filling the air, and shaking the solid earth till it trembled beneath
our horses' feet, as if upheaved by a volcano. Nearer and nearer the
sound came, till it seemed that all the legions of darkness were
unloosed in the forest, and were mowing down the great pines as the
mower mows the grass with big scythe. Then an awful, sweeping crash
thundered directly at our backs, and turning round, as if to face a
foe, my horse, who had borne the roar and the blinding flash till then,
unmoved, paralyzed with dread, and panting for breath, sunk to the
ground; while close at my side the Colonel, standing erect in his
stirrups, his head uncovered to the pouring sky, cried out:
'THANK GOD, WE ARE SAVED!'
There--not three hundred yards in our rear, had passed the
TORNADO--uprooting trees, prostrating dwellings, and sending many a soul
to its last account, but sparing us for another day! For thirty miles
through the forest it had mowed a swath of two hundred feet, then moved
on to stir the ocean to its briny depths.
With a full heart, I remounted, and turning my horse, pressed on in the
rain. We said not a word till a friendly opening pointed the way to a
planter's dwelling. Then calling to me to follow, the Colonel dashed up
the by-path which led to the mansion, and in five minutes we were
warming our chilled limbs before the cheerful fire that roared and
crackled on its broad hearth-stone.
The house was a large, old-fashioned frame building, square as a
packing-box, and surrounded, as all country dwellings at the South are,
by a broad, open piazza. Our summons was answered by its owner, a
well-to-do, substantial, middle-aged planter, wearing the ordinary
homespun of the district, but evidently of a station in life much above
the common 'corn-crackers' I had seen at the country meeting-house. The
Colonel was an acquaintance, and greeting us with great cordiality, our
host led the way directly to the sitting-room. There we found a bright,
blazing fire, and a pair of bright, blazing eyes, the latter belonging
to a blithesome young woman of about twenty, with a cheery face, and a
half-rustic, half-cultivated air, whom our new friend introduced to us
as his wife.
'I regret not having had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. S---- before, but
am very happy to meet her now,' said the Colonel, with all the
well-bred, gentlemanly ease that distinguished him.
'The pleasure is mutual, Colonel J----,' replied the lady, 'but thirty
miles in this wild country should not have made a neighbor so distant as
you have been.'
'Business, madam, is at fault, as your husband knows. I have much to do;
and besides, all my connections are in the other direction--with
Charleston.'
'It's a fact, Sally, the Colonel is the d----st busy man in these parts.
Not content with a big plantation and three hundred niggers, he looks
after all South-Carolina, and the rest of creation to boot,' said our
host.
'Tom will have his joke, madam, but he's not far from the truth.'
Seeing we were dripping wet, the lady offered us a change of clothing,
and retiring to a chamber, we each appropriated a suit belonging to our
host, giving our own to a servant to be dried.
Arrayed in the fresh apparel, we soon rejoined our friends in the
sitting-room. The new garments fitted the Colonel tolerably well, but
though none too long, they were a world too wide for me, and, as my wet
hair hung in smooth, flat folds down my cheeks, and my limp shirt-collar
fell over my linsey coat, I looked for all the world like a cross
between a theatrical Aminadab Sleek and Sir John Falstaff, with the
stuffing omitted. When our hostess caught sight of me in this new garb,
she rubbed her hands together in great glee, and, springing to her feet,
gave vent to a perfect storm of laughter--jerking out between the
explosions:
'Why--you--you--look jest like--a scare-crow.'
There was no mistaking that hearty, hoidenish manner; and seizing both
of her hands in mine, I shouted: 'I've found you out--you're a
'country-woman' of mine--a clear-blooded Yankee!'
'What! _you_ a Yankee!' she exclaimed, still laughing, 'and here with
this horrid 'seceshener,' as they call him.'
'True as preachin', ma'am,' I replied, adopting the drawl--'all the way
from Down East, and Union, tu, stiff as buckram.'
'Du tell!' she exclaimed, swinging my hands together as she held them in
hers. 'If I warn't hitched to this ere feller, I'd give ye a smack right
on the spot. I'm _so_ glad to see ye.'
'Do it, Sally--never mind _me_,' cried her husband, joining heartily in
the merriment.
Seizing the collar of my coat with both hands, she drew my face down
till my lips almost touched hers, (I was preparing to blush, and the
Colonel shouted, 'Come, come, I shall tell his wife,') but then, turning
quickly on her heel, she threw herself into a chair, exclaiming, 'I
wouldn't mind, but the _old man would be jealous;_' and adding to the
Colonel, 'You needn't be troubled, sir; no Yankee girl will kiss _you_
till you change your politics.'
