other day a New Orleans privateer
captured three northern brigs, on board which
were ten free negroes. The captain handed
them over to the Recorder, who applied to the
Confederate States' Marshal to take charge of
them. The Marshal refused to receive them,
whereupon the Recorder, as a magistrate and a
good citizen, decided on keeping them in jail, as
it would be a bad and dangerous policy to let
them loose upon the community.

I cannot help thinking that the position taken
by England in reference to the question of her
coloured subjects is humiliating and degrading.
People who live in London may esteem this ques
tion a light matter ; but it has not only been in
consistent with the national honour ; it has so
degraded us in the opinion of Americans them
selves, that they are encouraged to indulge in an
insolent tone and in violent acts towards us,
which will some day leave Great Britain no al
ternative but an appeal to arms. Free coloured
persons are liable to seizure by the police, and
to imprisonment, and may be sold into servitude
under certain circumstances.

98

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

On arriving at the steamer I found a consid
erable party of citizens assembled to see off their
friends. Governor Roman's son apologised to
me for his inability to accompany me up the riv
er, as he was going to the drill of his company
of volunteers. Several other gentlemen were in
uniform; and when we had passed the houses
of the city, I observed companies and troops of
horse exercising on both sides of the banks. On
board were Mr. Burnside, a very extensive pro
prietor, and Mr. Forstal, agent to Messrs. Bar
ing, who claims descent from an Irish family
near Rochestown, though he speaks our vernac
ular with difficulty, and is much more French
than British. He is considered one of the ablest
financiers and economists in the United States,
and is certainly very ingenious, and well cram
med with facts and figures.

The aspect of New Orleans from the river is
marred by the verv poor houses lining the quays
on the levee. Wide streets open on long vistas
bordered by the most paltry little domiciles ;
and thu great conceptions of those who planned
them, notwithstanding the prosperity of the city,
have not been realised.

As we were now floating nine feet higher than
the level of the streets, we could look down upon
a sea of flat roofs and low wooden houses, paint
ed white, pierced by the domes and spires of
churches and public buildings. Grass was grow
ing in many of these streets. At the other side
of the river there is a smaller city of shingle-
roofed houses, with a background of low timber.
The steamer stopped continually at various
points along the levee, discharging commissariat
stores, parcels, and passengers ; and after a time
glided up into the open country, which spread
beneath us for several miles at each side of the
banks, with a continuous background of forest.
All this part of the river is called the Coast, and
the country adjacent is remarkable for its fertil
ity. The sugar plantations are bounded by lines
drawn at right angles to the banks of the river,
and extending through the forest. The villas
of the proprietors are thickly planted in the
midst of the green fields, with the usual porti
coes, pillars, verandahs, and green blinds ; and
in the vicinity of each are rows of whitewashed
huts, which are the slave quarters. These fields,
level as a billiard-table, are of the brightest green
with crops of maize and sugar.

But few persons were visible ; not a boat was
to be seen ; and in the course of sixty-two miles
we met only two steamers. No shelving banks,
no pebbly shoals, no rocky margins mark the
course or" diversify the outline of the Mississippi.
The dead, uniform line of the levee compresses
it at each side, and the turbid waters flow with
out let in a current of uniform breadth between
the monotonous banks. The gables and summit
of one house resemble those of another ; and but
for the enormous scale of river and banks, and
the black faces of the few negroes visible, a pas
senger might think he was on board a Dutch
" treckshuyt." In fact, the Mississippi is a huge
trench-like canal draining a continent.

At half-past three P.M. the steamer ran along
side the levee at the right bank, and discharged
me at "Cahabanooze,"m the Indian tongue, or
"The ducks' sleeping-place," together with an
English merchant of New Orleans, M. La Ville
Beaufevre, son-in-law of Governor Roman, and

liis wife. The Governor was waiting to receive
us in the levee, and led the way through a gate
in the paling which separated his ground from
the roadside, towards the house, a substantial,
square, two-storied mansion, with a verandah all
round it, embosomed amid venerable trees, and
surrounded by magnolias. By way of explain
ing the proximity of his house to the river, M.
Roman told me that a considerable portion of
the garden in front had a short time ago been
carried off" by the Mississippi ; nor is he at all
sure the house itself will not share the same
fate ; I hope sincerely it may not. My quarters
were in a detached house, complete in itself,
containing four bedrooms, library, and sitting-
room, close to the mansion, and surrounded, like
it, by fine trees.

After we had sat for some time in the shade
of the finest group, M. Roman, or, as he is call
ed, the Governor — once a captain always a cap
tain — asked me whether I would like to visit the
slave quarters. I assented, and the Governor
led the way to a high paling at the back of the
house, inside which the scraping of the fiddles
was audible. As we passed the back of the man
sion some young women flitted past in snow-
white dresses, crinolines, pink sashes, and gau
dily coloured handkerchiefs on their heads, who
were, the Governor told me, the domestic serv
ants going off to a dance at the sugar-house ; ho
lets his slaves dance every Sunday. The Amer
ican planters who are not Catholics, although
they do not make the slaves work on Sunday ex
cept there is something to do, rarely grant them
the indulgence of a dance, but a few permit
them some hours of relaxation on each Saturday
afternoon.

We entered, by a wicket gate, a square en
closure, lined with negro huts, built of wood,
something like those which came from Malta to
the Crimea in the early part of the campaign.
They are not furnished with windows — a wood
en slide or grating admits all the air a negro de
sires. There is a partition dividing the hut into
two departments, one of which is used as the
sleeping-room, and contains a truckle bedstead
and a mattress stuffed with cotton wool, or the
hair -like fibres of dried Spanish moss. The
wardrobes of the inmates hang from nails or
pegs driven into the wall. The other room is
furnished with a dresser, on which are arranged
a few articles of crockery and kitchen utensils.
Sometimes there is a table in addition to the
plain wooden chairs, more or less dilapidated,
constituting the furniture — a hearth, in connec
tion with a brick chimney outside the cottage, in
which, hot as the day may be, some embers are
sure to be found burning. The ground round
the huts was covered with litter and dust, heaps
of old shoes, fragments of clothing and feathers,
amidst which pigs and poultry were recreating.
Curs of low degree scampered in and out of the
shade, or around two huge dogs, chiens de garde,
which are let loose at night to guard the, pre
cincts; belly deep, in a pool of stagnant water,
thirty or forty mules were swinking in the sun
and enjoying their day of rest.

The huts of the negroes engaged in the house
are separated from those of the slaves devoted to
field-labour out of doors by a wooden paling. I
looked into several of the houses, but somehow
or other I felt a repugnance, I dare say unjusti-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

99

fiable, to examine the penetralia, although in
vited—indeed, urged to do so by the Governor.
It was not that I expected to come upon any
thing dreadful, but I could not divest myself of
some regard for the feelings of the poor crea
tures, slaves though they were, who stood by,
shy, curtseying, and silent, as I broke in upon
their family circle, felt their beds, and turned
over their clothing. What right had I to do so ?

Swarms of flies, tin cooking utensils attracting
them by remnants of molasses, crockery, broken
and old, on the dressers, more or less old clothes
on the wall, these varied over and over again,
were found in all the huts ; not a sign of orna
ment or decoration was visible ; not the most
tawdry print, image of Virgin or Saviour ; not a
prayerbook or printed volume. The slaves are
not encouraged, or indeed permitted to read, and
some communities of slave-owners punish heav
ily those attempting to instruct them.

All the slaves seemed respectful to their mas
ter ; dressed in their best, they curtseyed, and
came up to shake hands with him and with me.
Among them were some very old men and wom
en, the canker-worms of the estate, who were
dozing away into eternity, mindful only of hom
iny, and pig, and molasses. Two negro fiddlers
were working their bows with energy in front of
one of the huts, and a crowd of little children
were listening to the music, together with a few
grown-up persons of colour, some of them from
the adjoining plantations. The children are gen
erally dressed in a little sack of coarse calico,
which answers all reasonable purposes, even if it
be not very clean.

It might be an interesting subject of inquiry
to the natural philqaophers who follow crinology
to determine why it is that the hair of the infant
negro, or child, up to six or seven years of age,
is generally a fine red russet, or even gamboge
colour, and gradually darkens into dull ebon.
These little bodies were mostly large-stomached,
well fed, and not less happy than freeborn chil
dren, although much more valuable — for if once
they get over juvenile dangers, and advance to
ward nine or ten years of age, they rise in value
to £100 or more, even in times when the market
is low and money is scarce.

The women were not very well-favoured ; one
yellow girl, with fair hair and light eyes, whose
child was quite white, excepted ; the men were
disguised in such strangely - cut clothes, their
hats, and shoes, and coats so wonderfully made,
that one could not tell what their figures were
like. On all faces there was a gravity which
must be the index to serene contentment and
/ perfect comfort, for those who ought to know
best declare they are the happiest race in the
world.

It struck me more and more, however, as I ex-
. amined the expression of the faces of the slaves,
that deep dejection is the prevailing, if not uni
versal, characteristic of the race. Here there
were abundant evidences that they were all well
treated ; they had good clothing of its kind, food,
and a master who wittingly could do them no
injustice, as he is, I am- sure, incapable of it.
Still, they all looked sad, and even the old wo
man who boasted that she had held her old own
er in her arms when he was an infant, did not
smile cheerfully, as the nurse at home would
have done at the sight of her ancient charge.

The negroes rear domestic birds of a\l kinds,
and sell eggs and poultry to their masters. The
money is spent in purchasing tobacco, molasses,
clothes, and flour ; whisky, their great delight,
they must not have. Some seventy or eighty
hands were quartered in this part of the estate.

Before leaving the enclosure I was taken to
the hospital, which was in charge of an old ne-
gress. The naked rooms contained several flock
beds on rough stands, and five patients, three of
whom were women. They sat listlessly on the
beds, looking out into space ; no books to amuse
them, no conversation — nothing but their own
dull thoughts, if they had any. They were suf
fering from pneumonia and swelling of the glands
of the neck : one man had fever. Their medical
attendant visits them regularly, and each planta
tion has a practitioner, who is engaged by the
term for his services. If the growth of sugar
cane, cotton, and corn be the great end of man's
mission on earth, and if all masters were like
Governor Roman, slavery might be defended as
a natural and innocuous institution. Sugar and
cotton are, assuredly, two great agencies in this
latter world. The older one got on well enough
without them.

The scraping of the fiddles attracted us to the
sugar-house, where the juice of the cane is ex
pressed, boiled, granulated, and prepared for the
refinery, a large brick building, with a factory-
looking chimney. In a space of the floor un
occupied by machinery some fifteen women and
as many men were assembled, and four couples
were dancing a kind of Irish jig to the music of
the negro musicians — a double shuffle in a thump
ing ecstasy, with loose elbows, pendulous paws,
angulated knees, heads thrown back, and backs
arched inwards — a glazed eye, intense solemnity
of mien.

At this time of year there is no work done
in the sugar-house, but when the crushing and
boiling are going on the labour is intensely try
ing, and the hands work in gangs night and
day; and, if the heat of the fires be superadded
to the temperature in September, it may be con
ceded that nothing but "involuntary servitude"
could go through the toil and suffering required
to produce sugar.

In the afternoon the Governor's son came in
from the company which he commands: his
men are of the best families in the country —
planters and the like. We sauntered about the
gardens, diminished, as I have said, by a freak
of the river. The French Creoles love gardens ;
the Anglo-Saxons hereabout do not much affect
them, and cultivate their crops up to the very
doorway.

It was curious to observe so far away from
France so many traces of the life of the old seign
eur — the early meals, in which supper took the
place of dinner — frugal simplicity — and yet a re
finement of manner, kindliness, and courtesy not
to be exceeded.

In the evening several officers of M. Alfred
Roman's company and neighbouring planters
dropped in, and we sat out in the twilight, under
the trees in the verandah, illuminated by the
flashing fireflies, and talking politics. I was
struck by the profound silence which reigned all
around us, except a low rushing sound, like that
made by the wind blowing over cornfields, which
came from the mighty river before us. Nothing

100

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

else was audible but the sound of our own voices
and the distant bark of a dog. After the steam
er which bore us had passed on, I do not believe
a single boat floated up or down the stream, and
but one solitary planter, in his gig or buggy,
traversed the road, which lay between the gar
den palings and the bank of the great river.

Our friends were all Creoles — that is, natives
of Louisiana — of French or Spanish descent.
They are kinder and better masters, according
to universal repute, than native Americans or
Scotch ; but the New England Yankee is reputed
to be the severest of all slave-owners. All these
gentlemen to a man are resolute that England
must get their cotton or perish. She will take
it, therefore, by force ; but as the South is de
termined never to let a Yankee vessel cany any
of its produce, a question has been raised by
Monsieur Baroche, who is at present looking
around him in New Orleans, which causes some
difficulty to the astute and statistical Mr. For-
stall. The French economist has calculated that
if the Yankee vessels be excluded from the car
rying trade, the commercial marine of France
and England together will be quite inadequate
to carry Southern produce to Europe. <_

But Southern faith is indomitable. With their
faithful negroes to raise their corn, sugar, and
cotton, whilst their young men are at the wars ;
with France and England to pour gold into their
lap with which to purchase all they need in the
contest, they believe they can beat all the pow
ers of the Northern world in arms. Illimitable
fields, tilled by multitudinous negroes, open on
their sight, and they behold the empires of Eu
rope, with their manufactures, their industry, and
their wealth, prostrate at the base of their throne,
crying out, "Cotton ! More cotton ! That is all
we ask !"

Mr. Forstall maintains the South can raise an
enormous revenue by a small direct taxation ;
whilst the North, deprived of Southern resources,
will refuse to pay taxes at all, and will accumu
late enormous debts, inevitably leading to its
financial ruin. He, like every Southern man I
have as yet met, expresses unbounded confidence
in Mr. Jefferson Davis. I am asked invariably,
as the second question from a stranger, "Have
you seen our President, sir? don't you think
him a very able man?" This unanimity in the
estimate of his character, and universal confi
dence in the head of the State, will prove of in
calculable value in a civil war.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Ride through the maize-fields — Sugar plantation ; negroes
at work — Use of the lash — Feeling towards France — Si
lence of the country — Negroes and dogs — Theory of
slavery — Physical formation of the negro — The defence
of slavery — The masses for negro souls — Convent of the
Sacre Coaur— Ferry house— A large landowner.

June 3rd. — At five o'clock this morning, hav
ing been awakened an hour earlier by a wonder
ful chorus of riotous mocking-birds, my old ne
gro attendant brought in my bath of Mississippi
water, which, Nile like, casts down a strong de
posit, and becomes as clear, if not so sweet, after
standing. " Le seigneur vous attend ;" and al
ready I saw, outside my window, the Governor
mounted on a stout cob, and a nice chestnut
horse waiting, led by a slave. Early as it was,

the sun felt excessively hot, and I envied the
Governor his slouched hat as we rode through
the fields, crisp with dew. In a few minutes
our horses were traversing narrow alleys be
tween the tall fields of maize, which rose far
above our heads. This corn, as it is called, is
the principal food of the negroes; and every
planter lays down a sufficient quantity to afford
him, on an average, a supply all the year round.
Outside this spread vast fields, hedgeless, wall-
less, and unfenced, where the green cane was
just learning to wave its long shoots in the wind
— a lake of bright green sugar-sprouts, along
the margin of which, in the distance, rose an un
broken boundary of forest, two miles in depth,
up to the swampy morass, all to be cleared and
turned into arable land in process of time.
From the river front to this forest, the fields of
rich loam, unfathomable, and yielding from one
to one and a half hogsheads of sugar per acre
under cultivation, extend for a mile and a half
in depth. In the midst of this expanse white
dots were visible like Sowars seen on the early
march, in Indian fields, many a time and oft.
Those are the gangs of hands at work — we will
see what they are at presently. This little remi
niscence of Indian life was further heightened
by the negroes who ran beside us to whisk flies
from the horses, and to open the gates in the
plantation boundary. When the Indian corn is
not good, peas are sowed, alternately, between
the stalks, and are considered to be of much ben
efit ; and when the cane is bad, corn is sowed
with it, for the same object. Before we came
up to the gangs we passed a cart on the road
containing a large cask, a bucket full of molas
ses, a pail of hominy, or boi^d Indian corn, and
a quantity of tin pannikins. The cask contain
ed water for the negroes, and the other vessels
held the materials for their breakfast ; in addi
tion to which, they generally have each a dried
fish. The food was ample, and looked whole
some ; such as any labouring man would be well
content with. Passing along through maize on
one side, and cane at another, we arrived at last
at a patch of ground where thirty-six men and
women were hoeing.

Three gangs of negroes were at work : one
gang of men, with twenty mules and ploughs,
was engaged in running through the furrows
between the canes, cutting up the weeds and
clearing away the grass, which is the enemy of
the growing shoot. The mules are of a fine,
large, good-tempered kind, and understand their
work almost as well as the drivers, who are usu
ally the more intelligent hands on the planta
tion. The overseer, a sharp-looking Creole, on
a lanky pony, whip in hand, superintended their
labours, and, after a salutation to the Governor,
to whom he made some remarks on the condi
tion of the crops, rode off to another part of the
farm. With the exception of crying to their
mules, the negroes kept silence at their work.

Another gang consisted of forty men, who
were hoeing out the grass in Indian corn. The
third gang, of thirty-six women, were engaged
in hoeing out cane. Their clothing seemed
heavy for the climate ; their shoes, ponderous
and ill-made, had worn away the feet of their
thick stockings, which hung in fringes over the
upper leathers. Coarse straw hats and bright
cotton handkerchiefs protected their heads from

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

101

the sun. The silence which I have already al
luded to prevailed among these gangs also— not
a sound could be heard but the blows of the hoe
on the heavy clods. In the rear of each gang
stood a black overseer, with a heavy - thonged
whip over his shoulder, if "Alcibiade" or
"PompeV'were called out, he came with out
stretched hand to ask "How do you do," and
then returned to his labour ; but the ladies were
coy, and scarcely looked up from under their
flapping chapeaux de paille at their visitors.

Those who are mothers leave their children in
the charge of certain old women, unfit for any
thing else, and " suckers," as they are called, are
permitted to go home, at appointed periods in
the day, to give the infants the breast. The
overseers have power to give ten lashes ; but
heavier punishment ought to be reported to the
Governor ; however, it is not likely a good over
seer would be checked, in any way, by his mas
ter. The anxieties attending the' cultivation of
sugar are great, and so much depends upon the
judicious employment of labour, it is scarcely
possible to exaggerate the importance of experi
ence in directing it, and of power to insist on its
application. When the frost comes, the cane is
rendered worthless — one touch destroys the sug
ar. But if frost is the enemy of the white plant
er, the sun is scarcely the friend of the black
Kman. The sun condemns him to slavery, be
cause it is the heat which is the barrier to the
white man's labour. The Governor told me
that, in August, when the crops are close, thick
set, and high, and the vertical sun beats down
on tbe labourers, nothing but a black skin and
head covered with wool can enable a man to
walk out in the open and live.

We returned to the house in time for breakfast,
for which our early cup of coffee and biscuit and
the ride had been good preparation. Here was
old France again. One might imagine a lord
of the seventeenth century in his hall, but for
the black faces of the servitors and the strange
dishes of tropical origin. There was the old
French abundance, the numerous dishes and ef
florescence of napkins, and the long-necked bot
tles of Bordeaux, with a steady current of pleas
ant small talk. I saw some numbers of a paper
called La Misachibee, which was the primitive
Indian name of the grand river, not improved by
the addition of sibilant Anglo-Saxon syllables.

The Americans, not unmindful of the aid to
which, at the end of the War of Independence,
their efforts were merely auxiliary, delight, even
in the North, to exalt France above her ancient
rival ; but, as if to show the innate dissimilarity
of the two races, the French Creoles exhibit to
wards the New Englanders and the North an
animosity, mingled with contempt, which argues
badly for a future amalgamation or reunion. As
the South Carolinians declare, they would rather
return to their allegiance under the English mon
archy, so the Louisianians, although they have
no sentiment in common with the people of re
publican and imperial France, assert they would
far sooner seek a connection with the old coun
try than submit to the yoke of the Yankees.

After breakfast, the Governor drove out by the
ever-silent levee for some miles, passing estate
after estate, where grove nodded to grove, each
alley saw its brother. One could form no idea,
from the small limited frontage of these planta

tions, that the proprietors were men of many
thousands a year, because the estates extend on
an average for three or four miles back to the
forest. The absence of human beings on the
road was a feature which impressed one' more
and more. But for the tall chimneys of the fac
tories and the sugar-houses, one might believe
that these villas had been erected by some pleas
ure-loving people who had all fled from the river
banks for fear of pestilence. The gangs of ne
groes at work were hidden in the deep corn, and
their quarters were silent and deserted. We
met but one planter, in his gig, until we arrived
at the estate of Monsieur Potier, the Governor's
brother-in-law. The proprietor was at home,
and received us very kindly, though suffering
from the effects of a recent domestic calamity.
He is a grave, earnest man, with a face like Je
rome Bonaparte, and a most devout Catholic ;
and any man more unfit to live in any sort of
community with New England Puritans one can
not well conceive ; for equal intensity of purpose
and sincerity of conviction on their part could
only lead them to mortal strife. His house was
like a French chateau erected under tropical in
fluences, and he led us through a handsome gar
den laid out with hothouses, conservatories, or
ange-trees, and date-palms, and ponds full of the
magnificent Victoria Regia in flower. We vis
ited his refining factories and mills, but the heat
from the boilers, which seemed too much even for
the all-but-naked negroes who were at work, did
not tempt us to make a very long sojourn inside.
The ebony faces and polished black backs of the
slaves were streaming with perspiration as they
toiled over boilers, vat, and centrifugal driers.
The good refiner was not gaining much money
at present, for sugar has been rapidly falling in
New Orleans, and the 300,000 barrels produced
annually in the South will fall short in the yield
of profits, which on an average may be taken at
£11 a hogshead, without counting the molasses
for the planter. With a most perfect faith in
States Rights, he seemed to combine either in
difference or ignorance in respect to the power
and determination of the North to resist seces
sion to the last. All the planters hereabouts
have sown an unusual quantity of Indian corn,
to have food for the negroes if the war lasts, with
out any distress from inland or sea blockade.
The absurdity of supposing that a blockade can
injure them in the way of supply is a favourite
theme to descant upon. They may find out,
however, that it is no contemptible means of
warfare.

At night, there are regular patrols and watch
men, who look after the leve'e and the negroes.
A number of dogs are also loosed, but I am as
sured that the creatures do not tear the negroes ;
they are taught "merely" to catch and mumble
them, to treat them as a well-broken retriever
uses a wounded wild duck.

At six A.M., Moise came to ask me if I should
like a glass of absinthe, or anything stomachic.
At breakfast Avas Doctor Laporte, formerly a
member of the Legislative Assembly of France,
who was exiled by Louis Napoleon ; in other
words, he was ordered to give in his adhesion to
the new regime, or to take a passport for abroad.
He preferred the latter course, and now, true
Frenchman, finding the Emperor has aggran
dised France and added to her military reputa-

102

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

tion, he admires the man on whom but a few
years ago he lavished the bitterest hate.

The carriage is ready, and the word farewell
is spoken at last. M. Alfred Roman, my com
panion, has travelled in Europe, and learned
philosophy ; is not so orthodox as many of the
gentlemen 1 have met who indulge in ingenious
hypotheses to comfort the consciences of the an-
tlitropoproprietors. The negro skull won't hold as
many ounces of shot as the white man's. Potent
proof that the white man has a right to sell and
to own the creature ! He is plantigrade, and
curved as to the tibia! Cogent demonstration
that he was made expressly to work for the arch-
footed, straight-tibiaed Caucasian. He has a
rete imicosum and a coloured pigment ! Surely
he cannot have a soul of the same colour as that
of an Italian or a Spaniard, far less of a flaxen-
haired Saxon ! See these peculiarities in the
frontal sinus — in sinciput or occiput ! Can you
doubt that the being with a head of that shape
was made only to till, hoe, and dig for another
race ? Besides, the Bible says that he is a son
of Ham, and prophecy must be carried out in
the rice-swamps, sugar-canes, and maize-fields
of the Southern Confederation. It is flat blas
phemy to set yourself against it. Our Saviour
sanctions slavery because he does not say a word
against it, and it is very likely that St. Paul was
a slave-owner. Had cotton and sugar been
known, the apostle might have been a planter !
Furthermore, the negro is civilised by being car
ried away from Africa and set to work, instead
of idling in native inutility. What hope is there
of Christianising the African races, except by
the agency of the apostles from New Orleans,
Mobile, or Charleston, who sing the sweet songs
of Zion with such vehemence, and clamour so
fervently for baptism in the waters of the "Jaw-
dam?"

If these high physical, metaphysical, moral
and religious reasonings do not satisfy you, and
you are bold enough to venture still to be un
convinced and to say so, then I advise you not
to come within reach of a mass meeting of our
citizens, who may be able to find a rope and a
tree in the neighbourhood.

As we jog along in an easy rolling carriage
drawn by a pair of stout horses, a number of
white people meet us coming from the Catholic
chapel of the parish, where they had been attend
ing the service for the repose of the soul of a
lady much beloved in the neighbourhood. The
black people must be supposed to have very hap
py souls, or to be as utterly lost as Mr. Shandy's
homunculus was under certain circumstances,
for I have failed to find that any such services
are ever considered necessary in their case, al
though they .may have been very good — or,
where the services would be most desirable —
very bad Catholics. The dead, leaden uniform
ity of the scenery forced one to converse, in or
der to escape profound melancholy: the levee
on the right hand, above which nothing was vis
ible but the sky ; on the left, plantations with cy
press fences, whitewashed and pointed wooden
gates leading to the planters' houses, and rugged
gardens surrounded with shrubs, through which
could be seen the slave quarters. Men making
eighty or ninety hogsheads of sugar in a year
lived in most wretched tumble -down wooden
houses not much larger than ox-sheds.

As we drove on the storm gathered overhead,
and the rain fell in torrents — the Mississippi
flowed lifelessly by — not a boat on its broad sur
face.

At last we reached Governor Manning's place,
and went to the house of the overseer, a large,
heavy-eyed old man.

" This rain will do good to the corn," said the
overseer. "The niggers has had sceerce nothin'
to do leetly, as they 'eve cleaned out the fields
pretty well."

At the ferry-house I was attended by one stout
young slave, who was to row me over. Two fiat-
bottomed skiffs lay on the bank. The negro
groped under the shed, and pulled out a piece of
wood like a large spatula, some four feet long,
and a small round pole a little longer. "What
are those ?" quoth I. ' ' Dem's oars, Massa, " was
my sable ferryman's brisk reply. " I'm very sure
they are not ; if they were spliced they might
make an oar between them." "Golly, and
dat's the trute, Massa." "Then go and get
oars, will you?" While he was hunting about
we entered the shed at the ferry for shelter from
the rain. We found "a solitary woman sitting"
smoking a pipe by the ashes on the hearth, blear-
eyed, low-browed and morose — young as she was.
She never said a word nor moved as we came in,
sat and smoked, and looked through her gummy
eyes at chickens about the size of sparrows, and
at a cat not larger than a rat which ran about
on the dirty floor. A little girl, some four years
of age, not overdressed — indeed, half naked,
"not to put too fine a point upon it" — crawled
out from under the bed, where she had hid on
our approach. As she seemed incapable of ap
preciating the use of a small piece of silver pre
sented to her — having no precise ideas in coin
age or toffy — her parent took the obolus in
charge, with unmistakeable decision ; but still
the lady would not stir a step to aid our guide,
who now insisted on the "key ov de oar-house."
The little thing sidled off and hunted it out from
the top of the bedstead, and when it was found,
and the boat was ready, I was not sorry to quit
the company of the silent woman in black. The
boatman pushed his skiff, in shape a snuffer-
dish, some ten feet long and a foot deep, into the
water — there was a good deal of rain in it. I
got in too, and the conscious waters immediate
ly began vigorously spurting through the cotton
wadding wherewith the craft was caulked. Had
we gone out into the stream we should have had
a swim for it, and they do say that the Missis
sippi is the most dangerous river in the known
world for that healthful exercise. " Why ! deuce
take you" (I said at least that, in my wrath),
"don't you see the boat is leaky?" "See it
now for " true, Massa. Nobody able to tell dat
till Massa get in, though." Another skiff proved
to be more staunch. I bade good-bye to my
friend Roman, and sat down in my boat, which
was forced by the negro against the stream close
to the bank, in order to get a good start across
to the other side. The view from my lonely po
sition was curious, but not at all picturesque.
| The world was bounded on both sides by a high
bank, which constricted the broad river, just as
if one were sailing down an open sewer of enor
mous length and breadth. Above the bank rose
! the tops of tall trees and the chimneys of sugar-
I houses, and that was all to be seen save the sky.

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

103

A quarter of an hour brought us to the levee
on the other side. I ascended the bank, and
across the road, directly in front, appeared a car
riage gateway and wickets of wood, painted
white, in a line of park palings of the same ma
terial, which extended up and down the road far
as the eye could see, and guarded wide-spread
fields of maize and sugar-cane. An avenue
lined with trees, with branches close set, droop
ing and overarching a walk paved with red
brick, led to the house, the porch of which was
visible at the extremity of the lawn, with cluster
ing flowers, rose, jessamine, and creepers cling
ing to the pillars supporting the verandah. The
view from, the belvedere on the roof was one of
the most striking of its kind in the world.

If an English agriculturist could see six thou
sand acres of the finest land in one field, unbro
ken by hedge or boundary, and covered with the
most magnificent crops of tasseling Indian corn
and sprouting sugar-cane, as level as a billiard-
table, he would surely doubt his senses. But
here is literally such a sight — six thousand acres,
better tilled than the finest patch in all the Lo-
thians, green as Meath pastures, which can be
turned up for a hundred years to come without
requiring manure, of depth practically unlimit
ed, and yielding an average profit on what is
sold off it of at least 20L an acre, at the old
prices and usual yield of sugar. Rising up in
the midst of the verdure are the white lines of
the negro cottages and the plantation offices and
sugar-houses, which look like large public edi
fices in the distance. My host was not ostenta
tiously proud in telling me that, in the year
1857, he had purchased this estate for 300,000/.,
and an adjacent property, of 8000 acres, for
150, OOO/., and that he had left Belfast in early
youth, poor and unfriended, to seek his fortune,
and indeed scarcely knowing what fortune meant,
in the New World. In fact, he had invested in
these purchases the greater part, but not all, of
the profits arising from the business in New Or
leans, which he inherited from his master ; of
which there still remained a solid nucleus in the
shape of a great woollen magazine and country
house. He is not yet fifty years of age, and his
confidence in the great future of sugar induced
him to embark this enormous fortune in an estate
which the blockade has stricken with paralysis.
I cannot doubt, however, that he regrets he
did not invest his money in a certain great es
tate in the North of Ireland, which he had near
ly decided on buying ; and, had he done so, he
would now be in the position to which his unaf
fected good sense, modesty, kindliness, and be
nevolence, always adding the rental, entitle him.
Six thousand acres on this one estate all covered
with sugar-cane, and 16,000 acres more of In
dian corn, to feed* the slaves; — these were great
possessions, but not less than 18,000 acres still
remained, covered with brake and forest, and
swampy, to be reclaimed and turned into gold.
/A.s easy to persuade the owner of such wealth
that slavery is indefensible as to have convinced
the Norman baron that the Saxon churl who
tilled his lands ought to" be his equal. ;

I found Mr. Ward and a few merchants from
New Orleans in possession of the bachelor's
house. The service was performed by slaves,
and the order and regularity of the attendants
were worthy of a well-regulated English man

sion. In Southern houses along the coast, as
the Mississippi above New Orleans is termed,
beef and mutton are rarely met with, and the
more seldom the better. Fish, also, is scarce,
but turkeys, geese, poultry, and preparations of
pig, excellent vegetables, and wine of the best
quality, render the absence of the accustomed
dishes little to be regretted.

The silence which struck me at Governor Uo-
man's is not broken at Mr. Burnside's ; and when
the last thrill of the mocking-bird's song has
died out through the grove, a stillness of Averni-
an profundity settles on hut, field, and river.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Negroes— Sugar-cane plantations— The negro and cheap
labour — Mortality of blacks and whites — Irish labour in

. Louisiana — A sugar-house — Negro children — Want of
education — Negro diet — Negro hospital — Spirits in the
morning — Breakfast — More slaves— Creole planters.

June 5th. — The smart negro who waited on
me this morning spoke English. I asked him
if he knew how to read and write. — "We must
not do that, sir." "Where were you born?" —
"I were raised on the plantation, Massa, but
I have been to New Orleens ;'' and then he add
ed, with an air of pride, "I s'pose, sir, Massa
Burnside not take less than 1500 dollars for me."
Downstairs to breakfast, the luxuries of which
are fish, prawns, and red meat which has been
sent for to Donaldsonville by boat rowed by an
old negro. Breakfast over, I walked down to
the yard, where the horses were waiting, and
proceeded to visit the saccharine principality.
Mr. Seal, the overseer of this portion of the es
tate, was my guide, if not philosopher and friend.
Our road lay through a lane formed by a cart-
track, between fields of Indian corn just begin
ning t to flower — as it is called technically, to
"tassel" — and sugar-cane. There were stalks
of the former twelve or fifteen feet in height,
with three or four ears each, round which the
pea twined in leafy masses. The maize affords
food to the negro, and the husks are eaten by
the horses and mules, which also fatten on the
peas in rolling time.

The wealth of the land is inexhaustible : all
the soil requires is an alternation of maize and
cane ; and the latter, when cut in the stalk,
called "rattoons," at the end of the year, pro
duces a fresh crop, yielding excellent sugar.
The cane is grown from stalks which are laid
in pits during the winter till the ground has
been ploughed, when each piece of cane is laid
longitudinally on the ridge and covered with
earth, and from each joint of the stalk springs
forth a separate sprout when the crop begins to
grow. At present the sugar-cane is waiting for
its full development, but the negro labour around
its stem has ceased. It is planted in long con
tinuous furrows ; and although the palm - like
tops have not yet united in a uniform arch over
the six feet which separates row from row, the
stalks are higher than a man. The plantation
is pierced with wagon roads, for the purpose of
conveying the cane to the sugar-mills, and these
again are intersected by and run parallel with
drains and ditches, portions of the great system
of irrigation and drainage, in connection with a
canal to carry off the surplus water to a bayou.
The extent of these works may be estimated by

104

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

the fact that there are thirty miles of road and
twenty miles of open deep drainage through the
estate, and that the main canal is fifteen feet
wide, and at present four feet deep; but in the
midst of this waste of plenty and wealth, where
are the human beings who produce both ? One
must go far to discover them ; they are buried
in sugar and in maize, or hidden in negro quar
ters. In truth, there is no trace of them, over
all this expanse of land, unless one knows where
to seek; no "ploughboy whistles over the lea;"
no rustic stands to do his own work, but the
gang is moved off in silence from point to point,
like a corps d'arme'e of some despotic emperor
manoeuvring in the battle-field.

Admitting everything that can be said, I am
the more persuaded, from what I see, that the
real foundation of slavery in the Southern States
lies in the power of obtaining labour at will at a
rate which cannot be controlled by any combina
tion of the labourers. Granting the heat and the
malaria, it is not for a moment to be argued that
planters could not find white men to do their
work if they would pay them for the risk. A
negro, it is true, bears heat well, and can toil
under the blazing sun of Louisiana, in the stifling
air between the thick-set sugar-canes, but the
Irishman who is employed in the stoke-hole of a
steamer is exposed to a higher temperature and
physical exertion even more arduous. The Irish
labourer can, however, set a value on his work ;
the African slave can only determine the amount
of work to be got from him by the exhaustion of
his powers. Again, the indigo planter in India,
out from morn till night amidst his ryots, or the
sportsman toiling under the midday sun through
swamp and jungle, proves that the white man can
endure the utmost power of the hottest sun in the
world as well as the native. More than that, the
white man seems to be exempt from the inflam
matory disease, pneumonia, and attacks of the
mucous membrane and respiratory organs to
which the blacks are subject ; and if the statis
tics of negro mortality were rigidly examined, I
doubt that they would exhibit as large a propor
tion of mortality and sickness as would be found
amongst gangs of white men under similar cir
cumstances. But the slave is subjected to rigid
control ; he is deprived of stimulating drinks in
which the free white labourer would indulge ; and
he is obliged to support life upon an antiphlo
gistic diet, which gives him, however, sufficient
strength to execute his daily task.

It is in the supposed cheapness of slave labour
and its profitable adaptation in the production
of Southern crops, that the whole gist and essence
of the question really lie. The planter can get
from the labour of a slave for whom he has paid
200/., a sum of money which will enable him to
use up that slave in comparatively a few years
of his life, whilst he would have to pay to the
white labourer a sum that would be a great ap
parent diminution of his profits, for the same
amount of work. It is calculated that each field-
hand, as an able-bodied negro is called, yields
seven hogsheads of sugar a year, which, at the
rate of fourpence a pound, at an average of a
hogshead an acre, would produce to the planter
140/. for every slave. This is wonderful interest
on the planter's money ; but he sometimes gets
two hogsheads an acre, and even as many as
three hogsheads have been produced in good

years on the best lands ; in other words, two and
a quarter tons of sugar and refuse stuff, called
'bagasse,'' have been obtained from an acre of
cane. Not one planter of the many I have asked
has ever given an estimate of the annual cost of
a slave's maintenance ; the idea of calculating it
never comes into their heads.

Much depends upon the period at which frost
sets in ; and if the planters can escape till Jan
uary without any cold to nip the juices and the
cane, their crop is increased in value each day ;
but it is not till October they can begin to send
cane to the mill, in average seasons ; and if the
frost does not come till December, they may count
upon the fair average of a hogshead of 1200
pounds of sugar to every acre.

The labour of ditching, trenching, cleaning the
waste lands, and hewing down the forests is gen
erally done by Irish labourers, who travel about
the country under contractors, or are engaged by
resident gangsmen for the task. Mr. Seal la- /
mented the high prices of this work ; but then, ./
as he said, " It was much better to have Irish to
do it, who cost nothing to the planter if they
died, than to use up good field-hands in such
severe employment. " There is a wonderful mine
of truth in this observation. Heaven knows how
many poor Hibernians have been consumed and
buried in these Louisianian swamps, leaving their
earnings to the dramshop keeper and the con
tractor, and the results of their toil to the planter.
This estate derives its name from an Indian tribe
called Houmas ; and when Mr. Burnside pur
chased it for 300, OOQL he received in the first
year 63,000/. as the clear value of the crops on
his investment.

The first place I visited with the overseer was
a new sugar-house, which negro carpenters and
masons were engaged in erecting. It would have
been amusing had not the subject been so grave,
to hear the overseer's praises of the intelligence
and skill of these workmen, and his boast that
they did all the work of skilled labourers on the
estate, and then to listen to him, in a few min
utes, expatiating on the utter helplessness and
ignorance of the black race, their incapacity to
do any good, or even to take care of themselves.

There are four sugar-houses on this portion of
Mr. Burnside's estate, consisting of grinding-
mills, boiling-houses, and crystallising sheds.

The sugar-house is the capital of the negro
quarters, and to each of them is attached an en
closure, in which there is a double row of single-
storied wooden cottages, divided into two or four
rooms. An avenue of trees runs down the centre
of the negro sti-eet, and behind each hut are rude
poultry-hutches, which, with geese and turkeys
and a few pigs, form the perquisites of the slaves,
and the sole source from which they derive their
acquaintance with currency. • Their terms are
strictly cash. An old negro brought up some
ducks to Mr. Burnside last night, and oft'ered the
lot of six for three dollars. " Very well, Louis ;
if you come to-morrow, I'll pay you." "No,
massa ; me want de money now." "But won't
you give me credit, Louis ? Don't you think I'll
pay the three dollars?" "Oh, pay some day,
massa, sure enough. Massa good to pay de tree
dollar ; but this nigger want money now to buy
food and things for him leetle famly. They will
trust massa at Donaldsville, but they won't trust
this nigger." I was told that a thrifty negro

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

105

/

will sometimes make ten or twelve pounds a year
from his corn and poultry ; but he can have no
inducement to hoard; for whatever is his, as
well as himself, belongs to his master.

Mr. Seal conducted me to a kind of forcing-
house, where the young negroes are kept in
charge of certain old crones too old for work,
whilst their parents are away in the cane and
Indian corn. A host of children of both sexes
were seated in the verandah of a large wooden
shed, or playing around it, very happily and nois
ily. I was glad to see the boys and girls of nine,
ten, and eleven years of age were at this season,
at all events, exempted from the cruel fate which
befalls poor children of their age in the mining
and manufacturing districts of England. At the
sight of the overseer the little ones came forward
in tumultuous glee, babbling out, " Massa Seal,"
and evidently pleased to see him.

As a jolly agriculturist looks at his yearlings
or young beeves, the kindly overseer, lolling in
his saddle, pointed with his whip to the glisten
ing fat ribs and corpulent paunches of his wool
ly-headed flock. " There's not a plantation in
the State," quoth he, "can show such a lot of
young niggers. The way to get them right is
not to work the mothers too hard when they are
near their time ; to give them plenty to eat, and
not to send them to the fields too soon." He
told me the increase was about five per cent, per
annum. The children were quite sufficiently
clad, ran about round us, patted the horses, felt
our legs, tried to climb up on the stirrup, and
twinkled their black and ochrey eyes at Massa
Seal. Some were exceedingly fair ; and Mr.
Seal, observing that my eye followed these, mur
mured something about the overseers before Mr.
Burnside's time being rather a bad lot. He
talked about their colour and complexion quite
openly ; nor did it seem to strike him that there
was any particular turpitude in the white man
who had left his offspring as slaves on the plant
ation.

A tall, well-built lad of some nine or ten years
stood by me, looking curiously into my face.
"What is your name?" said I. "George," he
replied. "Do you know how to read or write?"
He evidently did not understand the question.
" Do you go to church or chapel ?'" A dubious
shake of the head. " Did you ever hear of our
Saviour?" At this point Mr. Seal interposed,
and said, "I think we had better go on, as the
sun is getting hot," and so we rode gently through
the little ones , and when we had got some dis
tance he said, rather apologetically, "We don't
think it right to put these things into their heads
so young ; it only disturbs their minds and leads
them astray,

Now, in this one quarter there were no less
than eighty children, some twelve and some even
fourteen years of age. No education — no God
— their whole life— food and play, to strengthen
their muscles and fit them for the work of a
slave. "And when they die?" "Well," said
Mr. Seal, " they are buried in that field there by
their own people, and some of them have a sort
of prayers over them, I bdieve." The overseer,
it is certain, had no fastidious notions about
slavery ; it was to him the right thing in the
right place, and his summum bonum was a high
price for sugar, a good crop, and a heathy plant
ation. Nay, I am sure I would not wrong him

if I said he could see no impropriety in running
a good cargo of regular black slaves, who might
clear the great backwood and swampy under
growth, which was now exhausting the energies
of his field-hands, in the absence of Irish navvies.

Each negro gets 5 Ibs. of pork a week, and as
much Indian corn bread as he can eat, with a
portion of molasses, and occasionally they have
fish for breakfast. All the carpenters and smiths'
work, the erection of sheds, repairing of carts and
ploughs, and the baking of bricks for the farm
buildings, are done on the estate by the slaves.
The machinery comes from the manufacturing
cities of the North ; but great efforts are made
to procure it from New Orleans, wrhere factories
have been already established. On the borders
of the forest the negroes are allowed to plant
corn for their own use, and sometimes they have
an overplus, which they sell to their masters.
Except when there is any harvest pressure on
their hands, they have from noon on Saturday
till dawn on Monday morning to do as they
please, but they must not stir off the plantation
on the road, unless with special permit, which is
rarely granted.

There is an hospital on the estate, and even
shrewd Mr. Seal did not perceive the conclusion
that was to be drawn from his testimony to its
excellent arrangements. "Once a nigger gets
in there, he'd like to live there for the rest of his
life." But are they not the happiest, most con
tented people in the world — at any rate, when
they are in hospital? I declare that to me the
more orderly, methodical, and perfect the ar
rangements for economising slave labour — regu
lating slaves — are, the more hateful and odious
does slavery become. I would much rather be
the animated human chattel of a Turk, Egyp
tian, Spaniard, or French Creole, than the labour
ing beast of a Yankee or of a New England cap
italist.

When I returned back to the house I found
my friends enjoying a quiet siesta, and the rest
of the afternoon was devoted to idleness, not at
all disagreeable with a thermometer worthy of
Agra. Even the mocking-birds were roasted
into silence, and the bird which answers to our
rook or crow sat on the under branches of the
trees, gaping for air with his bill wide open. It
must be hot indeed when the mocking-bird loses
his activity. There is one, with its nest in a rose
bush trailed along the verandah under my Avin-
dow, which now sits over its young ones with
outspread wings, as if to protect them from be
ing baked ; and it is so courageous and affec
tionate, that when I approach quite close, it mere
ly turns round its head, dilates its beautiful dark
eye, and opens its beak, within which the tiny
sharp tongue is saying, "Don't for goodness sake
disturb me, for if you force me to leave, the chil
dren will be burned to death."

June 6th. — My chattel Joe, "adscriptus mihi
domino," awoke me to a bath of Mississippi wa
ter with huge lumps of ice in it, to which he rec
ommended a mint-julep as an adjunct. It was
not here that I was first exposed to an orddal of
mint-julep, for in the early morning a stranger
in a Southern planter's house may expect the of
fer of a glassful of brandy, sugar, and peppermint
beneath an island of ice — an obligatory panacea
for all the evils of climate. After it has been
disposed of, Pompey may come up' again with

106

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

glass number two : " Massa say fever very bad :
this morning — much dew." It is possible that '
the degenerate Anglo-Saxon stomach has not
the fine tone and temper of that of an Hibernian |
friend of mine, who considered the finest thing ;
to counteract the effects of a little excess was a .
tumbler of hot whisky and water the moment |
the sufferer opened his eyes in the mprning. j
Therefore, the kindly offering may be rejected. >
But on one occasion before breakfast the negro j
brought up mint-julep number three, the accept
ance of which he enforced by the emphatic dec- '
laration, "Massa says, sir, you had better take ;
this, because it'll be the last he make before break
fast."

Breakfast is served: there is on the table a
profusion of dishes — grilled fowl, prawns, eggs j
and ham, fish from New Orleans, potted salmon
from England, preserved meats from France,
claret, iced water, coffee and tea, varieties of
hominy, mush, and African vegetable prepara
tions. Then come the newspapers, which are pe
rused, eagerly with ejaculations, "Do you hear
what they are doing now — tinfernal villains ! that
Lincoln must be mad!" and the like. At one
o'clock, in spite of the sun, I rode out with Mr.
Lee, along the road by the Mississippi, to Mr.
Buvnside's plantation, called Orange Grove, from
a few trees which still remain in front of the
overseer's house. We visited an old negro, call
ed ''Boatswain," who lives with his old wife in
a wooden hut close by the margin of the Missis
sippi. His business is to go to Donaldsonville for
letters, or meat, or ice for the house — a tough
row for the withered old man. He is an Afri
can born, and he just remembers being carried
on board ship and taken to some big city before
he came upon the plantation.

" Do you remember nothing of the country
you came from, Boatswain ?" "Yes, sir. Jist
remember trees and sweet things my mother
gave me, and much hot sand I put my feet in,
and big leaves that we play with — all us little
children — and plenty to eat, and big birds and
shells." "Would you like to go back, Boat
swain?" "What for, sir? no one know old
Boatswain there. My old missus Sally inside."
"Arc you quite happy, Boatswain?" "Im get
ting very old, massa. Massa Burnside very good
to Boatswain, but who cai-e for such dam old
nigger? Golla Mighty gave me fourteen chil
dren, but he took them all away again from Sal
ly and me. No budy care much for dam old
nigger like me."

Further on Mr. Seal salutes us from the ve
randah of his house, but we are bound for over
seer Gibbs, who meets us. mounted, by the road
side — a man grim in beard and eye, and silent
withal, with a big whip in his hand and a large
knife stuck in his belt. He leads us through a
magnificent area of cane and maize, the latter
towering far above our heads ; but I was most
anxious to see the forest primaeval which borders
the clear land at the back of the estate, and
spreads away over alligator -haunted swamps
into distant bayous. It was not, however, pos
sible to gratify one's curiosity very extensive
ly beyond the borders of the cleared land, for
rising round the roots of the cypress, swamp
pine, and live oak there was a barrier of under
growth and bush twined round the cane brake
which stands some sixteen feet high, so stiff that

the united force of man and horse could not
make way against the rigid fibres, and indeed,
as Mr. Gibbs told us, "When the niggers take
to the cane brake they can beat man or dog,
and nothing beats them but snakes and starva
tion."

He pointed out some sheds around which were
broken bottles where the last Irish gang had
been working, under one "John Loghlin," of
Donaldsonville, a great contractor, who, he says,
made plenty of money out of his countrymen,
whose bones are lying up and down the Missis
sippi. "They due work like fire," he said.
"Loghlin does not give them half the rations
we give our negroes, but he can always manage
them with whisky, and when he wants them to
do a job he gives them plenty of 'forty rod,' and
they have their fight out — reglar free fight, I can
tell you, while it lasts. Next morning they will
sign anything and go anywhere with him."

On the Orange Grove Plantation, although the
crops were so fine, the negroes unquestionably
seemed less comfortable than those in the quar
ters of Houmas, separated from them by a mere
nominal division. Then, again, there were more
children with fair complexions to be seen peep
ing out of the huts ; some of these were attrib
uted to the former overseer, one Johnson by
I name, but Mr. Gibbs, as if to vindicate his mem-
! ory, told me confidentially he had paid a large
sum of money to the former proprietor of the
I estate for one of his children, and had carried it
| away with him when he left. " You could not
expect him, you know," said Gibbs, "to buy
them all at the prices that were then going in
'56. All the children on the estate," added he,
"are healthy, and I can show my lot against
Seal's over there, though I hear tell he had a
great show of them out to you yesterday."

The bank of the river below the large planta
tion was occupied by a set of small Creole plant
ers, whose poor houses were close together, indi
cating very limited farms, which had been sub
divided from time to time, according to the
French fashion ; so that the owners have at last
approached pauperism ; but they are tenacious
of their rights, and will not yield to the tempt
ing price offered by the large planters. They
cling to the soil without enterprise and without
care. The Spanish settlers along the river are
open to the same reproach, and prefer their own
ease to the extension of their race in other lands,
or to the aggrandisement of their posterity ; and
an Epicurean would aver, they were truer phi
losophers than the restless creatures who wear
out their lives in toil and labour, to found em
pires for the future.

It is among these men that, at times, slavery
assumes its harshest aspect, and that the negroes
are exposed to the severest labour ; but it is also
true that the slaves have closer relations with the
families of their owners, and live in more inti
mate connection with them than they do under
the strict police of the large plantations. These
people sometimes get forty bushels of corn to the
acre, and a hogshead and a half of sugar. We
saw their children going to school, whilst the
heads of the houses sat in the verandah smoking,
and their mothers were busy with household
duties; and the signs of life, the voices of wom
en and children, and the activity visible on the
little farms, contrasted not unpleasantly with the

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

107

desert-like stillness of the larger settlements.
Rode back in a thunderstorm.

At dinner in the evening Mr. Burnside enter
tained a number of planters in the neighbourhood

M. Bringier, M. Coulon (French Creoles), Mr.

Duncan Kenner, a medical gentleman named
Cotmann, and others — the last-named gentle
man is an Unionist, and does not hesitate to de
fend his opinions ; but he has, during a visit to
Russia, formed high ideas of the necessity and
virtues of an absolute and centralised govern
ment.

CHAPTER XXXV.

War-rumours and military movements— Governor Man
ning's slave plantations — Fortunes made by slave labour
—Frogs for £he table— Cotton and sugar— A thunder-
Btorm. t

June *ltk. — The Confederate issue of ten mil
lions sterling, in bonds payable in twenty years,
is not sufficient to meet the demands of Govern
ment ; and the four millions of small Treasury
notes, without interest, issued by Congress, are
being rapidly absorbed. Whilst the Richmond
papers demand an immediate movement on
Washington, the journals of New York are clam
ouring for an advance upon Richmond. The
planters are called upon to accept the Confed
erate bonds in payment of the cotton to be con
tributed by the States.

Extraordinary delusions prevail on both sides.
The North believe that battalions of scalping
Indian savages are actually stationed at Harper's
Ferry. One of the most important movements
has been made by Major-General M'Clellan, who
has inarched a force into Western Virginia from
Cincinnati, has occupied a portion of the line
of the Baltimore and Ohio railway, which was
threatened with destruction by the Secessionists ;
and has already advanced as far as Graf ton.
Gen. M'Dowell has been appointed to the com
mand of the Federal forces in Virginia. Every
day regiments are pouring down from the North
to Washington. General Butler, who is in com
mand at Fortress Monroe, has determined to em
ploy negro fugitives, whom he has called " Con
trabands," in the works about the fort, feeding
them, and charging the cost of their keep against
the worth of their services ; and Mr. Cameron,
the Secretary of War, has ordered him to refrain
from surrendering such slaves to their masters,
whilst he is to permit no interference by his sol
diers with the relations of persons held to service
under the laws of the States in which they are in.

Mr. Jefferson Davis has arrived at Richmond.
At sea the Federal steamers have captured a
number of Southern vessels; and some small
retaliations have been made by the Confederate
privateer^. The largest mass of the Confederate
troops have assembled at a place called Manassas
•Junction, on the railway from Western Virginia
to Alexandria.

The Northern papers are filled with an account
of a battle at Philippi, and a great victory, in
which no less than two of their men were wound
ed and two were reported missing as the whole
casualties ; but Napoleon scarcely expended so
much ink over Austerlitz as is absorbed on this
glory in the sensation headings of the New York
papers.

After breakfast I accompanied a party of Mr.

Burnside's friends to visit the plantations of
Governor Manning, close at hand. One plan
tation is as like another as two peas. We had
the same paths through tasseling corn, high
above our heads, or through wastes of rising
sugar-cane ; but the slave quarters on Governor
Manning's were larger, better built, and more
comfortable-looking than any I have seen.

Mr. Bateman, the overseer, a dour strong man,
with spectacles on nose, and a quid in his cheek,
led us over the ground. As he saw my eye rest
ing on a large knife in a leather case stuck in
his belt, he thought it necessary to say, "I keep
this to cut my way through the cane brakes
about ; they are so plaguy thick."

All the surface water upon the estate is car
ried into a large open drain, with a reservoir in
which the fans of a large wheel, driven by steam-
power, are worked so as to throw the water over
to a cut below the level of the plantation, which
carries it into a bayou connected with the lower
Mississippi.

In this drain one of my companions saw a
prodigious frog, about the size of a tortoise, on
which he pounced with alacrity ; and on carry
ing his prize to laud he was much congratulated
by his friend. "What on earth will you do
with the horrid reptile?" "Do with it! why,
eat it, to be sure." And it is actually true, that
on our return the monster ' crapaud' was handed
over to the old cook, and presently appeared on
the breakfast-table, looking very like an uncom
monly fine spatchcock, and was partaken of with
enthusiasm by all the company.

From the drairiing-wheel we proceeded to visit
the forest, where the negroes were engaged in
clearing the trees, turning up the soil between
the stumps, which marked where the mighty syc
amore, live oak, gum-trees, and pines had late
ly shaded the rich earth. In some places the
Indian corn was already waving its head and
tassels above the black gnarled roots; in other
spots the trees, girdled by the axe, but not yet
down, rose up from thick crops of maize ; and
still deeper in the wood negroes were guiding
the ploughs, dragged with pain and difficulty by
mules, three abreast, through the tangled roots
and rigid earth, which will next year be fit for
sowing. There were one hundred and twenty
negroes at work ; and these, with an adequate
number of mules, will clear four hundred and
fifty acres of land this year. " But it's death on
niggers and mules," said Mr. Bateman. "We
generally do it with Irish, as well as the hedging
and ditching; but we can't get them now, as
they are all off to the wars."

Although the profits of sugar are large, the
cost of erecting the machinery, the consumption
of wood in the boiler, and the scientific appara
tus demand a far larger capital than is required
by the cotton planter, who, when he has got
land, may procure negroes on credit, and only
requires food and clothing till he can realise the
proceeds of their labour, and make a certain for
tune. Cotton will keep where sugar spoils.
The prices are far more variable in the latter,
although it has a protective tariff of 20 per cent.

The whole of the half million of hogsheads of
sugar grown in the South is consumed in the
United States, whereas most of the cotton is sent
abroad ; but in the event of a blockade the South
can use its sugar ad nauseam, whilst the cotton is

108

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

all but useless in consequence of the want of
manufacturers in the South.

When I got back, Mr. Burnside was seated in
his verandah, gazing with anxiety, but not with
apprehension, on the marching columns of black
clouds, which were lighted up from time to time
by heavy flashes, and shaken by rolls of thunder.
Day after day the planters have been looking
for rain, tapping glasses, scrutinising aneroids,
consulting negro weather prophets, and now and
then their expectations were excited by clouds
moving down the river, only to be disappointed
by their departure into space, or, worse than all,
their favouring more distant plantations with a
shower that brought gold to many a coffer.
" Did you ever see such luck ? Kenner has got
it again ! That's the third shower Bringier has
had in the last two days."

But it was now the turn of all our friends to
envy us a tremendous thunder-storm, with a
heavy, even downfall of rain, which was sucked
up by the thirsty earth almost as fast as it fell,
and filled the lusty young corn with growing
pains, imparting such vigour to the cane that we
literally saw it sprouting up, and could mark
the increase in height of the stems from hour to
hour.

My good host is rather uneasy about his pros
pects this year, owing to the war ; and no won
der. He reckoned on an income of £100,000
for his sugar alone; but if he cannot send it
North it is impossible to estimate the diminution
of his profits. I fancy, indeed, he more and
more regrets that he embarked his capital in
these great sugar-swamps, and that he would
gladly now invest it at a loss in the old country,
of which he is yet a subject ; for he has never
been naturalised in the United States. Never
theless, he rejoices in the finest clarets, and in
wines of fabulous price, which are tended by an
old white-headed negro, who takes as much care
of the fluid as if he was accustomed to drink it
every day.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Visit to Mr. M'Call's plantation — Irish and Spaniards —
The planter — A Southern sporting man — The Creoles —
Leave Houmas — Donaldsonville — Description of the City

Baton Rouge — Steamer to Natchez— Southern feeling;

faith in Jefferson Davis — Rise and progress of prosperi
ty for the planters — Ultimate issue of the war to both
North and South.

June 8th. — According to promise, the inmates
of Mr. Burnside's house proceeded to pay a visit
to-day to the plantation of Mr. M'Call, who lives
at the other side of the river some ten or twelve
miles away. Still the same noiseless plantations,
the same oppressive stillness, broken only by the
tolling of the bell which summons the slaves to
labour, or marks the brief periods of its respite !
Whilst waiting for the ferry-boat, we visited Dr.
Cotmann, who lives in a snug house near the
levee, for, hurried as we were, 'twould neverthe
less have been a gross breach of etiquette to
have passed his doors ; and I was not sorry for
the opportunity of making the acquaintance of
a lady so amiable as his wife, and of seeing a
face with tender, pensive eyes, serene brow, and
lovely contour, such as Guido or Greuse would
have immortalised, and which Miss Cotmann,
in the seclusion of that little villa on the banks

of the Mississippi, scarcely seemed to know,
would have made her a beauty in any capital in
Europe.

The Doctor is allowed to rave on about his
Union propensities and political power, as Mr.
Petigru is permitted to indulge in similar vaga
ries in Charleston, simply because he is sup
posed to be helpless. There is, however, at the
bottom of the Doctor's opposition to the prevail
ing political opinion of the neighbourhood, a
jealousy of acres and slaves, and a sentiment
of animosity to the great seigneurs and slave
owners, which actuate him without his being
aware of their influence. After a halt of an
hour in his house, we crossed in the ferry to
Donaldsonville, where, whilst we were waiting
for the carriages, we heard a dialogue between
some drunken Irishmen and some still more in
ebriated Spaniards in fr$>nt of the public house
at hand. The Irishmen were going off to the
wars, and were endeavouring in vain to arouse
the foreign gentlemen to similar enthusiasm ;
but, as the latter were resolutely sitting in the
gutter, it became necessary to exert eloquence
and force to get them on their legs to march to
the head-quarters of the Donaldsonville Chas
seurs. "For the love of the Virgin and your
own sowl's sake, Fernandey, get up and cum
along wid us to fight the Yankees." " Josey,
are you going to let us be murdered by a set of
damned Protestins and rascally niggers?" " Go-
mey, my darling, get up ; it's eleven dollars a
month, and food and everything found. The
boys will mind the fishing for you, and we'll
come back as rich as Jews."

What success attended their appeals I cannot
tell, for the carriages came round, and, having
crossed a great bayou which runs down into an
arm of the Mississippi near the sea, we proceed
ed on our way to Mr. M 'Call's plantation, which
we reached just as the sun was sinking into the
clouds of another thunder-storm.

The more one sees of a planter's life the great
er is the conviction that its charms come from a
particular turn of mind, which is separated by a
wide interval from modern ideas in Europe.
The planter is a denomadised Arab ; — he has
fixed himself with horses and slaves in a fertile
spot, where he guards his women with Oriental
care, exercises patriarchal sway, and is at once
fierce, tender, and hospitable. The inner life
of his household is exceedingly charming, be
cause one is astonished to find the graces and
accomplishments of womanhood displayed in a
scene which has a certain sort of savage rude
ness about it after all, and where all kinds of in
congruous accidents are visible in the service of
the table, in the furniture of the house, in its
decorations, menials, and surrounding scenery.

It was late in the evening when the party re
turned to Donaldsonville ; and when we arrived
at the other side of the bayou there were no car
riages, so that we had to walk on foot to the
wharf where Mr. Burnside's boats were supposed
to be waiting — the negro ferryman having long
since retired to rest. Under any circumstances,
a march on foot through an unknown track cov
ered with blocks of timber and other impedi
menta which represented the road to the ferry,
could not be agreeable ; but the recent rains had
converted the ground into a sea of mud filled
with holes, with islands of plank and beams of

MY DIAEY NORTH AND SOUTH.

109

timber, lighted only by the stars — and then this
in dress trowsers and light boots !

We plunged, struggled, and splashed till we
reached the levee, where boats there were none ;
and so Mr. Burnside shouted up and down the
river, so did Mr. Lee, and so did Mr. Ward and
all the others, whilst I sat on a log affecting
philosophy and indifference, in spite of tortures
from musquitoes innumerable, and severe bites
from insects unknown.

The city and river were buried in darkness ;
the rush of the stream, which is sixty feet deep
near the banks, was all that struck upon the ear
in the intervals of the cries, " Boat ahoy !" " Ho
Batelier !" and sundry ejaculations of a less reg
ular and decent form, At length a boat did
glide out of the darkness, and the man who row
ed it stated he had been waiting all the time up
the bayou, till by mere accident he came down
to the jetty, having given us up for the night.
In about half an hour we were across the river,
and had per force another interview with Dr.
Cotmann, who regaled us with his best in story
and in wine till the carriages were ready, and
we drove back to Mr. Burnside's, only meeting
on the way two mounted horsemen with jingling
arms, who were, we were told, the night patrol ;
of their duties I could, however, obtain no very
definite account.

June Sth. — A thunder-storm, which lasted all
the morning and afternoon till three o'clock.
When it cleared, I drove, in company with Mr.
Burnside and his friends, to dinner with Mr.
Duncan Kenner, who lives some ten or twelve
miles above Houmas. He is one of the sporting
men of the South, well known on the Charleston
race-course, and keeps a large stable of race
horses and brood mares, under the management
of an Englishman. The jocks were negro lads :
and when we arrived, about half a dozen of them
were giving the colts a run in the paddock. The
calveless legs and hollow thighs of the negro
adapts him admirably for the pigskin ; and these
little fellows sat their horses so well, one might
have thought, till the turn in the course display
ed their black faces and grinning mouths, he'
was looking at a set of John Scott's young gen
tlemen out training.

The Carolinians are true sportsmen, and in
the South the Charleston races create almost as
much sensation as our Derby at home. One of
the guests at Mr. Kenner's knew all about the
winners at Epsom Oaks and Ascot, and took de
light in showing his knowledge of the "Racing
Calendar."

It is observable, however, that the Creoles do
not exhibit any great enthusiasm for horse-rac
ing, but that they apply themselves rather to
cultivate their plantations and to domestic du
ties ; and it is even remarkable that they do not
stand prominently forward in the State Legisla
ture, or aspire to high political influence and po
sition, although their numbers and wealth would
fairly entitle them to both. The population of
small settlers, scarcely removed from pauperism,
along the river banks, is courted by men who
obtain larger political influence than the great
landowners, as the latter consider it beneath
them to have recourse to the arts of the dema
gogue.

June 10th. — At last venit summa dies et ineluc-
tabile tempus. I had seen as much as might be

of the best phase of the great institution — less
than I could desire of a most exemplary, kind-
hearted, clear-headed, honest man. In the calm
of a glorious summer evening we crossed the Fa
ther of Waters, waving an adieu to the good
friend who stood on the shore, and turning our
backs to the home we had left behind us. It
was dark when the boat reached Donaldsonville
on the opposite "coast."

I should not be surprised to hear that the
founder of this remarkable city, which once con
tained the archives of the State, now transferred
to Baton Rouge, was a North Briton. There is
a simplicity and economy in the plan of the
place not unfavourable to that view, but the mo
tive which induced Donaldson to found his Rome
on the west of Bayou La Fourche from the Mis
sissippi must be a secret to all time. Much must
the worthy Scot have been perplexed by his neigh
bours, a long-reaching colony of Spanish Creoles,
who toil not and spin nothing but fishing-nets,
and who live better than Solomon, and are prob
ably as well dressed, minus the barbaric pearl
and gold of the Hebrew potentate. Take the
odd, little, retiring, modest houses which grow
in the hollows of Scarborough, add to them the
least imposing mansions in the town of Folk-
stone, cast these broadsown over the surface of
the Essex marshes, plant a few trees in front of
them, then open a few cafes biUard of the camp
sort along the main street, and you have done a
very good Donaldsonville.

A policeman welcomes us on the^ landing, and
does the honours of the market, which has a
beggarly account of empty benches, a Texan bull
done into beef, and a coffee-shop. The police
man is a tall, lean, west countryman ; his story
is simple, and he has it to tell. He was one of
Dan Rice's company — a travelling Astley. He
came to Donaldsonville, saw, and was conquered
by one of the Spanish beauties, married her, be
came tavern-keeper, failed, learned French, and
is now constable of the parish. There was, how
ever, a weight on his mind. He had studied
the matter profoundly, but he was not near the
bottom. How did the friends, relatives, and tribe
of his wife live? No one could say. They reared
chickens, and they caught fish : when there' was
a pressure on the planters, they turned out to
work for 6s. Gd. a day, but those were rare occa
sions. The policeman had become quite grey
while excogitating on the matter, and he had
"nary notion how they did it."

Donaldsonville has done one fine thing. It
has furnished two companies of soldiers — all
Irishmen — to the wars, and the third is in the
course of formation. Not much hedging, ditch
ing, or hard work these times for Paddy ! The
blacksmith, a huge tower of muscle, claims ex
emption on the ground that " the divil a bit of
him comes from Oireland ; he nivir bird af it,
barrin' from the buks he rid," and is doing his
best to remain behind, but popular Opinion is
against him.

As the steamer could not be up from New
Orleans till dawn, it was a relief to saunter
through Donaldsonville to see society, which con
sisted of several gentlemen and various Jews •
playing games unknown to Hoyle, in oaken bar
rooms flanked by billiard tables. Doctor Cot
mann, who had crossed the river to see patients
suffering from an attack of euchre, took us round

110

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

to a little club, where I was introduced to a num
ber of gentlemen, who expressed great pleasure
at seeing me, shook hands violently, and walked
away ; and, finally, melted off into a cloud of
musquitoes by the river bank, into a box pre
pared for them, which was called a bedroom.

These rooms were built of timber on the stage
close by the river. "Why can't I have one of
those rooms ?" asked I, pointing to a larger mus-
quito box. "It is engaged by ladies." "How
do you know ?" " Parceque elles oat envoye" leur
lutin" It was delicious to meet the French
"plunder" for baggage — the old phrase, so nice
ly rendered — in the mouth of the Mississippi
boatman.

Having passed a night of discomfiture with the
winged demons of my box, I was aroused by the
booming of the steam drum of the boat, dipped
my head in water among drowned musquitoes,
and went forth upon the landing. The police
man had just arrived. His eagle eye lighted
upon a large flat moored alongside, on the stern
of which was inscribed in chalk, "Pork, corn,
butter, beef," &c. Several "spry" citizens were
also on the platform. After salutations and
compliments, policeman speaks — "When did she
come in?" (meaning flat.) First citizen — "In
the night, I guess." Second citizen — "There's
a lot of whisky aboord, too." Policeman (with
pleased surprise) — " You never mean it ?" First
citizen — "Yes, sir ; one hundred and twenty gal
lons!" Policeman (inspired by patriotism) —
"It's a west-country boat; why don't the citi
zens seize it? And whisky rising from 17c. to
35c. a gallon !" Citizens murmur approval, and
I feel the whisky part of the cargo is not safe.
" Yes, sir," says citizen three, "they seize all our
property at Cairey (Cairo), and I'm making an
example of this cargo."

Further reasons for the seizure were adduced,
and it is probable they were as strong as the
whisky, which has, no doubt, been drunk long
ago on the very purest principles. In course of
conversation with the committee of taste which
had assembled, it was revealed to me that there
was a strict watch kept over those boats which
are freighted with whisky forbidden to the slaves,
and with principles, when they come from the
west-country, equally objectionable. "Did you
hear, sir, of the chap over at Duncan Kenner's,
as was caught the other day !" "No, sir; what
was it?" "Well, sir, he was a man that came
here and went over among the niggers at Ken
ner's to buy their chickens from them. He was
took up, and they found he'd a lot of money
about him." "Well, of course, he had money
to buy the chickens." "Yes, sir, but it looked
suspeec-ious. He was a west-country fellow,
tew, and he might have been tamperin' with 'em.
Lucky for him he was not taken in the arter-
noon." "Why so?" "Because, if the citizens
had been drunk, they'd have hung him on the
spot."

The Acadia was now alongside, and in the
early morning Donaldsonville receded rapidly
into trees and clouds. To bed, and make amends
for musquito visits, and after a long sleep look
out again on the scene. It is difficult to believe
that we have been going eleven miles an hour
against the turbid river; which is of the same
appearance as it was below — the same banks,
bends, driftwood, and trees. Large timber rafts,

navigated by a couple of men, who stood in the
shade of a few upright boards, were encountered
at long intervals. White egrets and blue herons
rose from the marshes. At every landing the
whites who came down were in some sort of
uniform. There were two blacks placed on
board at one of the landings in irons — captured
runaways — and very miserable they looked at
the thought of being restored to the bosom of •'"
the patriarchal family from which they had, no
doubt, so prodigally eloped. I fear the fatted
calf-skin would be applied to their backs.

June llth. — Before noon the steamer hauled
alongside a stationary hulk at Baton Rouge,
which once " walked the waters" by the aid of
machinery, but which was now used as a float
ing hotel," depot, and storehouse — 315 feet long,
and fully thirty feet on the tipper deck above
the level of the river. The Acadia stopped, and
I disembarked. Here were my quarters till the
boat for Natchez should arrive. The proprietor
of the floating hotel was somewhat excited be
cause one of his servants was away. The man
presently came in sight. "Where have you

been, you ?" " Away to buy de newspaper,

Massa." "For who, you ?" "Me buy

'em for no one, Massa ; me sell 'um agin, Mas
sa." "See, now, you , if ever you goes

aboard them steamers to meddle with newspa
pers, I'm but I'll kill you, mind that !"

Baton Rouge is the capital of the State of
Louisiana, and the State House thereof is a very
quaint and very new example of bad taste. The
Deaf and Dumb Asylum near it is in a much
better style. It was my intention to have visit
ed the State Prison and Penitentiary, but the
day was too hot, and the distance too great, and
so I dined at the oddest little Creole restaurant,
with the funniest old hostess, and the strangest '
company in the world.

On returning to the boat hotel, Mr. Conrad,
one of the citizens of the place, and Mr. W.
Avery, a judge of the district court, were good
enough to call and to invite me to remain some
time, but I was obliged to decline. These gen
tlemen were members of the home guard, and
drilled assiduously every evening. Of the 1300
voters at Baton Rouge, more than 750 are al
ready off to the wars, and another company is
being formed to follow them. Mr. Conrad has
three sons in the field, and another is anxious
to follow, and he and his friend, Mr. Avery, are
quite ready to die for the disunion. The waiter
who served out drinks in the bar wore a uni
form, and his musket lay in the corner among
the brandy bottles. At night a patriotic meet
ing* of citizen soldiery took place in the bow,
with which song and whisky had much to do,
so that sleep was difficult.

Precisely at seven o'clock on Wednesday
morning the Mary T. came alongside, and soon
afterward bore me on to Natchez, through scen
ery which became wilder and less cultivated as
she got upwards. Of the 1500 steamers on the
river, not a tithe are now in employment, and
the owners of these profitless flotillas are "in a
bad way." It was late at night when the steam
er arrived at Natchez, and next morning early
I took shelter in another engineless steamer be
side the bank of the river at Natchez-under-the
hill, which was thought to be a hotel by its
owners.

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

In the morning I asked for breakfast. ' ' There
is nothing for breakfast ; go to Curry's on shore."
Walk up hill to Curry's — a bar-room occupied
by a waiter and flies. " Can I have any break
fast?" "No, sir-ree ; it's over half an hour
ago." "Nothing to eat at all?" "No, sir."
"Can I get some anywhere else?" "I guess
not." It had been my belief that a man with
money in his pocket could not starve in any
country soi-disant civilized. I chewed the cud
of fancy faute de mieux, and became the centre
of attraction to citizens, from whose conversa
tion I learned that this was "Jeff. Davis's fast
day." Observed one, 'flt quite puts me in
mind of Sunday; all the stores closed." Said
another, "We'll soon have Sunday every day,
then, for I 'spect it won't be worth while for
most shops to keep open any longer." Natchez,
a place of much trade and cotton export in the
season, is now as dull — let us say, as Harwich
without a regatta. But it is ultra-secessionist,
nil obstante.

My hunger was assuaged by Mr. Marshall,
who drove me to his comfortable mansion through
a country like the wooded parts of Sussex, abound
ing in fine trees, and in the only lawns and park-
like fields I have yet seen in America.

After dinner, my host took me out to visit a
wealthy planter, who has raised and armed a
cavalry corps at his own expense. We were
obliged to get out of the carriage at a narrow
lane and walk toward the encampment on foot
in the dark ; a sentry stopped us, and we ob
served that there was a semblance of military
method in the camp. The captain was walking
up and down in the verandah of the poor hut,
for which he had abandoned his home. A book
of tactics — Hardee's — lay on the table of his lit
tle room. Our friend was full of fight, and said
he would give all he had in the world to the
cause. But the day before, and a party of
horse, composed of sixty gentlemen in the dis
trict, worth from £20,000 to £50,000 each, had
started for the war in Virginia. Everything to
be seen or heard testifies to the great zeal and
resolution with which the South have entered
upon the quarrel. But they hold the power of
the United States and the loyalty of the North
to the Union at far too cheap a rate.

Next day was passed in a delightful drive
through cotton-fields, Indian corn, and undula
ting woodlands, amid which were some charm
ing residences. I crossed the river at Natchez,
and saw one fine plantation, in which the corn,
however, was by no means so good as the crops
I have seen on the coast. The cotton looks well,
and some had already burst into flower — bloom,
as it is called — which has turned to a flagrant
pink, and seems saucily conscious that its bell
will play an important part in the world.

The inhabitants of the tracts on the banks of
the Mississippi, and on the island regions here
about, ought to be, in the natural order of things,
a people almost nomadic, living by the chase,
and by a sparse agriculture, in the freedom which
tempted their ancestors to leave Europe. But
the Old World has been working for them. "TATl
its trials have been theirs'; the fruits of its ex
perience, its labours, its research, its discoveries,
arc. theirs. Steam has enabled them to turn
their rivers into highways, to open primeval for
ests to the light of day and to man. All these,

m\

however, would have availed them little had not
the demands of manufacture abroad, and the in
creasing luxury and population of the North and
West at home, enabled them to find in these
swamps and uplands sources of wealth richer and
more certain than all the gold mines of the world.

There must be gnomes to work these mines.
Slavery was an institution ready to their hands.
In its development there lay every material
means for securing the prosperity which Man
chester opened to them, and in supplying their
own countrymen with sugar. The small, strug
gling, deeply-mortgaged proprietors of swamp
and forest set their negroes to work to raise
levees, to cut down trees, to plant and sow. Cot
ton at ten cents a pound gave a nugget in every
boll. Land could be had for a few dollars an »-
acre. Negroes were cheap in proportion. Men
who made a few thousand dollars invested them
in more negroes, and more land, and borrowed
as much again for the same purpose. They
waxed fat and rich — there seemed no bounds to,.
their fortune.

But threatening voices came from the North
— the echoes of the sentiments of the civilised
world repenting of its evil pierced their ears, and
they found their feet were of clay, and that they
were nodding to their fall in the midst of their
power. Ruin inevitable awaited them if they
did not shut out these sounds and stop the fatal
utterances.

The issue is to them one of life and death.
Whoever raises it hereafter, if it be not decided
now, must expect to meet the deadly animosity
which is now displayed towards the North. The
success of the South — if they can succeed — must
lead to complications arid results in other parts
of the world, for which neither they nor Europe
are prepared. Of one thing there can be no
doubt — a slave state cannot long exist without
a slave trade. The poor whites who have won
the fight will demand their share of the spoils.
The land for tilth is abundant, and all that is
wanted to give them fortunes is a supply of
slaves. They will have that in spite of their mas
ters, unless a stronger power than the Slave States
prevents the accomplishment of their wishes.

The gentleman in whose house I was stopping
was not insensible to the dangers of the future,
and would, I think, like many others, not at all
regret to find himself and property safe in En
gland. His father, the very day of our arrival,
had proceeded to Canada with his daughters,
but the Confederate authorities are now determ
ined to confiscate all property belonging to per
sons who endeavour to evade the responsibilities
of patriotism. In such matters the pressure of
the majority is irresistible, and a sort of mob law
supplants any remissness on the part of the au
thorities. In the South, where the deeds of the
land of cypress and myrtle are exaggerated by
passion, this power will be exercised very rigor
ously. The very language of the people is full
of the excesses generally accepted as types of
Americanism. Taming over a newspaper this
morning, I came upon a " card," as it is called,
signed by one "Mr. Bonner,'" relating to a dis-.
pute between himself and an Assistant-Quarter-
Master-General, about the carriage of some wood
at Mobile, which concludes with the sentence that
I transcribe, as an evidence of the style which is
tolerated, if not admired, down South : —

112

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

" If such a Shylock-hearted, caitiff scoundrel
does exist, give me the evidence, and I will drag
him before the bar of public opinion, and consign
him to an infamy so deep and damnable that the
hand of the Resurrection will never reach him."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Down the Mississippi— Hotel at Yicksburg— Dinner-
Public meeting — News of the progress of the war —
Slavery and England— Jackson— Governor Pettus—
Insecurity of life— Strong Southern enthusiasm— Troops
bound for the North — Approach to Memphis — Slaves
for sale— Memphis— General Pillow.

Friday, June 14th. — Last night with my good
host from his plantation to the great two-storied
steamer General Quitman, at Natchez. She was
crowded with planters, soldiers and their families,
and as the lights shone out of her windows,
looked like a walled castle blazing from double
lines of embrasures.

The Mississippi is assuredly the most uninter
esting river in the world, and I can only describe
it hereabout by referring to the account of its
appearance which I have already given — not a
particle of romance in spite of oratorical patriots
and prophets, can ever shine from its depths,
sacred to cat and buffalo fish, or vivify its turbid
waters.

Before noon we were in sight of Vicksburg,
which is situated on a high bank or bluff on the
left bank of the river, about 400 miles above New
Orleans and some 120 miles from Natchez.

Mr. MacMeekan, the proprietor of the "Wash
ington," declares himself to have been the
pioneer of hotels in the far west: but he has now
built himself this huge caravanserai, and rests
from his wanderings. We entered the dining
saloon, and found the tables closely packed with
a numerous company of every condition in life,
from generals and planters down to soldiers in
the uniform of privates. At the end of the room
there was a long table on which the joints and
dishes were brought hot from the kitchen to be
carved by the negro waiters, male and female,
and as each was brought in the proprietor, stand
ing in the centre of the room, shouted out with a
loud voice, " Now, then, here is a splendid goose !
ladies and gentlemen, don't neglect the goose and
apple-sauce I Here's a piece of beef that / can
recommend! upon my honour you will never
regret taking a slice of the beef. Oyster-pie !
oyster-pie 1 never was better oyster-pie seen in
Vicksburg. Run about, boys, and take orders.
Ladies and gentlemen, just look at that turkey !
who's for turkey? " — and so on, wiping the per
spiration from his forehead and combating with
the flies.

Altogether it was a semi-barbarous scene, but
the host was active and attentive ; and after all,
his recommendations were very much like those
which it was the habit of the taverners in old
London to call out in the streets to the passers-
by when the joints were ready. The little negroes
who ran about to take orders were smart, but
now and then came into violent collision, and
were cuffed incontinently. One mild-looking lit
tle fellow stood by my chair and appeared so sad
that I asked him "Are you happy, my boy?"
Ho looked quite frightened. " Why don't you
answer me?" "I'se afeered, sir; I can't tell
that to Massa." "Is not your master kind to

you?" "Massa very kind man, sir; very good
man when he is not angry with me," and his eyes
filled with tears to the brim.

The war fever is rife in Vicksburg, and the
Irish and German labourers, to the extent of
several hundreds, have all gone off to the war.

When dinner was over, the mayor and several
gentlemen of the city were good enough to re
quest that I would attend a meeting, at a room
in the railway-station, where some of the inhabi
tants of the town had assembled. Accordingly I
went to the terminus and found a room filled
with gentlemen. Large china bowls, blocks of
ice, bottles of wine and spirits, and boxes of
cigars were on the table, and all the materials
for a symposium.

The company discussed recent events, some of
which I learned for the first time. Dislike was
expressed to the course of the authorities in de
manding negro labour for the fortifications along
the river, and uneasiness was expressed respect
ing a negro plot in Arkansas ; but the most inter
esting matter was Judge Taney's protest against
the legality of the President's course in suspend
ing the writ of habeas corpus in the case of Mer-
riman. The lawyers who were present at this
meeting were delighted with his argument, which
insists that Congress alone can suspend the writ,
and that the President cannot legally do so.

The news of the defeat of an expedition from
Fortress Monroe against a Confederate post at
Great Bethel, has caused great rejoicing. The
accounts show that there was the grossest mis
management on the part of the Federal officers.
The Northern papers particularly regret the loss
of Major Winthrop, aide-de-camp to General But
ler, a writer of promise. At four o'clock p. m.
I bade the company farewell, and the train started
for Jackson. The line runs through a poor clay
country, cut up with gullies and water-courses
made by violent rain.

There were a number of volunteer soldiers in
the train ; and their presence no doubt attracted
the girls and women, who waved flags and cheered
for Jeff. Davis and States 'Rights. Well, as I
travel on through such scenes, with a fine critical
nose in the air, I ask myself " Is any Englishman
better than these publicans and sinners in regard
to this question of slavery ? " It was not on
moral or religious grounds that our ancestors
abolished serfdom. And if to-morrow our good
farmers, deprived of mowers; reapers, ploughmen,
hedgers and ditchers, were to find substitutes in
certain people of a dark skin assigned to their
use by Act of Parliament, I fear they would be
almost as ingenious as the Rev. Dr. Seabury in dis
covering arguments physiological, ethnological,
and biblical for the retention of their property.
An,d an evil day would it be for them if they
were so tempted; for assuredly, without any
derogation to the intellect of the Southern men,
it may be said that a large proportion of the ^/
population is in a state of very great moral
degradation compared with civilised Anglo-Saxon
communities.

The man is more natural, and more reckless ; ,
he has more of the qualities of the Arab than are
to be reconciled with civilisation ; and it is only
among the upper classes that the influences of
the aristocratic condition which is generated by
the subjection of masses of men to their fellow-
man are to be found.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

113

At six o'clock the train stopped in the coun
try at & railway crossing by the side of a large
platform. On the right was a common, bounded
by a few detached wooden houses, separated by
palings from each other, and surrounded by rows
of trees. In front of the station were two long
wooden sheds, which, as the signboard indicates,
were exchanges or drinking saloons ; and beyond
these again were visible some rudimentary streets
of straggling houses, above which rose three pre
tentious spires and domes, resolved into insigni
ficance by nearer approach. This was Jackson.

Our host was at the station in his carriage,
and drove us to his residence, which consisted
of some detached houses shaded by trees in a
small inclosure, and bounded by a kitchen gar
den. He was one of the men who had been
filled with the afflatus of 1848, and joined the
Young Ireland party before it had seriously com
mitted itself to an unfortunate outbreak; and
when all hope of success had vanished, he sought,
like many others of his countrymen, a shelter
under the stars and stripes, which, like most of
the Irish settled in Southern States, he was now
bent on tearing asunder. He has the honour of
being mayor of Jackson, and of enjoying a com
petitive examination with his medical rivals for
the honour of attending the citizens.

In the evening I walked out with him to the
adjacent city, which has no title to the name,
except as being the State capital. The mush
room growth of these States, using that phrase
merely as to their rapid development, raises ham
lets in a small space to the dignity of cities. It
is in such outlying expansion of the great repub
lic that the influence of the foreign emigration
is most forcibly displayed. It would be curious
to inquire, for example, how many men there are
in the city of Jackson exercising mechanical arts
or engaged in small commerce, in skilled or
manual labour, who are really Americans in the
proper sense of the word. I was struck by the
names over the doors of the shops, which were
German, Italian, French, and by foreign tongues
and accents in the streets ; but, on the other
hand, it is the native-born American who obtains
the highest political stations and arrogates to
himself the largest share of governmental emo
luments.

Jackson proper consists of strings of wooden
houses, with white porticoes and pillars a world
too wide for their shrunk rooms, and various
religious and other public edifices, of the hydro-
cephalic order of architecture, where vulgar
cupola and exaggerated steeple tower above little
bodies far too feeble to support them. There
are of course a monster hotel and blazing bar
rooms — the former celebrated as the scene of
many a serious difficulty, out of some of which
the participators never escaped alive. The streets
consist of rows of houses such as I have seen at
Macon, Montgomery, and Baton Rouge ; and as
we walked towards the capital or State-house
there were many more invitations "to take a
drink" addressed to my friend and me than we
were able to comply with. Our steps were bent
to the State-house, which is a pile of stone, with
open colonnades, and an air of importance at a
distance which a nearer examination of its dila
pidated condition does not confirm. Mr. Pettus,
the Governor of the State of Mississippi, was in
the Capital ; and on sending in our cards, we
II

were introduced to his room, which certainly
was of more than republican simplicity. The
apartment was surrounded with some common
glass cases, containing papers and odd volumes
of books ; the furniture, a table or desk, and a
few chairs and a ragged carpet ; the glass in the
windows cracked and broken ; the walls and ceil
ing discoloured by mildew.

