NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE WAR.
WE were detained, by orders, for a little time in New Orleans, and the
General was enthusiastic over the city. All day we strolled through the
streets, visiting the French quarter, contrasting the foreign
shopkeepers--who were never too hurried to be polite--with our brusque,
business-like Northern clerk; dined in the charming French restaurants,
where we saw eating made a fine art. The sea-food was then new to me,
and I hovered over the crabs, lobsters and shrimps, but remember how
amused the General was by my quick retreat from a huge live green
turtle, whose locomotion was suspended by his being turned upon his
back. He was unconsciously bearing his own epitaph fastened upon his
shell: "I will be served up for dinner at 5 P. M." We of course spent
hours, even matutinal hours, at the market, and the General drank so
much coffee that the old mammy who served him said many a "Mon Dieu!" in
surprise at his capacity, and volubly described in French to her
neighbors what marvels a Yankee man could do in coffee-sipping. For
years after, when very good coffee was praised, or even Eliza's strongly
commended, his _ne plus ultra_ was, "Almost equal to the French market."
We here learned what artistic effects could be produced with prosaic
carrots, beets, onions and turnips. The General looked with wonder upon
the leisurely creole grandee who came to order his own dinner. After his
epicurean selection he showed the interest and skill that a Northern man
might in the buying of a picture or a horse, when the servant bearing
the basket was entrusted with what was to be enjoyed at night. We had
never known men that took time to market, except as our hurried Northern
fathers of families sometimes made sudden raids upon the butcher, on the
way to business, and called off an order as they ran for a car.
The wide-terraced Canal Street, with its throng of leisurely
promenaders, was our daily resort. The stands of Parma violets on the
street corners perfumed the whole block, and the war seemed not even to
have cast a cloud over the first foreign pleasure-loving people we had
seen. The General was so pleased with the picturesque costumes of the
servants that Eliza was put into a turban at his entreaty. In vain we
tried for a glimpse of the creole beauties. The duenna that guarded them
in their rare promenades, as they glided by, wearing gracefully the lace
mantilla, bonnetless, and shaded by a French parasol, whisked the pretty
things out of sight, quick as we were to discover and respectfully
follow them. The effects of General Butler's reign were still visible in
the marvelous cleanliness of the city. We drove on the shell road, spent
hours in the horse-cars, went to the theatres, and even penetrated the
rooms of the most exclusive milliners, for General Custer liked the
shops as much as I did. Indeed, we had a grand play-day, and were not in
the least troubled at our detention.
General Scott was then in our hotel, about to set out for the North. He
remembered Lieutenant Custer, who had reported to him in 1861, and was
the bearer of despatches sent by him to the front, and he congratulated
my husband on his career in terms that, coming from such a veteran, made
his boy-heart leap for joy. General Scott was then very infirm, and,
expressing a wish to see me, with old-time gallantry begged my husband
to explain to me that he would be compelled to claim the privilege of
sitting. But it was too much for his etiquettical instincts, and, weak
as he was, he feebly drew his tall form to a half-standing position,
leaning against the lounge as I entered. Pictures of General Scott, in
my father's home, belonged to my earliest recollections. He was a
colossal figure on a fiery steed, whose prancing forefeet never touched
the earth. The Mexican War had hung a halo about him, and my childish
explanation of the clouds of dust that the artist sought to represent
was the smoke of battle, in which I supposed the hero lived perpetually.
And now this decrepit, tottering man--I was almost sorry to have seen
him at all, except for the praise that he bestowed upon my husband,
which, coming from so old a soldier, I deeply appreciated.
General Sheridan had assumed command of the Department of the
Mississippi, and the Government had hired a beautiful mansion for
headquarters, where he was at last living handsomely after all his rough
campaigning. When we dined with him, we could but contrast the food
prepared over a Virginia camp-fire, with the dainty French cookery of
the old colored Mary, who served him afterward so many years. General
Custer was, of course, glad to be under his chief again, and after
dinner, while I was given over to some of the military family to
entertain, the two men, sitting on the wide gallery, talked of what it
was then believed would be a campaign across the border. I was left in
complete ignorance, and did not even know that an army of 70,000 men was
being organized under General Sheridan's masterly hand. My husband read
the Eastern papers to me, and took the liberty of reserving such
articles as might prove incendiary in his family. If our incorrigible
scamp spoke of the expected wealth he intended to acquire from the
sacking of palaces and the spoils of churches, he was frowned upon, not
only because the General tried to teach him that there were some
subjects too sacred to be touched by his irreverent tongue, but because
he did not wish my anxieties to be aroused by the prospect of another
campaign. As much of my story must be of the hardships my husband
endured, I have here lingered a little over the holiday that our journey
and the detention in New Orleans gave him. I hardly think any one can
recall a complaint of his in those fourteen years of tent-life; but he
was taught, through deprivations, how to enjoy every moment of such
days as that charming journey and city experience gave us.