'Give me that inducement, and I'll change them on the spot,' said the
Colonel.
'No, no, Dave, 'twouldn't do,' replied the planter, 'the conversion
wouldn't be genuwine--besides, such things arn't proper, except with
blood-relations--and all the Yankees, you know, are first-cousins.'
The conversation then subsided into a more placid mood, but lost none of
its genial good-humor. Refreshments were soon set before us, and while
partaking of them I gathered from our hostess that she was a Vermont
country-girl, who, some three years before, had been induced by liberal
pay, to come South as a teacher. A sister accompanied her, who, about a
year after their arrival, had married a neighboring planter. Wishing to
be near the sister, our hostess had also married and settled down for
life in that wild region. 'I like the country very well,' she added;
'it's a great sight easier living here than in Vermont; but I do hate
these lazy, shiftless, good-for-nothing niggers; they are _so_ slow, and
_so_ careless, and _so_ dirty, that I sometimes think they will worry
the very life out of me. I du believe I'm the hardest mistress in all
the district.'
I learned from her that a majority of the teachers at the South are from
the North, and principally, too, from New-England. Teaching is a very
laborious employment there, far more so than with us, for the
Southerners have no methods like ours, and the same teacher usually has
to hear lessons in branches all the way from Greek and Latin to the
simple A B C. The South has no system of public instruction; no common
schools; no means of placing within the reach of the sons and daughters
of the poor even the elements of knowledge. While the children of the
wealthy are most carefully educated, it is the policy of the ruling
class to keep the great mass of the people in ignorance; and so long as
this policy continues, so long will that section be as far behind the
North as it now is in all that constitutes the elements of prosperity
and true greatness.
The afternoon wore rapidly and pleasantly away in the genial society of
our wayside friends. Politics were discussed, (our host was a Union
man,) the prospects of the turpentine crop talked over, the recent news
canvassed, the usual neighborly topics touched upon, and--I hesitate to
confess it--a considerable quantity of corn-whisky disposed of, before
the Colonel discovered, all at once, that it was six o'clock, and we
were still seventeen miles from the railway station. Arraying ourselves
again in our dried garments, we bade a hasty but regretful 'good-by' to
our hospitable entertainers, and once more took to the road.
The storm had cleared away, but the ground was heavy with the recent
rain, and our horses were sadly jaded with the ride of the morning. We
therefore gave them the reins, and as they jogged on at their leisure,
it was ten o'clock at night before we reached the little hamlet of
W----Station, in the State of North-Carolina.
A large hotel, or station-house, and about a dozen log-shanties made up
the village. Two of these structures were negro-cabins; two were small
groceries, in which the vilest alcoholic compounds were sold at a bit
(ten cents) a glass; one was a lawyer's office, in which was the
post-office, and a justice's court, where, once a month, the small
offenders of the vicinity 'settled up their accounts;' one was a
tailoring and clothing establishment, where breeches were patched at a
dime a stitch, and payment taken in tar and turpentine; and the rest
were private dwellings of one apartment, occupied by the grocers, the
tailor, the switch-tender, the post-master, and the negro _attachés_ of
the railroad. The church and the school-house--the first buildings to go
up in a Northern village, I have omitted to enumerate, because--they
were not there.
One of the natives told me that the lawyer was a 'stuck-up critter;' 'he
don't live; he don't--he puts-up at th' hotel.' And the hotel! Would
Shakspeare, had he known of it, have written of taking one's _ease_ at
his inn? It was a long, framed building, two stories in hight, with a
piazza extending across its side, and a front door crowded as closely
into one corner as the width of the joist would permit. Under the
piazza, ranged along the wall, was a low bench, occupied by about forty
tin wash-basins and water-pails, with coarse, dirty crash towels
suspended on rollers above them. By the side of each of these towels
hung a comb and a brush, to which a lock of every body's hair was
clinging, forming in the total a stock sufficient to establish any
barber in the wig business.
It was, as I have said, ten o'clock when we reached the station.
Throwing the bridles of our horses over the hitching-posts at the door,
we at once made our way to the bar-room. That apartment, which was in
the rear of the building, and communicated with by a long, narrow
passage, was filled almost to suffocation, when we entered, by a cloud
of tobacco-smoke, the fumes of bad whisky, and a crowd of drunken
chivalry, through whom the Colonel with great difficulty elbowed his way
to the counter, where 'mine host' and two assistants were dispensing
'liquid death,' at the rate of ten cents a glass, and of ten glasses a
minute.