The Governor is a silent man, of abrupt speech
but easy of access ; and, indeed, whilst we wer
speaking, strangers and soldiers walked in an
out of his room, looked around them, and acted
in all respects as if they were in a public-house,
except in ordering drinks. This grim, tall, angu
lar man seemed to me such a development of
public institutions in the South as Mr. Seward
was in a higher phase in the North. For years
he hunted deer and trapped in the forest of the
far west, and lived in a Natty Bumpo or David
Crocket state of life ; and he was not ashamed
of the fact when taunted with it during his elec
tion contest, but very rightly made the most of
his independence and his hard work.

The pecuniary honours of his position are not
very great as Governor of the enormous State of
Mississippi. He has simply an income of £800
a year and a house provided for his use ; he is
not only quiet contented with what he has, but
believes that the society in which he lives is the
highest development of civilised life, notwith
standing the fact that there are more outrages on
the person in his State, nay, more murders per
petrated in the very capital, than were known
in the. worst days of Media3val"Yenice or Flo
rence; — indeed, as a citizen said to me, "Well,
I think our average in Jackson is a murder a
month ;" but he used a milder name for the crime.

The Governor conversed on the aspect of
affairs, and evinced that wonderful confidence in
his own people which, whether it arises from
ignorance of the power of the North, or a con
viction of greater resources, is to me so remark
able. " Well, sir," said he, dropping a portentous
plug of tobacco just outside the spittoon, with
the air of a man who wished to show he could
have hit the centre if he liked, "England is no
doubt a great country, and has got fleets and the
like of that,»and may have a good deal to do in
Eu-rope ; but the sovereign State of Mississippi
can do a great deal better without England than
England can do without her." Having some
slight recollection of Mississippi repudiation, in
which Mr. Jefferson Davis was so actively
engaged, I thought it possible that the Governor
might be right ; and after a time his Excellency
shook me by the hand, and I left, much wonder
ing within myself what manner of men they
must be in the State of Mississippi when Mr.
Pettus is their chosen Governor ; and yet, after
all, he is honest and fierce ; and perhaps he is so
far qualified as well as any other man to be
Governor of the State. There are newspapers,
electric telegraphs, and railways ; there are many
educated families, even much good society, I am
told, in the State ; but the larger masses of the
people struck me as being in a condition no*
much elevated from that of the original back
woodsman. On my return to the Doctor's house
I found some letters which had been forwarded
to me from New Orleans had gone astray, and I
was obliged, therefore, to make arrangements for
my departure on the following evening.

114

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

June 16th. — I was compelled to send my ex
cuses to Governor Pettus, and remained quietly
within the house of my host, entreating him to
protect me from visitors and especially from my
own confreres, that I might secure a few hours
even in that ardent heat to write letters to
home. Now, there is some self-denial required,
if one be at all solicitous of the popular™ aura, to
offeiid the susceptibilities of the irritable genus in
America. It may make all the difference between
millions of people hearing and believing you are a
high-toned, whole-souled gentleman or a wretched
ignorant and prejudiced John Bull; but, never
theless, the solid pudding of self-content and the
satisfaction of doing one's work are preferable to
the praise even of a New York newspaper editor.

"When my work was over I walked out and sat
in the shade with a gentleman whose talk turned
upon the practices of the Mississippi duello.
Without the smallest animus, and in the most
natural way in the world, he told us tale after
tale of blood, and recounted terrible tragedies
enacted outside of bars of hotels and in the public
streets close beside us. The very air seemed to
become purple as he spoke, the land around a
veritable " Aceldama." There may, indeed, be
security for property, but there is none for the
life of its owner in difficulties, who may be shot
by a stray bullet from a pistol as he walks up the
street.

I learned many valuable facts. I was warned,
for example, against the impolicy of trusting to
small-bored pistols or to pocket six-shooters in
case of a close fight, because suppose you hit
your man mortally he may still run in upon you
and rip you up with a bowie knife before he falls
dead; whereas if you drive a good heavy bullet
into him, or make a hole in him with a " Derrin
ger" ball, he gets faintish and drops at once.

Many illustrations, too, were given of the value
of practical lessons of this sort. One particularly
struck me. If a gentleman with whom you are
engaged in altercation moves his hand towards
his breeches pocket, or behind his back, you must
smash him or shoot him at once, for he is either
going to draw his six-shooter, to pull out a bowie
knife, or to shoot you through the lining of his pock
et. The latter practice is considered rather ungen-
tlemanly, but it has been somewhat more honoured
lately in the observance than in the breach. In
fact, the savage practice of walking about with
pistols, knives, and poniards, in bar-rooms and
gambling-saloons, with passions ungoverned, be
cause there is no law to punish the deeds to
which they lead, affords facilities for crime which
an uncivilised condition of society leaves too often
without punishment, but which must be put down
or the country in which it is tolerated will become
as barbarous as a jungle inhabited by wild beasts.

Our host gave me an early dinner, at which I
met some of the citizens of Jackson, and at six
o'clock I proceeded by the train for Memphis.
The carriages were, of course, full of soldiers or
volunteers, bound for a large camp at a place
called Corinth, who made night hideous by their
song and cries, stimulated by enormous draughts
of whiskey and a proportionate consumption of
tobacco, by teeth and by fire. The heat in the
carriages added to the discomforts arising from
these causes, and from great quantities of biting
insects in the sleeping places. The people have
all the air and manner of settlers. Altogether

the impression produced on my mind was by no
means agreeable, and I felt as if I was indeed in
the land of Lynch law and bowie knives, where
the passions of -men have not yet been subordi
nated to the influence of the tribunals of justice.
Much of this feeling has no doubt been produced
by the tales to which I have been listening
around me — most of which have a smack of man
slaughter about them.

June \1th. — If it was any consolation to me
that the very noisy and very turbulent warriors of
last night were exceedingly sick, dejected, and
crestfallen this morning, I had it to the full. Their
cries for water were incessant to allay the inter
nal fires caused by "40 rod" and "60 rod," as
whiskey is called, which is supposed to kill people
at those distances. Their officers had no control
over them — and the only authority they seemed
to respect was that of the " gentlemanly " con
ductor whom they were accustomed to fear indi
vidually, as he is a great man in America and has
much authority and power to make himself dis
agreeable if he likes.

The victory at Big or Little Bethel has greatly
elated these men, and they think they can walk
all over the Northern States. It was a relief to
get out of the train for a few minutes at a station
called Holly Springs, where the passengers break
fasted at a dirty table on most execrable coffee,
corn bread, rancid butter, and very dubious meate,
and the wild soldiers outside made the most of their
time, as they had recovered from their temporary
depression by this time, and got out on the tops
of the carriages, over which they performed tu
multuous dances to the music of their band, and
the great admiration of the surrounding negro-
dom. Their demeanour is very unlike that of the
unexcitable staid people of the North.

There were in the train some Texans who were
going to Richmond to offer their servcies to Mr.
Davis. They denounced Sam Houston as a
traitor, but admitted there were some Unionists,
or as they termed them Lincolnite skunks, in the
State. The real object of their journey was, in
my mind, to get assistance from the Southern
Confederacy to put down their enemies in Texas.

In order to conceal from the minds of the people
that the government at "Washington claims to be
that of the United States, the press politicians
and speakers divert their attention to the names
of Lincoln, Seward, and other black republicans,
and class the whole of the North together as the
Abolitionists. They call the Federal levies " Lin
coln's mercenaries" and "abolition hordes,"
though their own troops are paid at the same
rate as those of the United States. This is a com
mon mode of procedure in revolutions and rebel
lions, and is not unfreqiient in wars.

The enthusiasm for the Southern cause among
all the people is most remarkable, — the sight of
the flag waving from the carriage windows drew
all the population of the hamlets and the workers
in the field, black and white, to the side of the
carriages to cheer for Jeff. Davis and the Southern
Confederacy, and to wave whatever they could
lay hold of in the air. The country seems very
poorly cultivated, the fields full of stumps of trees,
and the plantation houses very indifferent. At
every station more " soldiers," as they are called,
got in, till the smell and heat were suffocating.

These men were as fanciful in their names and
dress as could be. In the train which preceded

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

115

us there was a band of volunteers armed with
rifled pistols and enormous bowie knives, who
called themselves " The Toothpick Company."
They carried along with them a coffin, with a

plate inscribed, " Abe Lincoln, died ," and

declared they were " bound " to bring his body
back in it, and that they did not intend to use
muskets or rifles, but just go in with knife and
gix-shooter, and whip the Yankees straight away.
How astonished they will be when the first round
shot flies into them, or a cap full of grape rattles
about their bowie knives.

At the station of Grand Junction, north of
Holly Springs, which latter is 210 miles north of
Jackson, several hundreds of our warrior friends
were turned out in order to take the train north
westward for Richmond, Virginia. The 1st Com
pany, seventy rank and file, consisted of Irish
men armed with sporting rifles without bayonets.
Five-sixths of the 2nd Company, who were arm
ed with muskets, were of the same nationality.
The 3rd Company were all Americans. The 4th
Company were almost all Irish. Some were in
green, others were in grey, the Americans who
were in blue had not yet received their arms.
When the word fix bayonets was given by the
officer, a smart keen-looking man, there was an
astonishing hurry and tumult in the ranks.

" Now then, Sweeny, where are yes dhriven
me too ? It is out of the redjmint amongst the
officers yer shovhr me?"

" Sullivan, don't ye hear we're to fix beenits?"

" Sarjent, jewel, wud yes ayse the shtrap of me
baynit ?"

" If ye prod me wid that agin, I'll let dayloite
into ye."

The officer, reading, "No. 93, James Phelan."

No reply.

Officer again, " No 23, James Phelan."

Voice from the rank, " Shure, captain, and faix
Phelan's gone, he wint at the last depot."

" No. 40, Miles Corrigan."

Voice further on, " He's the worse for dhrink
in the cars, yer honour, and says he'll shoot us if
we touch him ;" and so on.

But these fellows were, nevertheless, the ma
terial for fightiug and for marching after proper
drill and with good officers, even though there
was too large a proportion of old men and young
lads in the ranks. To judge from their dress
these recruits came from the labouring and poor
est classes of whites. The officers affected a
French cut and bearing with indifferent success,
and in the luggage vans there were three foolish
young women with slop-dress imitation clothes
of the Vivandiere type, who, with dishevelled
hair, dirty faces, and dusty hats and jackets,
looked sad, sorry, and absurd. Their notions of
propriety did not justify them in adopting straps,
boots, and trousers, and the rest of the tawdry
ill- made costume looked very bad indeed.

The train which still bore a large number of
sokliers for the camp of Corinth, proceeded
through dreary swamps, stunted forests, and
clearings of the rudest kind at very long inter
vals. We had got out of the cotton district and
were entering poorer soil, or land which, when
cleared, was devoted to' wheat and corn, and I
was told that the crops ran from forty to sixty
bushels to the acre. A more uninteresting coun
try than this portion of the State of Mississippi I
have never witnessed. There was some variety

of scenery about Holly Springs, where undulating
ground covered with wood diversified the aspect
of the flat, but since that we have been travelling
through mile after mile of insignificantly grown
timber and swamps.

On approaching Memphis the line ascends to
wards the bluff of the Mississippi, and farms of a
better appearance come in sight on the side of
the rail ; but after all I do not envy the fate of
the man who, surrounded by slaves and shut out
from the world, has to pass his life in this dismal
region, be the crops never so good.

At a station where a stone pillar marks the
limit between the sovereign State of Mississippi
and that of Tennessee, there was a house two
stories high, from the windows of which a num
ber of negro girls and young men were staring
on the passengers. Some of them smiled, laugh
ed, and chatted, but the majority of them looked
gloomy and sad enough. They were packed as
close as they could, and I observed that at the
door a very ruffianly looking fellow in a straw
hat, long straight hair, flannel shirt, and slippers,
was standing with his legs across and a heavy
whip in his hand. One of the passengers walked
over and chatted to him. They looked in and up
at the negroes and laughed, and when the man
came near the carriage in which I sat, a friend
called out, "Whose are they, Sam?" "He's a
dealer at Jackson, Mr. Smith. They're as prime
a lot of fine Virginny niggers as I've seen this
long time, and he wants to realise, for the news
looks so bad."

It was 1.40 p.m. when the train arrived at
Memphis. I was speedily on my way to the
Gayoso House, so called after an old Spanish
ruler of the district, which is situated in the
street on the bluff, which runs parallel with the
course of the Mississippi. This resuscitated
Egyptian city is a place of importance, and ex
tends for several miles along the high bank of
the river, though it does not run very far back
The streets are at right angles to the principal
thoroughfares, which are parallel to the stream ;
and I by no means expected to see the lofty
stores, warehouses, rows of shops, and handsome
buildings on the broad esplanade along the river,
and the extent and size of the edifices public and
private in this city, which is one of the develop
ments of trade and commerce created by the
Mississippi. Memphis contains nearly 30,000 in
habitants, but many of them are foreigners, and
there is a nomad draft into and out of the place,
which abounds in haunts for Bohemians, drink
ing and dancing-saloons, and gaming-rooma.
And this strange kaleidoscope of negroes and
whites of the extremes of civilisation in its Ame
rican development, and of the semi-savage de
graded by his contact with the white ; of enor
mous steamers on the river, which bears equally
the dug-out or canoe of the black fisherman ; the
rail, penetrating the inmost recesses of swamps,
which on either side of it remain no doubt in the
same state as they were centuries ago ; the roll
of heavily-laden waggons through the streets ;
the rattle of omnibuses and all the phenomena
of active commercial life before our eyes, includ
ed in the same scope of vision which takes in at
the other side of the Mississippi lands scarcely
yet settled, though the march of empire has gone
thousands of miles beyond them, amuses but per
plexes the traveller in this new land.

116

DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

The evening was so exceedingly warm that I
was glad to remain within the walls of my dark
ened bed-room. All the six hundred and odd
guests whom the Gayoso House is said to accom
modate were apparently in the passage at one
time. At present it is the headquarters of Gene
ral Gideon J. Pillow, who is charged with the
defences of the Tennessee side of the river, and
commands a considerable body of troops around
the city and in the works above. The house is
consequently filled with men in uniform, belong
ing to the General's staff or the various regiments
of Tennessee troops.

. The Governors and the Legislatures of the
States, view with dislike every action on the part
of Mr. Davis which tends to form the State troops
into a national army. At first, indeed, the doc
trine prevailed that troops could not be sent
beyond the limits of the State in which they were
raised — then it was argued that they ought not
to be called upon to move outside their borders ;
arid I have heard people in the South inveighing
against the sloth and want of spirit of the Virgi
nians, who allowed their State to be invaded
without resisting the enemy. Such complaints
were met by the remark that all the Northern
States had combined to pour their troops into
Virginia, and that her sister States ought in
honour to protect her. Finally, the martial
enthusiasm of the Southern regiments impelled
them to press forward to the frontier, and by
delicate management, and the perfect knowledge
of his countrymen which Mr. Jefferson Davis
possesses, he is now enabled to amalgamate in
some sort the diverse individualities of his regi
ments into something like a national army.

On hearing of my arrival, General Pillow sent
his aide-de-camp to inform me that he was about
starting in a steamer up the river, to make an
inspection of the works and garrison at Fort Ran
dolph, and at other points where batteries had
been erected to command the stream, supported
by large levies of Tennesseans. The aide-de
camp conducted me to the General, whom I found
in his bedroom, fitted up as an office, littered
with plans and papers. Before the Mexican war
General Pillow was a flourishing solicitor, con
nected in business with President Polk, and com
manding so much influence that when the expe
dition was formed he received the nomination of
brigadier-general of volunteers. He served with
distinction, and was severely wounded at the
battle of Chapultepee, and at the conclusion of
the campaign he retired into civil life, and was
engaged directing the work of his plantation till
this great rebellion summoned him once more to
the field.

Of course there is, and must be, always an in
clination to deride these volunteer officers on the
part of regular soldiers ; and I was informed by
one of the officers in attendance on the General,
that he had made himself ludicrously celebrated
in Mexico for having undertaken to throw up a
battery which, when completed, was found to
face the wrong way, so that the guns were ex
posed to the enemy. General Pillow is a small,
compact, clear-complexioned man, with short
grey whiskers, cut in the English fashion, a quick
eye, and a pompous manner of speech ; and I
had not been long in his company before I heard
of Chapultepee and his wound, which causes him
to limp a little in his walk, and gives him incon

venience in the saddle. He wore a round black
hat, plain blue frock coat, dark trousers, and
brass spurs on his boots ; but no signs of mili
tary rank. The General ordered carriages to the
door, and we went to see the batteries on the
bluff or front of the esplanade, which are intended
to check any ship attempting to pass down the
river from Cairo, where the Federals under Gene
ral Prentiss have entrenched themselves, and are
understood to meditate an expedition against the
city. A parapet of cotton bales, covered with
tarpaulin, has been erected close to the edge of
the bank of earth, which rises to heights varying
from 60 to 100 feet almost perpendicularly from
the waters of the Mississippi, with zigzag roads
running down through it to the landing-places.
This parapet could offer no cover against vertical
fire, and is so placed that well-directed shell into
the bank below it would tumble it all into the
water. The zigzag roads are barricaded with
weak planks, which would be shivered to pieces
by boat-guns; and the assaulting parties could
easily mount through these covered ways to the
fear of the parapet, and up to the very centre of
the esplanade.

The blockade of the river at this point is com
plete ; not a boat is permitted to pass either up
or down. At the extremity of the esplanade, on
an angle of the bank, an earthen battery, mount
ed with six heavy guns, has been thrown up,
which has a fine command of the river ; and the
General informed me he intends to mount six
teen guns in addition, on a prolongation of the
face of the same work.

The inspection over, we drove down a steep
road to the water beneath, where the Ingomar, a
large river steamer, now chartered for the ser
vice of the State of Tennessee, was lying to re
ceive us. The vessel was crowded with troops
— all volunteers, of course — about to join those
in camp. Great as were their numbers, the pro
portion of the officers was inordinately large, and
the rank of the greater number preposterously
high. It seemed to me as if I was introduced to
a battalion of colonels, and that I was not per-
mitted to pierce to any lower strata of military
rank. I counted seventeen colonels, and believe
the number was not then exhausted.

General Clarke, of Mississippi, who had come
over from the camp at Corinth, was on board,
and I had the pleasure of making his acquaint
ance. He spoke with sense and firmness of the
present troubles, and dealt with the political dif%
flculties in a tone of moderation which bespoke a
gentleman and a man of education and thought.
He also had served in the Mexican war, and had
the air and manner of a soldier. "With all hia
quietness of tone, there was not the smallest dis
position to be traced in his words to retire from
the present contest, or to consent to a reunion
with the United States under any circumstances
whatever. Another general, of a very different
type, was among our passengers — a dirty-faced,
frightened-looking young man, of some twenty-
three or twenty-four years of age, redolent of
tobacco, his chin and shirt slavered by its foul
juices, dressed in a green cutaway coat, white
jean trousers, strapped under a pair of prunella
slippers, in which he promenaded the deck in an
Agag-like manner, which gave rise to a suspicion
of bunions or corns. This strange figure was
topped by a tremendous black felt sombrero,

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

117

looped up at one side by a gilt eagle, in which over at the time to England. Certainly, a more

was stuck a plume of ostrich feathers, and from extraordinary maze could not be conceived, even

the other side dangled a heavy gold tassel. This in the dreams of a sick engineer — a number of

decrepit young warrior's name was Ruggles or mad beavers might possibly construct such dams.

Struggles, who came from Arkansas, where he They were so ingeniously made as to prevent the

passed, I was informed, for " quite a leading citi- troops engaged in their defence from resisting the

zen." enemy's attacks, or getting away from them

Our V03rage as we steamed up the river afforded when the assailants had got inside — most difficul

10 novelty, nor any physical difference worthy of and troublesome to defend, and still more diffi
remark, to contrast it with the lower portions of
the stream, except that upon our right hand side,
which is, in effect, the left bank, there are ranges
of exceedingly high bluffs, some parallel with and
others at right angles to the course of the stream.
The river is of the same pea-soup colour with
the same masses of leaves, decaying vegetation,
stumps of trees, forming small floating islands, or
giant cotton-trees, pines, and balks of timber
whirling down the current. Our progress was

slow ; nor did I regret the captain's caution, as will prevent yo'ur seeing the shot." To which

there must have been fully nine hundred persons the General replied, " No, sir," in a tone which

on board ; and although there is but little danger indicated, " I beg you to understand I have been

of being snagged in the present condition of the wounded in Mexico, and know all about this

river, we encountered now and then a trunk of a kind of thing." " Fire," the string was pulled,

tree, which struck against the bows with force and out of the touch-hole popped a piece of metal

^mrviirvVi fr\ molro fVio Troocol rmi^rpr frr*m oftim fri wltll Si llttlG cllirrUD '* T^n-nn *-K/-\rn-\ fV«;,-v4-J<-v« •*••«

cult for the defenders to leave, the latter perhaps
being their chief merit.

The General ordered some practice to be made
with round shot down the river. An old forty-
two pound carronade was loaded with some dif
ficulty, and pointed at a tree about 1700 yards —
which I was told, however, was not less than
2500 yards — distant. The General and his staff
took their posts on the parapet to leeward, and I
ventured to say, "I think, General, the smoke

enough to make the vessel quiver from stem to
stern. I was furnished with a small berth, to
which I retired at midnight, just as the Ingomar
was brought to at the Chickasaw Bluffs, above
which lies Camp Randolph.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Camp Randolph — Cannon practice — Volunteers— "Dixie"
— Forced roturn from the South— Apathy of the North
— General retrospect of politics — Energy and earnest
ness of the South — Fire-arms' — Position of Great Bri
tain towards the belligerents — Feeling towards the Old
Country.

June ISth. — On looking out of my cabin window
this morning I found the steamer fast alongside a
small wharf, above which rose, to the height of
150 feet, at an angle of 45 degrees, the rugged
bluff already mentioned. The wharf was covered
with commissariat stores and ammunition. Three
heav}7 guns, which some men were endeavouring
to sling to rude bullock-carts, in a manner defiant
of all the laws of gravitation, seemed likely to go
slap into the water at every moment ; but of the
many great strapping fellows who were lounging
about, not one gave a hand to the working party.
A dusty track woundup the hill to the brow, and
there disappeared ; and at the height of fifty feet
or so above the level of the river two earthworks
had been rudely erected in an ineffective position.
The volunteers who were lounging about the edge
of the stream were dressed in different ways, and
had no uniform.

Already the heat of the sun compelled me to
seek the shade; and a number of the soldiers,
labouring under the same infatuation as that
which induces little boys to disport themselves in
the Thames at Waterloo Bridge, under the notion
that they are washing themselves, were swim
ming about in a back-water of the great river,
regardless of cat-fish, mud1, and fever.

General Pillow proceeded on shore after break
fast, and we mounted the coarse cart-horse char
gers which were in waiting at the jetty to receive
us. It is scarcely worth while to transcribe from
my diary a description of the works, which I sent weedy old man or a growing" lad.

Darn these friction tubes !

I prefer the linstock and match," quoth one of
the staff, sotto voce, " but General Pillow will
have us use friction tubes made at Memphis, that
ar'nt worth a cuss." Tube No. 2, however, did
explode, but where the ball went no one could
say, as the smoke drifted right into our eyes.

The General then moved to the other side of
the gun, which was fired a third time, the shot
falling short in good line, but without any rico
chet. Gun No. 3 was next fired. Off went the
ball down the river, but off went the gun, too,
and with a frantic leap it jumped, carriage and
all, clean off the platform. Nor was it at»all
wonderful, for the poor old-fashioned chamber
cannonade had been loaded with a charge and a
solid shot heavy enough to make it burst with
indignation. Most of us felt relieved when the
firing was over, and, for my own part, I would
much rather have been close to the target than
to the battery.

Slowly winding for some distance up the steep
road in a blazing sun, we proceeded through the
tents, which are scattered in small groups, for
health's sake, fifteen and twenty together, on the
wooded plateau above the river. The tents are
of the small ridge-pole pattern, six men to each,
many of whom, from their exposure to the sun,
whilst working in these trenches, and from the
badness of the water, had already been laid up
with illness. As a proof of General Pillow's en
ergy, it is only fair to say he is constructing, on
the very summit of the plateau, large cisterns,
which will be filled with water from the river by
steam power.

The volunteers were mostly engaged at drill in
distinct companies, but by order of the General
some 700 or 800 of them were formed into line
for inspection. Many of these men were in their
shirt sleeves, and the awkwardness with which
they handled their arms showed that, however
good they might be as shots, they were bad hands
at manual platoon exercise ; but such great strap
ping fellows, that, as I walked down the ranks,
there were few whose shoulders were not above
the level of my head, excepting here and there a

They were

118

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

armed with old pattern percussion muskets, no Queen ;" and I am not quite sure that the loyalty
two clad alike, many very badly shod, few with which induced me to stand in the sun, with un-
knapsacks, but all provided with a tin water-flask covered head, till the musicians were good enough
and a blanket. These men have been only five to desist, was appreciated. Certainly a gentle-
weeks enrolled, and were called out by the State man, who asked me why I did so, looked very
of Tennessee, in anticipation of the vote of seces- incredulous, and said " That he could understand
sion. it if it had been in a church ; but that he would

I could get no exact details as to the supply of not broil his skull in the sun, not if General Wash-
food, but from the Quartermaster-General I heard ington was standing just before him." The Gene-
that each man had from f Ib. to 1£ Ib. of meat, ral gave orders to exercise the battery at this
and a sufficiency of bread, sugar, coffee, and rice, point, and a working party was told off to firing
daily; however, these military Olivers " asked for drill. 'Twas fully six minutes between the giv-
more." Neither whisky nor tobacco was served ing of the orders and the first gun being ready,
out to them, which to such heavy consumers of On the word "fire" being given, the gunner
both, must prove one source of dissatisfaction.
The officers were plain, farmerly planters, mer
chants, lawyers, and the like— energetie, deter
mined men, but utterly ignorant of the most ru
dimentary parts of military science. It is this
want of knowledge on the part of the officer which
renders it so difficult to arrive at a tolerable con
dition of discipline among volunteers, as the pri
vates are quite well aware they know as much

of soldiering as the great majority of their officers.
Having gone down the lines of these motley
companies, the General addressed them in a ha
rangue in which he expatiated on their patriot
ism, on their courage, and the atrociiy of the ene
my, in an odd farrago of military and political
subjects. But the only matter which appeared
to interest them much was the announcement
that they would be released from work in another
day or so, and that negroes would be sent to per-

pulled the lanyard, but the tube did not explode ;
a second tube was inserted, but a strong jerk
pulled it out without exploding; a third time one
of the General's fuses was applied, which gave
way to the pull, and was broken in two ; a fourth
time was more successful — the gun exploded, and
the shot fell short and under the mark— in fact,
nothing could be worse than the artillery practice
which I saw here and a fleet of vessels coming
down the river might, in the present state of the
garrisons, escape unhurt.

There are no disparts, tangents, or elevating
screws to the guns, which are laid by eye and
wooden chocks. I could see no shells in the bat
tery, but was told there were some in the maga
zine.

Altogether, though Randolph's Point and Fort
Pillow afford strong positions, in the present state
of the service, and equipment of guns and works.

form all that was required. This announcement gunboats could run past them without serious

was received with the words, "Bully for us!"
and "That's good." And when General Pillow
wound up a florid peroration by assuring them,
" When the hour of danger comes I will be with
yc»," the effect was by no means equal to his
expectations. The men did not seem to care
much whether General Pillow was with them or
wot at that eventful moment; and, indeed, all
dusty as he was in his plain clothes he did not
look very imposing, or give one an idea that he
would contribute much to the means of resist
ance. However, one of the officers called out,
" Boys, three cheers for General Pillow."

What they may do in the North I know not,
but certainly the Southern soldiers cannot cheer,
and what passes muster for that jubilant sound is
a shrill ringing scream with a touch of the Indian
war-whoop in it. As these cries ended, a sten
torian voice shouted out, " Who cares for Gene
ral Pillow ?" No one answered ; whence I in
ferred the General would not be very popular
until the niggers were actually at work in the
trenches

We returned to the steamer, headed up stream
and proceeded onwards for more than an hour, to
another landing, protected by a battery, where
we disembarked, the General being received by
a guard dressed in uniform, who turned out with
some appearance of soldierly smartness. On my
remarking the difference to the General, he told
me the corps encamped at this point was com
posed of gentlemen planters, and farmers. They
had all clad themselves, and consisted of some of
the best families in the State of Tennessee.

As we walked down the gangway to the shore,
the band on the upper deck struck up, out of
compliment to the English element in the party,
the unaccustomed strains of "God save the

loss, and, as the river falls, the fire of the batte
ries will be even less effective.

On returning to the boats the band struck up
" The Marseillaise" and " Dixie's Land." There
are two explanations of the word Dixie — one is
that it is the general term for the Slave States,
which are, of course, south of Mason and Dixon'a
line ; another, that a planter named Dixie, died
long ago, to the intense grief of his animated
property. Whether they were ill-treated after he
died, and thus had reason to regret his loss, or
that they had merely a longing in the abstract
after Heaven, no fact known to me can determine;
but certain it is that they long much after Dixie,
in the land to which his spirit was supposed by
them to have departed, and console themselves in
their sorrow by clamorous wishes to follow their
master, where probably the revered spirit would
be much surprised to find himself in their compa
ny. The song is the work of the negro melodists
of New York.

In the afternoon we returned to Memphis.
Here I was obliged to cut short my Southern
tour, though I would willingly have stayed, to
have seen the most remarkable social and politi
cal changes the world has probably ever witness
ed. The necessity of my position obliged me to
return northwards — unless I could write, there
was no use in my being on the spot at all. By
this time the Federal fleets have succeeded in
closing the ports, if not effectually, so far as to
render the carriage of letters precarious, and the
route must be at best devious and uncertain.

Mr. Jefferson Davis was, I was assured, pre
pared to give me every facility at Richmond to
enable me to know and to see all that was most
interesting in the military and political action of
the New Confederacy ; but of what use could

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

119

this knowledge be if I could not communicate it
to the journal I served?

I had left the North when it was suffering
from a political paralysis, and was in a state of
coma in which it appeared conscious of the com
ing convulsion, but unable to avert it. The sole
sign of life in the body corporate was some feeble
twitching of the limbs at Washington, when the
district militia were called out, whilst Mr. Sew-
ard descanted on the merits of the Inaugural,
and believed that the anger of the South was a
short madness, which would be cured by a mild
application of philosophical essays.

The politicians, who were urging in the most
forcible manner the complete vindication of the
rights of the Union, were engaged, when I left
them, arguing that the Union had no rights at all
as opposed to those of the States. Men who had
heard with nods of approval of the ordinance of
secession passed by State after State were now
shrieking out, " Slay the traitors!"

The printed rags which had been deriding the
President as the great " rail splitter," and his
Cabinet as a collection of ignoble fanatics, were
now heading the popular rush, arid calling out to
the country to support Mr. Lincoln and his Minis
try, and were menacing with war the foreign
States which dared to stand neutral in the quar
rel. The declaration of Lord John Russell that
the Southern Confederacy should have limited
belligerent rights had at first created a thrill of
exultation in the South, because the politicians
believed that in this concession was contained
the principle of recognition ; while it had stung
to fury the people of the North, to whom it
seemed the first warning of the coming disunion.

Much, therefore, as I desired to go to Rich
mond, where I was urged to repair by many con
siderations, and by the earnest appeals of those
around me, I felt it would be impossible, notwith
standing the interest attached to the proceedings
there, to perform my duties in a place cut off
from all communication with the outer world;
and so I decided to proceed to Chicago, and
thence to Washington, where the Federals had
assembled a large army, with the purpose of
marching upon Richmond, in obedience to the
cry of nearly every journal of influence in the
Northern cities.

My resolution was mainly formed in conse
quence of the intelligence which was communi
cated to me at Memphis, and I told General Pil
low that I would continue my journey to Cairo,
in ordor to get within the Federal lines. As the
river was blockaded, the only means of doing so
was to proceed by rail to Columbus, and thence
to take a steamer to the Federal position ; and
so, whilst the General was continuing his inspec
tion, I rode to the telegraph office, in one of the
camps, to order my luggage to be prepared for
departure as soon as I arrived, and thence went
on board the steamer, where I sat down in the
cabin to write my last despatch from Dixie.

So far I had certainly no reason to agree with
Mr. Seward in thinking this rebellion was the
result of a localised energetic action on the part
of a fierce minority in the seceding States, and
that there was in each a large, if inert, mass op
posed to secession, which would rally round the
Stars and Stripes the instant they were displayed
in their sight. On the contrary, 1 met every
where with but one feeling, with exceptions

which prove its unanimity and its force. To a
man the people went with their States, and had
but one battle-cry, " States' rights, and death to
those who make war against them 1"

Day after day I had seen this feeling intensi
fied by the accounts which came from the North
of a fixed determination to maintain the war
and day after day, I am bound to add, the im
pression on my mind was strengthened tha
" States' rights" meant protection to slavery, ex-/
tension of slave territory, arid free-trade in slave\
produce with the outer world ; nor was it any
argument against the conclusion that the popular j
passion gave vent to the most vehement outcries
against Yankees, abolitionists, German mercena
ries, and modern invasion. I was fully satisfied
in my mind also that the population of the South,
who had taken up arms, were so convinced of the
righteousness of their cause, and so competent to
vindicate it, that they would fight with the
utmost energy and valour in its defence and suc
cessful establishment.

The saloon in which I was sitting afforded
abundant evidence of the vigour with which the
South are entering upon the contest. Men of
every variety and condition of life had taken up
arms against the cursed Yankee and the black
Republican — there was not a man there who
would not have given his life for the rare pleasure
of striking Mr. Lincoln's head off his shoulders,
and yet to a cold European the scene was almosl
ludicrous.

Along the covered deck lay tall Tennesseans,
asleep, whose plumed felt hats were generally the
only indications of their martial calling, for few
indeed had any other signs of uniform, except th
rare volunteers, who wore stripes of red and yel
low cloth on their trousers, or leaden buttons,
and discoloured worsted braid and facings on
their jackets. The afterpart of the saloon deck
was appropriated to General Pillow, his staff, and
officers. The approach to it was guarded by a
sentry, a tall, good-looking young fellow, in a
grey flannel shirt, grey trousers, fastened with a
belt and a brass buckle, inscribed U.S., which
came from some plundered Federal arsenal, and a
black wide-awake hat, decorated with a green
plume. His Enfield rifle lay beside him on the
deck, and, with great interest expressed on his
face, he leant forward in his rocking-chair to
watch the varying features of a party squatted on
the floor, who were employed in the national
game of il Euchre." As he raised his eyes to ex
amine the condition of the cigar he was smoking,
he caught sight of me, and by the simple expedi
ent of holding his leg across my chest, and calling
out, " Hallo ! where are you going to ?" brought
me to a standstill — whilst his captain, who was
one of the happy euchreists, exclaimed, " Now,
Sam, you let nobody go in there."

I was obliged to explain who I was, whereupon
the sentry started to his feet, and said, "Oh! in
deed, you are Russell that's been in that war
with the Rooshians. Well, I'm very muck
pleased to know you. I shall be off sentry in a
few minutes ; I'll just ask you to tell me some
thing about that fighting." He held out his hand,
and shook mine warmly as he spoke. There was
not the smallest intention to offend in his man
ner; but, sitting down again, he nodded to the
captain, and said, "It's all right; it's Pillow's
friend — that's Russell of the London Times"

120

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

The game of euchre was continued — and indeed
it had been perhaps all night — for my last recol
lection on looking out of my cabin was a number
of people playing cards on the floor and on the
tables all down the saloon, and of shouts of "Eu-
kerr!" "Ten dollars, you don't!" "I'll lay
twenty on this 1" and so on ; and with breakfast
the sport seemed to be fully revived.

There would have been much more animation
in the game, no doubt, had the bar on board
the Ingomar been opened; but the intelligent
gentleman who presided inside had been re
stricted by General Pillow in his avocations;
and when numerous thirsty souls from the camps
came on board, with dry tongues and husky
voices, and asked for " mint juleps," " brandy
smashes," or " whisky cocktails," he seemed to
take a saturnine pleasure by saying, " The Gene
ral won't allow no spirit on board, but I can
give you a nice drink of Pillow's own iced Mis
sissippi water," an announcement which gene
rally caused infinite disgust and some unhand
some wishes respecting the General's future hap
piness.

By and bye, a number of sick men were
brought down on litters, and placed here and
there along the deck. As there was a considera
ble misunderstanding between the civilian and
military doctors, it appeared to be understood
that the best way of arranging it was not to at
tend to the sick at all, and unfortunate men suf
fering from fever and dysentery were left to roll
and groan, and lie on their stretchers, without a
soul to help them. I had a medicine chest on
board, and I ventured to use the lessons of my
experience in such matters, administered my
quinine, James's Powder, calom.el, and opium,
secundum meam artem, and nothing could be
more grateful than the poor fellows were for the
smallest mark of attention. '' Stranger, remem
ber, if I die," gasped one great fellow, attenuated
to a skeleton by dysentery, " that I am Robert
Tallon, of Tishimingo county, and that I died for
States ' rights ; see, now, they put that in the
papers, won't you ? Robert Tallon died for States'
rights," and so he turned round on his blanket.

Presently the General came on board, and the
Ingomar proceeded on her way back to Mem
phis. General Clarke, to whom I mentioned the
great neglect from which the soldiers were suf
fering, told me he was afraid the men had no
medical attendance in camp. All the doctors, in
fact, wanted to fight, and as they were educated
men, and generally connected with respectable
families, or had political influence in the State,
they aspired to be colonels at the very least, and
to wield the sword instead of the scalpel.

Next to the medical department, the commis
sariat and transport were most deficient; but by
constant courts-martial, stoppages of pay, and
severe sentences, he hoped these evils would be
eventually somewhat mitigated. As one who
had received a regular military education, Gene
ral Clarke was probably shocked by volunteer
irregularities; and in such matters as guard-
mounting, reliefs, patrols, and picket-duties, he
declared that they were enough to break one's
heart; but I was astonished to hear from him
that the Germans were by far the worst of the
five thousand troops under his command, of
whom they formed more than a fifth.

While we were conversing, the captain of the

steamer invited us to come up into his cabin on
the upper deck; and as railway conductors,
steamboat captains, bar-keepers, hotel-clerks, and
telegraph officers are among the natural aristo
cracy of the land, we could not disobey the in
vitation, which led to the consumption of some
of the captain's private stores, and many warm
professions Itf political faith.

The captain told me it was rough work aboard
sometimes with " sports" and chaps of that kind ;
but "God bless you," said he, " the river now is
not what it used to be a few years ago, when
we'd have three or four difficulties of an after
noon, and may-be now and then a regular free
fight all up and down the decks, that would last
a couple of hours, so that when we came to a
town we would have to send for all the doctors
twenty miles round, and may-be some of them
would die in spite of that. It was the rowdies
used to get these fights up ; but we've put them
pretty well down. The citizens have hunted
them out, and they's gone away west." " Well,
then, captain, one's life was not very safe on
board sometimes." "Safe! Lord bless you!"
said the captain ; "if you did not meddle, just as
safe as you are now, if the boiler don't collapse.
You must, in course, know how to handle your
weepins, and be pretty spry in taking your own
part." " Ho, you Bill !" to his coloured servant,
"open that clothes-press." "Now, here," he
continued, " is how I travel ; so that I am always
easy in my mind in case of trouble on board."
Putting his hand under the pillow of the bed
close beside him, he pulled out a formidable look
ing double-barrelled pistol at half-cock, with the
caps upon it. "That's as purty a pistol as Der
ringer ever made. I've got the brace of them
— here's the other ;" and with that he whipped
out pistol No. 2, in an equal state of forwardness,
from a little shelf over his bed ; and then going
over to the clothes press, he said, " Here's a real
old Kentuck, one of the old sort, as light on the
trigger as gossamer, and sure as deeth — Why,
law bless me, a child would cut a turkey's head
off with it at a hundred yards." This was a
huge lump of iron, about five feet long, with a
small hole bored down the centre, fitted in a
coarse German-fashioned stock. "But," con
tinued he, "this is my main dependence; here
is a regular beauty, a first rate, with ball or
buck-shot, or whatever you like — made in Lon
don ; I gave two hundred dollars for it ; and it
is so short and handy and straight shooting, I'd
just as soon part with my life as let it go to
anybody," and, with a glow of pride in his
face, the captain handed round again a very
short double-barrelled gun, of some eleven or
twelve bore, with back action locks, and an au
dacious " Joseph Mauton, London," stamped on
the plate. The manner of the man was per
fectly simple and bond fide; very much as if
Inspector Podger were revealing to a simpleton
the mode by which the London police managed
refractory characters in the station-house.

From such matters as these I was diverted by
the more serious subject of the attitude taken by
England in this quarrel. The concession of bel
ligerent rights was, I found, misunderstood, and
was considered as an admission, that the South
ern States had established their independence
before they had done more than declare their
intention to fight for it.

MY DIARY NORTH ANQ SOUTH.

121

It is not within my power to determine whe
ther the North is as unfair to Great Britain as the
South ; but I fear the history of the people, and
the tendency of their institutions, are adverse to
any hope of fair-play and justice to the old coun
try. And yet it is the only power in Europe for
the good opinion of which they really seem
to care. Let any French, Austrian, or Russian
journal write what it pleases of the United
States, it is received with indifferent criticism
or callous head-shaking. But let a London paper
speak, and ihe whole American press is delighted
or furious.

The political sentiment quite overrides all other
feelings; and it is the only symptom states
men should care about, as it guides the policy of
the country. If a man can put faith in the influ
ence for peace of common interests, of common
origin, common intentions, with the spectacle of
this incipient war before his eyes, he must be in
capable of appreciating the consequences which
follow from man being an animal. A war be
tween England and the United States would be
unnatural ; but it would not be nearly so unnatu
ral now as it was when it was actually waged in
1776 between people who were barely separated
from each other by a single generation ; or in
1812-14, when the foreign immigration had done
comparatively little to dilute the Anglo-Saxon
blood. The Norman of Hampshire and Sussex
did not care much for th$ ties of consanguinity
and race when he followed his lord in fee to rav- -
age Guienne or Brittany.

The general result of my intercourse with
Americans is to produce the notion that they con
sider Great Britain in a state of corruption and
decay, and eagerly seek to exalt France at her
expense. Their language is the sole link be
tween England and the United States, and it only
binds the England of 1770 to the America of
1360.

There is scarcely an American on either side of
Mason and.Dixon's line who does not religiously
believe that the colonies, alone and single-hand
ed, encountered the whole undivided force of
Great Britain in the Revolution and defeated it.
I mean, of course, the vast mass of the people ;
and I do not think there is an orator or a writer
who would venture to tell them the truth on the
subject. Again, they firmly believe that their
petty frigate engagements established as com
plete a naval ascendancy over Great Britain as
the latter obtained by her great encounters with
the fleets of France and Spain. Their reverses,
defeats, and headlong routs in the first war, their
reverses in the second, are covered over by a
huge Buncombe plaster, made up of Bunker's
Hill, Plattsburg, Baltimore, and New Orleans.

Their delusions are increased and solidified by
the extraordinary text-books of so-called history,
and by the feasts, and festivals, and celebrations
of their every-day political life, in all of which
we pass through imaginary Caudine Forks ; and
they entertain towards the old country at best
very much the feeling which a high-spirited young
man would feel towards the guardian who, when
he had come of age, and was free from all con
trol, sought to restrain the passions of his early
life.

Now I could not refuse to believe that in New
Orleans, Montgomery, Mobile, Jackson, and Mem
phis, there is a reckless and violent condition of

society, unfavourable to civilization, and but little
hopeful for the future. The most absolute and
despotic rule, under which a man's life and pro- r /
perty are safe, is better than the largest measure of *"'
democratic freedom, which deprives the freeman
of any security for either. The state of legal pro
tection for the most serious interests of man, con
sidered as a civilized and social creature, which
prevails in America, could not be tolerated for an
instant, and would generate a revolution in the
worst governed country in Europe. I would
much sooner,, as the accidental victim of a gene
rally disorganized police, be plundered by a chance
diligence robber in Mexico, or have a fair fight
with a Greek Klepht, suffer from Italian banditti,
or be garotted by a London ticket-of-leave man,
than be bowie-knifed or revolvered in consequence
of a political or personal difference with a man,
who is certain not in the least degree to suffer
from an accidental success in his argument.

On our return to the hotel I dined with the
General and his staff at the public table, where
there was a large assemblage of military men,
Southern ladies, their families, and contractors.
This latter race has risen up as if by magic, to
meet the wants of the new Confederacy ; and it
is significant to measure the amount of the de
pendence on Northern manufacturers by the ad
vertisements in Southern journals indicating the
creation of new branches of workmanship, me
chanical science, and manufacturing skill.
' Hitherto they have been dependent on the
North for the very necessaries of their industrial
life. These States were so intent on gathering in
money for the.ir produce, expending it luxurious
ly, and paying it out for Northern labor, that
they found themselves suddenly in the condition
of a child brought up by hand, whose nurse and
mother have left it on the steps of the poor-
house. But they have certainly essayed to reme
dy the evil and are endeavoring to make steam-
engines, gunpowder, lamps, clothes, boots, rail
way carriages, steel springs, glass, and all the
smaller articles for which even Southern house
holds find a necessity. S

The peculiar character of this contest develops
itself in a manner almost incomprehensible to a
stranger who has been accustomed to regard the
United States as a nation. Here is General Pil
low, for example, in the State of Tennessee, com
manding the forces of the State, which, in effect,
belongs to the Southern Confederacy; but he
tells rne that he cannot venture to move across a.
certain geographical line, dividing Tennessee
from Kentucky, because the State of Kentucky,
in the exercise of its sovereign powers and rights,
which the Southern States are bound specially to
respect, in virtue of their championship of States'
rights, has, like the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, declared it will be neutral in
the struggle ; and Beriah Magoffin, Governor of
the aforesaid State, has warned off Federal and
Confederate troops from his territory.

General Pillow is particularly indignant with
the cowardice of the well-known Secessionists
of Kentucky ; but I think he is rather more an
noyed by the accumulation of Federal troops at
Cairo, and their recent expedition to Columbus
on the Kentucky shore, a little below them, where
they seized a Confederate flag.

122

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Heavy Bill — Railway travelling — Introductions — Assas
sinations—Tennessee—" Corinth "— " Troy "— " Hum-
bolt "— " The Confederate Camp "—Return North
wards — Columbus — Cairo — The Slavery Question —
Prospects of the War — Coarse Journalism.

June 19 th. — It is probable the landlord of the
Gayoso House was a strong Secessionist, and re
solved, therefore, to make the most out of a neu
tral customer, like myself — certainly Herodotus
would have been astonished if he were called
upon to pay the little bill which was presented
to me in the modern Memphis ; and' had the old
Egyptian hostelries been conducted on the same
principles as those of the Tennessean Memphis,
the " Father of History " would have had to sell
off a good many editions in order to pay his way.
I had to rise at three o'clock A.M., to reach the
train, which started before five. The omnibus
which took us to the station was literally nave
deep in dust ; and of all the bad roads and dusty
streets I have^et seen in the New "World, where
both prevail, North and South, those of Memphis
are the worst. Indeed, as the citizen, of Hiber
nian birth, who presided over the luggage of the
passengers on the roof, declared, " The streets are
paved with waves of mud, only the "mud is all
dust when it's fine weather,"

By the time I had arrived at the station my
clothes were covered with a fine alluvial deposit
in a state of powder ; the platform was crowded
with volunteers moving off for the wars, and I
was obliged to take my place in a carriage full
of Confederate officers and soldiers who had a
large supply of whisky, which at that early hour
they were consuming as a prophylactic against
the influence of the morning dews, which here
abouts are of such a deadly character that, to be
quite safe from their influence, it appears to be
necessary, judging from the examples of my com
panions, to get as nearly drunk as possible.
"Whisky, by-the-by, is also a sovereign specific
against the bites of rattlesnakes. All the dews
of the Mississippi and the rattlesnakes of the
prairie might have spent their force or venom in
vain on my companions before we had got as far
as Union City.

I was evidently regarded with considerable
suspicion by my fellow passengers, when they
heard I was going to Cairo, until the conductor
obligingly informed them who I was, whereupon
I was much entreated to fortify myself against the
dews and rattlesnakes, and received many offers
of service and kindness.

"Whatever may be the normal comforts of
American railway cars, they are certainly most
unpleasant conveyances when the war spirit is
abroad, and the heat of the day, which was ex
cessive, did not contribute to diminish the annoy
ance of foul air — the odour of whisky, tobacco,
and the like, combined with innumerable flies.
At Humbolt, which is eighty-two miles away,
there was a change of cars, and an opportunity
of obtaining some refreshment, — the station was
crowded by great numbers of men and women
dressed in their best, who were making holiday
in order to visit Union City, forty-six miles dis
tant, where a force of Tennesseean and Mississip
pi regiments are encamped. The ladies boldly
advanced into carriages which were quite full,
and as they looked quite prepared to sit down on
the occupants of the seats if they did not move,

and to destroy them with all-absorbing articles
of feminine warfare, either offensive or aggressive,
and crush them with iron-bound crinolines, they
soon drove us out into the broiling sun.

Whilst I was on the platform I underwent the
usual process of American introduction, not, I fear,
very good-humouredly. A gentleman whom you
never saw before in your life, walks up to you and
says, " I am happy to see you among us, sir," and
if he finds a hand wandering about, he shakes it
cordially. " My name is Jones, sir, Judge Jones
of Pumpkin County. Any information about this
place or State that I can give is quite at your
service." This is all very civil and well meant
of Jones, but before you have made up your mind
what to say, or on what matter to test the worth
of his proffered information, he darts off and seizes,
one of the group who have been watching Jones's
advance, and comes forward with a tall man, like
himself, busily engaged with a piece of tobacco.
" Colonel, let me introduce you to my friend, Mr.
Russell. This, sir, is one of our leading citizens,
Colonel Knags." Whereupon the Colonel shakes
hands, uses nearly the same formula as Judge-
Jones, immediately returns to his friends, and
cuts in before Jones is back with other friends,
whom he is hurrying up the platform, introduces
General Cassius Mudd and Dr. Ordlando Bellows,
who go through the same ceremony, and as each
man has a circle of his own, my acquaintance
becomes prodigiously extended, and my hand
considerably tortured in the space of a few
minutes ; finally I am introduced to the driver of
the engine and the stoker, but they proved to be
acquaintances not at all to be despised, for they
gave me a seat on the engine, which was really
a boon considering that the train was crowded
beyond endurance, and in a state of internal nas-
tiuess scarcely conceivable.

When I had got up on the engine a gentleman
clambered after me in order to have a little con
versation, and he turned out to be an intelligent
and clever man well acquainted with the people
and the country. I had been much impressed by
the account in the Memphis papers of the law
lessness and crime which seemed to prevail in
the State of Mississippi, and of the brutal shoot
ings and stabbings which disgraced it and other
Southern States. He admitted it was true, but
could .not see any remedy. "Why not?"
" Well, sir, the rowdies have rushed in on us, and
we can't master them ; they are too strong for
the respectable people." " Then you admit the
law is nearly powerless?" " Well, you see, sir,
these men have got hold of the people who ought
to administer the law, and when they fail to
do so they are so powerful by reason of their
numbers, and so reckless, they have things their
own way."

" In effect then, you are living under a reign of
terror, and the rule of a ruffian mob ?" " It's not
quite so bad as that, perhaps, for the respectable
people are not much affected by it, and most of
the crimes of which you speak are committed by
these bad classes in their own section; but it is
disgraceful to have such a state of things, and
when this war is over, and we have started the
Confederacy all fair, we'll put the whole thing
down. We are quite determined to take the
law into our own hands, and the first remedy
for the condition of affairs which we all lament,
will be to confine the suffrage to native-born

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

123

v

Americans, and to get rid of the iniunous
scoundrelly foreigners, who now overrul-3 us in
our country." "But are not many regiments of
Irish and Germans now fighting for you ? And
will these foreigners, who have taken up arms in
your cause be content to receive as the result of
their success an inferior position, politically, to
that which they now hold?" "Well, sir, they
must; we are bound to go through with this
thing if we would save society." I had so often
heard a similar determination expressed by men
belonging to the thinking classes in the South
that I am bound to believe the project is enter
tained by many of those engaged in this great
revolt — one principle of which, indeed, may be
considered hostility to universal suffrage, combin
ing with it, of course, the limitation of the immi
grant vote.

Tho portion of Tennessee through which the
rail runs is exceedingly uninteresting, and looks
unhealthy, the clearings occur at long intervals
in the forest, and the unwholesome population,
who came out of their low shanties, situated
amidst blackened stumps of trees or fields of
Indian corn, did not seem prosperous or comfort
able. The twists and curves of the rail, through
canebrakes and swamps, exceeded in that respect
any line I have ever travelled on ; but the verti
cal irregularities of the rail were still greater, and
the engine bounded as if it were at sea.

The names of the stations show that a savant
nas been rambling about the district. Here is
Corinth, which consists of n wooden grog-shop
and three log shanties ; the acropolis is repre
sented by a grocery store, of which the proprietors,
no doubt, have gone to the wars, as their names
were suspiciously Milesian, and the doors and
windows were fastened; but occasionally the
names of the stations on the railway boards
represented towns arid villages, hidden in the
wood some distance away, and Mummius might
have something to ruin if he inarched off the
track but not otherwise.

The city of Troy was still simpler in architec
ture than the Grecian capitol. The Dardanian
towers were represented by a timber-house, in
the verandah of which the American Helen was
seated, in the shape of an old woman smoking a
pipe, and she certainly could have set the Palace
of Priam on fire much more readily than her
prototype. Four sheds, three log huts, a saw
mill, about twenty negroes sitting on a wood
pile, and looking at the train, constituted the rest
of the place, which was certainly too new for one
to say, Troja fuit, whilst the general "fixins"
would scarcely authorize us to say with any con
fidence, Troja fuerit.

The train from Troy passed through a cypress
swamp, over which the engine rattled, and hop
ped at a perilous rate along high trestle work, till
forty-six miles from Humbolt we came to Union
City, which was apparently formed by aggregate
meetings of discontented shavings that had tra
velled out of the forest hard by. But a little be
yond it was the Confederate camp, which so
many citizens and citizen esses had come out into
the wilderness to see ; and a general descent was
made upon the place whilst the volunteers came
swarming out of their tents to meet their friends.
It was interesting to observe the affectionate
greetings between the young soldiers, mothers,
wives, and sweethearts, and as a display of the

force and earnestness of the Southern people — the
camp itself containing thousands of men, many
of whom were members of the first families in
the State — was specially significant.

There is no appearance of military order or
discipline about the camps, though they were
guarded by sentries and cannon, and implements
of war and soldiers' accoutrements were abundant.
Some of the sentinels carried their firelocks under
their arms like umbrellas, others carried the butt
over the shoulder and the muzzle downwards,
and one for his greater ease had stuck the bay
onet of his firelock into the ground, and was
leaning his elbow on the stock with his chin on
his hand, whilst Sybarites less ingenious, had
simply deposited their muskets against the trees,
and were lying down reading newspapers. Their
arms and uniforms were of different descriptions
— sporting rifles, fowling pieces, flint muskets,
smooth bores, long and short barrels, new En-
fields, and the like; but the men, nevertheless,
were undoubtedly material for excellent soldiers.
There were some few boys, too young to carry
arms, although the zeal and ardour of such lads
cannot but have a good effect, if they behave well
in action.

The great attraction of this train lay in a vast
supply of stores, with which several large vans
were closely packed, and for fully two hours the
train was delayed, whilst hampers of wine, spirits,
vegetables, fruit, meat, groceries, and all the
various articles acceptable to soldiers living under
canvas were disgorged on the platform, and car
ried away by the expectant military.

I was pleased to observe the perfect confidence
that was felt in the honesty of the men. The
railway servants simply deposited each article as
it came out on the platform — the men came up,
read the address, and carried it away, or left it,
as the case might be ; and only in one instance
did I see a scramble, which was certainly qr.ite
justifiable, for in handing out a large basket tho
bottom gave way, and out tumbled onions, apples,
and potatoes among the soldiery, who stuffed
their pockets and haversacks with the unexpect
ed bounty. One young fellow, who was handed
a large wicker-covered jar from the van, having
shaken it, arid gratified his ear by the pleasant
jingle inside, retired to the roadside, drew the
cork, and, raising it slowly to his mouth, pro
ceeded to take a good pull at the contents, to the
envy of his comrades ; but the pleasant expres
sion upon his face rapidly vanished, and spurting
out the fluid with a hideous grimace, he exclaimed,

"D ; why, if the old woman has not gone

and sent me a gallon of syrup." The matter was
evidently considered too serious to joke about,
for not a soul in the crowd even smiled ; but they
walked away from the man, who, putting down
the jar, seemed in doubt as to whether he would
take it away or not.

Numerous were the invitations to stop, which
I received from the officers. "Why not stay
with us, sir ; what can a gentleman want to go
among black Republicans and Yankees for ? " It
is quite obvious that my return to the Northern
States is regarded with some suspicion ; but I am
bound to say that my explanation of the neces
sity of the step was always well received, and
satisfied my Southern friends that I had no alter
native. A special correspondent, whose letters
cannot get out of the country in which he ia

124

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

engaged, can scarcely fulfil the purpose of his
mission ; and I used to point out, good-humoured •
ly, to these gentlemen that until they had either
opened the communication with the North, or
had broken the blockade, and established steam
communication with Europe, I must seek my
base of operations elsewhere.

At last we started from Union City; and there
came into the car, among other soldiers who were
going out to Columbus, a fine specimen of the
wild filibustering population of the South, which
furnish many recruits to the ranks of the Con
federate army — a tall, brawny-shouldered, brown-
faced, black-bearded, hairy-handed man, with a
hunter's eye, and rather a Jewish face, full of
life, energy, and daring. I easily got into con
versation with him, as my companion happened
to be a freemason, and he told us he had been a
planter in Mississippi, and once owned 110
negroes, worth at least some 20.000Z. ; but, as he
said himself, " I was always patrioting it about; "
and so he went oft', first with Lopez to Cuba, was
wounded and taken prisoner by the Spaniards,
but had the good fortune to be saved from the
execution which was inflicted on the ringleaders
of the expedition. When he came back he found
his plantation all the worse, and a decrease
amongst his negroes; but his love of adventure
and filibustering was stronger than his prudence
or desire of gain. He took up with Walker,
"the grey-eyed man of destiny," and accompanied
him in his strange career till his leader received
the coup de grace in the final raid upon Nicaragua.

Again he was taken prisoner, and would have
been put to death by the Nicaraguans, but for
the intervention of Captain Aldham. "I don't
bear any love to the Britishers," said he, "but
I'm bound to say, as so many charges have been
made against Captain Aldham, that he behaved
like a gentleman, and if I had been at New
Orleans when them cussed cowardly blackguards
ill-used him, I'd have left my mark so deep on a
few of them, that their clothes would not cover
them long." He told us that at present he had
only five negroes left, "but I'm not going to let
the black republicans lay hold of them, and I'm
just going to stand up for States' rights as long
as I can draw a trigger — so snakes and Aboli
tionists look out." He was so reduced by starva
tion, ill-treatment, and sickness in Nicaragua,
when Captain Aldham procured his release, that
he weighed only 110 pounds, but at present he
was over 200 pounds, a splendid bete fauve, and
without wishing so fine a looking fellow any
harm, I could not but help thinking that it must
be a benefit to American society to get rid of a
considerable number of the class of which he is
a representative man. And there is every pro
bability that they will have a full opportunity of
doing so.

On the arrival of the train at Columbus,
twenty-five miles from Union City, my friend got
out, and a good number of men in uniform joined
him, which led me to conclude that they had
some more serious object than a mere pleasure
trip to the very uninteresting looking city on the
banks of the Mississippi, which is asserted to be
neutral territory, as it belongs to the sovereign
state of Kentucky. I heard, accidentally, as I
came in the train, that a party of Federal soldiers
from the camp at Cairo, up the river, had recently
descended to Columbus and torn down a secession

flag which had been hoisted on the river's bank,
to the great indignation of many of the inhabit
ants.

In those border states the coming war promises
to produce the greatest misery ; they will be the
scenes of hostile operations ; the population is
divided in sentiment; the greatest efforts will be
made by each side to gain the ascendancy in the
state, and to crush the opposite faction, and it is
not possible to believe that Kentucky can main
tain a neutral position, or that either Federal or
Confederates will pay the smallest regard to the
proclamation of Governor McGoffin, and to his
empty menaces.

At Columbus the steamer was waiting to con
vey us up to Cairo, and I congratulated myself
on the good fortune of arriving in time for the last
opportunity that will be afforded of proceeding
northward by this route. General Pillow on the
one hand, and General Prentiss on the other,
have resolved to blockade the Mississippi, and as
the facilities for Confederates going up to Colum
bus and obtaining information of what is hap
pening in the Federal camps cannot readily be
checked, the general in command of the port to
which I am bound has intimated that the steam
ers must cease running. It was late in the day
when we entered once more on the father of wa
ters, which is here just as broad, as muddy, as
deep, and as wooded as it is at Baton Rouge, or
Vicksburg.

Columbus is situated on an elevated spur or
elbow of land projecting into the river, and has,
in commercial faith, one of those futures which
have so many rallying points down the centre of
the great river. The steamer which lay at the
wharf, or rather the wooden piles in the bank
which afforded a resting-place for the gangway,
carried no flag, and on board presented traces of
better days, a list of refreshments no longer at
tainable, and a bill of fare utterly fanciful. About
twenty passengers came on board, most of whom
had a distracted air, as if they were doubtful of
their journey. The captain was surly, the office-
keeper petulant, the crew morose, and, perhaps,
only one man on board, a stout Englishman, who
was purser or chief .of the victualling department,
seemed at all inclined to be communicative. At
dinner he asked me whether I thought there
would be a fight, but as I was oscillating between
one extreme and the other, I considered it right
to conceal my opinion even from the steward of
the Mississippi boat; and, as it happened, the
expression of it would not have been of much
consequence one way or the other, for it turned
out that our friend was of very stern stuff. " This
war," he said, " is all about niggers ; I've been
sixteen years in the country, and I never met
one of them yet was fit to be anything but a
slave ; I know the two sections well, and I tell
you, sir, the North can't whip the South, let them
do their best ; they may ruin the country, but
they'll do no good."

There were men on board who had expressed
the strongest secession sentiments in the train,
but who now sat and listened and acquiesced in
the opinions of Northern men, and by the time
Cairo was in sight, they, no doubt, would have
taken the oath of allegiance which every doubtful
person is required to utter before he is allowed to
go beyond the military post.

In about two hours or so the captain pointed

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

125

out to me a tall building and some sheds, which
seemed to arise out of a wide reach in the river,
" that's Cairey," said he, " where the Unionists
have their camp," and very soon the stars and
stripes were visible, waving from a lofty staff, at
the angle of low land formed by the junction of
the Mississippi and Ohio.

For two months I had seen only the rival stars
and bars, with the exception of the rival banner
floating from the ships and the fort at Pickens.
One of the passengers told me that the place
was supposed to be described by Mr. Dickens,
in " Martin Chuzzlewit," and as the steamer
approached the desolate embankment, which
seemed the only barrier between the low land on
which the so-called city was built, and the wa
ters of the great river rising above it, it certainly
became impossible to beh'eve that sane men, even
as speculators, could have fixed upon such a spot
as the possible site of a great city, — an emporium
of trade and commerce. A more desolate woe
begone looking place, now that all trade and
commerce had ceased, cannot be conceived ; but
as the southern terminus of the central Illinois
railway, it displayed a very different scene before
the war broke out.

With the exception of the large hotel, which
rises far above the levee of the river, the public
edifices are represented by a church and spire,
and the rest of the town by a line of shanties and
small houses, the rooms and upper stories of
which are just visible above the embankment.
The general impression effected by the place was
decidedly like that which the Isle of Dogs pro
duces on a despondent foreigner as he approaches
London by the river on a drizzly day in November.
The stream, formed by the united efforts of the
Mississippi and the Ohio, did not appear to gain
much breadth, and each of the confluents looked
as large as its product with the other. Three
steamers lay alongside the wooden wharves pro
jecting from the embankment, which was also
lined by some flat-boats. Sentries paraded the
gangways as the steamer made fast along the
shore, but no inquiry was directed to any of the
passengers, and I walked up the levee and pro
ceeded straight to the hotel, winch put me very
much in mind of an effort made by speculating
proprietors to create a watering-place on some
lifeless beach. In the hall there were a number
of officers in United States' uniforms, and the
lower part of the hotel was, apparently, occupied
as a military bureau ; finally, I was shoved into
a small dungeon, with a window opening out on
the angle formed by the two rivers, which was
lined with sheds and huts and terminated by a
battery.

These camps are such novelties in the country,
and there is such romance in the mere fact of a
man living in a tent, that people come far and
wide to see their friends under such extraordi
nary circumstances, and the hotel at Cairo was
crowded by men and women who had come from
all parts of Illinois to visit their acquaintances
aud relations belonging to the state troops en
camped at this important point. The sdlle d
manger, a long and lofty room on the ground
floor, which I visited at supper time, was almost
untenable by reason of heat and flies : nor did I
find that the iree negroes, who acted as attend
ants, possessed any advantages over their en
slaved brethren a few miles lower down the

river ; though their freedom was obvious enough
in their demeanour and manners.

I was introduced to General Prentiss, an agree
able person, without anything about him to indi
cate the soldier. He gave me a number of news
papers, the articles in which were principally
occupied with a discussion of Lord John Russell's
speech on American affairs. Much as the South
found fault with the British minister for the views
he had expressed, the North appears much more
indignant, and denounces in the press what the
journalists are pleased to call " the hostility of
the Foreign Minister to the United States." It
admitted, however, that the extreme irritation
caused by admitting the Southern States to exer
cise limited belligerent rights was not quite justi
fiable. Soon after nightfall I retired to my room
and battled with mosquitoes till I sank into sleep
and exhaustion, and abandoned myself to their
mercies ; perhaps, after all, there were not more
than a hundred or so, and their united efforts
could not absorb as much blood as would be
taken out by one leech, but then their horrible
acrimony, which leaves a wreck behind in the
place where they have banqueted, inspires the
utmost indignation, and appears to be an inde
fensible prolongation of the outrage of the ori
ginal bite.

June 20th. — When I awoke this morning, and,
gazing out of my little window on the regiments
parading on the level below me, after an arduous
struggle to obtain cold water for a bath, sat down
to consider what I had seen within the last two
months, and to arrive at some general results from
the retrospect, I own that after much thought my
mind was reduced to a hazy analysis of the ab
stract principles of right and wrong, in which it
failed to come to any very definite conclusion :
the space of a very few miles has completely al
tered the phases of thought and the forms of lan
guage.

I am living among "abolitionists, cut-throats,
Lincolnite mercenaries, foreign invaders, assas
sins, and plundering Dutchmen." Such, at least,
the men of Columbus tell me the garrison at Cairo
consists of. Down below me are " rebels, con
spirators, robbers, slave breeders, wretches bent
upon destroying the most perfect government on
the face of the earth, in order to perpetuate an
accursed system, by which human beings are held
in bondage and immortal souls consigned to per
dition."

On the whole, the impression left upon my
mind by what I had seen in slave states is un
favourable to the institution of slavery, both as
regards its effects on the slave and its influence
on the master. But my examination was neces
sarily superficial and hasty. I have reason to
believe that the more deeply the institution is
probed, the more clearly will its unsoundness and
its radical evils be discerned. The constant ap
peals made to the physical comforts of the slaves,
and their supposed contentment, have little or no
effect on any person who acts up to a higher stan
dard of human happiness than that which is ap
plied to swine or the beasts of the fields. " See
how fat my pigs are."

The arguments founded on a comparison of the
condition of the slave population with the pau
perised inhabitants of European states are utterly
fallacious, inasmuch as in one point, which is the
most important by fur, there can be no compari-

126

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

son at all. In effect, slavery can only be justified
in the abstract on the grounds which slavery ad
vocates decline to take boldly, though they in
sinuate it now and then, that is, the inferiority
of the negro in respect to white men, which re
moves them from the upper class of human be
ings and places them in a condition which is as
much below the Caucasian standard as the qua-
drumanous creatures are beneath the negro.
Slavery is a curse, with its time of accomplish
ment not quite at hand — it is a cancer, the ra
vages of which are covered by fair outward show,
and by the apparent health of the sufferer.

The slave states, of course, would not support
the Northern for a year if cotton, sugar, and to
bacco became suddenly worthless. But, never
theless, the slave owners would have strong
grounds to stand upon if they were content to
point to the difficulties in the way of emancipa
tion, and the circumstances under which they re
ceived their damnosa hereditas from England,
which fostered, nay forced, slavery in the legisla
tive hotbeds throughout the colonies. The Eng
lishman may say, " We abolished slavery when
we saw its evils." The slave owner replies, " Yes,
with you it was possible to decree the extinction
— not with us."

Never did a people enter on a war so utterly
\j destitute of any reason for waging it, or of the
means of bringing it to a successful termination
against internal enemies. The thirteen colonies
had a large population of sea-faring and soldier
ing men, constantly engaged in military expedi
tions. There was a large infusion, compared
with the numbers of men capable of commanding
in the field, and their great enemy was separated
by a space far greater than the whole circumfe
rence of the globe would be in the present time
from the scene of operations. Most American
officers who took part in the war of 1812-14. are
now too old for service, or retired into private life
soon after the campaign. The same remark ap
plies to the senior officers who served in Mexico,
and the experiences of that campaign could not
be of much use to those now in the service, of
whom the majority were subalterns, or at most,
officers in command of volunteers.

A love of military display is very different in
deed from a true soldierly spirit, and at the base
of the volunteer system there lies a radical diffi
culty, which must be overcome before real mili
tary efficiency can be expected. In the South
the foreign element has contributed largely to
swell the ranks with many docile and a few ex
perienced soldiers, the number of the latter pre
dominating in the German levies, and the same
remark is, I hear, true of the Northern armies.

The most active member of the staff here is a
young Elnglishman named Binmore, who was a
stenographic writer in London, but has now
sharpened his pencil into a sword, and when I
went into the guard-room this morning I found
that three-fourths of the officers, including all
who had. seen actual service, were foreigners.
One, Milotzky, was an Hungarian ; another,
Waagner, was of the same nationality; a third,
Schuttner, was a German ; another, Mac some
thing, was a Scotchman ; another was an English
man. One only (Colonel Morgan), who had served
in Mexico, was an American. The foreigners, of
course, serve in this war as mercenaries ; that is,
ttiey enter into the conflict to gain something by

it, either in pay, in position, or in securing a sta
tus for themselves.

The utter absence of any fixed principle deter
mining the side which the foreign nationalities
adopt is proved by their going North or South
with the state in which they live. On the other
hand, the effects of discipline and of the principles
of military life on rank and file are shown by the
fact that the soldiers of the regular regiments of
the United States and the sailors in the navy have t
to a man adhered to their colours, notwithstand
ing the examples and inducements of their offi
cers.

After breakfast I went down about the works,
which fortify the bank of mud, in the shape of a
V, formed by the two rivers — a fleche with a
ditch, scarp, and counter-scarp. Some heavy
pieces cover the end of the spit at the other side
of the Mississippi, at Bird's Point. On the side
of Missouri there is a field entrenchment, held by
a regiment of Germans, Poles, and Hungarians,
about 1000 strong, with two field batteries. The
sacred soil of Kentucky, on the other side of the
Ohio, is tabooed by Beriah Magoffin, but it is not
possible for the belligerents to stand so close face
to face without occupying either Columbus or
Hickman. The thermometer was at 100Q soon
after breakfast, and it was not wonderful to find
that the men in Camp Defiance, which is the
name of the cantonment on the mud between the
levees of the Ohio and Mississippi, were suffer
ing from diarrhoea and fever.

In the evening there was a review of three
regiments, forming a brigade of some 2800 men,
who went through their drill, advancing in co
lumns of company, moving en echelon, changing
front, deploying into line on the centre company,
very creditably. It was curious to see what a
start ran through the men during the parade
when a gun was fired from the battery close at
hand, and how their heads turned towards the
river ; but the steamer which had appeared round
the bend hoisted the private signs by which she
was known as a friend, and tranquillity was re
stored.

I am not sure that most of these troops desire
anything but a long residence at a tolerably com
fortable station, with plenty of pay and no march
ing. Cairo, indeed, is not comfortable , the worst
barr?ck that ever asphyxiated the British soldier
would be better than the best shed here, and the
flies and the mosquitoes are beyond all concep
tion virulent and pestiferous. I would give much
to see Cairo in its normal state, but it is my fate
to witness the most interesting scenes in the
world through a glaze of gunpowder. It would
be unfair to say that any marked superiority in
dwelling, clothing, or comfort, was visible be
tween the mean white of Cairo or the black chat
tel a few miles down the river. Brawling, riot
ing, and a good deal of drunkenness prevailed in
the miserable sheds which line the stream, al
though there was nothing to justify the libels on
the garrison of the Columbus Crescent, edited by
one Colonel L. G. Faxon, of th > Tennessee Ti
gers, with whose writings I was made acquaint
ed by General Prentiss, to whom they appeared
to give more annoyance than he was quite wise
in showing.

This is a style of journalism which may have
its merits, and which certainly is peculiar; I give
a few small pieces. " The Irish are for us. and

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

127

they will knock Bologna sausages out of the
Dutch, and we will knock wooden nutmegs out of
the Yankee?.." " The mosquitoes of Cairo have been
sucking the lager-bier out of the dirty soldiers
there so long, they are bloated and swelled up as
large as spring 'possums. An assortment of Co
lumbus mosquitoes went up there the other day
to suck some, but as they have not returned, the
probability is they went off with delirium tremens;
in fact, the blood of these Hessians would poi
son the most degraded tumble bug in creation."

Our editor is particularly angry about the re
cent seizure of a Confederate flag at Columbus
by Colonel Oglesby and a party of Federals from
Cairo. Speaking of a flag intended for himself,
he says, "Would that its folds had contained
1000 asps to sting 1000 Dutchmen to eternity
unshriven." Our friend is certainly a genius.
His paper of June the 19th opens with an apo
logy for the non-appearance of the journal for
several weeks. " Before leaving," he says, "we
engaged the services of a competent editor, and
left a printer here to issue the paper regularly.
We were detained several weeks beyond our
time, the aforesaid printer promised faithfully to
perform his duties, but he left the same day
we did, and consequently there was no one to
get out the paper. We have the charity to sup
pose that fear and bad whisky had nothing to do
with his evacuation of Columbus." Another
elegant extract about the flag commences, "When
the bow-legged, wooden shoed, sour craut stink
ing, Bologna sausage eating, hen roost robbing
Dutch sons of had accomplished the bril
liant feat of taking down the Secession flag on
the river bank, they were pointed to another
flag of the same sort which their guns did not
cover, flying gloriously and defiantly, and dared
yea ! double big black dog-dared, as we used to
Bay at school, to take that flag down — the cow
ardly pups, the thieving sheep dogs, the sneak
ing skunks, dare not do so, because their twelve
pieces of artillery were not bearing on it." As
to the Federal commander at Cairo, Colonel
Faxon's sentiments are unambiguous. " The
qualifications of this man, Prentiss," he says,
" for the command of such a squad of villains
and cut-throats are, that he is a miserable hound,
a dirty dog, a sociable fellow, a treacherous vil
lain, a notorious thief, a lying blackguard, who
has served his regular five years in the Peniten
tiary and keeps his hide continually full of Cin
cinnati whisky, which he buys by the barrel in
order to save his money — in him are embodied
the leprous rascalities 'of the world, and in this
living score, the gallows is cheated of its own.
Prentiss wants our scalp ; we propose a plan by
which he may get that valuable article. Let
him select 150 of his best fighting men, or 250 of
his lager-bier Dutchmen, we will select 100, then
let both parties meet where there will be no in
terruption at the scalping business, and the
longest pole will knock the persimmon. If he
does not accept this proposal, he is a coward.
We think this a gentlemanly proposition and
'juite fair and equal to both parties."

CHAPTER XL.

Camp at Cairo— The North and the South in respect to
Europe— Political reflections — Mr. Colonel Oglesby
—My speech— Northern and Southern soldiers com
pared—American country-walks— Recklessness of
life— Want of cavalry— Emeute in the camp— De
fects of army medical department — Horrors of war
— Bad discipline.

June 2lst. — Verily I would be sooner in the Cop
tic Cairo, narrow streeted, dark bazaared, many
flied, much vexed by donkeys and by overland
route passengers, than the horrid tongue of land
which licks the muddy margin of the Ohio and
the Mississippi. The thermometer at 100° in the
shade before noon indicates nowhere else such an
amount of heat and suffering, and yet prostrate
as I was, it was my fate to argue that England
was justified in conceding belligerent rights to
the South, and that the attitude of neutrality we
had assumed in this terrible quarrel is not hi
effect an aggression on the United States ; and
here is a difference to be perceived between the
North and the South.

The people of the seceding States, aware in
their consciences that they have been most active
in their hostility to Great Britain, and whilst they
were in power were mainly responsible for the
defiant, irritating, and insulting tone commonly
used to us by American statesmen, are anxious
at the present moment, when so much depends
on the action of foreign countries, to remove all
unfavourable impressions from our minds by de
clarations of good will respect, and admiration,
not quite compatible with the language of their
leaders in tiroes not long gone by. The North,
as yet unconscious of the loss of power, and rear
ed in a school of menace and violent assertion of
their rights, regarding themselves as the whole of
the United States, and animated by their own
feeling of commercial and political opposition to
Great Britain, maintain the high tone of a people
who have never known let or hindrance in then*
passions, and consider it an outrage that the
whole world does not join in active sympathy for
a government which in its brief career has con
trived to affront every nation in Europe with
which it had any dealings.

If the United States have astonished France
by their ingratitude, they have certainly accustom
ed England to their petulance, and one can fancy
the satisfaction with which the Austrian States
men who remember Mr. Webster's despatch to
Mr. Hulsemann, contemplate the present condi
tion of the United States in the face of an insur
rection of these sovereign and independent States
which the Cabinet at Washington stigmatises as
an outbreak of rebels and traitors to the royalty
of the Union.

During my short sojourn in this country I have
never yet met any person who could show me
where the sovereignty of the Union resides.
General Prentiss, however, and his Illinois volun
teers, are quite ready to fight for it.

In the afternoon the General drove me round
the camps in company with Mr. Washburne,
Member of Congress, from Illinois, his staff" and a
party of officers, among whom was Mr. Oglesby,
colonel of a regiment of State Volunteers, who
struck me by his shrewdness, simple honesty, and
zeal.* He told me that he had begun life in the ut
most obscurity, but that somehow or other he got
into a lawyer's office,and there, by hard drudgery, by
* Since died of wounds received in action.

128

MT DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

mother wit and industry, not withstanding a defec
tive education, he had raised himself not only to
independence, but to such a position that 1000
men had gathered at his call and selected one
who had never led a company in his life to bo
their colonel ; in fact, he is an excellent orator of
the western school, and made good homely, tell
ing speeches to his men.

" I'm not as good as your Frenchmen of the
schools of Paris, nor am I equal to the Russian
colonels I met at St. Petersburg, who sketched
me out how they had beaten you Britishers at
Sebastopol," said he ; " but I know I can do good
straight fighting with my boys when I get a
chance. There is a good deal in training, to be
sure, but nature tells too. Why I believe I
would make a. good artillery officer if I
was put to it. General, you heard how I laid one
of them guns the other day and touched her off' with
my own hand and sent the ball right into a tree
half-a-mile away." The colonel evidently thought
he had by that feat proved his fitness for the com
mand of a field battery. One of the German
officers who was listening to the lively old man's
talk, whispered to me, "Dereis a good many of
tese colonels in dis camp."

At each station the officers came out of their
tents, shook hands all round, and gave an unfail
ing invitation to get down and take a drink, and
the guns on the General's approach fired salutes,
as though it was a time of profoundest peace.
Powder was certainly more plentiful than in the
Confederate camps, where salutes are not permit
ted unless by special order on great occasions.

The General remained for some time in the
camp of the Chicago light artillery, which was
commanded by a fine young Scotchman of the
Saxon genus Smith, who told me that the pri
vates of his company represented a million and a
half of dollars in property. Their guns, horses,
carriages, and accoutrements were all in the most
creditable order, and there was an air about the
men and about their camp which showed they
did not belong to the same class as the better
disciplined Hungarians of Milotzky close at hand.

"Whilst we were seated in Captain Smith's tent,
a number of the privates came forward, and sang
the " Star-spangled banner " and a patriotic song,
to the air of " God save the Queen," and the rest
of the artillerymen, and a number of stragglers
from the other camps, assembled and then formed
line behind the singers. When the chorus was
over there arose a great shout for Washburne,
and the honourable Congressman was fain to come
forward and make a speech, in which he assured
his hearers of a very speedy victory and the ad
vent of liberty all over the land. Then " General
Prentiss " was called for ; and as citizen soldiers
command their Generals on such occasions, he too
was obliged to speak, and to tell his audience
" the world had never seen any men more de
voted, gallant, or patriotic than themselves."
"Oglesby"was next summoned, and the tall,
portly, good-humoured old man stepped to the
front, and with excellent tact and good sense,
dished up in the Buncombe style, told them the
time for making speeches had passed, indeed it
had lasted too long ; and although it was said
there was very little fighting when there was
much talking, he believed too much talking was
likely to lead to a great deal more fighting than
any one desired to see between citizens of the

United States of America, except their enemies,
who, no doubt, were much better pleased to see
Americans fighting each other than to find them
engaged in any other employment. Great as the
mischief of too much talking had been, too much
writing had far more of the mischief to answer
for. The pen was keener than the tongue, hit
harder, and left a more incurable wound ; but the
pen was better than the tongue, because it was
able to cure the mischief it had inflicted." And
so by a series of sentences the Colonel got round
to me, and to my consternation, remembering
how I had fared with my speech at the little pri
vate dinner on St. Patrick's Day in New York, I
was called upon by stentorian lungs, and hustled
to the stump by a friendly circle, till I escaped
by uttering a few sentences as to " mighty strug
gle," " Europe gazing," " the world anxious,"
" the virtues of discipline," " the admirable lessons
"of a soldier's life," and the "aspiration that in a
quarrel wherein a British subject was ordered, by
an authority he was bound to respect, to remain
neutral, God might preserve the right."

Colonel, General, and all addressed the soldiers
as " gentlemen," and their auditory did not on
their part refrain from expressing their sentiments
in the most unmistakeable manner. i; Bully for
you, General 1" " Bravo, Washburne 1" "That's
so, Colonel!" and the like, interrupted the ha
rangues, and when the oratorical exercises were
over the men crowded round the staff", cheered
and hurrahed, and tossed up their caps in the
greatest delight.

With the exception of the foreign officers, and
some of the Staff', there are very few of the colo
nels, majors, captains, or lieutenants who know
anything of their business. The men do not care
for them, and never think of saluting them. A
regiment of Germans was sent across from Bird's
Point this evening for plundering and robbing the
houses in the district in which they were quar
tered.

It may be readily imagined that the scoundrels
who had to fly from every city in Europe before
the face of the police will not 'stay their hands
when they find themselves masters of the situa
tion in the so-called country of an enemy. In
such matters the officers have little or no control,
and discipline is exceedingly lax, and punish
ments but sparingly inflicted, the use of the lash
being forbidden altogether. Fine as the men are,
incomparably better armed, clad — and doubtless
better fed — than the Southern troops, they will
scarcely meet them man to man in the field with
any chance of success. Among the officers are
bar-room keepers, persons little above the posi
tion of potmen in England, grocers' apprentices,
and such like — often inferior socially, and in every
other respect, to the men whom they are suppos
ed to command. General Prentiss has seen ser
vice, I believe, in Mexico ; but he appears to me
to be rather an ardent politician, embittered
against slaveholders and the South, than a judi
cious or skilful military leader.

The principles on which these isolated com
manders carry on the war are eminently defect
ive. They apply their whole minds to petty ex
peditions, which go out from the camps, attack
some Secessionist gathering, and then return,
plundering as they go and come, exasperating
enemies, converting neutrals into opponents, dis
gusting friends, and leaving it to the Secession-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

129

ists to boast that they have repulsed them. In
stead of encouraging the men and improving
their discipline these ill-conducted expeditions
have an opposite result.

June 22nd — An active man would soon go mad
if he were confined in Cairo. A mudbank stretch
ing along the course of a muddy river is not at
tractive to a pedestrian ; and, as is the case in
most of the Southern cities, there is no place
round Cairo where a man can stretch his legs or
take an honest walk in the country. A walk in
the country ! The Americans have not an idea
of what the thing means. I speak now only of
the inhabitants of the towns of the States through
which I have passed, as far as I have seen of
them. The roads are either impassable in mud
or knee-deep in dust. There are no green shady
lanes, no sheltering groves, no quiet paths
through green meadows beneath umbrageous
trees. Off the rail there is a morass — or, at best,
a clearing — full of stumps. No temptations to
take a stroll. Down away South the planters
ride or drive ; indeed in many places the saun-
terer by the way-side would probably encounter
<in alligator, or disturb a society of rattle-snakes.

To-day I managed to struggle along the levee
in a kind of sirocco, and visited the works at the
extremity, which were constructed by an Hunga
rian named Waagner, one of the emigres who
came with Kossuth to the United States. I found
him in a hut full of flies, suffering from camp
diarrhoea, and waited on by Mr. O'Leary, who
was formerly petty officer in our navy, served in
the Furious in the Black Sea, and in the Shannon
Brigade in India, now a lieutenant in the United
States' army, where I should say he feels himself
very much out of place. The Hungarian and the
Milesian were, however, quite agreed about the
utter incompetence of their military friends around
them, and the great merits of heavy artillery.
" When I tell them here the way poor Sir Wil
liam made us rattle about them 68 -pounder guns,
the poor ignorant creatures laugh at me — not one
of them believes it." "It is most astonishing,"
says the colonel, " how ignorant they are : there
is not one of these men who can trace a regular
work. Of Westpoint men I speak not, but of
the people about here, and they will not learn of
me — from me who knows." However, the works
were well enough, strongly covered, commanded
both rivers, and not to be reduced without trou
ble.

The heat drove me in among the flies of the
crowded hotel, where Brigadier Prentiss is plan
ning one of those absurd expeditions against a
Secessionist camp at Commerce, in the State of
Missouri, about two hours' steaming up the river,
and some twelve or fourteen miles inland. Cairo
abounds in Secessionists and spies, and it is need
ful to take great precautions lest the expedition
be known ; but, after all, stores must be got
ready, and put on board th**steamers, and prepa
rations must be made which cannot be concealed
from the world. At dusk 700 men, supported by
a six pounder field-piece, were put on board the
" City of Alton," on which they clustered like
bees in a swarm, and as the huge engine labour
ed up and down against the stream, and the boat
swayed from side to side, I felt a considerable de
sire to see General Prentiss chucked into the
stream for his utter recklessness in cramming on
board one huge tinder-box, all fire and touch-
I

wood, so many human beings, who, in event of
an explosion, or a shot in the boiler, or of a heavy
musketry fire on the banks, would have been con
verted into a great slaughter-house. One small
boat hung from her stern, and although there
were plenty of river flats and numerous steamers,
even the horses belonging to the field-piece were
crammed in among the men along the deck.

