EXPERIENCES AS JOURNALIST DURING THE CIVIL WAR
My obligations to Wendell Phillips are mixed, and one of them was an
introduction to _The Tribune_. In the autumn of 1861 I wanted two
things: a holiday, and a chance to see something of the war and the
negro question at short range. At that time, Mr. Charles A. Dana was
managing editor of _The Tribune_, with Mr. Sydney Howard Gay as his
first lieutenant. Phillips gave me a letter to Mr. Gay, the result
of which was that Mr. Dana asked me to go to South Carolina for _The
Tribune_.
A word about Mr. Dana. He had the reputation at that time of being
what the cabman called that Mr. John Forster who was, among other
things, the friend and biographer of Dickens--"a harbitrary gent." I
suppose Mr. Dana was arbitrary; in the sense that every commanding
officer must be arbitrary. But my relations with him, or my service
under him, lasted some months, during the whole of which period I
found him considerate and kindly. He liked, I think, to assign a man
to duty and judge him by the result; which meant that the man was
left free to work out his {130} own salvation; or damnation, as the
case might be.
I was, of course, perfectly new to the business of journalism and,
equally of course, made many mistakes. But Mr. Dana was not the kind
of manager who fastened on this mistake or that as an occasion for
chastising the offender. He judged a man's work as a whole. In the
office, I am told, he sometimes thought it needful to speak plainly
in order to enforce a steady discipline. He had been known to walk
into the room of one of the departmental editors, in full view and
hearing of the whole staff, and remark: "Mr. X, you were
disgracefully beaten this morning," in the tone in which he might
have said it was a fine day. But the next morning Mr. X was not
beaten; nor the next.
Very possibly, between me and Mr. Dana's wrath, if I roused it, stood
Mr. Gay; a man of soft manners and heart. I cannot remember that,
directly or indirectly, any reprimand ever came to me from Mr. Dana.
From Mr. Greeley there came more than one; all well deserved. With
the business of managing the paper Mr. Greeley did not much concern
himself. With the results he sometimes did, and when _The Tribune_
did not contain what he thought it ought to contain, he was apt to
make remarks on the omission. While I was at Port Royal in South
Carolina there was a skirmish at Williamston in North Carolina, a
hundred miles away. Mr. Greeley thought I ought to have been at
Williamston. Very likely I ought. {131} But Lord Curzon had not at
that time announced his memorable definition of enterprising
journalism; "an intelligent anticipation of events that never occur."
That epigram, delivered in the House of Commons, may be supplemented
by an axiom. The business of a war correspondent is to be, not where
he is ordered, but where he is wanted.
In the early days of the Civil War--or, for that matter, in the late
days--the American Press had little of the authority it has since
acquired. The heads of great departments of Government still held
themselves responsible primarily to the President. Berths on
battleships were not then at the disposal of the first journalists
who wanted one. When I asked Commodore Steadman of the _Bienville_
to take me to Port Royal he politely told me it was against the naval
regulations to allow a civilian on board a ship of war. When I asked
him who had a dispensing power in such matters, he said: "If the
Secretary of the Navy should order me to receive you as a guest, I
should do so with pleasure." I thanked him and with the courage of
which ignorance is the mother, telegraphed Mr. Welles. No answer. I
telegraphed again, saying it was the wish of Mr. Dana that I should
go to South Carolina on the _Bienville_. The effect of Mr. Dana's
name was magical, and this time an answer came; that Commodore
Steadman had orders to give me a berth. I suppose the journalists of
to-day will hardly understand how there could have been a difficulty.
But there were to be many difficulties. Commodore {132} Steadman was
as good as his word, and better; and a kind host.
Admiral Dupont had captured the Port Royal forts by the time I
arrived. A finer example of the old type of naval officer than
Admiral Dupont our naval service never had. Captain Raymond Rodgers
was his flag captain; another example not less fine. General W. T.
Sherman was in command of the land forces. The winter passed slowly
away. There was not much to do except study the negro question;
which was perhaps more attractive when studied at a distance.
General Butler, bringing the mind of a lawyer to bear on the problems
of war, and desiring a legal excuse for annexing the personal
property of the enemy had announced that the negroes were "contraband
of war." For him, the maxim that laws are silent amid arms did not
hold good. He liked to make laws the servant of arms. The negroes
naturally came soon to be known as contrabands. There were some
months during which they were called hardly anything else. I called
them so in my letters. It was characteristic of Phillips that, after
a time, he wrote to me to suggest that Butler's phrase had done its
work and that the negro was a negro: a man entitled to freedom on
other grounds.