'Hello, Colonel! how ar' ye?' cried the red-faced liquor-vender, as he
caught sight of my companion, and--relinquishing his lucrative
employment for a moment--took the Colonel's hand.
'Quite well, thank you, Miles,' said the Colonel, with a certain
patronizing air, 'have you seen my man Moye?'
'Moye, no! What's up with him?'
'He's run away with my horse, Firefly--I thought he would have made for
this station. At what time does the next train go up?'
'Wal, it's due half arter 'leven, but 'taint gin'rally 'long till nigh
one.'
The Colonel was turning to join me at the door, when a well-dressed
young man of very unsteady movements, who was filling a glass at the
counter, and staring at him with a sort of dreamy amazement, stammered
out: 'Moye--run--run a--way, zir! that--k--kant be--by G--d. I
know--him, zir--he's a--a friend of mine, and--I'm--I'm d--d if he an't
hon--honest.'
'About as honest as the Yankees run,' replied the Colonel: 'he's a d--d
thief, sir!'
'Look here--here, zir--don't--don't you--you zay any--thing 'gainst--the
Yankees. D--d if--if I an't--one of 'em mezelf--zir,' said the fellow
staggering toward the Colonel.
'_I_ don't care _what_, you are; you're drunk.'
'You lie--you--you d--d 'ris--'ristocrat--take that,' was the reply, and
the inebriated gentleman aimed a blow, with all his unsteady might, at
the Colonel's face.
The South-Carolinian stepped quickly aside, and dexterously threw his
foot before the other, who--his blow not meeting the expected
resistance--was unable to recover himself, and fell headlong to the
floor. The Colonel turned on his heel, and was walking quietly away,
when the sharp report of a pistol sounded through the apartment, and a
ball tore through the top of his boot, and lodged in the wall within
two feet of where I was standing. With a spring, quick and sure as the
tiger's, the Colonel was on the drunken man. Wrenching away the weapon,
he seized the fellow by the necktie, and drawing him up to nearly his
full hight, dashed him at one throw to the other side of the room. Then
raising the revolver he coolly leveled it to fire.
But a dozen strong men were on him. The pistol was out of his hand, and
his arms were pinioned in an instant; while cries of 'Fair play, sir!'
'He's drunk!' 'Don't hit a man when he's down,' and other like
exclamations, came from all sides.
'Give _me_ fair play, you d--d North-Carolina hounds,' cried the
Colonel, struggling violently to get away, 'and I'll fight the whole
posse of you.'
'One's 'nuff for _you_, ye d--d fire-eatin' 'ristocrat,' said a long,
lean, bushy-haired, be-whiskered individual who was standing near the
counter: 'ef ye wan't ter fight, _I'll_ 'tend to yer case to onst. Let
him go, boys,' he continued as he stepped toward the Colonel, and parted
the crowd that had gathered around him: 'give him the shootin'-iron, and
let's see ef he'll take a man thet's sober.'
I saw serious trouble was impending, and stepping forward, I said to the
last speaker: 'My friend, you have no quarrel with this gentleman. He
has treated that man only as you would have done.'
'P'raps thet's so; but he's a d--d hound of a Seseshener thet's draggin'
us all to h--l; it'll do th' cuntry good to git quit of one on 'em.'
'Whatever his politics are, he's a gentleman, sir, and has done you no
harm--let me beg of you to let him alone.'
'Don't beg any thing for me, Mr. K----' growled the Colonel through his
barred teeth, 'I'll fight the d--d corn-cracker, and his whole race, at
once.'
'No you won't, my friend. For the sake of those at home you won't,' I
said, as I took him by the arm, and partly led, partly forced, him
toward the door.
'And who in h--l ar ye?' asked the 'corn-cracker,' planting himself
squarely in my way.
'I'm on the same side of politics with you, Union to the core!' I
replied.
'Ye ar! Union! Then giv us yer fist,' said he, grasping me by the hand,
'by----it does a feller good to see a man dressed in yer cloes thet
haint 'fraid ter say he's Union, so close to South-Car'lina, tu, as this
ar! Come, hev a drink: come, boys--all round--let's liquor!'
'Excuse me now, my dear fellow--some other time I'll be glad to join
you.'
'Jest as ye say, but thar's my fist, enyhow.'