In my letter to Europe I made, at the time,
some remarks by which the belligerents might
have profited, and which at the time these pages
are reproduced may strike them as possessing
some value, illustrated as they have been by
many events in the war. " A handful of horse
men would have been admirable to move in ad
vance, feel the covers, and make prisoners for
political or other purposes in case of flight ; but
the Americans persist in ignoring the use of
horsemen, or at least in depreciating it, though
they will at last find that they may shed much
blood, and lose much more, before they can gain
a victory without the aid of artillery and charges
after the retreating enemy. From" the want of
cavalry, I suppose it is, the unmilitary practice
of ' scouting,' as it is called here, has arisen. It
is all very well in the days of Indian wars for foot
men to creep about in the bushes, and shoot or
be shot by sentries and pickets ; but no civilised
war recognises such means of annoyance as firing
upon sentinels, unless in case of an actual advance
or feigned attack on the line. No camp can be
safe without cavalry videttes and pickets ; for
the enemy can pour in impetuously after the
alarm has been given, as fast as the outlying foot
men can run in. In feeling the way for a column,
cavalry are invaluable, and there can be little
chance of ambuscades or surprises where they
are judiciously employed ; but ' scouting ' on
foot, or adventurous private expeditions on horse
back, to have a look at the enemy, can do, and
will do, nothing but harm. Every day the
papers contain accounts of ' scouts ' being killed,
and sentries being picked off. The latter is a
very barbarous and savage practice; and the
Russian, in his most angry moments, abstained
from it. If any officer wishes to obtain informa
tion as to his enemy, he has two ways of doing
it. He can employ spies, who carry their lives
in their hands, or he can beat up their quarters
by a proper reconnoissance on his own responsi
bility, in which, however, it would be advisable
not to trust his force to a railway train."

At night there was a kind of emeute in camp,
The day, as I have said, was excessively hot, and
on returning to their tents and huts from evening
parade the men found the contractor who supplies
them with water had not filled the barrels ; so
they forced the sentries, broke barracks after
hours, mobbed their officers, and streamed up to
the hotel, which they surrounded, calling out,
" Water, water," in chorus. The General came
out, and got up on a rail : " Gentlemen," said he,
" it is not my fault you are without water. It's
your officers who are to blame, not me." ("Groan?
for the Quartermaster," from the men.) "If it is
the fault of the contractor, I'll see that he if
punished. I'll take steps at once to see that th .
matter is remedied. And now, gentlemen, I
hope you'll go back to your quarters;" and the
gentlemen took it into their .heads very good-
humouredly to obey the suggestion, fell in, and
marched back two deep to their huts.

130

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

As the General was smoking his cigar before
going to bed, I asked him why the officers had
not more control over the men. " Well," said
he, " the officers are to blame for all this. The
truth is, the term for which these volunteers en
listed is drawing to a close ; and they have not
as yet enrolled themselves in the United States'
Army. They are merely volunteer regiments of
the State of Illinois. If they were displeased
with anything, therefore, they might refuse to
enter the service or to take fresh engagements ;
and the officers would find themselves suddenly
left without any men ; they therefore curry favour
with the privates, many of them, too, having an
eye to the votes of the men when the elections
of officers in the new regiments are to take
place."

The contractors have commenced plunder on a
gigantic scale ; and their influence with the autho
rities of the State is so powerful, there is little
chance of punishing them. Besides, it is not
considered expedient to deter contractors, by too
scrupulous an exactitude, in coming forward at
such a trying period; and the Quartermaster's
department, which ought to be the most perfect,
considering the number of persons connected
with transport and carriage, is in a most disgrace
ful and inefficient condition. I told the General
that one of the Southern leaders proposed to
hang any contractor who was found out in cheat
ing the men, and that the press cordially ap
proved of the suggestion. "I am afraid," said
he, " if any such proposal was carried out here,
there would scarcely be a contractor left through
out the States." Equal ignorance is shown by
the medical authorities of the requirements of an
army. There is not an ambulance or cacolet of
any kind attached to this camp ; and, as far as I
could see, not even a litter was sent on board the
steamer which has started with the expedition.

Although there has scarcely been a fought
field or anything more serious than the miserable
skirmishes of Shenck and Butler, the pressure of
war has already told upon the people. The Cairo
paper makes an urgent appeal to the authorities
to relieve the distress and pauperism which the
sudden interruption of trade has brought upon so
many respectable citizens. And when I was at
Memphis the other day, I observed a public notice
in the journals, that the magistrates of the city
would issue orders for money to families left in
distress by the enrolment of the male members
for military service. "When General Scott, sorely
against his will, was urged to makev-preparations
for an armed invasion of the seceded states in
case it became necessary, he said it would need
some hundreds of thousands of men and many
millions of money to effect that object. Mr.
Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Lincoln laughed
pleasantly at this exaggeration, but they have
begun to find by this time the old general was
not quite so much in the wrong.

In reference to the discipline maintained in the
camp, I must admit that proper precautions are
used to prevent spies entering the lines. The
sentries are posted closely, and permit no one to
go in without a pass in the day and a counter-
Bign at night. A conversation with General
Prentiss in the front of the hotel was interrupted
this evening by an Irishman, who ran past us
towards the camp, hotly pursued by two police
men. The sentry on duty at the point of the

lines close to us brought him up by the point of
the bayonet. "Who goes tere?" " A friend,
shure, your honour ; I'm a friend." " Advance
three paces and give the countersign." " I don't
know it, I tell you. Let me in, let me in." But
the German was resolute, and the policemen now
coming up in hot pursuit, seized the culprit, who
resisted violently, till General Prentiss rose from
his chair and ordered the guard, who had turned
out, to make a prisoner of the soldier, and hand
him over to the civil power, for which the man
seemed to be most deeply grateful. As the
policemen were walking off, he exclaimed, " Be
quiet wid ye, till I spake a word to the Gineral,"
and then bowing and chuckling with drunken
gravity he said, " an' indeed, Gineral, I'm much
obleeged to ye altogither for this kindness. Long
life to ye. We've got the better of that dirty
German. Hoora for Gineral Prentiss." He pre
ferred a chance of more whisky in the police office
and a light punishment to the work in camp and
a heavy drill in the morning. An officer who
was challenged by a sentry the other evening,
asked him, " do you know the countersign your
self?" " No, sir, it's not nine o'clock, and they
have not given it out yet." Another sentry who
stopped a man because he did not know the
countersign. The fellow said, "I dare say you
don't know it yourself." " That's a lie," he ex
claimed, " it's Pittsburgh." " Pittsburgh it is,
sure enough," said the other, and walked on
without further parley.

The Americans, Irish, and Germans, do not
always coincide in the phonetic value of each
letter in the passwords, and several difficulties
have occUrred in consequence. An incautious
approach towards the posts at night is attended
with risk ; for the raw sentries are very quick on
the trigger. More fatal and serious injuries have
been inflicted on the Federals by themselves
than by the enemy. " I declare to you, sir, the
way the boys touched off their irons at me going
home to my camp last night, was just like a run
ning fight with the Ingins. I was a little ' tight,'
and didn't mind it a cuss."

CHAPTER XLL

Impending battle — By railway to Chicago — Northern
enlightenment — Mound City — "Cotton is King"—
Land in the States — Dead level of American society —
Return into the Union — American homes — Across the
prairie— White labourers— New pillager— Lake Michi
gan.

June 23rd — The latest information which I
received to-day is of a nature to hasten my de
parture for Washington; it can no longer be
doubted that a battle between the two armies
assembled in the neighbourhood of the capital is
imminent. The vague hope which from time to
time I have entertained of being able to visit
Richmond before I finally take up my quarters
with the only army from which I can communi
cate regularly with Europe has now vanished.

At four o'clock in the evening I started by the
train on the famous Central Illinois line from
Cairo to Chicago.

The carriages were tolerably well filled with
soldiers, and in addition to them there were a
few unfortunate women, undergoing deportation
to some less moral neighbourhood. Neither the

MT DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

,„

look, language, nor manners of my fellow passen
gers inspired me with an exalted notion of the
intelligence, comfort and respectability of the
people which are so much vaunted by Mr. Sew-
ard and American journals, and which, though
truly attributed, no doubt, to the people of the
New England states, cannot be affirmed with
equal justice to belong to all the other compo
nents of the Union.

As the Southerners say, their negroes are the;
happiest people on the earth, so the Northerners
boast " We are the most enlightened nation in
the world." The soldiers in the train were in
telligent enough to think they ought not to be
kept without pay, and free enough to say so.
The soldiers abused Cairo roundly, and indeed it
is wonderful if the people can live on any food
but quinine. However, speculators, looking to
its natural advantages as the point where the two
great rivers join, bespeak for Cairo a magnificent
and prosperous future. The present is not pro
mising.

Leaving the shanties, which face the levees,
and some poor wooden houses- with a short vista
of cross streets partially flooded at right angles to
them, the rail suddenly plunges into an unmis-
takeable swamp, where a forest of dead trees
wave their ghastly, leafless arms over their
buried trunks, like plumes over a hearse — a
cheerless, miserable place, sacred to the ague and
fever. This occurs close to the cleared space on
which the city is to stand, — when it is finished —
and the rail, which runs on the top of the em
bankment or levee, here takes to the trestle, and
is borne over the water on the usual timber frame
work.

"Mound City," which is the first station, is
composed of a mere heap of earth, like a ruined
brick-kiln, which rises to some height and is
covered with fine white oaks, beneath which are
a few log huts and hovels, giving the place its
proud name. Tents were pitched on the mound
side, from which wild-looking banditti sort of
men, with arms, emerged as the train stopped.
"I've been pretty well over Europe," said a me
ditative voice beside me, " and I've seen the
despotic armies of the old world, but I don't
think they equal that set of boys." The question
was not worth arguing — the boys were in fact
" very weedy," " splinter-shinned chaps," as
another critic insisted.

There were some settlers in the woods around
Mound City, and a jolly-looking, corpulent man,
who introduced himself as one of the officers of
the land department of the Central Illinois rail
road, described them as awful warnings to the
emigrants not to stick in the south part of Illi
nois. It was suggestive to find that a very
genuine John Bull, " located," as they say in the
States, for many years, had as much aversion to
the principles of the abolitionists as if he had
been born a Southern planter. Another country
man of his and mine, steward on board the
steamer to Cairo, eagerly asked me what I
thought of the quarrel, and which side I would
back. I declined to say more than I thought the
North possessed very great superiority of means
if the conflict were to be fought on the same
terms. Whereupon my Saxon friend exclaimed,
" all the Northern States and all the power of the
world can't beat the South; and why? — because
the South has got cotton, and cotton is king."

The Central Illinois officer did not suggest the
propriety of purchasing lots, but he did intimate I
would be doing service if I informed the world at
large, they could get excellent land, at sums
varying from ten to twenty-five dollars an acre.
In America a man's income is represented by
capitalizing all that he is worth, and whereas in
England we say a man has so much a year, the
Americans, in representing his value, observe
-that he is worth so many dollars, by which they
mean that all he has in the world would realise
the amount.

It sounds very well to an Irish tenant farmer,
an English cottier, or a cultivator in the Lothians,
to hear that he can get land at the rate of from
£2 to £5 per acre, to be his for ever, liable only
to state taxes ; but when he comes to see a par
allelogram marked upon the map as " good soil,
of unfathomable richness," and finds in effect
that he must cut down trees, eradicate stumps,
drain off water, build a house, struggle for high-
priced labour, and contend with imperfect roads,
the want of many things to which he has been
accustomed in the old country, the land may not
appear to him such a bargain. In the wooded
districts he has, indeed, a sufficiency of fuel as
long as trees and stumps last, but they are, of
course, great impediments to tillage. If he goes
to the prairie he finds that fuel is scarce and
water by no means wholesome.

When we left this swamp and forest, and came
out after a run of many miles on the clear lands
which abut upon the prairie, large fields of corn
lay. around us, which bore a peculiarly blighted
and harassed look. These fields were suffering
from the ravages of an insect called the " army
worm," almost as destructive to corn and crops
as the locust-like hordes of North and South,
which are vying with each other in laying waste
the fields of Virginia. Night was falling as the
train rattled out into the wild, flat sea of waving
grass, dotted by patch-like Indian corn enclo
sures ; but halts at such places as Jonesburgh
and Cobden, enabled us to see that these settle
ments in Illinois were neither very flourishing
nor very civilised.

There is a level modicum of comfort, which
may be consistent with the greatest good of the
greatest number, but which makes the standard
of the highest in point of well-being very low
indeed. I own, that to me, it would be more
agreeable to see a flourishing community placed
on a high level in all that relates to the comfort
and social status of all its members than to
recognise the old types of European civilisation^
which place the castle on the hill, surround its
outer walls with the mansion of doctor and law
yer, and drive the people into obscure hovels
outside. But then one must confess that there
are in the castle some elevating tendencies which
cannot be found in the uniform level of citizen
equality. There are traditions of nobility and
noble deeds in the family ; there are paintings on
the walls ; the library is stored with valuable
knowledge, and from its precincts are derived
the lessons not yet unlearned in Europe, that
though man may be equal the condition of men
must vary as the accidents of life or the effects
of individual character, called fortune, may deter
mine.

The towns of Jonesburgh and Cobden hare
their little teapot-looking churches and meeting-

132

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

houses, their lager-bier saloons, their restaurants,
their small libraries, institutes, and rending rooms,
and no doubt they have also their political cliques,
social distinctions and favouritisms; but it re
quires, nevertheless, little sagacity to perceive
that the highest of the bourgeois who leads the
mass at meeting and prayer, has but little to dis
tinguish him from the very lowest member of the
same body politic. Cobden, for example, has no
less than four drinking saloons, all on the line of
rail, and no doubt the highest citizen in the place
frequents some one or other of them, and meets
there the worst rowdy in the place. Even
though they do carry a vote for each adult man,
" locations" here would not appear very enviable
in the eyes of the most miserable Dorsetshire
small farmer ever ferreted out by " S. G-. 0."

A considerable number of towns, formed by
accretions of small stores and drinking places,
called magazines, round ^he original shed wherein
live the station master and his assistants, mark
the course of the railway. Some are important
enough to possess a bank, which is generally
represented by a wooden hut, with a large board
nailed in front, bearing the names of the presi
dent and cashier, and announcing the success and
liberality of the management. The stores are
also decorated with large signs, recommending
the names of the owners to the attention of the
public, and over all of them is to be seen the
significant announcement, " Cash for produce."

At Carbondale there was no coal at all to be
found, but several miles farther to the north, at a
place called Dugoine, a field of bituminous deposit
crops out, which is sold at the pit's mouth for
one dollar twenty-five cents, or about 5s. Id. a- ton.
Darkness and night fell as I was noting such
meagre particulars of the new district as could be
learned out of the window of a railway carriage ;
and finally with a delicious sensation of cool night
air creeping in through the windows, the first I
had experienced for many a long day, we made
ourselves up for repose, and were borne steadily,
if not rapidly, through the great prairie, having
halted for tea at the comfortable refreshment
rooms of Centralia.

There were no physical signs to mark the
transition from the land of the Secessionist to
Union-loving soil. Until the troops were quar
tered there, Cairo was for Secession, and South
ern Illinois is supposed to be deeply tainted with
disaffection to Mr. Lincoln. Placards on which
were printed the words, " Vote for Lincoln and
Hamlin, for Union and Freedom," and the old
battle-cry of the last election, still cling to the
wooden walls of the groceries often accompanied
by bitter words or offensive additions.

One of my friends argues that as slavery is at
the base of Secession, it follows that States or
portions of States will be disposed to join the
Confederates or the Federalists just as the climate
may be favourable or adverse to the growth of
slave produce. Thus in the mountainous parts
of the border States of Kentucky and Tennessee,
in the north-western part of Virginia, vulgarly
called the pan handle, and in the pine woods of
North Carolina, where white men can work at
the rosin and naval store manufactories, there is
a decided feeling in favour of the Union ; in fact,
it becomes a matter of isothermal lines. It
would be very wrong to judge of the condition
of a people from the windows of a railway car

nage, but the external aspect of the settlements
along the line, far superior to that of slave ham
lets, does not equal my expectations. "We all
know the aspect of a wood in a gentleman's park
which is submitting to the axe, and has been
partially cleared, how raw and bleak the stumps
look, and how dreary is the naked land not yet
turned into arable. Take such a patch and fancy
four or five houses made of pine planks, some
times not painted, lighted by windows in which
there is, or has been, glass, each guarded by a
paling around a piece of vegetable garden, a pig
house, and poultry box; let one be a grocery,
which means a whisky shop, another the post-
office, and a third the store where " cash is given
for produce." Multiply these groups if you
desire a larger settlement, and place a wooden
church with a Brobdignag spire and Lilliputian
body out in a waste, to be approached only by a
causeway of planks ; before each grocery let there
be a gathering of tall men in sombre clothing, of
whom the majority have small newspapers and
all of whom are chewing tobacco ; near the stores
let there be some light wheeled carts and ragged
horses, around which are knots of unmistakeably
German women ; then see the deep tracks which
lead off to similar settlements in the forest or
prairie, and you have a notion, if your imagination
is strong enough, of one of these civilising centres
which the Americans assert to be the homes of
the most cultivated and intelligent communities
in the world.

Next morning, just at dawn, I woke up and
got out on the platform of the carriage, which is
the favourite resort of smokers and their antithe-
tics, those Who love pure fresh air, notwithstand
ing the printed caution " It is dangerous to stand
on the platform ; " and under the eye of early
morn saw spread around a flat sea-like expanse
not yet warmed into colour and life by the sun.
The line was no longer guarded from daring
Secessionists by soldiers' outposts, and small
camps had disappeared. The train sped through
the centre of the great verdant circle as a ship
through the sea, leaving the rigid iron wake
behind it tapering to a point at the horizon, and
as the light spread over it the surface of the
crisping corn waved in broad undulations beneath
the breeze from east to west. This is the prairie
indeed. Hereabouts it is covered with the finest
crops, some already cut and stacked. Looking
around one could see church spires rising in the
distance from the white patches of houses, and
by degrees the tracks across the fertile waste
became apparent, and then carts and horses were
seen toiling through the rich soil. •

A large species of partridge or grouse appeared
very abundant, and rose in flocks from the long
grass at the side of the rail or from the rich carpet
of flowers on the margin of the corn fields. They
sat on the fence almost unmoved by the rushing
engine, and literally swarmed along the line.
These are called "prairie chickens" by the people,
and afford excellent sport. Another bird about
the size of a thrush, with a yellow breast and a
harsh cry, I learned was "the sky-lark;" and
apropos of the unmusical creature, I was very
briskly attacked by a young lady patriot for find
ing fault with the sharp noise it made. " Oh,
my ! And you not to know that your Shelley
loved it above all things ! . Didn't he write some
verses — quite beautiful, too, they are — to the sky-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

133

lark." And so "the Britisher was dried up," as
I read in a paper afterwards of a similar occur
rence.

At the little stations which occur at every few
miles— there are some forty of them, at each of
which the train stops, in 365 miles between Cairo
and Chicago — the Union flag floated in the air ;
but we had left all the circumstance of this inglo
rious war behind us, and the train rattled boldly
over the bridges across rare streams, no longer in
danger from Secession hatchets. The swamp had
given place to the corn field. No black faces
were turned up from the mowing, and free white
labour was at work, and the type of the labourers
was German and Irish.

The Yorkshireman expatiated on the fertility
of the land, and on the advantages it held out to
the emigrant. But I observed all the lots by the
Bide of the rail, and apparently as far as the eye
could reach, were occupied. " Some of the very
best land lies beyond on each side," said he.
" Out over there in the fat places is where we
put our Englishmen." By digging deep enough
good water is always to be had, and coal can be
carried from the rail, where it costs only 7s. or 8*.
a ton. Wood there is little or none in the prai
ries, and it was rarely indeed a clump of trees
could be detected, or anything higher than some
scrub brushwood. These little communities which
we passed were but the growth of a few years,
and as we approached the Northern portion of
the line we could see, as it were, the village
swelling into the town, and the town spreading
out to the dimensions of the city. " I daresay,
Major," says one of the passengers, "this gentle
man never saw anything like these cities before.
I'm told they've nothin' like them in Europe ?"
" Bless you," rejoined the Major, with a wink,
"just leaving out London, Edinbro', Paris, and
Manchester, there's nothing on eartk to ekal
them." My friend, who is a shrewd fellow, by
way of explanation of his military title, says, " I
was a major once, a major in the Queen's Bays,
but they would put troop-sergeant before it them
days." Like many Englishmen he complains that
the jealousy of native-born Americans effectually
bars the way to political position of any natural
ised citizen, and all the places are kept by the
natives.

The scene now began to change gradually as
we approached Chicago, the prairie subsided into
swampy land, and thick belts of trees fringed the
horizon ; on our right glimpses of the sea could
be caught through openings in the wood — the
ml and sea on which stands the Queen of the
Lakes. Michigan looks broad and blue as the
Mediterranean. Large farmhouses stud the coun
try, and houses which must be the retreat of mer
chants and citizens of means ; and when the train,
leaving the land altogether, dashes out on a pier
and causeway built along the borders of the lake,
we see lines of noble houses, a fine boulevard, a
forest of masts, huge isolated piles of masonry, the
famed grain elevators by which so many have
been hoisted to fortune, churches and public edi
fices, and the apparatus of a great city ; and just
at nine o'clock the train gives its last steam shout
and comes to a Standstill in the spacious station
of the Central Illinois Company, and in half-an-
hour more I am in comfortable quarters at the
Richmond House, where I find letters waiting
for me. by which it appears that the necessity for

my being in Washington in all haste, no longer

exists. The wary General who COJJUQ
army is aware that the advancexfco*'Kichmond, for.
which so many journals are -/clamouring, would
be attended with serious rigk'&fc present, and~the
politicians must be content'to wait a, little, longer

• •>• M /& m\/%& mm*.

CHAPTER X]

Progress of events — Policy of Great Britairt6a,iuovi
by the North — The American Press and its oornmectg ~f~
—Privacy a luxury— Chicago— Senator Douglas and iiis '
widow — American ingratitude — Apathy in volunteer
ing — Colonel Turchin's camp.

I SHALL here briefly recapitulate what has oc
curred since the last mention of political events.

In the first place the South has been develop
ing every day greater energy in widening the
breach between it and the North, and preparing
to fill it with dead; and the North, so far as I can
judge, has been busy in raising up the Union as
a nationality, and making out the crime of treason
from the act of Secession. The South has been
using conscription in Virginia, and is entering
upon the conflict with unsurpassable determina
tion. The* North is availing itself of its greater
resources and its foreign vagabondage and desti
tution to swell the ranks of its volunteers, and
boasts of its enormous armies, as if it supposed
conscripts well led do not fight better than volun
teers badly officered. Virginia has been invaded
on three points, one below and two above Wash
ington, and passports are now issued on both
sides.

The career open to the Southern privateers is
effectually closed by the Duke of Newcastle's no
tification that the British Government will not
permit the cruisers of either side to bring their
prizes into or condemn them in English ports ;
but, strange to say, the Northerners feel indignant
against Great Britain for an act which deprives
their enemy of an enormous advantage, and which
must reduce th,eir privateering to the mere work
of plunder and destruction on the high seas. In
the same way the North affects to consider the
declaration of neutrality, and the concession of
limited belligerent rights to the seceding States,
as deeply injurious and insulting; whereas our
course has, in fact, removed the greatest difficulty
from the path of the Washington Cabinet, and
saved us from inconsistencies and serious risks in
our course of action.

It is commonly said, "What would Great
Britain have done if we had declared ourselves
neutral during the Canadian rebellion, or had
conceded limited belligerent rights to the Se
poys?" as if Canada and Hindostan have the
same relation to the British Crown that the
seceding States had to the Northern States. But
if Canada, with its parliament, judges, courts of
law, and its people, declared it was independent
of Great Britain; and if the Government of
Great Britain, months after that declaration was
made and acted upon, permitted the new State
to go free, whilst a large number of her States
men agreed that Canada was perfectly right, we
could find little fault with the United States'
Government for issuing a proclamation of neu
trality the same as our own, when after a long
interval of quiescence a war broke out between
the two countries.

134

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

Secession was an accomplished fact months
before Mr. Lincoln came into office, but we heard
no talk of rebels and pirates till Sumter had
fallen, and the North was perfectly quiescent —
not only that — the people of wealth in New
York were calmly considering the results of
Secession as an accomplished fact, and seeking
to make the best of it; nay, more, when I
arrived in "Washington some members of the
Cabinet were perfectly ready to let the South
go.

One of the first questions put to me by Mr.
Chase in my first interview with him, was
whether I thought a very injurious effect would
be produced to the prestige of the Federal Go
vernment in Europe if the Northern States let
the South have its own way, and told them to go
in peace. "For my own part," said he, "I
should not be averse to let them try it, for I be
lieve they would soon find out their mistake."
Mr. Chase may be finding out his mistake just
now. When I left England the prevalent opinion,
as far as I could judge, was, that a family quarrel,
in which the South was in the wrong, had taken
place, and that it would be better to stand by
and let the Government put forth its strength to
chastise rebellious children. But n6V we see
the house is divided against itself, and that the
family are determined to set up two separate
establishments. These remarks occur to me with
the more force because I see the New York
papers are attacking me because I described a
calm in a sea which was afterwards agitated by
a storm. "What a false witness is this," they
cry. "See how angry and how vexed is our Ber-
moothes, and yet the fellow says it was quite
placid."

I have already seen so many statements re
specting my sayings, my doings, and my opinions,
in the American papers, that I have resolved to
follow a general rule, with few exceptions in
deed, which prescribes as the best course to pur-
Sue, not so much an indifference to these remarks
afe a fixed purpose to abstain from the hopeless
task of correcting them. The " Quicklys" of the
press are incorrigible. Commerce may well be
proud of Chicago. I am not going to reiterate
what every Crispinus from the old country has
said again and again concerning this wonderful
place — not one word of statistics, of corn eleva
tors, of shipping, or of the piles of buildings
raised from the foundation by ingenious applica
tions oi screws. Nor am I going to enlarge on
the splendid future of that which has so much
present prosperity, or on the benefits to mankind
opened up by the Illinois Central Railway. It is
enough to say that by the borders of this lake
there has sprung up in thirty years a wonderful
city of fine streets, luxurious hotels, handsome
shops, magnificent stores, great warehouses, ex
tensive quays, capacious docks ; and that as long
as corn holds its own, and the mouths of Europe
are open, and her hands full, Chicago will acquire
greater importance, size, and wealth with every
year. The only drawback, perhaps, to the com
fort of the money-making inhabitants, and of the
stranger wittiin the gates, is to be found in the
olouds of dust and in the unpaved streets and
thoroughfares, which give anguish to horse and
man.

I spent three days here writing my letters and
repairing the wear and tear of my Southern ex

pedition ; and although it was hot enough, the
breeze from the lake carried health and vigour to
the frame, enervated by the sun of Louisiana and
Mississippi. No need now to wipe the large
drops of moisture from the languid brow lest
they blind the eyes, nor to sit in a state of semi-
clotbing, worn out and exhausted, and tracing
•with moist hand imperfect characters on the
paper.

I could not satisfy myself whether there -»vas,
as I have been told, a peculiar state of feeling in
Chicago, which induced many people to support
the Government of Mr. Lincoln because they
believed it necessary for their own interests to
obtain decided advantages over the South in the
field, whilst they were opposed toils viribus to the
genius of emancipation and to the views of the
black Republicans. But the genius and elo
quence of the little giant have left their impress
on the facile mould of democratic thought, and
he who argued with such acuteness and ability
last March in Washington, in his own study,
against the possibility, or at least the constitu
tional legality, ot using the national forces, and
the militia and volunteers of the Northern States,
to subjugate the Southern people, carried away
by the great bore which rushed through the
placid North when Sumter fell, or perceiving his
inability to resist its force, sprung to the crest of
the wave, and carried to excess the violence of
the Union reaction.

Whilst I was in the South I had seen his name
in Northern papers with sensation headings and
descriptions of his magnificent crusade for the
Union in the west. I had heard his name reviled
by those who had once been, his warm political
allies, and his untimely death did not seem to
satisfy their hatred. His old foes in the North
admired and applauded the sudden apostasy of
their eloquent opponent, and were loud in lamen
tations over his loss. Imagine, then, how I felt
when visiting his grave at Chicago, "seeing his
bust in many houses, or his portrait in all the
shop-windows, I was told that the enormously
wealthy community of which he was the idol
were permitting his widow to live in a state not
far removed from penury.

"Senator Douglas, sir," observed one of his
friends to me, " died of bad whisky. He killed
himself with it while he was stumping for the
Union all over the country." " Well,'' I said, "I
suppose, sir, the abstraction called the Union, for
which by your own account he killed himself, will
give a pension to his widow." Virtue is its own
reward, and so is patriotism, unless it takes the
form of contracts.

As far as all considerations of wife, children, or
family are concerned, let a man serve a decent
despot, or even a constitutional country with an
economising House of Commons, if he wants any
thing more substantial than lip-service. The his
tory of the great men of America is full of in
stances of national ingratitude. They give more
praise and less pence to their benefactors than any
nation on the face of the earth. Washington got
little, though the plundering scouts who captured
Andre were well rewarded ; and the men who
fought during the War of Independence were long
left in neglect and poverty, sitting in sack-cloth
and ashes at the doorsteps of the temple of liber
ty, whilst the crowd rushed inside to worship
Plutus.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

135

If a native of the British isles, of the natural ig
norance of his own imperfections which should
characterise him, desires to be subjected to a se
ries of moral shower-baths, douches, and sham
pooing with a rough glove, let him come to the
United States. In Chicago he will be told that
the English people are fed by the beneficence of
the United States, and that all the trade and com
merce of England are simply directed to the one
end of obtaining gold enough to pay the western
States for the breadstuffs exported for our popu
lation. We know what the South think of our
dependence on cotton. The people of the east
think they are striking a great blow at their ene
my by the Morrill tariff, and I was told by a pa
triot in North Carolina, " Why, creation ! if you
let the Yankees shut up our ports, the whole of
your darned ships will go to rot. Where will you
get your naval stores from ? Why, I guess in a
year you could net scrape up enough of tarpen-
tine in the whole of your country for Queen Vic
toria to paint her nursery-door with."

Nearly one half of the various companies en
rolled in this district are Germans, or are the de
scendants of German parents, and speak only the
language of the old country ; two-thirds of the
remainder are Irish, or of immediate Irish de
scent; but it is said that a grand reserve of
Americans born lies behind this avante garde,
who will come into the battle should there ever
be need for their services.

Indeed so long as the Northern people furnish
the means of paying and equipping armies per
fectly competent to do their work, and equal in
numbers to any demands made for men, they may
rest satisfied with the accomplishment of that
duty, and with contributing from their ranks the
great majority of the superior and even of the
subaltern officers; but with the South it is far
different. Their institutions have repelled immi
gration ; the black slave has barred the door to
the white' free settler. Only on the seaboard and
in the large cities are German and Irish to be
found, and they to a man have come forward to
fight for the South; but the proportion they bear
to the native-born Americans who have rushed
to arms in defence of their menaced borders, is
of course far less than it is as yet to the number
of Americans in the Northern States who have
volunteered to fight for the Union.

I was invited before I left to visit the camp of
a Colonel Turchin, who was described to me as a
Russian officer of great ability and experience in
European warfare, in command of a regiment con
sisting of Poles, Hungarians, and Germans, who
were about to start for the seat of war ; but I
was only able to walk through his tents, where
I was astonished at the amalgam of nations that
constituted his battalion ; though, on inspection,
I am bound to say there proved to be an Ameri
can element in the ranks which did not appear
to have coalesced with the bulk of the rude and,
I fear, predatory Cossacks of the Union. Many
young men of good position have gone to the
wars, although there was no complaint, as in
Southern cities, that merchants' offices have been
deserted, and great establishments left destitute
of clerks and working hands In warlike opera
tions, however, Chicago, with its communication
open to the sea, its, access to the head waters of
the Mississippi, its intercourse with the marts of
commerce and of manufacture, may be considered

to possess greater belligerent power and strength
than the great city of New Orleans; and there is
much greater probability of Chicago sending its
contingent to attack the Crescent City than there
is of the latter being able to despatch a soldier
within five hundred miles of its streets.

CHAPTER XLIII.

Niagara— Impression of the Falls— Battle scenes in the
neighbourhood — A village of Indians — General Scott —
Hostile movements on both sides — The Hudson — Mili
tary school at West Point— Return to New York— Al
tered appearance of the city — Misery and suffering-
Altered state of public opinion, as to the Union and to
wards Great Britain.

AT eight o'clock on the morning of the 27th I
left Chicago for Niagara, which was so temptingly
near that I resolved to make a detour by that
route to New York. The line from the city which
I took skirts the southern extremity of Lake Mi
chigan for many miles, and leaving its borders at
New Buffalo, traverses the southern portion of
the state of Michigan by Albion and Jackson to
the town of Detroit, or the outflow of Lake St.
Clair into Lake Erie, a distance of 284 miles,
which was accomplished in about twelve hours.
The most enthusiastic patriot could not affirm the
country was interesting. The names of the sta
tions were certainly novel to a Britisher. Thus
we had Kalumet, Pokagon, Dowagiac, Kalama-
zoo, Ypsilauti, among the more familiar titles of
Chelsea, Mare,ngo, Albion, and Parma.

It was dusk when we reached the steam ferry
boat at Detroit, which took us across to Windsor;
but through the dusk I could perceive the Union
Jack waving above the unimpressive little town
which bears a name so respected by British ears.
The customs' inspections seemed very mild ; and
I was not much impressed by the representative
of the British crown, who, with a brass button on
his coat and a very husky voice, exercised his
powers on behalf of Her Majesty at the landing-
place of Windsor. The officers of the railway
company, who received me as if I had been an
old friend, welcomed me as if I had just got
out of a battle-field. " Well, I do wonder them
Yankees have ever let you come out alive."
" May I ask why ?" " Oh, because you have not
been praising them all round, sir. Why even the
Northern chaps get angry with a Britisher, as
they call us, if he attempts to say a word against
those cursed niggers."

It did not appear the Americans are quite so
thin-skinned, for whilst crossing in the steamer a
passage of arms between the Captain, who was a
genuine John Bull, and a Michigander, in the
style which is called chaff or slang, diverted
most of the auditors, although it was very much
to the disadvantage of the Union champion. The
Michigan man had threatened the Captain that
Canada would be annexed as the consequence of
our infamous conduct. "Why, I tell you," said
the Captain, " we'd just draw up the negro chaps
*from our barbers' shops, and tell them we'd send
them to Illinois if they did not lick you ; and I
believe every creature in Michigan, pigs and all,
would run before them into Pennsylvania. We
know what you are up to, you and them Maine
chaps ; but Lor' bless you, sooner than take such
a lot, we'd give you ten dollars a head to make
you stay in your own country ; and we know

136

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

you would go to the next worst place before Niagara, and was perturbed concerning a break-

your time for half the money. The very Blue- fastless ramble and a hunt after lodgings by the

noses would secede if you were permitted to borders of the great river.

come under the old flag." But although Clifton Hotel was full enougli,

All night we travelled. A long day through there was room for us, too ; and for two days a

a dreary, ill-settled, pine-wooded, half-cleared
conntry, swarming with mosquitoes and biting

strange, weird-kind of life I led, alternating be
tween the roar of the cataract outside an i the

flies, and famous for fevers. Just about daybreak din of politics within ; for, be it known, that at

the train stopped.

"Now, then," said an English voice;
then, who's for Clifton Hotel? All

the Canadian side of the Falls many Americans
now, of the Southern States, who would not pollute
their footsteps by contact with the soil of Yan-

leave cars for this side of the Falls." Consigning kee-land, were sojourning, and that merchants

our baggage to the commissioner of the Clifton, and bankers of New York and other Northern

my companion, Mr. Ward, and n^self resolved to cities had selected it as their summer retreat,

walk along the banks of the river to the hotel, and, indeed, with reason; for after excursions on

which is some two miles and a half distant, and both sides of the Falls, the comparative seclusion

set out whilst it was still so obscure that the of the settlements on the left bank appears to me

outline of the beautiful bridge which springs so to render it infinitely preferable to the Rosher-

lightly across the chasm, filled with furious hur- ville gentism and semi-rowdyism of the large

rying waters, hundreds of feet below, was visible American hotels and settlements on the other

only as is the tracery of some cathedral arch side.

through the dim light of the cloister. It was distressing to find that Niagara was
The road follows the caurse of the stream, surrounded by the paraphernalia of a fixed fair,
which whirls and gurgles in an Alpine torrent, I had looked forward to a certain degree of soli-
many times magnified, in a deep gorge like that tude. It appeared impossible that man could
of the Tete Noire. As the rude bellow of the cockneyfy such a magnificent display of force
steam-engine and the rattle of the train proceed- and grandeur in nature. But, alas ! it is haunted
ing on its journey were dying away, the echoes by what poor Albert Smith used to denominate

seemed to swell into a sustained, reverberating,
hollow sound from the perpendicular banks of
the St. Lawrence. We listened. "It is the
noise of the Falls," said my companion; and as
we walked on the sound became louder, filling

" harpies." The hateful race of guides infest the
precincts of the hotels, waylay you in the lanes,
and prowl about the unguarded moments of re
verie. There are miserable little peepshows and
photographers, bird stuffers, shell polishers, col-

the air with a strange quavering note, which lectors of crystals, and proprietors of natural

played about a tremendous uniform bass note,
and silencing every other. Trees closed in the
road on the river side, but when we had walked

curiosity shops.

There is, besides, a large village populates
There is a watering-side air about the people

a mile or so, the lovely light of morning spread- who walk along the road worse than all their

ing with our steps, suddenly through an opening
in the branches there appeared, closing up the
vista — white, flickering, indistinct, and shroud-
like — the Falls, rushing into a grave of black
waters, and uttering that tremendous cry which
can never be forgotten.

I have heard many people say they were dis
appointed with the first impression of Niagara.
Let those who desire to see the water-leap in all
its grandeur, approach it as I did, and I cannot

mills and factories working their water privileges
at both sides of the stream. At the American
side there is a lanky, pretentious town, with big
hotels, shops of Indian curiosities, and all the
meagre forms of the bazaar life reduced to a
minimum of attractiveness which destroy the
comfort of a traveller in Switzerlaud. I had
scarcely been an hour in the hotel before I was
asked to look at the Falls through a little piece
of coloured glass. Next I was solicited to pur-

conceive what their expectations are if they do chase a collection of muddy photographs, repre-
not confess the sight exceeded tlieir highest ideal, senting what I could look at with my own
I do not pretend to describe the sensations or to eyes for nothing. Not finally by any means, I
endeavour to give the effect produced on me by
the scene or by the Falls, then or subsequently ;
but I must say words can do no more than con
fuse the writer's own ideas of the grandeur of
the sight, and mislead altogether those who read
them. It is of no avail to do laborious statistics,

was assailed by a gentleman who was particu
larly desirous of selling me an enormous pair
of cow's-horns and a stuffed hawk. Small
booths and peepshows corrupt the very margin
of the bank, and close by the remnant of the
"Table Rock," a Jew (who, by-the-bye, de-

and tell us how many gallons rush over in that serves infinite credit for the zeal and energy he
down-flung ocean every second, or how wide it has thrown into the collections for his museum),
is, how high it is, how deep the earth-piercing exhibits bottled rattle-snakes, stuffed monkeys,

caverns beneath. For my own part, I always
feel the distance of the sun to be insignificant,
when I read it is so many hundreds of thousands
of miles away, compared with the feeling of utter

Egyptian mummies, series of coins, with a small
living menagerie attached to the shop, in which
articles of Indian manufacture are exposed for
sale. It was too bad to be asked to admire

inaccessibility to anything human which is caus-*such lusus naturce as double-headed calves and

ed by it when its setting rays illuminate some
purple ocean studded with golden islands in
dreamland.

Niagara is rolling its waters over the barrier.
Larger and louder it grows upon us.

"I hope the hotel is not full," quoth my
friend. I confess, for the time, I forgot all about

dogs with three necks by the banks of Niagara.

As I said before, I am not going to essay the
impossible or to describe the Falls. On the
English side there are, independently of other
attractions, some scenes of recent historic interest,
for close to Niagara are Lundy's Lane and Chip-
pewa. There are few persons in England aware

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

137

of the exceedingly severe fighting which charac
terised the contests between the Americans and
the English and Canadian troops during the cam
paign of 1814. At Chippewa, for example,
Major-General Riall, who, with 2000 men, one
howitzer, and two 24-pounders, attacked a force
f Americans of a similar strength, was repulsed
with a loss of 500 killed and wounded ; and on
he morning of the 25th of July the action of
Lundjr's Lane, between four brigades of Ameri
cans and seven field-pieces, and 3100 men of the
British and seven field-pieces, took place in which
the Americans were worsted, and retired with a
loss of 854 men and two guns, whilst the British
lost 878. On the 14th of August following Sir
Gordon Drummond was repulsed with a loss of
9 05 men out of his small force in an attack on
Fort Erie ; and on the 17th of September an
American sortie from the place was defeated with
a loss of 510 killed and wounded, the British
having lost 609. In effect the American cam
paign was unsuccessful : but their failures were
redeemed by their successes on Lake Champlain,
and in the affair of Pittsburgh.

There Was more hard fighting than strategy in
• these battles, and their results were not, on the
whole, creditable to the military skill of either
party. They were sanguinary in proportion to
the Timber of troops engaged, but they were
very petty skirmishes considered in the light of
contests between two great nations for the
purpose of obtaining specific results. As Eng
land was engaged in a great war in Europe, was
far removed from the scene of operations, was
destitute of steampower, whilst America was
fighting, as it were, on her own soil, close at
hand, with a full opportunity of putting forth all
her strength, the complete defeat of the Ameri
can invasion of Canada was more honourable to
our arms than the successes which the Americans
achieved in resisting aggressive demonstrations.

In the great hotel of Clifton we had every day

a little war of our own, for there were but

why should I mention names ? Has not govern
ment its bastiles? There were in effect men,
and women too, who regarded the people of the
Northern States and the government they had
selected very much as the men of '98 looked up
on the government and people of England ; but
withal these strong Southerners were not very
favourable to a country which they regarded as
the natural ally of the abolitionists, simply because
it had resolved to be neutral.

On the Canadian side these rebels were secure.
British authority was embodied in a respectable
old Scottish gentleman, whose duty it was to
prevent smuggling across the boiling waters of
the St. Lawrence, and who performed it with
zeal and diligence worthy of a higher post.
There was indeed a withered triumphal arch
which stood over the spot where the young
Prince of our royal house had passed on his way
to the Table Rock, but beyond these signs and
tokens there was nothing to distinguish the Ame
rican from the British side, except the greater
size and activity of the settlements upon the
right bank. There is no power in nature, accord
ing to great engineers, which cannot be forced to
succumb to the influence of money. The Ame
rican papers actually announce that " Niagara is
to be sold;" the proprietors of the land upon
their side of the water have resolved to sell their

water privileges ! A capitalist could render the
islands the most beautifully attractive places in
the world.

Life at Niagara is like that at most watering-
places, though it is a desecration to apply such a
term to the Falls, and there is no bathing there,
except that which is confined to the precincts of
the hotels and to the ingenious establishment on
the American side, which permits one to enjoy
the full rush of the current in covered rooms with
sides pierced, to let it come through with undi-
minished force and with perfect security to the
bather. There are drives and picnics, and mild
excursion's to obscure places in the neighbour
hood, where only the roar of the Falls gives an
idea of their presence. The rambles about the
islands, and the views of the boiling rapids above
them, are delightful, but I am glad to hear from
one of the guides that the great excitement of
seeing a man and boat carried over occurs but
rarely. Every year, however, hapless creatures
crossing from one shore to the other, by some
error of judgment or* miscalculation of strength,
or malign influence, are swept away into the
rapids, and then, notwithstanding the wonderful
rescues effected by the American blacksmith and
unwonted kindnesses of fortune, there is little
chance of saving body corporate or incorporate
from the headlong swoop to destruction.

Next to the purveyors of curiosities and hotel
keepers, the Indians, who live in a village at
some distance from Niagara, reap the largest
profit from the crowds of visitors who repair
annually to the Falls. They are a harmless and
by no means elevated race of semi-civilised
savages, whose energies are expended on whis
key, feather fans, bark canoes, ornamental mocas*
sins, and carved pipe stems. I had arranged for
an excursion to see them in their wigwams one
morning, when the news was brought to me that
General Scott had ordered, or been forced to
order, the advance of the Federal troops encamped
in front of Washington, under the command of
McDowell, against the Confederates, commanded
by Beauregard, who was described as occupying
a mos tformidable position, covered with entrench
ments and batteries in front of a ridge of hills,
through which the railway passes to Richmond.

The New York papers represent the Federal
army to be of some grand indefinite strength, va
rying from 60,000 to 120,000 men, full of fight,
admirably equipped, well disciplined, and pro
vided with an overwhelming force of artillery
General Scott, I am very well assured, did not
feel such confidence in the result of an invasion
of Virginia, that he would hurry raw levies and a
rabble of regiments to undertake a most arduous
military operation.

The day I was introduced to the General he
was seated at a table in the unpretending room
which served as his boudoir in the still humbler
house where he held his head-quarters. On the
table before him were some plans and maps of
the harbour defences "of the Southern ports. I
inferred he was about to organise a force for the
occupation of positions along the coast. But
when I mentioned my impression to one of his
officers, he said, " On, no, the General advised
that long ago ; but he is now convinced we are
too late. All he can hope, now, is to be allowed
time to prepare a force for the field, but there are
hopes that some compromise will yet take place."

138

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

The probabilities of this compromise have va
nished: few entertain them now. They have
been hanging Secessionists in ' Illinois, and the
courthouse itself has been made the scene of
Lynch law murder in Ogle county. Petitions,
prepared by citizens of New York to the Presi
dent, for a general convention to consider a com
promise, have been seized. The Confederates
have raised batteries along the Virginia shore of
the Potomac. General Banks, at Baltimore, has
deposed the police authorities "proprio motu" in
spite of the protest of the board. Engagements
have occurred between the Federal steamers and
the Confederate batteries on the Potomac. On
all points, wherever the Federal pickets have ad
vanced in Virginia, they have encountered oppo
sition and have been obliged to halt or to retire.

******

As I stood on the verandah this morning,
looking for the last time on the Falls, which were
covered with a grey mist, that rose from the
river and towered unto the sky in columns which
were lost in the clouds, a voice beside me said,
"Mr. Russell, that is something like the present
condition of our country, mists and darkness ob
scure it now, but we know the great waters are
rushing behind, and will flow till eternity." The
speaker was an earnest, thoughtful man, but the
country of which he spoke was the land of the
South. " And do you think," said I, " when the
mists clear away the Falls will be as full and as
grand as before?" "Well," he replied, "they
are great as it is, though a rock divides them ;
we have merely thrown our rock into the waters,
— they will meet all the same in the pool below."
A coloured boy, who has waited on me at the
hotel, hearing I was going away, entreated me to
take him on any terms, which were, I found, an
advance of nine dollars, and twenty dollars a
month, and, as I heard a good account of him
from the landlord, I installed the young man into
my service. In the evening I left Niagara on
my way to New York.

July 2nd. — At early dawn this morning, looking
out of the sleeping car, I saw through the mist a
broad, placid river on the right, and on the left
high wooded banks running sharply into the
stream, against the base of which the rails were
laid. West Point, which is celebrated for its
picturesque scenery, as much as for its military
school, could not be seen through the fog, and I
regretted time did not allow me to stop and pay
a visit to the academy. I was obliged to content
myself with the handiwork of some of the ex-
pupils. The only camaraderie I have witnessed
in America exists among the West Point men.
It is to Americans what our great public schools
are to young Englishmen. To take a high place
at West Point is to be a first-class man, or
wrangler. The academy turns out a kind of mi
litary aristocracy, and I have heard complaints
that the Irish and Germans are almost com
pletely excluded, because the nominations to
West Point are obtained 'by political influence ;
and the foreign element, though powerful at the
ballot box, has no enduring strength. The Mur
phies and Schmidts seldom succeed in shoving
their sons into the American institution. North
and South, I have observed, the old pupils refer
everything military to West Point. " I was with
Beauregard at West Point. He was three above
me." Or, " M'Dowell and I were in the same

class." An officer is measured by what he did
there, and if professional jealousies date from the
state of common pupilage, so do lasting friend
ships. I heard Beauregard, Lawton, Hardee,
Bragg, and others, speak of M'Dowell, Lyon,
M'Clellan, and other men of the academy, as
their names turned up in the Northern papers,
evidently judging of them by the old school
standard. The number of men who have been
educated there greatly exceeds the modest re
quirements of the army. But there is likelihood
of their being all in full work very soon.

At about nine a.m., the train reached New
York, and in driving to the house of Mr. Duncan,
who accompanied me from Niagara, the first
thing which struck me was the changed aspect
of the streets. Instead of peaceful citizens, men
in military uniforms thronged the pathways, and
such multitudes of United States' flags floated
from the windows and roofs of the houses as to
convey the impression that it was a great holiday
festival. The appearance of New York when I
first saw it was very different. For one day, in
deed, after my arrival, there were men in uniform
to be seen in the streets, 'but they disappeared
after St. Patrick had been duly honoured, and it
was very rarely I ever saw a man in soldier's
clothes during the rest of my stay. Now, fully a
third of the people carried arms, and were dressed
in some kind of martial garb.

The walls are covered with placards from mi
litary companies offering inducements to recruits.
An outburst of military tailors has taken place in
the streets ; shops are devoted to militia equip
ments ; rifles, pistols, swords, plumes, long boots,
saddle, bridle, camp beds, canteens, tents, knap
sacks, have usurped the place of the ordinary
articles of traffic. Pictures and engravings — bad,
and very bad — of the " battles" of Big Bethel and
Vienna, full of furious charges, smoke and dis
membered bodies, have driven the French prints
out of the windows. Innumerable " General
Scotts" glower at you from every turn, making
the General look wiser than he or any man ever
was. Ellsworths in almost equal proportion,
Grebles and Winthrops — the Union martyrs — and
Tompkins, the temporary hero of Fairfax court
house.

The " flag of our country " is represented in a
coloured engraving, the original of which was not
destitute of poetical feeling, as an angry blue sky
through which meteors fly streaked by the winds,
whilst between the red stripes the stars just shine
out from the heavens, the flag-staff being typified
by a forest tree bending to the force of the blast.
The Americans like this idea — to my mind it is
significant of bloodshed and disaster. And why
not ! What would become of ah1 these pseudo-
Zouaves who have come out like an eruption
over the States, and are in no respect, not even
in their baggy breeche's, like their great originals,
if this war were not to go on ? I thought I had
had enough of Zouaves in New Orleans, but dis
aliier visum.

They are overrunning society, and the streets
here, and the dress which becomes the broad-
chested, stumpy, short-legged Celt, who seems
specially intended for it, is singularly unbecom
ing to the tall and slightly-built American.
Songs " On to glory," " Our country," new ver
sions of " Hail, Columbia," which certainly can
not be considered by even American complacency

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

139

X

a " happy land " when its inhabitants are prepar
ing to cut each other's throats, of the "star-
spangled banner," are displayed in booksellers'
and music-shop windows, and patriotic sentences
emblazoned on flags float from many houses. The
ridiculous habit of dressing up children and
young people up to ten and twelve years of age
as Zouaves and vivandieres has been caught up
by the old people, and Mars would die with
laughter if he saw some of the abdominous, be
spectacled light infantry men who are hobbling
along the pavement.

There has been indeed a change in New York :
externally it is most remarkable, but I cannot at
all admit that the abuse with which I was assailed
for describing the indifference which prevailed on
my arrival was in the least degree justified. I
was desirous of learning how far the tone of con
versation " in the city" had altered, and soon
after breakfast I went down Broadway to Pine
Street arid Wall Street. The street in all its
length was almost draped with flags — the
warlike character of the shops was intensified.
In front of one shop window there was a large
crowd gazing with interest at some object which
I at last succeeded in feasting my eyes upon. A
grey cap with a tinsel badge in front, and the
cloth stained with blood, was displayed, with the
words, "Gap of Secession officer killed in action."
On my way I observed another crowd of women,
some with children in their arms, standing in
front of a large house and gazing up earnestly and
angrily at the windows. I found they were
wives, mothers, and sisters, and daughters of
.volunteers who had gone off and left them des
titute.

The misery thus caused has been so great that
the citizens of New York have raised a fund to
provide food, clothes, and a little money — a poor
relief, in fact, for them, and it was plain that they
were much needed, though some of the applicants
did not seem to belong to a class accustomed to
seek aid from the public. This already ! But Wall
Street and Pine Street are bent 'on battle. And
so this day, hot from the South and impressed
with the firm resolve of the people, and finding
that the North has been lashing- itself into fury, I
sit down and write to England, on my return
to the city. " At present dismiss entirely the
idea, no matter how it may originate, that there
will be, or can be, peace, compromise, union, or
secession, till war has determined the issue."

As long as there was a chance that the strug
gle might not take place, the merchants of New
York were silent, fearful of offending their South
ern friends and connections, but inflicting infinite
damage on their own government and misleading
both sides. Their sentiments, sympathies, and
business bound them with the South; and, in
deed, till " the glorious uprising," the South be
lieved' New York was with them, as might be
credited from the tone of some organs in the
press, and I remember hearing it said by South
erners in Washington, that it was very likely
New York would go out of the Union 1 When
the merchants, however, saw that the South was
determined to quit the -Union, they resolved to
avert the permanent loss of the great profits de
rived from their connection with the South by
some present sacrifices. They rushed to the
platforms — the battle-cry was sounded from
almost every pulpit — flag raisings took place in

every square, like the planting of the tree of
liberty in France in 1848, and the oath was taken
to trample Secession under foot, and to quench
the fire of the Southern heart for ever.

The change in manner, in tone, in argument,
is most remarkable. I met men to-day who last
March argued coolly and philosophically about
the right of Secession. They are now furious
at the idea of such wickedness — furious with
England, because she does not deny their own
famous doctrine of the sacred right of insurrec
tion. " We must maintain our glorious Union,
sir." " We must have a country." " We can
not allow two nations to grow up on this Conti
nent, sir." " We must possess the entire control
of the Mississippi." These "musts," and "can'ts,"
and "won'ts," are the angry utterances of a spi
rited people who have had their will so long that
they at last believe it is omnipotent. Assuredly,
they will not have it over the South without a
tremendous and long-sustained contest, in which
they must put forth every exertion, and use all
the resources and superior means they so abun
dantly possess.

It is absurd to assert, as do the New York
people, to give some semblance of reason to their
sudden outburst, that it was caused by the insult
to the flag at Sumter. Why, the flag had been
fired on long before Sumter was attacked by the
Charleston batteries! It had been torn down
from United States' arsenals and forts all over the
South ; and but for the accident which placed
Major Anderson in a position from which he
could not retire, there would have been no bom
bardment of the fort, and it would, when evacu
ated, have shared the fate of all the other Federal
works on the Southern coast. Some of the gen
tlemen who are now so patriotic and Unionistic,
were last March prepared to maintain that if the
President attempted to reinforce Sumter or
Pickens, he would be responsible for the destruc
tion of the Union. Many journals in New York
and out of it held the same doctrine.

One word to these gentlemen. I am pretty
well satisfied that if they had always spoken,
wrritten, and acted as they do now, the people of
Charleston would not have attacked Sumter so
readily. The abrupt outburst at the North and
the demonstration at New York filled the South,
first with astonishment, and then with something
like fear, which was rapidly fanned into anger by
the press and the politicians, as well as by the
pride inherent in slaveholders.

I wonder what Mr. Seward will say when I
get back to Washington. Before I left, he was
of opinion— at all events, he stated — that all the
States would come back, at the rate of one a
month. The nature of the process was not stated;
but we are told there are 250,000 Federal troops
now under arms, prepared to try a new one.

Combined with the feeling of animosity to the
rebels, there is, I perceive, a good deal of ill-feel
ing towards Great Britain. The Southern papers
are so angry with us for the Order in Council
closing British ports against privateers and their
prizes, that they advise Mr. Rust and Mr.Yancey
to leave Europe. We are in evil case between
North and South. I met a reverend doctor, who
is most bitter in his expressions towards us ; and
I dare say, Bishop and General Leonidas Polk,
down South, would not be much better disposed.
The clergy are active on both sides ; and their

HO

MY DIART NORTH AND SOUTH.

flocks approve of their holy violence. One jour
nal tells with much gusto of a blasphemous chap
lain, a remarkably good rifle shot, who went into
one of the skirmishes lately, and killed a number
of rebels — the joke being in the fact, that each
time he £red and brought down his man, he ex-
claim^:!, piously, " May Heaven have mercy on
your soul !" One Father Mooney, who performed
the novel act for a clergyman of "christening" a
big gun at Washington the other day, wound up
the speech he made on the occasion, by declaring
" the echo of its voice would be sweet music,
inviting the children of Columbia to share the
comforts of his father's home." Can impiety, and
folly, and bad taste, go further ?

CHAPTER XLIV. *f"

Departure for Washington— A " servant "—The Ameri
can Press on the War — Military aspect of the States —
Philadelphia — Baltimore — Washington— Lord Lyons —
Mr. Sumner — Irritation against Great Britain — u Inde
pendence " day — Meeting of Congress — General state
of aft'airs.

July 3rd. — Up early, breakfasted at five A. M.,
and left my hospitable host's roof, on my way to
Washington. The ferry-boat, which is a long
way off, starts for the train at seven o'clock ; and
so bad are the roads, I nearly missed it. On
hurrying to secure my place in the train, I said
to one .of the railway officers, " If you see a
coloured man in a cloth cap and dark coat with
metal buttons, will you be good enough, sir, to
tell him I'm in this carriage." " Why so, sir?"
" He is my servant." " Servant," he repeated ;
" your servant ! I presume you're a Britisher;
and. if he's your servant, I think you may as well
let him find you." And so he walked away,
delighted with his cleverness, his civility, and his
rebuke of an' aristocrat.

Nearly four months since I went by this road
to Washington. The change which has since
occurred is beyond belief. Men were then speak
ing of place under Government, of compromises
between North and South, and of peace; now
they only talk of war and battle. Ever since I
came out of the South, and could see the news
papers, I have been struck by the easiness of the
American people, by their excessive credulit}'.
Whether they wish it or not, they are certainly
deceived. Not a day has passed without the an
nouncement that the Federal troops were moving,
and that " a great battle was expected " by some
body unknown, at some place or other.

I could not help observing the arrogant tone
with which writers of stupendous ignorance on
military matters write of the operations which
they think the Generals should undertake. They
demand that an army, which has neither adequate
transport, artillery, nor cavalry, shall be pushed
forward to Richmond to crush out Secession, and
at the same time their columns teem with accounts
from the army, which prove that it is not only ill-
disciplined, but that it is ill-provided. A general
outcry has been raised against the war depart
ment and the contractors, and it is openly stated
that Mr. Cameron, the Secretary, has not clean
hands. One journalist denounces " the swindling
and plunder" which prevailed under his eyes. A
minister who is disposed to be corrupt can be so
with facility under the system of the United
States, because he has absolute control over the

contracts, which are rising to an enormous mag
nitude, as the war preparations assume more for
midable dimensions. The greater part of the
military stores of the State are in the South —
arms, ordnance, clothing, ammunition, ships, ma
chinery, and all kinds of materiel must be pre
pared in a hurry.

The condition in which the States present
themselves, particularly at sea, is a curious com
mentary on the offensive and warlike tone of
their Statesmen in their dealings with the first
maritime power of the world. They cannot
blockade a single port effectually. The Confede
rate steamer Sumter has escaped to sea from New
Orleans, and ships run in and out of Charleston
almost as they please. Coming so recently from
the South, I can see the great difference which
exists ^between the two races, as they may be
called, exemplified in the men I have seen, and
those who are in the train going towards Wash
ington. These volunteers have none of the swash
buckler bravado, gallant-swaggering air of the
Southern men. They are staid, quiet men, and
the Pennsylvania^, who are on their way to
join their regiment in Baltimore, are very inferior
in size and strength to the Tennesseans and Caro
linians.

The train is full of men in uniform. When I
last went over the line, I do not believe there
was a sign of soldiering beyond perhaps the
" conductor," who is always described in the
papers as being " gentlemanly," with his badge.
And, d-propos of badges, I see that civilians have
taken to wearing shields of metal on their coats,
enamelled with the stars and stripes, and that
men who are not in the army try to make it
seem they are soldiers by affecting military caps
and cloaks.

The country between Washington and Phila
delphia is destitute of natural beauties, but it
affords abundant evidence that it is inhabited by
a prosperous, comfortable, middle-class commu
nity. From every village church, and from many
houses, the Union flag was displayed. Four
months ago not one was to be seen. When we
were crossing in the steam ferry-boat at Philadel
phia, I saw some volunteers looking up and smil
ing at a hatchet which was over the cabin door,
and it was not till I saw it had the words " States
Rights' Fire Axe " painted along the handle 1
could account for the attraction. It would fare
ill with any vessel in Southern waters which
displayed an axe to the citizens inscribed with
" Down with States Rights" on it. There is
certainly less vehemence and bitterness among
the Northerners ; but it might be ^erroneous to
suppose there was less determination.

Below Philadelphia, from Havre-de-Grace all
the way to Baltimore, and thence on to Washing
ton, the stations on Jhe rail were guarded by
soldiers, as though an enemy were expected to
destroy the bridges and to tear up the rails.
Wooden bridges and causeways, carried over
piles and embankments, are necessary, in conse
quence of the nature of the country ; and at each
of these a small camp was formed for the sol
diers who have to guard the approaches. Senti
nels are posted, pickets thrown out. and in the
open field by the way-side troops are to be seen
moving, as though a battle was close at hand.
In one word, we are in the State of Maryland.
By these means alone are communications main-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

141

tained between the North and the capital. As
we approach Baltimore tho number of sentinels
and camps increase, and earthworks have been
thrown up on the high grounds commanding the
city. The display of Federal flags from the pub
lic buildings and some shipping in the river was
so limited as to contrast strongly with those sym
bols of Union sentiments in the Northern cities.

Since I last passed through this city the streets
have been a scene of bloodshed. The conductor
of the car on which we travelled from one termi
nus to the other, along the street railway, pointed
out the marks of the bullets on the walls and in
the window frames. "That's the way to deal
with the Plug Ugfies," exclaimed he; a name
given popularly to the lower classes called Row
dies in New York. " Yes," said a fellow-passen
ger quietly to me, " these are the sentiments
which are now uttered in the country which we
call the land of freedom, and men like that desire
nothing better than brute force. There is no city
in Europe — Venice, Warsaw, or Rome — subject
to such tyranny as Baltimore at this moment. In
this Pratt Street there have been murders as foul
as ever soldiery committed in the streets of Paris."
Here was evidently the judicial blindness of a
States Rights fanatic, who considers the despatch
of Federal soldiers through the State of Maryland
without the permission of the authorities an out
rage so flagrant as to justify the people in shoot
ing them down, whilst the soldiers become mur
derers if they resist. At the corners of the streets
strong guards of soldiers were posted, and patrols
moved up and down the thoroughfares. The
inhabitants looked sullen and sad. A small war
is waged by the police recently appointed by the
Federal authorities against the women, who
exhibit much ingenuity in expressing their ani
mosity to the stars and stripes — dressing the
children, and even dolls, in the Confederate
colours, and wearing the same in ribbons and
bows. The negro population alone seemed just
the same as before.

The Secession newspapers of Baltimore have
been suppressed, but the editors contrive never
theless to show their sympathies in the selection
of their extracts. In to-day's paper there is an
account of a skirmish in the "West, given by one
of the Confederates who took part in it, in which
it is stated that the officer commanding the party
" scalped " twenty-three Federals. For the first
time since I left the South I see those advertise
ments headed by the figure of a negro running
with a bundle, and containing descriptions of the
fugitive, and the reward offered for imprisoning
him or her, so that the owner may receive his
property. Among the insignia enumerated are
scars on the back and over the loins. The whip
is not only used by the masters and drivers, but
by the police ; and in every report of petty police
cases sentences of so matiy lashes, and severe
floggings of women of colour, are recorded.

It is about forty miles from Baltimore to "Wash
ington, and at every quarter of a mile for the
whole distance a picket of soldiers guarded the
rails. Camps appeared on both sides, larger and
more closely packed together ; and the rays of
the setting sun fell on countless lines of tents as
we approached the unfinished dome of the Capi
tol. On the Yirginian side of the river, columns
of smoke rising from the forest marked the site of
Federal encampments across the stream. The

fields around Washington resounded with the
words of command and tramp of men, and flashed
with wheeling arms. Parks of artillery studded
the waste ground, and long trains of white-cover
ed wagons filled up the open spaces in the
suburbs of Washington.

To me all this was a wonderful sight. As I
drove up Pennsylvania Avenue I could scarce
credit that busy thoroughfare — all red, white, and
blue with flags, filled with dust from galloping
chargers and commissariat carts ; the side-walks
thronged with people, of whom a large proportion
carried sword or bayonet ; shops full of life and
activity — was the same as that through which I
had driven the first morning of my arrival.
Washington now, indeed, is the capital of the
United States ; but it is no longer the scene of
beneficent legislation and of peaceful government.
It is the representative of armed force engaged in
war — menaced whilst in the very act of raising its
arm by the enemy it seeks to strike.

To avoid the tumult of Willard's, I requested
a friend to hire apartments and drove to a house
in Pennsylvania Avenue, close to the War De
partment, where he had succeeded in engaging a
sitting-room about twelve feet square, andii bed
room to correspond, in a very small mansion,
next door to a spirit merchant's. At the Lega
tion I saw Lord Lyons, and gave him a brief
account of what I had seen in the South. I was
sorry to observe he looked rather careworn and
pale.

The relations of the United States' Govern
ment with Great Britain have probably been con
siderably affected by Mr. Seward's failure in
his prophecies. As the Southern Confederacy
develops its power, the Foreign Secretary assumes
higher ground, and becomes more exacting and
defiant. In these hot summer days, Lord Lyons
and the members of the Legation dine early, and
enjoy the cool of the evening in the garden : so
after a while I took my leave, and proceeded to
Gautier's. On my way I met Mr. Sumner, who
asked me for Southern news very anxiously, and
in the course of conversation with him I was con
firmed in my impressions that the feeling between
the two countries was not as friendly as could be
desired. Lord Lyons had better means of know
ing what is going on in the South, by communi
cations from the British Consuls; but even he
seemed unaware »of facts which had occurred
whilst I was there, and Mr. Sumner appeared to
be as ignorant of the whole condition of things
below Mason and Dixon's line as he was of the
politics of Timbuctoo.

The importance of maintaining a friendly feel
ing with England appeared to me very strongly
impressed on the Senator's mind. Mr. Seward
has been fretful, irritable, and acrimonious ; and
it is not too much to suppose Mr. Sumner
has been useful in allaying irritation. A certain
despatch was written last June, which amounted
to little less than a declaration of war against
Great Britain. Most fortunately the President
was induced to exercise his power. The despatch
was modified, though not without opposition, and
was forwarded to the English Minister with its
teeth drawn. Lord Lyons, who is one of the
suavest and quietest of diplomatists, has found it
difficult, I fear, to maintain personal relations
with Mr. Seward at times. Two despatches have
been prepared for Lord John Russell, which could

H2

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH. .

/lave had no result but to lead to a breach of the
peace, had not some friendly interpositor suc
ceeded in averting the wrath of the Foreign Mi
nister.

Mr. Sumner is more sanguine of immediate
success than I am, from the military operations
which are to commence when General Scott con
siders the army fit to take the field. At Gautier's
I met a number of officers, who expressed a great
diversityof views in reference to those operations.
General M'Dowell is popular with them, but
they admit the great deficiencies of the subaltern
and company officers. General Scott is too infirm
to take the field, and the burdens of administra
tion press the veteran to the earth.

July ±th. — "Independence Day." Fortunate
to escape this great national festival in the large
cities of the Union where it is celebrated with
many days before and after of surplus rejoicing,
by fireworks and an incessant fusillade in the
streets, I was, nevertheless, subjected to the
small ebullition of the Washington juveniles, to
bell-ringing and discharges of cannon and mus
ketry. On this day Congress meets. Never be
fore lips any legislative body assembled under
circumstances so grave. By their action they will
decide whether the Union can ever be restored,
and will determine whether the States of the
North are to commence an invasion for the pur
pose of subjecting by force of arms, and depriv
ing of their freedom, the States of the South.

Congress met to-day, merely for the purpose of
forming itself into a regular body, and there was
no debate or business of public importance intro
duced. Mr. Wilson gave me to understand, how
ever, that some military movements of the utmost
importance might be expected in a few days, and
that General M'Dowell would positively attack
the rebels in front of Washington. The Confe
derates occupy the whole of Northern Virginia,
commencing from the peninsula above Fortress
Monroe on the right or east, and extending along
the Potomac, to the extreme verge of the State,
by the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. This im-
men%e line, however, is broken by great intervals,
and the army with which M'Dowell will have to
deal may be considered as detached, covering the
approaches to Richmond, whilst its left flank is
protected by a corps of observation, stationed
near Winchester, under General Jackson. A
Federal corps is being prepared to watch the
corps and engage it, whilst M'Dowell advances
on the main body. To the right of this again, or
further west, another body of Federals, under
General M'Clellan, is operating in the valleys of
the Shenandoah and in Western Virginia ; but I
did not hear any of these things from Mr. Wil
son, who was, I am sure, in perfect ignorance of
the plans, in a military sense, of the general. I
gat at Mr. Sumner's desk, and wrote the final pa
ragraphs of a letter describing my impressions of
the South in a place but little disposed to give a
favourable colour to them.

CHAPTER XLV.

Interview with Mr. Seward — My passport — Mr. Se-vrarcTa
views as to the war — Illumination at Washington — My
"servant" absents himself— New York journalism —
The Capitol— Interior of Congress— The President's
Message — Speeches in Congress — Lord Lyons — Gene
ral M'Dowell — Low standard in the army — Accident
to the " Stars and Stripes "—A street row— Mr. Bige-
low— Mr. N. P. Willis.

WHEN the Senate had adjourned, I drove to
the State Department, and saw Mr. Seward, who
looked much more worn and haggard than when
I saw him last, three months ago. He congratu
lated me on my safe return from the South in
time to witness some stirring events. " Well,
Mr. Secretary, I am quite sure that, if all the
South are of the same- mind as those I met in my
travels, there will be many battles before they
submit to the Federal Government."

" It is not submission to the Government we
want ; it is to assent to the principles of the Con
stitution. When you left Washington we had a
few hundred regulars and some hastily-levied
militia to defend the national capital, and a bat
tery and a half of artillery under the command of
a traitor. The Navy -yard was in the hands of a
disloyal officer. We were surrounded by treason.
Now we are supported by the loyal States which
have come forward in defence of the best Govern
ment on the face of the earth, and the unfortu
nate and desperate men who have commenced
this struggle will have to yield, or experience the
punishment due to their crimes."

" But, Mr. Seward, has not this great exhibi
tion of strength been attended by some circum
stances calculated to inspire apprehension that
liberty in the free States may be impaired ; for
instance, I hear that I must procure a passport
in order to travel through the States and go into
the camps in front of Washington."

" Yes, sir; you must send your passport here
from Lord Lyons, with his signature. It will bo
no good till I have signed it, and then it must be
sent to General Scott, as Commander-in-Chief of
the United States army, who will subscribe it,
after which it will be available for all legitimate
purposes. You are not in any way unpaired in
your liberty by the process."

"Neither is, one may say, the man who is
under surveillance of the police in despotic coun
tries in Europe ; he has only to submit to a cer
tain formality, and he is all right; in fact, it is
said by some people, that the protection afforded
by a passport is worth all the trouble connected
with having it in order."

Mr. Seward soemed to think it was quite likely.
There were corresponding measures taken in the
Southern States by the rebels, and it was neces
sary to have some control over traitors and dis
loyal persons. "In this contest." said he, "the
Government will not shrink from using all the
means which they consider necessary to restore
the Union." It was not my place to remark that
such doctrines were exactly identical with all
that despotic governments in Europe have ad
vanced as the ground of action in cases of revolt.
or with a view to the maintenance of their strong
Governments. "The Executive." said he, "has
declared in the inaugural that the rights of the
Federal Government shall be fully vindicated.
We are dealing with an insurrection within our
own country, of our own people, and the Govern
ment of Great Britain have thought fit to recognise

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

143

that insurrection before we were able to bring the
strength of the Union to bear against it, by con
ceding to it the status of belligerent. Although
we might justly complain of such an unfriendly
act in a manner that might injure the friendly
relations between the two countries, we do not
desire to give any excuse for foreign interference ;
although we do not hesitate, in case of necessity,
to resist it to the uttermost, we have less to fear
from a foreign war than any country in the world.
If any European Power provokes a war, we shall
not shrink from it. A contest between Great
Britain and the United States would wrap the
world in fire, and at the end it would not be the
United States which would have to lament the
results of the conflict."

I could not but admire the confidence — may I
say the coolness ? — of the statesman who sat in
his modest little room within the sound of the
enemy's guns, in a capital menaced by their
forces, who spoke so fearlessly of war with a
Power which could have blotted out the paper
blockade of the Southern forts and coast in a few
hours, and, in conjunction with the Southern
armies, have repeated the occupation and des
truction of the capital.

The President sent for Mr. Seward whilst I
was in the State Department, and I walked up
Pennsylvania Avenue to my lodgings, through a
crowd of men in uniform who were celebrating
Independence Day in their own fashion — some
by the large internal use of fire-water, others by
an external display of fire- works.

Directly opposite my lodgings are the head
quarters of General Mansfield, commanding the
district, which are marked by a guard at the
door and a couple of six-pounder guns pointing
down the street. I called upon the General, but
he was busy examining certain inhabitants of
Alexandria and of Washington itself, who had
been brought before him on the charge of being
Secessionists, and I left my card, and proceeded
to General Scott's head-quarters, which I found
packed with officers. The General received me
in a small room, and expressed his gratification
at my return, but I saw he was so busy with
reports, despatches, and maps, that I did not
trespass on his time. I dined with Lord Lyons,
and afterwards went with some members of the
Legation to visit the camps, situated in the pub
lic square.

All the population of "Washington had turned
out in their best to listen to the military bands,
the music of which was rendered nearly inaudible
by the constant discharge of fireworks. The
camp of the 12th New York presented a very
pretty and animated scene. The men liberated
from duty were enjoying themselves out and in
side their tents, and the sutlers' booths were
driving a roaring trade. I was introduced to
Colonel Butterfield, commanding the regiment,
who was a merchant of New York ; but notwith
standing the training of the counting-house, he
looked very much like a soldier, and had got his
regiment ver}' fairly in hand. In compliance
with a desire of Professor Henry, the Colonel
had prepared a number of statistical tables in
which the nationality, hefght, weight, breadth of
chest, age, and other particulars respecting the
men under his command were entered. I looked
over the book, and as far as I could judge, but
two out of twelve of the soldiers were "native-

born Americans, the rest being Irish, German,
English, and European-born generally. Accord
ing to the commanding officer they were in the
highest state of discipline and obedience. He
had given them leave to go out as they pleased
for the day, but at tattoo only 14 men out of 1000
were absent, and some of those had been ac
counted for by reports that they were incapable
of locomotion owing to the hospitality of the
citizens.

When I returned to my lodgings, the coloured
boy whom I had hired at Niagara was absent,
and I was told he had not come in since the
night before. "These free coloured boys," said
my landlord, " are a bad set ; now they ace worse
than ever ; the officers of the army are taking
them all away from us; it's just the life they
like ; they get little work, have good pay ; but
what they like most is robbing and plundering
the farmers' houses over in Virginia ; what with
Germans, Irish, and free niggers, Lord help the
poor Virginians, I say ; but they'll give them a
turn yet."

The sounds in Washington to-night might have
led one to believe the city was carried by storm.
Constant explosion of fire-arms, fireworks, shout
ing, and cries in the streets, which combined
with the heat and the abominable odours of the
undrained houses and mosquitoes, to drive sleep
far away.

July 5th. — As the young gentleman of colour,
to whom I had given egregious ransom as well
as an advance of wages, did not appear this
morning, I was, after an abortive attempt to boil
water for coffee and to get a piece of toast, com
pelled to go in next door, and avail myself of the
hospitality of Captain Cecil Johnson, who was
installed in the drawing-room of Madame Jost.
In the forenoon, Mr. John Bigelow, whose ac
quaintance I made, much to my gratification in
time gone by, on the margin of the Lake of Thun,
found me out, and proffered his services ; which,
as the whileom editor of the Evening Post and as
a leading Republican, he was in a position to
render valuable and most effective ; but he could
not make a Bucephalus to order, and I haf e been
running through the stables of Washington in
vain, hoping to find something up to my weight
— such fiankless, screwy, shoulderless, cat-like
creatures were never seen — four of them would
scarcely furnish ribs and legs enough to carry a
man, but the owners thought that each of them
was fit for Baron Rothschild; and then tht-re
was saddlery and equipments of all sorts to be
got, which the influx of officers and the badness
and dearness of the material put quite beyond
one's reach. Mr. Bigelow was of opinion that
the army would move at once; "but," said L,
" where is the transport — where the cavalry and
guns ?" " Oh," replied he, " I suppose we have
got everything that is required. I know nothing
of these things, but I am told cavalry are no use
in the wooded country towards Richmond." I
have not yet been able to go through the camps,
but I doubt very much whether the material or
commissariat of the grand army of the North is
at all adequate to a campaign.

The presumption and ignorance of the New
York journals would be ridiculous were they not
so mischievous. They describe " this horde of
battalion companies — unofficered, clad in all
kinds of different uniform, diversely equipped,

144 MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

perfectly ignorant of the principles of military Vof

obedience and concerted action," — for so I hear

It described by United States officers themselves spect : it looks best at a distance ; and, again, it

— as beinsr " the greatest army the world ever is incongruous in its parts. The mssaeres are so

photographs.
it is unfinished.

Like the Great Republic itself,
It resembles it in another re-

-as being " the greatest army the
saw ; perfect in officers and discipline ; unsur
passed in devotion and courage ; furnished with
every requisite ; and destined on its first march
to sweep into Richmond, and to obliterate from
the Potomac to New Orleans every trace of
rebellion."

The Congress met to-day to hear the Presi
dent's Message read. Somehow or other there is
not such anxiety and eagerness to hear what Mr.
Lincoln has to say as one could expect on such a
momentous occasion. It would seem as if the
forthcoming appeal to arms had overshadowed
every other sentiment in the minds of the people.
They are waiting for deeds, and care not for
words. The confidence of the New York papers,
and of the citizens, soldiers, and public speakers,
contrast with the dubious and gloomy views of
the .military men ; but of this Message itself there
are some incidents independent of the occasion to
render it curious, if not interesting. The Presi
dent has, it is said, written much of it in his own
fashion, which has been revised and altered by
his Ministers ; but he has written it again and
repeated himself, and after many struggles a
good deal of pure Lincolnism goes down to
Congress.

At a little after half-past eleven I went down
to the Capitol. Pennsylvania Avenue was
thronged as before, but on approaching Capitol
Hill, the crowd rather thinned away, as though
they shunned, or had no curiosity to hear, the
President's Message. One would have thought
that, where every one who could get in was at
liberty to attend the galleries in both Houses,
there would have been an immense pressure
from the inhabitants and strangers in the city, as
well as from the citizen soldiers, of which such
multitudes were in the street ; but when I looked
up from the floor of the Senate, I was astonished

incongruous in its parts. The passages are so
dark that artificial light is often required to enable
one to find his way. The offices and bureaux
of the committees are better than the chambers
of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
All the encaustics and the white marble and
stone staircases suffer from tobacco juice, though
there is a liberal display of spittoons at every
corner. The official messengers, doorkeepers,
and porters wear no distinctive badge or dress.
No policemen are on duty, as in our Houses of
Parliament ; no soldiery, gendarmerie, or sergens-
de-ville in the precincts; the crowd wanders
about the passages as it pleases, and shows the
utmost propriety, never going where it ought not
to intrude. There is a special gallery set apart
for women ; the reporters are commodiously
placed in an ample gallery, above the Speaker's
chair; the diplomatic circle have their gallery
facing the reporters, and they are placed so low
down in the somewhat depressed Chamber, that
every word can be heard from speakers in the
remotest parts of the house very distinctly.

The seats of the members are disposed in a
manner somewhat like those in the French
Chambers. Instead of being in parallel rows to
the walls, and at right angles to the Chairman's
seat, the separate chairs and desks of the Sena
tors are arranged in semicircular rows. The
space between the walls and the outer semicircle
is called the floor of the house, and it is a high
compliment to a stranger to introduce him within
this privileged place. There are leather cush
ioned seats and lounges put for the accommoda
tion of those who may be introduced by Senators,
or to whom, as distinguished members of Con
gress in former days, the permission is given to
take their seats. Senators Sunnier and Wilson
introduced me to a chair, and made me acquaint
ed with a number of Senators before the business

to see that the galleries were not more than of the day began.

three parts filled. There is always a ruinous
look a^out an unfinished building when it is
occupied and devoted to business. The Capitol
is situated on a hill, one face of which is scarped
by the road, and has the appearance of being
formed of heaps of rubbish. Towards Pennsyl
vania Avenue the long frontage abuts on a lawn
shaded by trees, through which walks and ave
nues lead to the many entrances under the porti
coes and colonnades; the face which corresponds
on the other side looks out on heaps of brick and
mortar, cut stone, and a waste of marble blocks
lying half buried in the earth and cumbering the
ground, which, in the magnificent ideas of the

Mr. Surnner, as the Chairman of the Committee
on Foreign Relations, is supposed to be viewed
with some jealousy by Mr. Seward, on account
of the disposition attributed to him to interfere
in diplomatic questions ; but if he does so, we
shall have no reason to complain, as the Senator
is most desirous of keeping the peace between
the two countries, and of mollifying any little
acerbities and irritations which may at present
exist between them. Senator Wilson is a man
who has risen from what would be considered in
any country but a republic the lowest ranks of
the people. He apprenticed himself to a poor
shoemaker when he was twenty-two years of

founders and planners of the city, was to be occu- age, and when he was twenty-four years old he
pied by stately streets. The cleverness of certain began to go to school, and devoted all his earn-
speculators in land prevented the execution of ings to the improvement of education. He got

on by degrees, till he set up as a master shoe
maker and manufacturer, became a "major-
general" of State militia; finally was made Sena
tor of the United States, and is now " Chairman
of the Committee of the Senate on Military Af
fairs." He is a bluff man, of about fifty years

side between the" Navy -yard "and the site of the of age, with a peculiar eye and complexion, and
Capitol ; the result — the land is unoccupied, ex- seems honest and vigorous. But is he not going

the original idea, which was to radiate all the
main avenues of the city from the Capitol as a
centre, the intermediate streets being formed by
circles drawn at regularly-increasing intervals
from the Capitol, and intersected by the radii.
The speculators purchased up the land on the

cept by paltry houses, and the capitalists are
ruined.

The Capitol would be best described by a series

ultra crepidam in such a post ? At present he
is much perplexed by the drunkenness which
prevails among the troops, or rather by the de-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

145

J

sire of the men for spirits, as fte has a New Eng
land mania on that point. One of the most re
markable-looking men in the House is Mr. Sum-
uer. Mr. Breckinridge and he would probably
be the first persons to excite the curiosity of a
stranger, so far as to induce him to ask for their
names. Save in height— and both are a good
deal over six feet — there is no resemblance be
tween the champion of States Rights and the
orator of the Black Republicans. The massive
head, the great chin and jaw, and the penetrat
ing eyes of Mr. Breckinridge convey the idea of
a man of immense determination, courage, and
sagacity. Mr. Sumner's features are indicative
of a philosophical and poetical turn of thought,
and one might easily conceive that he would be
a great advocate, but an indifferent leader of a
party.

It was a hot day ; but there was no excuse for
the slop coats and light-coloured clothing and felt
wide-awakes worn by so many Senators' in such
a place. They gave the meeting the -aspect of a
gathering of bakers or millers : nor did the con
stant use of the spittoons beside their desks,
their reading of newspapers and writing letters
during the dispatch of business, or the hurrying
to and fro of the pages of the House between the
seats, do anything but derogate from the dignity
of the assemblage, and, according to European
notions, violate the respect due to a Senate
Chamber. The pages alluded to are smart boys,
from twelve to fifteen years of age, who stand
below the President's table, and are employed to
go on errands and carry official messages by the
members. They wear no particular uniform, and
are dressed as the taste or means of their parents
dictate.

The House of Representatives exaggerates all
the peculiarities I have observed in the Senate,
but the debates are not regarded with so much
interest as those of the Upper House; indeed,
they are of far less importance. Strong-minded
statesmen and officers — Presidents or Ministers
— do not care much for the House of Represen
tatives, so long as they are sure of the Senate ;
and, for the matter of that, a President like Jack
son does not care much for Senate and House
together. There are privileges attached to a
seat in either branch of the Legislature, indepen
dent of the great fact that they receive mileage
and are paid for their services, which may add
some incentive to ambition. Thus the members
can order whole tons of stationery for their use,
not only when they are in session, but during
the recess. Their frank covers parcels by mail,
and it is said that Senators without a conscience
have sent sewing-machines to their wives and
pianos to their daughters as little parcels by post.
I had almost forgotten that much the same
abuses were in vogue in England some century
ago.

The galleries were by no means full, and in
that reserved for the diplomatic body the most
notable person was M. Mercier, the Minister of
France, who, fixing his intelligent and eager
face between both hands, watched with keen
scrutiny the attitude and Conduct of the Senate.
None of the members of the English Legation
were present. After the lapse of an hour, Mr.
Hay, the President's Secretary, made his appear
ance on the floor, and sent in the Message to the
Clerk of the Senate, Mr. Forney, who proceeded
K

to read it to the House. It was listened to in
silence, scarcely broken except when some Sena
tor murmured "Good, that is so;" but in fact
the general purport of it was already known to
the supporters of the Ministry, and not a sound
came from the gallories. Soon after Mr. Forney
had finished, the galleries were cleared, and I
returned up Pennsylvania Avenue, in which the
crowds of soldiers around bar-rooms, oyster
shops, and restaurants, the groups of men in
officers' uniform, and the clattering of disorderly
mounted cavaliers in the dust, increased my ap'-
prehension that discipline was very little re
garded, and that the army over the Potomac had
not a very strong hand to keep it within bounds.