The steamer chartered to take troops up the Red River was finally ready,
and we sailed the last week in June. There were horses and Government
freight on board. The captain was well named Greathouse, as he greeted
us with hospitality and put his little steamer at our disposal. Besides
the fact that this contract for transportation would line his pockets
well, he really seemed glad to have us. He was a Yankee, and gave us his
native State (Indiana) in copious and inexhaustible supplies, as his
contribution to the talks on deck. Long residence in the South had not
dimmed his patriotism; and in the rapid transits from deck to
pilot-house, of this tall Hoosier, I almost saw the straps fastening
down the trousers of Brother Jonathan, as well as the coat-tails cut
from the American flag, so entirely did he personate in his figure our
emblematic Uncle Sam. It is customary for the Government to defray the
expenses of officers and soldiers when traveling under orders; but so
much red-tape is involved that they often pay their own way at the time,
and the quartermaster reimburses them at the journey's end. The captain
knew this, and thought he would give himself the pleasure of having us
as his guests. Accordingly, he took the General one side, and imparted
this very pleasing information. Even with the provident ones this would
be a relief; while we had come on board almost wrecked in our finances
by the theatre, the tempting flowers, the fascinating restaurants, and
finally, a disastrous lingering one day in the beguiling shop of Madam
Olympe, the reigning milliner. The General had bought some folly for me,
in spite of the heroic protest that I made about its inappropriateness
for Texas, and it left us just enough to pay for our food on our
journey, provided we ordered nothing extra, and had no delays. Captain
Greathouse little knew to what paupers he was extending his hospitality.
No one can comprehend how carelessly and enjoyably army people can walk
about with empty pockets, knowing that it is but a matter of thirty
days' waiting till Richard shall be himself again. My husband made
haste to impart the news quietly to the staff, that the captain was
going to invite them all to be his guests, and so relieve their anxiety
about financial embarrassment. The scamp saw a chance for a joke, and
when the captain again appeared he knew that he was going to receive the
invitation, and anticipated it. In our presence he jingled the last
twenty-six cents he had in the world against the knife in his almost
empty pockets, assumed a Croesus-like air, and begged to know the cost
of the journey, as he loftily said he made it a rule always to pay in
advance. At this, the General, unable to smother his laughter,
precipitated himself out of the cabin-door, nearly over the narrow
guard, to avoid having his merriment seen. When the captain said blandly
that he was about to invite our party to partake of his hospitality, our
scamp bowed, and accepted the courtesy as if it were condescension on
his part, and proceeded to take possession, and almost command, of the
steamer.
It was a curious trip, that journey up the Red River. We saw the dull
brownish-red water from the clay bed and banks mingling with the clearer
current of the Mississippi long before we entered the mouth of the Red
River. We had a delightful journey; but I don't know why, except that
youth, health and buoyant spirits rise superior to everything. The river
was ugliness itself. The tree trunks, far up, were gray and slimy with
the late freshet, the hanging moss adding a dismal feature to the scene.
The waters still covered the low, muddy banks strewn with fallen trees
and underbrush. The river was very narrow in places, and in our way
there were precursors of the Red River raft above. At one time, before
Government work was begun, the raft extended forty-five miles beyond
Shreveport, and closed the channel to steamers. Sometimes the pilot
wound us round just such obstructions--logs and driftwood jammed in so
firmly, and so immovable, they looked like solid ground, while rank
vegetation sprung up through the thick moss that covered the decaying
tree trunks. The river was very crooked. The whistle screeched when
approaching a turn; but so sudden were some of these, that a steamer
coming down, not slackening speed, almost ran into us at one sharp bend.