He gave me another hearty shake of the hand, and the crowd parting, I
made my way with the Colonel out of the room. We were followed by Miles,
the landlord, who, when we had reached the front of the entrance-way,
said: 'I'm right sorry for this row, gentlemen; but th' boys will hev a
time when they git together.'
'Oh! never mind,' said the Colonel, who had recovered his coolness; 'but
why are all these people here?'
'Thar's a barbecue cumin' off to-morrer on the camp-ground, and the
house is cram full.'
'Is that so?' said the Colonel, then turning to me he added, 'Moye has
taken the railroad somewhere else; I must get to a telegraph-office at
once, to head him off. The nearest one is Wilmington. With all these
rowdies here, it will not do to leave the horses alone--will you stay
and keep an eye on them over to-morrow?'
'Yes, I will, cheerfully.'
'Thar's a mighty hard set round har now, Cunnel,' said the landlord;
'and the most peaceable git inter scrapes ef they han't no friends.
Hadn't ye better show the gentleman some of your'n, 'fore you go?'
'Yes, yes, I didn't think of that. Who is here?'
'Wal, thar's Cunnel Taylor, Bill Barnes, Sam Heddleson, Jo' Shackelford.
Andy Jones, Rob Brown, and lots of others.'
'Where's Andy Jones?'
'Reckon he's turned in; I'll see.' As the landlord opened a door which
led from the hall, the Colonel said to me: 'Andy is a Union man, but
he'd fight to the death for me.'
'Sal!' called out the hotel-keeper.
'Yas, massa, I'se har,' was the answer from a slatternly woman, awfully
black in the face, who soon thrust her head from the door.
'Is Andy Jones har?' asked Miles.
'Yas, massa, he'm turned in up thar on de table.'
We followed the landlord into the apartment. It was the dining-room of
the hotel, and by the dim light which came from a smoky fire on the
hearth, I saw it contained about a hundred people, who, wrapped in
blankets, bed-quilts and traveling-shawls, and disposed in all
conceivable attitudes, were scattered about on the hard floor and
tables, sleeping soundly. The room was a long, low apartment--extending
across the whole front of the house--and had a wretched, squalid look.
The fire, which was tended by the negro-woman, (she had spread a blanket
on the floor, and was keeping a drowsy watch over it for the night,) had
been recently replenished with green wood, and was throwing out thick
volumes of black smoke, which, mixing with the effluvia from the lungs
of a hundred sleepers made up an atmosphere next to impossible to
breathe. Not a window was open, and not an aperture for ventilation
could be seen!
Carefully avoiding the arms and legs of the recumbent chivalry, we
picked our way, guided by the negro-girl, to the corner of the room
where the Unionist was sleeping. Shaking him briskly by the shoulder,
the Colonel called out: 'Andy! Andy! wake up!'
'What--what the d----l is the matter?' stammered out the sleeper,
gradually opening his eyes, and raising himself on one elbow, 'Lord
bless you, Cunnel, is thet you? what in----brought _you_ har?'
'Business, Andy. Come, get up, I want to see you, and I can't talk
here.'
The North-Carolinian slowly rose, and throwing his blanket over his
shoulders, followed us from the room. When we had reached the open air
the Colonel introduced me to his friend, who expressed surprise, and a
great deal of pleasure, at meeting a Northern Union man in the Colonel's
company.
'Look after our horses, now, Miles; Andy and I want to talk,' said the
planter to the landlord, with about as little ceremony as he would have
shown to a negro.
I thought the white man did not exactly relish the Colonel's manner, but
saying: 'All right, all right, sir,' he took himself away.
The night was raw and cold, but as all the rooms of the hotel were
occupied, either by sleepers or carousers, we had no other alternative
than to hold our conference in the open-air. Near the railway-track a
light-wood fire was blazing, and, obeying the promptings of the frosty
atmosphere, we made our way to it. Lying on the ground around it,
divested of all clothing except a pair of linsey trowsers and a flannel
shirt, and with their naked feet close to its blaze--roasting at one
extremity, and freezing at the other--were several blacks, the
switch-tenders and woodmen of the station--fast asleep. How human beings
could sleep in such circumstances seemed a marvel, but further
observation convinced me that the Southern negro has a natural aptitude
for that exercise, and will, indeed, bear more exposure than any other
living thing. Nature in giving him such powers of endurance, seems to
have specially fitted him for the life of hardship and privation to
which he is born.
The fire-light enabled me to scan the appearance of my new acquaintance.