As I was walking over with Captain Johnson
to dine with Lord Lyons, I met General Scott
leaving his office and walking with great diffi
culty between two aides-de-camp. He was
dressed in a blue frock with gold lace shoulder
straps, fastened round the waist by a yellow
sash, and with large yellow lapels turned back
over the chest in the old style, and moved with
great difficulty along the pavement. " You see
I am trying to hobble along, but it is hard for
me to overcome my many infirmities. I regret
I could not have the pleasure of granting you an
interview to-day, but I shall cause it to be inti
mated to you when I may have the pleasure of
seeing you ; meantime I shall provide you with a
pass and the necessary introductions to afford
you all facilities with the army."

After dinner I made a round of visits, and
heard the diplomatists speaking of the Message ;
few, if any of them, in its favour. With the ex
ception perhaps of Baron Gerolt, the Prussian
Minister, there is not one member of the Lega
tions who justifies the attempt of the Northern
States to assert the supremacy of the Federal
Government by the force of arms. Lord Lyons,
indeed, in maintaining a judicious reticence when
ever he does speak, gives utterance to senti
ments becoming the representative of Great
Britain at the court of a friendly Power, and
the Minister of a people who have been prota
gonists to slavery for many a long year.

July 6th. — I breakfasted with Mr. Bigelow
this morning, to meet Gen. McDowell, who com
mands the army of the Potomac, now so soon to
move. He came in without an aide-de-camp,
and on foot, from his quarters in the city. He is
a man about forty years of age, square and pow
erfully built, but with rather a' stout and clumsy
figure and limbs, a good head covered with close-
cut thick dark hair, small light-blue eyes, short
nose, large cheeks and jaws, relieved by an iron-
grey tuft somewhat of the French type, and
affecting in dress the style of our gallant allies.
His manner is frank, simple, and agreeable, and
he did not hesitate to speak with great openness
of the difficulties he had to contend with, and the
imperfection of all the arrangements of the armyr

As an officer of the regular army he has a
thorough contempt for what he calls "political
generals " — the men who use their influence with
President and Congress to obtain military rank,
which in time of war places them before the pub
lic in the front of events, and gives them an
appearance of leading in the greatest of all politi
cal movements. Nor is General McDowell ena
moured of volunteers, for he served in Mexico, and
has from what he saw there formed rather an un

146

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

favourable opinion of their capabilities in the field.
He is inclined, however, to hold the Southern
troops in too little respect ; and he told me that
the volunteers from the slave states, who entered
the field full of exultation and boastings, did not
make good their words, and that they suffered
-especially from sickness and disease, in conse
quence of their disorderly habits and dissipation.
His regard for old associations was evinced in
many questions he asked me about Beauregard,
with whom he had been a student at West Point,
where the Confederate commander was noted for
his studious and reserved habits, and his excel
lence in feats of strength and athletic exercises.

As proof of the low standard" established in
his army, he mentioned that some officers of con
siderable rank were more than suspected of sell
ing rations, and of illicit connections with, sutlers
for purposes of pecuniary advantage. The Gene
ral walked back with me as far as my lodgings,
and I observed that not one of the many soldiers
he passed in the streets saluted him, though his
rank was indicated by his velvet collar and cuffs,
and a gold star on the shoulder strap.

Having written some letters, I walked out with
Captain Johnson and one of the attaches of the
British Legation, to the lawn at the back of the
"White House, and listened to the excellent band
of the United States Marines, playing on a kind
of dais under the large flag recently hoisted by
the President himself, in the garden. The occa
sion was marked by rather an ominous event.
As the President pulled the halyards and the flag
floated aloft, a branch of a tree caught the bunt
ing and tore it, so that a number of the stars and
stripes were detached and hung dangling beneath
the rest of the flag, half detached from the
staff.

I dined at Captain Johnson's lodgings next
door to mine. Beneath us was a wine and spirit
store, and crowds of officers and men flocked
indiscriminately to make their purchases, with a
good deal of tumult, which increased as the night
came on. Later still, there was a great disturb
ance in the city. A body of New York Zouaves
wrecked some houses of bad repute, in one of
which a private of the regiment was murdered
early this morning. The cavalry patrols were
called out and charged the rioters, who were dis
persed with difficulty after resistance in which
men on both sides were wounded. There is no
police, no provost guard. Soldiers wander about
the streets, and beg in the fashion of the mendi
cant in " Gil Bias " for money to get whiskey.
My coloured gentleman has been led away by the
Saturnalia and has taken to gambling in the
camps, which are surrounded by hordes of rascal
ly followers and sutlers' servants, and I find my
self on the eve of a campaign, without servant,
horse, equipment, or means of transport.

July 1th. — Mr. Bigelow invited me to breakfast,
to meet Mr. Senator King, . Mr. Olmsted, Mr.
Thurlow Weed, a Senator from Missouri, a West
Point professor, and others. It was indicative of
the serious difficulties which embarrass the action
of the Government to hear Mr. Wilsori, the
Chairman of the Military Committee of the
Senate, inveigh against the officers of the regular
army, and attack West Point itself. Whilst the
New York papers were lauding Gen. Scott and
his plans to the skies, the Washington politicians
were speaking of him as obstructive, obstinate,

and prejudiced — unfit for the times and the occa
sion.

General Scott refused to accept cavalry and
artillery at the beginning of the levy, and said
that they were not required ; now he was calling
for both arms most urgently. The officers of the
regular army had followed suit. Although they
were urgently pressed by the politicians to occupy
Harper's Ferry and Manassas, they refused to do
either, and the result is that the enemy have
obtained invaluable supplies from the first place,
and are now assembled in force in a most formi
dable position at the second. Everything as yet
accomplished has been done by political generals
— not by the officers of the regular army. Butler
and Banks saved Baltimore in spite of General
Scott. There was an attempt made to cry up
Lyon in Missouri ; but in fact it was Frank Blair,
the brother of the Postmaster-General, who had
been the soul and body of all the actions in that
State. The first step taken by McClellan in
Western Virginia was atrocious — he talked of
slaves in a public document as property. Butler,
at Monroe, had dealt with them in a very differ
ent spirit, and had used them for State purposes
under the name of contraband. One man alone
displayed powers of administrative ability, and
that was Quartermaster Meigs ; and unquestion
ably from all I heard, the praise was well bestow
ed' It is plain enough that the political leaders
fear the consequences of delay, and that they are
urging the military authorities to action, which
the latter have too much professional knowledge
to take with their present means. These Northern
men know nothing of the South, and with them
it is omne ignotum pro minima. The West Point
professor listened to them with a quiet smile, and
exchanged glances with me now and then, as
much as to say, " Did you ever hear such fools in
youi life ?"

But the conviction of ultimate success is not
less strong here than it is in the South. The dif
ference between these gentlemen and the South
erners is, that in the South the leaders of the
people, soldiers and civilians, are all actually
under arms, and are ready to make good their
words by exposing their bodies in battle.

I walked home with Mr. N. P. Willis, who is
at Washington for the purpose of writing sketches
to the little family journal of which he is editor,
and giving war " anecdotes;" and with Mr. Olm
sted, who is acting as a member of the New York
Sanitary Commission, here authorised by the Go
vernment to take measures against the reign of
dirt and disease in the Federal camp. The Re
publicans are very much afraid that there is, even
at the present moment, a conspiracy against the
Union in Washington — nay, in Congress itself;
and regard Mr. Breckenridge, Mr. Bayard, Mr.
Vallandigham, and others as most dangerous ene
mies, who should not be permitted to remain in
the capital I attended the Episcopal church and
heard a very excellent discourse, free from any
political allusion. The service differs little from
our own, except that certain euphemisms are
introduced in the Litany and elsewhere, and the
prayers for Queen and Parliament are offered up
nomine mutaio for President and Congress.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

147

CHAPTER XLYI.

Arlington Heights and the Potomac— Washington— The
Federal camp— General M'Dowell— Flying rumours-
Newspaper ca/respondents— General Fremont-— Silenc
ing tho Press and Telegraph— A Loan Bill— Interview
with Mr. Cameron— Newspaper criticism on Lord Ly
ons—Rumours about M'Oiellan— The Northern army
as reported and as it is— General M'Clellan.
July 8th. — I hired a horse at a livery stable,
and rode out to Arlington Heights, at the other
side of the Potomac, where the Federal army is
encamped, if not on the sacred soil of Virginia,
certainly on the soil of the district of Columbia,
ceded by that State to Congress for the purposes
of tfce Federal Government. The Long Bridge
which spans the river, here more than a mile
broad, is an ancient wooden and brick structure,
partly of causeway, and partly of platform, laid
on piles and uprights, with drawbridges for vessels
to pass. The Potomac, which in peaceful times
is covered with small craft, now glides in a gentle
current over the shallows unbroken by a solitary
sail. The "rebels" have established batteries
below Alount Vernon, which partially command
the river, and place the city in a state of block
ade.

As a consequence of the magnificent conceptions
which were entertained by the founders regarding
the future dimensions of their future city, Wash
ington is all suburb and no city. The only differ
ence between the denser streets and the remoter
village-like environs, is that the houses are better
and more frequent, and the roads not quite so bad
in the former. The road to the Long Bridge
passes by a four-sided shaft of blocks of white
marble, contributed, with appropriate mottoes, by
the various States, as a fitting monument to Wash
ington. It is not yet completed, and the materials
lie in the field around, just as the Capitol and the
Treasury are surrounded by the materials for their
future and final development. Further on, is the
red, and rather fantastic, pile of the Smithsonian
Institute, and then the road makes a dip to the
bridge, past some squalid little cottages, and the
eye reposes on the shore of Virginia, rising in suc
cessive folds, and richly wooded, up to a moderate
height from the water. Through the green forest
leaves gleams the white canvas of the tents, and
on the highest ridge westward rises an imposing
structure, with a portico and colonnade in front,
facing the river, which is called Arlington House,
and belongs by descent, through Mr. Custis, from
the wife of George Washington, to General Lee,
Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate army. It
is now occupied by General M'Dowell as his
head-quarters, and a large United States flag
floats from the roof, which shames even the ample
proportions of the many stars and stripes rising
up from the camps in the trees.

At the bridge there was a post of volunteer
soldiers. The sentry on duty was sitting on a
stump, with his firelock across his knees, reading
a newspaper. He held out his hand for my pass,
which was in the form of a letter, written by Ge
neral Scott, and ordering all officers and soldiers
of the army of the Potomac to permit me to pass
freely without let or hindrance, and recommend
ing me to the attention of Brigadier-General
M'Dowell and all offieers'under his orders. " That'll
do, you may go," said the sentry. " What pass
is that, Abe?" .nquired a non-commissioned offi
cer. "It's from General Scotl, and says he's to
go wherever he : kee ' "I hope you'll go right

away to Richmond, then, and get Jeff Davis' s
scalp for us," said the patriotic sergeant.

At the other end of the bridge a weak tele de
pont, commanded by a road-work further on, co
vered the approach, and turning to the right I
passed through a maze of camps, in front of which
the various regiments, much better than I had
expected to find them, broken up into small de
tachments, were learning elementary drill. A
considerable number of the men were Germans,
and the officers wrere for the most part in a state
of profound ignorance of company drill, as might
be seen by their confusion and inability to take
their places when the companies faced about, or
moved from one flank to the other. They were
by no means equal in size or age, and, with some
splendid exceptions, were inferior to the Southern
soldiers. The camps were dirty, no latrines — the
tents of various patterns — but on the whole they
were well castrametated.

The road to Arlington House passed through
some of the finest woods I have yet seen in
America, but the axe was already busy amongst
them, and the trunks of giant oaks were pros
trate on the ground. The tents of the General
and his small staff were pitched on the little pla
teau in which stood the house, and from it a very
striking and picturesque view of the city, with the
White House, the Treasury, the Post Office. Patent
Office, and Capitol, was visible, and a wide spread
of country, studded with tents also as far as tho
eye could reach, towards Maryland. There were
only four small tents for the whole of the head
quarters of the grand army of the Potomac, and
in front of one we found General M'Dowell,
seated in a chair, examining some plans and maps.
His personal staff, as far as I could judge, con
sisted of Mr. Clarence Brown, who came over
with me, and three other officers, but there were
a few connected with the departments at work
in the rooms of Arlington House. I made some
remark on the subject to the General, who replied
that there was great jealousy on the part of the
civilians respecting the least appearance of dis
play, and that as he was only a brigadier, though
he was in command of such a large army, he was
obliged to be content with a brigadier's staff.
Two untidy-looking orderlies, with ill-groomed
horses, near the house, were poor substitutes for
the force of troopers one would see in attendance
on a general in Europe, but the use of the tele
graph obviates the necessity of employing couri
ers. I went over some of the camps with the
General. The artillery is the most efficient- look
ing arm of the service, but the horses are too
light, and the number of the different calibres
quite destructive to continuous efficiency in ac
tion; Altogether I was not favourably impressed
with what I saw, for I had been led by reiterated
statements to believe to some extent the extra
vagant stories of the papers, and expected to find
upwards of 100,000 men in the highest state of
efficiency, whereas there were not more than a
third of the number, and those in a very incom
plete, ill- disciplined state. Some of these regi
ments were called out under the President's pro
clamation for three months only, and will soon
have served their full time, and as it is very likely
they will go home, now the bubbles of national
enthusiasm have all escaped, General Scott is
urged not to lose their services, but to get into
Richmond before they are disbanded.

H8

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

It would scarcely be credited, were I not told
it by General M'Dowell, that there is no such
thing procurable as a decent map of Virginia.
He knows little or nothing of the country before
him, more than the general direction of the main
roads, which are bad at .,the best ; and he can
obtain no information, inasmuch as the enemy are
in full force all along his front, and he has not a
cavalry officer capable of conducting a reconnais
sance, Tfhich would be difficult enough in the
best hands, owing to the dense woods which rise
up in front of his lines, screening the enemy
completely. The Confederates have thrown up
very heavy batteries at Manassas, about thirty
miles away, where the railway from the West
crosses the line to Richmond, and 1 do not think
General M'Dowell much likes the look of them,
but the cry for action is so strong the President
cannot resist it.

On my way back I rode through the woods of
Arlington, and cafne out on a quadrangular
earthwork, called Fort Corcoran, which is garri
soned by the 69th Irish, and commands the road
leading to an aqueduct and horse-bridge over the
Potomac. The regiment is encamped inside the
fort, which would be a slaughter-pen if exposed
to shell-fire. The streets were neat, the tents
protected from the sun by shades of evergreens
and pine boughs. One little door, like that of an
icehouse, half buried in the ground, was opened
by one of the soldiers, who was showing it to a
friend, when my attention was more particularly
attracted by a sergeant who ran forward in great
dudgeon, exclaiming " Dempsey I Is that you
going into the ' magazine' wid yer pipe lighted ?"
I rode away with alacrity.

In the course of my ride I heard occasional
dropping shots in the camp. To my looks of
inquiry, an engineer officer said quietly, " They
are volunteers shooting themselves." The num
ber of accidents from the carelessness of the men
is astonishing ; in every day's paper there is an
account of deaths and wounds caused by the
discharge of firearms in the tents.

Whilst I was at Arlington House, walking
through the camp attached to head-quarters, I
observed a tall red-bearded officer seated on a
chair in front of one of the tents, who bowed as
I passed him, and as I turned to salute him, my
eye was caught by the apparition of a row of
Palmetto buttons down his coat. One of the
officers standing by said, " Let me introduce you
to Captain Taylor, from the other side." It
appears that he came in with a flag of truce,
bearing a despatch from Jefferson Davis to Presi
dent Lincoln, countersigned by General Beaure-
gard at Manassas. Just as I left Arlington, a
telegraph was sent from General Scott to send
Captain Taylor, who rejoices in the name of Tom,
over to his quarters.

The most absurd rumours were flying about
the staff, one of whom declared very positively
that there was going to be a compromise, and
that Jeff. Davis had made an overture for peace.
The papers are filled with accounts of an action
in Missouri, at a place called Carthage, between
Uie Federals commanded by Colonel Sigel, con
sisting for the most part of Germans, and the
Confederates under General Parsons, in which
the former were obliged to retreat, although
it is admitted the State troops were miserably
armed, and had most ineffective artillery, whilst

their opponents had every advantage in bott
respects, and were commanded by officers of
European experience. Captain Taylor alluded to
the news in a jocular way to me, and said, " I
hope you will tell the people in England we
intend to whip the Liucolnites in the same
fashion wherever we meet them," a remark which
did not lead me to believe there was any inten
tion on the part of the Confederates to surrender
so easily.

July 9th. — Late last night the President told
General Scott to send Captain Taylor back to the
Confederate lines, and he was accordingly escort
ed to Arlington in a carriage, and thence returned
without any answer to Mr. Davis's letter, the
nature of which has not transpired.

A swarm of newspaper correspondents has
settled down upon Washington, and great are the
glorifications of the high-toned paymasters, gal
lant doctors, and subalterns accomplished in the
art of war, who furnish minute items to my
American brethren, and provide the yeast which
overflows in many columns ; but the Government
experience the inconvenience of the smallest
movements being chronicled for the use of the
enemy, who, by putting one thing and another
together, are no doubt enabled to collect much
valuable information. Every preparation is being
made to put the army on a war footing, to provide
them with shoes, ammunition waggons, and
horses.

f had the honour of dining with General Scott,
who has moved to new quarters, near the War
Department, and met General Fremont, who is
designated, according to rumour, to take com
mand of an important district in the West, and
to clear the right bank of the Mississippi and the
course of the Missouri. " The pathfinder" is a
strong Republican and Abolitionist, whom the
Germans delight to honour — a man with a dreamy,
deep blue eye, a gentlemanly address, pleasant
features, and an active frame, but without the
smallest external indication of extraordinary
vigour, intelligence, or ability ; if he has military
genius, it must come by intuition, for assuredly
he has no professional acquirements or experience.
Two or three members of Congress, and the
General's staff, and Mr. Bigelow, completed the
company. The General has become visibly
weaker since I first saw him. He walks down
to his office, close at hand, with difficulty ; returns
a short time before dinner, and reposes ; and
when he has dismissed his guests at an early
hour, or even before he does so, stretches him
self on his bed, and then before midnight rouses
himself to look at despatches or to transact any
necessary business. In case of an action it is
his intention to proceed to the field in a light
carriage, which is always ready for the purpose,
with horses and driver; nor is he unprepared
with precedents of great military commanders
who have successfully conducted engagements
under similar circumstances.

Although the discussion of military questions
and of politics was eschewed, incidental allusions
were made to matters going on around us, and I
thought I could perceive that the General re
garded the situation with much more apprehen
sion than the politicians, and that his influence
extended itself to the views of his staff. General
Fremont's tone was much more confident. No
thing has become known respecting the nature

MT DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

149

of Mr. Davis's communication to President Lin
coln, but the fact of his sending it at all is looked
upon as a piece of monstrous impertinence. The
General is annoyed and distressed by the plun
dering propensities of the Federal troops, who
have been committing terrible depredations on
the people of Virginia. It is not to be supposed,
however, that the Germans, who have entered
upon this campaign as mercenaries, will desist
from so profitable and interesting a pursuit as the
detection of Secesli sentiments, chickens, watches,
horses, and dollars. I mentioned that I had seen
some farm-houses completely sacked close to the
aqueduct. The General merely said, " It is de
plorable!" and raised up his hands as if in dis
gust. General Fremont, however, said, "I suppose
you are familiar with similar scenes in Europe.
I hear the allies were not very particular with
respect to private property in Russia" — a remark
which unfortunately could not be gainsaid. As
I was leaving the General's quarters, Mr. Blair,
accompanied by the President, who was looking
more anxious than I had yet seen him, drove
up, and passed through a crowd of soldiers, who
had evidently been enjoying themselves. One
of them called out, " Three cheers for General
Scott!" and I am not quite sure the President did
not join him.

July IQth. — To-day was spent in a lengthy ex
cursion along the front of the camp in Virginia,
round by the chain bridge which crosses the Po
tomac about four miles from Washington.

The Government have been coerced, as they
say, by the safety of the Republic, to destroy the
liberty of the press, which is guaranteed by the
Constitution, and this is not the first instance in
which the Constitution of the United States will
be made nominis umbra. The telegraph, accord
ing to General Scott's order, confirmed by the
Minister of War, Simon Cameron, is to convey no
despatches respecting military movements not
permitted by the General ; and to-day the news
paper correspondents have agreed to yield obe
dience to the order, reserving to themselves a
certain freedom of detail in writing their de
spatches, and relying on the Government to pub
lish the official accounts of all battles very
speedily. They will break this agreement if they
can, and the Government will not observe their
part of the bargain. The freedom of the press,
as I take it, does not include the right to publish
news hostile to the cause of the country in which
it is published ; neither can it involve any obliga
tion on the part of Government to publish any
despatches which may be injurious to the party
they represent. There is a wide distinction
between the publication of news which is known
to the enemy as soon as to the friends of the
transmitters, and the utmost freedom of expres
sion concerning the acts of the Government or
the conduct of past events ; but it will be diffi
cult to establish any rule to limit or extend the
boundaries to which discussion can go without
mischief, and in effect the only solution of the
difficulty in a free country seems to be to grant
the press free licence, in consideration of the
enormous aid it affords in warning the people of
their danger, in animating them with the news
of their successes, and in sustaining the Govern
ment in their efforts to conduct the war.

The most important event to-day is the passage
of the Loan Bill, which authorises Mr. Chase to

borrow, in the next year, a sum of £50,000,000,
on coupons, with interest at 7 per cent, and irre
deemable for twenty years — the interest being
guaranteed on a pledge of the Customs duties. I
just got into the House in time to hear Mr. Val-
landigham, who is an ultra-democrat, and very
nearly a secessionist, conclude a well- delivered
argumentative address. He is a tall, slight man,
of a bilious temperament, with light flashing
eyes, dark hair and complexion, and considerable
oratorical power. " Deem me ef I wouldn't just
ride that Vallandiggaim on a reay-al, " quoth a
citizen to his friend, as the speaker sat down,
amid a few feeble expressions of assent. Mr.
Chase has also obtained the consent of the Lower
House to his bill for closing the Southern ports
by the decree of the President, but I hear some
more substantial measures are in contemplation
for that purpose. Whilst the House is finding
the money the Government are preparing to
spend it, and they have obtained the approval of
the Senate to the enrolment of half a million of
men, and the expenditure of one hundred mil
lions of dollars to carry on the war.

I called on Mr. Cameron, the Secretary of
War. The small brick house of two stories, with
long passages, in which the American Mars pre
pares his bolts, was, no doubt, large enough for
the 20,000 men who constituted the armed force
on land of the great Republic, but it is not suf
ficient to contain a tithe of the contractors who
haunt its precincts, fill all the lobbies and crowd
into every room. With some risk to coat-tails, I
squeezed through iron-masters, gun-makers, clo
thiers, shoemakers, inventors, bakers, and all that
genus which fattens on the desolation caused by an
army in the field, and was introduced to Mr.
Cameron's room, where he was seated at a desk
surrounded by people, who were also grouped
round two gentlemen as clerks in the small room.
"I tell you, General Cameron, that the way in
which the loyal men of Missouri have been treat
ed is a disgrace to this Government," shouted out
a big, black, burly man — " I tell you so, sir."
" Well, General," responded Mr. Cameron, quiet
ly, " so you have several times. Will you, once
for all, condescend to particulars?" "Yes, sir;
you and the Government have disregarded our
appeals. You have left us to fight our own bat
tles. You have not sent us a cent " "There,

General, I interrupt you. You say we have sent
you no money," said Mr. Cameron, very quietly.
"Mr. Jones will be good enough to ask Mr.
Smith to step in here." Before Mr. Smith came
in, however, the General, possibly thinking some
member of the press was present, rolled his eyes
in a Nicotian frenzy, and perorated : " The people
of the State of Missouri, sir, will power-out every
drop of the blood which only flows to warm pa
triotic hearts in defence of the great Union, which
offers freedom to the enslaved of mankind, and a
home to persecuted progress, and a few-ture to
civil-zation. We demand, General Cameron, in

the neame of the great Western State " Here

Mr. Smith came in, and Mr. Cameron said, "I
want you to tell me what disbursements, if any,
have been sent by this department to the State
of Missouri." Mr. Smith was quick at figures,
and up in his accounts, for he drew out a little
memorandum book, and replied (of course, I can't
tell the exact sum), "General, there has been
sent, as by vouchers, to Missouri since the begin-

150

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

rung of the levies, six hundred and seventy
thousand dollars and twenty-three cents." The
General looked crest-fallen, but he was equal to
the occasion. ' " These sums may have been sent,
sir, but they have not been received. I declare

in the face of " "Mr. Smith will show you

the vouchers, General, and you can then take any
steps needful against the parties who have mis
appropriated them."

''That is only a small specimen of what we
have to go through with our people," said the
Minister, as the General went off with a lofty toss
of his head, and then gave me a pleasant sketch
of the nature of the applications and interviews
which take up the time and clog the movements
of an American statesman. " These State organi
sations give us a great deal of trouble." I could
fully understand that they did so. The immedi
ate business that I had with Mr. Cameron — he is
rarely called General now that he is Minister of
War — was to ask him to give me authority to
draw rations at cost price, in case the army took
the field before I could make arrangements, and
he seemed very well disposed to accede ; " but I
must think about it, for I shall have all our pa
pers down upon me if I grant you any facility
which they do not get themselves." After I left
the War Department, I took a walk to Mr. Sew-
ard's, who was out. In passing by President's
Square, I saw a respectably-dressed man up in
one of the trees, cutting off pieces of the bark,
which his friends beneath caught up eagerly. I
could not help stopping to ask what was the ob
ject of the proceeding. "Why, sir, this is the

tree Dan Sickles shot Mr. under. I think

it's quite a remarkable spot."

July llth. — The diplomatic circle is so totus
teres atque rotundits, that few particles of dirt stick
on its periphery from the road over which it tra
vels. The radii are worked from different centres,
often far apart, and the tires and naves often fly
out in wide divergence; but for all social purposes
it is a circle, and a very pleasant one. When one
sees M. de Stoeckel speaking to M. Mercier, or
joining in with Baron Gerolt and M. de Lisboa, it
is safer to infer that a little social re-union is at
hand for a pleasant civilised discussion of ordina
ry topics, some music, a rubber, and a dinner,
than to resolve with the New York Correspondent,
" that there is reason to believe that a diplomatic
movement of no ordinary significance is on foot,
and that the ministers of Russia, France, and
Prussia have concerted a plan of action with the
representative of Brazil, which must lead to ex
traordinary complications, in view of the tempo
rary embarrassments which distract our beloved
country. The Minister of England has held aloof
from these reunions for a sinister purpose no
doubt, and we have not failed to discover that the
emissary of Austria, and the representative of
Guatemala, have abstained from taking part in
these significant demonstrations. We tell the
haughty nobleman who represents Queen Victo
ria, on whose son we so lately lavished the most
liberal manifestations of our good will, to beware.
The motives of the Court of Vienna, and of the
republic of Guatemala, in ordering their repre
sentatives not to join in the reunion which we
observed at three o'clock to-day, at the corner of
Seventeenth Street and One, are perfectly trans
parent ; but we call on Mr. Seward instantly to
demand of Lord Lyons a full and ample explana

tion of his conduct on the occasion, or the trans
mission of his papers. There is no harm in add
ing, that we have every reason to think our good
ally of Russia, and the minister of the astute mo
narch, who is only watching an opportunity of
leading a Franco-American army to the Tower
of London and Dublin Castle, have already moved
their respective Governments to act in the premi
ses."

That paragraph, with a good heading, would
sell several thousands of the "New York Stab-
ber" to-morrow.

July 12th. — There are rumours that the Fede
rals, under Brigadier M'Clellan, who have ad
vanced into Western Virginia, have gained some
successes ; but so far it seems to have no larger
dimensions than the onward raid of one clan
against another in the Highlands. And whence
do rumours come? From Government depart
ments, which, like so many Danaes in the clerks'
rooms, receive the visits of the auriferous Jupi-
ters of the press, who condense themselves into
purveyors of smashes, slings, baskets of cham
pagne, and dinners. M'Clellan is, however, con
sidered a very steady and respectable professional
soldier. A friend of his told me to-day one of the
most serious complaints the Central Illinois Com
pany had against him was that, during the Italian
war, he seemed to forget their business ; and that
he was busied with maps stretched out on the
floor, whereupon he, superincumbent, penned out
the points of battle and strategy when he ought
to have been attending to passenger trains and
traffic. That which was flat blasphemy in a rail
way office may be amazingly approved in the
field.

July 13th. — T have had a long day's ride
through the camps of the various regiments
across the Potomac, and at this side of it, which
the weather did not render very agreeable to my
self or the poor hack that I had hired for the day,
till my American Quatermaine gets me a decent
mount. I wished to see with my own eyes what
is the real condition of the army which the North
have sent down to the Potomac, to undertake
such a vast task as the conquest of the South.
The Northern papers describe it as a magnificent
force, complete in all respects, well-disciplined,
well-clad, provided with fine artillery, and with
every requirement to make it effective for all mili
tary operations in the field.

In one word, then, they are grossly and utterly
ignorant of what an army is or should be. In
the first place, there are not, I should think,
30,000 men of all sorts available for the campaign.
The papers estimate, it at any number from 50,000
to 100,000, giving the preference to 75,000. In
the next place, their artillery is miserably defi
cient ; they have not, I should think, more than
five complete batteries, or six batteries, including
scratch guns, and these are of different calibres,
badly horsed, miserably equipped, and provided
with the worst set of gunners and drivers which
I, who have seen the Turkish field-gv.o?, ever
beheld. They have no cavalry, only a few
scarecrow men, who would dissolve partcership
with their steeds at the first serious combined
movement, mounted in high saddles, on wretched
mouthless screws, and some few regulars from
the frontiers, who may be good for Indians, but
who would go over like ninepins at a charge
from Punjaubee irregulars. Their transport is

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

151

tolerably good, but inadequate; they have no
carriage for reserve ammunition ; the commissa
riat drivers are civilians, under little or no con
trol ; the officers are unsoldierly-looking men ;
the camps are dirty to excess ; the men are dress
ed in all sorts of uniforms ; and from what I hear,
I doubt if any of these regiments have ever per
formed a brigade evolution together, or if any of
the officers know what it is to deploy a brigade
from column into line. They are mostly three
months' men, whose time is nearly up. They
were, rejoicing to-day over the fact that it was
so, and that they had' kept the enemy from
Washington " without a fight." And it is with
this rabblement that the North propose not only
to subdue the South, but according to some of
their papers, to humiliate Great Britain, and con
quer Canada afterwards.

I am opposed to national boasting, but I do
firmly believe that 10,000 British regulars, or
12,000 French, with a proper establishment of
artillery and cavalry, would not only entirely
repulse this army with the greatest ease, under
competent commanders, but that they could
attack them and march into Washington over
them or with them whenever they pleased. Not
that Frenchman or Englishman is perfection, but
that the American of this army knows nothing of
discipline, and what is more, cares less for it.

Major- General M'Clellan — I beg his pardon
for styling him Brigadier — has really been suc
cessful. By a very well-conducted and rather
rapid march, he was enabled to bring superior
forces to bear on some raw levies under General
Garnett (who came over with me in the steamer),
which fled after a few shots, and were utterly
routed, when their gallant commander fell, in an
abortive attempt to rally them by the banks of
Cheat river. In this "great battle" M'Clellan's
loss is less than 30 killed and wouncJfed, and the
Confederates loss is less than 100. But the dis
persion of such guerilla bands has the most useful
effect among the people of the district ; and M*
Clellan has done good service, especially as his
little victory will lead to the discomfiture of all
Secessionists in the valley of the Kenawha, and
in the valley of Western Virginia. I left Wash
ington this afternoon, with the Sanitary Commis
sioners, for Baltimore, in order to visit the Federal
camps at Fortress Monroe, to which we proceed
ed down the Chesapeake the same night.

CHAPTER XLYII.

Fortress Monroe — General Butler — Hospital accommo
dation — Wounded soldiers — Aristocratic pedigrees — A
great gun — Newport News — Fraudulent contractors —
General Butler — Artillery practice — Contraband ne
groes — Confederate lines — Tombs of American loyal
ists — Troops and contractors — Duryea's New York
Zouaves— Military calculations — A voyage by steamer
to Annapolis.

July \411i. — At six o'clock this morning the
steamer arrived at the wharf under the walls of
Fortress Monroe, which presented a very differ
ent appearance from the quiet of its aspect when
first 1 saw it, some moirths ago. Camps spread
around it, the parapets lined with sentries, guns
looking out towards the land, lighters and steam
ers alongside the wharf, a strong guar dat the end
of the pier, passes to be scrutinised and permits
to be given. I landed with the members of the

Sanitary Commission, and repaired to a very
large pile of buildings, called " The Hygeia Ho
tel," for once on a time Fortress Monroe was
looked upon as the resort of the sickly, who re
quired bracing air and an abundance of oysters ;
it is now occupied by the wounded in the several
actions and skirmishes which have taken place,
particularly at Bethel ; and it is so densely
crowded that we had difficulty in procuring the
use of some small dirty rooms to dress in. As
the business of the Commission was principally
directed to ascertain the state of the hospitals,
they considered it necessary in the first instance
to visit General Butler, the commander of the
post, who has been recommending himself to the
Federal Government by his activity ever since he
came down to Baltimore, and the whole body
marched to the fort, crossing the drawbridge after
some parley with the guard, and received per
mission, on the production of passes, to enter the
court.

The interior of the work covers a space of about
seven or eight acres, as far as I could judge, and
is laid out with some degree of taste ; rows of fine
trees border the walks through the grass plots ;
the officers' quarters, neat and snug, are surround-
od with little patches of flowers, and covered
with creepers. All order and neatness, however,
were fast disappearing beneath the tramp of
mailed feet, for at least 1200 men had pitched
their tents inside the place. We sent in our
names to the General, who lives in a detached
house close to the sea face of the fort, and sat
down on a bench under the shade of some trees
to avoid the excessive heat of the sun until th
commander of' the place could receive the Com
missioners. He was evidently in no great hurry
to do so. In about half an hour an aide-de-camp
came out to say that the General was getting up,
and that he would see us after breakfast. Some
of the Commissioners, from purely sanitary consi
derations, would have been much better pleased,
to have seen him at breakfast, as they had only
partaken of a very light rneal on board the steam
er at five o'clock in the morning ; but we were
interested meantime by the morning parade of a
portion of the garrison, consisting of 300 regulars,
a Massachusetts' volunteer battalion, and the 2nd
New York Regiment.

It was quite refreshing to the eye to see the
cleanliness of the regulars — their white gloves
and belts, and polished buttons, contrasted with
the slovenly aspect of the volunteers ; but, as far
as the material went, the volunteers had by far
the best of the comparison. The civilians who
were with me did not pay much attention to the
regulars, and evidently preferred the volunteers,
although they could not be insensible to the mag
nificent drum-major who led the band of the
regulars. Presently General Butler came out of
his quarters, and walked down the lines, followed
by a few officers. He is a stout, middle-aged
man, strongly built, with coarse limbs, his fea
tures indicative of great shrewdness and craft, his
forehead high, the elevation being in some degree
due perhaps to the want of hair ; with a strong
obliquity of vision, which may perhaps have been
caused by an injury, as the eyelid hangs with a
peculiar droop over the organ.

The General, whose manner is quick, decided,
and abrupt, but not at all rude or unpleasant, at
once acceded to the wishes of the Sanitary Com-

152

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

missioners, and expressed his desire to make my
stay at the fort as agreeable and useful as he
could. " You can first visit the hospitals in com
pany with these gentlemen, and then come over
with me to our camp, where I will show you
everything that is to be seen. I have ordered a
steamer to be in readiness to take you to New
port News." He speaks rapidly, and either
affects or possesses great decision. The Commis
sioners accordingly proceeded to make the most
of their time in visiting the Hygeia Hotel, being
accompanied by the medical officers of the garrison.

The rooms, but a short time ago occupied by
the fair ladies of Virginia, when they came down
to enjoy the sea breezes, were now crowded with
Federal soldiers, many of them suffering from the
loss of limb or serious wounds, others from the
worst form of camp disease. I enjoyed a small
national triumph over Dr. Bellows, the chief of
the Commissioners, who is of the t: sang re azul "
of Yankeeism, by which I mean that he is a
believer, not in the perfectibility, but in the abso
lute perfection, of New England nature, which
is the only human nature that is not utterly lost
and abandoned — Old England nature, perhaps,
being the worst of all. We had been speaking
to the wounded men in several rooms, and found
most of them either in the listless condition con
sequent upon exhaustion, or with that anxious
air which is often observable on the faces of the
wounded when strangers approach. At last wre
came into a room in which two soldiers were sit
ting up, the first we had seen, reading the news
papers. Dr. Bellows asked where they came
from ; one was from Concord, the other from
Newhaven. " You see, Mr. Russell," said Dr.
Bellows, " how our Yankee soldiers spend their
time. I knew at once they were Americans
when I saw them reading newspapers." One of
them had his hand shattered by a bullet, the
other was suffering from a gun-shot wound
through the body. " Where were you hit ?" I in
quired of the first. " Well," he said, " I guess my
rifle went off when I was cleaning it in camp."
" Were you wounded at Bethel ?" I asked of the
second. " No, sir," he replied ; " I got this
wound from a comrade, who discharged his piece
by accident in one of the tents as I was standing
outside." " So," said I, to Dr. Bellows, " whilst
the Britishers and Germans are engaged with the
enemy, you Americans employ your time shooting
each other!"

These men were true mercenaries, for they were
fighting for money — I mean the strangers. One
poor fellow from Devonshire said, as he pointed
to his stump, " I wish I had lost it for the sake
of the old island, sir," paraphrasing Sarstleld's ex
clamation as he lay dying on the field. The
Americans were fighting for the combined excel
lences and strength of the States of New England,
and of the rest of the Federal power over the
Confederates, for they could not in their heart of
hearts believe the Old Union could be restored
by force of arms. Lovers may quarrel and may
reunite, but if a blow is struck there is no redinte-
gratio amoris possible again. The newspapers
and illustrated periodicals which they read were
the pabulum that fed the flames of patriotism iiv
cessantly. Such capacity for enormous lying,
both in creation and absorption, the world never
heard. Sufficient for the hour is the falsehood.

There were lady nurses iu attendance on the

patients ; who followed — let us believe, as I do.
out of some higher motive than the mere desire
of human praise — the example of Miss Nightin
gale. I loitered behind in the rooms, asking
many questions respecting the nationality of the
men, in which the members of the Sanitary Com
mission took no interest, and I was just turning
into one near the corner of the passage when J
was stopped by a loud smack. A young Scotch
man was dividing his attention between a basin
of soup and a demure young lady from Philadel
phia, who was feeding him with a spoon, his
only arm being engaged in holding her round the
waist, in order to prevent her being tired, I pre
sume. Miss Rachel, or Deborah, had a pair of
very pretty blue eyes, but they flashed very an
grily from under her trim little cap at the unvvit
ting intruder, and then she said, in severest tones,
" Will you take your medicine, or not ?" Sandj
smiled, and pretended to be very penitent.

When we returned with the doctors from our
inspection we walked round the parapets of the
fortress, why so called I know not, because it is
merely a fort. The guns and mortars are old-
fashioned and heavy, with the exception of some
new-fashioned and very heavy Columbiads, which
are cast-iron 8-, 10-, and 12-inch guns, in which
I have no faith whatever. The armament is not
sufficiently powerful to prevent its interior being
searched out by the long range fire of ships with
rifle guns, or mortar boats ; but it would require
closer and harder work to breach the masses of
brick and masonry which constitute the parapets
and casemates. The guns, carriages, rammers,
shot, were dirty, rusty, and neglected ; but Gen
eral Butler told me he was busy polishing up
things about the fortress as fast as he could.

Whilst we were parading these hot walls in the
sunshine, my companions were discussing the }
question o&aucestry. It appears your New Eiig- ?
lander is very proud of his English descent from
good blood, and it is one of their isms in tho
Yankee States that they are the salt of the British
people and the true aristocracy of blood and
family, whereas we in the isles retain but a paltry
share of the blue blood defiled b/ incessant infil
trations of the muddy fluid of the outer world.
This may be new to us Britishers, but is a Q. E. D.
If a gentleman left Europe 200 years ago, and
settled with his kin and kith, intermarrying his'
children with their equals, and thus perpetuating
an ancient family, it is evident he may be regarded
as the founder of a much more honourable dynasty
than the relative who remained behind him, arid
lost the old family place, and sunk into obscurity.
A singular illustration of the tendency to make
much of themselves may be found in the fact,
that New England swarms with genealogical
societies and bodies of antiquaries, who delight
in reading papers about each other's ancestors,
and tracing their descent from Norman or Saxon
barons and earls. The Virginians opposite, who
are flouting us with their Confederate flag from
Sewall's Point, are equally given to the " genus
et proavos."

At the end of our promenade round the ram
parts, Lieutenant Butler, the General's nephew
and aide-de-camp, came to tell us the boat was
ready, and we met His Excellency in the court
yard, whence we walked down to the wharf. On
our way, General Butler called my attention to
aa enormous heap of hollow iron lyinej on the

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

153

sand, which was the Union gun that is intended
to throw a shot of some 350 Ibs. weight or more,
to astonish the Confederates at Sewall's Point
opposite, when it is mounted. This gun, if I
mistake not, was made after the designs of Cap
tain Rodman, of the United States artillery, who
iu a series of remarkable papers, the publication
of which has cost the country a large sum of
money, has given us the results of long-continued
investigations and experiments on the best method
of cooling masses of iron for ordnance purposes,
and of making powder for heavy shot. The
piece must weigh about 20 tons, but a similar
gun, mounted on an artificial island called the
Rip Raps, in the Channel opposite the fortress, is
said to be worked with facility. The Confederates
have raised some of the vessels sunk by the United
States officers when the Navy Yard at Gosport
was destroyed, and as some of these are to be
converted into rams, the Federals are preparing
their heaviest ordnance, to try the effect of crush
ing weights at low velocities against their sides,
should they attempt to play any pranks among
the transport vessels. The General said: "It is
not by these great masses of iron this contest is
to be decided : we must bring sharp points of steel,
directed by superior intelligence.'' Hitherto
General Butler's attempts at Big Bethel have not
been crowned with success in employing such
means, but it must be admitted that, according to
his own statement, his lieutenants were guilty of
carelessness and neglect of ordinary military pre
cautions in the conduct of the expedition he order
ed. The march of different columns of troops by
night concentrating on a given point is always
liable to serious interruptions, and frequently
gives rise to hostile encounters between friends,
in more disciplined armies than the raw levies
of United States volunteers.

"When the General, Commissioners, and Staff
had embarked, the steamer moved across the
broad estuary to Newport News. Among our
passengers were several medical officers in attend
ance on the Sanitary Commissioners, some belong
ing to the army, others who had volunteered
from civil life. Their discussion of professional
questions and of relative rank assumed such a
personal character, that General Butler had to
interfere to quiet the disputants, but the exertion
of his authority was not altogether successful,
and one of the angry gentlemen said in my hear
ing, "I'm d — d if I submit to such treatment if
all the lawyers in Massachusetts with stars on
their collars were to order me to-morrow."

On arriving at the low shore of Newport News
we landed at a wooden jetty, and proceeded to
visit the camp of the Federals, which was sur
rounded by a strong entrenchment, mounted
with guns on the water face ; and on the angles
inland, a broad tract of cultivated country,
bounded by a belt of trees, extended from the
river away from the encampment; but the Con
federates are so close at hand that frequent
skirmishes have occurred between the foraging
parties of the garrison and the enemy, who have
on more than one occasion pursued the Federals
to the very verge of the woods.

Whilst the Sanitary Commissioners were groan
ing over the heaps of filth which abound in all
camps where discipline is not most strictly
observed, I walked round amongst the tents,
which, taken altogether, were in good order.

The day was excessively hot, and many of the
soldiers were lying down in the shade of arbours
formed of branches from the neighbouring pine
wood, but most of them got up when they heard
the General was coming round. A sentry walked
up and down at the end of the street, and as the
General came up to him he called out " Halt.
The man stood still. " I just want to show you,
sir, what scoundrels our Government has to deal
with. This man belongs to a regiment which
has had new clothing recently served out to it.
Look what it is made of." So saying the General
stuck his fore-finger into the breast of the man's
coat, and with a rapid scratch of his nail tore
open the cloth as if it was of blotting paper.
"Shoddy, sir. Nothing but shoddy. I wish I
had these contractors in the trenches here, and
if hard work would not make honest men of them,
they'd have enough of it to be examples for the
rest of their fellows."

A vivacious, prying man, this Butler, full of
bustling life, self-esteem, revelling in the exercise
of power. In the course of our rounds we were
joined by Colonel J>helps, who was formerly in
the United States army, and saw service in Mex
ico, but retired because he did not approve of the
manner in which promotions were made, and who
only took command of a Massachusetts regiment
because he believed he might be instrumental in
striking a shrewd blow or two in this great battle
of Armageddon — a tall, saturnine, gloomy, angry-
eyed, sallow man, soldier-like too, and one who
places old John Brown on a level with the great
martyrs of the Christian world. Indeed one, not
so fierce as he, is blasphemous enough to place
images of our Saviour and the hero of Harper's
Ferry on the mantel-piece, as the two greatest
beings the world has ever seen. "Yes, I know
them well. I've seen them in the field. I've sat
with them at meals. I've travelled through their
country. These Southern slave-holders are a
false, licentious, godless people. Either we who
obey the laws and fear God, or they who know
no God except their own will and pleasure, and
know no law except their passions, must, rule on
this continent, and I believe that Heaven will
help its own in the conflict they have provoked.
I grant you they are brave enough, and despe
rate too, but surely justice, truth, and religion,
will strengthen a man's arm to strike down those
who have only brute force and a bad cause to
support them." But Colonel Phelps was not
quite indifferent to material aid, and he made a
pressing appeal to General Butler to send him some
more guns and harness for the field-pieces he had
in position, because, said he, "in case of attack,
please God I'll follow them up sharp, and cover
these fields with their bones." The General had
a difficulty about the harness, which made Colo
nel Phelps very grim, but General Butler had
reason in saying he could riot make harness, and
so the Colonel must be content with the results
of a good rattling fire of round, shell, grape, and
canister, if the Confederates are foolish enough
to attack his batteries.

There was nothing to complain of in the
camp, except the swarms of flies, the very bad
smells, and perhaps the shabby clothing of
the men. The tents were good enough. The
rations were ample, but nevertheless there was
a want, of order, discipline, arid quiet in the
lines which did not augur well for the internal

154

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

economy of the regiments. When we returned
to the river face, General Butler ordered some
practice to be made with a Sawyer rifle gun,
which appeared to be an ordinary cast-iron piece,
bored with grooves, on the shunt principle, the
shot being covered with a composition of a metal
lic amalgam like zinc and tin, and provided with
flanges of the same material to tit the grooves.
The practice was irregular and unsatisfactory.
At an elevation of 24 degrees, the first shot struck
the water at a point about 2000 yards distant.
The piece was then further elevated, and the shot
struck quite out of land, close to the opposite
bank, a distance of nearly three miles. The third
shot rushed with a peculiar hurtling noise out of
the piece, and flew up in the air, falling with a
splash into the water about 1500 yards away.
The next shot may have gone half across the
continent, for assuredly it never struck the water,
and most probably ploughed its way into the soft
ground at the other side of the river. The shell
practice was still worse, and on the whole I wish
our enemies may always fight us with Sawyer
guns, particularly as the shejls cost between £6
and £7 a-piece.

From the fort the General proceeded to the
house of one of the officers, near the jetty, for
merly the residence of a Virginian farmer, who
has now gone to Secessia, where we were most
hospitably treated at an excellent lunch, served
by the slaves of the former proprietor. Although
we boast with some reason of the easy level of
our mess-rooms, the Americans certainly excel
us in the art of annihilating all military distinc
tions on such occasions as these ; and I am not
sure the General would not have liked to
place a young Doctor in close arrest, who sud
denly made a dash at the liver wing of a fowl on
which the General was bent with eye and fork,
and carried it off to his plate. But on the whole
there was a good deal of friendly feeling amongst
all ranks of the volunteers, the regulars being a
little stiff and adherent to etiquette.

In the afternoon the boat returned to Fortress
Monroe, and the General invited me to dinner,
where I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Butler,
his staff, and a couple of regimental officers from
the neighbouring camp. As it was still early,
General Butler proposed a ride to visit the inter
esting village of Hampton, which lies some six
or seven miles outside the fort, and forms his ad
vance post. A powerful charger, with a tre
mendous Mexican saddle, fine housings, blue and
gold embroidered saddle-cloth, was brought to
the door for your humble servant, and the Gene
ral mounted another, which did equal credit to
his taste in horseflesh ; but I own I felt rather
uneasy on seeing that he wore a pair of large
brass spurs, strapped over white jean brodequiris.
He took with him his aide-camp and a couple of
orderlies. In the precincts of the fort outside, a
population of contraband negroes has been col
lected, whom the General employs in various
works about the place, military and civil ; but I
failed to ascertain that the original scheme of a
debit and credit account between the value of
their labour and the cost of their maintenance
had been successfully carried out. The General
was proud of them, and they seemed proud of
themselves, saluting him with a ludicrous mix
ture of awe and familiarity as he rode past.
" How do, Massa Butler ? How do, General ?"

accompanied by absurd bows and scrapes. " Just
to think," said the General, " that every one of
these fellows represents some 1000 dollars at least
out of the pockets of the chivalry yonder."
"Nasty, idle, dirty beasts," says one of the staff,
sotto voce ; " I wish to Heaven they were all at
the bottom of the Chesapeake. The General
insists on it that they do work, but they are far
more trouble than they are worth."

The road towards Hampton traverses a sandy
spit, which, however, is more fertile than would
be supposed from the soil under the horses'
hoofs, though it is not in the least degree interest
ing. A br§ad creek or river interposed between
us and the town, the bridge over which had been
destroyed. "Workmen were busy repairing it, but
all the planks had not yet been laid down or
nailed, and in some places the open space , be
tween the upright rafters allowed us to see the
dark waters flowing beneath. The Aide said,
" I don't think, General, it is safe to cross ;" but
his chief did not mind him until his horse very
nearly crashed through a plank, and only re
gained its footing with unbroken legs by marvel
lous dexterity ; whereupon we dismounted, and,
leaving the horses to be carried over in the ferry
boat, completed the rest of the transit, not with
out difficulty. At the other end of the bridge a
street lined with comfortable houses, and bor
dered with trees, led us into the pleasant town
or village of Hampton — pleasant once, but now
deserted by all the inhabitants except some pau
perised whites and a colony of negroes. It was
in full occupation of the Federal soldiers, and I
observed that most of the men were Germans.
the garrison at Newport News being principally
composed of Americans. The old red brick
houses, with cornices of white stone ; the narrow
windows and high gables, gave an aspect of anti
quity and European comfort to the place, the like
of which I have not yet seen in the States. Most
of the shops were closed ; in some the shutters
were still down, and the goods remained displayed
in the windows. "I have allowed no plunder
ing," said the General; "and if I find a fellow
trying to do it, I will hang him as sure as my
name is Butler. See here," and as he spoke he
walked into a large woollen-draper's shop, where
bales of cloth were still lying on the shelves, and
many articles such as are found in a large general
store in a country town were disposed on the
floor or counters ; " they shall not accuse the
men under my command of being robbers." The
boast, however, was not so well justified in a
visit to another house occupied by some soldiers.
" Well," said the General, with a smile, " I dare
say you know enough of camps to have found out
that chairs and tables are irresistible; the men
will take them off to their tents, though they may
have to leave them next morning."

The principal object of our visit was the forti
fied trench which has been raised outside the
town towards the Confederate lines. The path
lay through a churchyard filled with most iute^
resting monuments. The sacred edifice of red
brick, with a square clock tower rent by light
ning, is rendered interesting by the fact that it is
almost the first church built by the English colo
nists of Virginia. On the tombstones are re
corded the names of many subjects of his Majesty
George III., and familiar names of persons born
in the early part of last century in English vil-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

155

lages, who passed to their rest before the great
rebellion of the Colonies had disturbed their no
tions of loyalty and respect to the Crown. Many
a British subject, too, lies there, whose latter
days must have been troubled by the strange
scenes of the war of independence. With what
doubt and distrust must that one at whose tomb
I stand have heard that George Washington was
making head against the troops ,of His Majesty
King George III. 1 How the hearts of the old
men who had passed the best years of their
existence, as these stories tell us, fighting for His
Majesty against the French, must have beaten
when once more they heard the roar of the
Frenchman's ordnance uniting with the voices of
the rebellious guns of the colonists from the
plains of Yorktown against the entrenchments in
which Cornwallis and his deserted band stood at
hopeless bay! But could these old eyes open
again, and see General Butler standing on the
eastern rampart which bounds their resting-place,
and pointing to the spot whence the rebel cavalry
of Virginia issue night and day to charge the
loyal pickets of His Majesty The Union, they
might take some comfort in the fulfilment of the
vaticinations which no doubt they uttered, "It
cannot, and it will not, come to good."

Having inspected the works — as far as I could
judge, too extended, and badly traced — which I
say with all deference to the able young engineer
who accompanied us to point out the various
objects of interest— the General returned to the
bridge, where we remounted, and made a tour of
the camps of the force intended to defend Hamp
ton, falling back on Fortress Monroe in case of
necessity. Whilst he was riding venire a terre,
which seems to be his favourite pace, his horse
stumbled in the dusty road, and in his effort to
keep his seat the General broke his stirrup lea
ther, and the ponderous brass stirrup fell to the
ground ; but, albeit a lawyer, ho neither lost his
seat nor his sany froid, and calling out to his or
derly " to pick up his toe plate," the jean slippers
were closely pressed, spurs and all, to the sides
of his steed, and away we went once more
through dust and heat so great I was by no
means sorry when he pulled up outside a pretty
villa, standing in a garden, which was occupied
by Colonel Max Weber, of the German Turner
Regiment, once the property of General Tyler.
The camp of the Turners, who are members of
various gymnastic societies, was situated close at
hand ; but I had no opportunity of seeing them
at work, as the Colonel insisted on our partaking
of the hospitalities of his little mess, and produced
some bottles of sparkling hock and a block of ice,
by no means unwelcome after our fatiguing ride.
His Major, whose name I have unfortunately for
gotten, and who spoke English better than his
chief, had served in some capacity or other in the
Crimea, and made many inquiries after the officers
of the Guards whom he had known there. I
took an opportunity of asking him in what state
the troops were. " The whole thing is a rob
bery," he exclaimed; "this war is for the con
tractors ; the men do not get a third of what the
Government pay for them ; as for discipline, my
God! it exists not. We Germans are well
enough, of course ; we know our affair ; but as
for the Americans, what would you ? They make
colonels out of doctors and lawyers, and captains
out of fellows who are not fit to brush a soldier's

shoe." "But the men get their pay?" "Yes;
that is so. At the end of two months, they get
it, arid by that time it is due to sutlers, who
charge them 100 per cent."

It is easy to believe these old soldiers do not
put much confidence in General Butler, though
they admit his energy. "Look you; one good
officer with 5000 steady troops, such as we have
in Europe, shall come down any night and walk
over us all into Fortress Monroe whenever he
pleased, if he knew how these troops were
placed."

On leaving the German Turners, the General
visited the camp of Duryea's New York Zouaves,
who were turned out at evening parade, or more
properly speaking, drill. But for the ridiculous
effect of their costume the regiment would have
looked well enough ; but riding down on the rear
of the ranks the discoloured napkins tied round
their heads, without any fez cap beneath, so that
the hair sometimes stuck up through the folds,
the ill-made jackets, the loose bags of red calico
hanging from their loins, the long gaiters of white
cotton — instead of the real Zouave yellow and
black greave, and smart white gaiter — made them
appear such military scarecrows, I could scarcely
refrain from laughing outright. Nevertheless the
men were respectably drilled, marched steadily
in columns of company, wheeled into line, and
went past at quarter distance at the double much
better than could be expected from the short
time they had been in the field, and I could with
all sincerity say to Col. Duryea, a smart and not
unpretentious gentleman, who asked my opinion
so pointedly that I could not refuse to give it,
that I considered the appearance of the regiment
very creditable. The shades of evening were
now falling, and as I had been up before 5 o'clock
in the morning, I was not sorry when General
Butler said, " Now we will go home to tea, or
you will detain the steamer." He had arranged
before I started that the vessel, which in ordinary
course would have returned to Baltimore at 8
o'c^pck, should remain till he sent down word to
the captain to go.

We scampered back to the fort, and judging
from the challenges and vigilance of the sen
tries, and inlying pickets, I am not quite so sa
tisfied as the Major that the enemy could have
surprised the place. At the tea-table there were
no additions to the General's family; he therefore
spoke without any reserve. Going over the
map, he explained his views in reference to future
operations, and showed cause, with more military
acumen than I could have expected from a gen
tleman of the long robe, why he believed For
tress Monroe was the true base of operations
against Richmond.

I have been convinced for some time, that if a
sufficient force could be left to cover Washington,
the Federals should move against Richmond from
the Peninsula, where they could form their depots
at leisure, and advance, protected by their gun
boats, on a very short line which offers far
greater facilities and advantages than the inland
route from Alexandria to Richmond, which, dif
ficult in itself from the nature of the country, is
exposed to the action of a hostile population, and,
above all, to the danger of constant attacks by
the enemies' cavalry, tending more or less to de
stroy all communication with the base of the Fe-
deral'operations.

156

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

The threat of seizing "Washington led to a
concentration of the Union troops in front of it,
which caused in turn the collection of the Con
federates on the lines below to defend Rich-
mpnd. It is plain that if the Federals can cover
Washington, and at the same time assemble a
force at Monroe strong enough to march on
Richmond, as they desire, the Confederates will
be placed in an exceedingly hazardous position,
scarcely possible to escape from; and there is
no reason why the North, with their over
whelming preponderance, should not do so, un
less they^be carried away by the fatal spirit of
brag arid bluster which comes from their press
to overrate their own strength and to despise
their enemy's. The occupation of Suffolk will
be seen, by any one who studies the map, to
afford a most powerful leverage to the Federal
forces from Monroe in their attempts to turn
the enemy out of their camps of communication,
and to enable them to menace Richmond as well
as the Southern States most seriously.

But whilst the General and I are engaged
over our maps and mint juleps, time flies, and
at last I perceive by the clock that it is time to
go. An aide is sent to stop the boat, but he
returns ere I leave with the news that " She is
gone." Whereupon the General sends for the
Quartermaster Talmadge, who is out in the
camps, and only arrives in time to receive a
severe "wigging." It so happened 'that I had
important papers to send off by the next mail
from New York, and the only chance of being
able to do so depended on my being in Balti-
Inore next day. General Butler acted with
kindness and promptitude in the matter. " I
promised you should go by the steamer, but the
captain has gone off without orders to leave,
for which he shall answer when I see him.
Meantime it is my business to keep my promise.
Captain Talmadge, you will at once go down
and give orders to the most suitable transport
steamer or chartered vessel available, to get up
steam at once and come up to the wharf for Mr.
Russell."

Whilst I was sitting in the parlor which
served as the General's office, there came in a
pale, bright-eyed, slim young man in a sub
altern's uniform, who sought a private audience,
and unfolded a plan he had formed, on certain
data gained by nocturnal expeditions, to sur
prise a body of the enemy's cavalry which was
in the habit of coming down every night and
disturbing the pickets at Hampton. His man
ner was so eager, his information so precise,
that the General could not refuse his sanction,
but he gave it in a characteristic manner.
" Well, sir, I understand your proposition. You
intend to go out as a volunteer to effect this
service. You ask my permission to get men for
it. I cannot grant you an order to any of the
officers in command of regiments to provide you
with these; but if the Colonel of your regiment
wishes to give leave to his men to volunteer,
> and they like to go with you, I give you leave
to take them. I wash my hands of all responsi
bility in the affair." The officer bowed and
retired, saying, "That is quite enough, Gene
ral."*

At 10 o'clock the Quartermaster came back
to say that a screw steamer called the Elizabeth
was getting up steam for my reception, and I
bade good-by to the General, and walked down
with his aide and nephew, Lieutenant Butler,
to the Hygeia Hotel to get my light knapsack.
It was a lovely moonlight night, and as I was
passing down an avenue of trees an officer
stopped me, and exclaimed, " General Butler,
I hear you have given leave to Lieutenant
Blank to take a party of my regiment and go
off scouting to-night after the enemy. It is too
hard that — " What more he was going to say
I know not, for I corrected the mistake, and
the officer walked hastily on towards the Gene
ral's quarters. On reaching the Hygeia Hotel
I was met by the correspondent of a New York
paper, who as commissary-general, or, as they
are styled in the States, officer of subsistence, had
been charged to get the boat ready, and who
explained to me it would be at least an hour
before the steam was up; and whilst I wag
waiting in the porch I heard many Virginian,
and old world stories as well, the general up
shot of which was that all the rest of the world
could be "done" at cards, in love, in drink, in
horseflesh, and in fighting, by the true-born
American. Gen. Butler came down after a
time, and joined our little society, nor was he
~by any means the least shrewd and humorous
raconteur of the party. At 11 o'clock the Eliza
beth uttered some piercing cries, which indi
cated she had her steam up ; and so I walked
down to the jetty, accompanied by my host and
his friends, and wishing them good bye, stepped
on board the little vessel, arid with the aid of
the negro cook, steward, butler, boots, and ser
vant, roused out the captain from a small
wooden trench which he claimed as his berth,
turned into it, and fell asleep just as the first
difficult convulsions of the screw aroused the
steamer from her coma, and forced her languid
ly against the tide in the direction of Balti
more.

July 15th. — I need not speak much of the
events of last night, which were not unimpor
tant, perhaps, to some of the insects which
played a leading part in them. The heat was
literally overpowering; for in addition to the
hot night there was the full power of most
irritable boilers close at hand to aggravate the
natural desagremens of the situation. About an
hour after dawn, when I turned out on deck,
there was nothing visible but a warm grey
mist ; but a knotty old pilot on deck told me
we were only going six knots an hour against
tide and wind, and that we were likely to make
less way as the day wore on. In fact, instead
of being near Baltimore, we were much nearer
Fortress Monroe. Need I repeat the horrors of
this day ? Stewed, boiled, baked, and grilled
on board this miserable Elizabeth, I wished M.
Montalembert could have experienced with m
what such an impassive nature could inflict in
misery on those around it. The captain was a
shy, silent man, much given to short naps in
my temporary berth, and the mate was so wild,
he might have swam off with perfect propriety
to the woods on either side of us, and taken to

* It may be stated here, that this expedition met with him, were killed by the cavalry whom he meant to sur-
ft disastrous result. If I mistake not, the offic«r, and prise, and several of the volunteers were also killed 01
with bim the correspondent of a paper who accompanied wounded.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

157

a tree as an aborigen or chimpanzee. Two men
of most retiring habits, the negro, a black boy,
and a very fat negress who officiated as cook,
filled up the "balance" of the crew.

I could not write, for the vibration of the
deck of the little craft gave a St. Vitus dance
to pen and pencil ; reading was out of the
question from the heat and flies ; and below
stairs the fat cook banished repose by vapours
from her dreadful caldi-ons, where, Medea-like,
she was boiling some death broth. Our break
fast was of the simplest and — may I add? — the
least enticing ; and if the dinner could have
been worse it was so ; though it was rendered
attractive by hunger, and by the kindness of
the sailors who shared it with me. The old
pilot had a most wholesome hatred of the
Britishers, and not having the least idea till
late in the day that I belonged to the old coun-
try, favoured me with some very remarkable
views respecting their general mischievousness
and inutility. As soon as he found out my
secret he became more reserved, and explained
tome that he had some reason for not liking us,
because all he had in the world, as pretty a
schooner as ever floated and a fine cargo, had
been taken and burnt by the English when they
sailed up the Potomac to Washington. He
served against us at Bladensburg. I did not
ask him how fast he ran ; but he had a good
rejoinder ready if I had done so, inasmuch as
he was up West under Commodore Perry on
the lakes when we suffered our most serious
reverses. Six knots an hour! hour after hour !
And nothing to do but to listen to the pilot.

On both sides a line of forest just visible
above the low shores. Small coasting craft,
schooners, pungys, boats laden with wood creep
ing along in the shallow water, or plying down
empty before wind and tide.

" I doubt if we'll be able to catch up them
forts afore night," said the skipper. The pilot

grunted, " I rather think yu'll not." " H

and thunder ! Then we'll have to lie off till
daylight?" "They may let you pass, Captain
Squires, as you've this Europe-an on board, but
anyhow we can't fetch Baltimore till late at
night or early in the morning."

I heard the dialogue, and decided very
quickly that as Annapolis lay somewhere ahead
on our left, and was much nearer than Balti
more, it would be best to run for it while there
was daylight. The captain demurred. He had
been ordered to take his vessel to Baltimore,
and General Butler might come down on him
for not doing so ; but I proposed to sign a lettej
stating he had gone to Annapolis at iny request,
and the steamer was put a point or two to
westward, much to the pleasure of the Palinu-
rus, whose " old woman" lived in the town. I
had an affection for this weather-beaten, watery-
eyed, honest old fellow, who hated us as cordial
ly as Jack detested his Frenchman in the old
days before ententes cordiales were known to
the world. He was thoroughly English in his
belief that he belonged to the only sailor race
in the world, and that they could beat all man
kind in seamanship ; and he spoke in the most
unaffected way of the Britishers as a survivor
of the old war might do of Johnny Crapaud —
"They were brave enough no doubt, but, Lord
bless you, see them in a gale of wind! or look

at them sending down top-gallant masts, or any
thing sailor-like in a breeze. Youd soon see
the differ. And, besides, they never can staud
again us at close quarters." By-and-by the
houses of a considerable town, crowned by
steeples* and a large Corinthian-looking build
ing, came in view. "That's the State House.
That's where George Washington — first in peace,
first in war, and first in the hearts of his
countrymen — laid down his victorious sword
without any one asking him, and retired amid
the applause of the civilized world." This
flight I am sure was the old man's treasured
relic of school-boy days, and I'm not sure ha
did not give it to me three times over. An
napolis looks very well from the river side.
The approach is guarded by some very poor
earthworks and one small fort. A dismantled
sloop of war lay off a sea wall, banking up a
green lawn covered with trees, in front of an
old-fashioned pile of buildings, which formerly,
I think, and very recently indeed, was occupied
by the cadets of the United States Naval School.
"There was a lot of them seceders. Lord bless
you! these young ones is all took by these
States Rights' doctrines — just as the ladies is
caught by a new fashion."

About seven o'clock the steamer hove along
side a wooden pier which was quite deserted.
Only some ten or twelve sailing boats, yachts,
and schooners lay at anchor in the placid
waters of the port which was once the capital
of Maryland, and for which the early Republi
cans prophesied a great future. But Baltimore
has eclipsed Annapolis into utter obscurity. I
walked to the only hotel in the place, and found
that the train for the junction with Washington
had started, and that the next train left at some
impossible hour in the morning. It is an odd
Rip Van Winkle sort of a place. Quaint-look
ing boarders came down to the tea-table and
talked Secession, and when I was detected, as
must ever soon be the case, owing to the hotel
book, I was treated to some ill-favoured glances,
as my recent letters have been denounced in
the strongest way for their supposed hostility
to States Rights and the Domestic Institution.
The spirit of the people has, however, been
broken by the Federal occupation, and by the
decision with which Butler acted when he came
down here with the troops to open communica
tions with Washington after the Baltimoreans
had attacked the soldiery on their way through
the city from the north.

CHAPTER XLYIII.

The " State House" at Annapolis — "Washington -Gene
ral Scott's quarters — "Want of a staff— Eival camps —
Demand for horses — Popular excitement — Lord Lyons
— General M Dowell's movements — Ketreat from Fair
fax Court House— General Scott'a quarters — General
Mansfield— Battle of Bull's Kun.

July 16th. — I baffled many curious and civil
citizens by breakfasting in my room, where I
remained writing till late in the day. In the
afternoon I walked to the State House. The
hall door was open, but the rooms were closed
and I remained in the hall, which is graced bj
two indifferent huge statues of Law and Justice
holding gas lamps, and by an old rusty cannon,
dug out of the river, and supposed to have

,58

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

belonged to the original British colonists, whilst
an officer whom I met in the portico went to
look for the porter and the keys. Whether he
succeeded I cannot say, for after waiting some
half hour I was warned by my watch, that it
was time to get ready for the train, which
started at 4.15 P.M. The country through
which the single line of rail passes is very
hilly, much wooded, little cultivated, cut up
by water-courses and ravines. At the junction
with the Washington line from Baltimore there
is a strong guard thrown out from the camp
near at hand. The officers, who had a mess in
a little wayside inn on the line, invited me to
rest till the train came up, and from them I
heard that an advance had been actually order
ed, and that if the " rebels" stood there would
soon be a tall fight close to Washington. They
were very cheery, hospitable fellows, and en
joyed their new mode of life amazingly. The
nien of the regiment to which they belonged
were Germans, almost to a man. When the
train came in I found it was full of soldiers,
and I learned that three more heavy trains
were to follow, in addition to four which had
already passed laden with troops.

On arriving at the Washington platform, the
first person I saw was General M'Dowell alone,
looking anxiously into the carriages. He asked
where I came from, and when he heard from
Annapolis, inquired eagerly if I had seen two
batteries of artillery — Barry's and another —
which he had ordered up, and was waiting for,
but which had " gone astray." I was surprised
to find the General engaged on such duty, and
took leave to say so. " Well, it is quite true,
Mr. Russell ; but I am obliged to look after
them myself, as I have so small a staff, and
they are all engaged out with my head-quar
ters. You are aware I have advanced ? No !
Well, you have just come in time, and I shall
be happy, indeed, to take you with me. I
have made arrangements for the correspondents
of our papers to take the field under certain
regulations, and I have suggested to them they
should wear a white uniform, to indicate the
purity of their character." The General could
hear nothing of his guns ; his carriage was
waiting, and I accepted his offer of a seat to
my lodgings. Although he spoke confidently,
he did not seem in good spirits. There was
the greatest difficulty in finding out anything
about the enemy. Beauregard was said to
have advanced to Fairfax Court House, but he
could not get any certain knowledge of the
fact. "Can you not order a reconnaissance?"
" Wait till you see the country. But even if
it were as flat as Flanders, I have not an officer
on whom I could depend for the work. They
would fall into some trap, or bring on a general
engagement when I did not seek it or desire it.
I have no cavalry such as you work with in
Europe." I think he was not so much disposed
to undervalue the Confederates as before, for
he said they had selected a very strong posi
tion, and had made a regular levee en masse of
the people of Virginia, as a proof of the energy
and determination with which they were enter
ing on the campaign.

As we parted the General gave me his photo
graph, and told me he expected to see me in a
few days at his quarters, but that I would have

plenty of time to get horses and* servants, and
such light equipage as I wanted, as there would
be no engagement for several days. On arriv
ing at rny lodgings I sent to the livery stables
to inquire after horses. None fit for the saddle
to be had at any price. The sutlers, the caval
ry, .the mounted officers, had been purchasing
up all the droves of horses which came to the
markets. M'Dowell had barely extra mounts
for his own use. And yet horses must be had ;
and, even provided with them, I must take the
field without tent or servant, canteen or food
— a waif to fortune.

July l^lth. — I went up to General Scott's
quarters, and saw some of his staff — young
men, some of whom knew nothing of soldiers,
not even the enforcing of drill — and found them
reflecting, doubtless, the shades which cross the
mind of the old chief, who was now seeking
repose. M'Dowell is to advance to-morrow
from Fairfax Court House, and will march some
eight or ten miles to Centreville, directly in
front of which, at a place called Manassas,
stands the army of the Southern enemy. I look
around me for a staff, and look in vain. There
are a few plodding old pedants, with map and
rules and compasses, who sit in small rooms
and write memoranda; and there are some
ignorant and not very active young men, who
loiter about the head-quarters' halls, and strut
up the street with brass spurs on their heels
and kepis raked over their eyes as though they
were soldiers, but I see no system, no order,
no knowledge, no dash!

\_/The worst-served English general has always
a young fellow or two about him who can fly
across country, draw a rough sketch map, ride
like a foxhunte •, and iind something out about
the enemy and their position, understand and
convey orders, and obey them. I look about
for the types of these in vain. M'Dowell can
find out nothing about the enemy ; he has not
a trustworthy map of the country ; no know
ledge of their position, force, or numbers. All
the people, he srtys, are against the Govern
ment. Fairfax Court House was abandoned as
he approached, the ene.ny in their retreat
being followed by the inhabitants. " Where
were the Confederate entrenchments ?" " Only
in the imagination of those New York news
papers ; when they want to fill up a column
they write a full account of the enemy's fortfi-
cations. No one can contradict them at the
time, and it's a good joke when it's found out
to be a lie." Colonel Cullum went over the
maps with me at General Scott's, and spoke
with some greater confidence of M'Dowell's
prospects of success. There is a considerable
force of Confederates at a place called Win
chester, which is connected with Manassas by
rail, and this force could be thrown on the
right of the Federals as they advanced, but
that another corps, under Patterson, is in ob
servation, with orders to engage them if they
attempt to move eastwards.

The batteries for which General M'Dowell
was looking last night have arrived, and were
sent on this morning. One is under Barry, of
the United States regular artillery, whom I met
at Fort Pickens. The other is a volunteer bat
tery. The onward movement of the army had
been productive of a great improvement in the

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

159

streets of Washington, which are no longer
crowded with turbulent and disorderly volun
teers, or by soldiers disgracing the name, who
accost you in the by-ways for money. There
aro comparatively few to-day ; small shoals,
which have escaped the meshes of the net, are
endeavouring to make the most of their time
before they cross the river to face the enemy.

Still horse-lmnting, but in vain — Gregson,
Wroe — et hoc genus omne. Nothing to sell
except at unheard-of rates ; tripeds, and the
like, much the worse for wear, and yet pos
sessed of some occult virtues, in right of which
the owners demanded egregious sums. Every
where I am offered a gig or a vehicle of some
kind or another, as if the example of General
Scott had rendered such a mode of campaign
ing the correct thing. I saw many officers
driving over the Long Bridge with large stores
of provisions, either unable to procure horses
or satisfied that a waggon was the chariot of
Mars. It is not fair to ridicule either officers
or men of this army, and if they were not so
inflated by a pestilent vanity, no one would
dream of doing so ; but the excessive bragging
and boasting in which the volunteers and the
press indulge really provoke criticism and tax
patience and forbearance overmuch. Even the
regular officers, who have some idea of military
efficiency, rather derived from education and
foreign travels than from actual experience,
bristle up and talk proudly of the patriotism of
the army, and challenge the world to show
such another, although in their hearts, and
more, with their lips, they own they do not
depend on them. The white heat of patriot
ism has cooled down to a dull black ; and I am
told that the gallant volunteers, who are to
conquer the world when they " have got
through with their present little job," are
counting up the days to the end of their ser
vice, and openly declare they will not stay a
day longer. This is pleasant, inasmuch as the
end of the term of many of M'Dowell's, and
most of Patterson's, three months' men, is near
at hand. They have been faring luxuriously
at the expense of the Government — they have
had nothing to do — they have had enormous
pay — they knew nothing, and were worthless
as to soldiering when they were enrolled.
Now, having gained all these advantages, and
being likely to be of use for the first time, they
very quietly declare they are going to sit under
their fig-trees, crowned with civic laurels and
myrtles, and all that sort of thing. But who
dare say they are not splendid fellows — full-
blooded heroes, patriots, and warriors — men
before whose majestic presence all Europe pales
and faints away ?

In the evening I received a message to say
that the advance of the army would take place
to-morrow as soon as General M'Dowell had
satisfied himself by a reconnaissance that he
could carry out his plan of turning the right
of the enemy by passing Occaguna Creek.
Along Pennsylvania Avenue, along the various
shops, hotels, and drinking-bars, groups of peo
ple were collected, listening to the most exag
gerated accounts of desperate fighting and of
the utter demoralisation of the rebels. I was
rather amused by hearing the florid accounts
which were given «n the hall of Willard'a b}

various inebriated officers, who were drawing
upon their imagination for their facts, knowing,
as I did, that the entrenchments at Fairfax
had been abandoned without a shot on the ad
vance of the Federal troops. The New York
papers came in with glowing descriptions oi
the magnificent march of the grand army of
the Potomac, which was stated to consist of
upwards of 70,000 men; whereas I knew not
half that number were actually on the field.
Multitudes of people believe General Winfield
Scott, who was now fast asleep in his modest
bed in Pennsylvania Avenue, is about to take
the field in person. The horse-dealers are still
utterly impracticable. A citizen who owned a
dark bay, spavine.d and ringboned, asked me
one thousand dollars for the right of posses
sion. I ventured to suggest that it was not
worth the money. " Well," said he, " take it
or leave it. If you want to see this fight a
thousand dollars is cheap. I guess there were
chaps paid more than that to see Jenny Lind
on her first night ; and this battle is not going
to be repealed, I can tell you. The price of
horses will rise when the chaps out there have
had themselves pretty well used up with bowie-
knives and six-shooters."

July 18th. — After breakfast. Leaving head
quarters, I went across to General Mansfield's,
and was going upstairs, when the General*
himself, a white-headed, grey«bearded, and
rather soldierly-looking man, dashed out of his
room in some excitement, and exclaimed, " Mr.
Russell, I fear there is bad news from the
front." "Are theyfighting, General?" "Yes,
sir. That fellow Tyler has been engaged, and
we are whipped." Again I went off to the
horse-dealer ; but this time the price of the
steed had beenlraised to £220 ; " for," says he,
" I don't want my animals to be ripped up by
them cannon and them musketry, and those
who wish to be guilty of such cruelty must
pay for it." At the War Office, at the Depart
ment of State, at the Senate, and at the White
House, messengers and orderlies running in and
out, military aides, and civilians with anxious
faces, betokeneu the activity and perturbation
which reigned within. I met Senator Sumner
radiant with joy. " We have obtained a great
success ; the rebels are falling back in all direc
tions. General Scott says we ought to be in
Richmond by Saturday night." Soon after
wards a United States officer, who had visited
me in company with General Meigs, riding
rapidly past, called out, " You have heard we
are whipped ; these confounded volunteers have
run away." I drove to the Capitol, where
people said one could actually see the smoke of
the cannon ; but on arriving there it was evi
dent that the fire from some burning houses,
and from wood cut down for cooking purposes,
had been mistaken for tokens of the fight.

It was strange to stand outside the walls of
the Senate whilst legislators were debating in
side respecting the best means of punishing the
rebels and traitors, and to think that amidst
the dim horizon of woods which bounded the
west towards the plains of Manassas, the army
of the United States wa,- then contending, at
least with doubtful fortune, against the forces

*Sincekilk.| inhctioi»

160

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

of the desperate and hopeless outlaws whose
fate these United States senators pretended to
hold in the hollow of their hands. Nor was it
unworthy of note that many of the tradespeo
ple along Pennsylvania Avenue, and the ladies
whom one saw sauntering in the streets, were
exchanging significant nods and smiles, and rub
bing their hands with satisfaction. I entered
one shop, where the proprietor and his wife ran
forward to meet me. "Have you heard the
news ? Beauregard has knocked them into a
cocked hat." " Believe me," said the good
lady, " it is the finger of the Almighty is in it.
Didn't he curse the niggers, and why should he
take their part now with these Yankee Aboli
tionists, against true white men?" "But how
do you know this ?" said I. " Why, it's all
true enough, depend upon it, no matter how
we know it. We've got our underground rail
way as well as the Abolitionists."

On my way to dinner at the Legation I met
the President crossing Pennsylvania Avenue,
striding like a "crane in a bulrush swamp among
the great blocks of marble, dressed in an oddly
cut suit of grey, with a felt hat on the back of
his head, wiping his face with a red-pocket-
handkerchief. He was evidently in a hurry,
on his way to the White House, where I believe
a telegraph has been established in communica
tion with M'Dowell's head-quarters. I may
mention, by-the-bye, in illustration of the ex
treme ignorance and arrogance which charac
terise the low Yankee, that a man in the uni
form of a Colonel said to me to-day, as I was
leaving the War Department, "They have just
got a telegraph from M'Dowell. Would it not
astonish you Britishers to hear that, as our
General moves on towards the enemy, he trails
a telegraph wire behind him just to let them
know in Washington which foot he is putting
first ?" I was imprudent enough to say, " I
assure you the use of the telegraph is not such
a novelty in Europe or even in India. When
Lord Clyde made his campaign the telegraph
was laid in his track as fast as he advanced."
"Oh7 well, come now," quoth^the Colonel,
"that's pretty good, that is; Inoelieve you'll
say next, your General Clyde and our Benjamin
Franklin discovered lightning simultaneously."

The calm of a Legation contrasts wonder
fully in troubled times with the excitement and
storm of the world outside. M. Mercier per
haps is moved to a vivacious interest in events.
M. Stoeckl becomes more animated as the time
approaches when he sees the fulfilment of his
prophecies at hand. M. Tassara cannot be in
different to occurrences which bear so directly
on the future of Spain in Western seas ; but all
these diplomatists can discuss the most engross
ing and portentous incidents of political and
military life, with a sense of calm and indif
ference which was felt by the gentleman who
resented being called out of his sleep to get up
out of a burning house because he was only a
lodger. *

There is no Minister of the European Powers
iu Washington who watches with so much in
terest the march of events as Lord Lyons, or
who feels as much sympathy perhaps in the
Federal Government as the constituted Execu
tive of the country to which he is accredited ;
but in virtue of his position he knows little or

nothing officially of what passes around him
and may be regarded as a medium for the com
munication of despatches to Mr. Seward. and
for the discharge of a great deal of most cause
less and unmeaning vituperation from the con
ductors of the New York press against Eng
land.

On my return to Captain Johnson's lodgings
I received a note from the head-quarters of the
Federals, stating that the serious action be
tween the two armies would probably be post
poned for some days. M'Dowell's original idea
was to avoid forcing the enemy's position
directly in front, which was defended by mov
able batteries commanding the fords over a
stream called " Bull's Run." He therefore pro
posed to make a demonstration on some point
near the centre of their line, and at the same
time throw the mass of his force below their
extreme right, so as to turn it and get posses
sion of the Manassas Railway in their rear : a
movement which would separate him, by-the-
bye, from his own communications, and enable
any general worth his salt to make a magnifi
cent counter by marching on Washington, only
21 miles away, which he could take with the
greatest ease, and leave the enemy in the rear
to march 120 miles to Richmond, if they dared,
or to make a hasty retreat upon the higher
Potomac, and to cross into the hostile country
of Maryland.

M'Dowell, however, has found the country
on his left densely wooded and difficult. It is
as new to him as it was to Braddock, when he
cut his weary way through forest and swamp
in this very district to reach, hundreds of miles
away, the scene of his fatal repulse at Fort Du
Quesne. And so, having moved his wholo
army, M'Dowell finds himself obliged to form a
new plan of attack, and, prudently fearful of
pushing his under-done and over-praised levies
into a river in face of an enemy, is endeavour
ing to ascertain with what chance of success he
can attack and turn their left.

Whilst he was engaged in a reconnaissance
to-day, General Tyler did one of those things
which must be expected from ambitious officers,
without any fear of punishment, in countries
where military discipline is scarcely known.
Ordered to reconnoitre the position of the ene
my on the left front, when the army moved
from Fairfax to Centreville this morning, Gene
ral T}Tler thrust forward some 3000 or 4000 men
of his division down to the very banks of
" Bull's Run," which was said to be thickly
wooded, and there brought up his men under a
heavy fire of artillery and musketry, from
which* they retired in confusion.

The papers from New York to-night are more
than usually impudent and amusing. The re
treat of the Confederate outposts from Fairfax
Court House is represented as a most extraor
dinary success; at best it was an affair of out
posts; but one would really think that it was
a victory of no small magnitude. I learn tha»
the Federal troops behaved in a most ruffianly
and lawless manner at Fairfax Court House. It
is but a bad beginning of a campaign for the
restoration of the Union, to rob, burn, and de
stroy the property and houses of the people in
the State of Virginia. The enemy are described
as running in all directions^ but it is evident

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

. f>

they did not intend to defend the advanced
works, which were merely constructed to pre
vent surprise or cavalry inroads.

I went to Willard's, where the news of the
battle, as it was called, was eagerly discussed.
One little man in front of the cigar-stand de
clared it was all an affair of cavalry. " But
how could that be among the piney woods and
with a river in front, major?" " Our boys, sir,
left their horses, crossed the water at a run,
and went right away through them with their
swords and six-shooters." " I tell you what it
is, Mr. Russell," said a man who followed me
out of the crowd and placed his hand on my
shoulder, " they we're whipped like curs, and
they ran like curs, and I know it." "How?"
" Well, I'd rather be excused telling you."

July IQth. — I rose early this morning in
order to prepare for contingencies and to see
off Captain Johnson, who was about to start
with despatches for New York, containing, no
doubt, the intelligence that the Federal troops
had advanced against the enemy. Yesterday
was so hot that officers and men on the field
suffered from something like sun-stroke. To
unaccustomed frames to-day the heat felt un-
supportable. A troop of regular cavalry, rid
ing through the street at an early hour, were
so exhausted, horse and man, that a runaway
cab could have bowled them over like nine
pins

I hastened to General Scott's quarters, which
were besieged by civilians outside and full of
orderlies and officers within. Mr. Cobden
would be delighted with the republican sim
plicity of the Commander-in-Chiefs establish
ment, though it did not strike me as being very
cheap at the money on such an occasion. It
consists, in fact, of a small three-storied brick
house, the parlours on the ground floor being
occupied by subordinates, the small front room
on the first floor being appropriated to General
Scott himself, the smaller back room being de
voted to his staff, and two rooms up-stairs most
probably being in possession of waste papers
and the guardians of the mansion. The walls
are covered with maps of the coarsest descrip
tion and with rough plans and drawings, which
afford information and amusement to the order
lies and the stray aide-de-camps. " Did you
ever hear anything so disgraceful in your life
as the stories which are going about of the
affair yesterday ?" said Colonel Cullum. " I
assure you it was the smallest affair possible,
although the story goes that we have lost
thousands of men. Our total loss is under
ninety — killed, wounded, and missing; and I
regret to say nearly one-third of the whole are
under the latter head." " However that may
be, Colonel," said I, "it will be difficult to be
lieve your statement after the columns of type
which appear in the papers here." "Oh!
Who minds what they say ?" " You will ad
mit, at any rate, that the retreat of these un
disciplined troops from an encounter with the
enemy will have a bad effect ?" " Well, I sup
pose that's likely enough, but it will soon be
jwept away in the excite'ment of a general
advance. General Scott, having determined to
attack the enemy, will not halt now, and I am
going over to Brigadier M'Dowell to examine
the ground and see what is best to be dons."

On leaving the room two officers came out of
General Scott's apartment; one of them said
" Why, Colonel, he's not half the man I thought
him. Well, any way he'll be better there than
M'Dowell. If old Scott had legs he's good foi
a big thing yet."