It shaved our sides and set our boat a-quivering, while the
vituperations of the boat's crew, and the loud, angry voices of the
captain and pilot, with a prompt return of such civilities from the
other steamer, made us aware that emergencies brought forth a special
and extensive set of invectives, reserved for careless navigation on the
Red River of the South. We grew to have an increasing respect for the
skill of the pilot, as he steered us around sharp turns, across low
water filled with branching upturned tree trunks, and skillfully took a
narrow path between the shore and a snag that menacingly ran its black
point out of the water. A steamer in advance of us, carrying troops, had
encountered a snag, while going at great speed, and the obstructing tree
ran entirely through the boat, coming out at the pilot-house. The troops
were unloaded and taken up afterward by another steamer. Sometimes the
roots of great forest trees, swept down by a freshet, become imbedded in
the river, and the whole length of the trunk is under water, swaying up
and down, but not visible below the turbid surface. The forest is dense
at some points, and we could see but a short distance as we made our
circuitous, dangerous way.
The sand-bars, and the soft red clay of the river-banks, were a fitting
home for the alligators that lay sunning themselves, or sluggishly
crawled into the stream as the General aimed at them with his rifle from
the steamer's guards. They were new game, and gave some fresh excitement
to the long, idle days. He never gave up trying, in his determined way,
for the vulnerable spot in their hide just behind the eye. I thought the
sand-hill crane must have first acquired its tiresome habit of standing
on one leg, from its disgust at letting down the reserve foot into such
thick, noisome water. It seemed a pity that some of those shots from the
steamer's deck had not ended its melancholy existence. Through all this
mournful river-way the guitar twanged, and the dense forest resounded
to war choruses or old college glees that we sent out in happy notes as
we sat on deck. I believe Captain Greathouse bade us good-by with
regret, as he seemed to enjoy the jolly party, and when we landed at
Alexandria he gave us a hogshead of ice, the last we were to see for a
year.
A house abandoned by its owners, and used by General Banks for
headquarters during the war, was selected for our temporary home. As we
stepped upon the levee, a tall Southerner came toward me and extended
his hand. At that time the citizens were not wont to welcome the Yankee
in that manner. He had to tell me who he was, as unfortunately I had
forgotten, and I began to realize the truth of the saying, that "there
are but two hundred and fifty people in the world," when I found an
acquaintance in this isolated town. He proved to be the only Southerner
I had ever known in my native town in Michigan, who came there when a
lad to visit kinsfolk. In those days his long black hair, large dark
eyes and languishing manner, added to the smooth, soft-flowing,
flattering speeches, made sad havoc in our school-girl ranks. I suppose
the youthful and probably susceptible hearts of our circle were all set
fluttering, for the boy seemed to find pleasure in a chat with any one
of us that fell to him in our walks to and from school. The captivating
part of it all was the lines written on the pages of my arithmetic,
otherwise so odious to me--"Come with me to my distant home, where,
under soft Southern skies, we'll breathe the odor of orange groves."
None of us had answered to his "Come," possibly because of the infantile
state of our existence, possibly because the invitation was too general.
And here stood our youthful hero, worn prematurely old and shabby after
his four years of fighting for "the cause." The boasted "halls of his
ancestors," the same to which we had been so ardently invited, were a
plain white cottage. No orange groves, but a few lime-trees sparsely
scattered over the prescribed lawn. In the pleasant visit that we all
had, there was discreet avoidance of the poetic license he had taken in
early years, when describing his home under the southern sky.
Alexandria had been partly burned during the war, and was built up
mostly with one-story cottages. Indeed, it was always the popular mode
of building there. We found everything a hundred years behind the times.
The houses of our mechanics at home had more conveniences and modern
improvements. I suppose the retinue of servants before the war rendered
the inhabitants indifferent to what we think absolutely necessary for
comfort. The house we used as headquarters had large, lofty rooms
separated by a wide hall, while in addition there were two wings. A
family occupied one-half of the house, caring for it in the absence of
the owners. In the six weeks we were there, we never saw them, and
naturally concluded they were not filled with joy at our presence. The
house was delightfully airy; but we took up the Southern custom of
living on the gallery. The library was still intact, in spite of its
having been headquarters for our army; and evidently the people had
lived in what was considered luxury for the South in its former days,
yet everything was primitive enough. This great house, filled as it once
was with servants, had its sole water supply from two tanks or cisterns
above ground at the rear. The rich and the poor were alike dependent
upon these receptacles for water; and it was not a result of the war,
for this was the only kind of reservoir provided, even in prosperous
times. But one well was dug in Alexandria, as the water was brackish and
impure. Each house, no matter how small, had cisterns, sometimes as high
as the smaller cottages themselves. The water in those where we lived
was very low, the tops were uncovered, and dust, leaves, bugs and flies
were blown in, while the cats strolled around the upper rim during their
midnight orchestral overtures. We found it necessary to husband the fast
lowering water, as the rains were over for the summer. The servants were
enjoined to draw out the home-made plug (there was not even a Yankee
faucet) with the utmost care, while some one was to keep vigilant watch
on a cow, very advanced in cunning, that used to come and hook at the
plug till it was loosened and fell out. The sound of flowing water was
our first warning of the precious wasting. No one could drink the
river-water, and even in our ablutions we turned our eyes away as we
poured the water from the pitcher into the bowl. Our rain-water was so
full of gallinippers and pollywogs, that a glass stood by the plate
untouched until the sediment and natural history united at the bottom,
while heaven knows what a microscope, had we possessed one, would have
revealed!