He was rather above the medium height, squarely and somewhat stoutly
built, and had an easy and self-possessed, though rough and unpolished
manner. His face, or so much of it as was visible from underneath a
thick mass of reddish gray hair, denoted a firm, decided character; but
there was a manly, open, honest expression about it that won your
confidence in a moment. He wore a slouched hat and a suit of the
ordinary 'sheep's-gray,' cut in the 'sack' fashion, and hanging loosely
about him. He seemed a man who had made his own way in the world, and I
subsequently learned that appearances did not belie him. The son of a
'poor white' man, with scarcely the first rudiments of book-education,
he had, by sterling worth, natural ability, and great force of
character, accumulated a handsome property, and acquired a leading
position in his adopted district. Though on 'the wrong side of
politics,' his personal popularity was so great that for several
successive years he had been elected to represent his county in the
State Legislature. The Colonel, though opposed to him in politics--and
party feeling at the South runs so high that political opponents are
seldom personal friends--had, in the early part of his career, aided him
by his indorsements; and Andy had not forgotten the service. It was easy
to see that while two men could not be more unlike in character and
appearance than my host and the North-Carolinian, they were warm and
intimate friends.
'So, Moye has been raisin h--l gin'rally, Cunnel,' said my new
acquaintance after a time. 'I'm not surprised. I never did b'lieve in
Yankee nigger-drivers--sumhow it's agin natur for a Northern man to go
Southern principles quite so strong as Moye did.'
'Which route do you think he has taken?' asked the Colonel.
'Wal, I reckon arter he tuk to the run, he made fur the mountings. He
know'd you'd head him on the traveled routes; so he's put, I think, fur
the Missusippe, where he'll sell the horse and make North.'
'I'll follow him,' said the Colonel, 'to the ends of the earth. If it
costs me five thousand dollars, I'll see him hung.'
'Wal,' replied Andy, laughing, 'if he's gone North, you'll need a
extradition treaty to kotch him. South-Car'lina, I b'lieve, has set up
fur a furrin country.'
'That's true,' said the Colonel, also laughing, 'she's 'furrin' to the
Yankees, but not to the old North State.'
'D----d if she han't,' replied the North-Carolinian, 'and now she's got
out on our company, I swear she must keep out. We'd as soon think of
goin' to h--l in summer time, as of joining partnership with her.
Cunnel, you're the only decent man in the State--d----d if you
han't--and your politics are a'most bad 'nuff to spile a township. It
allers seemed sort o' queer to me, thet a man with such a mighty good
heart as your'n could be so short in the way of brains.'
'Well, you're complimentary,' replied the Colonel, with the utmost good
nature, 'but let's drop politics; we never could agree, you know. What
shall I do about Moye?'
'Go to Wilmington, and telegraph all creation: wait a day to har, then
if you don't har, go home, hire a native overseer, and let Moye go to
the d---l. Ef it'll du you any good, I'll go to Wilmington with you,
though I did mean to give you secesheners a little h--l here to-morrer.'
'No, Andy, I'll go alone. 'Twouldn't be patriotic to take you away from
the barbecue. You'd 'spile' if you couldn't let off some gas soon.'
'I du b'lieve I shud. Howsumdever, thar's nary a thing I wouldn't do for
you--you knows thet?'
'Yes, I do, and I wish you'd keep an eye on my Yankee friend here, and
see he don't get into trouble with any of the boys--there'll be a hard
set 'round, I reckon.'
'Wal, I will,' said Andy, 'but all he's to du is--keep mouth shet.'
'That seems easy enough,' I replied, laughing.
A desultory conversation followed for about an hour, when the
steam-whistle sounded, and the up-train arrived. The Colonel got on
board, and bidding us 'good-night,' went on to Wilmington. Andy then
proposed we should look up sleeping accommodations. It was useless to
seek quarters at the hotel, but an empty car was on the turn-out, and
bribing one of the negroes, we got access to it, and were soon stretched
at full length on two of its hard-bottomed seats.
* * * * *
The camp-ground was about a mile from the station, and pleasantly
situated in a grove, near a stream of water. It was in frequent use by
the camp-meetings of the Methodist denomination, which sect, at the
South, is partial to these rural religious gatherings. Scattered over
it, with an effort at regularity, were about forty small but neat log
cottages, thatched with the long leaves of the turpentine-pine, and
chinked with branches of the same tree. Each of these houses was floored
with leaves or straw, and large enough to afford sleeping accommodations
for about ten person, provided they spread their bedding on the ground,
and lay tolerably close together. Interspersed among the cabins were
about a dozen canvas tents, which evidently had been erected for this
especial occasion.