For hours I went horse-hunting ; but Roths
child himself, even the hunting Baron, could
not have got a steed. In Pennsylvania Avenue
the people were standing in the shade undei
the ailantus trees, speculating on the news
brought by dusty orderlies, or on the ideas oi
passing Congress men. A party of captured
Confederates, on their march to General Mans
field's quarters, created intense interest, and 1
followed them to the house, and went up to
see the General, whilst the prisoners sat down
on the pavement and steps outside. Notwith
standing his affectation of calm and self-pos
session, General Mansfield, who was charged
with the defence of the town, was visibly per
turbed. " These things, sir," said he, " happen
in Europe too. If the capital should fall into
the hands of the rebels the United States will
be no more destroyed than they were when
you burned it." From an expression he let fall,
I inferred he did not very well know what tc
do with his prisoners. " Rebels taken in arma
in Europe are generally hung or blown away
from guns, I believe ; but we are more merci
ful." General Mansfi.eld evidently wished to
be spared the embarrassment of dealing with
prisoners.

I dined at a restaurant kept by one Boulan-
ger, a Fre.nchman, who utilised the swarms oi
flies infestmg his premises by combining masses
of them with his soup and made dishes. At
an adjoining table were a lanky boy in a lieu
tenant's uniform, a private soldier, and a man
in plain clothes ; and for the edification of the
two latter the warrior youth was detailing the
most remarkable stories, in the Munchausen
style, ear ever heard. " Well, sir, I tell you,
when his head fell off on the ground, his eyee
shut and opened twice, and his tongue came
out with an expression as if he wanted to say
something." " There were seven balls through
my coat, and it was all so spiled with blood
and powder, I took it off and threw it in the
road. When the boys were burying the dead,
I saw this coat on a chap who had been just
smothered by the weight of the killed and
wounded on the top of him, and I says, ' Boys
give me that coat ; it will just do for me with
the same rank ; and there is no use in putting
good cloth on a dead body.' " " And how
many do you suppose was killed, Lieutenant ?"
" Well, sir 1 it's my honest belief, I tell you,
there was not less than 5000 of our boys, and
it may be twice as many of the enemy, or
more; they were all shot down just like pi
geons ; you might walk for five rods by the
side of the Run, and not be able to put your
foot on the ground." " The dead was that
thick?" "No, but the dead and the wounded
together." No incredulity in the hearers — all
swallowed: possibly disgorged into the note
book of a Washington contributor.

After dinner I walked over with Lieutenant
H. Wise, inspected a model of Stevens' ram,
which appears to me an utter impossibility iu
face of the iron-clad embrasured fleet' now

162

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

coming up to view, though it is spoken of highly
by some naval officers and by many politicians.
For years their papers have been indulging in
mysterious volcanic puffs from the great centre
of nothingness as to this secret and tremendous
war-engine, which was surrounded by walls of
all kinds, and only to be let out on the world
when the Great Republic in its might had re-
eolved to sweep everything off the seas. And
lo ! it is an abortive ram ! Los Gringos went
home, and I paid a visit to a family whose
daughters — bright-eyed, pretty and clever —
were seated out on the door-steps amid the
lightning flashes, one of them, at least, dreaming
with open eyes of a young artillery officer
then sleeping among his guns, probably, in front
of Fairfax Court House.

CHAPTER XLIX.

Skirmish at Bull's Run— The Crisis in Congress— Dearth
of Horses— War Prices at Washington— Estimate of tho
effects of Bull's Eun — Password and Countersign —
Transatlantic View of " Tho Times"— Difficulties of a
Newspaper Correspondent IE the Field.

July Wth.— The great battle which is to ar
rest rebellion, or to make it a power in the 'land,
is no longer distant or doubtful. M 'Do well has
completed his reconnaissance of the country in
front of the enemy, and General Scott antici
pates that he will be in possessiou of Manassas
to-morrow night. All the statements of officers
concur in describing the Confederates as strong
ly entrenched along the line of Bull's Run
covering the railroad. The New York papers,
indeed, audaciously declare that the enemy have
fallen back in disorder. In the main thorough-
tares of the city there is still a scattered army
of idle soldiers moving through the civil crowd,
though how they come here no one knows.
The officers clustering round the hotels, and
running in and out of the bar-rooms and eating-
houses, are still more numerous. When I in
quired at the head-quarters who these were,
the answer was that the majority were skulkers,
but that there was no power at such a moment
to send them back to their regiments or punish
the:n. In fact, deducting the reserves, the rear
guards, and the scanty garrisons at the earth
works, M'Dowell will not have 25,000 men to
undertake his seven day's march through a hos
tile country to the Confederate capital, and yet,
strange to say, in the pride and passion of the
politicians, no doubt is permitted to rise for a
moment respecting his complete success.

I was desirous of seeing what impression was
produced upon the Congress of the United
States by the crisis which was approaching, and
drove down to the Senate at noon. There was
no appearance of popular enthusiasm, excite
ment, or emotion, among the people in the pas
sages. They drank their iced water, ate eakes
or lozenges, chewed and chatted, or dashed at
their acquaintances amongst the members, as
though nothing more important than a railway
bill or a postal concession was being debated
inside. I entered the Senate, and found the
House engaged in not listening to Mr. Latham,
the Senator for California, who was delivering
an elaborate lecture on the aspect of political
affairs from a Republican point of view. The

Senators were, as usual, engaged in reading
newspapers, writing letters, or in whispered
conversation, whilst the Senator received his
applause from the people in the galleries, who
were scarcely restrained from stamping their
feet at the most highly-flown passages. Whilst
I was listening to what is by courtesy called
the debate, a messenger from Centreville sent
in a letter to me, stating that General M'Dowel
would advance early in the morning, and ex
pected to engage the enemy before noon. At
the same moment a Senator who had received
a despatch left his seat and read it to a brother
legislator, and the news it contained was speed
ily diffused from one seat to another, and groups
formed on the edge of the floor eagerly discuss
ing the welcome intelligence.

The President's hammer again and again
called them to order ; and from out of this knot,
Senator Surnner, his face lighted with pleasure,
came to tell me the good news. "M'Dowell
has carried Bull's Run without firing a shot.
Seven regiments attacked it at the point of the
bayonet, and the enemy immediately fled. Ge
neral Scott only gives M'Dowell till mid-day
to-morrow to be in possession of Manassas."
Soon afterwards, Mr. Hay, the President's secre
tary, appeared on the floor to communicate a
message to the Senate. I asked him if the
news was true. " All I can tell you," said he,
" is that the President has heard nothing at all
about it, and that General Scott, from whom
we have just received a communication, is
equally ignorant of the reported success."

Some Senators and many Congress-men have
already gone to join M'Do-well's army, or to
follow in its wake, in the hope of seeing the
Lord deliver the Philistines into his hands. As
I was leaving the Chamber with Mr. Sumner, a
dust-stained, toil-worn man, caught the Senator
by the arm, and said, " Senator, I am one of

your constituents. I come from town,

in Massachusetts, and here are letters from
people you know, to certify who I am. My poor
brother was killed yesterday, and I want to go
out and get his body to send back to the old
people ; but they won't let me pass without an
order." And so Mr. Sumner wrote a note to
General Scott and another to General Mans
field, recommending that poor Gordon Frazer
should be permitted to go through the Federal
lines on his labour of love ; and the honest
Scotchman seemed as grateful as if he had al
ready found his brother's body.

Every carnage, gig, waggon, and hack has
been engaged by people going out to see the
fight. The price is enhanced by mysterious
communications respecting the horrible slaugh
ter in the skirmishes at Bull's Run. The French
cooks and hotel-keepers, by some occult process
of reasoning, have arrived at the conclusion that
they must treble the prices of their wines and of
the hampers of provisions which the Washington
people are ordering to comfort themselves at
their bloody Derby. "There was not less thun
18,000 men, sir, killed and destroyed. I don't
care what General Scott says to the contrary, he
was not thei-e. I saw a reliable gentleman, ten
minutes ago, as cum straight from the .place, and
he swore there was a string of waggons three
miles long with the wounded. While these Yan
kees lie so, I should not be surprised to hear they

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

163

did not lose 1000 men in that big "fight the day
before yesterday."

When the newspapers came in from New York
I read flaming accounts of the ill-conducted re
connaissance against orders, which was termin
ated by a most dastardly and ignominious re
treat, "due," say the New York papers, "to the
inefficiency and cowardice of some of the offi
cers." Far different was the behaviour of the
modest chroniclers of these scenes, who, as they
tell us, "stood their ground as well as any of
them, in spite of the shot, shell, and rifle-balls
that whizzed past them for many hours." Gen
eral Tyler alone, perhaps, did more, for "he
was exposed to the enemy's fire for nearly four
hours ;" and when we consider that this fire came
from masked batteries, and that the wind of
round shot is unusually destructive (in America),
we can better appreciate the danger to which he
was so gallantly indifferent. It is obvious that
in this first encounter the Federal troops gained
no advantage ; and as they were the assailants,
their repulse, which cannot be kept secret from
the rest of the army, will have a very damaging
effect on their morale.

General Johnston, who has been for some days
with a considerable force in an entrenched posi
tion at Winchester, in the valley of the Shenan-
doah, had occupied General Scott's attention, in
consequence of the facility which he possessed to
move into Maryland by Harper's Ferry, or to fall
on the Federals by the Manassas Gap Railway,
which was available by a long march from the
town he occupied. General Patterson, with a
Fedei'al corps of equal strength, had accordingly
been despatched to attack him, or, at all events,
to prevent his leaving Winchester without an ac
tion ; but the news to-night is that Patterson,
who was an officer of some reputation, has al
lowed Johnston to evacuate Winchester, and has
not pursued him ; so that it is impossible to pre
dict where the latter will appear.

Having failed utterly in my attempts to get a
horse, I was obliged to negotiate with a livery-
stable keeper, who had a hooded gig, or tilbury,
ieft on his hands, to which he proposed to add a
splinter-bar and pole, so as to make it available
for two horses, on condition that I paid him the
assessed value of the vehicle and horses, in case
they \vere destroyed by the enemy. Of what par
ticular value my executors might have regarded
the guarantee in question, the worthy man did
not inquire, nor did he stipulate for any value to
be put upon the driver ; but it struck me that,
if these were in any way seriously damaged, the
occupants of the vehicle were not likely to es
cape. The driver, indeed, seemed by no means
willing to undertake the job ; and again and
again it was proposed to me that I should drive,
but I persistently refused.

On completing my bargain with the stable-
keeper, in which it was arranged with Mr. Wroe
that I was to start on the following morning ear
ly, and return at night before twelve o'clock, or
pay a double day, I went over to the Legation,
and found Lord Lyons in the garden. I went
to request that he would"permit Mr. Warre, one
of the attaches, to accompany me, as he had ex
pressed a desire to that effect. His Lordship
hesitated at first, thinking perhaps that the Amer
ican papers would turn the circumstance to some
base uses, if they were made aware of it ; but

finally he consented, on the distinct assurance
that I was to be back the following night, and
would not, under any event, proceed onwards
with General M'Dowell's army till after I had
returned to Washington. On talking over the
matter with Mr. Warre, I resolved that the best
plan would be to start that night if possible, and
proceed over the long bridge, so as to overtake
the army before it advanced in the early morn
ing.

It was a lovely moonlight night. As we walk
ed through the street to General Scott's quarters,
for the purpose of procuring a pass, there was
scarcely a soul abroad; and the silence which
reigned contrasted strongly with the tumult pre
vailing in the day-time. A light glimmered in
the General's parlour ; his aides were seated in
the verandah outside smoking in silence, and
one of them handed us the passes which he had
promised to procure ; but when I told them that
we intended to cross the long bridge that night,
an unforeseen obstacle arose. The guards had
been specially ordered to permit no person to
cross between tattoo and daybreak who was not
provided with the countersign ; and without the
express order of the General, no subordinate of
ficer can communicate that countersign to a
stranger. "Can you not ask the General?"
"He is lying down asleep, and I dare not ven
ture to disturb him."

As I had all along intended to start before
daybreak, this contretemps promised to be very
embarrassing, and I ventured to suggest that
General Scott would authorise the countersign
to be given when he awoke. But the aide-de
camp shook his head, and I began to suspect from
his manner and from that of his comrades that
my visit to the army was not regarded with much
favour — a view which was confirmed by one of
them, who, by the way, was a civilian, for in a
few minutes he said, "In fact, I would not ad
vise Warre and you to go out there at all ; they
are a lot of volunteers and recruits, and we can't
say how they will behave. They may probably
have to retreat. If I were you I would not be
near them." Of the five or six officers who sat
in the verandah, not one spoke confidently or
with the briskness which is usual when there is
a chance of a brush with an enemy.

As it was impossible to force the point, we had
to retire, and I went once more to the horse
dealer's, where I inspected the vehicle and the
quadrupeds destined to draw it. I had spied in
the stall a likely-looking Kentuckian nag, near
ly black, light, but strong, and full of fire, with
an undertaker's tail and something of a mane to
match, which the groom assured me I could not
even look at, as it was bespoke by an officer ; but
after a little strategy I prevailed on the proprie
tor to hire it to me for the day, as well as a boy,
who was to ride it after the gig till we came to
Centreville. My little experience in such scenes
decided me to secure a saddle-horse. I knew it
would be impossible to see anything of the ac
tion from a gig ; that the roads would be blocked
up by commissariat waggons, ammunition re
serves, and that in case of anything serious tak
ing place, I should be deprived of the chance of
participating after the manner of my vocation in
the engagement, and of witnessing its incidents.
As it was not incumbent on my companion to
approach so closely to the scene of action, be

164

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

could proceed in the vehicle to the most conven
ient point, and then walk as far as he liked, and
return when he pleased ; but from the injuries I
received in the Indian campaign, I could not
walk very far. It was finally settled that the
gig, with two horses and the saddle-horse ridden
by a negro boy, should be at my door as soon
after daybreak as we could pass the Long Bridge.

I returned to my lodgings, laid out an old pair
of Indian boots, cords, a Himalayan suit, an old
felt hat, a flask, revolver, and belt. It was very
late when I got in, and I relied on my German
landlady to procure some commissariat stores ;
but she declared the whole extent of her means
would only furnish some slices of bread, with in
tercostal layers of stale ham and mouldy Bo
logna sausage. I was forced to be content, and
got to bed after midnight, and slept, having first
arranged that in case of my being very late next
night a trustworthy Englishman should be sent
for, who would carry my letters from Washing
ton to Boston in time for the mail which leaves
on Wednesday. My mind had been so much oc
cupied with the coming event that I slept unea
sily, and once or twice I started up, fancying I
was called. The moon shone in through the
musquito curtains of my bed, and just ere day
break I was aroused by some noise in the ad
joining room, and looking out, in a half dreamy
state, imagined I saw General M'Dowell stand
ing at the table, on which a candle was burning
low, so distinctly that I woke up with the words,
"General, is that you?" Nor did I convince
myself it was a dream till I had walked into the
room.

July 21st. — The calmness and silence of the
streets of Washington this lovely morning sug
gested thoughts of the very different scenes
which, in all probability, were taking place at a
few miles' distance. One could fancy the hum
and stir round the Federal bivouacs, as the troops
woke up and were formed into column of march
towards the enemy. I much regretted that I
was not enabled to take the field with General
M'Dowell's army, but my position was surround
ed with such difficulties that I could not pursue
the course open to the correspondents of the
American newspapers. On my arrival in Wash
ington I addressed an application to Mr. Cam
eron, Secretary at War, requesting him to sanc
tion the issue of rations and forage from the
Commissariat to myself, a servant, and a couple
of horses, at the contract prices, or on whatever
other terms he might think fit, and I had sever
al interviews with Mr. Leslie, the obliging and
indefatigable chief clerk of the War Department,
in reference to the matter ; but as there was a
want of precedents for such a course, which was
not at all to be wondered at, seeing that no rep
resentative of an English, newspaper had ever
been sent to chronicle the progress of an Amer
ican army in the field, no satisfactory result
could be arrived at, though I had many fair
words and promises.

A great outcry had arisen in the North against
the course and policy of England, and the jour
nal I represented was assailed on all sides as a
Secession organ, favourable to the rebels and ex
ceedingly hostile to the Federal government and
the cause of the Union. Public men in Amer
ica are alive to the inconveniences of attacks by
their own press ; and as it was quite impossible

to grant to the swarms of correspondents from
all parts of the Union the permission to draw
supplies from the public stores, it would have af
forded a handle to turn the screw upon the War
Department, already roundly abused in the most
influential papers, if Mr. Cameron acceded to
me, not merely a foreigner, but the correspond
ent of a foreign journal which was considered
the most powerful enemy of the policy of his gov
ernment, privileges which he denied to Ameri
can citizens, representing newspapers which were
enthusiastically supporting the cause for which
the armies of the North were now in the field.

To these gentlemen indeed, I must here re
mark, such privileges were of little consequence.
In every camp they had friends who were will
ing to receive them in their quarters, and who
earned a word of praise in the local papers for
the gratification of either their vanity or their
laudable ambition in their own neighbourhood,
by the ready service which they afforded to the
correspondents. They rode Government horses,
had the use of Government waggons, and through
fear, favour, or affection, enjoyed facilities to
which I had no access. I could not expect per
sons with whom I was unacquainted to be equal
ly generous, least of all when by doing so they
would have incurred popular obloquy and cen
sure ; though many officers in the army had ex
pressed in very civil terms the pleasure it would
give them to see me at their quarters in the field.
Some days ago I had an interview with Mr.
Cameron himself, who was profuse enough in
promising that he would do all in his power to
further my wishes ; but he had, nevertheless, neg
lected sending me the authorisation for which
I had applied. I could scarcely stand a baggage
train and commissariat upon my own account,
nor could I well participate in the system of
plunder and appropriation which has marked
the course of the Eederal army so far, devastat
ing and laying waste all the country behind it.

Hence, all I could do was to make a journey
to see the army on the field, and to return to
Washington to write my report of its first opera
tion, knowing there would be plenty of time to
overtake it before it could reach Richmond, when,
as I hoped, Mr. Cameron would be prepared to
accede to my request, or some plan had been de
vised by myself to obviate the difficulties which
lay in my path. There was no entente cordiale
exhibited towards me by the members of the
American press ; nor did they, any more than
the generals, evince any disposition to help the
alien correspondent of the Times, and my only
connection with one of their body, the young de
signer, had not, indeed, inspired me with any
great desire to extend my acquaintance. Gen
eral M'Dowell, on giving me the most hospita
ble invitation to his quarters, refrained from of
fering the assistance which, perhaps, it was not
in his power to afford ; and I confess, looking at
the matter calmly, I could scarcely expect that
he would, particularly as he said, half in jest,
half seriously, " I declare I am not quite easy at
the idea of having your eye on me, for you have
seen so much of European armies, you will, very
naturally, think little of us, generals and all."

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

165

CHAPTER L.

To the scene of action — The Confederate camp — Centre-
ville— Action at Bull Run— Defeat of the Federals-
Disorderly retreat to (Jentreville — My ride back to
Washington.

PUNCTUAL to time our carriage appeared at
the door, with a spare horse, followed by the
black quadruped on which the negro boy sat
with difficulty, in consequence of its high spirits
and excessively hard mouth. I swallowed a cup
of tea and a morsel of bread, put the remainder
of the tea into a bottle, got a flask of light Bor
deaux, a bottle of water, a paper of sandwiches,
and having replenished my small flask with bran
dy, stowed them all away in the bottom of the
gig ; but my friend, who is not accustomed to
rise very early in the morning, did not make his
appearance, and I was obliged to send several
times to the legation to quicken his movements.
Each time I was assured he would be over pres
ently ; but it was not till two hours hud elapsed,
and* when I had just resolved to leave him be
hind, that he appeared in person, quite unpro
vided with viaticum, so that my slender store had
now to meet the demands of two instead of one.
We are off at last. The amicus and self find
contracted space behind the driver. The negro
boy, grinning half with pain and " the balance"
with pleasure, as the Americans say, held on his
rampant charger, which made continual efforts
to leap into the gig, and thus through the de
serted city we proceeded towards the Long
Bridge, where a sentry examined our papers,
and said with a grin, "You'll find plenty of Con
gressmen on before you." And then our driver
whipped his horses through the embankment of
Fort Runyon, and dashed off along a country
road, much cut up with gun and cart wheels, to
wards the main turnpike.

The promise of a lovely day, given by the ear
ly dawn, was likely to be realised to the fullest,
and the placid beauty of the scenery as we drove
through the woods below Arlington, and beheld
the white buildings shining in the early sunlight,
and the Potomac, like a broad silver riband di
viding the picture, breathed of peace. The si
lence close to the city was unbroken. From
the time we passed the guard beyond the Long
Bridge, for several miles we did not meet a hu
man being, except a few soldiers in the neigh
bourhood of the deserted camps, and when we
passed beyond the range of tents we drove for
nearly two hours through a densely-wooded, un
dulating country ; the houses, close to the road
side, shut up and deserted, window-high in the
crops of Indian corn, fast ripening for the sickle ;
alternate field and forest, the latter generally
still holding possession of the hollows, and, ex
cept when the road, deep and filled with loose
stones, passed over the summit of the ridges, the
eye caught on either side little but fir-trees and
maize, and the deserted wooden houses, standing
amidst the slave quarters.

The residences close to the lines gave signs
and tokens that the Federals had recently visit
ed them. But at the best of times the inhabit
ants could not be very well off. Some of the
farms were small, the houses tumbling to decay,
with unpainted roofs and side walls, and win
dows where the want of glass was supplemented
by panes of wood. As we got further into the
country the traces of the debateable land between

the two armies vanished, and negroes looked out
from their quarters, or sickly-looking women and
children were summoned forth by the rattle of
the wheels to see who was hurrving to the war.
Now and then a white man looked out, with an
ugly scowl on his face, but the country seemed
drained of the adult male population, and such
of the inhabitants as we saw were neither as
comfortably dressed nor as healthy looking as
the shambling slaves who shuffled about the
plantations. The road was so cut up by gun-
wheels, ammunition and commissariat waggons,
that our horses made but slow way against the
continual draft upon the collar; but at last the
driver, who had known the country in happier
times, announced that we had entered the high
road for Fairfax Court-house. Unfortunately
my watch had gone down, but I guessed it was
then a little before nine o'clock. In a few min
utes afterwards I thought I heard, through the
eternal clatter and jingle of the old gig, a sound
which made me call the driver to stop. He
pulled up, and we listened. In a minute or so,
the well-known boom of a gun, followed by two
or three in rapid succession, bnt at a considera
ble distance, reached my ear. "Did you hear
that?" The driver heard nothing, nor did my
companion, but the black boy on the led horse,
with eyes starting out of his head, cried, "I hear
them, massa ; I hear them, sure enough, like de
gun in de navy yard ;" and as he spoke the thud
ding noise, like taps with a gentle hand upon a
muffled drum, were repeated, which were heard
both by Mr. Warre and the driver. "They are
at it ! We shall be late ! Drive on as fast as
you can !" We rattled on still faster, and pres
ently came up to a farm-house, where a man
and woman, with some negroes beside them,
were standing out by the hedge-row above us,
looking up the road in the direction of a cloud
of dust, which we could see rising above the tops
of the trees. We halted for a moment. "How
long have the guns been going., sir?" "Well,
ever since early this morning," said he ; " they've
been having a fight. And I do really believe
some of our poor Union chaps have had enough
of it already. For here's some of them darned
Secessionists marching down to go to Alexan-
dry." The driver did not seem altogether con
tent with this explanation of the dust in front of
us, and presently, when a turn of the road brought
to view a body of armed men, stretching to an
interminable distance, with bayonets glittering
in the sunlight through the clouds of dust, seem
ed inclined to halt or turn back again. A nearer
approa-ch satisfied me they were friends, and as
soon as we came up with the head of the column
I saw that they could not be engaged in the per
formance of any military duty. The men were
marching without any resemblance of order, in
twos and threes or larger troops. Some with
out arms, carrying great bundles on their backs ;
others with their coats hung from their firelocks ;
many foot sore. They were all talking and in
haste ; many plodding along laughing, so I con
cluded that they could not belong to a defeated
army, and imagined M'Dowell was effecting
some flank movement. "Where are you going
to, may I ask?"

" If this is the road to Alexandria, we are go
ing there."

" There is an action going on in front, is there
not?"

166

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

"Well, so we believe, but we have not been
fighting."

Although they were in such good spirits, they
were not communicative, and we resumed our
journey, impeded by the straggling troops and
by the country cars containing their baggage
and chairs, and tables and domestic furniture,
which had never belonged to a regiment in the
field. Still they came pouring on. I ordered
the driver to stop at a rivulet, where a number
of men were seated in the shade, drinking the
water and bathing their hands and feet. On
getting out 1 asked an ofticer, "May I beg to
know, sir, where your regiment is going to?"
"Well, I reckon, sir, we are going home to Penn
sylvania." " This is the 4th Pennsylvania Reg
iment, is it not, sir?" " It is so, sir; that's the
fact." " I should think there is severe fighting
going on behind you, judging from the firing
(for every moment the sound of the cannon had
been growing more distinct and more heavy)?"
" Well, I reckon, sir, there is." I paused for a
moment, not knowing what to say, and yet anx
ious for an explanation ; and the epauletted gen
tleman, after a few second's awkward hesitation,
added, " We are going home because, as you see,
the men's time's up, sir. We have had three
months of this sort of work, and that's quite
enough of it." The men who were listening to
the conversation expressed their assent to the
noble and patriotic utterances of the centurion,
and, making him a low bow, we resumed our
journey.

It was fully three and a half miles before the
last of the regiment passed, and then the ro'ad
presented a more animated scene, for white-cov
ered commissariat waggons were visible, wending
towards the front, and one or two hack carriages,
laden with civilians, were hastening in the same
direction. Before the. doors of the wooden farm
houses the coloured people were assembled, listen
ing with outstretched necks to the repeated re
ports of the guns. At one time, as we were de
scending the wooded road, a huge blue dome,
agitated by some internal convulsion, appeared
to bar our progress, and it was only after infinite
persuasion of rein and whip that the horses ap
proached the terrific object, which was an inflated
balloon, attached to a waggon, and defying the
efforts of the men in charge to jockey it safely
through the trees.

It must have been about eleven o'clock when
we came to the first traces of the Confederate
camp, in front of Fairfax Court-house, where
they had cut a few trenches and levelled the
trees across the road, so as to form a rude abat-
tis ; but the works were of a most superficial
character, and would scarcely have given cover
either to the guns, for which embrasures were left
at the flanks to sweep the road, or to the infantry
intended to defend them.

The Confederate force stationed here must have
consisted, to a considerable extent, of cavalry.
The bowers of branches, which they had made
to shelter their tents, camp tables, empty boxes,
and packing-cases, in the debris one usually sees
around an encampment, showed they had not
been destitute of creature comforts.

Some time before noon the driver, urged con
tinually by adjurations to get on, whipped his
horses into Fairfax Court-house, a village which
derives its name from a large brick building, in

which the sessions of the county are held. Some
thirty or forty houses, for the most part detach
ed, with gardens or small strips of land about
them, form the main street. The inhabitants
who remained had by no means an agreeable ex
pression of countenance, and did not seem on
very good terms with the Federal soldiers, who
were lounging up and down the streets, or stand
ing in the shade of the trees and doorways. I
asked the sergeant of a picket in the street how
long the firing had been going on. He replied
that it had commenced at half-past seven or
eight, and had been increasing ever since.
"Some of them will lose their eyes and back
teeth," he said, "before it is over." The driver,
pulling up at a roadside inn in the town, here
made the startling announcement that both he
and his horses must have something to e?.t, r.nd
although we would have been happy to join him,
seeing that we had no breakfast, we could not
afford the time, and were not displeased when a
thin-faced, shrewish woman, in black, came out
into the verandah, and said she could not let us
have anything unless we liked to wait till the
regular dinner hour of the house, which was at
one o'clock. The horses got a bucket of water,
which they needed in that broiling sun ; and the
cannonade, which by this time had increased into
a respectable tumult that gave evidence of a
well-sustained action, added vigour to the driv
er's arm, and in a mile or two more we dashed
into a village of burnt houses, the charred brick
chimney stacks standing amidst the blackened
embers being all that remained of what was once
German Town. The firing of this village was
severely censured by General M'Dowell, who
probably does not appreciate the value of such
agencies employed " by our glorious Union army
to develope loyal sentiments among the people of
Virginia."

The driver, passing through the town, drove
straight on, but after some time I fancied the
sound of the guns seemed dying away towards
our left. A big negro came shambling along
the roadside — the driver stopped and asked him,
"Is this the road to Centreville?" "Yes, sir;
right on, sir : good road to Centreville, massa,"
and so we proceeded, till I became satisfied from,
the appearance of the road that we had altogeth
er left the track of the army. At the first cot
tage we halted, and inquired of a Virginian,
who came out to look at us, whether the road
led to Centreville. "You're going to Centre
ville, are you ?" " Yes, by the shortest road we
can." "Well, then — you're going wrong — right
away ! Some people say there's a bend of road
leading through the wood a mile further on, but
those who have tried it lately have come back to
German Town, and don't think it leads to Cen
treville at all." This was very provoking, as the
horses were much fatigued and we had driven
several miles out of our way. The driver, who
was an Englishman, said, "I think it would be
best for us to go on and try the road anyhow.
There's not likely to be any Seceshers about
there, are there, sir?"

"What did you say, sir?" inquired the Vir
ginian, with a vacant stare upon his face.

"I merely asked whether you think we are
likely to meet with any Secessionists if wo go
along that road ?"

"Secessionists !" repeated the Virginian, slow-

MY DIARY NOKTH AND SOUTH.

167

ly pronouncing each syllable as if pondering on
the meaning of the word — "Secessionists! Oh
no, sir ; I don't believe there's such a thing as a
Secessionist in the whole of this country."

The boldness of this assertion, in the very
hearing of Beauregard's cannon, completely
shook the faith of our Jehu in any information
from that source, and we retraced our steps to
German Town, and were directed into the prop
er road by some negroes, who were engaged ex
changing Confederate money at very low rates
for Federal copper with a few straggling sol
diers. The faithful Muley Moloch, who had
been capering in our rear so long, now complain
ed that he was very much burned, but on further
inquiry it was ascertained he was merely suffer
ing from the abrading of his skin against an En
glish saddle.

In an hour more we had gained the high road
to Centreville, on which were many buggies, com
missariat carts, and waggons full of civilians, and
a brisk canter brought us in sight of a rising
ground, over which the road led directly through
a few houses on each side, and dipped out of
sight, the slopes of the hill being covered with
men, carts, and horses, and the summit crested
with spectators, with their backs turned towards
us, and gazing on the valley beyond. "There's
Centreville," says the driver, and on our poor
panting horses were forced, passing directly
through the Confederate bivouacs, commissariat
parks, folds of oxen, and two German regiments,
with a battery of artillery, halting on the rising
ground by the roadside. The heat was intense.
Our driver complained of hunger and thirst, to
which neither I nor my companion were insensi
ble ; and so pulling up on the top of the hill, I
sent the boy down to the village which we had
passed, to see if he could find shelter for the
horses, and a morsel for our breakfastless selves.

It was a strange scene before us. From the
hill a densely wooded country, dotted at inter
vals with green fields and cleared lands, spread
five or six miles in front, bounded by a line of
blus and purple ridges, terminating abruptly in
escarpments towards the left front, and swelling
gradually towards the right into the lower spines
of an offshoot from the Blue Ridge Mountains.
On our left the view was circumscribed by a for
est which clothed the side of the ridge on which
we stood, and covered its shoulder far down into
the plain. A gap in the nearest chain of the
hills in our front was pointed out by the by
standers as the Pass of Manassas, by which the
railway from the West is carried into the plain,
and still nearer at hand, before us, is the junc
tion of that rail with the line from Alexandria,
and with the railway leading southwards to
Richmond. The intervening space was not a
dead level ; undulating lines of forest marked
the course of the streams which intersected it,
and gave, by their variety of colour and shading,
an additional charm to the landscape which, en
closed in a framework of blue and purple hills,
softened into violet in the extreme distance, pre
sented one of the most agreeable displays of sim
ple pastoral woodland scenery that could be con
ceived.

But the sounds which came upon the breeze,
and the sights which met our eyes, were in terri
ble variance with the tranquil character of the
landscape. The woods far and near echoed to

the roar of cannon, and thin frayed lines of blue
smoke marked the spots whence came the mut
tering sound of rolling musketry ; the white puffs
of smoke burst high above the tree-tops, and the
gunners' rings from shell and howitzer marked
the fire of the artillery.

Clouds of dust shifted and moved through the
forest ; and through the wavering mists of light
blue smoke, and the thicker masses which rose
commingling from the feet of men and the
mouths of cannon, I could see the gleam of arms
and the twinkling of bayonets.

On the hill beside me there was a crowd of
civilians on horseback, and in all sorts of vehi
cles, with a few of the fairer, if not gentler sex.
A few officers and some soldiers, who had strag
gled from the regiments in reserve, moved about
among the spectators, and pretended to explain
the movements of the troops below, of which
they were profoundly ignorant.

The cannonade and musketry had been exag
gerated by the distance and by the rolling echoes
of the hills ; and sweeping the position narrowly
with my glass from point to point, I failed to dis
cover any traces of close encounter or very se
vere fighting. The spectators were all excited,
and a lady with an opera-glass who was near me
was quite beside herself when an unusually heavy
discharge roused the current of her blood —
"That is splendid. Oh, my ! Is not that first-
rate ? I guess we will be in Richmond this time
to-morrow." These, mingled with coarser ex
clamations, burst from the politicians who had
come out to see the triumph of the Union arms.
I was particularly irritated by the constant appli
cations for the loan of my glass. One broken-
down looking soldier observing my flask, asked
me for a drink, and took a startling pull, which
left but little between the bottom and utter vacu
ity.

"Stranger, that's good stuff, and no mistake.
I have not had such a drink since I come South.
I feel now as if I'd like to whip ten Scceshers."

From the line of the smoke it appeared to me
that the action was in an oblique line from our
left, extending farther outwards towards the
right, bisected by a road from Centreville, which
descended the hill close at hand and ran right
across the undulating plain, its course being
marked by the white covers of the baggage and
commissariat waggons as far as a turn of the road,
where the trees closed in upon them. Beyond
the right of the curling smoke clouds of dust ap
peared from time to time in the distance, as if
bodies of cavalry were moving over a sandy
plain.

Notwithstanding all the exultations and boast
ings of the people at Centreville, I was well con
vinced no advance of any importance or any
great success had been achieved, because the
ammunition and baggage waggons had never
moved, nor had the reserves received any orders
to follow in the line of the army.

.The clouds of dust on the right were quite in
explicable. As we were looking, my philosophic
companion asked me in perfect seriousness,
" Are we really seeing a battle now ? Are they
supposed to be fighting where all that smoke is
going on ? This is rather interesting, you know."

Up came our black boy. "Not find a bit to
eat, sir, in all the place." We had, however, my
little paper of sandwiches, and descended the

168

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

hill to a bye lane off the village, where, seated in
the shade of the gig, Mr. Warre and myself, di
viding our provision with the driver, wound up
a very scanty, but much relished, repast with a
bottle of tea and half the bottle of Bordeaux and
water, the remainder being prudently reserved at
my request for contingent remainders. Leaving
orders for the saddle-horse, which was eating his
first meal, to be brought up the moment he was
ready, I went with Mr. Warre to the hill once
more, and observed that the line had not sensibly
altered whilst we were away.

An English gentleman, who came up flushed
and heated from the plain, told us that the Fed
erals had been advancing steadily in spite of a
stubborn resistance, and had behaved most gal
lantly.

Loud cheers suddenly burst from the specta
tors as a man dressed in the uniform of an offi
cer, whom I had seen riding violently across the
plain in an open space below, galloped along the
front, waving his cap and shouting at the top of
his voice. He was brought up by the press of
people round his horse close to where I stood.
"We've whipped them on all points," he cried.
" We have taken all their batteries. They are
retreating as fast as they can, and we are after
them." Such cheers as rent the welkin ! The
Congress-men shook hands with each other, and
cried out, "Bully for us! Bravo! didn't I tell
you so?" The Germans uttered their martial
cheers, and the Irish hurrahed wildly. At this
moment my horse was brought up the hill, and I
mounted and turned towards the road to the
front, whilst Mr. Warre and his companion pro
ceeded straight down the hill.

By the time I reached the lane, already men
tioned, which was in a few minutes, the' string
of commissariat waggons was moving onwards
pretty briskly, and I was detained until my friends
appeared at the roadside. I told Mr. Warre I
was going forward to the front as fast as I could,
but that I would come back, under any circum
stances, about an hour before dusk, and would go
straight to the spot where we had put up the gig
by the roadside, in order to return to Washing
ton. Then getting into the fields, I pressed my
horse, which was quite recovered from his twen
ty-seven miles' ride and full of spirit and mettle,
as fast as I could, making detours here and there
to get through the ox fences, and by the small
streams which cut up the country. The firing
did not increase, but rather diminished in vol
ume, though it now sounded close at hand.

I had ridden between three and a half and
four miles, as well as I could judge, when I was
obliged to turn for the third and fourth time into
the road by a considerable stream, which was
spanned by a bridge, towards which I was thread
ing my way, when my attention was attracted by
loud shouts in advance, and I perceived several
waggons coming from the direction of the battle
field, the drivers of which were endeavouring to
force their horses past the ammunition carts go
ing in the contrary direction near the bridge ; a
thick cloud of dust rose behind them, and run
ning by the side of the waggons were a number
of men in uniform, whom I supposed to be the
guard. My first impression was that the wag
gons were returning for fresh supplies of ammu
nition. But every moment the crowd increased ;
drivers and men cried out with the most vehe

ment gestures, ' ' Turn back ! Turn back ! We
are whipped." They seized the heads of the
horses and swore at the opposing drivers.
Emerging from the crowd, a breathless man, in
the uniform of an officer, with an empty scab
bard dangling by his side, was cut off by getting
between my horse and a cart for a moment.
"What is the matter, sir? What is all this
about?" "Why it means we are pretty badly
whipped, that's the truth," he gasped, and con
tinued.

By this time the confusion had been commu
nicating itself through the line of waggons to
wards the rear, and the drivers endeavoured to
turn round their vehicles in the narrow road,
which caused the usual amount of imprecations
from the men and plunging and kicking from
the horses.

The crowd from the front continually in
creased, the heat, the uproar, and the dust were
beyond description, and these were augmented
when some cavalry soldiers, flourishing their sa
bres and preceded by an officer, who cried out,
" Make way there — make way there for the Gen
eral," attempted to force a covered waggon, in
which was seated a man with a bloody handker
chief round his head, through the press.

I had succeeded in getting across the bridge
with great difficulty before the waggon came up,
and I saw the crowd on the road was still gath
ering thicker and thicker. Again I asked an
officer, who was on foot, with his sword under
his arm, "What is all this for?" "We are
whipped, sir. We are all in retreat. You are
all to go back." " Can you tell me where I can
find General M'Dowell?" "No! nor can any
one else."

A few shells could be heard bursting not very
far off, but there was nothing to account for such
an extraordinary scene. A third officer, how
ever, confirmed the report that the whole army
was in retreat, and that the Federals were beaten
on all points, but there was nothing in this dis
order to indicate a general rout. All these things
took place in a few seconds. I got up out of the
road into a corn-field, through which men were
hastily walking or running, their faces streaming
with perspiration, and generally without arms,
and worked my way for about half a mile or so,
as well as I could judge, against an increasing
stream of fugitives, the ground being strewed
with coats, blankets, firelocks, cooking tins, caps,
belts, bayonets — asking in vain where General
M'Dowell was.

Again I was compelled by the condition of the
fields to come into the road ; and having passed
a piece of wood and a regiment which seemed
to be moving back in column of march in toler
ably good order, I turned once more into an
opening close to a white house, not far from the
lane, beyond which there was a belt of forest.
Two field-pieces unlimbered near the house,
with panting horses in the rear, were pointed to
wards the front, and along the road beside them
there swept a tolerably steady column of men
mingled with field ambulances and light bag
gage carts, back to Centreville. I had just
stretched out my hand to get a cigar-light from
a German gunner, when the dropping shots
which had been sounding through the woods in
front of us, suddenly swelled into an animated
fire. In a few seconds a crowd of men rushed

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

169

out of the wood down towards the guns, and the
artillerymen near me seized the trail of a piece,
and were wheeling it round to fire, when an offi
cer or sergeant called out, " Stop ! stop ! They
are our own men ;" and in two or three minutes
the whole battalion came sweeping past the guns
at the double, and in the utmost disorder. Some
of the artillerymen dragged the horses out of the
tumbrils ; and for a moment the confusion was
so great I could not understand what had taken
place; but a soldier whom I stopped, said, "We
ai-e pursued by their cavalry ; they have cut us
all to pieces."

Murat himself would not have dared to move
a squadron on such ground. However, it could
not be doubted that something serious was tak
ing place ; and at that moment a shell burst in
front of the house, scattering the soldiers near
it, which Avas followed by another that bounded
along the road ; and in a few minutes more out
came another regiment from the wood, almost
as broken as the first. The scene on the road
had now assumed an aspect which has not a par
allel in any description I have ever read. In
fantry soldiers on mules and draught horses,
with the harness clinging to their heels, as much
frightened as their riders; negro servants on
their masters' chargers ; ambulances crowded
with unbounded soldiers ; waggons swarming
with men who threw out the contents in the
road to make room, grinding through a shouting,
screaming mass of men on foot, who were liter
ally yelling with rage at every halt, and shriek
ing out, "Here are the cavalry! Will you get
on?" This portion of the force was -evidently
in discord.

There was nothing left for it but to go with
the current one could not stem. I turned round
my horse from the deserted guns, and endeav
oured to find out what had occurred as I rode
quietly back on the skirts of the crowd. I talk
ed with those on all sides of me. Some uttered
prodigious nonsense, describing batteries tier over
tier, and ambuscades, and blood running knee
deep. Others described how their boys carried
whole lines of intrenchments, but were beaten
back for want of reinforcements. The names of
many regiments were mentioned as being utter
ly destroyed. Cavalry and bayonet charges and
masked batteries played prominent parts in all
the narrations. Some of the officers seemed to
feel the disgrace of defeat; but the strangest
thing was the general indifference with which the
event seemed to be regarded by those who col
lected their senses as soon as they got out of fire,
and who said they were just going as far as Cen-
treville, and would have a big fight to-morrow.

By this time I was unwillingly approaching
Centreville in the midst of heat, dust, confusion,
imprecations inconceivable. On arriving at the
place where a small rivulet crossed the road, the
throng increased still more. The ground over
which I had passed going out was now covered
with arms, clothing of all kinds, accoutrements
thrown off and left to be trampled in the dust
under the hoofs of men and horses. The runa
ways ran alongside the waggons, striving to force
themselves in among the occupants, who resisted
tooth and nail. The drivers spurred, and whip
ped, and urged the horses to the utmost of their
bent. I felt an inclination to laugh, which was
overcome by disgust, and by that vague sense of

something extraordinary taking place which is
experienced when a man sees a number of peo
ple acting as if driven by some unknown terror.
As I rode in the crowd, with men clinging to the
stirrup-leathers, or holding on by anything they
could lay hands on, so that I had some appre
hension of being pulled off, I spoke to the men,
and asked them over and over again not to be
in such a hurry. "There's no enemy to pursue
you. All the cavalry in the world could not get
at you." But I might as well have talked to the
stones.

For my own part, I wanted to get out of the
ruck as fast as I could, for the heat and dust
were very distressing, particularly to a half-
starved man. Many of the fugitives were in the
last stages of exhaustion, and some actually sank
down by the fences, at the risk of being tram
pled to death. Above the roar of the fight,
which was like the rush of a great river, the
guns burst forth from time to time.

The road at last became somewhat clearer;
for I had got ahead of some of the ammunition
train and waggons, and the others were dashing
up the hill towards Centreville. The men's
great-coats and blankets had been stowed in the
trains ; but the fugitives had apparently thrown
them out on the road, to make room for them
selves. Just beyond the stream I saw a heap of
clothing tumble out of a large covered cai't, and
cried out after the driver, "Stop! stop! All
the things are tumbling out of the cart." But
my zeal was checked by a scoundrel putting his
head out, and shouting with a curse, "If you

try to stop the team, I'll blow your brains

out." My brains advised me to adopt the prin
ciple of non-intervention,

It never occurred to me that this was a grand
debacle. All along I believed the mass of the
army was not broken, and that all I saw around
was the result of confusion created in a crude
organisation by a forced retreat; and knowing
the reserves were at Centreville and beyond, I
said to myself, "Let us see how this will be
when we get to the hill." I indulged in a quiet
chuckle, too, at the idea of my philosophical
friend and his stout companion finding them
selves suddenly enveloped in the crowd of fugi
tives, but knew they could easily have regained
their original position on the hill. Trotting
along briskly through the fields, I arrived at the
foot of the slope on which Centreville stands, and
met a German regiment just deploying into line
very well and steadily — the men in the rear com
panies laughing, smoking, singing, and jesting
with the fugitives, who were filing past ; but no
thought of stopping the waggons, as the orders
repeated from mouth to mouth were that they
were to fall back beyond Centreville.

The air of the men was good. The officers
were cheerful, and one big German with a great
pipe in his bearded mouth, with spectacles on
nose, amused himself by pricking the horses with
his sabre point, as he passed, to the sore discom
fiture of the riders. Behind the regiment came
a battery of brass field-pieces, and another regi
ment in column of march was following the
guns. They were going to form line at the end
of the slope, and no fairer position could well be
offered for a defensive attitude, although it might
be turned. But it was getting too late for the
enemy, wherever they were, to attempt such an

170

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

extensive operation. Several times I had been
asked by officers and men, "Where do you
think we will halt? Where are the rest of 'the
army?" I always replied " Centreville," and I
had heard hundreds of the fugitives say they
were going to Centreville.

I rode up the road, turned into the little street
which carries the road on the right-hand side
to Fairfax Court-house and the hill, and went
straight to the place where I had left the buggy
in a lane on the left of the road beside a small
house and shed, expecting to find Mr. Warre
ready for a start, as I had faithfully promised
Lord Lyons he should be back that night in
Washington. The buggy was not there. I
pulled open the door of the shed in which the
horses had been sheltered out of the sun. They
were gone. " Oh, "said I, to myself, " of course !
What a stupid fellow I am ! Warre has had the
horses put in, and taken the gig to the top of the
hill, in order to see the last of it before we go."
And so I rode over to the ridge ; but arriving
there, could see no sign of our vehicle far or
near. There were two carriages of some kind
or other still remaining on the hill, and a few
spectators, civilians and military, gazing on the
scene below, which was softened in the golden
rays of the declining sun. The smoke wreaths
had ceased to curl over the green sheets of bil
lowy forest as sea foam crisping in a gentle
breeze breaks the lines of the ocean. But far
and near yellow and dun-coloured piles of dust
seamed the landscape, leaving behind them long
trailing clouds of lighter vapours which were
dotted now and then by white puff-balls from the
bursting of shell. On the right these clouds were
very heavy and seemed to approach rapidly, and
it occurred to me they might be caused by an
advance of the much-spoken-of and little seen
cavalry ; and remembering the cross-road from
German Town, it seemed a very fine and very
feasible operation for the Confederates to cut
right in on the line of retreat and communica
tion, in which case the fate of the army and of
Washington could not be dubious. There were
now few civilians on the hill, and these were
thinning away. Some were gesticulating and
explaining to one another the causes of the re
treat, looking very hot and red. The confusion
among the last portion of the carriages and fu
gitives on the road, which I had outstripped, had
been renewed again, and the crowd there pre
sented a remarkable and ludicrous aspect through
the glass ; but there were two strong battalions
in good order near the foot of the hill, a battery
on the slope, another on the top, and a portion
of a regiment in and about the houses of the
village.

A farewell look at the scene presented no new
features. Still the clouds of dust moved on
wards denser and higher ; flashes of arms light
ed them up at times ; the fields were dotted by
fugitives, amorig whom many mounted men were
marked by their greater speed, and the little
flocks of dust rising from the horses' feet.

I put up my glass, and turning from the hill,
with difficulty forced my way through the crowd
of vehicles which were making their way towards
the main road in the direction of the lane, hop
ing that by some lucky accident I might find the
gig in waiting for me. But I sought in vain ; a
sick soldier, who was on a stretcher in front of

the house, near the corner of the lane, leaning on
his elbow, and looking at the stream of men and
carriages, asked me if I could tell him what they
were in such a hurry for, and I said they were
merely getting back to their bivouacs. A man
dressed in civilian's clothes grinned as I spoke.
" I think they'll go farther than that," said he ;
and then added, "If you're looking for the wag-
gon you came in, it's pretty well back to Wash
ington by this time. I think I saw you down
theere with a nigger and two men. Yes.
They're all off, gone more than an hour and a
half ago, I think, and a stout man— I thought
was you at first— along with them."

Nothing was left for it but to brace up the
girths for a ride to the Capitol, for which, hun
gry and fagged as I was, I felt very little inclina
tion. I was trotting quietly down the hill road
beyond Centreville, when suddenly the guns on
the other side, or from a battery very near,
opened fire, and a fresh outburst of artillery
sounded through the woods. In an instant the
mass of vehicles and retreating soldiers, team
sters, and civilians, as if agonised by an electric
shock, quivered throughout the tortuous line.
With dreadful shouts and cursings, the drivers
lashed their maddened horses, and leaping from,
the carts, left them to their fate, and ran on
foot. Artillerymen and foot soldiers, and ne
groes mounted on gun horses, with the chain
traces and loose trappings trailing in the dust,
spurred and flogged their steeds down the road
or by the side paths. The firing continued and
seemed to approach thejnll, and at every report
the agitated body of horsemen and waggons was
seized, as it were, with a fresh convulsion.

Once more the dreaded cry, "The cavalry!
cavalry are coming!" rang through the crowd,
and looking back to Centreville, I perceived com
ing down the hill, between me and the sky, a
number of mounted men, who might, at a hasty
glance, be taken for horsemen in the^ act of sabre-
ing the fugitives. In reality, they were soldiers
and civilians, with, I regret to say, some officers
among them, who were whipping and striking
their horses with sticks or whatever else they
could lay hands on. I called out to the men
who were frantic with terror beside me, "They
are not cavalry at all ; they're your own men"
— but they did not heed me. A fellow who was
shouting out, " Run ! run !" as loud as he could,
beside me, seemed to take delight in creating
alarm ; and as he was perfectly collected as far
as I could judge, I said, "What on earth are
you running for? What are you afraid of?"
He was in the roadside below me, and at once
turning on me, and exclaiming, " I'm not afraid
of you," presented his piece and pulled the trig
ger so instantaneously, that, had it gone off, I
could not have swerved from the ball. As the
scoundrel deliberately drew up to examine the
nipple, I judged it best not to give him another
chance, and spurred on through the crowd, where
any man could have shot as many as he pleased
without interruption. The only conclusion I
came to was, that he was mad or drunken.
When I was passing by the line of the bivouacs
a battalion of men came tumbling down the
bank from the field into the road, with fixed
bayonets, and as some fell in the road and others
tumbled on top of them, there must have been a
few ingloriously wounded.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

171

I galloped on for a short distance to head the
ruck, for I could not tell whether this body of in
fantry intended moving back towards Centre-
ville or were coming down the road ; but the
mounted men galloping furiously past me, with
a cry of " Cavalry ! cavalry!" on their lips,
swept on faster than I did, augmenting the alarm
and excitement. I came up with two officers
who were riding more leisur.ely ; and touching
my hat, said, ' ' I venture to suggest that these
men should be stopped, sir. If not, they will
alarm the whole of the post and pickets on to
Washington. They will fly next, and the con
sequences will be most disastrous." One of the
two, looking at me for a moment, nodded his
head without saying a word, spurred his horse
to full speed, and dashed on in front along the
road. Following more leisurely, I observed the
fugitives in front were suddenly checked in their
speed ; and as I turned my horse into the wood
by the roadside to get on so as to prevent the
chance of another blockup, I passed several pri
vate vehicles, in one of which Mr. Raymond, of
the New York Times, was seated with some
friends, looking by no means happy. He says
in his report to his paper, "About a mile this
side of Centreville a stampede took place amongst
the teamsters and others, which threw every
thing into the utmost confusion, and inflicted
very serious injuries. Mr. Eaton, of Michigan,
in trying to arrest the flight of some of these
men, was shot by one of them, the ball taking
effect in his hand." He asked me, in some anx
iety, what I thought would happen. I replied,
"No doubt M'Dowell will stand fast at Centre
ville to-night. These are mere runaways, and
unless the enemy's cavalry succeed in getting
through at this road, there is nothing to appre
hend."

And I continued through the wood till I got a
clear space in front on the road, along which a
regiment of infantry was advancing towards me.
They halted ere I came up, and with levelled
firelocks arrested the men on horses and the
carts and waggons galloping towards them, and
blocked up the road to stop their progress. As
I tried to edge by on the right of the column by
the left of the road, a soldier presented his fire
lock at my head from the higher ground on
which he stood, for the road had a deep trench
cut on the side by which I was endeavouring to
pass, and sung out, "Halt! Stop — or I fire!"
The officers in front were waving their swords
and shouting out, "Don't let a soul pass ! Keep
back! keep back!" Bowing to the officer who
was near me, * said, "I beg to assure you, sir, I
am not running away. I am a civilian and a
British subject. I have done my 'best as I came
along to stop this disgraceful rout. I am in no
hurry; I merely want to get back to Washing
ton to-night. I have been telling them all along
there are no cavalry near us." The officer to
whom I was speaking, young and somewhat ex
cited, kept repeating, "Keep back, sir! keep
back! you must keep back." Again I said to
him, "I assure you I am not with this crowd;
my pulse is as cool as your own." But as he
paid no attention to what I said, I suddenly be
thought me of General Scott's letter, and ad
dressing another officer, said, "I am a civilian
going to Washington ; will you be kind enough
to look at this pass, specially given to me by Gen

eral Scott ?" The officer looked at it, and hand
ed it to a mounted man, either adjutant or colo
nel, who, having examined it, returned it to me,
saying, " Oh, yes ! certainly. Pass that man!"
And with a cry of "Pass that man !'*along the
line, I rode down the trench very leisurely, and
got out on the road, which was now clear, though
some fugitives had stolen through the woods on
the flanks of the column and were in front of
me.

A little further on there was a cart on the
right-hand side of the road, surrounded by a
group of soldiers. I was trotting past, when a
respectable-looking man in a semi-military garb,
coming out from the group, said, in a tone of
much doubt and distress, "Can you tell me,
sir, for God's sake, where the 69th New York
are ? These men tell me they are all cut to
pieces." "And so they are," exclaimed one of
the fellows, who had the number of the regiment
on his cap.

"You hear what they say, sir?" exclaimed
the man.

"I do, but I really cannot tell you where the
G9th are."

"I'm in charge of these mails, and I'll deliv
er them if I die for it ; but is it safe for me to go
on ? You are a gentleman, and I can depend
on your word."

His assistant and himself were in the greatest
perplexity of mind, but all I could say was, " I
really can't tell you ; I believe the army will halt
at Centreville to-night, and I think you may go
on there with the greatest safety, if you can get
through the crowd." "Faith, then, he can't,"
exclaimed one of the soldiers.

"Why not?" " Sur.e, arn't we cut to pieces?
Didn't I hear the kurnel himsilf saying we was
all of us to cut and run, every man on his own
hook, as well as he could ? Stop at Cinthreville,
indeed!"

I bade the mail agent* good evening and rode
on, but even in this short colloquy stragglers on
foot and on horseback, who had turned the flanks
of the regiment by side paths or through the
woods, came pouring along the road once more.

« I have since met the person referred to, an English
man living in Washington, and well known at the Lega
tion and elsewhere. Mr. Dawson came to tell me that he
had seen a letter in an American journal, which was cop
ied extensively all over the Union, in which the writer
stated he accompanied me on my return to Fairfax Court
house, and that the incident I related in my account of
Bull Run did not occur, hut that he was the individual re
ferred to, and could swear with his assistant that every
word I wrote was true. I did not need any such corrobo-
ration for the satisfaction of any who know me ; and I waa
quite well aware that if one came from the dead to bear
testimony in my favour before the American journals and
public, the evidence would not countervail the slander of
any characterless scribe who sought to gain a moment's
notoriety by a flat contradiction of my narrative. I may
add, that Dawson begged of me not to bring him before

the public, u because 1 am now sutler to the th, over

in Virginia, and they would dismiss me." u What I for
certifying to the truth?" "You know, sir, it might do
me harm." Whilst on this subject, let me remark that
some time afterwards I was in Mr. Brady's photographic
studio in Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, when the
very intelligent and obliging manager introduced himself
to me, and said that he wished to have an opportunity of
repeating to me personally what he had frequently told
persons in the place, that he could bear the fullest testi
mony to the complete accuracy of my account of the panic
from Centreville down the road at the time 1 left, and that
he and his assistants, who were on the spot trying to get
away their photographic van and apparatus, could certify-
that my description fell far short of the disgraceful spec
tacle and of the excesses of the flight.

172

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

Somewhere about this I was accosted by a
stout, elderly man, with the air and appearance
of a respectable mechanic, or small tavern-keep
er, who introduced himself as having met me at
Cairo. He poured out a flood of woes on me,
how he had lost his friend and companion, near
ly lost his seat several times, was unaccustomed
to riding, was suffering much pain from the un
usual position and exercise, did not know the
road, feared he would never be able to get on,
dreaded he might be captured and ill-treated if
he was known, and such topics as a selfish man
in a good deal of pain or fear is likely to indulge
in. I calmed his apprehensions as well as I
could, by saying, "I had no doubt M'Dowell
would halt and show fight at Centreville, and be
able to advance from it in a day or two to renew
the fight again ; that he couldn't miss the road ;
whiskey and tallow were good for abrasions ;"
and as I was riding very slowly, he jogged along,
for he was a burr, and would stick, with many
"Oh dears ! Oh! dear me !" for most part of
the way, joining me at intervals, till I reached
Fairfax Court-house. A body of infantiy were
under arms in a grove near the Court-house,
on the right-hand side of the road. The door
and windows of the houses presented crowds of
faces black and white ; and men and women
stood out upon the porch, who asked me as I
passed, " Have you been at the fight ?" "What
are they all running for?" "Are the rest of
them coming on ?" to which I gave the same re
plies as before.

Arrived at the little inn where I had halted in
the morning, I perceived the sharp-faced woman
in black standing in the verandah with an eld
erly man, a taller and younger one dressed in
black, a little girl, and a woman who stood in
the passage of the door. I asked if I could get
any thing to eat. "Not a morsel; there's not
a bit left in the house, but you can get some
thing, perhaps, if you like to stay till supper-
time." "Would you oblige me by telling me
where I can get some water for my horse?"
"Oh, certainly," said the elder man, and call
ing to a negro, he directed him to bring a buck
et from the well or pump, into which the thirsty
brute buried its head to the eyes. Whilst the
horse was drinking, the taller or younger man,
leaning over the verandah, asked me quietly,
"What are all the people coming back for? —
what's set them a running towards Alexandria ?"

" Oh, it's only a fright the drivers of the com
missariat waggons have had ; they are afraid of
the enemy's cavalry."

" Ah !" said the man, and looking at me nar
rowly, he inquired, after a pause, "Are you an
American ?"

"No, I am not, thank God ; I'm an English
man."

" Well, then." said he, nodding his head and
speaking slowly through his teeth, "there will
be cavalry after them soon enough ; there is
20,000 of the best horsemen in the world in old
Virginny."

Having received full directions from the peo
ple at the inn for the road to the Long Bridge,
which I was most anxious to reach instead of
going to Alexandria or to Georgetown, I bade
the Virginian good evening ; and seeing that my
Btout friend, who had also watered his horse by
my advice at the inn, was still clinging along-

side, I excused myself by saying I must press on
to Washington, and galloped on for a mile, un
til I got into the cover of a wood, where I dis
mounted to examine the horse's hoofs and shift
the saddle for a moment, wipe the sweat off his
back, and make him and myself as comfortable
as could be for our ride into Washington, which
was still seventeen or eighteen miles before me.
I passed groups of men, some on horseback, oth
ers on foot, going at a more leisurely rate to
wards the capital ; and as I was smoking my last
cigar by the side of the wood, I observed the
number had rather increased, and that among
the retreating stragglers were some men who ap
peared to be wounded.

The sun had set, but the rising moon was add
ing every moment to the lightness of the road
as I mounted once more and set out at a long
trot for the capital. Presently I was overtaken
by a waggon with a small escort of cavalry and
an officer riding in front. I had seen the same
vehicle once or twice along the road, and ob
served an officer seated in it with his head bound
up with a handkerchief, looking very pale and
ghastly. The mounted officer leading the es
cort asked me if I was going into Washington
and knew the road. I told him I had never been
on it before, but thought I could find my way ;
"at any rate, we'll find plenty to tell us."
"That's Colonel Hunter inside the carriage:
he's shot through the throat and jaw, and I want
to get him to the doctor's in Washington as soon
as I can. Have you been to the fight?"

"No, sir."

" A member of Congress, I suppose, sir?"

"No, sir, I'm an Englishman."

"Oh indeed, sir, then I'm glad you did not
see it ; so mean a fight, sir, I never saw ; we
whipped the cusses and drove them before us,
and took their batteries and spiked their guns,
and got right up in among all their dirt-works
and great batteries and forts, driving them be
fore us like sheep, when up more of them would
get, as if out of the ground ; then our boys would
drive them again till we were fairly worn out ;
they had nothing to eat since last night and
nothing to drink. I myself have not tasted a
morsel since two o'clock last night. Well, there
we were, waiting for reinforcements and expect
ing M'Dowell and the rest of the army, when
whish ! they threw open a whole lot of masked
batteries on us, and then came down such swarms
of horsemen on black horses, all black as you
never saw, and slashed our boys over finely.
The colonel was hit, and I thought it best to get
him off as well as I could, before it was too late.
And, my God ! when they did take to running
they did it first-rate, I can tell you," and so the
officer, who had evidently taken enough to affect
his empty stomach and head, chattering about
the fight, we trotted on in the moonlight : dip
ping down into the valleys on the road, which
seemed like inky lakes in the shadows of the
black trees, then mounting up again along the
white road, which shone like a river in the moon
light — the country silent as death, though once,
as we crossed a small water-course and the noise
of the carriage wheels ceased, I called the atten
tion of my companions to a distant sound, as of
a great multitude of people mingled with a faint
report of cannon. "Do you hear that ?" "No,
I don't. But it's our chaps, no doubt. They're

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

173

coming; along fine, I can promise you." At last
some miles further on we came to a picket, or
main guard, on the roadside, who ran forward,
crying out, " What's the news ? anything fresh ?
are we whipped? is it a fact?" "Well, gen
tlemen," exclaimed the Major, reining up for a
moment, " we are knocked into a cocked hat —

licked to h 1." "Oh, pray don't say that,"

I exclaimed; "it's not quite so bad; it's only a
drawn battle, and the troops will occupy Centre-
ville to-night, and the posts they started from
this morning."

A little further on we met a line of commissa
riat carts, and my excited and rather injudicious
military friend appeared to take the greatest
pleasure in replying to their anxious queries for
news, " We are whipped ! Whipped like h . "

At the cross-roads now and then we were per
plexed, for no one knew the bearings of Wash
ington, though the stars were bright enough ; but
good fortune favoured us and kept us straight,
and at a deserted little village, with a solitary
church on the roadside, I increased my pace,
bade good-night and good speed to the officer,
and having kept company with two men in a gig
for some time, got at length on the guarded road
leading towards the capital, and was stopped by
the pickets, patrols, and grand rounds, making
repeated demand^ for the last accounts from the
field. The houses by the roadside were all
closed up and in darkness. I knocked in vain at
several for a drink of water, but was answered
only by the angry barkings of the watch -dogs
from the slave quarters. It was a peculiarity of
the road that the people, and soldiers I met, at
points several miles apart, always insisted that I
was twelve miles from Washington. Up hills,
down valleys, with the silent, grim woods for
ever by my side, the white roads and the black
shadows of men, still I was twelve miles from the
Long Bridge, but suddenly I came upon a grand
guard under- arms, who had quite different ideas,
and who said I was only about four miles from
the river: they crowded round me. "Well,
man, and how is the fight going?" I repeated
my tale. " What doos he say ?" " Oh, begor-
ra, he says we're not bet at all j it's all lies they
have been telling us ; we're only going' back to
the ould lines for the greater convaniency of
fighting to-morrow again; that's illigant, hoo-
ro!"

All by the sides of the old camps the men
were standing, lining the road, and I was obliged
to evade many a grasp at my bridle by shouting
out, "Don't stop me; I've important 'news ; it's
all well!" and still the good horse, refreshed by
the cool night air, went clattering on, till from
the top of the road beyond Arlington I caught a
sight of the lights of Washington and the white
buildings of the Capitol, and of the Executive
Mansion, glittering like snow in the moonlight.
At the entrance to the Long Bridge the sentry
challenged, and asked for the countersign. "I
have not got it, but I've a pass from General
Scott." An officer advanced from the guard,
and on reading the pass permitted me to go
on without difficulty. - He said, "I have been
obliged to let a good many go over to-night be
fore you, Congress-men and others. I suppose
you did not expect to be coming back so soon.
I fear it's a bad business." " Oh, not so bad,
after all ; I expected to have been back to-night

before nine o'clock, and crossed over this morn-
ing without the countersign." " Well, I guess,"
said he, t; we don't do such quick fighting as that
in this country."

As I crossed the Long Bridge there was
scarce a sound to dispute the possession of its
echoes with my horse's hoofs. The poor beast
had carried me nobly and well, and I made up
my mind to buy him, as I had no doubt he would
answer perfectly to carry me back in a day or
two to M 'Do well's army by the time he had or
ganised it for a new attack upon the enemy's po
sition. Little did I conceive the greatness of the
defeat, the magnitude of the disasters which it
had entailed upon the United States, or the in
terval that would elapse before another army set
out from the banks of the Potomac onward to
Richmond. Had I sat down that night to writs
my letter, quite ignorant at the time of the great
calamity which had befallen his army, in all
probability I would have stated that M'Dowell
had received a severe repulse, and had fallen
back upon Centreville ; that a disgraceful panic
and confusion had attended the retreat of a por
tion of his army, but that the appearance of the
reserves would probably prevent the enemy tak
ing any advantage of the disorder ; and as I
would have merely been able to describe such in
cidents as fell under my own observation, and
would have left the American journals to nar
rate the actual details, and the dispatches of the
American Generals the strategical events of the
day, I should have led the world at home to be
lieve, as, in fact, I believed myself, that M 'Dow-
ell's retrograde movement would be arrested at
some point between Centreville and Fairfax
Court-house.

The letter that I was to write occupied my
mind whilst I was crossing the Long Bridge, gaz
ing at the lights reflected in the Potomac from
the city. The night had become overcast, and
heavy clouds rising up rapidly obscured the
moon, forming a most phantastic mass of shapes
in the sky.

At the Washington end of the bridge I was
challenged again by the men of a whole regiment,
who, with piled arms, were halted on the chaus-
see, smoking, laughing, and singing. "Stran
ger, have you been to the fight ?" "I have been
only a little beyond Centreville." But that was
quite enough. Soldiers, civilians, and women,
who seemed to be out unusually late, crowded
round the horse, and again I told my stereotyped
story of the unsuccessful attempt to carry the
Confederate position, and the retreat to Centre
ville to await better luck next time. The sol
diers alongside me cheered, and those next them
took it up, till it ran through the whole line, and
must have awoke the night-owls.

As I passed Willard's hotel a little further on,
a clock — I think the only public clock which
strikes the hours in Washington — tolled out the
hour ; and I supposed, from what the sentry told
me, though I did not count the strokes, that it
was eleven o'clock. All the rooms in the hotel
were a blaze of light. The pavement before the
door was crowded, and some mounted men and
the clattering of sabres on the pavement led me
to infer that the escort of the wounded officer
had arrived before me. I passed on to the lir-
ery-stables, where every one was alive and stir
ring.

174

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

"I'm sure," said the man, " I thought I'd nev
er see you nor the horse back again. The gig
and the other gentleman has been back a long
time. How did he carry you?"

" Oh, pretty well ; what's his price ?"

" Well, now that I look at him, and to you, it
will be 100 dollars less than I said. I'm in good
heart to-night."

"Why so? A number of your horses and
carriages have not come back yet, you tell me."

" Oh, well, I'll get paid for them some time or
another. Oh, such news ! such news!" said he,
rubbing his hands. "Twenty thousand of them
killed and wounded! May-be they're not hav
ing fits in the White House to-night!"

I walked to my lodgings, and just as I turned
the key in the door a flash of light made me
pause for a moment, in expectation of the report
of a gun ; for I could not help thinking it quite
possible that, somehow or another, the Confeder
ate cavalry would try to beat up the lines, but
no sound followed. It must have been light
ning. I walked up-stairs, and saw a most wel
come supper ready on the table — an enormous
piece of cheese, a sausage of unknown compo
nents, a knuckle-bone of ham, and a bottle of a
very light wine of France ; but I would not have
exchanged that repast and have waited half an
hour for any banquet that Soyer or Careme
could have prepared at their best. Then, having
pulled off my boots, bathed my head, trimmed
candles, and lighted a pipe, I sat down to write.
I made some feeble sentences, but the pen went
flying about the paper as if the spirits were play
ing tricks with it. When I screwed up my ut
most resolution, the "y's" would still run into
long streaks, and the letters combine most curi
ously, and my eyes closed, and my pen slipped,
and'just as I was aroused from a nap, and set
tled into a stern determination to hold my pen
straight, I was interrupted by a messenger from
Lord Lyons, to inquire whether I had returned,
and if so, to ask me to go up to the Legation,
and get something to eat. I explained, with my
thanks, that I was quite safe, and had eaten sup
per, and learned from the servant that Mr. Warre
and his companion had arrived about two hours
previously. I resumed my seat once more, haunt
ed by the memory of the Boston mail, which
would be closed in a few hours, and I had much
to tell, although I had not seen the battle. Again
and again I woke up, but at last the greatest
conqueror but death overcame me, and, with my
head on the blotted paper, I fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER LI.

A runaway crowd at Washington — The army of the Poto
mac in retreat — Mail-day — Want of order and author
ity — Newspaper lies — Alarm at Washington — Confeder
ate prisoners — General MlClellan — M. Mercier — Effects
of the defeat on Mr. Reward and the President — MlDow-
ell — General Patterson.

July 22nd. — I awoke from a deep sleep this
morning, about six o'clock. The rain was fall
ing in torrents, and beat with a dull, thudding
sound on the leads outside my window; but,
louder than all, came a strange sound, ns if of
the tread of men, a confused tramp and splash
ing, and a murmuring of voices. I got up and
ran to the front room, the windows of which look
ed on the street, and there, to my intense sur

prise, I saw a steady stream of men covered with
mud, soaked through with rain, who were pour
ing irregularly, without any semblance of order,
up Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol.
A dense stream of vapour rose from the multi
tude ; but looking closely at the men, I perceived
they belonged to different regiments, New York
ers, Michiganders, Rhode Islanders, Massachu-
setters, Minnesotians, mingled pellmell together.
Many of them were without knapsacks, cross-
belts, and firelocks. Some had neither great
coats nor shoes, others were covered with blank
ets. Hastily putting on my clothes, I ran down
stairs and asked an "officer," who was passing
by, a pale young man, who looked exhausted to
death, and who had lost his sword, for the empty
sheath dangled at his side, where the men Avere
coming from. " Where from ? Well, sir, I guess
we're all coming out of Verginny as far as we
can, and pretty well whipped too." "What!
the whole army, sir?" "That's more than I
know. They may stay that like. I know I'm
going home. I've had enough of fighting to last
my lifetime."

The news seemed incredible. But there, be
fore my eyes, were the jaded, dispirited, broken
remnants of regiments passing onwards, where
and for what I knew not, and it was evident
enough that the mass of the grand army of the
Potomac was placing that river between it and
the enemy as rapidly as possible. "Is there any
pursuit?" I asked of several men. Some were
too surly to reply ; others said, "They're coming
as fast as they can after us." Others, "I guess
they've stopped it now — the rain is too much for
them." A few said they did not know, and look
ed as if they did nor care. And here came one
of these small crises in which a special corre
spondent would give a good deal for the least
portion of duality in mind or body. A few sheets
of blotted paper and writing materials lying on
the table beside the burnt-out candles reminded
me that the imperious post-day was running on.
" The mail for Europe, via Boston, closes at one
o'clock, Monday, July 22nd," stuck up in large
characters, Avarned me I had not a moment to
lose. I kneAv the eA'ent Avonld be of the utmost
interest in England, and that it Avould be import
ant to tell the truth as fnr as I knew it, leaving
the American papers to state their OAvn case, that
the public might form their OAVII conclusions.

But then, I felt, IIOAV interesting it would be to
ride out and Avatch the evacuation of the sacred
soil of Virginia, to see Avhat the enemy were do
ing, to examine the situation of affairs, to hear
what the men said, and, above all, find out the
cause of this retreat and headlong confusion, in
vestigate the extent of the Federal losses and the
condition of the wounded — in fact, to find mate
rials for a dozen of letters. I would fain, too,
have seen General Scott, and heard his opinions,
and have visited the leading senators, to get a
notion of the Avay in which they looked on this
catastrophe. — "I do perceive here a divided
duty." — But the more I reflected on the matter
the more strongly I became convinced that it
Avould not be advisable to postpone the letter, and
that the events of the 21st ought to have prece
dence of those of the 22nd, and so I stuck up my
usual notice on the door outside of "Mr. Russell
is out," and resumed my letter.

Whilst the rain fell, the tramp of feet went

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

175

steadily on. As I lifted my eyes now and then
from the paper, I saw the beaten, foot-sore,
spongy-looking soldiers, officers, and all the de
bris of the army filing through mud and rain, and
forming in crowds in front of the spirit-stores.
Underneath my room is the magazine of Jost,
ncgociant en vins, and he drives a roaring trade
this morning, interrupted occasionally by loud
disputes as to the score. When the lad came in
with my breakfast he seemed a degree or two
lighter in colour than usual. "What's the mat
ter with you?" "I 'spects, massa, the Secesh-
ers soon be in here. I'm a free. nigger; I must
go, sar, afore de come cotch me." It is rather
plsasant to be neutral under such circumstances.

I speedily satisfied myself I could not finish
my letter in time for post, and I therefore sent
for my respectable Englishman to go direct to
Boston by the train which leaves this at four
o'clock to-morrow morning, so as to catch the
mail steamer on Wednesday, and telegraphed to
the agents there to inform them of my intention
of doing so. Visitors came knocking at the door,
and insisted on getting in — military friends who
wanted to give me their versions of the battle —
the attaches of legations and others, who desired
to hear the news and have a little gossip ; but I
turned a deaf ear doorwards, and they went off
into the outer rain again.

More draggled, more muddy, and down-heart
ed, and foot-weary and vapid, the great army of
the Potomac still straggled by. Towards even
ing I seized my hat and made off to the stable
to inquire how the poor horse was. There he
stood, neai'ly as fresh as ever, a little tucked up
in the ribs, but eating heartily, and perfectly
sound. A change had come over Mr. Wroe's
dream of horseflesh. "They'll be going cheap
now," thought he, and so he said aloud, "If
you'd like to buy that horse, I'd let you have him
a little under what I said. Dear ! dear ! it
must a' been a sight sure-ly to see them Yankees
running ; you can scarce get through the Avenue
with them."

And what Mr. W. says is quite true. The rain
has abated a little, and the pavements are dense
ly packed with men in uniform, some with, oth
ers without, arms, on whom the shopkeepers are
looking with evident alarm. They seem to be
in possession of all the spirit-houses. Now and
then shots are heard down the street or in the
distance, and cries and shouting, as if a scuffle
or a difficulty were occurring. Willard's is turn
ed into a barrack for officers, and presents such
a scene in the hall as could only be witnessed in
a city occupied by a demoralised army. There
is no provost guard, no patrol, no authority visi
ble in the streets. General Scott is quite over
whelmed by the affair, and is unable to stir.
General M;Dowell has not yet arrived. The
Secretary of War knows not what to do, Mr. Lin
coln is equally helpless, and Mr. Seward, who re
tains some calmness, is, notwithstanding his mili
tary rank and militia experience, without re
source or expedient. There are a good many
troops hanging on about the camps and forts on
the other side of the river, it is said ; but they
are thoroughly disorganised, and will run away
if the enemy comes in sight without a shot, and
then the capital must fall at once. Why Beau-
regard does not come I know not, nor can I well
guess. I have been expecting every hour since

noon to hear his cannon. Here is a golden op
portunity. If the Confederates do not grasp that
which will never come again on such terms, it
stamps them with mediocrity.

The morning papers are quite ignorant of the
defeat, or affect to be unaware of it, and declare
yesterday's battle to have been in favour of the
Federals generally, the least arrogant stating that
M'Dowell will resume his march from Centreville
immediately. The evening papers, however,
seem to be more sensible of the real nature of
the crisis : it is scarcely within the reach of any
amount of impertinence or audacious assertion
to deny what is passing before their very eyes.
The grand army of the Potomac is in the streets
of Washington, instead of being on its way to
Richmond. One paper contains a statement
which would make me uneasy about myself if I <-"
had any confidence in these stories, for it is as
serted "that Mr. Russell was last seen in the
thick of the fight, and has not yet returned.
Fears are entertained for his safety. "

Towards dark the rain moderated and the
noise in the streets waxed louder ; all kinds of
rumours respecting the advance of the enemy,
the annihilation of Federal regiments, the tre
mendous losses on both sides, charges of cavalry,
stormings of great intrenchments and stupendous
masked batteries, and elaborate reports of un
paralleled feats of personal valour, were circu
lated under the genial influence of excitement,
and by the quantities of alcohol necessary to keep
out the influence of the external moisture. I
did not hear one expression of confidence, or see
one cheerful face in all that vast crowd which
but a few days before constituted an army, and
was now nothing better than a semi- armed mob.
I could see no cannon returning, and to my in
quiries after them, I got generally the answer,
"I suppose the Seceshers have got hold of them."

Whilst I was at table, several gentlemen who
have entree called on me, who confirmed my im
pressions respecting the magnitude of the disas
ter that is so rapidly developing its proportions.
They agree in describing the army as disorgan
ised. Washington is rendered almost untenable,
in consequence of the conduct of the army, which
was not only to have defended it, but to have
captured the rival capital. Some of my visitors
declared it was dangerous to move abroad in the
streets. Many think the contest is now over;
but the gentlemen of Washington have Southern
sympathies, and I, on the contrary, am persuaded •-•
this prick in the great Northern balloon will let
out a quantity of poisonous gas, and rouse the
people to a sense of the nature of the conflict on
which they have entered. The inmates of the
White House are in a state of the utmost trepi
dation, and Mr. Lincoln, who sat in the telegraph
operator's room with General Scott and Mr. Sew
ard, listening to the dispatches as they arrived
from the scene of action, left it in despair when
the fatal words tripped from the needle, and the
defeat was clearly revealed to him.

Having finally cleared my room of visitors and
locked the door, I sat down once more to my
desk, and continued my narrative. The night
wore on. and the tumult still reigned in the city.
Once, indeed, if not twice, my attention was
aroused by sounds like distant cannon and out
bursts of musketry, but on reflection I was satis
fied the Confederate general would never be rash

176

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

enough to attack the place by night, and that,
after all the rain which had fallen, he in all prob
ability would give horses and men a day's rest,
marching them through the night, so as to ap
pear before the city in the course of to-morrow.
Again and again I was interrupted by soldiers
clamouring for drink and for money, attracted
by the light in my windows; one or two irre
pressible and irresistible friends actually succeed
ed in making their way into my room — just as
on the night when I was engaged in writing an
account of the last attack on the Redan, my hut
was stormed by visitors, and much of my letter
was penned under the apprehension of a sharp
pair of spurs fixed in the heels of a jolly little
adjutant, who, overcome by fatigue and rum-and-
water, fell asleep in my chair, with his legs cock
ed up on my writing-table ; but I saw the last
of them about midnight, and so continued writ
ing till the morning light began to steal through
the casement. Then came the trusty messenger,
and, at 3 A.M., when I had handed him the par
cel and looked round to see all my things were
in readiness, lest a rapid toilet might be neces
sary in the morning, with a sigh of relief I plunged
into bed, and slept.

July 23rd. — The morning was far advanced
when I awoke, and hearing the roll of waggons
in the street, I at first imagined the Federals were
actually about to abandon Washington itself;
but on going to the window, I perceived it arose
from an irregular train of commissariat carts,
country waggons, ambulances, and sutlers' vans,
in the centre of the street, the paths being crowd
ed as before with soldiers, or rather with men in
uniform, many of whom seemed as if they had
been rolling in the mud. Poor General Mans
field was running back and forwards between his
quarters and the War Department, and in the
afternoon some efforts were made to restore or
der, by appointing rendezvous to which the frag
ment of regiments should repair, and by organ
ising mounted patrols to clear the streets. In
the middle of the day I went out through the
streets, and walked down to the long bridge with
the intention of crossing, but it was literally block
ed up from end to end with a mass of waggons
and ambulances full of wounded men, whose cries
of pain echoed above the shouts of the drivers,
so that I abandoned the attempt to get across,
which, indeed, would not have been easy with
any comfort, owing to the depth of mud in the
roads. To-day the aspect of Washington is more
unseemly and disgraceful, if that were possible,
than yesterday afternoon.

As I returned towards my lodgings a scene of
greater disorder and violence than usual attract
ed my attention. A body of Confederate pris
oners, marching two and two, were with diffi
culty saved by their guard from the murderous
assaults of a hooting rabble, composed of civilians
and men dressed like soldiers, who hurled all
kinds of missiles they could lay their hands upon
over the heads of the guard at their victims, spat
tering them with mud and filthy language. It
was very gratifying to see the way in which the
dastardly mob 'dispersed at the appearance of a
squad of mounted men, who charged them bold
ly, and escorted the prisoners to General Mans
field. They consisted of a picket or grand guard,
which, unaware of the retreat of their regiment
from Fairfax, marched into the Federal lines be

fore the battle. Their just indignation was au
dible enough. One of them, afterwards, told
General M'Dowell, who hurried over as soon as
he was made aware of the disgraceful outrages
to which they had been exposed, " I would have
died a hundred deaths before I fell into these
wretches' hands, if I had known this. Set me
me free for five minutes, and let any two, or four,
of them insult me when my hands are loose."

Soon afterwards a report flew, about that a
crowd of soldiers were hanging a Secessionist.
A senator rushed to General M'Dowell, and told
him that he had seen the man swinging with his
own eyes. Oft' went the General, -centre a terre,
and was considerably relieved by finding that
they were hanging merely a dummy or effigy of
Jeff. Davis, not having succeeded in getting at
the original yesterday.

Poor M'Dowell has been swiftly punished for
his defeat, or rather for the unhappy termination
to his advance. As soon as the disaster was as
certained beyond doubt, the President telegraphed
to General M 'Clellan to come and take command
of his army. It is a commentary full of instruc
tion on the military system of the Americans,
that they have not a soldier who has ever handled
a brigade in the field fit for service in the North.

The new commander-in-chief is a brevet-major
who has been in civil employ on a railway for
several years. He went once, with two other
West Point officers, commissioned by Mr. Jef
ferson Davis, then Secretary of War, to examine
and report on the operations in the Crimea, who
were judiciously despatched when the war was
over, and I used to see him and his companions
poking about the ruins of the deserted trenches
and batteries, mounted on horses furnished by
the courtesy of British officers, just as they lived
in English quarters, when they were snubbed
and refused an audience by the Duke of Mal-
akhoff in the French camp. Major M.'Clellan
forgot the affront, did not even mention it, and
showed his Christian spirit by praising the allies,
and damning John Bull with very faint applause,
seasoned with lofty censure. He was very young,
however, at the time, and is so well spoken of
that his appointment will be popular ; but all
that he has done to gain such reputation, and to
earn the confidence of the government, is to have
had some skirmishes with bands of Confederates
in Western Virginia, in which the leader, Gar-
nett, was killed, his "forces" routed, and finally,
to the number of a thousand, obliged to surren
der as prisoners of war. That success, however,
at such a time, is quite enough to elevate any
man to the highest command. M 'Clellan is
about thirty-six years of age, was educated at
West Point, where he was junior to M'Dowell,
and a class-fellow of Beauregard.

I dined with M. Mercier, the French minister,
who has a prettily situated house on the heights
of Georgetown, about a mile and a half from the
city. Lord Lyons, Mr. Monson, his private sec
retary, M. Bafoche, son of the French minister,
who has been exploiting the Southern states,
were the only additions to the family circle.
The minister is a man in the prime of life, of
more than moderate ability, with a rapid man
ner and quickness of apprehension. Ever since
I first met M. Morcier he has expressed his con
viction that the North never can succeed in con
quering the South, or even restoring the Union,

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

177

and that an attempt to do either by armed force any one read the New York journals for the last

must end in disaster. He is the more confirmed week, if he wishes to frame an indictment against

in his opinions by the result of Sunday's battle, such journalism as the people delight to honour

but the inactivity of the Confederates gives rise in America.

to the belief that they suffered seriously in the July 2±th. — I rode out before breakfast in corn-
affair. M. Baroche has arrived at the convic- pany with Mr. Monson across the Long Bridge
tion, without reference to the fate of the Federals over to Arlington House. General M'Dowell
in their march to Richmond, that the Union is was seated at a table under a tree in front of his
utterly gone — as dead as the Achaian league. tent, and got out his plans and maps to explain

Whilst Madame Mercier and her friends are the scheme of battle.

conversing on much more agreeable subjects, Cast down from his high estate, placed as a
the men hold a tobacco council under the shade subordinate to his junior, covered with obloquy
of the magnificent trees, and France, Russia, and and abuse, the American General displayed a
minor powers talk politics, Lord Lyons alone not calm self-possession and perfect amiability which
joining in the nicotian controversy. Beneath us could only proceed from a philosophic tempera-
flowed the Potomac, and on the wooded heights ment and a consciousness that he would outlive
at the other side, the Federal flag rose over Fort the calumnies of his countrymen. He accused
Corcoran and Arlington House, from which the nobody ; but it was not difficult to perceive he
grand army had set forth a few days ago to crush had been sacrificed to the vanity, self-seeking,
rebellion and destroy its chiefs. There, sad, and disobedience of some of his officers, and to
anxious, and despairing, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. radical vices in the composition of his army.
Seward were at that very moment passing through When M'Dowell found he could not turn the
the wreck of the army, which, silent as ruin it- enemy's right as he intended, because the coun-
self, took no notice of their presence. try by the Occoquan was unfit for the movements

It had been rumoured that the Confederates of artillery, or even infantry, he reconnoitred the

were advancing, and the President and the For- ground towards their left, and formed the project

eign Minister set out in a carriage to see with of turning it by a movement which would bring

their own eyes the state of the troops. What the weight of his columns on their extreme left,

they beheld filled them with despair. The pla- and at the same time overlap it, whilst a strong

teau was covered with the men of different regi- demonstration was made on the ford at Bull's

ments, driven by the patrols out of the city, or Run, where General Tyler brought on the serious

arrested in their flight at the bridges. In Fort skirmish of the 18th. In order to carry out this

Corcoran the men were in utter disorder, threat- plan, he had to debouch his columns from a nar-

ening to murder the officer of regulars who was row point at Centreville, and march them round

essaying to get them into some state of efficiency by various roads to points on the upper part of

to meet the advancing enemy. He had menaced the Run, where it was ford able in all directions,

one of the officers of the 69th with death for flat intending to turn the enemy's batteries on the

disobedience to orders ; the men had taken the lower roads and bridges. But although he start-

part of their captain ; and the President drove ed them at an early hour, the troops moved so

into the work just in time to witness the con- slowly the Confederates became aware of their

fusion. The soldiers with loud cries demanded design, and were enabled to concentrate consid-

that the officer should be punished, and the Pres- erable masses of troops on their left,

ident asked him why he had used such violent The Federals were not only slow, but disor-

language towards his subordinate. "I told him, derly. The regiments in advance stopped at

Mr. President, that if he refused to obey my orders streams to drink and fill their canteens, delaying

I would shoot him on the spot ; and I here repeat the regiments in the rear. They wasted their

it, sir, that if I remain in command here, and he provisions, so that many of them were without

or any other man refuses to obey my orders, I'll food at noon, when they were exhausted by the

shoot him on the spot." heat of the sun and by the stifling vapours of

The firmness of Sherman's language and do- their own dense columns. When they at last

meanour in presence of the chief of the State came into action, some divisions were not in their

overawed the mutineers, and they proceeded to places, so that the line of battle was broken; and

put the work in some kind of order to resist the those which were in their proper position were

enemy.