Eliza was well primed with stories of alligators by the negroes and
soldiers, who loved to frighten her. One measuring thirteen feet eight
inches was killed on the river-bank, they said, as he was about to
partake of his favorite supper, a negro sleeping on the sand. It was
enough for Eliza when she heard of this preference for those of her
color, and she duly stampeded. She was not well up in the habits of
animals, and having seen the alligators crawling over the mud of the
river banks, she believed they were so constituted that at night they
could take long tramps over the country. She used to assure me that she
nightly heard them crawling around the house. One night, when some
fearful sounds issued from the cavernous depths of the old cistern, she
ran to one of the old negroes of the place, her carefully braided wool
rising from her head in consternation, and called out, "Jest listen!
jest listen!" The old mammy quieted her by, "Oh la, honey, don't you be
skeart; nothin's goin' to hurt you; them's only bull-toads." This
information, though it quieted Eliza's fears, did not make the
cistern-water any more enjoyable to us.
The houses along Red River were raised from the ground on piles, as the
soil was too soft and porous for cellars. Before the fences were
destroyed and the place fell into dilapidation, there might have been a
lattice around the base of the building, but now it was gone. Though
this open space under the house gave vent for what air was stirring, it
also offered free circulation to pigs, that ran grunting and squealing
back and forth, and even the calves sought its grateful shelter from
the sun and flies. And, oh, the mosquitoes! Others have exhausted
adjectives in trying to describe them, and until I came to know those of
the Missouri River at Fort Lincoln, Dakota, I joined in the general
testimony, that the Red River of the South could not be outdone. The
bayous about us, filled with decaying vegetable matter, and surrounded
with marshy ground, and the frequent rapid fall of the river, leaving
banks of mud, all bred mosquitoes, or gallinippers, as the darkies
called them. Eliza took counsel as to the best mode of extermination,
and brought old kettles with raw cotton into our room, from which
proceeded such smudges and such odors as would soon have wilted a
Northern mosquito; but it only resulted in making us feel like a piece
of dried meat hanging in a smoke-house, while the undisturbed insect
winged its way about our heads, singing as it swirled and dipped and
plunged its javelin into our defenseless flesh. There were days there,
as at Fort Lincoln, when the wind, blowing in a certain direction,
brought such myriads of them that I was obliged to beat a retreat under
the netting that enveloped the high, broad bed, which is a specialty of
the extreme South, and with my book, writing or sewing, listened
triumphantly to the clamoring army beating on the outside of the bars.
The General made fun of me thus enthroned, when he returned from office
work; but I used to reply that he could afford to remain unprotected, if
the greedy creatures could draw their sustenance from his veins without
leaving a sting.
At the rear of our house were two rows of negro quarters, which Eliza
soon penetrated, and afterward begged me to visit. Only the very old and
worthless servants remained. The owners of the place on which we were
living had three other sugar plantations in the valley, from one of
which alone 2,300 hogsheads of sugar were shipped in one season, and at
the approach of the army 500 able-bodied negroes were sent into Texas.