But it was long before the word passed out of use. Butler had chosen
the psychological moment. The "contrabands"--with Mr. Phillips's
permission--who crowded the camps were mostly from the cotton and
rice plantations of South Carolina and Georgia. If you were not
already {133} a convinced Abolitionist, they were not likely to
convert you. But it was becoming daily clearer that the negro had a
military value; not at Port Royal, however, where he was only a
burden. It was not an eventful winter at Port Royal. There were
expeditions by land and sea, and there was the taking of Fort
Pulaski, which I saw, but I was glad to return to New York in the
spring; and then to join General Frémont in the Shenandoah Valley.
The name of that commander was still one of promise. Except the
name, there was not much else for the purposes of war, but he had a
charm of manner and a touch of romance and a staff on which one or
two foreign adventurers had places and did weird things. "General"
Cluseret was one; an impostor who afterward found a congenial home in
the Paris Commune, with other impostors. That campaign came to
nought, and when General Pope, in July, 1862, was put in command of
the Army of Virginia, I found my way to the headquarters of that
redoubtable warrior.
With him, in command of the Third Army Corps, was General McDowell.
I don't know why one's memory chooses trivialities as proper objects
of its activity, but it sometimes does. One of the most vivid among
the impressions of those days is the stout figure of General McDowell
on his horse, which he sat ill, his uniform awry, his sword pushed
behind him as far as it would go, his strapless trousers ending
abruptly halfway between knee and ankle; then a space of bare flesh,
{134} and then some inches of white stocking, and then a shoe. But
he had military gifts if not a military air. He was talking with
General Pope, whose unhappy proclamation about his headquarters in
the saddle had already been issued. Unlike McDowell, Pope looked a
better soldier than he was. His six weeks' generalship on the
Rappahannock ended with the Second Bull Run, which there was now no
Billy Russell to describe in words that blistered yet were honest
words; and with Chantilly. The West suited Pope better than the
East, and to the West he returned. In these six weeks he had made
nothing but mistakes and achieved only defeats.
Personally, General Pope was pleasant to deal with. It was while he
commanded the Army of Virginia that Mr. Stanton, then Secretary of
War, or perhaps General Halleck, issued orders for the expulsion of
all correspondents from the armies in the field. General Pope sent
for me and told me of the order. Impressed at that time with the
sternness of War Office rule, I answered meekly that I supposed I
must go. Said General Pope, "This is not an official interview. I
imagine you needn't go till you get the order." A battle was thought
to be imminent; any respite was welcome. I thanked him, went back to
my tent, took what I most needed, and rode off to an outpost where I
had a friend. The official notification may have been sent to my
tent but never reached me. And so it happened that I saw such
fighting as there was on the Rappahannock, and at the Second {135}
Bull Run, better called Manassas. Interesting to a student of war;
not inspiriting to a patriot; and not now to be described even in the
briefest way. My only aim is to give the reader of to-day some faint
notion of what a war correspondent's life in those days was like.
One incident I may note, as an example of what may happen to a
general who neglects the most elementary rules and precautions of
war. At the end of a day's march, at sundown but the heavens still
light, General Pope bethought himself that he should like to see what
the country ahead of him looked like. With his staff and a bodyguard
of some sixty sabres he rode up a low hill with a broad crest, open
ground about it for a hundred yards, and beyond that in front a
thick, far-spreading forest line. General Pope and his staff
dismounted. The cavalry were ordered to dismount and loosen their
saddle-girths. Just as this operation had been completed there came
from the wood beyond the open ground a rifle volley. As we stood
between the sunset and the enemy we were a pretty fair target. There
was no time for orders. Everybody scrambled into his saddle as best
he could and away we went.
But the firing woke up the advance guard of our army, and they also
began firing. It soon appeared that General Pope had unwittingly
passed outside his own lines, so that, as we rode away from the fire
of the Rebels we rode into the fire of our own troops. It was hot
enough but luckily did not last long. The hill partly protected
{136} us from the sharpshooters in grey, and our fire was silenced
after a moment. But the horses were well frightened. It was
impossible to pull up. We scattered and the horses went on for a
mile or so. I never before so much respected the intelligence of
that animal. There was nothing to do but sit down in the saddle, but
the horses never made a mistake at full speed over an unknown
country, stiff with fences and brooks, and nobody came to grief; nor,
which seems more wonderful, was anybody hit by the bullets. A good
many remarks were made which hit General Pope.
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