Mr. Seward was deeply impressed by the scene,
and retired with the President to consult as to

exposed, without support, to the enemy's fire.
A delusion of masked batteries pressed on their
brain. To this was soon added a hallucination

the best course to pursue, in some dejection, but about cavalry, which might have been cured had

they were rather comforted by the telegrams the Federals possessed a few steady squadrons to

from all parts of the North, which proved that, manoeuvre on their flanks and in the intervals

though disappointed and surprised, the people of their line. Nevertheless, they advanced and

were not disheartened or ready to relinquish the encountered the enemy's fire wfth some spirit ;

contest. but the Confederates were enabled to move up

The accounts of the battle in the principal fresh battalions, and to a certain extent to es-

journals are curiously inaccurate and absurd, tablish an equality between the numbers of their

The writers have now recovered themselves. At own troops and the assailants, whilst they had

first they yielded to the pressure of facts and to the advantages of better cover and ground. An

the accounts of their correspondents. They ad- apparition of a disorderly crowd of horsemen in

mitted the repulse, the losses, the disastrous re- front of the much-boasting Fire Zouaves of New

treat, the loss of guns, in strange contrast to their^ York threw them into confusion and flight, and

prophecies and wondrous hyperboles about the a battery which they ought to have protected

hyperbolic grand army. Now they set them- was taken. Another battery was captured by

selves to stem the current they have made. Let the mistake of an officer, who allowed a Confed-
M

178

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

erate regiment to approach the guns, thinking
they were Federal troops, till their first volley
destroyed hotli horses and gunners. At the criti
cal moment, General Johnston, who had escaped
from the feeble observation and untenacious grip
of General Patterson and his time-expired volun
teers, and had been hurrying down his troops
from Winchester by train, threw his fresh bat
talions on the flank and rear of the Federal
right. When the General ordered a retreat,
rendered necessary by the failure of the attack
— disorder spread, which increased — the retreat
became a flight, which degenerated — if a' flight
can degenerate — into a panic, the moment the
Confederates pressed them with a few cavalry
and horse artillery. The efforts of the Generals
to restore order and confidence were futile. For
tunately a weak reserve was posted at Centre-
ville, and these were formed in line on the slope
of the hill, whilst M'Dowell and his officers ex
erted themselves with indifferent success to ar
rest the mass of the army, and make them draw
up behind the reserve, telling the men a bold
front was their sole chance of safety. At mid
night it became evident the morale of the army
was destroyed, and nothing was left but a speedy
retrograde movement, with the few regiments
and guns which were in a condition approach
ing to efficiency, upon the defensive works of
Washington.

Notwithstanding the reverse of fortune, M'Dow-
ell did not appear willing to admit his estimate
of the Southern troops was erroneous, or to say,
"Change armies, and I'll fight the battle over
again." He still held Mississippians, Alabami-
ans, Louisianians, very cheap, and did not see,
or would not confess, the full extent of the cal
umny which had fallen so heavily on him per
sonally. The fact of the evening's inactivity
was conclusive in his mind that they had a dear
ly-bought success, and he looked forward, though
in a subordinate capacity, to a speedy and glori
ous revenge.

July 2i>tk. — The unfortunate General Patter
son, who could not keep Johnston from getting
away from Winchester, is to be dismissed the
service — honourably, of course — that is, he is to
be punished because his men would insist on go
ing home in face of the enemy, as soon as their
three months were up, and that time happened
to arrive just as it would be desirable to operate
against the Confederates. The latter have lost
their chance. The Senate, the House of Rep
resentatives, the Cabinet, the President, are all
at their ease once more, and feel secure in Wash
ington. Up to this moment the Confederates
could have taken it with very little trouble.
Maryland could have been roused to arms, and
Baltimore would have declared for them. The
triumph of the non-aggressionists, at the head
of which is Mr. Davis, in resisting the demands
of the party which urges an actual invasion of
the North as the best way of obtaining peace,
may prove to be very disastrous. Final material
results must have justified the occupation of
Washington.

I dined at the Legation, where were Mr. Sum-
ner and some English visitors desirous of going
South. Lord Lyons gives no encouragement to
these adventurous persons.

July 2tith. — Whether it is from curiosity to
hear what I have to say or not, the number of

my visitors is augmenting. Among them was a
man in soldier's uniform, who sauntered into my
room to borrow "five or ten dollars," on the
ground that he was a waiter at the Clarendon
Hotel when I was stopping there, and wanted
to go North, as his time was up. His anecdotes
were stupendous. General Meigs and Captain
Macomb, of the United States Engineers, paid
me a visit, and talked of the disaster very sensi
bly. The former is an able officer, and an ac
complished man ; the latter, son, I believe, of the
American general of that name, distinguished in
the war with Great Britain. I had a long con
versation with General M 'Dowell, who bears his
supercession with admirable fortitude, and com
plains of nothing except the failure of his offi
cers to obey orders, and the_hard_^Lte_ ...wjucli
condemned. him to lead an army of volmi!c«-r> —
Captain Wright, aide de camp to General Scott,
Lieutenant Wise, of the Navy, and many others.
The communications received from the North
ern States have restored the spirits of all Union
men, and not a few declare they are glad of the
reverse, as the North will now be obliged to put
forth all its strength.

CHAPTER LIT.

Attack of Illness— General M'Clellan— Reception at the
White House— Drunkenness among the Volunteers-r
Visit from Mr. Olmsted — Georgetown — Intense Heat—
M^Clellan and the Newspapers — Reception at Mr. Sew-
ard's — Alexandria — A Storm — Sudden Death of an En
glish Officer— The Maryland Club— A Prayer and Fast
Day— Financial Difficulties.

July 27th. — So ill to-day from heat, bad smells
in the house, and fatigue, that I sent for Dr.
Miller, a great, fine Virginian practitioner, who
ordered me powders to be taken in ' ' mint juleps."
Now mint juleps are made of whisky, sugar, ice,
very little water, and sprigs of fresh mint, to be
sucked up after the manner of sherry cobblers,
Uf so it be pleased, with a straw.

"A powder every two hours, with a mint julep.
Why, that's six a day, Doctor. Won't that be
— eh? — won't that be rather intoxicating?"

"Well, sir, that depends on the constitution.
You'll find they will do you no harm, even if the
worst takes place."

Day after day, till the month was over and
August had come, I passed in a state of powder
and julep, which the Virginian doctor declared
saved my life. The first time I stirred out the
change which had taken place in the streets was
at once apparent: no drunken rabblcment of
armed men, no begging soldiers ; instead of
these were patrols in the streets, guards at the
corners, and a rigid system of passes. The
North begin to perceive their magnificent armies
are mythical, but knowing they have the ele
ments of making one, they are setting about the
manufacture. Numbers of tapsters and serving-
men, and canaille from the cities, who now dis
grace swords and shoulder-straps, are to be dis
missed. Round the corner, with a kind of staff
at his heels and an escort, comes Major General
George B. M'Clellan, the young Napoleon (of
Western Virginia), the conqueror of Garnett, the
Captor of Peagrim, the commander-in-chief, un
der the President, of the army of the United
States. He is a very squarely-built, thick-throat
ed, broad-chested man, under the middle height,

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

179

with slightly-bowed legs, a tendency to embon
point. His head, covered with a closely-cut
crop of dark auburn hair, is well set on his shoul
ders. His features are regular and prepossessing
— the brow small, contracted, and furrowed ; the
eyes deep and anxious-looking. A short, thick,
reddish moustache conceals his mouth ; the rest
of his face is clean shaven. He has made his
father-in-law, Major Marcy, chief of his staff, and
is a good deal influenced by his opinions, which
are entitled to some weight, as Major Marcy is
a soldier, and has seen frontier wars, and is a
great traveller. The task of licking this army
into shape is of Herculean magnitude. Every
one, however, is willing to do as he bids : the
President confides in him, and "Georges" him ;
the press fawn upon him, the people trust him ;
he is "the little corporal" of unfought fields —
omnis ignotus pro mirifico, here. He looks like
a stout little captain of dragoons, but for his
American seat and saddle. The latter is adapt
ed to a man who cannot ride : if a squadron so
mounted were to attempt a fence or ditch, half
of them would be ruptured or spilled. The seat
is a marvel to any European. But M'Clellan
is nevertheless "the man on horseback" just
now, and the Americans must ride in his saddle,
or in anything he likes.

In the evening of my first day's release from
juleps the President held a reception or levee,
and I went to the White House about nine
o'clock, when the rooms were at their fullest.
The company were arriving on foot, or crammed
in hackney coaches, and did not affect any neat
ness of attire or evening dress. The doors were
open : any one could walk in who chose. Pri
vate soldiers, in hodden grey and hob-nailed
shoes, stood timorously chewing on the thresh
old of the state apartments, alarmed at the lights
and gilding, or, haply, by the marabout feathers
and finery of a few ladies who were in ball cos
tume, till, assured by fellow-citizens there was
nothing to fear, they plunged into the dreadful
revelry. Faces familiar to me in the magazines
of the town were visible in the crowd which
filled the reception-rooms and the ball-room, in
a small room off which a military band was sta
tioned.

The President, in a suit of black, stood near
the door of one of the rooms near the hall, and
shook hands with every one of the crowd, who
was then " passed" on by his secretary, if the
President didn't wish to speak to him. Mr.
Lincoln has recovered his spirits, and seemed in
good humour. Mrs. Lincoln, who did the hon
ours in another room, surrounded by a few la
dies, did not appear to be quite so contented.
All the ministers are present except Mr. Seward,
who has gone to his own state to ascertain the
frame of mind of the people, and to judge for
himself of the sentiments they entertain respect
ing the war. After walking up and down the
hot and crowded rooms for an hour, and seeing
and speaking to all the celebrities, I withdrew.
Colonel Richardson, in his official report, states
Colonel Miles lost the battle of Bull Run by be
ing drunk and disorderly at a critical moment.
Colonel Miles, who commanded a division of
three brigades, writes to say he was not in any
such state, and has demanded a court of inquiry.
In a Philadelphia paper it is stated M'Dowell
was helplessly drunk during the action, and sat

up all the night before drinking, smoking, and
playing cards. M'Dowell never drinks, and
never has drunk, wine, spirits, malt, tea, or cof
fee, or smoked or used tobacco in any form, nor
does he play cards ; and that remark does not
apply to many other Federal officers.

Drunkenness is only too common among the
American volunteers, and General Butler has
put it officially in orders, that " the use of intox
icating liquors prevails to an alarming extent
among the officers of his command," and has or
dered the seizure of their grog, which will only be
allowed on medical certificate. He announces,
too, that he will not use wine or spirits, or give
any to his friends, or allow any in his own quar
ters in future — a quaint, vigorous creature, this
Massachusetts lawyer.

The outcry against Patterson has not yet sub
sided, though he states that, out of twenty-three
regiments composing his force, nineteen refused
to stay an. hour over their time, which would
have been up in a week, so that he would have
been left in an enemy's country with four regi
ments. He wisely led his patriot band back, and
let them disband themselves in their own bor
ders. Verily, these are not the men to conquer
the South.

Fresh volunteers are pouring in by tens of
thousands to take their places from all parts of
the Union, and in three days after the battle,
80, 000 men were accepted. Strange people !
The regiments which have returned to New York
after disgraceful conduct at Bull Run, with the
stigmata of cowardice impressed by their com
manding officers on the colours and souls of their
cofps, are actually welcomed with the utmost
enthusiasm, and receive popular ovations ! It
becomes obvious every day that M'Clellan does
not intend to advance till he has got some sem
blance of an army : that will be a long time to
come ; but he can get a good deal of fighting
out of them in a few months. Meantime the
whole of the Northern states are waiting anx
iously for the advance which is to take place at
once, according to promises from New York. As
Washington is the principal scene of interest,
the South being tabooed to me, I have resolved
to stay here till the army is fit to move, making
little excursions to points of interest. The de
tails in my diary are not very interesting, and I
shall make but brief extracts.

August 2nd. — Mr. Olmsted visited me in com
pany with a young gentleman named Ritchie,
son-in-law of James Wadsworth, who has been
serving as honorary aide-de-camp on M'Dowell 's
staff, but is now called to higher functions. They
dined at my lodgings, and we talked over Bull
Run again. Mr. Ritchie did not leave Centre-
ville till late in the evening, and slept at Fairfax
Court-house, where he remained till 8.30 A.M.
on the morning of July 22nd, Wadsworth not
stirring for two hours later. He said the panic
was "horrible, disgusting, sickening," and spoke
in the harshest terms of the officers, to whom he
applied a variety of epithets. Prince Napoleon
has arrived.

August 3rd. — M'Clellan orders regular parades
and drills in every regiment, and insists on all
orders being given by bugle note. I had a long
ride through the camps, and saw some improve
ment in the look of the men. Coming home by
Georgetown, met the Prince driving with M.

180

MY DIAKY NORTH AND SOUTH.

Mercier, to pay a visit to the President. I am
sure that the politicians are not quite well pleased
with this arrival, because they do not understand
it, and cannot imagine a man would come so far
without a purpose. The drunken soldiers now
resort to quiet lanes and courts in the suburbs.
Georgetown was full of them. It is a much
more respectable and old-world looking place
: than its vulgar, empty, overgrown, mushroom
neighbour, Washington. An officer who had
fallen in his men to go on duty was walking
down the line this evening, when his eye rested
on the neck of a bottle sticking out of a man's
coat. "Thunder," quoth he, "James, what have
you got there?" "Well. I guess, captain, it's a
drop of real good Bourbon." "Then let us have
a drink," said the captain; and thereupon pro
ceeded to take a long pull and a strong pull, till
the man cried out, "That is not fair, Captain.
You won't leave me a drop" — a remonstrance
which had a proper effect, and the captain
marched down his company to the bridge.

It was extremely hot when I returned, late in
the- evening. I asked the boy for a glass of iced
water. " Dere is no ice, massa," he said. " No
ice? What's the reaso'n of that?" "De Se-
ceshers, massa, block up de river, and touch off
^deir guns at de ice-boats." The Confederates
on the right bank of the Potomac have now es
tablished a close blockade of the river. Lieu
tenant Wise, of the Navy Department, admitted
the fact, but said that the United States gunboats
would soon sweep the rebels from the shore.

August ±th. — I had no idea that the sun could
be powerful in Washington ; even in India the
heat is not much more oppressive than it was
here to-day. There is this extenuating circum
stance, however, that after some hours of such
very high temperature, thunder-storms and tor
nadoes cool the air. I received a message from
General M'Clellan that he was about to ride
along the lines of the army across the river, and
would be happy if I accompanied him; but as
I had many letters to write for the next mail, I
was unwillingly obliged to abandon the chance
of seeing the army under such favourable cir
cumstances. There are daily arrivals at Wash
ington of military adventurers from all parts of
the world, some of them with many extraordi
nary certificates and qualifications ; but, as Mr.
Seward says, " It is best to detain them with the
hope of employment on the Northern side, lest
some really good man should get among the
rebels." Garibaldians, Hungarians, Poles, offi
cers of Turkish and other contingents, the ex
ecutory devises and remainders of European
revolutions and wars, surround the State depart
ment, and infest unsuspecting politicians with
illegible testimonials in unknown tongues.

August 5th. — The roads from the station are
crowded with troops, coming from the North as
fast as the railway can carry them. It is evi
dent, as the war fever spreads, that such politi
cians as Mr. Crittenden, who resist the extreme
violence of the Republican party, will be stricken
down. The Confiscation Bill, for the emanci
pation of slaves and the absorption of property
belonging to rebels, has, indeed, been boldly re
sisted in the House of Representatives; but it
passed with some trifling amendments. The
journals are still busy with the affair of Bull
Run, and each seems anxious to eclipse the oth

er in the absurdity of its statements. A Phila
delphia journal, for instance, states to-day that
the real cause of the disaster was not a desire to
retreat, but a mania to advance. In its own
words, "the only drawback was the impetuous
feeling to go ahead and fight." Because one
officer is accused of drunkenness, a great move
ment is on foot to prevent the army getting any
drink at all.

General M'Clellan invited the newspaper cor
respondents in Washington to meet him to-day,
and with their assent drew up a treaty of peace
and amity, which is a curiosity in its way. In
the first place, the editors are to abstain from
printing anything which can give aid or comfort
to the enemy, and their correspondents are to
observe equal caution ; in return for which com
plaisance, Government is to be asked to give the
press opportunities for obtaining and transmit
ting intelligence suitable for publication, partic
ularly touching engagements with the enemy.
The Confederate privateer Sumter has forced
the blockade at New Orleans, and has already
been heard of destroying a number of Union
vessels.

August 6th. — Prince Napoleon, anxious to visit
the battle-field at Bull Run, has, to Mr. Seward's
discomfiture, applied for passes, and arrange
ments are being made to escort him as far as the
Confederate lines. This is a recognition of the
Confederates, as a belligerent power, which is by
no means agreeable to the authorities. I drove
down to the Senate, where the proceedings were
very uninteresting, although Congress was on
the eve of adjournment, and returning, visited
Mr. Seward, Mr. Bates, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Blair,
and left cards for Mr. Breckinridge. The old
woman who opened the door at the house where
the latter lodged said, "Massa Breckinridge
pack up all his boxes ; I s'pose he not cum back
here again."

August 7th . — In the evening I went to Mr. Sew
ard's, who gave a reception in honour of Prince
Napoleon. The Minister's rooms were crowded
and intensely hot. Lord Lyons and most of the
diplomatic circle were present. The Prince
wore his Order of the Bath, and bore the on
slaughts of politicians, male and female, with
much good humour. The contrast between the
uniforms of the officers of the United States
army and navy and those of the French in the
Prince's suit by no means redounded to the
credit of the military tailoring of the Americans.
The Prince, to whom I was presented by Mr.
Seward, asked me particularly about the roads
from Alexandria to Fairfax Court-house, and
from there to Centreville and Manassas. I told
him I had not got quite so far as the latter place,
at which he laughed. He inquired with much
interest about General Beauregard, whether he
spoke good French, if he seemed a man of ca
pacity, or was the creation of an accident and of
circumstances. He has been to Mount Vernon,
and is struck with the air of neglect around the
place. Two of his horses dropped dead from the
heat on the journey, and the Prince, who was
perspiring profusely in the crowded room, asked
me whether the climate was not as bad as mid
summer in India. His manner was perfectly
easy, but he gave no encouragement to bores,
nor did he court popularity by unusual affabili
ty, and he moved off long before the guests were

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

181

tired of looking at him. On returning to my
rooms, a German gentleman named Bing— who
went out with the Federal army from Washing
ton, was taken prisoner at Bull's Run, and car
ried to Richmond— came to visit me, but his ac
count of what he saw in the dark and mysteri
ous South was not lucid or interesting.

August 8th. — I had arranged to go with Mr.
Olmsted and Mr. Ritchie to visit the hospitals,
but the heat was so intolerable, we abandoned
the idea till the afternoon, when we drove across
the Long Bridge and proceeded to Alexandria.
The town, which is now fully occupied by mili
tary, and is abandoned by the respectable inhab
itants, has an air, owing to the absence of wom
en and children, which tells the tale of a hostile
occupation. In a large building, which had
once been a school, the wounded of Bull Run
were lying, not uncomfortably packed, nor un
skilfully cared for, and the arrangements were,
taken altogether, creditable to the skill and hu
manity of the surgeons. Close at hand was the
church in which George Washington was wont
in latter days to pray, when he drove over from
Mount Vernon — further on, Marshall House,
where Ellsworth was shot by the Virginian land
lord, and was so speedily avenged. A strange
train of thought was suggested by the rapid
grouping of incongruous ideas, arising out of the
proximity of these scenes. As one of my friends
said, "I wonder what Washington would do if
he were here now — and how he would act if he
were summoned from that church to Marshall
House, or to this hospital?" The man who ut
tered these words was not either of my compan
ions, but wore the shoulder-straps of a Union of
ficer. " Stranger still," said I, " would it be to
speculate on the thoughts and actions of Napo
leon in this crisis, if he were to wake up and see
a Prince of his blood escorted by Federal sol
diers to the spot where the troops of the South
ern States had inflicted on them a signal defeat,
in a land where the nephew who now sits on the
throne of France has been an exile." It is not
quite certain that many Americans understand
who Prince Napoleon is, for one of the troopers
belonging to the escort who took him out from
Alexandria declared positively he had ridden
with the Emperor. The excursion is swallowed,
but not well digested. In Washington the only
news to-night is, that a small privateer from
Charleston, mistaking the St. Lawrence for a
merchant-vessel, fired into her, and jvas at once
sent to Mr. Davy Jones by a rattling broadside.
Congress having adjourned, there is but little to
render Washington less uninteresting than it
must be in its normal state.

The truculent and overbearing spirit which
arises from the uncontroverted action of demo
cratic majorities developes itself in the North,
where they have taken to burning newspaper of
fices, and destroying all the property belonging
to the proprietors and editors. These actions are
a strange commentary on Mr. Seward's declara
tion "that no volunteers are to be refused be
cause they do not speak English, inasmuch as
the contest for the Union is a battle of the free
men of the world for the institutions of self-gov
ernment."

August llth. — On the old Indian principle, I
rode out this morning very early, and was re
warded by a breath of cold, fresh air, and by the

sight of some very disorderly regiments just
turning out to parade in the camps ; but I was
not particularly gratified by being mistaken for
Prince Napoleon by some Irish recruits, who
shouted out, "Bonaparte for ever !" and gradu
ally subsided into requests for "something to
drink your Royal Highness' s health with." As
I returned, I saw on the steps of General Mans
field's quarters a tall, soldierly -looking young
man, whose breast was covered with Crimean
ribbons and medals, and I recognised him as one
who had called upon me a few days before, re
newing our slight acquaintance before Sebasto-
pol, where his courage was conspicuous, to ask
me for information respecting the mode of ob
taining a commission in the Federal army.

Towards mid-day an ebony sheet of clouds
swept over the city. I went out, regardless of
the threatening storm, to avail myself of the cool
ness to make a few visits ; but soon a violent
wind arose, bearing clouds like those of an In
dian dust-storm down the streets. The black
sheet overhead became agitated like the sea, and
tossed about grey clouds, which careered against
each other and burst into lightning ; then sud
denly, without other warning, down came the
rain — a perfect tornado ; sheets of water flood
ing the streets in a moment, turning the bed into
water-courses and the channels into deep rivers.
I waded up the centre of Pennsylvania Avenue,
past the President's house, in a current which
would have made a respectable trout-stream ;
and on getting opposite my own door, made a
rush for the porch, but, forgetting the deep chan
nel at the side, stepped into a rivulet which was
literally above my hips, and I was carried off my
legs, till I succeeded in catching the -kerbstone,
and escaped into the hall as if I had just swum
across the Potomac.

On returning from my ride next morning, I
took up the Baltimore paper, and saw a para
graph announcing the death of an English offi
cer at the station ; it was the poor fellow whom
I saw sitting at General Mansfield's steps yester
day. The consul was absent on a short tour,
rendered necessary by the failure of his health
consequent on the discharge of his duties. Find
ing the Legation were anxious to see due care
ta'ken of the poor fellow's remains, I left for Bal
timore at a quarter to three o'clock, and proceed
ed to inquire into the circumstances connected
with his death. He had been struck down at
the station by some cerebral attack, brought on
by the heat and excitement ; had been carried
to the police station and placed upon a bench,
from which he had fallen with his head down
wards, and was found in that position, with life
quite extinct, by a casual visitor. My astonish
ment may be conceived when I learned that not
only had the Coroner's inquest sat and returned
its verdict, but that the man had absolutely been
buried the same morning, and so my mission
was over, and I could only report what had oc
curred at Washington. Little value indeed has
human life in this new world, to which the old
gives vital power so lavishly, that it is regarded
as almost worthless. I have seen more "fuss"
made over an old woman killed by a cab in Lon
don than there is over half a dozen deaths, with
suspicion of murder attached, in New Orleans or
New York.

I remained in Baltimore a few days, and had

182

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

an opportunity of knowing the feelings of some
of the leading men in the place. It may be de
scribed in one word — intense hatred of New En
gland and black republicans, which has been in
creased to mania by the stringent measures of
the military dictator of the American Warsaw,
the searches of private houses, domiciliary visits,
arbitrary arrests, the suppression of adverse jour
nals, the overthrow of the corporate body — all
the acts, in fact, which constitute the machinery
and the grievances of a tyranny. When I spoke
of the brutal indifference of the police to the poor
officer previously mentioned, the Baltimoreans
told me the constables appointed by the Federal
general were scoundrels who led the Plug Uglies
in former days — the worst characters in a city
not sweet or savoury in repute — but that the old
police were men of very different description.
The Maryland Club, where I had spent some
pleasant hours, was now like a secret tribunal or
the haunt of conspirators. The police entered
it a few days ago, searched every room, took up
the flooring, and even turned up the coals in the
kitchen and the wine in the cellar. Such indig
nities fired the blood of the members, who are,
with one exception, opposed to the attempt to
coerce the South by the sword. Not one of
them but could tell of some outrage perpetrated
on himself or on some members of his family by
the police and Federal authority. Many a de
lator amid was suspected but not convicted.
Men sat moodily reading the papers with knit
ted brows, or whispering in corners, taking each
other apart, and glancing suspiciously at their
fellows.

There is a peculiar stamp about the Baltimore
men which distinguishes them from most Amer
icans — a style of dress, frankness of manner, and
a general appearance assimmilating them close
ly to the upper classes of Englishmen. They
are fond of sport and travel, exclusive and high-
spirited, and the iron rule of the Yankee is the
more intolerable because they dare not resent it,
and are unable to shake it off.

I returned to Washington on loth August.
Nothing changed; skirmishes along the front;
M 'Clellan reviewing. The loss of General Lyon,
who was killed in an action with the Confeder
ates under Ben McCullough, at Wilson's Creek,
Springfield, Missouri, in which the Unionists were
with difficulty extricated by General Sigel from
a very dangerous position, after the death of their
leader, is severely felt. He was one of the very
few officers who combined military skill and per
sonal bravery with political sagacity and moral
firmness. The President has issued his procla
mation for a day of fast and prayer, which, say
the Baltimoreans, is a sign that the Yankees are
in a bad way, as they would never think of pray
ing or fasting if their cause was prospering. The
stories which have been so sedulously spread,
and which never will be quite discredited, of the
barbarity and cruelty of the Confederates to all
the wounded, ought to be set at rest by the print
ed statement of the eleven Union surgeons just
released, who have come back from Richmond,
where they were sent after their capture on the
field of Bull Run, with the most distinct testimo
ny that the Confederates treated their prisoners
•with humanity. Who are the miscreants who
tried to make the evil feeling, quite strong-enough
as it is, perfectly fiendish, by asserting the rebels

burned the wounded in hospitals, and bayoneted
them as they lay helpless on the field ?

The pecuniary difficulties of the Government
have been alleviated by the bankers of New York,
Philadelphia, and Boston, who have agreed to
lend them fifty millions of dollars, on condition
that they receive the Treasury notes which Mr.
Chase is about to issue. As we read the papers
and hear the news, it is difficult to believe that
the foundations of society are not melting away
in the heat of this conflict. Thus, a Federal
judge, named Garrison, who has issued his writ
of habeas corpus for certain prisoners in Fort
Lafayette, being quietly snuffed out by the com
mandant, Colonel Burke, desires to lead an army
against the fort and have a little civil war of his
own in New York. He applies to the command
er of the county militia, who informs Garrison
he can't get into the fort, as there was no artil
lery strong enough to breach the walls, and that
it would require 10,000 men to invest it, where
as only 1400 militiamen were available. What
a farceur Judge Garrison must be! In addition
to the gutting and burning of newspaper offices,
and the exercitation of the editors on rails, the
republican grand juries have taken to indicting
the democratic journals, and Fremont's provost
marshal in St. Louis has, proprio motu, suppress
ed those which he considers disaffected. A mu
tiny which broke out in the Scotch Regiment
79th N. Y. has been followed by another in the
2nd Maine Regiment, and a display of cannon
and of cavalry was required to induce them to
allow the ringleaders to be arrested. The Pres
ident was greatly alarmed, but M 'Clellan acted
with some vigour, and the refractory volunteers
are to be sent off to a pleasant station called the
"Dry Tortugas" to work on the fortifications.

Mr. Seward, with whom I dined and spent the
evening on 16th August, has been much reas
sured and comforted by the demonstrations of
readiness on the part of the people to continue
the contest, and of confidence in the cause among
the moneyed men of the great cities. "All
we want is time to develope our strength. We
have been blamed for not making greater use of
our navy and extending it at once. It was our
first duty to provide for the safety of our capital.
Besides, a man will generally pay little attention
to agencies he does not understand. None of us
knew anything about a navy. I doubt if the
President ever saw anything more formidable
than a river steamboat, and I don't think Mr.
Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, knew the stem
from the stern of a ship. Of the whole Cabinet,
I am the only member who ever was fairly at
sea or crossed the Atlantic. Some of us never
even saw it. No wonder we did not understand
the necessity for creating a navy at once. Soon,
however, our Government will be able to dispose
of a respectable marine, and when our army is
ready to move, co-operating with the fleet, the
days of the rebellion are numbered."

"When will that be, Mr. Secretary ?"

" Soon ; very soon, I hope. We can, howev
er, bear delays. The rebels will be ruined by it."

CHAPTER LIII.

Return to Baltimore — Colonel Carroll — A Priest's view
of the Abolition of Slavery — Slavery in Maryland —

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

183

Harper's Ferry— John Brown— Back by train to Wash-
ington — Further accounts of Bull Run — American van
ity — My own unpopularity for speaking the truth —
Killing a u Digger" no murder — Navy Department.

ON the 17th August I returned to Baltimore
on my way to Drohoregan Manor, the seat of
Colonel Carroll, in Maryland, where I had been
invited to spend a few days by his son-in-law, an
English gentleman of my acquaintance. Leav
ing Baltimore at 5.40 P.M., in company with Mr.
Tucker Carroll, I proceeded by train to Ellicott's
Mills, a station fourteen miles on the Ohio and
Baltimore railroad, from which our host's resi
dence is distant more than an hour's drivfe. The
countiy through which the line passes is pictur
esque and undulating, with hills and valleys and
brawling streams, spreading in woodland and
glade, ravine, and high uplands on either side,
haunted by cotton factories, poisoning air and
water ; but it has been A formidable district for
the engineers to get through, and the line abounds
in those triumphs of engineering which are gen
erally the ruin of shareholders.

All these lines are now in the hands of the
military. At the Washington terminus there is
a guard placed to see that no unauthorised per
son or unwilling volunteer is going north ; the
line is watched by patrols and sentries ; troops
are encamped along its course. The factory
chimneys are smokeless ; half the pleasant villas
which cover the hills or dot the openings in the
forest have a deserted look and closed windows.
And so these great works, the Carrolton viaduct,
the Thomas viaduct, and the high embankments
and great cuttings in the ravine by the river side,
over which the line passes, have almost a de
pressing effect, as if the people for whose use
they were intended had all become extinct. At
Ellicott's Mills, which is a considerable manu
facturing town, more soldiers and Union flags.
The people are Unionists, but the neighbouring
gentry and country people are Seceshers.

This is the case wherever there is a manufac
turing population in Mary land, because the work
men are generally foreigners, or have come from
the Northern States, and feel little sympathy
with States rights' doctrines, and the tendencies
of the landed gentry to a Conservative action on
the slave question. There was no good will in
the eyes of the mechanicals as they stared at our
vehicle ; for the political bias of Colonel Carroll
was well known, as well as the general senti
ments of his family. It was dark when we
reached the manor, which is approached by an
avenue of fine trees. The house is old-fashion
ed, and has received additions from time to time.
But for the black faces of the domestics, one
might easily fancy he was in some old country
house in Ireland. The family have adhered to
their ancient faith. The founder of the Carrolls
in Maryland came over with the Catholic col
onists led by Lord Baltimore, or by his brother,
Leonard Calvert, and the colonel possesses some
interesting deeds of grant and conveyance of the
vast estates, which have been diminished by large
sales year after year, but still spread over a con
siderable part of several counties in the State.

Colonel Carroll is an immediate descendant
of one of the leaders in the revolution of 1776,
and he pointed out to me the room in which Car
roll, of Carrolton, and George Washington, were
wont to meet when they were concocting their

splendid treason. One of his connections mar
ried the late Marquis Wellesley, and the colonel
takes pleasure in setting forth how the daughter
of the Irish recusant, who fled from his native
country all but an outlaw, sat on the throne of
the Queen of Ireland, or, in other words, held
court in Dublin Castle as wife of the Viceroy.
Drohoregan is supposed to mean " Hall of the
Kings," and called after an old place belonging,
some time or other, to the family, the early his
tory of which, as set forth in the Celtic author
ities and Irish antiquarian works, possesses great
attractions for the kindly, genial old man — kind
ly and genial to all but the Abolitionists and
black republicans ; nor is he indifferent to the
reputation of the State in the Revolutionary
War, where the "Maryland line" seems to have
differed from many of the contingents of the oth
er States in not running away so often at crit
ical moments in the serious actions. Colonel
Carroll has sound arguments to prove the sover
eign independence and right of every State in
the Union, derived from family teaching and the
lessons of those who founded the Constitution it
self.

•On the day after my arrival the rain fell in
torrents. The weather is as uncertain as that
of our own isle. The torrid heats at Washington,
the other day, were succeeded by bitter cold days;
now there is a dense mist, chilly and cheerless,
seeming as a sort of strainer for the even down
pour that falls through it continuously. The
family, after breakfast, slipped round to the little
chapel which forms the extremity of one wing
of the house. The coloured people on the estate
were already trooping across the lawn and up
the avenue from the slave quarters, decently
dressed for the most part, having due allowance
for the extraordinary choice of colours in their
gowns, bonnets, and ribbons, and for the unhappy
imitations, on the part of the men, of the attire
of their masters. They walked demurely and
quietly past the house, and presently the priest,
dressed like a French cure, trotted up, and serv
ice began. The negro* houses were of a much
better and more substantial character than those
one sees in the South, though not remarkable for
cleanliness and good order. Truth to say, they
were palaces compared to the huts of Irish la
bourers, such as might be found, perhaps, on the
estates of the colonel's kinsmen at home. The
negroes are far more independent than they are
in the South. They are less civil, less obliging,
and, although they do not come cringing to shake
hands as the field-hands on a Louisiana planta
tion, less servile. They inhabit a small village
of brick and wood houses, across the road, at the
end of the avenue, and in sight of the house.
The usual swarms of little children, poultry,
pigs, enlivened by goats, embarrassed the steps
of the visitor, and the old people, or those who
were not finely di-essed enough for mass, peered
out at the strangers from the glassless windows.

When chapel was over, the boys and girls came
up for catechism, and passed in review before the
ladies of the house, with whom they were on very
good terms. The priest joined us in the veran
dah when his labours were over, and talked with
intelligence of the terrible war which has burst
over the land. He has just returned from a
tour in the Northern States, and it is his belief
the native Americans there will not enlist, but

184

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

that they will get foreigners to fight their bat
tles. He admitted that slavery was in itself an
evil, nay, more, that it was not profitable in Ma
ryland. But what are the landed proprietors to
do ? The slaves have been bequeathed to them
as property by their fathers, with certain obliga
tions to be respected, and duties to be fulfilled.
It is impossible to free them, because, at the mo
ment of emancipation, nothing short of the con
fiscation of all the labour and property of the
whites would be required to maintain the ne
groes, who would certainly refuse to work un
less they had their masters' land as their own.
Where is white labour to be found ? Its intro
duction must be the work of years, and mean
time many thousands of slaves, who have a right
to protection, would canker the land.

In Maryland they do not breed slaves for the
purpose of selling them as they do in Virginia,
and yet Colonel Carroll and other gentlemen,
who regarded the slaves they inherited almost
as members of their families, have been stigma
tised by abolition orators as slave-breeders and
slave-dealers. It was these insults which stung
the gentlemen of Maryland and of the other
Slave States to> the quick, and made them re
solve never to yield to the domination of a party
which had never ceased to wage war against their
institutions and their reputation and honour.

A little knot of friends and relations joined
Colonel Carroll at dinner. There are few fam
ilies in this part of Maryland which have not
representatives in the other army across the Po
tomac ; and if Beauregard could but make his
appearance, the women alone would give him
welcome such as no conqueror ever received in
liberated city.

Next day the rain fell incessantly. The mail
was brought in by a little negro boy on horse
back, and I was warned by my letters that an
immediate advance of M'Clellan's troops was
probable. This is an old story. "Battle ex
pected to-morrow" has been a heading in the
papers for the last fortnight. In the afternoon
I was driven over a part of the estate in a close
carriage, through the windows of which, how
ever, I caught glimpses of a beautiful country,
wooded gloriously, and soft, sylvan, and well-
cultivated as the best parts of Hampshire and
Gloucestershire, the rolling lands of which latter
country, indeed, it much resembled in its large
fields, heavy with crops of tobacco and corn.
The weather was too unfavourable to admit of a
close inspection of the fields ; but I visited one
or two tobacco houses, where the fragrant Mary
land was lying in masses on the ground, or hang
ing from the rafters, or filled the heavy hogs
heads with compressed smoke.

Next day I took the train at Ellicott's Mills,
and went to Harper's Ferry. There is no one
spot, in the history of this extraordinary war,
which can be well more conspicuous. Had it
nothing more to recommend it than the scenery,
it might well command a visit from the tourist ;
but as the scene of old John Brown's raid upon
the Federal arsenal, of that first passage of arms
between the abolitionists and the slave conserva
tives, which has developed this great contest;
above all, as the spot where important military
demonstrations have been made on both sides,
and will necessarily occur hereafter, this place,
which probably derives its name from some

wretched old boatman, will be renowned for ever
in the annals of the civil war of 1861 . The Pa-
tapsco, by the bank of which the rail is carried
for some miles, has all the character of a moun
tain torrent, rushing through gorges or carving
out its way at the base of granite hills, or boldly
cutting a path for itself through the softer slate.
Bridges, viaducts, remarkable archways, and great
spans of timber trestle-work leaping from hill to
hill, enable the rail to creep onwards and up
wards by the mountain side to the Potomap at
Point of Rocks, whence it winds its way over
undulating ground, by stations with eccentric
names #o the river's bank once more. We were
carried on to the station next to Harper's Ferry
on a ledge of the precipitous mountain range
which almost overhangs the stream. But few
civilians were in the train. The greater number
of passengers consisted of soldiers and sutlers,
proceeding to their encampments along the river.
A strict watch was kept over the passengers,
whose passes were examined by officers at the
various stations. At one place an officer who
really looked like a soldier entered the train,
and on seeing my pass told me in broken En
glish that he had served in the Crimea, and was
acquainted with me and many of my friends.
The gentleman who accompanied me "observed,
"I do not know whether he was in the Crimea
or not, but I do know that till very lately your
friend the Major was a dancing-master in New
York." A person of a very different type made
his offers of service, Colonel Gordon, of the 2nd
Massachusetts Regiment, who caused the train to
run on as far as Harper's Ferry, in order to giro
me a sight of the place, although in consequence
of the evil habit of firing on the carriages in
which the Confederates across the river have been
indulging, the locomotive generally halts at some
distance below the bend of the river.

Harper's Ferry lies in a gorge formed by a rush
of the Potomac through the mountain ridges,
which it cuts at right angles to its course at its
junction with the river Shenandoah. So trench
ant and abrupt is the division that little land is
on the divided ridge to build upon. The pre
cipitous hills on both sides are covered with for
est, which has been cleared in patches here and
there on the Maryland shore, to permit of the
erection of batteries. On the Virginian side
there lies a mass of blackened and ruined build
ings, from which a street lined with good houses
stretches up the hill. Just above the junction
of the Shenandoah with the Potomac, an ele
vated bridge or viaduct 300 yards long leaps
from hill-side to hill-side. The arches had been
broken — the rails which ran along the top torn
up, and there is now a deep gulf fixed between
the shores of Maryland and Virginia. The rail
to Winchester from this point has been destroy
ed, and the line along the Potomac has also been
ruined.

But for the batteries which cover the shoal
water at the junction of the two rivers below the
bridge, there would be no difficulty in crossing
to the Maryland shore, and from that side the
whole of the ground around Harper's Ferry is
completely commanded. The gorge is almost
as deep as the pass of Killiecrankie, which it
resembles in most respects except in breadth and
the size of the river between, and if ever a rail
road finds its way to Blair Athol, the passengers

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

185

will find something to look at very like the scen
ery on the route to Harper's Ferry. The vigi
lance required to guard the pass of the river
above and below this point is incessant, but the
Federals possess the advantage on their side of
a deep canal parallel to the railway and running
above the level of the river, which would be a
more formidable obstacle than the Potomac to
infantry or guns. There is reason to believe that
the Secessionists in Maryland cross backwards
and forwards whenever they please, and the Vir
ginians, coming down at their leisure to the op
posite shore, inflict serious annoyance on the
Federal troops by constant rifle practice.

Looking up and down the river the scenery is
picturesque, though it is by no means entitled to
the extraordinary praises which American tour
ists lavish upon it. Probably old John Brown
cared little for the wild magic of streamlet or
rill, or for the blended charm of vale and wood
land. When he made his attack on the arsenal
now in ruins, he probably thought a valley was
as high as a hill, and that there was no necessity
for water running downwards — assuredly he saw
as little of the actual heights and depths around
him when he ran across the Potomac to revolu
tionize Virginia. He has left behind him mil
lions either as clear-sighted or as blind as him
self. In New England parlours a statuette of
John Brown may be found as a pendant to the
likeness of our Saviour. In Virginia his name
is the synonym of all that is base, bloody, and
cruel.

Harper's Ferry at present, for all practical
purposes, may be considered as Confederate prop
erty. The few Union inhabitants remain in their
houses, but many of the Government workmen
and most of the inhabitants have gone off South.
For strategical purposes its possession would be
most important to a force desiring to operate on
Maryland from Virginia. The Blue Ridge range
running up to the Shenandoah divides the coun
try so as to permit a force debouching from Har
per's Ferry to advance down the valley of the
Shenandoah on the right, or to move to the left
between the Blue Ridge and the Katoctin mount
ains towards the Manassas railway at its discre
tion. After a false alarm that some Secesh cav
alry were coming down to renew the skirmish
ing of the day before, I returned, and, travelling
to Relay House, just saved the train to Washing
ton, where I arrived after sunset. A large num
ber of Federal troops are employed along these
lines, which they occupy as if they were in a hos
tile country. An imperfectly formed regiment
broken up into these detachments, and placed in
isolated posts, under ignorant officers, may be re
garded as almost worthless for military opera
tions. Hence the constant night alarms — the
mistakes — the skirmishes and instances of mis
behaviour which arise along these extended
lines.

On the journey from Harper's Ferry, the con
centration of masses of troops along the road,
and the march of heavy artillery trains, caused
me to think a renewal of the offensive movement
against Richmond was immediate, but at Wash
ington I heard that all M'Clellan wanted or
hoped for at present was to make Maryland safe
and to gain time for the formation of his army.
The Confederates appear to be moving towards
their left, and M 'Clellan is very uneasy lest they

should make a vigorous attack before he is pre
pared to receive them.

In the evening the New York papers came in
with the extracts from the London papers con
taining my account of the battle of Bull's Run.
Utterly forgetting their own versions of the en
gagement, the New York editors now find it con
venient to divert attention from the bitter truth
that was in them to the letter of the foreign
newspaper correspondent, who, because he is a
British subject, will prove not only iiseful as a
conductor to carry off the popular wrath from
the American journalists themselves, but as a
means by induction of charging the vials afresh
against the British people, inasmuch as they have
not condoled with the North on the defeat of
armies which they were assured would, if suc
cessful, be immediately led to effect the disrup
tion of the British empire. At the outset 1 had
foreseen this would be the case, and deliberately
accepted the issue ; but when I found the North
ern journals far exceeding in severity anything I
could have said, and indulging in general in
vective against whole classes of American sol
diery, officers, and statesmen, I was foolish enough
to expect a little justice, not to say a word of the
smallest generosity.

August 2lst. — The echoes of Bull Run are
coming back with a vengeance. This day month
the miserable fragments of a beaten, washed out,
demoralised army were flooding in disorder and
dismay the streets of the capital from which they
had issued forth . to repel the tide of invasion.
This day month, and all the editors and journal
ists in the States, weeping, wailing, and gnash
ing their teeth, infused extra gall into their ink,
and poured out invective, abuse, and obloquy on
their defeated general and their broken hosts.
The President and his ministei-s, stunned by the '
tremendous calamity, sat listening in fear and
trembling for the sound of the enemy's cannon.
The veteran soldier, on whom the boasted hopes
of the nation rested, heartsick and beaten down,
had neither counsel to give nor action to offer.
At any moment the Confederate columns might
be expected in Pennsylvania Avenue to receive
the welcome of their friends and the submission
of their helpless and disheartened enemies.

All this is forgotten — and much more, which
need not now be repeated. Saved from a great
peril, even the bitterness of death, they forget the
danger that has passed, deny that they uttered
cries of distress and appeals for help, and swag
ger in all the insolence of recovered strength.
Not only that, but they turn and rend those
whose writing has been dug up after thirty days,
and comes back as a rebuke to their pride.

Conscious that they have insulted and irritated
their own army, that they have earned the bitter
hostility of men in power, and have for once in
flicted a wound on the vanity to which they have
given such offensive dimensions, if not life itself,
they now seek to run a drag scent between the
public nose and their own unpopularity, and to
create such an amount of indignation and to
cast so much odium upon one who has had
greater facilities to know, and is more willing to
tell the truth, than any of their organs, that he
will be unable henceforth to perform his duties
in a country where unpopularity means simply a
political and moral atrophy or death. In the
telegraphic summary some days ago a few phrases

186

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

were picked out of my letters, which were but
very faint paraphrases of some of the sentences
which might be culled from Northern newspa
pers, but the storm has been gathering ever since,
and I am no doubt to experience the truth of
De Tocqueville's remark, "that a stranger who
injures American vanity, no matter how justly,
may make up his mind to be a martyr."
August 22nd.—

" The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart,
See they bark at me."

The North have recovered their wind, and their
pipers are blowing with might and main. The
time given them to breathe after Bull Run has
certainly been accompanied with a greater de
velopment of lung and power of blowing than
could have been expected. The volunteer army
which dispersed and returned home to receive
the lo Pceans of the North, has been replaced by
better and more numerous levies, which have the
strong finger and thumb of General M'Clellan
on their windpipe, and find it is not quite so
easy as it was to do as they pleased. The North,
besides, has received supplies of money, and is
using its great resources, by land and sea, to
some purpose, and as they wax fat they kick.

A general officer said to me, "Of course you
will never remain when once all the press are
down upon you. I would not take a million
dollai-s and be in your place." "But is what
I've written untrue ?" " God bless you ! do you
know, in this country, if you can get enough of
people to start a lie about any man, he would be
ruined, if the Evangelists came forward to swear
the story was false There are thousands of
people who this moment believe that M'Dowell,
who never tasted anything stronger than a wa
termelon in all his life, was helplessly drunk at
Bull's Run. Mind what I say ; they'll run you
into a mud-hole as sure as you live." I was
not much impressed with the danger of my posi
tion further than that I knew there would be a
certain amount of risk from the rowdyism and
vanity of what even the Americans admit to be
the lower orders, for which I had been prepared
from the moment I had despatched my letter ;
but I confess I was not by any means disposed
to think that the leaders of public opinion would
seek the small gratification of revenge, and the
petty popularity of pandering to the passions of
the mob, by creating a popular cry against me.
I am not aware that any foreigner ever visited
the United States who was injudicious enough to
write one single word derogatory to their claims
to be the first of created beings, who was not as
sailed with the most viperous malignity and ran
cour. The man who says he has detected a sin
gle spot on the face of their sun should prepare
his winding-sheet.

The New York Times, I find, states "that the
terrible epistle has been read with quite as much
avidity as an average President's message. We
scarcely exaggerate the fact when we say, the
first and foremost thought on the minds of a
very large portion of our people after the repulse
at Bull's Run was, what will Russell say ?" and
then they repeat some of the absurd sayings at
tributed to me, who declared openly from the
very first that I had not seen the battle at all, to
the effect "that I had never seen such fighting
in all my life, and that nothing at Alma or Ink-

erman was equal to it." An analysis of the let
ter follows, in which it is admitted that " with
perfect candour I purported to give an account
of what I saw, and not of the action which I did
not see;" and the writer, who is, if I mistake not,
the Hon. Mr. Raymond, of the New York Ti?nes,
like myself a witness of the facts I describe,
quotes a passage in which I say, " There was no
flight of troops, no retreat of an army, no reason
for all this precipitation," and then declares
"that my letter gives a very spirited and per
fectly just description of the panic which impel
led and accompanied the troops from Centreville
to Washington. He does not, for he cannot, in
the least exaggerate its horrible disorder, or the
disgraceful behaviour of the incompetent officers
by whom it was aided, instead of being checked,
lie saw nothing whatever of the fighting, and
therefore says nothing whatever of its quality.
He gives a clear, fair, perfectly just and accu
rate, as it is a spirited and graphic account of
the extraordinary scenes which passed under his
observation. Discreditable as those scenes were
to our army, we have nothing in connection with
them whereof to accuse the reporter ; he has
done justice alike to himself, his subject, and the
country."

Ne nobis llandiar, I may add, that at least I
desired to do so, and I can prove from Northern
papers that if their accounts were true, I certain
ly much "extenuated and naught set down in
malice" — nevertheless, Philip drunk is very dif
ferent from Philip sober, frightened, and running
away, and the man who attempts to justify his
version to the inebriated polycephalous monarch
is sure to meet such treatment as inebriated des
pots generally award to their censors.

August 23rd. — The torrent is swollen to-day
by anonymous letters threatening me with bowie-
knife and revolver, or simply abusive, frantic
with hate, and full of obscure warnings. Some
bear the Washington post-mark; others came
from New York ; the greater number — for I have
had nine — are from Philadelphia. Perhaps they
may come from the members of that "gallant"
4th Pennsylvania Regiment.

August 2ith. — My servant came in this morn
ing to announce a trifling accident — he was ex
ercising my horse, and at the corner of one of
those charming street-crossings, the animal fell
and broke its leg. A "vet" was sent for. I
was sure that such a portent had never been
born in those Daunian woods. A man about
twenty-seven or twenty-eight stone weight, mid
dle-aged and active, with a fine professional feel
ing for distressed horse-flesh ; and I was right
in my conjectures that he was a Briton, though
the vet had become Americanised, and was full
of enthusiasm about "our war for the Union,"
which was yielding him a fine harvest. He
complained there was a good many bad charac
ters about Washington. The matter is proved
beyond doubt by what we see, hear, and read.
To-day there is an account in the papers of a
brute shooting a negro boy dead, because he
asked him for a chew of tobacco. Will he be
hanged ? Not the smallest chance of it. The
idea of hanging a white man for killing a nig
ger ! It is more preposterous here than it is in
India, where our authorities have actually exe
cuted whites for the murder of natives.

Before dinner I walked down to the Washing-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

187

ton navy yard. Captain Dahlgren was sorely
perplexed 'with an intoxicated Senator, whose
name it is not necessary to mention, and who
seemed to think he paid me a great compliment
by expressing his repeated desire "to have a
good look at" me. "I guess you're quite noto
rious now. You'll excuse me because I've dined,
now — and so you are the Mr. &c., &c., &c." The
Senator informed me that he was " none of your

d d blackfaced republicans. He didn't care

a d • about niggers — his business was to do

good to his fellow white men, to hold our glori
ous Union together, and let the niggers take care
of themselves."

I was glad when a diversion was effected by the
arrival of Mr. Fox, Assistant-Secretary of the
Navy, and Mr. Blair, Postmaster-General, to con
sult with the Captain, who is greatly looked up to
by all the members of the Cabinet — in fact he is
rather inconvenienced by the perpetual visits of
the President, who is animated by a most extraro-
dinary curiosity about naval matters and machin
ery, and is attracted by the novelty of the whole
department, so that he is continually running
down " to have a talk with Dahlgren" when he is
not engaged in " a chat with George." The Sen
ator opened such a smart fire on the Minister that
the latter retired, and I mounted and rode back
to town. In the evening Major Clarence Brown,
Lieutenant Wise, a lively, pleasant, and amusing
little sailor, well-known in the States as the au
thor of '"Los Gringos," who is now employed in
the Navy Department, and n few of the gentle
man connected with the Foreign Legations, came
in, and we had a great international reunion and
discussion till a late hour. There is a good deal
of agreeable banter reserved for myself, as to the
exact form of death which I am most likely to
meet. I was seriously ad\*ised by a friend not
to stir out unarmed. The great use of a re
volver is that it will prevent the indignity of
tarring and feathering, now pretty rife, by pro
voking greater violence. I also received a letter
from London, advising me to apply to Lord Lv-
ons for protection, but that could only be extend
ed to me within the walls of the Legation.

August 25th. — I visited the Navy Department,
which is a small red-brick building two stories
high, very plain and even humble. The subor
dinate departments are conducted in rooms be
low stairs. The executive are lodged in the
rooms which line both sides of the corridor above.
The walls of the passage are lined with paint
ings in oil and water colours, engravings and
paintings in the worst style of art. To the lat
ter considerable interest attaches, as they are
authentic likenesses of naval officers who gained
celebrity in the wars with Great Britain — men
like Perry, M'Donough, Decatur, and Hull, who,
as the Americans boast, was " the first man who
compelled a British frigate of greater force than
his o\vn to strike her colours in fair fight." Paul
Jones was not to be seen, but a drawing is proud
ly pointed to of the attack of the American fleet
on Algiers as a proof of hatred to piracy, and of
the prominent part taken by the young States in
putting an end to it in Europe. In one room
are several swords, surrendered by English offi
cers in the single frigate engagements, and the
duplicates of medals, in gold and silver, voted by
Congress to the victors. In Lieutenant Wise's
room there are models of the projectiles, and a

series of shot and shell used in the navy, or de
posited by inventors. Among other relics was
the flag of Captain Ward's boat, just brought in,
which was completely riddled by the bullet-marks
received in the ambuscade in which that officer
was killed, with nearly all of his boat's crew, as
they incautiously approached the shore of the
Potomac, to take off a small craft placed there
to decoy them by the Confederates. My busi
ness was to pave the way for a passage on board
a steamer, in case of any naval expedition start
ing before the army was ready to move, but all
difficulties were at once removed by the prompt
itude and courtesy of Mr. Fox, the Assistant-
Secretary, who promised to give me an order for
a passage whenever I required it. The extreme
civility and readiness to oblige of all American
officials, high and low, from the gate-keepers
and door-porters up to the heads of departments,
cannot be too highly praised, and it is ungener
ous to accept the explanation offered by an En
glish officer to whom I remarked the circum
stance, that it is due to the fact that each man
is liable to be turned out at the end of four years,
and therefore makes all the friends he can.

In the afternoon I rode out with Captain John
son, through some charming woodland scenery
on the outskirts of Washington, by a brawling
stream, in a shady little ravine, that put me in
mind of the Dargle. Our ride led us into the
camps, formed on the west of Georgetown, to
cover the city from the attacks of an enemy ad
vancing along the left bank of the Potomac, and
in support of several strong forts and earthworks
placed on the heights. One regiment consists
altogether of Frenchmen — another is of Ger
mans — in a third I saw an officer with a Crimean
and Indian medal on his breast, and several pri
vates with similar decorations. Some of the reg
iments were on parade, and crowds of civilians
from Washington were enjoying the novel scene,
and partaking of the hospitality of their friends.
One old lady, whom I have always seen about
the camps, and who is a sort of ancient heroine
of Saragossa, had an opportunity of being useful.
The 15th Massachusetts, a fine-looking body of
men, had broken up camp, and were marching
off to the sound of their own voices chanting
"Old John Brown," when one of the enormous
trains of baggage waggons attached to them was
carried off by the frightened mules, which prob
ably had belonged to Virginian farmers, and one
of the soldiers, in trying to stop it, was dashed
to the ground and severely injured. The old
lady was by his side in a moment, and out came
her flask of strong waters, bandages, and medi
cal comforts and apparatus. " It's well I'm
here for this poor Union soldier ; I'm sure I al
ways have something to do in these camps." On
my return late, there was a
requesting me to visit

was then too far advanced^KtfrRl'myselfof the
invitation, which was onB&luvered 'aTferl left
my lodgings.

CHAPTER XIV.

A tour of inspection round the camp;*- A -trout
horse — M'Dowell and the President — My description of
Bull's Run endorsed by American officers — Influence of
the Press — Newspaper correspondents — Dr. Bray — My
letters — Captain Meagher — Military adventurers —

188

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

Probable duration of the war — Lord A. Vane Tempest —
The American journalist— Threats of assassination.

August 26th. — General Van "Vliet called from
General M'Clellan to say that the Commander-
in-Chief would be happy to go round the camps
with me when he next made an inspection, and
would send round an orderly and charger in time
to get ready before he started. These little ex
cursions are not the most agreeable affairs in the
world ; for M'Clellan delights in working down
staff and escort, dashing from the Chain Bridge
to Alexandria, and visiting all the posts, riding
as hard as he can, and not returning till past
midnight, so that if one his a regard for his cu
ticle, or his mail-days, he will not rashly venture
on such excursions. To-day he is to inspect
M'Dowell's division.

I set out accordingly with Captain Johnson
over the Long Bridge, which is now very strictly
guarded. On exhibiting my pass to the sentry
at the entrance, he called across to the sergeant
and spoke to him aside, showing him the pass at
the same time. "Are you Russell, of the Lon
don Times ?" said the sergeant. I replied, " If
you look at the pass, you will see who I am."
He turned it over, examined it most narrowly,
and at last, with an expression of infinite dissat
isfaction and anger upon his face, handed it back,
saying to the sentry, "I suppose you must let
him go."

Meantime Captain Johnson was witching the
world with feats of noble horsemanship, for I had
lent him my celebrated horse Walker, so called
because no earthly equestrian can induce him to
do anything but trot violently, gallop at full
speed, or stand on his hind legs. Captain John
son laid the whole fault of the animal's conduct
to my mismanagement, arnrnsiing that all it re
quired was a light hand and gentleness, and so,
as he could display both, I promised to let him
have a trial to-day. Walker, on starting, how
ever, insisted on having a dance to himself, which
my friend attributed to the excitement produced
by the presence of the other horse, and I rode
quietly along whilst the captain proceeded to es
tablish an acquaintance with his steed in some
quiet bye -street. As I was crossing the Long
Bridge, the forbidden clatter of a horse's hoofs
on the planks caused me to look round, and on,
in a cloud of dust, through the midst of shout
ing sentries, came my friend of the gentle hand
and unruffled temper, with his hat thumped
down on the back of his head, his eyes gleaming,
his teeth clenched, his fine features slightly flush
ed, to say the least of it, sawing violently at
Walker's'head, and exclaiming, "You brute! I'll
teach you to walk!" till he brought up by the
barrier midway on the bridge. The guard, en
masse, called the captain's attention to the order,
"All horses to walk over the bridge." "Why,
that's what I want him to do, I'll give any man
among you one hundred dollars who can make
him walk along this bridge or anywhere else."
The redoubtable steed, being permitted to pro
ceed upon its way, dashed swiftly through the
tete de pont, or stood on his hind legs when im
peratively arrested by a barrier or abattis ; and
on these occasions my excellent friend, as he dis
played his pass in one hand and restrained Bu
cephalus with the other, reminded me of nothing
so much as the statue of Peter the Great, in the
square on the banks of the Neva, or the noble

equestrian monument of General Jackson which
decorates the city of Washington. The troops
of M'DowelFs division were already drawn up
on a rugged plain, close to the river's margin,
in happier days the scene of the city races. A
pestilential odour rose from the slaughter-houses
close at hand, but, regardless of odour or marsh,
Walker continued his violent exercise, evidently
under the idea that he was assisting at a retreat
of the grand army as before.

Presently General M'Dowell and one of his
aides cantered over, and whilst waiting for Gen
eral M'Clellan, he talked of the fierce outburst
directed against me in the press. "I must con
fess," he said, laughingly, "I am much rejoiced
to find you are as much abused as I have been.
I hope you mind it as little as I did. Bull's Run
was an unfortunate affair for both of us, for had
I won it, you would have had to describe the pur
suit of the flying enemy, and then you would
have been the most popular writer in America,
and I would have been lauded as the greatest of
generals. See what measure has been meted,
to us now. I'm accused of drunkenness and
gambling ; and you, Mr. Russell — well ! I really
do hope you are not so black as you are paint
ed." Presently a cloud of dust on the road an
nounced the arrival of the President, who came
upon the ground in an open carriage, with Mr.
Seward by his side, accompanied by General
M'Clellan and his staff in undress uniform, and
an escort of the very dirtiest and most unsoldier-
ly dragoons, with filthy accoutrements and un-
groomed horses, I ever saw. The troops dress
ed into line and presented arms, whilst the band
struck up the " Star-spangled Banner," as the
Americans have got no tune which corresponds
with our National Anthem, or is in any way
complimentary to the quadrennial despot who
fills the President's chair.

General M'Dowell seems on most excellent
terms with the present Commander-in-Chief, as
he is with the President. Immediately after
Bull's Run, when the President first saw M'Dow
ell, he said to him, "I have not lost a particle of
confidence in you," to which the General re
plied, "I don't see why you should, Mr. Presi
dent." But there was a curious commentary,
either on the sincerity of Mr. Lincoln, or in his
utter subserviency to mob opinion, in the fact
that he who can overrule Congress and act pret
ty much as he pleases in time of war, had, with
out opportunity for explanation or demand for
it, at once displaced the man in whom he still
retained the fullest confidence, degraded him to
command of a division of the army of which he
had been General-in-Chief, and placed a junior
officer over his head.

After some ordinary movements, the march
past took place, which satisfied me that the new
levies were very superior to the three months'
men, though far, indeed, from being soldiers.
Finer material could not be found in physique.
With the exception of an assemblage of misera
ble scarecrows in rags and tatters, swept up in
New York and commanded by a Mr. Kerrigan,
no division of the ordinary line, in any army,
could show a greater number of tall, robust men
in the prime of life. A soldier standing near
me, pointing out Kerrigan's corps, said, "The
boy who commands that pretty lot recruited them
first for the Seceshes in New York, but, finding

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

189

he could not get them away, he handed them
over to Uncle Sam." The men were silent as
they marched past, and did not cheer for Presi
dent or Union.

I returned from the field to Arlington House,
having been invited with my friend to share the
general's camp dinner. On our way along the
road, I asked Major Brown why he rode over to
us before the review commenced. " Well," said
he, "my attention was called to you by one of our
staff saying 'there are two Englishmen,' and the
general sent me over to invite them, and follow
ed when he saw who it was." "But how could
you tell we were English?" "I don't know,"
said he ; " there were other civilians about, but
there was something about the look of you two
which marked you immediately as John Bull."

At the general's tent we found General Sher
man, General Keyes, Wadsworth, and some oth
ers. Dinner was spread on a table covered by
the flap of the tent, and consisted of good plain
fare, and a dessert of prodigious watermelons.
I was exceedingly gratified to hear every officer
present declare in the presence of the general
who had commanded the army, and who him
self said no words could exaggerate the disorder
of the route, that my narrative of Bull's Run was
not only true, but1 moderate.

General Sherman, whom I met for the first
time, said, " Mr. Russell, I can endorse every
word that you wrote ; your statements about the
battle, which you say you did not witness, are
equally correct. All the stories about charging
batteries and attacks with the bayonet are sim
ply falsehoods, so far as my command is concern
ed, though some of the troops did fight well. As
to cavalry charges, I wish we had had a few cav
alry to have tried one ; those Black Horse fel
lows seemed as if their horses ran away with
them." General Keyes said, " I don't think you
made it half bad enough. I could not get the
men to stand after they had received the first se
vere check. The enemy swept the open with a
tremendous musketry fire. Some of our men
and portions of regiments behaved admirably:
we drove them easily at first ; the cavalry did
very little indeed ; but when they did come on I
could not get the infantry to stand, and after a
harmless volley tiny broke." These officers were
brigadiers of Tyler's division.

The conversation turned upon the influence
of the press in America, and I observed that ev
ery soldier at table spoke with the utmost dislike
and antipathy of the New York journals, to which
they gave a metropolitan position, although each
man had some favourite paper of his own which
he excepted from the charge made against the
whole body. The principal accusations made
against the press were that the conductors are
not gentlemen, that they are calumnious and cor
rupt, regardless of truth, honour, anything but
circulation and advertisements. "It is the first
time we have had a chance of dealing with these
fellows, and we shall not lose it."

I returned to Washington at dusk over the
aqueduct bridge. A gentleman who introduced
himself to me as correspondent of one of the
cheap London papers, sent out specially on ac
count of his great experience to write from the
States, under the auspices of the leaders of the
advanced liberal party, came to ask if I had seen
an article in the Chicago Tribune, purporting to

be written by a gentleman who says he was in
my company during the retreat, contradicting
what I report. I was advised by several offi
cers — whose opinion I took — that it would be
derogatory to me if I noticed the writer. I read
it over carefully, and must say I am surprised —
if anything could surprise me in American jour
nalism — at the impudence and mendacity of the
man. Having first stated that he rode along
with me from point to point at a certain portion
of the road, he states that he did not hear or see
certain things which I say that I saw and heard,
or deliberately falsifies what passed, for the sake
of a little ephemeral applause, quotations in the
papers, increased importance to himself, and
some more abuse of the English correspondent.

This statement made me recall the circum
stance alluded to more particularly. I remem
bered well the flurried, plethoric, elderly man,
mounted on a broken-down horse, who rode up
to me in great trepidation, with sweat streaming
over his face, and asked me if I was going into
Washington. "You may not recollect me, sir ;
I was introduced to you at Cay-roe, in the hall
of the hotel. I'm Dr. Bray, of the Chicago Tri
bune." I certainly did not remember him, but I
did recollect that a dispatch from Cairo appear
ed in the paper, announcing my arrival from the
South, and stating I complained on landing that .
my letters had been opened in the States, which
was quite untrue and which I felt called on to
deny, and supposing Dr. Bray to be the author, I
was not at all inclined to cement our acquaint
ance, and continued my course with a bow.

But the Doctor whipped his steed up alongside
mine, and went on to tell me that he was in the
most terrible bodily pain and mental anxiety.
The first on account of desuetude of equestrian
exercise ; the other on account of the defeat, of
the Federals and the probable pursuit of the
Confederates. " Oh ! it's dreadful to think of!
They know me well, and would show me no
mercy. Every step the horse takes I'm in ag
ony. I'll never get to Washington. Could you
stay with me, sir? as you know the road." I
was moved to internal chuckling, at any rate, by
the very prostrate condition — for he bent well
over the saddle — of poor Dr. Bray, and so I said
to him, " Don't be uneasy, sir. There is no fear
of your being taken. The army is not defeated,
in spite of what you see ; for there will be always
runaways and skulkers when a retreat is order
ed. I have not the least doubt M'Dowell will
stand fast at Centreville, and rally his troops to
night on the reserve, so as to be in a good posi
tion to resist the enemy to-morrow. I'll have to
push on to Washington, as I must write my let
ters, and I fear they will stop me on the bridge
without the countersign, particularly if these
runaways should outstrip us. As to your skin,
pour a little whiskey on some melted tallow and
rub it well in, and you'll be all right to-morrow
or next day, as far as that is concerned."

I actually, out of compassion to his sufferings
— for he uttered cries now and then as though
Lucina were in request — reined up, and walked
my horse, though most anxious to get out of the
dust and confusion of the runaways, and com- .
forted him about a friend whom he missed, and
for whose fate he was as uneasy as the concern
he felt for his own woes permitted him to be ;
suggested various modes to him of easing the

190

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

jolt and of quickening the pace of his steed, and
at last, really bored excessively by an uninterest
ing and self-absorbed companion, who was besides
detaining,me needlessly on the road, I turned on
some pretence into a wood by the side, and con
tinued my way as well as I could, till I got off
the track, and, being guided to the road by the
dust and shouting, I came out on it somewhere
near Fairfax Court, and there, to my surprise,
dropped on the Doctor, who, animated by some
agency more powerful than the pangs of an
abraded cuticle, and taking advantage of the
road, had got thus far ahead. "We entered the
place together, halted at the same inn to water
our horses, and then seeing that it was getting on
towards dusk, and that the wave of the retreat
was rolling onward in increased volume, I push
ed on and saw no more of him. Ungrateful
Bray ! Perfidious Bray ! Some day, when I
have time, I must tell the people of Chicago how
Bray got into Washington, and how he left his
horse, and what he did with it, and how Bray
behaved on the road. I dare say they who know
him can guess.

The most significant article I have seen for
some time as a test of the taste, tone, and temper
of the New York public, judging by their most
widely-read journal, is contained in it to-night.
It appears that a gentleman named Muir, who is
described as a relative of Mr. Mure, the consul
at New Orleans, was seized on the point of start
ing for Europe, and that among his papers, many
of which were of a "disloyal character," which
is not astonishing, seeing that he came from
Charleston, was a letter written by a foreign res
ident in that city, in which he stated he had seen
a letter from me to Mr. Bunch describing the
flight at Bull's Run, and adding that Lord Lyons
remarked, when he heard of it, he would ask
,Mr. Seward whether he would not now admit
the Confederates were a belligerent power, where
upon Maudit calls on Mr. Seward to demand
explanations from Lord Lyons, and to turn me
out of the country, because in my letter to the
"Times" I made the remark that the United
States would probably now admit the South were
a belligerent power.

Such an original observation could never have
occurred to two people — genius concerting with
genius could alone have hammered it out. But
Maudit is not satisfied with the humiliation of
Lord Lyons and the expulsion of myself — he ab
solutely insists upon a miracle, and his moral vis
ion being as perverted as his physical, he declares
that I must have sent to the British Consul at
Charleston a duplicate copy of the letter which
I furnished with so much labour and difficulty
just in time to catch the mail by special messen
ger from Boston. "These be thy Gods, O Is
rael !"

My attention was also directed to a letter from
certain officers of the disbanded 69th Regiment,
who had permitted their Colonel to be dragged
away a prisoner from the field of Bull's Run.
Without having read my letter, these gentlemen
assumed that I had stigmatised Captain T. F.
Mcagher as one who had misconducted himself
during the battle, whereas all I had said on the
evidence of eye-witnesses was "that in the rout
he appeared at Centreville, running across coun
try, and uttering exclamations in the hearing of
my informant, which indicated that he, at least,

was perfectly satisfied that the Confederates had
established their claims to be considered a bel
ligerent power." These officers state that Cap
tain Meagher behaved extremely well up to a
certain point in the engagement, when they lost
sight of him, and from which period they could
say nothing about him. It was subsequent to
that very time he appeared at Centreville ; and
long before my letter returned to America giv
ing credit to Captain Meagher for natural gal
lantry in the field, I remarked that he would no
doubt feel as much pained as any of his friends
at the ridicule cast upon him by the statement
that he, the Captain of a company, "went into
action mounted on a magnificent charger, and
waving a green silk flag, embroidered with a
golden harp, in the face of the enemy."

A young man, wearing the Indian war medal
with two clasps, who said his name was Mac Ivor
Hilstock, came in to inquire after some unknown
friend of his. He told me he had been in
Tomb's troop of Artillery during the Indian
mutiny, and had afterwards served with the
French volunteers during the siege of Caprera.
The news of the Civil War has produced such
an immigration of military adventurers from
Europe that the streets of Washington are quite
filled with medals and ribands. The regular of
ficers of the American Army regard them with
considerable dislike, the greater inasmuch as Mr.
Seward and the politicians encourage them. In
alluding to the circumstance to General M 'Dow-
ell, who came in to see me at a late dinner, I
said, "A great many Garibaldians are in Wash
ington just now." "Oh," said he, in his quiet
way, " it will be quite enough for a man to prove
that he once saw Garibaldi to satisfy us in Wash
ington that he is quite fit for the command of a
regiment. I have recommended a man because
he sailed in the ship which Garibaldi came in
over here, and I'm sure it will be attended to."

Auqust 27 th. — Fever and ague, which General
M'Dowell attributes to watermelons, of which
he, however, had eaten three times as much as
I had. Swallowed many grains of quinine, and
lay panting in the heat in -doors. Two English
visitors, Mr. Lamy and a Captain of the 1 7th,
called on me ; and, afterwards, I had a con
versation with M. Mercier and M. Stoeckl on
the aspect of affairs. They are inclined to look
forward to a more speedy solution than I think
the North is weak enough to accept. I believe
that peace is possible in two years or so, but only
by the concession to the South of a qualified in
dependence. The naval operations of the Fed
erals will test the Southern mettle to the utmost.
Having a sincere regard and liking for many of
the Southerners whom I have met, I cannot say
their cause, or its origin, or its aim, recommends
itself to my sympathies ; and yet I am accused
of aiding it by every means in my power, because
I do not re-echo the arrogant and empty boast
ing and insolent outbursts of the people in the
North, who threaten, as the first-fruits of their
success, to invade the territories subject to the
British crown, and to outrage and humiliate our
flag.

It is melancholy enough to see this great re
public tumbling to pieces ; one would regret it
all the more but for the fact that it re-echoed the
voices of the obscene and filthy creatures which
have been driven before the lash of the lictor from

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

191

all the cities of Europe. Assuredly it was a great
work, but all its greatness and the idea of its life
was of man, not of God. The principle of ven
eration, of obedience, of subordination, and self-
control did not exist within. Washington-wor
ship could not save it. The elements of destruc
tion lay equally sized, smooth, and black at its
foundations, and a spark suffices to blow the
structure into the air.

August 28th. — Raining. Sundry officers turn
ed in to inquire of me, who was quietly in bed
at Washington, concerning certain skirmishes
reported to have taken place last night. Sold
one horse and bought another ; that is, I paid
ready money in the latter transaction, and in the
former received an order from an officer on the
paymaster of his regiment, on a certain day not
yet arrived.

To-day Lord A. V. Tempest is added to the
number of English arrivals ; he amused me by
narrating his reception at Willard's on the night
of his arrival. When he came in with the usual
ruck of passengers, he took his turn at the book,
and wrote down Lord Adolphus Vane Tempest,
with possibly M.P. after it. The clerk, who was
busily engaged in showing that he was perfectly
indifferent to the claims of the crowd who were
waiting at the counter for their rooms, when the
book was finished, commenced looking over the
names of the various persons, such as Leonidas
Buggs, Rome, N.Y. ; Doctor Onesiphorous Bow-
ells, D.D., Syracuse; Olynthus Craggs, Palmy
ra, Mo. ; Washington Whilkes, Indianapolis,
writing* down the numbers of the rooms, and
handing over the keys to the waiters at the same
time. When he came to the name of the En
glish nobleman, he said, " Vane Tempest, No.
125." "But stop, "cried Lord Adolphus. "Ly-
curgus Siccles," continued the clerk, "No. 23."
"I insist upon it, sir," broke in Lord Adolphus
— "you really must hear me. I protest against
being put in 125, I can't go up so high."
"Why," said the clerk, with infinite contempt,
"I can put you at twice as high — I'll give you
No. 250 if I like." This was rather too much,
and Lord Adolphus put his things into a cab,
and drove about Washington until he got to earth
in the two-pair back of a dentist's, for which, no
doubt, tout y«, he paid as much as for an apart
ment at the Hotel Bristol.

A gathering of American officers and others,
amongst whom was Mr. Olmsted, enabled him
to form some idea of the young men's society of
Washington, which is a strange mixture of poli
tics and fighting, gossip, gaiety, and a certain
apprehension of a wrath to come for their dear
republic. Here is Olmsted prepared to lay down
his life for free speech over a united republic, in
one part of which his freedom of speech would
lead to irretrievable confusion and ruin ; Avhilst
Wise, on the other hand, seeks only to establish
a union which shall have a large fleet, be power
ful at sea, and be able to smash up abolition
ists, newspaper people, and political agitators at
home.

August 29tk. — It is hard to bear such a fate as
befalls an unpopular man in the United States,
because in no other country, as De Tocqueville*
remarks, is the press so powerful when it is unani
mous. And yet he says, too, "The journalist of
the United States is usually placed in a very
* P. 200, Spencer's American edition, New York, 1858.

humble position, with a scanty education and a
vulgar turn of mind. His characteristics consist
of an open and coarse appeal to the passions of
the populace, and he habitually abandons the
principles of political science to 'assail the char
acters of individuals, to track them into private
life, and disclose all their weaknesses and errors.
The individuals who are already in possession
of a high station in the esteem of their fellow-
citizens are afraid to write in the newspapers,
and they are thus deprived of the most powerful
instrument which they can use to excite the pas
sions of the multitude to their advantage. The
personal opinions of the editors have no kind of
weight in the eyes of the public. The only use
of a journal is, that it imparts the knowledge of
certain facts ; and it is only by altering and dis
torting those facts that a journalist can contrib
ute to the support of his own views." When the
whole of the press, without any exception in so
far as I am aware, sets deliberately to work, in
order to calumniate, vilify, insult, and abuse a
man who is at once a stranger, a rival, and an
Englishman, he may expect but one result, ac
cording to De Tocqueville.

The teeming anonymous letters I receive are
filled with threats of assassination, tarring, feath
ering, and the like ; and one of the most con
spicuous of literary sbirri is in perfect rapture at
the notion of a new " sensation" heading, for
which he is working as hard as he can. I have
no intention to add to the number of his castiga-
tions.

In the afternoon I drove to the waste grounds
beyond the Capitol, in company with Mr. Olm
sted and Captain Haworth, to see the 18th Mas
sachusetts Regiment, who had just marched in,
and were pitching their tents very probably for
the first time. They arrived from their state
with camp equipments, waggons, horses, harness,
commissariat stores complete, and were clad in
the blue uniform of the United States ; for the
volunteer fancies in greys and greens are dying
out. The men were uncommonly stout young
fellows, with an odd, slouching, lounging air
about some of them, however, which I could not
quite understand till I heard one sing out, "Hallo,
sergeant, where am I to sling my hammock in
this tent?" Many of them, in fact, are fisher
men and sailors from Cape Cod, New Haven,
and similar maritime places.

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
M'Clellan — M'Clellan on his camp-bed — General Scott'a

pass refused— Prospect of an attack on Washington

Skirmishing— Anonymous letters— General Halleck —
General M'Clellan and the Sabbath — Rumoured death
of Jefferson Davis — Spread of my unpopularity— An of
fer for my horse — Dinner at the Legation— Discussion
on Slavery.

August 31st. — A month, during which I have
been exposed to more calumny, falsehood, not to
speak of danger, than I ever passed through,
has been brought to a close. I have all the
pains and penalties attached to the digito inon-
strari et dicier hie est, in the most hostile sense.
On goipg into Willard's the other day. I said to
the clerk behind the bar, "Why I heard, Mr.
So-and-so, you were gone?" "Well, sir, I'm

192

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

not. If I was, you would have lost the last man
who is ready to say a word for you in this house,
I can tell you." Scowling faces on every side —
women turning up their pretty little noses — peo
ple turning round in the streets, or stopping to
stare in front of me — the proprietors of the shops
where I am known pointing me out to others;
the words uttered, in various tones, "So, that's
Bull -Run Russell!" — for, oddly enough, the
Americans seem to think that a disgrace to their
arms becomes diminished by fixing the name of
the scene as a sobriquet on one who described it
— these, with caricatures, endless falsehoods, ru
mours of duels, and the like, form some of the
little desagremens of one who was so unfortunate
as to assist at the retreat, the first he had ever
seen, of an army which it would in all respects
have suited him much better to have seen vic
torious.

I dined with Lieutenant Wise, and met Cap
tain Dahlgren, 'Captain Davis, U.S.N., Captain
Foote, U.S.N., and Colonel Fletcher Webster,*
son of the great American statesman, now com
manding a regiment of volunteers. The latter
has a fine head and face ; a full, deep eye ; is
quaint and dry in his conversation, and a poet,
I should think, in heart and soul, if outward and
visible signs may be relied on. The naval cap
tains were excellent specimens of the accom
plished and able men who belong to the United
States Navy. Foote, who is designated to the
command of the flotilla which is to clear the
Mississippi downwards, will, I am certain, do
good service — a calm, energetic, skilful officer.
Dahlgren, who, like all men with a system, very
properly watches everything which bears upon it,
took occasion to call for Captain Foote's testi
mony to the fact that he battered down a six-
foot granite wall in China with Dahlgren shells.
It will run hard against the Confederates when
they get such men at work on the rivers and
coasts, for they seem to understand their busi
ness thoroughly, and all they are not quite sure
of is the readiness of the land forces to co-operate
with their expeditionary movements. Incident
ally I learned from the conversation — and it is a
curious illustration of the power of the Presi
dent — that it was he who ordered the attack on
Charleston harbour, or, to speak with more ac
curacy, the movement of the armed squadron to
relieve Sumter by force, if necessary ; and that
he came to the conclusion it was feasible princi
pally from reading the account of the attack on
Kinburn by the allied fleets. There was cer
tainly an immense disproportion between the
relative means of attack and defence in the two
cases ; but, at all events, the action of the Con
federates prevented the attempt.

September 1st. — Took a ride early this morn
ing over the Long Bridge. As I was passing
out of the earthwork called a fort on the hill, a
dirty German soldier called out from the para
pet, "Pull-Run Russell! you shall never write
Pull's Runs again," and at the same time cocked
his piece, and levelled it at me. I immediately
rode round into the fort, the fellow still present
ing his firelock, and asked him what he meant,
at the same time calling for the sergeant of the
guard, who came at once, and, at my request,
arrested the man, who recovered arms, and said,
"It was a choake — I vant to frecken Full-Run
* Since killed in action.

Russell." However, as his rifle was capped and
loaded, and on full cock, with his finger on the
trigger, I did not quite see the fun of it, and I
accordingly had the man marched to the tent of
the officer, who promised to investigate the case,
and make a formal report of it to the brigadier,
on my return to lay the circumstances before
him. On reflection I resolved that it was best
to let the matter drop ; the joke might spread,
and it was quite unpleasant enough as it was to
bear the insolent looks and scowling faces of the
guards at the posts, to whom I was obliged to
exhibit my pass whenever I went out to ride.

On my return I heard of the complete success
of the Hatteras expedition, which shelled out and
destroyed some sand batteries guarding the en
trance to the great inland sea and navigation
called Pamlico Sound, in North Carolina, fur
nishing access to coasters for many miles into
the Confederate States, and most useful to them
in forwarding supplies and keeping up commu
nications throughout. The force was command
ed by General Butler, who has come to Wash
ington with the news, and has already in ado his
speech to the mob outside WillardV. I called
down to see him, but he had gone over to call
on the President. The people were jubilant,
and one might have supposed Hatteras was the
key to Richmond or Charleston, from the way
they spoke of this unparalleled exploit.

There is a little French gentleman here against
whom the fates bear heavily. I have given him
employment as an amanuensis and secretary for
some time back, and he tells me many things
concerning the talk in the city which I do not
hear myself, from which it would seem that there
is an increase of ill feeling towards me every
day, and that I am a convenient channel for con
centrating all the abuse and hatred so long cher
ished against England. I was a little tickled by
an account he gave me of a distinguished lady,
who sent for him to give French lessons, in or
der that she might become equal to her high po
sition in mastering the difficulties of the courtly
tongue. I may mention the fact, as it was radi
ated by the press through all the land, that Mrs.
M. N., having once on a time "been proficient
in the language, has forgotten it in the lapse of
years, but has resolved to renew her studies, that
she may better discharge the duties of her ele
vated station." The master went to the house
and stated his terms to a lady whom he saw
there ; but as she marchanded a good deal over
small matters of cents, he never supposed he was
dealing with the great lady, and therefore made
a small reduction in his terms, which encouraged
the enemy to renew the assault till he stood firm
ly on three shillings a lesson, at which point the
lady left him, with the intimation that she would
consider the matter and let him know. And
now, the licentiate tells me, it has become known
he is my private secretary, he is not considered
eligible to do avoir and etre for the satisfaction
of the good lady, who really is far better than
her friends describe her to be.

September 2nd. — It would seem as if the
North were perfectly destitute of common sense.
Here they are as rampant because they have
succeeded with an overwhelming fleet in shelling
out the defenders of some poor unfinished earth
works, on a spit of sand on the coast of North
Carolina, as if they had already crushed the

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

Southern rebellion. They affect to consider this
achievement a counterpoise to Bull Run.

Surely the press cannot represent the feelings
of the staid and thinking masses of the Northern
States ! The success is unquestionably useful to
the Federalists, but it no more adds to their
chances of crushing the Confederacy, than shoot
ing oif the end of an elephant's tail contributes
to the hunter's capture of the animal.

An officious little person, who Avas buzzing
about here as correspondent of a London news
paper, made himself agreeable by coming with a
caricature of my humble self at the battle of
Bull Run, in a laborious and most unsuccessful
imitation of Punch, in which I am represented
with rather a flattering face and figure, seated
before a huge telescope, surrounded by bottles
of London stout, and looking at the fight. This
is supposed to be very humorous and amusing,
and my good-natured friend was rather aston
ished when I cut it out and inserted it carefully in
a scrap-book, opposite a sketch from fancy of the
N. Y. Fire Zouaves charging a battery and rout
ing a regiment of cavalry, which appeared last
week in a much more imaginative and amusing
periodical, which aspires to describe with pen
and pencil the actual current events of the war.
Going out for my usual ride to-day, I saw
General Scott, between two aides-de-camp, slow
ly pacing homewards from the War Office. He
is still Commander-in-Chief of the army, and af
fects to direct movements and to control the dis
position of the troops, but a power greater than
his increases steadily at General M'Clellan's
head-quarters. For my own part, I confess that
General M'Clellan does* not appear to me a man
of action, or, at least, a man who intends to act
as speedily as the crisis demands. He should
be out with his army across the Potomac, living
among his generals, studying the composition
of his army, investigating its defects, and, above
all, showing himself to the men as soon after
wards as possible, if he cannot be with them at
the time, in the small affairs which constantly
occur along the front, and never permitting them
to receive a blow without taking care that they
give at least two in return. General Scott, jaw
fracta membra lahore, would do all the work
of departments and superintendence admirably
well ; but, as Montesquieu taught long ago, fac
tion and intrigue are the cancers which peculiar
ly eat into the body politic of republics, and
M'Clellan fears, no doubt, that his absence from
the capital, even though he went but across the
river, would animate his enemies to undermine
and supplant him.

I have heard several people say lately, "I
wish old Scott would go away," by which they
mean that they would be happy to strike him
down when his back was turned, but feared his
personal influence with the President and his
Cabinet. Two months ago, and his was the most
honoured name in the States : one was sickened
by the constant repetition of elaborate plans, in
which the General was represented playing the
part of an Indian juggler, and holding an enor
mous boa constrictor of -a Federal army in his
hands, which he was preparing to let go as soon
as he had coiled it completely round the fright
ened Secessionist rabbit; "now none so poor to
do him reverence." Hard is the fate of those
who serve republics. The officers who met the
N

193

old man in the street to-day passed him by with
out a salute or mark of recognition, although he
wore his uniform coat, with yellow lapels and
yellow sash ; and one of a group which came
out of a restaurant close to the General's house,
exclaimed, almost in his hearing, " Old fuss and
feathers don't look first-rate to-day."

In the evening I went with a Scotch gentle
man, who was formerly acquainted with General
M'Clellan when he was superintendent of the
Central Illinois Railway, to his head-quarters,
which are in the house of Captain Wilkes, at the
corner of President Square, near Mr. Seward's,
and not far from the spot where General Sickles
shot down the unhappy man who had tempora
rily disturbed the peace of his domestic relations.
The parlours were full of officers smoking, read
ing the papers, and writing, and after a short
conversation with General Marcy, Chief of the
Staff, Van Vlict, aide-de-camp of the Command-
er-in-Chief, led the way up-stairs to the top of
the house, where we found General M'Clellan,
just returned from a long ride, and seated in his
shirt sleeves on the side of his camp-bed. Ho
looked better than I have yet seen him, for his
dress showed to advantage the powerful, com
pact formation of his figure, massive throat, well-
set head, and muscular energy of his frame.
Nothing could be more agreeable or easy than
his manner. In his clear, dark-blue eye was no
trace of uneasiness or hidden purpose ; but his
mouth, covered by a short, thick moustache,
rarely joins in the smile that overspreads his
face when he is animated by telling or hearing
some matter of interest. Telegraph wires ran all
about the house, and as we sat round the Gen
eral's table, despatches were repeatedly brought,
in from the Generals in the front. Sometimes
M'Clellan laid down his cigar and went off to
study a large map of the position, which was
fixed to the wall close to the head of his bed ;
but more frequently the contents of the despatch
es caused him to smile or to utter some exclama
tion, which gave one an idea that he did not at
tach much importance to the news, and had not
great faith in the reports received from his sub
ordinate officers, who are always under the im
pression that the enemy are coming on in force.

It is plain the General has got no high opin
ion of volunteer officers and soldiers. In addi
tion to unsteadiness in action, which arises from
want of confidence in the officers as much as
from any other cause, the men labour under the
great defect of exceeding rashness, a contempt
for the most ordinary precautions, and a liabili
ty to unaccountable alarms and credulousness
of false report ; but, admitting all these circum
stances, M'Clellan has a soldier's faith in gros
bataillons, and sees no doubt of ultimate success
in a military point of view, provided the politi
cians keep quiet, and, charming men as they are,
cease to meddle with things they don't under
stand. Although some very good officers have
deserted the United States army and are now
with the Confederates, a very considerable ma
jority of West Point officers have adhered to the
Federals. I am satisfied, by an actual inspec
tion of the lists, that the Northerners retain the
same preponderance in officers who have received
a military education, as they possess in .wealth
and other means, and resources for carrying on
the war.

194:

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

The General consumes tobacco largely, and
not only smokes cigars, but indulges in the more
naked beauties of a quid. From tobacco we
wandered to the Crimea, and thence went half
round the world, till we halted before the Vir
ginian watch-fires, which these good volunteers
will insist on lighting under the very noses of
the enemy's pickets ; nor was it till late we re
tired, leaving the General to his well-earned re
pose.

General M'Clellan took the situation of affairs
in a very easy and philosophical spirit. Accord
ing to his own map and showing, the enemy not
only overlapped his lines from the batteries by
which they blockaded the Potomac on the right,
to their extreme left on the river above Wash
ington, but have established themselves in a kind
of salient angle on his front, at a place called
Munson's Hill, where their flag waved from en
trenchments within sight of the Capitol. How
ever, from an observation he made, I imagined
that the General would make an effort to recover
his lost ground ; at any rate, beat up the enemy's
quarters, in order to see what they were doing ;
and he promised to send an orderly round and
let me know ; so, before I retired, 1 gave orders
to my groom to have "Walker" in readiness.

September 3rd. — Notwithstanding the extreme
heat, I went out early this morning to the Chain
Bridge, from which the reconnoissance* hinted
at last night would necessarily start. This bridge
is about four and a half or five miles above Wash
ington, and crosses the river at a picturesque
spot almost deserving the name of a gorge, with
high banks on both sides. It is a light aerial
structure, and spans the river by broad arches,
from which the view reminds one of Highland
or Tyrolean scenery. The road from the city
passes through a squalid settlement of European
squatters, who in habitation, dress, appearance,
and possibly civilisation, are quite as bad as any
negroes on any Southern plantation I have vis
ited. The camps of a division lie just beyond,
and a gawky sentry from New England, with
whom 1 had some conversation, amused me by
saying that the Colonel "was a darned deal
more affeerd of the Irish squatters taking off his
poultry at night than he was of the Secessioners ;
anyways, he puts out more sentries to guard them
than he has to look after the others."

From the Chain Bridge I went some distance
towards Falls Church, until I was stopped by a
picket, the officer of which refused to recognise
General Scott's pass. "I guess the General's
a dead man, sir." "Is he not Commander-in-
Chief of the United States army?" "Well, I
believe that's a fact, sir ; but you had better
argue that point with M'Clellan. lie is our
boy, and I do believe he'd like to let the London
Times know how we Green Mountain boys can
fight, if they don't know already. But all passes
are stopped anyhow, and I had to turn back a
Congress-man this very morning, and lucky for
him it was, because the Seceshers are just half
a mile in front of us." On my way back by the
upper road I passed a farmer's house, which was
occupied by some Federal officers, and there,
seated in the verandah, with his legs cocked over
the railings, was Mr. Lincoln, in a felt hat, and
a, loose grey shooting coat and long vest, "let
ting off," as the papers say, one of his jokes, to
judge by his attitude and the laughter of the

officers around him, utterly indifferent to the
Confederate flag floating from Munson's Hill.

Just before midnight a considerable movement
of troops took place through the streets, and I
was about starting off' to ascertain the cause,
when I received the information that General
M'Clellan was only sending off two brigades and
four batteries to the Chain Bridge to strengthen
his right, which was menaced by the enemy. I
retired to bed, in order to be ready for any bat
tle which might take place to-morrow, but was
roused up by voices beneath my window, and
going out on the verandah, could not help chuck
ling at the appearance of three foreign ministers
and a banker, in the street below, who had come
round to inquire, in some perturbation, the cause
of the nocturnal movement of men and guns, and
seemed little inclined to credit my assurances
that nothing more serious than a reconnaissance
was contemplated. The ministers were in high
spirits at the prospect of an attack on Washing
ton. Such agreeable people are the governing
party of the United States at present, that there
is only one representative of a foreign power
here who would hot like to see them flying be
fore Southern bayonets. The banker, perhaps,
would have liked a little time to set his affairs
in order. " When will the sacking begin ?" cried
the ministers. "We must hoist our flags."
"The Confederates respect private property, I
suppose ?" As to flags, be it remarked that Lord
Lyons has none to display, having lent his to
Mr. Seward, who required it for some festive
d e m on str at ion .

September 4th. — I rode over to the Chain
Bridge again with Captain Haworth this morn
ing at seven o'clock, on the chance of there be
ing a big fight, as the Americans say ; but there
was only some slight skirmishing going on;
dropping shots now and then. Walker, excited
by the reminiscences of Bull Run noises, per
formed most remarkable feats, one Of the most
frequent of which was turning right round when
at full trot or canter, and then kicking violently.
He also gallopped in a most lively way down a
road which in winter is the bed of a torrent, and
jumped along among the boulders and stones
in an agile, cat-like manner, to the great delec
tation of my companion.

The morning was intensely hot, so I was by no
means indisposed to get back to cover again.
Nothing would persuade people there was not
serious fighting somewhere or other. I went
down to the Long Bridge, and was stopped by
the sentry, so I produced General Scott's pass,
which I kept always as a dernier ressort, but the
officer on duty here also refused it, as passes
were suspended. I returned and referred the
matter to Colonel Cullum, who consulted Gen-
errl Scott, and informed me that the pass must
be considered as perfectly valid, not having been
revoked by the General, who, as Lieutcnant-Gen-
eral commanding the United States army, was
senior to every other officer, and could only have
his pass revoked by the President himself. Now
it was quite plain that it would do me no good
to have an altercation with the sentries at every
post in order to have the satisfaction of report
ing the matter to General Scott. I therefore
procured a letter from Colonel Cullum, stating,
in writing, what he said in words, and with that
and the pass went to General M'Clellan's head-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

195

quarters, where I was told by his aides the Gen
eral was engaged in a kind of council of war. I
sent up my papers, and Major Hudson, of his
staff, came down after a short time, and said that
"General M'Clellan thought it would be much
better if General Scott had given me a new spe
cial pass ; but as General Scott had thought fit to
take the present course on his own responsibili
ty, General M'Clellan could not interfere in the
matter ;" whence it may be inferred there is no
very pleasant feeling .between head-quarters of
• the army of the Potomac and head-quarters of
the army of the United States.

I went on to the Navy yard, where a look-out
man, who can command the whole of the coun
try to Munson's Hill, is stationed, and I heard
from Captain Dahlgren that there was no fight
ing whatever. There were columns of smoke
visible from Capitol Hill, which the excited
spectators declared were caused by artillery and
musketry, but my glass resolved them into ema
nations from a vast extent of hanging wood and
brush which the Federals were burning in order
to clear their front. However, people were so
positive as to hearing cannonades and volleys of
musketry, that wo went out to the reservoir hill
at Georgetown, and, gazing over the debateable
land of Virginia — which, by the way, is very
beautiful these summer sunsets — became thor
oughly satisfied of the delusion. Met Van Vliet
as I was returning, who had just seen the reports
at head-quarters, and averred there was no fight
ing whatever. My landlord had a very differ
ent story. His friend, an hospital steward, ' ' had
seen ninety wounded men carried into one ward
from over the river, and believed the Federals
had lost 1000 killed and wounded and twenty-
five guns."

Sept. 5th. — Raining all day. M'Clellan aban
doned his intention of inspecting the lines, and
I remained in, writing. The anonymous letters
still continue. Received one from an unmistake-
abla Thug to-day, with the death's-head, cross-
bi>ii'?s, and coffin, in the most orthodox style of
national-school drawing.

The event of the day wras the appearance of
the President in the Avenue in a suit of black,
and a parcel in his hand, walking umbrella-less
in the rain. Mrs. Lincoln has returned, and the
worthy "Executive" will no longer be obliged
to go "browsing round," as he says, among his
friends at dinner-time. He is working away at
money matters with energy, but has been much
disturbed in his course of studies by General Fre
mont's sudden outburst in the West, which pro
claims emancipation, and draws out the arrow
which the President intended to discharge from
his own bow.

Sept. Qth. — At 3.30 P.M. General M'Clellan
sent over an orderly to say he was going across
the river, and would be g'lad of my company ;
but I was just finishing my letters for England,
and had to excuse myself for the moment ; and
when I was ready, the General and staff had gone
venire a terre into Virginia. After post, paid my
respects to General Sco,tt, who is about to retire
from the command on his full-pay of about £3500
per annum, which is awarded to him on account
of his long services.

A new Major-General — Halleck — has been
picked up in California, and is highly praised by
General Scott and by Col >ncl Cullum, with whom

I had a long talk about the officers on both sides.
Halleck is a West Po'int officer, and has pub
lished some works on military science which are
highly esteemed in the States. Before Califor
nia became a State, he was secretary to the gov
ernor or officer commanding the territory, and
eventually left the service and became a lawyer
in the district, where he has amassed a large •
fortune. He is a man of great ability, very
calm, practical, earnest, and cold, devoted to the
Union — a soldier, and something more. Lee is
considered the ablest man on the Federal side,
but he is slow and timid. "Joe" Johnson is
their best strategist. Beauregard is nobody and
nothing — so think they at head-quarters. All
of them together are not equal to Halleck, who
is to be employed in the West.

I dined at the Legation, where were the Rus
sian Minister, the Secretary of the French Lega
tion, the representative of New Granada, and oth
ers. As I was 'anxious to explain to General
M'Clellan the reason of my inability to go out
•with him, I called at his quarters about eleven
o'clock, and found he had just returned from his
ride. He received me in his shirt, in his bed
room at the top of the house ; introduced me to
General Burnside — a soldierly, intelligent-look
ing man, with a very lofty forehead, and uncom
monly bright dark eyes ; and we had some con
versation about matters of ordinary interest for
some time, till General M'Clellan called me into
an ante-chamber, where an officer was writing a
despatch, which he handed to the General. " I
wish to ask your opinion as to the wording of
this order. It is a matter of importance. I see
that the men of this army, Mr. Russell, disregard
the Sabbath, and neglect the worship of God ;
and I am resolved to put an end to such neglect,
as far as I can. I have, therefore, directed the
following order to be drawn up, which will be
promulgated to-morrow." The General spoke
with much earnestness, and with an air which
satisfied me of his sincerity. The officer in wait
ing read the order, in which, at the General's re
quest, I suggested a few alterations. The Gen
eral told me he had received "sure information
that Beauregard has packed up all his baggage,
struck his tents, and is evidently preparing for a
movement, so you may be wanted at a moment's
notice." General Burnside returned to my rooms,
in company with Mr. Lamy, and we sat up, dis
coursing of Bull's Run, in which his brigade was
the first engaged in front. He spoke like a man
of sense and a soldier of the action, and stood
up for the conduct of some regiments, though he
could not palliate the final disorder. The pa
pers circulate rumours of "Jeff. Davis's death;"
nay, accounts of his burial. The public does not
believe, but buys all the same.

Sept. 1th. — Yes ; "Jeff. Davis must be dead."
There are some touching lamentations in the
obituary notices over his fate in the other world.
Meanwhile, however, his spirit seems quite alive;
for there is an absolute certainty that the Con
federates are coming to attack the Capitol.
Lieut. A. Wise and Lord A. Vane Tempest ar
gued the question whether the assault would be
made by a flank movement above or direct in
front ; and Wise maintained the latter thesis with
vigour not disproportioned to the energy with
which his opponent demonstrated that the Con
federates could not be such madmen as to march

196

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

up to the Federal batteries. There is actually
"a battle" raging (in the front of the Philadelphia
newspaper offices) this instant — Populus vult de-
dpi — dedpiatur.

Sept. 8</l. — Rode over to Arlington House.
Went round by Aqueduct Bridge, Georgetown,
and out across Chain Bridge to Brigadier Smith's
head-quarters, which are established in a com
fortable house belonging to a Secessionist farm
er. The General belongs to the regular army,
and, if one can judge from externals, is a good
officer. A libation of Bourbon and water was
poured out to friendship, and we rode out with
Captain Poe, of the Topographical Engineers, a
hard-working, eager fellow, to examine the trench
which the men were engaged in throwing up to
defend the position they have just occupied on
some high knolls, now cleared of wood, and over
looking ravines which stretch towards Falls
Church and Vienna. Everything about the
camp looked like fighting : Napoleon guns plant
ed on the road ; Griffin's battery in a field near
at hand; mountain howitzers unlimbered; strong
pickets and main guards ; the five thousand men
all kept close to their camps, and two regiments,
in spite of M'Clellan's order, engaged on the
trenches, which were already mounted with field-
guns/ General Smith, like most officers, is a
Democrat and strong anti- Abolitionist, and it is
not too much to suppose he would fight any
rather than Virginians. As we were riding
about, it got out among the men that I was pres
ent, and I was regarded with no small curiosity,
staring, and some angry looks. The men do
not know what to make of it when they see their
officers in the company of one whom they are
reading about in the papers as the most &c. &c.
fche world ever saw. And, indeed, I know well
enough, so great is their passion and so easily
are they misled, that without such safeguard the
men would in all probability carry out the sug
gestions of one of their particular guides, who
has undergone so many cuffings that he rather
likes them. Am I not the cause of the disaster
at Bull's Run ?

Going home, I met Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln in
their new open carriage. The President was
not so good-humoured, nor Mrs. Lincoln so affa
ble, in their return to my salutation as usual. My
unpopularity is certainly spreading upwards and
downwards at the same time, and all because I
could not turn the battle of Bull's Run into a
Federal victory, because I would not pander to
tfie vanity of the people, and, least of all, because
I will not bow my knee to the degraded creatures
who have made the very name of a free press
odious to honourable men. Many of the most
foul-mouthed and rabid of the men who revile
me because I have said the Union as it was nev
er can be restored, are as fully satisfied of the
truth of that statement as I am. They have
written far severer things of their army than I
have ever done. They have slandered their sol
diers and their officers as I have never done.
They have fed the worst passions of a morbid
democracy till it can neither see nor hear ; but
they shall never have the satisfaction of either
driving me from my post, or inducing me to de
viate a hair's-breadth from the course I have re
solved to pursue, as I have done before in other
cases — greater and gravel*, as far as I was con
cerned, than this.

Sept. 9th. — This morning, as I was making
the most of my toilet after a ride, a gentleman
in the uniform of a United States officer came
up-stairs and marched into my sitting-room, say
ing he wished to see me on business. I thought
it was one of my numerous friends coming with
a message from some one who was going to
avenge Bull's Run on me. So, going out as
speedily as I could, I bowed to the officer, and
asked his business. "I've come here because
I'd like to trade with you about that chestnut
horse of yours." I replied that I could only*
state what price I had given for him, and say
that I would take the same, and no less. "What
may you have given for him ?" I discovered
that my friend had been already to the stable
and ascertained the price from the groom, who
considered himself bound in duty to r.ame a few
dollars beyond the actual sum I had given, for
when I mentioned the price the countenance
of the man of war relaxed into a grim smile.
"Well, I reckon that help of yours is a pretty
smart chap, though he does come from your side
of the world." When the preliminaries had
been arranged, the officer announced that he had
come on behalf of another officer to offer me an
order on his paymaster, payable at some future
date, for the animal, which he desired, however,
to take away upon the spot. The transaction was
rather amusing, but I consented to let the ani
mal go, much to the indignation and uneasiness
of the Scotch servant, who regarded it as con
trary to all the principles of morality in horse
flesh.

Lord A. V. Tempest and another British sub
ject who applied to Mr. Seward to-day for leave
to go South, were curtly refused. The Foreign
Secretary is not very well pleased with us just
now, and there has been some little uneasiness
between him and Lord Lyons, in consequence
of representations respecting an improper excess
in the United States marine on the lakes, con
trary to treaty. The real cause, perhaps, of Mr.
Seward's annoyance is to be found in the ex
aggerated statements of the American papers
respecting British reinforcements for Canada,
which, in truth, are the ordinary reliefs. These
small questions in the present condition of af
fairs cause irritation ; but if the United States
were not distracted by civil war, they would be
seized eagerly as pretexts to excite the popular
mind against Great Britain.

The great difficulty of all, which must be set
tled some day, relates to San Juan ; and every
American I have met is persuaded Great Britain
is in the wrong, and must consent to a compro
mise or incur the risk of war. The few English
in Washington, I think, were all present at din
ner at the Legation to-day.

September Wth. — A party of American officers
passed the evening where I dined — all, of course,
Federals, but holding very different views. A
Massachusetts Colonel, named Gordon, asserted
that slavery was at the root of every evil which
afflicted the Republic ; that it was not necessary
in the South or anywhere else, and that the Soijth
maintained the institution for political as well as
private ends. A Virginian Captain, on the con
trary, declared that slavery was in itself good ;
that it could not be dangerous, as it was essen
tially conservative, and desired nothing "better
than to be left alone; but that the Northern

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

197

fanatics, jealous pf the superior political influ
ence and ability of Southern statesmen, and sor
did Protectionists who wished to bind the South
to take their goods exclusively, perpetrated all
the mischief. An officer of the District of Co
lumbia assigned all the misfortunes of the coun
try to universal suffrage, to foreign immigration,
and to these alone. Mob-law revolts well-edu
cated men, and people who pride themselves be
cause their fathers lived in the country before
them will not be content to see a foreigner who
has been but a short time on the soil exercising
is great influence over the fate of the country as
liimself. A contest will, therefore, always be go
ing on between those representing the oligarch
ical principle and the pollarchy ; and the result
must be disruption, sooner or later, because there
is no power in a republic to restrain the strug
gling factions which the weight of the crown com
presses in monarchical countries.

I dined with a namesake — a major in the
United States Marines — with whom I had be
come accidentally acquainted, in consequence
of our letters frequently changing hands, and
spent an agreeable evening in company with
naval and military officers ; not the less so be
cause our host had some marvellous Madeira,
dating back from the Conquest — I mean of
Washington. Several of the officers spoke in
the highest terms of General Banks, whom they
call a most remarkable man ; but so jealous are
the politicians that he will never be permitted,
they think, to get a fair chance of distinguishing
himself.

CHAPTER LYL

A Crimean acquaintance — Persona! abuse of myself—
Close firing — A reconnaissance — Major-General Bell —
The Prince de Joinville and his nephews — American
estimate of Louis Napoleon — 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 shooting on Sun
day — The town of Dwight — Iteturn to Washington —
Mr. Seward and myself.

September lllh. — A soft-voiced, round-faced,
rather good-looking young man, with downy
moustache, came to my room, and introduced
himself this morning as Mr. H. H. Scott, formerly
of Her Majesty's 57th Regiment. "Don't you
remember me? I often met you at Cathcart's
Hill. I had a big dog, if you remember, which
used to be about the store belonging to our earn p."
And so he rattled on, talking of old Street and
young Jones with immense volubility, and telling
me how he had gone out to India with his regi
ment, had married, lost his wife, and was now
travelling for the benefit of his health and to see
the country. All the time I was trying to re
member his face, but in vain. At last came the
purport of his visit. He had been taken ill at
Baltimore, and was obliged to stop at an hotel,
which had cost him more than he had anticipated ;
he had just received a letter from his father, which
required his immediate return, and he had tele
graphed to New York to secure his place in the
next steamer. Meantime, he was out of money,
and required a small loan to enable him to go
back and prepare for his journey, and of course
he would send mo the money the moment he ar
rived in New York I wrote a cheque for the

amount he named, with which Lieutenant or Cap
tain Scott departed ; and my suspicions were ra
ther aroused by seeing him beckon a remarkably
ill-favoured person at the other side of the way,
who crossed over and inspected the little slip of
paper held out for his approbation, 'and then, tak
ing his friend under the arm, walked off rapidly
towards the bank.

The papers still continue to abuse me faute de
mieux ; there are essays written about me : I am
threatened with several farces ; I have been lec
tured upon at "Willard's by a professor of rheto
ric; and I am a stock subject with the leaden
penny funny journals, for articles and caricatures.
Yesterday I was abused on the ground that I
spoke badly of those who treated me hospitably.
The man who wrote the words knew they were
false, because I have been most careful in my cor
respondence to avoid anything of the kind. A
favourite accusation, indeed, which Americans
make against foreigners is, " that they have abused
our hospitality," which oftentimes consists in per
mitting them to live in the country at all at their
own expense, paying their way at hotels anfcelse-
where, without the smallest suspicion that they
were receiving any hospitality whatever.

To-day, for instance, there comes a lively cor
poral of artillery, John Robinson, who quotes Sis-
mondi, G-uizot, and others, to prove that I am the
worst man in the world ; but his fiercest invec
tives are directed against me on the ground that
I speak well of those people who give me dinners ;
the fact being, since I came to America, that I
have given at least as many dinners to Ameri
cans as I have received from them.

Just as I was sitting down to my desk for the
remainder of the day, a sound caught my ear
which, repeated again and again, could not be
mistaken by accustomed organs, and placing my
face close to the windows, I perceived the glass
vibrate to the distant discharge of cannon, which,
evidently, did not proceed from a review or a sa
lute. Unhappy man that I am ! here is "Walker
lame, and my other horse carried off by the West-
country captain. However, the sounds were so
close that in a few moments I was driving off
towards the Chain Bridge, taking the upper road,
as that by the canal has become a sea of mud fill
ed with deep holes.

In the windows, on the house-tops, even to the
ridges partially overlooking Virginia, people were
standing in high excitement, watching the faint
puffs of smoke which rose at intervals above the
tree-tops, and at every report a murmur — excla
mations of "There, do you hear that?" — ran
through the crowd. The driver, as excited as
any one else, urged his horses at full speed, and
we arrived at the Chain Bridge just as General
M'Call — a white haired, rather military-looking
old man — appeared at the head of his column,
hurrying down to the Chain Bridge from the Ma
ryland side, to reinforce Smith, who was said to
be heavily engaged with the enemy. But by this
time the firing had ceased, and just as the artil
lery of the General's column commenced defiling
through the mud, into which the guns sank to the
naves of the wheels, the head of another column
appeared, entering the bridge from the Virginia
side with loud cheers, which were taken up again
and again. The carriage was halted to allow the
2nd Wisconsin to pass; and a more broken-
down, white-faced, sick, and weakly set of poor

198

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

wretches I never beheld. The heavy rains had
washed the very life out of them ; their clothing
was in rags, their shoes were broken, and multi
tudes were foot-sore. They cheered, neverthe
less, or whooned, and there was a tremendous
clatter of tongues in the ranks concerning their
victory ; but, as the men's faces and hands were
not blackened by powder, they could have seen
little of the engagement. Captain Poe came
along with dispatches for General M'Clellan, and
gave me a correct account of the affair.

All this noise and tiring and excitement, I
found, simply arose out of a reconnaissance made
towards Lewinsviile, by Smith and a part of his
brigade, to beat up the enemy's position, and en
able the topographical engineers to procure some
information respecting the country. The Con
federates worked down upon their left flank with
artillery, which they got into position at an easy
range without being observed, intending, no
doubt, to cut off their retreat and capture or de
stroy the whole force; but, fortunately for the
reconnoitring party, the impatience of their ene-
miesied them to open fire too soon. The Fede
rals got their guns into position also, and covered
their retreat, whilst reinforcements poured out of
camp to their assistance, "and I doubt not," said
Poe, " but that they will have an account of a
tremendous scalping match in all the papers to
morrow, although we have only six or seven men
killed, and twelve wounded." As we approached
"Washington the citizens, as they are called, were
waving Federal banners out of the windows and
rejoicing in a great victory ; at least, the inhabi
tants of the inferior sort of houses. Respectability
in Washington means Secession.

Mr. Monson told me that my distressed young
British subject, Captain Scott, had called on him
at the Legation early this morning for the little
pecuniary help which had been, I fear, wisely
refused there, and which was granted by me.
The States have become, indeed, more than ever
the doacina gentium, and Great Britain contri
butes its full quota to the stream.

Thus time passes away in expectation of some
onward movement, or desperate attack, or impor
tant strategical movements ; and night comes to
assemble a few friends, Americans and English,
at my rooms or elsewhere, to talk over the disap
pointed hopes of the day, to speculate on the
future, to chide each dull delay, and to part with
a hope that to-morrow would be more lively than
to-day. Major-General Bell, who commanded
the Royals in the Crimea, and who has passed
some half century in active service, turned up in
"Washington, and has been courteously received
by the American authorities. He joined to-night
one of our small reunions, and was infinitely
puzzled to detect the lines which separated one
man's country and opinions from those of the other.

September llth. — Captain Johnson, Queen's
messenger, started with despatches for England
from the Legation to-day, to the regret of our
little party. I observe by the papers certain
wiseacres in Philadelphia have got up a petition
against me to Mr. Seward, on the ground that I
have been guilty of treasonable practices and
misrepresentations in my letter dated August
10th. There is also to be a lecture on the 17th
at Willard's, by the Professor of Rhetoric, to a
volunteer regiment, which the President is invit
ed to attend — the subject being myself.

There is an absolute nullity .of events, out of
which the New York papers endeavour, in vain,
to extract a caput mortuum of sensation headings.
The Prince of Joinville and his two nephews, the
Count of Paris and the Duke of Chartres, have
been here for some days, and have been received
with marked attention by the President, Cabinet,
politicians, and military. The Prince has coma
with the intention of placing his son at the Unit
ed States Naval Academy, and his nephews with
the head-quarters of the Federal army. The
impressement exhibited at the "White Houso
towards the French princes is attributed by ill-
natured rumours and persons to a little pique on
the part of Mrs. Lincoln, because the Princess
Clothilde did not receive her at New York, but
considerable doubts are entertained of the Em
peror's " loyalty" towards the Union. Under
the wild extravagance of professions of attach
ment to France are hidden suspicious that Louis
Napoleon may be capable of treasonable prac
tices and misrepresentations, which, in time, may
lead the Philadelphians to get up a petition
against M. Mercier.

The news that twenty-two members of tho
Maryland Legislature have been seized by the
Federal authorities has not produced the smallest
effect here : so easily do men in the midst of
political troubles bend to arbitrary power, and so
rapidly do all guarantees disappear in a revolu
tion. I was speaking to one of General M'Clel-
lan's aides de camp this evening respecting these
things, when he said — "If I thought he would
use his power a day longer than was necessary,
I would resign this moment. I believe him inca
pable of any selfish or unconstitutional views, or
unlawful ambition, and you will see that he will
not disappoint our expectations."

It is now quite plain M'Clellan has no intention
of making a general offensive movement against
Richmond. He is aware his army is not equal
to the task — commissariat deficient, artillery
wanting, no cavalry; above all, ill-officered,
incoherent battalions. He hopes, no doubt, by
constant reviewing and inspection, and by weed
ing out the preposterous fellows who render
epaulettes ridiculous, to create an infantry which
shall be able for a short campaign in the fine
autumn weather ; but I am quite satisfied he does
not intend to move now, and possibly will not do
so till next year. I have arranged therefore to
pay a short visit to the West, penetrating as far
as I can, without leaving telegraphs and rail
ways behind, so that if an advance takes place,
I shall be back in time at Washington to assist
at the earliest battle. These Federal armies do
not move like the corps of the French republic,
or Crawford's Light Division.

In truth, Washington life is becoming exceed
ingly monotonous and uninteresting. The plea
sant little evening parties or tertulias which once
relieved the dulness of this dullest of capitals,
take place no longer. Very wrong indeed would
it be that rejoicings and festivities should occur in
the capital of a country menaced with destruction,
where many anxious hearts are grieving over the
lost, or tortured with fears for the living.

But for the hospitality of Lord Lyons to the
English residents, the place would be nearly
insufferable, for at his house one met other friend
ly ministers who extended the circle of invita
tions, and two or three American families com-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

199

pleted the list which jne could reckon on his
fingers. Then at night, there were assemblages
of the same men, who uttered the same opinions,
told the same stories, sang the same songs, varied
seldom by strange faces or novel accomplishments,
but always friendly and social enough — not con
ducive perhaps to very early rising, but innocent
of gambling, or other excess. A flask of Bor
deaux, a wicker-covered demijohn of Bourbon,
a jug of iced-water, and a bundle of cigars, with
the latest arrival of newspapers, furnished the
materiel of these small symposiums, in which
Americans and Englishmen and a few of the
members of foreign Legations, mingled in a
friendly cosmopolitan manner. Now and then
a star of greater magnitude came down upon us :
a senator or an " earnest man," or a " live man,"
or a constitutional lawyer, or a remarkable states
man, coruscated, and rushing off into the outer
world left us befogged, with our glimmering
lights half extinguished with tobacco smoke.

Out of doors excessive heat alternating with
thunder-storms and tropical showers— dust beaten
into mud, or mud sublimated into dust — eternal
reviews, each like the other — visits to camp,
where we saw the same men and heard the same
stories of perpetual abortive skirmishes — rides
confined to the same roads and paths by lines of
sentries, offered no greater attraction than the
city, where one's bones were racked with fever
and ague, and where every evening the pestilen
tial vapours of the Potomac rose higher and
spread further. No wonder that I was glad to
get away to the Far West, particularly as I en
tertained hopes of witnessing some of the opera
tions down the Mississippi, before I was summon
ed back to Washington, . by the news that the
grand army had actually broken up camp, and
was about once more to march against Rich
mond.

September 12th. — The day passed quietly,, in
spite of rumours of another battle; the band
played in the President's garden, and citizens
and citizenesses strolled about the grounds as if
Secession had been annihilated. The President
made a fitful appearance, in a grey shooting suit,
with a number of despatches in his hand, and
walked off towards the State Department quite
unnoticed by the crowd. I am sure not half a
dozen persons saluted him — not one of the men I
saw even touched his hat. General Bell went
round the works with M'Clellan, and expressed
his opinion that it would be impossible to fight a
great battle in the country which lay between
the two armies — in fact, as he said, " a general
could no more handle his troops among the woods,
than he could regulate the movements of rabbits
in a cover. You ought just to make a proposition
to Beauregard to come out on some plain and
fight the battle fairly out where you can see each
other."

September 16th. — It is most agreeable to be re
moved from all the circumstance without any of
the pomp and glory of war. Although there is a
tendency in the North, and, for aught I know, in
the South, to consider the contest in the same
light as one with a foreign enemjr, the very bat
tle-cries on both sides indicate a civil war. " The
Union for ever" — "States rights" — and "Down
with the Abolitionists," cannot be considered na
tional. iM'Clellan takes no note of time even by
its loss, which is all the more strange because he

sets great store upon it in his report on the con
duct of the war in the Crimea. However, he
knows an army cannot be made in two months,
and that the larger it is, the more time there is
required to harmonize its components. The news
from the Far West indicated a probability of some
important operations taking place, although my
first love — the army of the Potomac — roust be
returned to. Any way there was the great West
ern Prairie to be seen, and the people who have
been pouring from their plains so many thousands
upon the Southern States to assert the liberties
of those coloured races whom they will not per
mit to cross their borders as freemen. Mr. Lin
coln, Mr. Blair, and other Abolitionists, are
actuated by similar sentiments, and seek to eman
cipate the slave, arid remove from him the pro
tection of his master, in order that they may
drive him from the continent altogether, or force
him to seek refuge in emigration.

On the 18th of September, I left Baltimore in
company with Major-G-eneral Bell, C.B., and Mr.
Lamy, who was well acquainted with the West
ern States : stopping one night at Altoona, in
order that we might cross by daylight the fine
passes of the Alleganies, which are traversed by
bold gradients, and remarkable cuttings, second
only in difficulty and extent to those of the rail
road across the Sommering.

So far as my observation extends, no route in
the United States can give a stranger a better
notion of the variety of scenery and of resources,
the vast extent of territory, the difference in
races, the prosperity of the present, and the pro
bable greatness of the future, than the line from
Baltimore by Harrisburg and Pittsburg to Chica
go, traversing the great States of Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and Indiana. Plain and mountain, hill and
valley, river and meadow, forest and rock, wild
tracts through which the Indian roamed but a
few years ago, lands covered with the richest
crops ; rugged passes, which Salvator would have
peopled with shadowy groups of bandits ; gentle
sylvan glades, such as Gainsborough would have
covered with waving corn ; the hum of mills, the
silence of the desert and waste, sea-like lakes
whitened by innumerable sails, mighty rivers
carving their way through continents, sparkling
rivulets that lose their lives amongst giant wheels :
seams and lodes of coal, iron, and mineral wealth,
cropping out of desolate mountain sides; busy,
restless manufacturers and traders alternating with
stolid rustics, hedges clustering with grapes,
mountains whitening with snow; and beyond,
the great Prairie stretching away to the backbone
of inhospitable rock, which, rising from the foun
dations of the world, bars the access of the white
man and civilization to the bleak inhospitable
regions beyond, which both are fain as yet to
leave to the savage and wild beast.

Travelling along the banks of the Susquehan-
nah, the visitor, however, is neither permitted to
admire the works of nature in silence, nor to ex
press his admiration of the energy of man in his
own way. The tyranny of public opinion is upon
him. He must admit that he never saw anything
so wonderful in his life; that there is nothing so
beautiful anywhere else; no fields so green, no
rivers so wide and deep, no bridges so lofty and
long; and at last he is inclined to shut himself up,
either in absolute grumpy negation, or to indulge
in hopeless controversy. An American gentle-

200

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

man is as little likely as any other well-bred man
to force the opinions or interrupt the reveries of a
stranger ; but if third-class Esquimaux are allowed
to travel in first-class carriages, the hospitable
creatures will be quite likely to insist on your
swallowing train oil, eating blubber, or admiring
snow-drifts, as the finest things in the world. It
is infinitely to the credit of the American people
that actual offence is so seldom given and is still
more rarely intended — always save and except
in the one particular, of chewing tobacco. Hav
ing seen most things that can irritate one's sto
mach, and being in company with an old soldier,
I little expected that any excess of the sort could
produce disagreeable effects; but on returning
from this excursion, Mr. Lamy and myself were
fairly driven out of a carriage, on the Pittsburg
line, in utter loathing and disgust, by the condi
tion of the floor. The conductor, passing through,
said, " You must not stand out there, it is against
the rules; you can go in and smoke," pointing to
the carriage. "In there!" exclaimed my friend,
" why, it is too filthy to put a wild beast into."
The conductor looked in for a moment, nodded
his head, and said, " Well, I concede it is right
bad ; the citizens are going it pretty strong." and
so left us.

The scenery along the Juniata is still more
picturesque than that of the valley of the Susque-
hannah. The borders of the route across the
Alleganies have been described by many a writer ;
but notwithstanding the good fortune which
favoured us, and swept away the dense veil of
vapours on the lower ranges of the hills, the land
scape scarcely produced the effect of scenery on a
less extended scale, just as the scenery of the
Himalayas is not so striking as that of the Alps,
because it is on too vast a scale to be readily
grasped.

Pittsburg, where we halted next night, on the
. Ohio, is certainly, with the exception of Birming
ham, the most intensely sooty, busy, squalid, fonl-
noused, and vile-suburbed city I have ever seen.
Under its perpetual canopy of smoke, pierced by a
forest of blackened chimneys, the ill-paved streets,
swarm with a streaky population whose white
faces are smutched with soot-streaks — the noise
of vans and drays which shake the houses as they
pass, the turbulent life in the thoroughfares, the
wretched brick tenements, — built in waste places
on squalid mounds, surrounded by heaps of slag
and broken brick — all these give the stranger the
idea of some vast manufacturing city of the Infer
no ; and yet a few miles beyond, the country is
studded with beautiful villas, and the great river,
bearing innumerable barges and steamers on its
broad bosom, rolls its turbid waters between
banks rich with cultivated crops.

The policeman at Pittsburg station — a burly
Englishman — told me that the war had been of
the greatest service to the city. He spoke not
only from a policeman's point of view, when he
said that all the rowdies, Irish, Germans, and
others had gone off to the war, but from the ma
nufacturing stand-point, as he added that wages
were high, and that the orders from contractors
were keeping all the manufacturers going. " It
is wonderful," said he, "what a number of citi
zens come back from the South by rail, in these
new metallic coffins."

A long, long day, traversing the State of Indi
ana by the Fort Wayne route, followed by a

longer night, just sufficed to carry us to Chicago.
The railway passes through a most uninteresting
country, which in part is scarcely rescued from a
state of nature by the hand of man ; but it is
wonderful to see so much done, when one hears
that the Miami Indians and other tribes were
driven out, or, as the phrase is, " removed," only
twenty years ago — " conveyed, the wise call it ''
— to the reserves.

From Chicago, where we descended at a hotel
which fairly deserves to be styled magnificent, for
comfort and completeness, Mr. Lamy and myself
proceeded to Racine, on the shores of Lake Mi
chigan, and thence took the rail for Freeport,
where I remained for some days, going out in the
surrounding prairie to shoot in the morning, and
returning at nightfall. The prairie chickens were
rather wild. The delight of these days, notwith
standing bad sport, cannot be described, nor was
it the least ingredient in it to mix with the fresh
and vigorous race who are raising up cities on
these fertile wastes. Fortunately for the patience
of my readers, perhaps, I did not fill my diary
with the records of each day's events, or of the
contents of our bags; and the note-book in which
I jotted down some little matters which struck
me to be of interest has been mislaid ; but in my
letters to England I gave a description of the ge
neral aspect of the country, and of the feelings of
the people, and arrived at the conclusion that the
tax-gatherer will have little chance of returning
with full note-books from his tour in these dis
tricts. The dogs which were lent to us were
generally abominable ; but every evening we re
turned in company with great leather-greaved
and jerkined men, hung round with belts and
hooks, from which were suspended strings of
defunct prairie chickens. The farmers were hos
pitable, but were suffering from a morbid longing
for a failure of crops in Europe, in order to give
some value to their corn and wheat, which lite
rally cumbered the earth.

Freeport ! Who ever heard of it ? And yet
it has its newspapers, more than I dare mention,
and its big hotel lighted with gas, its billiard
rooms and saloons, magazines, railway stations,
and all the proper paraphernalia of local self-
government, with all their fierce intrigues and
giddy factions.

From Freeport our party returned to Chicago,
taking leave of our excellent friend and compa
nion Mr. George Thompson of Racine. The au
thorities of the Central Illinois Railway, to whose
courtesy and consideration I was infinitely in
debted, placed at our disposal a magnificent
sleeping carriage ; and on the morning after our
arrival, having laid in a good stock of supplies,
and engaged an excellent sporting guide and
dogs, we started, attached to the regular train
from Chicago, until the train stopped at a shunt
ing place near the station of Dwight, in the very
centre of the prairie. We reached our halting-
place, were detached, and were shot up a siding
in the solitude, with no habitation in view, ex
cept the wood shanty, in which lived the family
of the Irish overseer of this portion of the road —
a man happy in the possession of a piece of gold
which he received from the Prince of Wales, and
for which he declared, he would not take the
amount of the National Debt.

The sleeping carriage proved most comfortable
quarters. After breakfast in the morning, Mr.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

201

Lamy, Col. Foster, Mr. , of the Central Illi
nois rail, the keeper, and myself, descending the
steps of our movable house, walked in a few
strides to the shooting grounds, which abounded
with quail, but were not so well peopled by the
chickens. The quail were weak on the wing,
owing to the lateness of the season, and my com
panions grumbled at their hard luck, though I
was well content with fresh air, my small share
of birds, and a few American hares. Night and
morning the train rushed by, and when darkness
settled down upon the prairie, our lamps were
lighted, dinner was served in the carriage, set
forth with inimitable potatoes cooked by the old
Irishwoman. From the dinner-table it was but
a step to go to bed. When storm or rain rushed
over the sea-like plain, I remained in the carriage
writing, and after a long spell of work, it was in
expressibly pleasant to take a ramble through
the flowering grass and the sweet-scented broom,
and to gobeating through the stunted under-cover,
careless of rattle-snakes, whose tiny prattling
music I heard often enough without a sight of
the tails that made it.

One rainy morning, the 29th September, I
think, as the sun began to break through drift
ing rain clouds, I saw my companions preparing
their guns, the sporting chaperon Walker filling
the shot flasks, and making all the usual arrange
ments for a day's shooting. " You don't mean
to say you are going out shooting on a Sunday 1"
I gaid. " What, on the prairies!" exclaimed Co
lonel Foster. "Why, of course we are; there's
nothing wrong in it here. What nobler temple
can we find to worship in than lies around us ?
It is the custom of the people hereabout to shoot
on Sundays, and it is a work of necessity with
us, for our larder is very low."

And so, after breakfast, we set out, but the
rain came down so densely that we were driven
to the house of a farmer, and finally we returned
to our sleeping carriage for the day. I never
fired a shot nor put a gun to my shoulder, nor
am I sure that any of my companions killed a bird.

The rain fell with violence all day, and at night
the gusts of wind shook the carriage like a ship
at sea. We were sitting at table after dinner,
when the door at the end of the carriage opened,
and a man, in a mackintosh dripping wet, ad
vanced with unsteady steps along the centre of
the carriage, between the beds, and taking off his
hat, in the top of which he searched diligently,
stood staring with lack-lustre eyes from one to
the other of the party, till Colonel Foster ex
claimed, "Well, sir, what do you want?"

" What do I want?" he replied, with a slight
thickness of speech, "which of you is the
Honourable Lord William Russell, correspondent
of the London Times? That's what I want."

I certified to my identity; whereupon, draw
ing a piece of paper out of his hat, he continued,
"Then I arrest you, Honourable Lord William
Russell, in the name of the people of the Com
monwealth of Illinois," and thereupon handed
me a document declaring that one Morgan, of
Dwight, having come before him that day and
sworn that I, with a company of men and dogs,
had unlawfully assembled, and by firing shots,
and by barking and noise, had disturbed the
peace of the State of Illinois, he, the subscriber
or justice of the peace, as named and described,
commanded the constable Podgers, or whatever

his name was, to bring my body before him to
answer to the charge.

Now this town of Dwight was a good many
miles away, the road was declared by those who
knew it to be very bad, the night was pitch dark,
the rain falling in torrents, and as the constable,
drawing out of his hat paper after paper with
the names of impossible persons upon them,
served subpoenas on all the rest of the party to
appear next morning, the anger of Colonel Foster
could scarcely be restrained, by kicks under the
table and nods and becks and* wreathed smiles
from the rest of the party. "This is infamous!
It is a political persecution!" he exclaimed,
whilst the keeper joined in chorus, declaring he
never heard of such a proceeding before in all hia
long experience of the prairie, and never knew
there was such an act in existence. The Irish
men in the hut added that the informer himself
generally went out shooting every Sunday.
However, I could not but regret I had given the
fellow an opportunity of striking . at me, and
though I was the only one of the party who
raised an objection to our going out at all, I was
deservedly suffering for the impropriety — to call
it here by no harsher name.

The constable, a man of a liquid eye and a
cheerful countenance, paid particular attention
meantime to a large bottle upon the table, and
as I professed my readiness to go the moment he
had some refreshment that very wet night, the
stern severity becoming a minister of justice,
which marked his first utterances, was sensibly

mollified ; and when Mr. proposed that he

should drive back with him and see the prose
cutor, he was good enough to accept my written
acknowledgment of the service of the writ, and
promise to appear the following morning, as an
adequate discharge of his duty — combined with
the absorption of some Bourbon whisky — and so
retired.

Mr. returned late at night, and very

angry. It appears that the prosecutor — who la
not a man of very good reputation, and whom his
neighbours were as much astonished to find the
champion of religious observances as they would
have been if he was to come forward to insist on
the respect due to the seventh commandment- —
with the insatiable passion for notoriety, which is
one of the worst results of American institutions,
thought he would gain himself some little reputa
tion by causing annoyance to a man so unpopular
as myself. He and a companion having come
from Dwight for the purpose, and hiding in the
neighbourhood, had, therefore, devoted their day
to lying in wait and watching our party; and as
they were aware in the railway carriage I was
with Colonel Foster, they had no difficulty in
finding out the names of the rest of the party.
The magistrate being his relative, granted the
warrant at once ; and the prosecutor, who was in
waiting for the constable, was exceedingly disap
pointed when he found that I had not been
dragged through the rain.

Next morning, a special engine which had
been ordered up by telegraph appeared alongside
the car; and a short run through a beautiful
country brought us to the prairie town of Dwight.
The citizens were astir — it was a great day — and
as I walked with Colonel Foster, all the good
people seemed to be enjoying an unexampled
treat in gazing at the stupendous criminal. The

202

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

court-bouse, or magistrate's office, was suitable
to the republican simplicity of the people of
Dwight ; for the chamber of justice was on the
first floor of a house over a store, and access was
obtained to it by-a ladder from the street to a
platform, at the top of which I was ushered into
the presence of the court — a plain whitewashed
room. I am not sure there was even an engrav
ing of George "Washington on the walls. The
magistrate in a full suit of black, with his hat on,
was seated at a small table , behind him a few
books, on plain tleal shelves, provided his fund
of legal learning. The constable, with a severer
visage than that of last night, stood upon the
right hand ; three sides of the room were sur
rounded by a wall of stout honest Dwightians,
among whom I produced a profound sensation,
by the simple ceremony of 'taking off my hat,
which they no doubt considered a token of the
degraded nature of the Britisher, but which
moved the magistrate to take off his head-cover
ing; whereupon some of the nearest removed
theirs, some putting them on again, and some re
maining uncovered; and then the informations
were read, and on being asked what I had to say,
I merely bowed, and said I had no remarks to
offer. But my friend, Colonel Foster, who had
been churning up his wrath and forensic lore for
some time, putting one hand under his coat tail,
and elevating the other in the air, with modulat
ed cadences, poured out a fine oratorical flow
which completely astonished me, and whipped
the audience morally off their legs completely.
In touching terms he described the mission of an
illustrious stranger, who had wandered over
thousands of miles of land and sea to gaze upon
the beauties of those prairies which the Great
Maker of the Universe had expanded as the ban
queting tables for the famishing millions of pau
perised and despotic Europe. As the representa
tive of an influence which the people of the great
State of Illinois should wish to see developed, in
stead of contracted, honoured instead of being in
sulted, he had come among them to admire the
grandeur of nature, and to behold with wonder
the magnificent progress of human happiness and
free institutions. (Some thumping of sticks, and
cries of "Bravo, that's so," which warmed the
Colonel into still higher flights.) I began to feel
if he was as great in invective as he was in eulo
gy, it was. well he had not lived to throw a
smooth pebble from his sling at Warren Hastings.
As great indeed 1 Why, when the Colonel had
drawn a beautiful picture of me examining coal
deposits — investigating strata — breathing autum
nal airs, and culling flowers in unsuspecting inno
cence, and then suddenly denounced the serpent
who had dogged my steps, in order to strike me
down with a justice's warrant, I protest it is
doubtful, if he did not reach to the most elevated
stage of vituperative oratory, the progression of
which was marked by increasing thumps of sticks,
and louder murmurs of applause, to the discomfi
ture of the wretched prosecutor. But the magis
trate was not a man of imagination ; he feli he
was but elective after all ; and so. with his eye
fixed upon his book, he pronounced his decision,
which was that I be amerced in something more
than half the maximum fine fixed by the statute,
some' five-and-twenty shillings or so, the greater
part to be spent in the education of the people, by
transfer to the school fund of the State.

As I was handing the notes to the magistrate,
several respectable men coming forward, ex
claimed, " Pray oblige us, Mr. Russell, by letting
us pay the amount for you ; this is a shameful
proceeding." But thanking them heartily for
their proffered kindness, I completed the littlo
pecuniary transaction and wished the magistrate-
good morning, with the remark that I hoped the
people of the State of Illinois would always find
such worthy defenders of the statutes as the pro
secutor, and never have offenders against their
peace and morals more culpable than myself.
Having undergone a severe scolding from an old
woman at the top of the ladder, I walked to the
train, followed by a number of the audience, who
repeatedly expressed their extreme regret at the
little persecution to which I had been subjected.
The prosecutor had already made arrangements
to send the news over the whole breadth of the
Union, which was his only reward : as I must do
the American papers the justice to say that, with
a few natural exceptions, those which noticed
the occurrence unequivocally condemned his
conduct.

That evening, as we were planning an exten
sion of our sporting tour, the mail rattling by de
posited our letters and papers, and we saw at tho
top of many columns the startling words, " Grand
Advance of the Union Army." " M'Clellan
Marching on Richmond." "Capture of Mun-
son's Hill." "Retreat of the Enemy— 30,000
Men Seize Their Fortifications." Not a moment
was to be lost ; if I was too late, I never would
forgive myself. Our carriage was hooked on to
the return train, and at 8 o'clock P.M. I started
on my return to Washington, by way of Cleveland.

At half-past 3 on the 1st October the train
reached Pittsburg, just too late to catch the train
for Baltimore; but I, continued my journey at
night, arriving at Baltimore after noon, and reach
ing Washington at 6 P.M. on the 2nd- of October.

October 3rd. — In Washington once more — all
the world laughing at the pump and the wooden
guns at Munson's Hill, but angry withal because
M'Clellan should be so befooled as they consi
dered it, by the Confederates. The fact is M'Clel
lan was riot prepared to move, and therefore not
disposed to hazard a general engagement, which
he might have brought on had the enemy been
in force ; perhaps he knew they were not, but
found it convenient nevertheless to act as though
he believed they had established themselves
strongly in his front, as half the world will give
him credit for knowing more than the civilian
strategists who have already got into disgrace for
urging M'Dowell on to Richmond. The Federal
armies are not handled easily. They are luxu
rious in the matter of baggage, and canteens, and
private stores ; and this is just the sort of war in
which the general who moves lightly and rapidly,
striking blows unexpectedly and deranging com
munications, will obtain great results.

Although Beauregard's name is constantly
mentioned, I fancy that, crafty and reticent as he
is, the operations in front of us have been directed
by an officer of larger capacity. As yet M'Clellan
has certainly done nothing in the field to show
he is like Napoleon. The value of his labours in
camp has yet to be tested. I dined at the Lega
tion, and afterwards there was a meeting at my
rooms, where I heard of all that had passed during
my absence.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

203

October 4tfi. — The new expedition, of which I
have been hearing for some time past, is about to
sail to Port Royal, under the command of Gene
ral Burnside, in order to reduce the works erected
at the entrance of the Sound, to secure a base of
operations against Charleston, and to cut in upon
the communication between that place and Sa
vannah. Alas, for poor Trescot ! his plantations,
his secluded home! What will the good lady
think of the Yankee invasion, which surely must
succeed, as the naval force will be overwhelming ?
I visited the division of General Egbert Viele,
encamped near the Navy-yard, which is bound
to Annapolis, as a part of General Burnside's ex
pedition. When first I saw him, the general was
an emeritus captain, attached to the 7th New
York Militia ; now he is a Brigadier-General, if
, not something more, commanding a corps of
nearly 5000 men, with pay and allowances to
match. His good lady wife, who accompanied
him in the Mexican campaign, — whereof came a
book, lively and light, as a lady's should be, —
was about to accompany her husband in his
assault on the Carolinians, and prepared for action,
by opening a small broadside on my unhappy self,
whom she regarded as an enemy of our glorious
Union ; and therefore an ally of the Evil Powers
on both sides of the grave. The women, North
and South, are equally pitil^s to their enemies ;
and. it was but the other day, a man with whom
I am on very good terms in Washington, made
an apology for not asking me to his house, be
cause his wife was a strong Union woman.

A gentleman who had beeu dining with Mr.
Seward to-night told me the Minister had com
plained that I had not been near him for nearly
two months ; the fact was, however, that I had
called twice immediately after the appearance in
America of my letter dated July 22nd, and had
met Mr. Seward afterwards, when his manner
was, or appeared to me to be, cold and distant,
and I had therefore abstained from intruding my
self upon his notice; nor did his answer to the
Philadelphia petition — in which Mr. Seward ap
peared to admit the allegations made against me
were true, and to consider I had violated the
hospitality accorded me — induce me to think that
he did not entertain the opinion which these jour
nals which set themselves up to be his organs
had so repeatedly expressed.

. CHAPTER LVII.

Another Crimean acquaintance — Summary dismissal of
a newspaper correspondent— Dinner at Lord Lyons'
—Review of artillery— "Habeas Corpus"— The Presi
dent's duties— MKDlellan's policy — The Union Army
— Soldiers and the patrol — Public men in America —
Mr. Sflward and Lord Lyons — A. Judse placed under
arrest — Death and funeral of Senator Baker — Dis
orderly troops and officers — Official fibs— Duck-shoot
ing at Baltimore.

October 5th. — A day of heat extreme. Tumbled
in upon me an old familiar face and voice, once
Forster of a hospitable Crimean hut behind
Mother Seacole's, commanding a battalion of
Land Transport Corps, to'which he had descend
ed or sublimated from his position as ex- Austrian
dragoon and beau sabreur under old Radetzsky
in Italian wars ; now a eolonel of distant volun
teers, and a member of the Parliament of British
Columbia. He was on his way home to Europe,

and had travelled thus far out of his way to see
his friend.

After him came in a gentleman, heated, wild-
eyed, and excited, who had been in the South,
where he was acting as correspondent to a Lon
don newspaper, and on his return to Washington
had obtained a pass from General Scott. Accord
ing to his own story, he had been indulging in a
habit which free-born Englishmen may occasion
ally find to be inconvenient in foreign countries
in times of high excitement, and had been ex
pressing his opinion pretty freely in favour of the
Southern cause in the bar-rooms of Pennsylvania
Avenue. Imagine a Frenchman going about the
taverns of Dublin during an Irish rebellion, ex
pressing his sympathy with the rebels, and you
may suppose he would meet with treatment at
least as peremptory as that which the Federal
authorities gave Mr. D . In fine, that morn
ing early, he had been waited upon by an officer,
who requested his attendance at the Provost
Marshal's office ; arrived there, a functionary,
after a few queries, asked him to give up Gene
ral Scott's pass, and when Mr. D refused to

do so, proceeded to execute a terrible sort of
process verbal on a large sheet of foolscap, the
initiatory flourishes and prolegomena of, which

so intimidated Mr. D , that he gave up his

pass and was permitted to depart, in order that
he might start for England by the next steamer.
A wonderful Frenchman, who lives up a back
street, prepared a curious banquet, at which Mr.
Irvine, Mr. Warre, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Lamy, and
Colonel Forster assisted ; and in the evening Mr.
Lincoln's private secretary, a witty, shrewd, and
pleasant young fellow, who looks a little more
than eighteen years of age, came in with a friend,
whose name I forget; and by degrees the circle
expanded, till the walls seemed to have become
elastic, so great was the concourse of guests.

October 6th.— A. day of wandering around, and
visiting, and listening to rumours all unfounded.
I have applied for permission to accompany the
Burnside expedition, but I am advised not to leave
Washington, as M'Clellan will certainly advance
as soon as the diversion has been made down
South.

October nth. — The heat to-day was literally
intolerable, and wound up at last in a tremen
dous thunder-storm with violent gusts of rain. At
the Legation, where Lord Lyons entertained the
English visitors at dinner, the rooms were shaken
by thunder claps, and the blinding lightning
seemed at times to turn the well-illuminated
rooms into caves of darkness.

October 8th. — A review of the artillery at this
side of the river took place to-day, which has
been described in very inflated language by tha
American papers, the writers on which — never
having seen a decently-equipped force of the
kind — pronounce the sight to have been of
unequalled splendour; whereas the appearance
of horses and men was very far from respectable
in all matters relating to grooming, cleanliness,
and neatness. General Barry has done wonders
in simplifying the force and reducing the number
of calibres, which varied according to the fancy
of each State, or men of each officer who raised a
battery ; but there are still field-guns of three
inches. and of three inches and a half, Napoleon
guns, rifled 10 Ib. Parrots, ordinary 9 -pounders,
a variety of howitzers, 20 Ib. Parrot rifled guns,

204

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

and a variety of different projectiles in the cais
sons. As the men rode past, the eye was dis
tressed by discrepancies in dress. Many wore
red or white worsted comforters round their
necks, few had straps to their trousers; some
had new coats, others old ; some wore boots,
others shoes: not one had clean spurs, bits,
curb-chains, or buttons. The officers cannot get
the men to do what the latter regard as works of
supererogation.

There were 72 guns in all ; and if the horses
were not so light, there would be quite enough
to do for the Confederates to reduce their fire, as
the pieces are easily handled, and the men like
artillery and take to it naturally, being in that
respect something like the natives of India.

While I was standing in the crowd, I heard a
woman say, " I doubt if that Russell is riding
about here. I should just like to see him to give
him a piece of my mind. They say he's honest,
but I call him a poor pre-jewdiced Britisher.
This sight '11 give him fits." I was quite delight
ed at my incognito. If the caricatures were at
all like me, I should have what the Americans
call a bad time of it.

On the return of the batteries a shell exploded
in a caigson just in front of the President's house,
and, miraculous to state, did not fire the other
projectiles. Had it done so, the destruction of
life in the crowded street — blocked up with artil
lery, men, and horses, and crowds of men, women,
and children — would have been truly frightful.
Sucli accidents are not uncommon — a waggon
blew up the other day "out West," and killed
and wounded several people ; and though the
accidents in camp from firearms are not so nume
rous as they were, there are still enough to pre
sent a heavy casualty list.

Whilst the artillery were delighting the citi
zens, a much more important matter was taking
place in an obscure little court-house — much more
destructive to their freedom, happiness, and
greatness than all the Confederate guns which
can ever be ranged against them. A brave,
upright, and 'honest judge, as in duty bound,
issued a writ of habeas corpus, sued out by the
friends of a minor, who, contrary to the laws of
the United States, had been enlisted by an Ame
rican general, and was detained by him in the
ranks of his regiment. The officer refused to
obey the writ, whereupon the judge issued an
attachment against him, and the Federal briga
dier came into court and pleaded that he took
that course by order of the President. The court
adjourned, to consider the steps it should take.

I have just seen a paragraph in the local paper,
copied from a west country journal, headed
" Good for Russell," which may explain the
unusually favourable impression expressed by
the women this morning. It is an account of
the interview I had with the officer who came
" to trade" for my horse, written by the latter
to a Green Bay newspaper, in which, having
duly censured my " John Bullism" in not receiv
ing with the utmost courtesy a stranger, who
walked into his room before breakfast on busi
ness unknown, he relates as a proof of honesty
(in such a rare field as trading in horseflesh) that,
though my groom had sought to put ten dollars
in my • pocket by a mild exaggeration of the
amount paid for the animal, which was the price
I said I would take, I would not have it.

October Qlh. — A cold, gloomy day. I am laid
up with the fever and ague, which visit the banks
of the Potomac in autumn. It annoyed me the
more because General M:Clellan is making a
reconnaissance to-day towards Lewinsville, with
10,000 men. A gentleman from the War Depart
ment visited me to-day, and gave me scanty
hopes of procuring any assistance from the author
ities in taking the field. Civility costs nothing,
and certainly if it did United States officials
would require high salaries,, but they often con
tent themselves with fair words.

There are some things about our neighbours
which we may never hope to understand. To
day, for instance, a respectable person, high in
office, having been good enough to invite me to
his house, added, " You shall see Mrs. A., sir.
She is a very pretty and agreeable young lady,
and will prove nice society for you," meaning his
wife.

Mr. N. P. Willis was good enough to call on
me, and in the course of conversation said, '• I
hear M'Clellan tells you everything. When you
went away West I was very near going after
you, as I suspected you heard something." Mr.
Willis could have had no grounds for this remark,
for very certainly it has no foundation in fact.
Truth to tell, General M'Clellan seemed, the last
time I saw him, a little alarmed by a paragraph
in a New York rjfper, from the Washington
correspondent, in which it was invidiously
stated, "General M'Clellan, attended by Mr.
Russell, correspondent of the London Times,
visited the camps to-day. All passes to civilians
and others were revoked." There was not the
smallest ground for the statement on the day in
question, but I am resolved not to contradict
anything which is said about me, but the General
could • not well do so ; and one of the favourite
devices of the Washington correspondent to fill
up his columns, is to write something about me,
to state I have been refused passes, or have got
them, or whatever else he likes to say.

Calling on the General the other night at his
usual time of return, I was told by the orderly,
who was closing the door, " The General's
gone to bed tired, and can see no one. He sent
the same message to the President, who came
inquiring after him ten minutes ago."

This poor President ! He is to be pitied ; sur
rounded by such scenes, and trying with all his
might to understand strategy, naval warfare, big
guns, the movements of troops, military maps,
reconnaissances, occupations, interior and exterior
lines, and all the technical details of the art of
slaying. He runs from one house to another,
armed with plans, papers, reports, recommenda
tions, sometimes good-humoured, never angry,
occasionally dejected, and always a little fussy.
The other night, as I was sitting in the parlour
at headquarters, with an English friend who had
come to see his old acquaintance the General,
walked in a tall man with a navvy's cap, and an
ill-made shooting suit, from the pockets of which
protruded paper and bundles. " Well," said he
to Brigadier Van Vliet, who rose to receive him,
" is George in ?"

" Yes, sir. He's come back, but is lying down,
very much fatigued. I'll send up, sir, and inform
him you wish to see him."

" Oh, no ; I can wait. I think I'll take supper
with him. Well, and what are you now, — I for-

MT DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

205

get your name— are you a major, or a colonel, or
a general ?"

" Whatever you like to make me, sir."

Seeing that 'General M'Clellan would be occu
pied, I walked out with my friend, who asked
me when I got into the street why I stood up
when that tall fellow came into the room. " Be
cause it was the President." " The President of
what ?" " Of the United States," " Oh ! come,
now you're humbugging me. Let me have
another look at him." He came back more incre
dulous than ever, but when I assured him I was
quite serious, he exclaimed, " I give up the
United States after this."

But for all that, there have been many more
courtly presidents who, in a similar crisis, would
have displayed less capacity, honesty, and plain
dealing than Abraham Lincoln.

October IQth. — I got hold of M'Clellan's report
on the Crimean war, and made a few candid re
marks on the performance, which does not evince
any capacity beyond the reports of our itinerant
artillery officers who are sent from Woolwich
abroad for their country's good. I like the man,
but I do not think he is equal to his occasion or
his place. There is one little piece of policy
which shows he is looking ahead — either to gain
the good will of the army, or for some larger ob
ject. All his present purpose is to make himself
known to the men personally, to familiarize them
with his appearance, to gain the acquaintance of
the officers ; and with this object he spends near
ly every day in the camps, riding out at nine
o'clock, and not returning till long after nightfall,
examining the various regiments as he goes along,
and having incessant inspections and reviews.
He is the first Republican general who could at
tempt to do all this without incurring censure and
suspicion. Unfortunate M 'Do well could not in
spect his small army without receiving a hint
that he must not assume such airs, as they were
more becoming a military despot than a simple
lieutenant of the great democracy.

October llth. — Mr. Mure, who has arrived here
in wretched health from New Orleans, after a pro
tracted and very unpleasant journey through
country swarming with troops mixed with gueril
las, tells me that I am more detested in New
Orleans than I am in New York. This is ever
the fate of the neutral, if the belligerents can get
him between them. The Girondins and men of
the juste milieu are ever fated to be ground to
powder. The charges against me were disposed
of by Mr. Mure, who says that what I wrote of
in New Orleans was true, and has shown it to be
so in his correspondence with the Governor, but,
over and beyond that, I am disliked, because I do
not praise the peculiar institution. He amused
me by adding that the mayor of Jackson, with
whom I sojourned, had published " a card," deny
ing point-blank that he had ever breathed a word
to indicate that the good citizens around him were
not famous for the love of law, order, and life,
and a scrupulous regard to personal liberty. I
can easily fancy Jackson is not a place where a
mayor suspected by the citizens would be exempt
ed from difficulties now and then ; and if this dis
claimer does my friend any good, he is very hearti
ly welcome to it and more. I have received seve
ral letters lately from the parents of minors, ask
ing me to assist them in getting back their sons,
who have enlisted illegally in the Federal army.

My writ does not run any further than a- Federal
judge's.

October 12th. — The good people of New York
and of the other Northern cities, excited by con
stant reports in the papers of magnificent reviews
and unsurpassed military spectacles, begin to
flock towards Washington in hundreds where for
merly they came in tens. The woman-kind are
particularly anxious to feast their eyes on our
glorious Union army. It is natural enough that
Americans should feel pride and take pleasure in
the spectacle ; but the love of economy, the
hatred of military despotism, and the frugal vir
tues of republican government, long since placed
aside by the exigencies of the Administration,
promise to vanish for ever.

The feeling is well expressed in the remark of
a gentleman to whom I was lamenting the civil
war : " Well, for my part, I am glad of it. Why
should you in Europe have all the fighting to
yourselves ? Why should we not have our bloody
battles, and our big generals, and all the rest of it ?
This will stir up the spirits of our people, do us
all a power of good, and end by proving to all 01
you in Europe, that we are just as good and first-
rate in fighting as we are in ships, manufactures,
and commerce."

But the wealthy classes are beginning to feel
rather anxious about the disposal of their money :
they are paying a large insurance on the Union.and
they do not see that anything has been done to
stop the leak or to prevent it foundering. Mr.
Duncan has arrived ; to-day I drove with him to
Alexandria, and I think he has been made happy
by what he saw, and has no doubt " the Union is
all right." Nothing looks so irresistible as your
bayonet till another is seen opposed to it.

October 13th. — Mr. Duncan, attended by my
self and other Britishers, made an extensive ex
cursion through the camps on horseback, and I
led him from Arlington to Upton's House, up by
Munson's Hill, to General Wadsworth's quarters,
where we lunched on camp fare, and, from the ob
servatory erected at the rear of the house in
which he lives, had a fine view, this bright, cold,
clear autumn day, of the wonderful expanse of
undulating forest lands, streaked with rows of
tents, which at last concentrated into vast white
patches in the distance, towards Alexandria.
The country is desolate, but the camps are flour
ishing, and that is enough to satisfy most patriots
bent upon the subjugation of their enemies.

October 14:th. — I was somewhat distraught,
like a small Hercules twixt Vice and Virtue, or
Garrick between Comedy and Tragedy, by my
desire to tell Duncan the truth, and at the same
time respect the feelings of a friend. There was
a rabbledom of drunken men in uniforms under
our window, who resisted the patrol clearing the
streets, and one fellow drew his bayonet, and,
with the support of some of the citizens, said that
he would not allow any regular to put a finger on
him. D — said he had witnessed scenes just as
bad, and talked of lanes in garrison towns in
England, and street rows between soldiers and
civilians ; and I did not venture to tell him the
scene we witnessed was the sign of a radical vice
in the system of the American army, which is, I
believe, incurable in these large masses. Few
soldiers would venture to draw their bayonets on
a patrol. If they did, their punishment would be
tolerably sure and swift, but for all I knew this

206

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

man would be permitted to go on his way rejoic
ing. There is news of two Federal reverses to
day. A descent was made on Santa Rosa Island,
and Mr. Billy Wilson's Zouaves were driven under
the guns of Pickens, losing in the scurry of the
night attack — as prisoner only I am glad to say
— poor Major Vogdes, of inquiring memory.
Rosecrans, who utterly ignores the advantages of
Shaksperian spelling, has been defeated in the
West ; but D — is quite happy, and goes off to
New York contented.

October 15th. — Sir James Ferguson and Mr. R.
Bourke, who have been travelling in the South
and have seen something of the Confederate go
vernment and armies, visited us this evening after
dinner. They do not seem at all desirous of test
ing by comparison the relative efficiency of the
two armies, which Sir James, at all events, is
competent to do. They are impressed by the
energy ^and animosity of the South, which no
doubt will have their effect on England also ; but
it will be difficult to popularize a Slave Republic
as a new allied power in England. Two of Gene
ral M'Clellan's aides dropped in, and the meeting
abstained from general politics.

October IQth. — Day follows day and resembles
its predecessor. M'Clellan is still reviewing, and
the North are still waiting for victories and pay
ing money, and the orators are still wrangling
over the best way of cooking the hares which
they have not yet caught. I visited General
M'Doweli to-day in his tent at Arlington, and
found him in a state of divine calm with his wife and
parvus lulus. A public man in the United States
is very much like a great firework — he commences
with gome small scintillations which attract the
eye of the public, and then he blazes up and
flares out in blue, purple, and orange fires, to the
intense admiration of the multitude, and dying
out suddenly is thought of no more, his place
being taken by a fresh roman candle or Catherine
wheel which is thought to be far finer than those
which have just dazzled the eyes of the fickle
epectators. Human nature is thus severely taxed.
The Cabinet of State is like the museum of some
cruel naturalist, who seizes his specimens whilst
they are alive, bottles them up, forbids them to
make as much as a contortion, labelling them
" My last President, " " My latest Commander-in-
chief," or " My defeated General," regarding the
smallest signs of life very much as did the French
petit maitre who rebuked the contortions and
screams of the poor wretch who was broken on
the wheel, as contrary to bienstcvnce. I am glad
that Sir James Ferguson and Mr. Bourke did not
leave without making a tour of inspection through
the Federal camp, which they did to-day.

October llth.—Dies non.

October 18th. — To-day Lord Lyons drove out
with Mr. Seward to inspect the Federal camps,
which are now in such order as to be worthy of
a visit. It is reported in all the papers that I am
going to England, but I have not the smallest in
tention of giving my enemies here such a treat at
present. As Monsieur de Beaumont of the
French Legation said, " I presume you are going
to remain in Washington for the rest of your life,
because I see it stated in the New York journals
that you are leaving us in a day or two."

October IQth. — Lord Lyons and Mr. Seward
were driving and dining together yesterday en
ami. To-day Mr. Seward is engaged demolishing

Lord Lyons, or at all events the British Govern
ment, in a despatch, wherein he vindicates the
proceedings of the United States Government in
certain arrests of British subjects which had been
complained of, and repudiates the doctrine that
the United States Government can be bound by
the opinion of the law officers of the Crown
respecting the spirit and letter of the American
constitution. This is published as a set-off to Mr.
Se ward's circular on the seacoast defences which
created so much depression and alarm in the
Northern States, where it was at the time con
sidered as a warning that a foreign war was im
minent, and which has since been generally con
demned as feeble and injudicious.

October 2Qth.—l saw General M'Clellan to-day,
who gave me to understand that some small
movement might take place on the right. I rode
up to the Chain Bridge and across it for some
miles into Virginia, but all was quiet. The ser
geant at the post on the south side of the bridge
had some doubts of the genuineness of my pass,
or rather of its bearer.

"I heard you were gone back to London,
where I am coming to see you some fine day
with the boys here."

"No, sergeant, I am not gone yet, but when
will your visit take place?"

" Oh, as soon as we have finished1 with the
gentlemen across there."

" Have you any notion when that will be ?"

" Just as soon as they tell us to go on aud
prevent the blackguard Germans running away."

" But the Germans did not run away at Bull
Run ?"

" Faith, because they did not get a chance-
sure they put them in the rear, away out of the
fighting."

" And why do you not go on now?"

" Well, that's the question we are asking every
day."

"And can any-one answer it?"

"Not one of us can tell; but my belief is if we
had one of the old 50th among us at the head of
affairs we would soon be at them. I belonged to
the old regiment once, but I got off and took
up with shoe-making again, and faith if I sted in
it I might have been sergeant-major by this time,
only they hated the poor Roman Catholics."

" And do you think, sergeant, you would get
many of your countrymen who had served in the
old army to fight the old familiar red jackets ?"

I " Well, sir, I tell you I hope my arm would rot
before I would pull a trigger against the old 50th ;
but we would wear the red jacket too — we have
as good a right to it as the others, and then it
would be man against man, you know ; but if I
saw any of them cursed Germans interfering I'd
soon let daylight into them." The hazy dreams
of this poor man's mind would form an excellent
article for a New York newspaper, which on
matters relating to England are rarely so lucid
and logical. Next day was devoted to writing
and heavy rain, through both of which, notwith
standing, I was assailed by many visitors and
some scurrilous letters, and in the evening there
was a Washington gathering of Englishry, Irishry,
Scotchry, Yankees, and Canadians.

October 22nd. — Rain falling in torrents. As I
write, in come reports of a battle last night, some
forty miles up the river, which by signs and
tokens I am led to believe was unfavourable to

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

207

the Federals. They crossed the river intending
to move upon Leesburg — were attacked by over
whelming forces and repulsed, but maintained
themselves on the right bank till General Banks
reinforced them and enabled them to hold their
own. M'Clellan has gone or is going at once to
the scene of action. It was three o'clock before
I heard the news, the road and country were alike
unknown, nor had I friend or acquaintance in
the army of the Upper Potomac. My horse was
brought round, however, and in company with
Mr. Anderson, I rode out of Washington along
the river till the falling evening warned us to
retrace our steps, and we returned in pelting rain
as we set out, and in pitchy darkness, without
meeting any messenger or person with news from
the battle-field. Late at night the White House
was placed in deep grief by the intelligence that
in addition to other losses, Brigadier and Senator
Baker of California was killed. The President
was inconsolable, and walked up and down his
room for hours lamenting the loss of his friend.
Mrs. Lincoln's grief was equally poignant. Be
fore bedtime I told the German landlord to tell my
servant I wanted my horse round at seven o'clock.

October 23rd. — Up at six, waiting for my horse
and man. At eight walked down to stables. No
one there. At nine became very angry— sent
messengers in all directions. At ten was nearly
furious, when, at the last stroke of the clock,
James, with his inexpressive countenance, per
fectly calm nevertheless, and betraying no symp
tom of solicitude, appeared at the door leading
my charger. "And may I ask you where you
have been till this time?" "Wasn't I dressing
the horse, taking him out to water, and exercising
him." "Good heavens ! did I not tell you to be
here at seven o'clock ?" " No, sir ; Carl told me
you wanted me at ten o'clock, and here I am."
"Carl, did I not tell you to ask James to be
round here at seven o'clock ?" " Not zeven clock,
sere, but zehn clock. I tell him, you come at
zehn clock." Thus at one blow was I stricken
down by Gaul and Teuton, each of whom retired
with the air of a man who had baffled an intended
indignity, and had achieved a triumph over a
wrong-doer.

The roads were in a frightful state outside
Washington — literally nothing but canals, in
which earth and water were mixed together for
depths varying from six inches to three feet above
the surface ; but late as it was I pushed on, and
had got as far as the turn of the road to Rock-
ville, near the great falls, some twelve miles
beyond Washington, when I met an officer with
a couple of orderlies, hurrying back from General
Banks's head-quarters, who told me the whole
affair was over, and that I could not possibly get
to the scene of action on one horse till next
morning, even supposing that I pressed on all
through the night, the roads being utterly villan-
ous, and the country at night as black as ink ;
and so I returned to Washington, and was stopped
by citizens, who seeing the streaming horse and
splashed rider, imagined he was reeking from the
fray. " As you were not there," says one, " I'll
tell you what I know to-be the case. Stone and
Baker are killed ; Banks and all the other gene
rals are prisoners ; the Rhode Island and two
other batteries are taken, and 5000 Yankees have
been sent to H — to help old John Brown to
roast niggers."

October 24th. — The heaviest blow which has
yet been inflicted on the administration of justice
in the United States, and that is saying a good
deal at present, has been given to it in Washing
ton. The judge of whom I wrote a few days
ago in the habeas corpus case, has been placed
under military arrest and surveillance by the
Provost- Marshal of the city, a very fit man for
such work, one Colonel Andrew Porter. The
Provost-Marshal imprisoned the attorney who
served the writ, and then sent a guard to Mr.
Merrick's house, who thereupon sent a minute to
his brother judges the day before yesterday stat
ing the circumstances, in order to show why he
did not appear in his place on the bench. The
Chief Judge Dunlop and Judge Morsell there
upon issued their writ to Andrew Porter greeting,
to show cause why an attachment for contempt
should not be issued against him for his treat
ment of Judge Merrick. As the sharp tongues
of women are very troublesome, the United
States officers have quite little harems of captives,
and Mrs. Merrick has just been added to the
number. She is a Wickliffe of Kentucky, and
has a right to martyrdom. The inconsistencies
of the Northern people multiply ad infinitum as
they go on. Thus at Hatteras they enter into
terms of capitulation with officers signing them
selves of the Confederate States Army and Con
federate States Navy ; elsewhere they exchange
prisoners ; at New York they are going through
the farce of trying the crew of a C. S. privateer,
as pirates engaged in robbing on the high seas,
on " the authority of a pretended letter of marque
from one Jefferson Davis." One Jeff Davis ia
certainly quite enough for them at present.

Colonel and Senator Baker was honoured by a
ceremonial which was intended to be a public
funeral, rather out of compliment to Mr. Lincoln's
feelings, perhaps, than to any great attachment
for the man himself, who fell gallantly fighting
near Leesburg. There is need for a republic to
contain some elements of an aristocracy if it
would make that display of pomp and ceremony
which a public funeral should have to produce
effect. At all events there should be some prin
ciple of reverence in the heads and hearts of the
people, to make up for other deficiencies in it as
a show or a ceremony. The procession down
Pennsylvania Avenue was a tawdry, shabby
string of hack carriages, men in light coats and
white hats following the hearse, and three regi
ments of foot soldiers, of which one was simply
an uncleanly, unwholesome-looking rabble. The
President, in his carriage, and many of the minis
ters and senators, attended also, and passed
through unsympathetic lines of people on the
kerbstones, not one of^prhom raised his hat to
the bier as it passed, or to the President, except
a couple of Englishmen and myself who stood in
the crowd, and that proceeding on our part gave
rise to a variety of remarks among the bystanders.
But as the band turned into Pennsylvania Ave
nue, playing something like the minuet de la cour
in Don Giovanni, two officers in uniform came
riding up in the contrary direction ; they were
smoking cigars; one of them let his fall on the
ground, the other smoked lustily as the hearse
passed, and reining up his horse, continued to
puff his weed under the nose of President, minis
ters, and senators, with the air of a man who was
doing a very soldierly correct sort of thing.

20?

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

"Whether the President is angry as well as
grieved at the loss of his favourite or not, I can
not affirm, but he is assuredly doing that terrible
thing which is called putting his foot down on
the judges; and he has instructed Andrew Por
ter not to mind the writ issued yesterday, and
has further instructed the United States Marshal,
who has the writ in his hands to serve on the
Baid Andrew, to return it to the court with the
information that Abraham Lincoln has suspended
the writ of habeas corpus in cases relating to the
military.

October 2Qth. — More reviews. To-day rather a
pretty sight — 12 regiments, 16 guns, and a few
squads of men with swords and pistols on horse
back, called cavalry, comprising Fitz-John Por
ter's division. M'Clellan seemed to my eyes crest
fallen and moody to-day. Bright eyes looked on
him ; he is getting up something like a staff,
among which are the young French princes, un
der the tutelage of their uncle, the Prince of Join-
ville. Whilst M'Clellan is reviewing, our Romans
in Washington are shivering ; for the blockade of
the Potomac by the Confederate batteries stops
the fuel boats. Little cafe these enthusiastic
young American patriots in crinoline, who have
come to see M'Clellan and the soldiers, what a
cord of wood costs. The lower orders are very
angry about it. however. The nuisance and dis
order arising from soldiers, drunk and sober, rid
ing full gallop down the streets, and as fast as
they can round the corners, has been stopped, by
placing mounted sentries at the principal points
in all the thoroughfares. The "officers" were
worse than the men ; the papers this week con
tain the account of two accidents, in one of
which a colonel, in another a major, was killed
by falls from horseback, in furious riding in the
city.

Forgetting all about this fact, and spurring
home pretty fast along an unfrequented road,
leading from the ferry at Georgetown into the
city, I was nearly spitted by a " dragoon," who
rode at me from under cover of a house, and
Bhouted " stop" just as his sabre was within a
foot of my head. Fortunately his horse, being
aware that if it ran against mine it might be in
jured, shied, and over went dragoon, sabre and
all, and off went his horse, but as the trooper was
able to run after it, I presume he was not the
worse; and I went on my way rejoicing.

M'Clellan has fallen very much in my opinion
since the Leesburg disaster. He went to the spot,
and with a little — nay, the least — promptitude
and ability could have turned the check into a
successful advance, in the blaze of which the
earlier repulse would have been forgotten. It is
whispered that Genera(^Stone, who ordered the
movement, is guilty of treason — a common crime
of unlucky generals — at all events he is to be dis
placed, and will be put under surveillance. The
orders he gave are certainly very strange.

The official right to fib, I presume, is very much
the same all over the world, but still there is more
dash about it in the States, I think, than else
where. "Blockade of the Potomac!" exclaims
an official of the Navy Department. " What are
you talking of? The Department has just heard
that a few Confederates have been practising with
a few light field-pieces from the banks, and has
issued orders to prevent it in the future." "De
feat at Leesburg!" cries little K , of M'Clel-

lan's staff, "nothing of the kind. We drove the
Confederates at all points, retained our position
on the right bank, and only left it whori we
pleased, having whipped the enemy so severely
they never showed since." "Any news, Mr.
Cash, in the Treasury to-day?" "Nothing, sir,
except that Mr. Chase is highly pleased with
everything ; he's only afraid of having too much
money, and being troubled with his balances."
" The State Department all right, Mr. Protocol ?"
"My dear sir! delightful! with everybody, best
terms. Mr. Seward and the Count are managing
delightfully; most friendly assurances; Guate
mala particularly ; yes, and France too. Yes, I
may say France too ; not the smallest difficulty
at Honduras ; altogether, with the assurances of
support we are getting, the Minister thinks the
whole affair will be settled in thirty days; no
Joking, I assure you; thirty days this time posi
tively. Say for exactness on or about December
5th." The canvas-backs are coming in, and I am
off for a day or two to escape reviews and abuse,
and to see something of the famous wild-fowl
shooting on the Chesapeake.

October 27th. — After church, I took a long
walk round by the commissariat waggons, where
there is, I think, as much dirt, bad language,
cruelty to animals, and waste of public money,
as can be conceived. Let me at once declare my
opinion that the Americans, generally, are ex
ceedingly kind to their cattle; but there is a
hybrid race of ruffianly waggoners here, subject
to no law or discipline, and the barbarous treat
ment inflicted on the transport animals is too bad
even for the most unruly of mules. I mentioned
the circumstance to General M 'Do well, who told
me that by the laws of the United States there •
was no power to enlist a man for commissariat or
transport duty.

October 28th.— Telegraphed to my friend at
Baltimore that I was ready for the ducks. The
Legation going to Mr. Kortwright's marriage at
Philadelphia. Started with Lamy at 6 o'clock
for Baltimore ; to Gilmore House ; thence to
club. Every person present said that in my
letter on Maryland I had understated the ques
tion, as far as Southern sentiments were con
cerned. In the club, for example, there are not
six Union men at the outside. General Dix has
fortified Federal Hill very efficiently, and the
heights over Fort McHenry are bristling with
cannons, and display formidable earthworks ; it
seems to be admitted that, but for the action of
the Washington Government, the Legislature
would pass an ordinance of Secession. Gilmore
House — old-fashioned, good bed-rooms. Scarcely
had I arrived in the passage, than a man ran off
with a paragraph to the papers that Dr. Russell
had come for the purpose of duck-shooting ; and,
hearing that I was going with Taylor, put in that
I was going to Taylor's Ducking Shore. It ap
pears that there are considerable numbers of these
duck clubs in the neighbourhood of Baltimore.
The canvas-back ducks have come in, but they
will not be in perfection until the 10th of No
vember ; their peculiar flavour is derived from a
water-plant called wild celery. This lies at the
depth of several feet, sometimes nine or ten, and
the birds dive for it.

October 29th. — At ten started for the shooting
ground, Carroll's Island ; my compauioti, Mr.
Pennington, drove me in a light trap, and Mr.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

209

Taylor and Lamy came wirh Mr. Tucker Carroll,*
along with guns, &c. Passed out towards the
sea, a long height commanding a fine view of the
river ; near this was fought the battle with the
English, at which the " Baltimore defenders" ad
mit they ran away. Mr. Pennington's father
says he can answer for the speed of himself and
his companions, but still the battle was thought
to be glorious. Along the posting road to Phila
delphia, passed the Blue Ball Tavern; on all
gides except the left, great wooded lagoons visi
ble, swarming with ducks ; boats are forbidden
to fire upon the birds, which are allured by
wooden decoys. Crossed the Philadelphia Rail
way three times ; land poor, covered with under-
growths and small trees, given up to Dutch and
Irish and free niggers. Reached the duck-club
house in two hours and a half; substantial farm
house, with out-offices, on a strip of land sur
rounded by water ; Gunpowder River, Saltpetre
River, facing Chesapeake ; on either side lakes
and tidal water ; the owner, Slater, an Irishman,
reputed very rich, self-made. Dinner at one
o'clock; any number of canvas-back ducks,
plentiful joints ; drink whisky ; company, Swan,
Howard, Duval, Morris, and others, also extra
ordinary specimen named Smith, believed never
to wash except in rain or by accidental sousing
in the river. Went out for afternoon shooting ;
birds wide and high ; killed seventeen ; back to
supper at dusk. M 'Donald and a guitar came
over ; had a negro dance ; and so to bed about
twelve. Lamy got single bed ; I turned in with
Taylor, as single beds are not permitted when
the house is* full. . .

October SOth. — A light, a grim man, and a voice
in the room at 4 a.m. awaken me ; I am up first ;
breakfast ; more duck, eggs, meat, mighty cakes,
milk ; to the gun-house, already hung with ducks,
and then tramp to the " blinds" with Smith, who
talked of the Ingines and wild, sports in far
Minnesota. As morning breaks, very red and
lovely, dark visions and long streaky clouds ap
pear, skimming along from bay or river. The
men in the blinds, which are square enclosures
of reeds about 4£ feet high, call out " Bay,"
" River," according to the direction from which
the ducks are coming. Down we go in blinds ;
they come ; puft's of smoke, a bang, a volley ;
one bird falls with flop ; another by degrees
drops, and at last smites the sea ; there are five
down ; in go the dogs. " Who shot that ?" " I
did." " Who killed this ?" " That's Tucker's !"
" A good shot." " I don't know how I missed
mine." Same thing again. The ducks fly pro
digious heights — out of all range one would
think. It is exciting when the cloud does rise at
first. Day voted very bad. Thence I move
homeward ; talk with Mr. Slater till the trap is
ready ; and at twelve or so, drive over to Mr.
M 'Donald; find Lamy and Swan there; miserable
shed of two-roomed shanty in a marsh ; rough
deal presses ; white-washed walls ; fiddler in
attendance ; dinner of ducks and steak ; whisky,
and thence proceed to a blind or marsh, amid
wooden decoys ; but there is no use ; no birds ;
high tide flooding everything; examined M 'Do
nald's stud ; knocked to pieces trotting on hard
ground. Rowed back to house with Mr. Pen-
nington, and returned to the mansion ; all the

* Since killed in action fighting for the South at
Antietam.

party had but poor sport; but e^ery one had
killed something. Drew lots for bed, and won
this time ; Lamy, however, would not sleep
double, and reposed on a hard sofa in the par
lour ; indications favourable for ducks. It was
curious, in the early morning, to hear the inces
sant booming of duck-guns, along all the creeks
and coves of the indented bays and salt-water
marshes; and one could tell when they were
fired at decoys, or were directed against birds in
the air; heard a salute fired at Baltimore very
distinctly. Lamy and Mr. M 'Donald met in their
voyage up the Nile, to kill ennui and spend
money.

October 31st. — No, no, Mr. Smith; it ain't of
no use. At four a.m. we were invited, as usual,
to rise, but Taylor and I reasoned from under our
respective quilts, thtt it would be quite as good
shooting if we got up at six, and I acted in ac
cordance with that view. Breakfasted as the sun
was shining above the tree-tops, and to my blind
— found there was no shooting at all — got one
shot only, and killed a splendid canvas-back — on
returning to home, found nearly all the party on
the move — 140 ducks hanging round the house,
the reward of our toils, and of these I received
egregious share. Drove back with Pennington,
very sleepy, followed by Mr. Taylor and Lamy.
I would have stayed longer if sport were better.
Birds don't fly when the wind is in certain points,
but lie out in great "ricks," as they are called,
blackening the waters, drifting in the wind, or
with wings covering their heads — poor defence
less things ! The red-head waits alongside the
canvas-back till he comes up from the depths
with mouth or bill full of parsley and wild celery,
when he makes at him and forces him to dis
gorge. At Baltimore at 1.30 — dined — Lamy re
solved to stay — bade good-bye to Swan and
Morris. The man at first would not take my
ducks and boots to register or check them —
twenty-five cents did it. I arrived at Washing
ton late, because of detention of train bjr enor
mous transport ; labelled and sent out game to
the houses till James's fingers ached again. No
thing doing, except that General Scott has at
last sent in resignation. M'Clellan is now in
deed master of the situation. And so to bed,
rather tired.

CHAPTER LVIIL

General Scott's resignation— Mrs. A. Lincoln— Unofficial
mission to Europe — Uneasy feeling with regard to
France — Ball given by the United States cavalry —
The United States array— Success at Beaufort— Arrests
—Dinner at Mr. Seward's— News of Captain Wilkes
and the Trent — Messrs. Mason and Slidell — Discussion
as to Wilkes — Prince de Joinville — The American
on the Trent affair— Absence of thieves in Washington
— "Thanksgiving Day" — Success thus far in favour of
the North.

November 1st. — Again stagnation ; not the
smallest intention of moving; General Scott's
resignation, of which I was aware long ago, in
publicly known, and he is about to go to Europe,
and <fcd his days probably in France. M'Clellan
takes his place, minus the large salary. Riding
back from camp, where I had some trouble with
a drunken soldier, my horse came down in a
dark hole, and threw me heavily, so that my hat
was crushed in on my head, and my right thumb
sprained, but I managed to get up and ride home ;

210

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

for the brute had fallen right on his own head,
cut a piece out of his forehead between the eyes,
and was stunned too much to run away. I found
letters waiting from Mr. Seward and others,
thanking me for the game, if canvas-backs come
under the title.

November 2nd. — A tremendous gale of wind
and rain blew all day, and caused much uneasi
ness, at the Navy Department' and elsewhere, for
the safety of the Burnside expedition. The Se
cessionists are delighted, and those who can, say
"Afflavit Deus et hostes dissipantur." There is
a project to send secret non-official commissioners
to Europe, to counteract the machinations of the
Confederates. Mr. Everett, Mr. R. Kennedy,
Bishop Hughes, and Bishop M'llwaine are desig
nated for the office ; much is expected from the
expedition, not only at horn * but abroad.

November 3rd. — For some reason or another, a
certain set of papers have lately taken to flatter
Mrs. Lincoln in the most noisome manner, whilst
others deal in dark insinuations against her loyal
ty, Union principles, and honesty. The poor lady
is loyal as steel to her family and to Lincoln the
first ; but she is accessible to the influence of flat
tery, and has permitted her society to be infested
by men who would not be received in any
respectable private house in New York. The
gentleman who furnishes fashionable paragraphs
for the Washington paper has some charming lit
tle pieces of gossip about u the first Lady in the
Land " this week ; he is doubtless the same who,
some weeks back, chronicled the details of a raid
on the pigs in the streets by the police, and who
concluded thus : " We cannot but congratulate
Officer Smith on the very gentlemanly manner in
which he performed his disagreeable but arduous
duties; nor did it escape our notice, that Officer
Washington Jones was likewise active and ener
getic in the discharge of his functions."

The ladies in Washington delight to hear or to
invent small scandals connected with the White
House ; thus it is reported that the Scotch gar
dener left by Mr. Buchanan has been made a
lieutenant in the United States Army, and has
been specially detached to do duty at the White
House, where he superintends the cooking.
Another person connected with the establishment
was mAde Commissioner of Public Buildings, but
was dismissed because he would not put down
the expense of a certain state dinner to the pub
lic account, and charge it under the head of " Im
provement to the Grounds." But many more
better tales than these go round, and it is not sur
prising if a woman is now and then put under
close arrest, or sent off to Fort M'Henry for too
much esprit and inventiveness.

November 4th. — General Fremont will certainly
be recalled. There is not the smallest incident to
note.

November 5th. — Small banquets, very simple and
tolerably social, are the order of the day as winter
closes around us ; the country has become too
deep in mud for pleasant excursions, and at times
the weather is raw and cold. General M 'Do well,
who dined with us to-day, maintains them will
be no difficulty in advancing during bad weather,
because the men are so expert in felling trees,
they can make corduroy roads wherever they
like. I own the arguments surprised but did not
convince me, and 1 think the General will find
out his mistake when the time comes. Mr.

Everett, whom I had expected, was summoned
away by the unexpected intelligence of his son's
death, so I missed the opportunity of seeing one
whom I much desired to have met, as the great
Apostle of Washington worship, in addition to his
claims to higher distinction. He has admitted
that the only bond which can hold the Union
together is the common belief in the greatness of
the departed general.

November 6th. — Instead of Mr. Everett and
Mr. Johnson, Mr. Thurlow Weed and Bishop
Hughes will pay a visit to Europe in the Federal
interests. Notwithstanding the adulation of
everything French, from the Emperor down to a
Zouave's gaiter, in the New York press there is
an uneasy feeling respecting the intentions of
France, founded on the notion that the Emperor
is not very friendly to the Federalists, and would
be little disposed to expose his subjects to priva
tion and suffering from the scarcity of cotton and
tobacco if, by intervention, he could avert such
misfortunes. The inactivity of M'Clellan, which
is not understood by the people, has created an
under-current of unpopularity, to which his
enemies are giving every possible strength, and
some people are beginning to think the youthful
Napoleon is only a Brummagem Bonaparte.

November 1th. — After such bad weather, the
Indian summer, lete de St. Martin, is coming
gradually, lighting up the ruins of the autumn's
foliage still clinging to the trees, giving us pure,
bright, warm days, and sunsets of extraordinary
loveliness. Drove out to Bladensburgh with
Captain Haworth, and discovered that my wag
gon was intended to go on to Richmond and
never to turn back or round, for no roads in this
part of the country are wide enough for the pur
pose. Dined at the Legation, and in the evening
went to a grand ball, given by the 6th United
States Cavalry in the Poor House near their
camp, about two miles outside the city.

The ball took place in a series of small white
washed rooms off long passages and corridors ;
many supper tables were spread ; whisky, cham
pagne, hot terrapin soup, and many luxuries
graced the board ; and although but two or three
couple could dance in each room at a time, by
judicious arrangement of the music several rooms
were served at once. The Duke of Chartres, in
the uniform of a United States Captain of Staff,
was among the guests, and had to share the
ordeal to which strangers were exposed by the
hospitable entertainers, of drinking with them
all. Some called him " Chatters " — others, "Cap
tain Chatters;" but these were of the outside
polloi, who cannot be kept out on such occasions,
and who shake hands and are familiar with every
body.

The Duke took it all exceedingly well, and
laughed with the loudest in the company. Alto
gether the ball was a great success — somewhat
marred indeed in my own case by the bad taste
of one of the officers of the regiment which had
invited me, in adopting an offensive manner
when about to be introduced to me by one of
his brother officers. Colonel Emory, the officer
in command of the regiment,' interfered, and,
finding that Captain A was not sober, order
ed him to retire. Another small contretemps was
caused by the master of the Work House, who
had been indulging at least as freely as the cap
tain, and at last began to fancy that the paupers

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

211

had broken loose and were dancing about after
hours below stairs. In vain he was led away
and incarcerated in one room after another ; his
intimate knowledge of the architectural difficulties
of the building enabled him to set all precautions
at defiance, and he might be seen at intervals
flying along the passages towards the music
pursued by the officers, until he was finally
secured in a dungeon without a window, and
with a. bolted and locked door between him and
the ball-rooms.

November 8th. — Colonel Emory made us laugh
this morning by an account of our Amphytrion of
the night before, who came to him with a very red
eye and curious expression of face to congratulate
the regiment on the success of the ball. " The
most beautiful thing of all was." said he, — " Colo
nel, I did not see one gentleman or fedy who had
taken too much liquor ; there was not a drunken
man in the whole company." I consulted my
friends at the Legation with respect to our ine
briated officer, on whose behalf Colonel Emory
tendered his own apologies; but they were of
opinion I had done all that was right and becom
ing in the matter, and that I must take no more
notice of it.

November 9th. — Colonel Wilmot, R. A., who
has come down from Canada to see the army,
spent the day with Captain Dahlgren at the
Navy Yard, and returned with impressions fa
vourable to the system. He agrees with Dahl
gren, who is dead against breech-loading, but
admits Armstrong has done the most that can be
effected with the system. Colonel Wilmot avers
the English press are responsible for the Arm
strong guns. He has been much struck by the
excellence of the great iron- works he has visited
in the States, particularly that of Mr. Sellers, in
Philadelphia.

November Wth. — Visiting Mr. Mure the other
day, who was still an invalid at "Washington, I
met a gentleman named Maury, who had come to
Washington to see after a portmanteau which had
' been taken from him on the Canadian frontier by
the police. He was told to go to the State De
partment and claim his property, and on arriving
there was arrested and confined with a number
of prisoners, my horse-dealing friend, Sammy
Wroe, among them. We walked down to inquire
how he was ; the soldier who was on duty gave
a flourishing account of him — he had plenty of
whiskey and food, and, said the man, " I quite
feel for Maury, because he does business in my
State." These State influences must be over
come, or no Union will ever hold together.

Sir James Ferguson and Mr. Bourke were
rather shocked when Mr. Seward opened the
letters from persons in the South to friends in
Europe, of which they had taken charge, and cut
some passages out with a scissors ; but a Minis
ter who combines the functions of Chief-of- Police
with those of Secretary of State must do such
things now and then.

November llth. — The United States have now,
according to the returns, 600,000 infantry, 600
pieces of artillery, 61,000. cavalry in the field, and
yet they are not only unable to crush the Confe
derates, but they cannot conquer the Secession
ladies in their capital. The Southern people here
trust in a break-down in the North before the
screw can be turned to the utmost ; and assert
that the South does not want corn, wheat, leather,

or food. Georgia makes doth enough for all —
the only deficiency^ will be in metal and materiel
of war. When the North comes to discuss the
question whether the war is to be against slavery
or for the Union, leaving slavery to take care of
itself, they think a split will be inevitable. Then
the pressure of taxes will force on a solution, for
the State taxes already amount to 2 to 3 "per
cent, and the people will not bear the addition.
The North has set out with the principle of pay
ing for everything, the South with the principle
of paying for nothing ; but this will be reversed,
in time. All the diplomatists, with one excep
tion, are of opinion the Union is broken for ever,
and the independence of the South virtually
established.

November 12th. — An irruption of dirty little
boys in the streets shouting out, " Glorious Union
victory ! Charleston taken 1" The story is that
Burnside has landed and reduced the forts defend
ing Port Royal. I met Mr. Fox, Assistant-Secre
tary to the Navy, and Mr. Hay, Secretary to Mr.
Lincoln, in the Avenue. The former showed
me Burnside's despatches from Beaufort, announc
ing reduction of the Confederate batteries by the
ships and the establishment of the Federals on
the skirts of Port Royal. Dined at Lord Lyons',
where were Mr. Chase, Major Palmer, U.S.E., and
his wife, Colonel and Mrs. Emory, Professor
Henry and his daughter, Mr. Kennedy and his
daughter, Colonel Wilmot and the Englishry of
Washington. I had a long conversation with
Mr. Chase, who is still sanguine that the war
must speedily terminate. The success at Beau
fort has made him radiant, and he told me that
the Federal General Nelson * — who is no other
than the enormous blustering, boasting lieutenant
in the navy whom I met at Washington on my
first arrival — has gained an immense victory in
Kentucky, killing and capturing a whole army
and its generals.

A strong Government will be the end of the
struggle, but before they come to it there must
be a complete change of administration aryl inter
nal economy. Indeed, the Secretary of the
Treasury candidly admitted that the expenses of
the war were enormous, and could not go on at
the present rate very long. The men are paid
too highly ; every one is paid too much. The
scale is adapted to a small army not very popu
lar, in a country where labour is very well paid,
and competition is necessary to obtain recruits at
all. He has never disguised his belief the South
might have been left to go at first, with a cer
tainty of their return to the Union.

November 13th. — Mr. Charles Green, who was
my host at Savannah, and Mr. Low, of the same
city, have been arrested and sent to Fort Warren.
Dining with Mr. Seward, I heard accidentally
that Mrs. Low had also been arrested, but wag
now liberated. The sentiment of dislike towards
England is increasing, because English subjects
have assisted the South by smuggling and run
ning the blockade. "It is strange," said Mr.
Seward the other day, " that this great free and
civilized Union should be supported by Germans,
coming here semi-civilized or half-savage, who
plunder and destroy as if they were living in the
days of Agricola, whilst the English are the
great smugglers who support our enemies in

* Since shot dead by the Federal General Jeff. G. Davis
in a quarrel at Nashville.

212

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

their rebellion." I reminded him that the United
States flag had covered the smugglers who
carried guns and materiel of war to Russia,
although they were at peace with Prance and
England. "Yes, but then," said he, "that was
a legitimate contest between great established
powers, and I admit, though I lament the fact,
tha* the public sympathy in this country ran with
Russia during that war." The British public
have a right to their sympathies too, and the
Government can scarcely help it if private indi
viduals aid the South on their own responsibility.
*In future, British subjects will be indicted instead
of being sent to Fort La Fayette. Mr. Seward
feels keenly the attacks in the New York Tribune
on him for arbitrary arrests, and representations
have been made to Mr. Greeley privately on the
subject ; nor is he indifferent to similar English
criticisms.

General M'Dowell asserts there is no nation in
the world whose censure or praise the people of
the United States care about except England,
and with respect to her there is a morbid sensi
tiveness which can neither be explained nor
justified.

It is admitted, indeed, by Americans whose
opinions are valuable, that the popular feeling
was in favour of Russia during the Crimean war.
Mr. Raymond attributes the circumstance to the
influence of the large Irish element ; but I am
inclined to believe it is partly due at least to the
feeling of rivalry and dislike to Great Britain, in
which the mass of the American people are trained
by their early education, and also in some mea
sure to the notion that Russia was unequally
matched in the contest.

November 14th. — Rode -to cavalry camp, and
sat in front of Colonel Emory's tent with General
Stoneman, who is chief of the cavalry, and Cap
tain Pleasanton ; heard interesting anecdotes of the
wild life on the frontiers, and of bushranging in
California, of lassoing bulls and wild horses and
buffaloes, and encounters with grizly bears —
interrupted by a one-armed man, who came to
the Cofbnel for "leave to take away George."
He spoke of his brother who had died in camp,
and for whose body he had come, metallic coffin
and all, to carry it back to his parents in Pennsyl
vania.

I dined with Mr. Seward — Mr. Raymond, of
New York, and two or three gentlemen, being
the only guests. Mr. Lincoln came in whilst we
were playing a rubber, and told some excellent
West-country stories. " Here, Mr. President, we
have got the two Times — of New York and
of London — if they would only do what is right
and what we want, all will go well." "Yes,"
said Mr. Lincoln, "if the bad Times would go
where we want them, good Times would be sure
to follow." Talking over Bull's Run, Mr. Seward
remarked "that civilians .sometimes displayed
more courage than soldiers, but perhaps the
courage was unprofessional. When we were
cut off from Baltimore, and the United States
troops at Annapolis were separated by a country
swarming with malcontents, not a soldier could
be found to undertake the journey and communi
cate with them. At last a civilian" — (I think he
mentioned the name of Mr. Cassius Clay) —
" volunteered, and executed the business. So,
after Bull's Run, there was only one officer,
General Sherman, who was doing anything to

get the troops into order when the President and
myself drove over to see what we could do on
that terrible Tuesday evening." Mr. Teakle
Wallis and others, after the Baltimore business,
told him the people would carry his head on their
pikes ; and so he went to Auburn to see how mat
ters stood, and a few words from his old friends
there made him feel his head was quite right on
his shoulders.

November 15th. — Horse-dealers are the same
all the world over. To-day comes one with a
beast for which he asked £50. "There was a
Government agent looking after this horse for one
of them French princes, I believe, just as I was
talking to the Kentuck chap that had him.
1 John,' says he, ' that's the best-looking horse I've
seen in Washington this many a day.' 'Yes,'
says I, ' and -you need not look at him any more.'
'Why?' says he. 'Because,' says I, 'it's one
that I want for Lord John Russell, of the London
Times,' says I, 'and if ever there was a man
suited for a horse, or a horse that was suited for
a man, they're the pair, and I'll give every cent
I can raise to buy my friend, Lord Russell, that
horse.' " I could not do less than purchase, at a
small reduction, a very good animal thus recom
mended.

November 16th. — A cold, raw day. As I was
writing, a small friend of mine, who appears like
a stormy petrel in moments of great storm, flut
tered into my room, and having chirped out some
thing about a "Jolly row" — "Seizure of Mason
and Slidell"— " British flag insulted," and the like,
vanished. Somewhat later, going down 17th
Street, I met the French Minister, M. Mercier.
wrapped in his cloak, coming from the British Le
gation. "Yous avez entendu quelqu' chose de
nouveau?" " Mais non, excellence." And then,
indeed, I learned there was no doubt about the
fact that Captain Wilkes, of the U. S. steamer San
Jaciuto, had forcibly boarded the Trent, British
mail steamer, off the Bahamas, and had taken
Messrs. Mason, Slidell, Eustis, and M 'demand
from on board by armed force, in defiance of the •
protests of the captain and naval officer in charge
of the mails. This was indeed grave intelligence,
and the French Minister considered the act a fla
grant outrage, which could not for a moment be
justified.

I went to the Legation, and found the young
diplomatists in the " Chancellerie'' as demure and
innocent as if nothing had happened, though per
haps they were a trifle more lively than usual. (
An hour later, and the whole affair was published
in full in the evening papers. Extraordinary ex
ultation prevailed in the hotels and bar-rooms.
The State Department has made of course no
communication respecting the matter. All the
English are satisfied that Mason and his friends
must be put on board an English mail packet
from the San Jacinto under a salut*

An officer of the United States navy — whose
name I shall not mention here — came in to see
the buccaneers, as the knot of English bachelors
of Washington are termed, and talk over the mat
ter. "Of course," he said, "we shall apologize
and give up poor Wilkes to vengeance by dis
missing him, but under no circumstance shall we
ever give up Mason and Slidell. No, sir ; not a
man dare propose such a humiliation to our flag."
He says that Wilkes acted on his own responsi
bility, and that the San Jacinto was coming home

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

213

from the African station when she encountered
the Trent. Wilkes knew the rebel emissaries
were on board, and thought he would cut a dash
and get up a little sensation, being a bold and
daring sort of a fellow with a quarrelsome dispo
sition and a great love of notoriety, but an excel
lent officer.

November llth. — For my sins I went to see a
dress parade of the 6th Regular Cavalry early
this morning, and underwent a small purgatory
from the cold, on a bare plain, whilst the men and
officers, with red cheeks and blue noses, mounted
m horses with staring coats, marched, trotted,
md cantered past. The papers' contain joyous
irticles on the Trent affair, and some have got up
an immense amount of learning at a short no
tice ; but I am glad to say we had no discussion
in camp. There is scarcely more than one opi
nion among thinking people in "Washington re
specting the legality of the act, and the course
Great Britain must pursue. All the Foreign Mi
nisters, without exception, have called on Lord
Lyons— Russia, France, Italy, Prussia, Denmark.
All are of accord. I am not sure whether the
important diplomatist who represents the mighty
interests of the Hanse Towns has not condescend
ed to admit England has right on her side.

November 18th. — There is a storm of exultation
sweeping over the land. "Wilkes is the hero of
the hour. I saw Mr. F. Seward at the State De
partment at ten o'clock ; but as at the British Le
gation the orders are not to speak of the transac
tion, so at the State Department a judicious reti
cence is equally observed. The lawyers are busy
furnishing arguments to the newspapers. The
officers who held their tongues at first, astonished
at the audacity of the act, are delighted to find
any arguments in its favour.

I called at General M'Clellan's new head-quar
ters to get a pass, and on my way met the Duke
of Chartres, who shook his young head very
gravely, and regarded the occurrence with sorrow
and apprehension. M'Clellan, I understand, ad
vised the immediate surrender of the prisoners ;
but the authorities, supported by the sudden out
burst of public approval, refused to take that step.
I saw Lord Lyons, who appeared very much im
pressed by the magnitude of the crisis. Thence
I visited the Navy Department, where Captain
Dahlgren and Lieutenant "Wise discussed the af
fair. The former, usually so calm, has too much
sense not to perceive the course England must
take, and as an American officer naturally feels
regret at what appears to be the humiliation of
his flag ; but he speaks with passion, and vows
that if England avails herself of the temporary
weakness of tho United States to get back the
rebel commissioners by threats of force, every
American should make his sons swear eternal
hostility to Great Britain. Having done wrong,
stick to it ! Thus men's anger blinds them, and
thus come wars.

. It is obvious that no Power could permit po
litical offenders sailing as passengers in a mail-
boat under its flag, from one neutral port to an
other, to be taken by a belligerent, though the
recognition of such a 'right would be, perhaps,
more advantageous to England than to any other
Power. But, notwithstanding these discussions,
our naval friends dined and spent the evening
With us, in company with some other officers.

I paid my respects to the Prince of Joinville,

with whom I had a long and interesting conver
sation, in the course of which he gave me to un
derstand he thought the seizure an untoward and
unhappy event, which could not be justified on
any grounds whatever, and that he had so ex
pressed himself in the highest quarters. There
are, comparatively, many English here at present ;
Mr. Chaplin, Sir F. Johnstone, Mr. "Weldon, Mr.
Browne, and others, and it may be readily ima
gined this affair creates deep feeling and much
discussion.

November \§th. — I rarely sat down to write un
der a sense of greater responsibility, for it is just
possible my letter may contain the first account
of the seizure of the Southern Commissioners
which will reach England ; and, having heard all
opinions and looked at authorities, as far as I
could, it appears to me that the conduct of the
American officer, now sustained by his Govern
ment, is without excuse. I dined at Mr. Corco-
ran's, where the Ministers of Prussia, Brazil, and
Chili, and the Secretary of the French Legation,
were present ; and, although we did not talk poli
tics, enough was said to show there was no dis
sent from the opinion expressed by intelligent
arid uninterested foreigners.

November 10th. — To-day a grand review, the
most remarkable feature of which was the able
disposition made by General M 'Do well to march
seventy infantry regiments, seventeen batteries,
and seven cavalry regiments, into a very con
tracted space, from the adjoining camps. Of the
display itself I wrote a long account, which is
not worth repeating here. Among the 55,000
men present there were at least 20,000 Germans
and 12,000 Irish.

November 22nd. — All the American papers
have agreed that the Trent business is quite ac
cording to law, custom, and international comity,
and that England can do nothing. They cry out
so loudly in this one key there is reason to sus
pect they have some inward doubts. General
M'Clellan invited all the world, including myself,
to see a performance given by Hermann, the
conjuror, at his quarters, which will be aggravat
ing news to the bloody-minded, serious people in
New England.

Day after day passes on, and finds our Micaw-
bers in Washington waiting for something to
turn up. The Trent affair, having been proved
to be legal and right beyond yea or nay, has
dropped out of the minds of all save those who
are waiting for news from England ; and on look
ing over my diary I can see nothing but memo
randa relating to quiet rides, visits to camps,
conversations with this one or the other, a fresh
outburst of anonymous threatening letters, as if
I had anything to do with the Trent affair, and
notes of small social reunions at our own rooms
and the "Washington houses which were open to
us.

November 25iA. — I remarked the other evei^
ing that, with all the disorder in "Washington,
there are no thieves. Next night, as we were
sitting in our little symposium, a thirsty soldier
knocked at the door for a glass of water. He
was brought in and civilly treated. Under the
date of the 27th, accordingly, I find it duly enter
ed that u the vagabond who came in for water
must have had a confederate, who got into the
hall whilst we were attending to his comrade,
for yesterday there was a great lamentation over

2H

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

cloaks and great-coats missing from the hall,
and as the day wore on the area of plunder was
extended. Carl discovers he has been robbed of
his best clothes, and Caroline has lost her watch
and many petticoats."

Thanksgiving Day on the 28th was celebrated
by enormous drunkenness in the army. The
weather varied between days of delicious sum
mer — soft, bright, balmy, and beautiful beyond
expression — and days of wintry storm, with tor
rents of rain.

Some excitement was caused at the end of the
month by the report I had received information
from England that the law officers of the Crown
had given it as their opinion that a United
States man-of-war would be justified by Lord
Stowell's decisions in taking Mason and Slidell
even in the British Channel, if the Nashville
transferred them to a British mail steamer. This
opinion was called for in consequence of the
Tuscarora appearing in Southampton "Water;
and, having heard of it, I repeated it in strict
confidence to some one else, till at last Baron
de Stoeckl canoe to ask me if it was true. Re
ceiving passengers from the Nashville, however,
would have been an act of direct intercourse
with an enemy's ship. In the case of the Trent
the persons seized had come on board as lawful
passengers at a neutral port.

The tide of success runs strongly in favour of
the North at present, although they generally
get the worst of it in the small affairs in the front
of Washington. The entrance to Savannah has
been occupied, and by degrees the fleets are bit-
mg into the Confederate lines along the coast,
and establishing positions which will afford bases
of operations to the Federals hereafter. The
President and Cabinet seem in better spirits, and
the former indulges in quaint speculations, which
he transfers even to State papers. He calculates,
for instance, there are human beings now alive
who may ere they die behold the United States
peopled by 250 millions of souls. Talking of a
high mound on the prairie, in Illinois, he re
marked, "that if all the nations of the earth
were assembled there, a man standing on its top
would see them all, for that the whole human
race would fit on a space twelve miles square,
which was about the extent of the plain."

CHAPTER LIX.

A. Captain under arrest — Opening of Congress— Colonel
D'Utassy— An ex-pugilist turned Senator— Mr. Came
ron — Ball in the officers' huts — Presentation of stand
ards at Arlington — Dinner at Lord Lyons' — Paper
currency — A polyglot dinner — Visit to Washington's
Tomb — Mr. Chase's Report — Colonel Seaton — unani
mity of the South — The Potomac blockade — A Dutch-
/American Crimean acquaintance — The American
jU^awycrs on the Trent affair—Mr. Sumner — M'Clel-
1 lan's Army — Impressions produced in America by the
^English Press on the affiiir of the Trent— Mr. Sumner
f on the crisis — Mutual feelings of the two nations —
Rumours of war with Great Britain.

December 1st — A mixed party of American
officers and English went to-day to the post at
Great Falls, about sixteen or seventeen miles up
the Potomac, and were well repaid by the
charming scenery, and by a visit to an Ameri
can military station in a state of nature. The
captain in command told us over a drink that he
was under arrest, because he had refused to do

duty as lieutenant of the guard, he being a cap
tain. "But I have written to M'Clellan about
it," said he, " and I'm d — d if I stay under arrest
more than three days longer." He was not aware
that the General's brother, who is a captain on
his staff, was sitting beside him at the time.
This worthy centurion further informed us he
had shot a man dead a short time before for
disobeying his orders. " That he did," said his
sympathising and enthusiastic orderly, " and
there's the weapon that done it." The captain
was a boot and shoe maker by trade, and had
travelled across the isthmus before the railway
was made to get orders for his boots. A hard,
determined, fierce "sutor," as near a savage as
might be.

"And what will you do, captain," asked I,
"if they keep you in arrest?"

" Fight for it, sir. I'll go straight away into
Pennsylvania with my company, and we'll whip
any two companies they can send to stop us."

Mr. Sumner paid me a visit on my return from
our excursion, and seems to think everything is
in the best possible state.

December 2nd. — Congress opened to-day. The
Senate did nothing. In the House of Represent
atives some Buncombe resolutions were passed
about Captain Wilkes- who has become a hero —
" a great interpreter of international law," and
also recommending that Messrs. Mason and Slidell
be confined in felons' cells, in retaliation for Colo
nel Corcoran's treatment by the Confederates.
M. Blondel, the Belgian minister, who was at the
court of Greece during the Russian war, told me
that when the French and English fleets lay in
the Pirasus, a United States vessel, commanded,
he thinks, by Captain Stringham, publicly re
ceived M. Persani, the Russian ambassador, on
board, hoisted and saluted the Russian flag in the
harbour, whereupon the French Admiral, Barbier
de Tinan, proposed to the English Admiral to go
on board the United States vessel and seize the
ambassador, which the British officer refused
to do.

December 3rd. — Drove down to the Capitol,
and was introduced to the floor of the Senate by
Senator Wilson, and arrived just as Mr. Forney
commenced reading the President's message,
which was listened to with considerable interest.
At dinner, Colonel D'Utassy, of the Garibaldi
legion, who gives a curious account of his career.
A Hungarian by birth, he went over from the
Austrian service, and served under Bern; was
wounded and taken prisoner at Temesvar, and
escaped from Spielberg, through the kindness of
Count Benuigsen, making his way to Semlin, in
the disguise of a servant, where M. Fonblanque,
the British consul, protected him. Thence he
went to Kossuth at Shumla, finally proceeded to
Constantinople, where he was engaged to instruct
the Turkish cavalry; turned up in the Ionian
Islands, where he was engaged by the late Si.
H. Ward, as a sort of Secretary and Interpreter,
in which capacity he also served Sir G. Le Mai-
chant. In the United States he was earning hi
livelihood as a fencing, dancing, and languag
master; and when the war broke out he exerte-
himself to raise a regiment, and succeeded in
completing his number in seventeen days, being
all the time obliged to support himself by his
lessons. I tell his tale as he told it to me.

One of our friends, of a sporting turn, dropped

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

215

in to-night, followed by a gentleman dressed in
immaculate black, and of staid deportment, whose
name I did not exactly catch, but fancied it was
that of a senator of some reputation. As the
stranger sat next me, and was rubbing his knees
nervously, I thought I would commence conver
sation.

" It appears, sir, that affairs in the south-west
are not so promising. May I ask you what is your
opinion of the present prospects of the Federals
in Missouri?"

I was somewhat disconcerted by his reply, for
rubbing his knees harder than ever, and impre
cating his organs of vision in a very sanguinary
manner, he said —

" Well, d if I know what to think of them.

They're a b rum lot, and they're going on in

a d rum way. That's what I think."

The supposed legislator, in fact, was distin
guished in another arena, and was no other than
a celebrated pugilist, who served his apprentice
ship in the English ring, and has since graduated
in honours in America.

I dined with Mr. Cameron, Secretary-of-War,
where I met Mr. Forney, Secretary of the Senate ;
Mr. House, Mr. Wilkeson, and others, and was
exceedingly interested by the shrewd conversa
tion and candid manner of our host. He told me
he once worked as a printer in the city of Wash
ington, at ten dollars a week, and twenty cents
an hour for extra work at the case on Sundays.
Since that time he has worked onwards and up
wards, and amassed a. -large fortune by contracts
for railways and similar great undertakings. He
says the press rules America, and that no one can
face it and live ; which is about the worst account
of the chances of an honest longevity I can well
conceive. His memory is exact, and his anec
dotes, albeit he has never seen any but Ameri
cans, or stirred out of the States, very agreeable.
Once there lived at Washington a publican's
daughter, named Mary O'Neil, beautiful, bold,
and witty. She captivated a Member of Con
gress, -who failed to make her less than his wife ;
and by degrees Mrs. Eaton — who may now be
seen in the streets of Washington, an old woman,
still bright-eyed and alas ! bright cheeked, retain
ing traces of her great beauty — became a leading
personage in the State, and ruled the imperious,
rugged, old Andrew Jackson so completely, that
he broke up his Cabinet and dismissed his minis
ters on her account. In the days of her power
she had done some trifling service to Mr. Came
ron, and he has just repaid it by conferring some
military appointment on her grandchild.

The dinner, which was preceded by deputa
tions, was finished by one which came from the
Far .West, and was introduced by Mr. Hannibal
Hamlin, the Vice-President ; Mr. Owen Lovejoy,
Mr. Bingham, and other ultra- Abolitionist mem
bers of Congress ; and then speeches were made,
and healths were drunk, and toasts were pledged,
till it was time for me to drive to a ball given by
the officers of the 5th United States Cavalry,
which was exceedingly pretty, and admirably ar
ranged in wooden huts, especially erected and
decorated for the occasion. A huge bonfire in
the centre of the camp, surrounded by soldiers,
by the carriage drivers, and by negro servants,
afforded the most striking play of colour and va
riety of light and shade I ever beheld.

December Wh. — To Arlington, where Senator

Ira Harris presented flags — that Is, standards —
to a cavalry regiment called after his name ; the
President, Mrs. Lincoln, ministers, generals, and
a large gathering present. Mr. Harris made a
very long and a very fierce speech ; it could not
be said Ira furor brevis est ; and Colonel Davies,
in taking the standard, was earnest and lengthy
in reply. Then a barrister presented colour No.
2, in a speech full of poetical quotations, to which
Major Kilpatrick made an excellent answer.
Though it was strange enough to hear a poli
tical disquisition on the causes of the rebellion
from a soldier in full uniform, the proceedings
were highly theatrical and very effective. " Take,
then, this flag," &c. — " Defend it with your," &c.
— " Yes, sir, we, will guard this sacred emblem
with — ," &c. The regiment then went through
some evolutions, which were brought to an un
timely end by a feu de joie from the infantry in
the rear, which instantly broke up the squadrons,
and sent them kicking, plunging, and falling over
the field, to the great amusement of the crowd.

Dined with Lord Lyons, where was Mr. Gait,
Financial Minister of Canada ; Mr. Stewart, who
has arrived to replace Mr. Irvine, and others. In
our rooms, a grand financial discussion took place
in honour of Mr. Gait, between Mr. Butler Dun
can and others, the former maintaining that a
general issne of national paper was inevitable. A
very clever American maintained that the North
will be split into two great parties by the result
of the victory which they are certain to gain over
the South — that the Democrats will offer the
South concessions more liberal than they could
ever dream of, and that both will unite againa
the Abolitionists and Black Republicans.

December 6th. — Mr. Riggs says the paper cur
rency scheme will produce money, and make
every man richer. He is a banker, and ought to
know ; but to my ignorant eye it seems likely to
prove most destructive, and I confess, that what
ever be the result of this war, I have no desire
for the ruin of so many happy communities as
have sprung up in the United States. Had it
been possible for human beings to employ popu
lar institutions without intrigue and miserable
self-seeking, and to be superior to faction and
party passion, the condition of parts of the United
States must cause regret that an exemption from
the usual laws which regulate human nature
was not made in America ; but the strength of
the United States — directed by violent passions,
by party interest, and by selfish intrigues — was
becoming dangerous to the peace of other nations,
and therefore there is an utter want of sympathy
with them in their time of trouble.

I dined with Mr. Gait, at Willard's, where we
had a very pleasant party, in spite of financial
dangers.

December *lth. — A visit to the Garibaldi Guard
with some of the Englishry, and an excellent
dinner at the mess, which presented a curious
scene, and was graced by sketches from a won
derful polyglot chaplain. What a company 1 —
the officers present were composed as follows: —
Five Spaniards, six Poles and Hungarians, two
Frenchmen — the most soldierly-looking men at
table — one American, four Italians, and nine
Teutons of various States in Germany.

December 8th. — A certain excellent Colonel
who commands a French regiment visited us to
day. When he came to Washington, one of the

216

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

Foreign Ministers who had been well acquainted
with him said, " My dear Colonel, what a pity we
can be no longer friends." " Why so, Baron?"
" Ah, we can never dine together again." " Why
not? Do you forbid me your table?'' "No,
Colonel, but how can I invite a man who can
command the services of at least 200 cooks in his
own regiment ?" " "Well then, Baron, you can
come and dine with me." " What I how do you
think I could show myself in your camp — how
could I get my hair dressed to sit at the table of
a man who commands 300 coiffeurs?" I rode
out to overtake a party who had started in car
riages for Mount Vernon to visit Washington's
tomb, but missed them in the wonderfully wooded
countr}' which borders the Potomac, and returned
alone.

December 9th. — Spent the day over Mr. Chase's
report, a copy of which he was good enough to
send me with a kind note, and went out in the
evening with my head in a state of wild financial
confusion, and a general impression that the
financial system of England is very unsound.

December 10th. — Paid a visit to Colonel Seaton,
of the National Intelligencer, a man deservedly
respected and esteemed for his private character,
which has given its impress to the journal he has
so long conducted. The New York pap.ers ridi
cule the Washington organ, because it does not
spread false reports daily in the form of tele
graphic "sensation" news, and indeed one may
be pretty sure that a fact is a fact when it is
found in the Intelligencer ; but the man, neverthe
less, who is content writh the information he gets
from it, will have no reason to regret, in the ac
curacy of his knowledge or the soundness of his
views, that he has not gone to its noisy and men
dacious rivals. In the minds of all the very old
men in the States, there is a feeling of great sad
ness and despondency respecting the present
troubles, and though they cling to .the idea of
a restoration of the glorious Union of their youth,
it is hoping against hope. " Our game is played
out. It was the most wonderful and magnificent
career of success the world ever saw, but rogues
and gamblers took up the cards at last; they
quarrelled, and are found out."

In the evening, supped at Mr. Forney's, where
there was a very large gathering of gentlemen
connected with the press ; Mr. Cameron, Secreta
ry of War ; Colonel Mulligan, a tall young man,
with dark hair falling on his shoulders, round a
Celtic impulsive face, and a hazy enthusiastic-
looking eye ; and other celebrities. Terrapin
soup and canvas-backs, speeches, orations, music,
and song, carried the company onwards among
the small hours.

December llth. — The unanimity of the people
in the South is forced on the conviction of the
statesmen and people of the North, by the very
success in their expeditions in Secession. They
find the planters at Beaufort and elsewhere burn
ing their cotton and crops, villages and towns
deserted at their approach, hatred in every eye,
and curses on women's tongues. They meet this
by a corresponding change in their own pro
gramme. The war which was made to develop
and maintain Union sentiment in the South, and
to enable the people to rise against a desperate
faction which had enthralled them, is now to be
made a crusade against slaveholders, and a war
of subjugation — if need be, of extermination —

against the whole of the Southern States. The
Democrats will, of course, resist this barbarous
and hopeless policy. There is a deputation of
Irish Democrats here now, to effect a general ex
change of prisoners, which is an operation calcu
lated to give a legitimate character to the war,
and is pro tanto a recognition of the Confederacy
as a belligerent power.

December 12th. — The navy are writhing under
the disgrace of the Potomac blockade, and deny
it exists. The price of articles in Washington
which used to come by the river affords disagreea
ble proof to the contrary, fcnd yet there is not a
true Yankee in Pennsylvania Avenue who does
not believe, what he reads every day, that his
glorious navy could sweep the fleets of France
and England off the seas to-morrow, though the
Potomac be closed, and the Confederate batteries
throw their shot and shell into the Federal camps
on the other side. I dined with General Butter-
field, whose camp is pitched in Virginia, on a
knoll and ridge from which a splendid view can
be had over the wooded vales and hills extending
from 'Alexandria towards Manassas, whitened
with Federal tents and huts. General Fitz-John
Porter and General M 'Do well were among the
officers present.

December 12th. — A big-bearded, spectacled,
moustachioed, spurred, and booted officer threw
himself on my bed this morning ere I was awake.
"Russell, my dear friend, here you are at last;
what ages have passed since we met !" I sat up
and gazed at rny friend.-. "BohlenI don't you
remember Bohlen, and our rides in Turkey, our
visit to Shurnla and Pravady, and all the rest of
it ?" Of course I did. I remembered an enthu
siastic soldier, with a fine guttural voice, and
splendid war saddle and saddle-cloth, and bras*
stirrups and holsters, worked with eagles all. over
and a uniform coat and cap with more eagles fly
ing amidst laurel leaves and U. S's in gold, who
came out to see the fighting in the East, and
made up his mind that there would be none, when
he arrived at Varna, and sa started off inconti
nent up the Danube, and returned to the Crimea
when it was too late ; and a very good, kindly,
warm-hearted fellow was the Dutch-American,
who — once more in his war paint, this time act
ing Brigadier-General* — renewed the memories
of some pleasant days far away ; and our talk
was of cavasses and khans, and tchibouques, and
pashas, till his time was up to return to his fight
ing Germans of Bleuker's division.

He was not the good-natured officer who said
the other day, " The next day you come down,
sir, if my regiment happens to be on picket duty,
we'll have a little skirmish with the enemy, just
to show you how our fellows are improved."
" Perhaps you might bring on a general action,
Colonel." " Well, sir, we're not afraid of that,
either! Let 'em come on." It did BO happen
that some young friends of mine, of H.M.'s 30th,
who had come dbwn from Canada to see the army
here, went out a day or two ago with an office?
on General Smith's staff, formerly in our army,
who yet suffers from a wound received at the
Alma, to have a look at the enemy with a detach
ment of men. The enemy came to have a look
at them, whereby it happened that shots were
exchanged, and the bold Britons had to ride back

* Since killed in action in Pope's retreat from th*
north of Richmond.

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

217

as hard as they could, for their men skedaddled,
and the Secession cavalry slipping after them, had
a very pretty chase for some miles ; so the 30th
men saw more than they bargained for.

Dined at Baron Gerolt's, where I had the
pleasure of meeting Judge Daly, who is perfectly
satisfied the English lawyers have not a leg to
stand upon in the Trent case. On the faith of
old and very doubtful, and some purely suppositi
tious, cases, the American lawyers have made up
their minds that the seizure of the " rebel" ambas
sadors was perfectly legitimate and normal. The
Judge expressed his belief that if there was a
rebellion in Ireland, and that Messrs. Smith
O'Brien and O'Gorman ran the blockade to
France, and were going on their passage from
Havre to New York in a United States steamer,
they woulR be seized by the first British vessel
that knew the fact. " Granted ; and what would
the United States do ?" "I am afraid we should
be obliged to demand that they be given up ; and
if you were strong enough at the time, I dare say
you would fight sooner than do so." Mr. Sum-
ner, with whom I had some conversation this
afternoon, affects to consider the question emi
nently suitable for reference and arbitration.

In spite of drills and parades, M'Clellan has
not got an army yet. A good officer, who served
as brigade-major in our service, told me the men
were little short of mutinous, with all their fine,
talk, though they could fight well. Sometimes
they refuse to mount guard, or to go on duty not
to their tastes; officers refuse to serve under
others to whom they have a dislike ; men offer
similar personal objections to officers. M'Clellan
is enforcing discipline, and really intends to exe
cute a most villanous deserter this time.

December 15th. — The first echo of the San
Jacinto's guns in England reverberated to the
United States, and produced a profound sensa
tion. The people had made up their minds
John Bull would acquiesce in the seizure, and
not say a word about it ; or they affected to think
so ; ivncl the cry of anger which has resounded
througn the land, and the unmistakable tone of
the British .press, at once surprise, and irritate,
and disappoint them. The American journals,
nevertheless, pretend to think it is a mere vulgar
excitement, and that the press is "only indulging
in its habitual bluster."

December 16th. — I met Mr. Seward at the ball
and cotillon party, given by M. de Lisboa ; and
as he was in very good humour, and was inclined
to talk, he pointed out to the Prince de Joinville,
and all who were inclined to listen, and myself,
how terrible the effects of a war would be if Great
Britain forced it on the United States. " We will
wrap the whole world in flames I" he exclaimed.
" No power so remote that she will not feel the
fire of our battle and be burned by our conflagra
tion." It is inferred that Mr. Seward means to
show fight. One of the guests, however, said to
me, "That's all bugaboo talk. When Seward
talks that way, he means to break down. He is
most dangerous and obstinate when he pretends
to agree a good deal with you." The young
French Princes, and the young and pretty Brazi
lian and American ladies, danced and were happy,
notwithstanding the storms without.

Next day I dined at Mr. Seward's, as the
Minister had given carte blanche to a very lively
and agreeable lady, who has to lament over an

absent husband in this terrible war, to ask two
gentlemen to dine with him, and she had been
pleased to select myself and M. de Geoffrey,
Secretary of the French Legation, as her thick
and her thin umbrae; and the company went off
in the evening to the White House, where there
was a reception, whereat I imagined I might be
de trop, and so home.

Mr. Seward was in the best spirits, and told
one or two rather long, but very pleasant, stories.
Now it is evident he must by this time know
Great Britain has resolved on the course to be
pursued, and his good-humour, contrasted with
the irritation he displayed in May and June, is
not intelligible.

The Russian Minister, at whose house I dined
next day, is better able than any man to appre
ciate the use made of the Czar's professions of
regret for the evils which distract the States by
the Americans ; but it is the fashion to approve
of everything that France doos, and to assume a
violent affection for Russia. The Americans are
irritated by war preparations on the part of Eng
land, in case the Government of Washington do
not accede to their demands; and, at the same
time, much annoyed that all European nations
join in an outcry against the famous project of
destroying the Southern harbours by the means
of the stone fleet.

December ZOth.—I went down to the Senate,
as it was expected at the Legation and elsewhere
the President would send a special message to
the Senate on the Trent affair ; but, instead, there
was merely a long speech from a senator, to show
the South did not like democratic institutions.
Lord Lyons called on Mr. Seward yesterday to
read Lord Russell's dispatch to him, and to give
time for a reply ; but Mr. Seward was out, and
Mr. Sumner told me the Minister was down with
the Committee of Foreign Relations, where there
is a serious business in reference to the state of
Mexico and certain European Powers under dis
cussion, when the British Minister went to the
State Department.

Next day Lord Lyons had two interviews
with Mr. Seward, read the despatch, which sim
ply asks for surrender of Mason and Slidell and
reparation, without any specific act named, but
he received no indication from Mr. Seward of the
course he would pursue. Mr. Lincoln has " put
down his foot" on no surrender. "Sir!" ex
claimed the President, to an old Treasury official
the other day, "I would sooner die than give
them up." " Mr. President," was the reply,
" your death would be a great loss, but the de
struction of the United States would be a still
more deplorable event."

Mr. Seward will, however, control the situa
tion, as the Cabinet will very probably support
his views ; and Americans will comfort them
selves, in case the captives are surrendered, with
a promise of future revenge, and with the reflec
tion that they have avoided a very disagreeable
intervention between their march of conquest
and the Southern Confederacy. The general be
lief of the diplomatists is, that the prisoners will
not be given up, and in that case Lord Lyons and
the Legation will retire from Washington for the
time, probably to Halifax, leaving Mr. Monson to
wind up affairs and clear out the archives. But
it is understood that there is no ultimatum, and
that Lord Lyons is not tc indicate any course of

218

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

action, should Mr. Seward inform him the United
States Government refuses to comply with the
demands of Great Britain.

Any humiliation which may be attached to
concession will be caused by the language of the
Americans themselves, who have given in their
press, in public meetings, in the Lower House, in
the Cabinet, and in the conduct of the President,
a complete ratification of the act of Captain
Wilkes, not to speak of the opinions of the law
yers, and the speeches of their orators, who de
clare " they will face any alternative, but that
they will never surrender." The friendly rela
tions which existed between ourselves and many
excellent Americans are now. rendered somewhat
constrained by the prospect of a great national
difference.

December (Sunday) 22nd — Lord Lyons saw
Mr. Seward again, but it does not appear that
any answer can be expected before Wednesday.
All kinds of rumours circulate through the city,
and are repeated in an authoritative manner in
the New York papers.

December 23rd. — There was a tremendous
sfcorm, which drove over the city and shook the
houses to the foundation. Constant interviews
took place between the President and members
of the Cabinet, and so certain are the people that
war is inevitable, that an officer connected with
the executive of the Navy Department came in
to tell me General Scott was coming over from
Europe to conduct the Canadian campaign, as he
had thoroughly studied the geography of the
country, and that in a very short time he would
be in possession of every strategic position on the
frontier, and chaw up our reinforcements. Late
in the evening, Mr. Olmsted called to say he
had been credibly informed Lord Lyons had quar
relled violently with Mr. Seward, had flown into
a great passion with him, and so departed. The
idea of Lord Lyons being quarrelsome, passionate,
or violent, was preposterous enough to those
who knew him; but the American papers, by
repeated statements of the sort, have succeeded
in persuading their public that the British Minis
ter is a plethoric, red-faced, large-stomached man
in top-boots, knee-breeches, yellow waistcoat,
blue cut-away, brass buttons, and broad-brimmed
white hat, who is continually walking to the
State Department in company with a large bull
dog, hurling defiance at Mr. Seward at one mo
ment, and the next rushing home to receive
despatches from Mr. Jefferson Davis, or to give
secret instructions to the British Consuls to run
cargoes of quinine and gunpowder through the
Federal blockade. I was enabled to assure Mr.
Olmsted there was not the smallest foundation
for the story ; but he seemed impressed with a
sense of some great calamity, and told me there
was a general belief that England only wanted
a pretext for a quarrel with the United States ;
nor could I comfort him by the assurance that
there were good reasons for thinking General
Scott would very soon annex Canada, in case of
war.

CHAPTER LX. J^

News of the death of the Prince Consort — Mr. Sumner
and the Trent Affair— Dispatch to Lord Eussell— The
Southern Commissioners given up — Effects on the
friends of the South — My own unpopularity at New
York — Attack of fever — My tour in Canada — My re
turn to New York in February— Successes of the
Western States — Mr. Stan ton succeeds Mr. Cameron as
Secretary of War— Keverse and retreat of M'Clellan —
My free pass— The Merrimac and Monitor— My ar
rangement to accompany M'Clellan's headquarters—
Mr. Stanton refuses his sanction — National vanity
wounded by my truthfulness— My retirement and re
turn to Europe.

December 24Z/1. — This evening came in a tele
gram from Europe with news which cast the
deepest gloom over all our little English circle.
Prince Albert dead ! At first no one believed it ;
then it was remembered that private letters by
the last mail had spoken despondingly %f his state
of health, and that the "little cold" of which we
had heard was described in graver terms. Prince
Albert dead!. "Oh, it may be Prince Alfred,"
said some ; and sad as it would be for the Queen
and the public to lose the Sailor Prince, the loss
could not be so great as that which we all felt to
be next to the greatest. The preparations which
we had made for a little festivity to welcome in
Christmas morning were chilled by the news, and
the eve was not of the joyous character which
Englishmen delight to give it, for the sorrow
which fell on all hearts in England had spanned
the Atlantic, and bade us mourn in common with
the country at home.

December 25th. — Lord Lyons, who had invited
the English in Washington to dinner, gave a
small quiet entertainment, from which he retired
early.

December 26th. — No answer yet. There can
be but one. Press people, soldiers, sailors, minis
ters, senators, Congress-men, people in the street,
the voices of the bar-room — all are agreed, " Give
them up? Never! We'll die first!" Senator
Sumner, M. de Beaumont, M. de Geoffrey, of the
French Legation, djned with me, in company
with General Van Vliet, Mr. Anderson, and Mr.
Lamy, &c. ; and in the evening Major Anson,
M.P., Mr. Johnson, Captain Irwin, U.S.A., Lt.
Wise, U.S.N., joined our party, and after much
evasion of the subject, the English despatch and
Mr. Seward's decision turned up and caused some
discussion. Mr. Sumner, who is Chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate,
and in that capacity Is in intimate rapport with
the President, either is, or affects to be incredu
lous respecting the nature of Lord Russell's des
patch this evening, and argues that, at the very
utmost, the Trent affair can only be a matter for
mediation, and not for any peremptory demand,
as the law of nations has no exact precedent to
bear upon the case, and that there are so many
instances in which Sir W. Scott's (Lord Sto well's)
decisions in principle appear to justify Captain
Wilkes. All along he has held this language,
and has maintained that at the very worst there
is plenty of time for protocols, despatches, and
references, and more than once he has said to me,
" I hope you will keep the peace; help us to do
go," — the peace having been already broken by
Captain Wilkes and the Government.

December 27th. — This morning Mr. Seward sent
in his reply to Lord Russell's despatch—" grandis
et verbosa epistola." The result destroys my
prophecies, for, after all, the Southern Commission-

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

219

ers or Ambassadors are to be given up. Yester
day, indeed, in an under-current of whispers
among the desponding friends of the South, there
went a rumour that the Government had resolved
to yield. What a collapse ! "What a bitter mor
tification ! I had scarcely finished the perusal
of an article in a "Washington paper, — which, let
it be understood, is an organ of Mr. Lincoln, —
stating that " Mason and Slidell would not be sur
rendered, and assuring the people they need en
tertain no apprehension of such a dishonourable
concession," when I learned beyond all possibility
of doubt, that Mr. Seward had handed in his des
patch, placing the Commissioners at the disposal
of the British Minister. A copy of the despatch
will be published in the National Intelligencer to
morrow morning at an early hour, in time to go to
Europe by the steamer which leaves New York.

After dinner, those who were in the secret
were amused by hearing the arguments which
were started between one or two Americans and
some English in the company, in consequence
of a positive statement from a gentleman who
came in, that Mason and Slidell had been surren
dered. I have resolved to go to Boston, being
satisfied that a great popular excitement and up
rising will, in all probability, take place on the
discharge of the Commissioners from Fort "War
ren. What will my friend, the general, say, who
told me yesterday " he would snap his sword, and
throw the pieces into the White House, if they
were given up."

December 28th.— The Nniivial Intelligencer of
this morning contains the dispatches of Lord Rus-
sel, M. Thouvenel, and Mr. Seward. The bubble
has burst. The rage of the friends of compro
mise, and of the South, who saw in a war with
Great Britain the complete success of the Confe
deracy, is deep and burning, if not loud ; but they
all say they never expected anything better from
the cowardly and braggart statesmen who now
rule in Washington.

Lord Lyons has evinced the most moderate
and conciliatory spirit, and has done everything
in his power to break Mr. Seward's fall on the
softest of eider down. Some time ago we were
all prepared to hear nothing less would be ac
cepted than Captain Wilkes taking Messrs. Mason
and Slidell on board the San Jacinto, and trans
ferring them to the Trent, under a salute to the
flag, near the scene of the outrage ; at all events,
it was expected that a British man-of-war would
have steamed into Boston, and received the pri
soners under a salute from Fort Warren ; but Mr.
Seward, apprehensive that some outrage would
be offered by the populace to the prisoners and
the British Flag, has asked Lord Lyons that the
Southern Commissioners may be placed, as it
were, surreptitiously, in a United States boat,
and carried to a small seaport in the State of
Maine, where they are to be placed on board a
British vessel as quietly as possible ; and this
exigent, imperious, tyrann'.oal, insulting British
Minister has cheerfili/ arceded to the request.
Mr. Conway Seymour, the Queen's messenger,
who brought Lord Russell's despatch, was sent
t)ack with instructions for the British Admiral, to
send a vessel to Providence-town for the purpose;
and as Mr. Johnson, who is nearly connected
with Mr. Eustis, one of the prisoners, proposed
going to Boston to see his brother-in-law, if pos
sible, ere he started, and as there was not the

smallest prospect of any military movement
taking place, I resolved to go northwards with
him ; and we left Washington accordingly on the
morning of the 31st of December, and arrived at
the New York Hotel the same night.

To my great regret and surprise, however, I
learned that it would be impracticable to get to
Fort Warren and see the prisoners before their
surrender. My unpopularity, which had lost
somewhat of its intensity, was revived by the
exasperation against everything English, occa
sioned by the firmness of Great Britain in de
manding the Commissioners ; and on New Year's
Night, as I heard subsequently, Mr. Grinnell and
other members of the New York Club were ex
posed to annoyance and insult, by some of their
brother members, in consequence of inviting me
to be their guest at the club.

The illness which had prostrated some of the
strongest men in Washington, including General
M'Clellan himself, developed itself as soon as I
ceased to be sustained by the excitement, such
as it was, of daily events at the capital, and by
expectations of a move-; and for some time an
a tack of typhoid fever confined me to my room,
and left me so weak that I. was advised not to
return to Washington till I had tried change of
air. I remained in New York till the end of Ja
nuary, when I proceeded to make a tour in
Canada, as it was quite impossible for any opera
tion to take place on the Potomac, where deep
mud, alternating with snow and frost, bound the
contending armies in winter quarters.

On my return to New York, at the end of Feb
ruary, the North was cheered by some signal suc
cesses achieved in the West principally by gun
boats, operating on the lines of the great rivers.
The greatest results have been obtained in the
capture of Fort Donaldson and Fort Henry, by
Commodore Foote's flotilla co-operating with the
land forces. The possession of an absolute naval,
supremacy, of course, gives the North Uniteft
States powerful means of annoyance and inflict
ing injury and destruction on the enemy ; it also
secures for them the means of seizing upon bases
of operations wherever they please, of breaking
up the enemy's lines, and maintaining communi
cations ; but the example of Great Britain in the
revolutionary war should prove to the United
States that such advantages do not, by any
means, enable a belligerent to subjugate a deter
mined people resolved on resistance to the last.
The long-threatened encounter between Bragg
and Browne has taken place at Pensacola, with
out effect, and the attempts of the Federals to
advance from Port Royal have been successfully
resisted. Sporadic skirmishes have sprung up
over every border State ; but, on the whole, suc
cess has inclined to the Federals in Kentucky and
Tennessee.

On the 1st March, I arrived in Washington
once more, and found things very much as I had
left them : the army recovering the effect of the
winter's sickness and losses, animated by the vic
tories of their comrades in Western fields, and by
the hope that the ever-coming to-morrow would
see them in the field at last. In place of Mr.
Cameron, an Ohio lawyer named Stanton haa
been appointed Secretary of War. He came to
Washington, a few years ago, to conduct some
legal proceedings for Mr. Daniel Sickles, and by
his energy, activity, and a rapid conversion from

220

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

democratic to republican principles, as well as by
his Union sentiments, recommended himself to
the President and his Cabinet.

The month of March passed over without any
remarkable event in the field. When the army
started at last to attack the enemy — a movement
which was precipitated by hearing that they were
moving away — they went out only to find the
Confederates had fallen back by interior lines to
wards Richmond, and General M'Clellan was
obliged to transport his army from Alexandria to
the peninsula of York Town, where his reverses,
his sufferings, and his disastrous retreat, are so
well known and so recent, that I need only men
tion them as among the most remarkable events
which h.ivo yet occurred in this war,

I had looked forward for many weary months
to participating in the movement and describing
its results. Immediately on my arrival in Wash
ington, I was introduced to Mr. Stanton by Mr.
Ashman, formerly member of Congress and Secre
tary to Mr. Daniel Webster, and the Secretary,
without making any positive pledge, used words,
in Mr. Ashman's presence, which led me to believe
he would give me permission to draw rations, and
undoubtedly promised to afford me every facility
in his power. Subsequently he sent me a private
pass to the War Department to enable me to get
through the crowd of contractors and jobbers;
sut on going there to keep my appointment, the
Assistant-Secretary of War told me Mr. Stanton
had been summoned to a Cabinet Council by the
President.

We had some conversation respecting the sub
ject matter of my application, which the Assist
ant-Secretary seemed to think would be attended
with many difficulties, in consequence of the num
ber of correspondents to the American papers who
might demand the same privileges, and he inti
mated to me that Mr. Stanton was little disposed
to encourage them in any way whatever. Now
fflis is undoubtedly honest on Mr. Stanton's part,
for he knows he might render himself popular by
granting what they ask; but he is excessively
vain, and aspires to be considered a rude, rough,
vigorous Oliver Cromwell sort of man, mistaking
some of the disagreeable attributes and the acci
dents of the external husk of the Great Protector
for the brain and head of a statesman and a sol
dier.

The American officers with whom I was inti
mate gave me to understand that I could accom
pany them, in case I received permission from the
Government ; but they were obviously unwilling
to encounter the abuse and. calumny which would
be heaped upon their heads by American papers,
unless they could show the authorities did not
disapprove of my presence in their camp. Seve
ral invitations sent to me were accompanied by
the phrase, "You will of course get a written
permission from the War Department, and then
there will be no difficulty." On the evening of
the private theatricals by which Lord Lyons en-
livened the ineffable dulness of Washington, I
saw Mr. Stanton at the Legation, and he conversed
with me for some time. I mentioned the difficul
ty connected with passes. He asked me what I
wanted. I said, "An order to go with the army
to Manassas." At his request I procured a sheet
of paper, and he wrote me a pass, took a copy of
it, which he put in his pocket, and then handed
the other to me. On looking at it, I perceived

that it was a permission for me to go to Manas
sas and back, and that all officers, soldiers, and
others, in the United States service, were to give
me every assistance and show me every courtesy ;
but the* hasty return of the army to Alexandria
rendered it useless.

The Merrimac and Monitor encounter produced
the profo'indest impression in Washington, and
unusual strictness was observed respecting passes
to Fortress Monroe.

March I9lh. — I applied at the Navy Depart
ment for a passage down to Fortress Monroe, as
it was expected the Merrimac was coming out
again, but I could r.ot obtain leave to go in any
of the vessels. Captain Hardman showed me a
curious sketch of what he called the Turtle Thor,
an iron-cased machine with a huge claw or grap
nel, with which to secure the enemy whilst a
steam hammer or a high iron fist, worked by the
engine, cracks and smashes her iron armour.
"For," says he, "the days of gunpowder are
over."

As soon as General M'Clellan commenced his
movement, he sent a message to me by one of the
French princes, that he would have great plea
sure in allowing me to accompany his head-quar
ters in the field. I find the following, under the
head of March 22nd: —

" Received a letter from General Marcy, chief
of the staff, asking me to call at his office. He
told me General M'Clellan directed him to say he
had no objection whatever to my accompanying
the army, ' but,' continued General Marcy, 'you
know we are a sensitive people, and that our
press is exceedingly jealous. General M'Clellan
has many enemies who seek to pull him down,
and scruple at no means of doing so. He and I
would be glad to do anything in our power to
help you, if you come with us, but we must not
expose ourselves needlessly to attack. The army
is to move to the York and James Rivers at
once.' "

All my arrangements were made that day with
General Van Vliet, the quartermaster-general of
headquarters. I was quite satisfied, from Mr.
Stanton's promise and General Marcy's conversa
tion, that I should have no further difficulty.
Our party was made up, consisting of Colonel
Neville; Lieutenant-Colonel Fletcher, Scotch
Fusilier Guards; Mr! Lamy, and myself; and GUI
passage was to be provided in the quartermaster-
general's boat. On the 26th of March, I went to
Baltimore in company with Colonel Rowan, of
the Royal Artillery, who had come down for a
few days to visit Washington, intending to go on
by the steamer to Fortress Monroe, as he was
desirous of seeing his friends on board the Rinaldo,
and I wished to describe the great flotilla assem
bled there and to see Captain Hewett once
more.

On arriving at Baltimore, we learned it would
be necessary to get a special pass from General
Dix, and on going to the General's head-quarters
his aide-de-camp informed us that he had received
special instructions recently from the War Depart
ment to grant cp passes to Fortress Monroe
unless to officers and soldiers going on duty, of
to persons in the service of the linked States.
The aide-de-camp advised me to telegraph to Mr.
Stanton for permission, which I did, but no
answer was received, and Colonel Rowan and I
returned* to Waai.t-gton, thinking there would be

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

221

a better chance of securing the necessary order
there.

Next day we went to the Department of War,
and were "shown into Mr. Stanton's room — his
secretary informing us that he was engaged in the
next room with the President and other Ministers
in a council of war, but that he would no doubt
receive a letter from me and send me out a reply.
I accordingly addressed a note to Mr. Stanton,
requesting he would be good enough to give an
order to Colonel Rowan, of the British army, and
myself, to go by the mail boat from Baltimore to
Monroe. In a short time Mr. Stanton sent out a
note in the following words: — "Mr. Stanton
informs Mr. Russell no passes to Fortress Monroe
can be given at present, unless to officers in the
United States service." We tried the Navy
Department, but no vessels were going down,
they said ; and one of the officers suggested that
we should ask for passes to go down and visit
H. M. S. Rinaldo exclusively, which could not
well be refused, he thought, to British subjects,
and promised to take charge of the letter for Mr.
Stanton and to telegraph the permission down to
Baltimore. There we returned by the afternoon
train and waited, but neither reply nor pass came
for us.

Next day we were disappointed also, and an
officer of the Rinaldo, who had come up on duty
from the ship, was refused permission to take us
down on his return. I regretted thesa obstruc
tions principally on Colonel Rowan's account,
because he would have no opportunity of seeing
the flotilla. He returned next day to New York,
whilst I completed my preparations for the expe
dition and went back to Washington, where I
received my pass, signed by General M'Clellan's
chief of the staff' authorising me to accompany
the head-quarters of the army under his command.
So far as I know, Mr. Stanton sent no reply to
my last letter, and calling with General Tan Vliet
at his house on his reception night, the door was
opened by his brother-in-law, who said, "The
Secretary was attending a sick child and could
not see any person that evening," so I never met
Mr. Stanton again.

Stories had long been current concerning his
exceeding animosity to General M'Clellan, found
ed perhaps on his expressed want of confidence
in the General's abilities, as much as on the dis
like he felt towards a man who persisted in
disregarding his opinions on matters connected
with military operations. His infirmities of
health and tendency to cerebral excitement had
been increased by the pressure of business, by
the novelty of power, and by the angry passions
to which individual antipathies and personal ran
cour give rise. No one who ever saw Mr. Stan-
ton would expect from him courtesy of manner or
delicacy of feeling ; but his affectation of blunt-
ness and straightforwardness of purpose might
have led one to suppose he was honest and direct
in purpose, as the qualities I have mentioned are
not always put forward by hypocrites to cloak
finesse and sinister action.

The rest of the story may be told in a few
words. It was perfectly well known in Wash
ington that I was going with the army, and I
presume Mr. Stanton, if he had any curiosity
about such a trifling matter, must have heard it
also. I am told he was informed of it at the last
moment, and then flow out into a coarse passion

against General M'Clellan because he had dared
to invite or to take anyone without his permis
sion. What did a Republican General want with
foreign princes on his staff, or with foreign news
paper correspondents to puff him up abroad ?

Judging from the stealthy, secret way in which
Mr. Stanton struck at General M'CleJlan the
instant he had turned his back upon Washington,
and crippled him in the field by suddenly with
drawing his best division without a word of
notice, I am inclined to fear he gratified what
ever small passion dictated his course on this
occasion also, by waiting till he knew I was fairly
on board the steamer with my friends and bag
gage, just ready to move off, before he sent down
a despatch to Van Vliet and summoned him at
once to the War Office. When Van Vliet re
turned in a couple of hours, he made the com
munication to me that Mr. Stauton had given him
written orders to prevent my passage, though
even here he acted with all the cunning and indi
rection of the village attorney, not with the
straightforwardness of Oliver Cromwell, whom it
is laughable, to name in the same breath with his
imitator. He did not write, " Mr. Russell is not
to go," or "The Times correspondent is forbidden
a passage," but he composed two orders, with all
the official formula of the War Office, drawn up
by the Quartermaster General of the army, by
the direction and order of the Secretary of War.
No. 1 ordered "that no person should be per
mitted to embark on board any vessel in the
United States service without an order from the
War Department." No. 2 ordered " that Colonel
Neville, Colonel Fletcher, and Captain Lamy, of
the British army, having been invited by General
M'Clellan to accompany the expedition, were
authorized to embark on board the vessel."

General Van Vliet assured me that he and
General M'Dowell had urged every argument
they could think of in my favour, particularly
the fact that I was the specially invited guest o«
General M'Clellan, and that I was actually pro
vided with a pass by his order from the chief of
his staff.

With these orders before me, I had no alterna
tive.

General M'Clellan was far away. Mr. Stanton
had waited again until he was gone. General
Marcy was away. I laid the statement of what
had occurred before the President, who at first
gave me hopes, from the wording of his letter,
that he would overrule Mr. Stanton's order, but
who next day informed me he could not take i*
upon himself to do so.

It was plain I had now but one course left.
My mission in the United States was to describe
military events and operations, or, in defect of
them, to deal with such subjects as might be in
teresting to people at home. In the discharge of
my duty, I had visited the South, remaining there
until the approach of actual operations and the
establishment of the blockade, which cut off all
communication from the Southern States except
by routes which would deprive my correspondence
of any value, compelled me to return to the North,
where I could keep up regular communication
with Europe. Soon after my return, as unfortu-.,
nately for myself as the United States, the Federal
troops were repulsed in an attempt to march upon
Richmond, and terminated a disorderly retreat by
a disgraoef'ul panic. The whole incidents of what

222

MY DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.

I saw were fairly stated by an impartial witness,
who, if anything, was inclined to favour a nation
endeavouring to suppress a rebellion, and who
was by no means impressed, as the results of his
recent tour, with the admiration and respect for
the people of the Confederate States which their
enormous sacrifices, extraordinary gallantry, and
almost unparallelled devotion, have long since ex
torted from him in common with all the world.
The letter in which that account was given came
back to America after the first bitterness and hu
miliation of defeat had passed away, and disap
pointment and alarm had been succeeded by
such a formidable outburst of popular resolve,
that the North forgot everything in the instant
anticipations of a glorious and triumphant re
venge.

Every feeling of the American was hurt — above
all, his vanity and his pride, by the manner in
which the account of the reverse had been receiv
ed in Europe; and men whom I scorned too
deeply to reply to, dexterously took occasion to
direct on my head the full storm of popular indig
nation. Not, indeed, that I had escaped before.
Ere a line from my pen reached America at all —
ere my first letter had crossed the Atlantic to
England — the jealousy and hatred felt for all
things British — for press or principle, or repre
sentative of either — had found expression in
Northern journals ; but that I was prepared for.
I knew well no foreigner had ever penned a line
— least of all, no Englishman — concerning the
United States of North America, their people,
manners, and institutions, who had not been
treated to the abuse which is supposed by their
journalists to mean criticism, no matter what the
justness or moderation of the views expressed,
the sincerity of purpose, and the truthfulness of
the writer. In the South, the press threatened
me with tar and feathers, because I did not see
the beauties of their domestic institutions, and
wrote of it in my letters to England exactly as I
spoke of it to every one who conversed with me
on the subject when I was amongst them ; and
now the Northern papers recommended expul
sion, ducking, riding rails, and other cognate
modes of insuring a moral conviction of error:
endeavoured to intimidate me by threats of duels

or personal castigations ; gratified their malignity
by ludicrous stories of imaginary affronts or an
noyances to which I never was exposed; and
sought to prevent the authorities extending any
protection towards me, and to intimidate officers
from showing me any civilities.

In pursuance of my firm resolution I allowed
the slanders and misrepresentations which poured
from their facile sources for months to pass by
unheeded, and trusted to the calmer sense of the
people, and to the discrimination of those who
thought over the sentiments expressed in my let
ters, to do me justice.

I need not enlarge on the dangers to which I
was exposed. Those who are acquainted with
America, and know the life of the great cities,
will best appreciate the position of a man who
went forth daily in the camps and streets holding
his life in his hand. This expression of egotism
is all I shall ask indulgence for. Nothing could
have induced me to abandon my post or to recoil
before my assailants ; but at last a power I could
not resist struck me down. "When to the press
and populace of the United States, the President
and the Government of "Washington added their
power, resistance would be unwise and impracti
cable. In no camp could I have been received —
in no place useful I went to America to witness
and describe the operations of the great army be
fore Washington in the field, and when I was for
bidden by the proper authorities to do so, my
mission terminated at once.

On the evening of April 4th, as soon as I was
in receipt of the President's last communication,
I telegraphed to New York to engage a pas
sage by the steamer which left on the following
Wednesday. Next day was devoted to packing
up and to taking leave of my friends — English
and American — whose kindnesses I shall remem
ber in my heart of hearts, and the following
Monday I left Washington, of which, after all, 1
shall retain many pleasant memories and keep
souvenirs green for ever. I arrived in New York
late on Tuesday evening, and next day I saw the
shores receding into a dim grey fog, and ere the
night fell was tossing about once more on the
stormy Atlantic, with the head of our good ship
pointing, thank Heaven, towards Europe.

THE END.

CONTENTS.

.Off to

CHAPTER I.

Departure from Cork— The Atlantic in March— Fellow-
passengers— American politics and parties — The Irish
in New York— Approach to New York Page 9

CHAPTER II.

Arrival at New York — Custom house — General impres
sions as to North and South— Street in New York— Ho
tel — Breakfast — American women and men — Visit to
Mr. Bancroft— Street railways 11

CHAPTER HI.

*'St. Patrick's day" in New York — Public dinner — Amer
ican Constitution — General topics of conversation —
Public estimate of the Government — Evening party at
Mons. B 's 14

CHAPTER IV.

Streets and shops in New York— Literature — A funeral —

Dinner at Mr. II 's — Dinner at Mr. Bancroft's —

Political and social features — Literary breakfast; Hee-
nan and Sayers 17

CHAPTER V.

the railway station — Railway carnages— Philadel
phia— Washington— Willard's Hotel — Mr. Seward—
North and South— The "-State Department" at Wash
ington— President Lincoln — Dinner at Mr. Seward's. 19

CHAPTER VI.

A state dinner at the White House — Mrs. Lincoln — The
Cabinet Ministers — A newspaper correspondent — Good
Friday at Washington 23

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. 25

CHAPTER VIII.

New York Press— Rumours as to the Southerners— Visit to
the Smithsonian Institute— Pythons— Evening at Mr.
Seward's— Rough draft of official dispatch to Lord J.
Russell — Estimate of its effect in Europe — The attitude
of Virginia 33

CHAPTER IX.

Dinner at General Scott's— Anecdotes of General Scott's
early life— The startling dispatch— Insecurity of the
-Capital 34

CHAPTER X.

Preparations for war at Charleston — My own departure
for the Southern States— Arrival at Baltimore— Com
mencement 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 35

CHAPTER XI.

Scenes on board an American steamer— The u Merrimac"
— Irish sailors in America — Norfolk — A telegram on
Sunday; news from the seat of war— American "chaff"
and our Jack Tars 37

CHAPTER XII.

Portsmouth— Railway journey through the forest— The
great Dismal Swamp — American newspapers — Cattle
on the line— Negro labour— On through the Pine Forest
—The Confederate flag— Goldsborough ; popular excite
ment— Weldon— Wilmington— The Vigilance Commit
tee 39

CHAPTER XII I.

Sketches round Wilmington— Public opinion— Approach
to Charleston and Fort Sumter— Introduction to Gen
eral Beauregard — Ex-Governor Manning — Conversa

tion on the chances of the war— "King Cotton" anfl
England — Visit to Fort Sumter — Market - place at
Charleston Page 42

CHAPTER XIV.

Southern volunteers — Unpopularity of the press — Charles
ton— Fort Sumter— Morris' Island— Anti-union enthu
siasm—Anecdote of Colonel Wigfall— Interior view of
the fort — North versus South 44

CHAPTER XV.

Slaves, their masters and mistresses— Hotels— Attempted
boat-journey to Fort Moultrie— Excitement at Charles
ton 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 48

CHAPTER XVI.

Charleston; the Market-place— Irishmen at Charleston-
Governor Pickens : his political economy and theories
— Newspaper offices and counting-houses — Rumours as
to the war policy of the South 50

CHAPTER XVII.

Visit to a plantation ; hospitable reception — By steamer to
Georgetown — Description of the town — A country man
sion—Masters and slaves— Slave diet— Humming-birds
— Land irrigation — Negro quarters — Back to George
town 52

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 ... 56

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 pro
pensities of the blacks— A Southern estimate of South
erners 53

CHAPTER XX.

By railway to Savannah — Description of the city — Ru
mours of the last few days— State of affairs at Washing
ton—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 61

CHAPTER XXI.

The river at Savannah— Commodore Tatnall— Fort Pulas-
ki — Want of a fleet to the Southerners — Strong feeling
of the women — Siavery considered in its results — Cot
ton and Georgia — Off for Montgomery — The Bishop of
Georgia— The Bible and Slavery— Macon— Dislike of
United States' gold 63

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 — Reflections on Slavery — Slave
auction — The Legislative Assembly — A u live chattel"
knocked down — Rumours from the North (true and
false) and prospects of war. 65

CHAPTER XXIII.

Proclamation of wai— Jefferson Davis— Intel-view with
the President of the Confederacy — Passport and safe-
conduct—Messrs. Wigfall, Walker, and Benjamin— Pri
vateering and letters of marque — A reception at Jeffer
son Davis's— Dinner at Mr. Benjamin's 69

CHAPTER XXIV.

Mr. Wigfall on the Confederacy— Intended departure from
the South.— Northern apathy and Southern activity—

224:

CONTENTS.

Future prospects of the Union— South Carolina and cot
ton — The theory of slavery — Indifference at New York
— Departure from Montgomery Page 71

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 73

CHAPTER XXVI.

Visit to Forts Gaines and Morgan— War to the knife the
cry of the South— The u State" and the tl States"— Bay
of Mobile— The forts and their inmates— Opinions as to
an attack on Washington — Rumours of actual war. . 7(J

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 77

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Bitters before breakfast— An old Crimean acquaintance —
Earthworks and batteries — Estimate of cannons— Mag
azines — Hospitality — English and American introduc
tions and leave-takings — Fort Pickeus; its interior —
Return towards Mobile — Pursued by a strange sail —
Kunning the blockade— Landing at Mobile 82

CHAPTER XXIX.

Judge Campbell — Dr. Nott — Slavery — Departure for New
Orleans — Down the river — Fear of cruisers — Approach
to New Orleans— Duelling — Streets of New Orleans —
Unhealthiness of the city — Public opinion as to the war
— Happy and contented negroes 87

CHAPTER XXX.

The first blow struck — The St.'Charles hotel— Invasion of
Virginia by the Federals— Death of Colonel Ellsworth-
Evening at Mr. Slidell's — Public comments on the war
— Richmond the capital of the Confederacy — Military
preparations — General society — Jewish element — Visit
to a battle-field of 1815 90

CHAPTER XXXI.

Carrying arms — New Orleans jail — Desperate characters —
Executions — Female maniacs and prisoners — The river
and levee — Climate of New Orleans — Population — Gen
eral distress — Pressure of the blockade— Money — Phi
losophy of abstract rights — The doctrine of state rights
— Theoretical defect in the constitution 94

CHAPTER XXXII.

Up the Mississippi — Free negroes and English policy —
Monotony of the river scenery — Visit to M. Roman —
Slave quarters— A slave dance — Slave children — Negro
hospital — General opinion — Confidence in Jefferson
Davis 97

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Ride through the maize-fields— Sugar plantation; negroes
at work — Use of the lash — Feeling towards France — Si
lence of the country — Negroes and dogs — Theory of
slavery — Physical formation of the negro — The defence
of slavery— The masses for negro souls — Convent of the
Sacra Cceur — Ferry -house — A large landowner 100

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Negroes — Sug.ir-cnne plantations — The negro and cheap
labour— Mortality of blacks and whites — Irish labour in
Louisiana — A sugar-house — Negro children — Want of
education— Negro diet— Negro hospital— Spirits in the
morning — Breakfast — More slaves — Creole planters . 103

CHAPTER XXXV.

War-rumours and military movements — Governor Man
ning's slave plantations — Fortunes made by slave labour
— Frogs for the table — Cotton and sugar — A thunder
storm 107

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Visit to Mr. M'Call's plantation — Irish and Spaniards —
The planter — A Southern sporting man — The Creoles —
Leave Houmas — Donaldsonville — Description of the city
X — Baton Rouge— Steamer to Natchez— Southern feeling ;
faith in Jefferson Davis — Rise and progress of prosperi
ty for the planters— Ultimate issue of the war to both
North and South 108

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Down the Mississippi — Hotel at Vicksburg — Dinner —
^ Public meeting — News of the progress of the war — Slav-

Cam

ery and England— Jackson— Governor Pettus— Insecur
ity of life — Strong Southern enthusiasm — Troops bound
for the North— Approach to Memphis— Slaves for sale-
Memphis— General Pillow Page 112

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

ip Randolph — Cannon practice — Volunteers " Dixie"

Forced return from the South — Apathy of the North-
General retrospect of politics— Energy and earnestness
of the South — Fire-arms — Position of Great Britain to
wards the belligerents— Feeling towards the Old Coun
try 117

< CHAPTER XXXIX.

Heavy Bill-^Railway travelling— Introductions— Assassi
nations — Tennessee — "• Corinth" — u Tory" — u Hum-
bolt" — "The Confederate camp" — Return Northwards
—Columbus— Cairo— The slavery question— Prospects
of the war — Coarse journalism 122

CHAPTER XL.

Camp at Cairo— The North and the South in respect to
Europe — Political reflections — Mr. Colonel Oglesby — My
speech — Northern and Southern soldiers compared —
American country walks — Recklessness of life — Want
of cavalry — Emeute in the camp — Pefect* of army med
ical department — Horrors of war — Bad discipline. . 127

v CHAPTER XLI.

Impending battle — By railway to Chicago — Northern en'
lightenment — Mound City — u Cotton is King" — Land in
the States — Dead level of American society — Return into
the Union — Americanhomes — Across the prairie — White
labourers — New pillager — Lake Michigan 130

CHAPTER XLII.

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 — American ingratitude — Apathy in voluntewing
— Colonel Turchin's camp 133

CHAPTER XLIII.

Niagara — Impression of the Falls — Battle scenes in the
neighbourhood — A village of Indians — General Scott —
Hostile movements on both sides — The Hudson — Mili
tary school at West Point — Return to New York — Al
tered appearance of the city — Misery and suffering —
Altered state of public opinion as to the Union and to
wards Great Britain 1^5

CHAPTER XLIV.

Departure for Washington — A "servant" — The American
Press on the War— Military aspect of the States— Phil
adelphia — Baltimore — Washington — Lord Lyons— Mr.
Sumner — Irritation against Great Britain — u Independ
ence" day — Meeting of Congress — General state of af
fairs 140

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— Interior of Congress — The President's message
— Speeches in Congress — Lord Lyons — General M'Dow-
ell — Low standard in the army — Accident to the u Stars
and Stripes" — A street row — Mr. Bigelow — Mr. N. P.

Willis..: 143

CHAPTER XLVI.

Arlington Heights and the Potomac — Washington — The
Federal camp— General M 'Do well— Flying rumours-
Newspaper correspondents — General Fremont — Silenc
ing the Press and Telegraph— A Loan Bill— Interview
with Mr. Cameron— Newspaper criticism on Lord Lyons
—Rumours about M'Clelian— The Northern army as re
ported and as it is — General M'Clellan 147

CHAPTER XLVII.

Fortress Monroe— General Butler— Hospital accommoda
tion — Wounded soldiers — Aristocratic pedigrees — A
great gun — Newport News — Fraudulent contractors —
General Butler — Artillery practice — Contraband ne
groes—Confederate lines— Tombs of Americ'Srnoyulists
—Troops and contractors— Duryea's New York Zouaves
— Military calculations — A voyage by steamer to An-^

napolis 1"

CHAPTER XLVIII.

The " State House" at Annapolis— Washington— General
Scott's quarters — Want of a staff— Rival camps — De
mand for horses — Popular excitement — Lord Lyons —
General McDowell's movements— Retreat from Is
Court-house— General Scott's quarters— General Mans
field—Battle of Bull's Run I5'

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