Eliza described the decamping of the owner of the plantation thus, "Oh,
Miss Libbie, the war made a mighty scatter." The poor creatures left
were in desperate straits. One, a bed-ridden woman, having been a
house-servant, was intelligent for one of her race. After Eliza had
taken me the rounds, I piloted the General, and he found that, though
the very old woman did not know her exact age, she could tell him of
events that she remembered when she was in New Orleans with her
mistress, which enabled him to calculate her years to be almost a
hundred. Three old people claimed to remember "Washington's war." I look
back to our visit to her little cabin, where we sat beside her bed, as
one of vivid interest. The old woman knew little of the war, and no one
had told her of the proclamation until our arrival. We were both much
moved when, after asking us questions, she said to me, "And, Missey, is
it really true that I is free?" Then she raised her eyes to heaven, and
blessed the Lord for letting her live to see the day. The General, who
had to expostulate with Eliza sometimes for her habit of feeding every
one out of our supplies, whether needy or not, had no word to say now.
Our kitchen could be full of grizzly, tottering old wrecks, and he only
smiled on the generous dispenser of her master's substance. Indeed, he
had them fed all the time we stayed there, and they dragged their
tattered caps from their old heads, and blessed him as we left, for what
he had done, and for the food that he provided for them after we were
gone.
It was at Alexandria that I first visited a negro prayer-meeting. As we
sat on the gallery one evening, we heard the shouting and singing, and
quietly crept round to the cabin where the exhorting and groaning were
going on. My husband stood with uncovered head, reverencing their
sincerity, and not a muscle of his face moved, though it was rather
difficult to keep back a smile at the grotesqueness of the scene. The
language and the absorbed manner in which these old slaves held
communion with their Lord, as if He were there in person, and told Him
in simple but powerful language their thanks that the day of Jubilee had
come, that their lives had been spared to see freedom come to His
people, made us sure that a faith that brought their Saviour down in
their midst was superior to that of the more civilized, who send
petitions to a throne that they themselves surround with clouds of
doctrine and doubt. Though they were so poor and helpless, and seemingly
without anything to inspire gratitude, evidently there were reasons in
their own minds for heartfelt thanks, as there was no mistaking the
genuineness of feeling when they sang:
"Bless the Lord that I can rise and tell
That Jesus has done all things well."
Old as some of these people were, their religion took a very energetic
form. They swayed back and forth as they sat about the dimly lighted
cabin, clapped their hands spasmodically, and raised their eyes to
heaven in moments of absorption. There were those among the younger
people who jumped up and down as the "power" possessed them, and the
very feeblest uttered groans, and quavered out the chorus of the old
tunes, in place of the more active demonstrations for which their
rheumatic old limbs now unfitted them. When, afterward, my husband read
to me newspaper accounts of negro camp-meetings or prayer-meetings
graphically written, no description seemed exaggerated to us; and he
used to say that nothing compared with that night when we first listened
to those serious, earnest old centenarians, whose feeble voices still
quavered out a tune of gratitude, as, with bent forms and bowed heads,
they stood leaning on their canes and crutches.
As the heat became more overpowering, I began to make excuses for the
slip-shod manner of living of the Red River people. Active as was my
temperament, climatic influences told, and I felt that I should have
merited the denunciation of the antique woman in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," of
"Heow shiftless!" It was hard to move about in the heat of the day, but
at evening we all went for a ride. It seemed to me a land of
enchantment. We had never known such luxuriance of vegetation. The
valley of the river extended several miles inland, the foliage was
varied and abundant, and the sunsets had deeper, richer colors than any
at the North. The General, getting such constant pleasure out of nature,
and not in the least minding to express it, was glad to hear even the
prosaic one of our number, who rarely cared for color or scenery, go
into raptures over the gorgeous orange and red of that Southern sky. We
sometimes rode for miles along the country roads, between hedges of
osage-orange on one side, and a double white rose on the other, growing
fifteen feet high. The dew enhanced the fragrance, and a lavish
profusion was displayed by nature in that valley, which was a constant
delight to us. Sometimes my husband and I remained out very late, loth
to come back to the prosy, uninteresting town, with its streets flecked
with bits of cotton, evidences of the traffic of the world, as the levee
was now piled up with bales ready for shipment. Once the staff crossed
with us to the other side of the river, and rode out through more
beautiful country roads, to what was still called Sherman Institute.
General Sherman had been at the head of this military school before the
war, but it was subsequently converted into a hospital. It was in a
lonely and deserted district, and the great empty stone building, with
its turreted corners and modern architecture, seemed utterly incongruous
in the wild pine forest that surrounded it. We returned to the river,
and visited two forts on the bank opposite Alexandria. They were built
by a Confederate officer who used his Federal prisoners for workmen. The
General took in at once the admirable situation selected, which
commanded the river for many miles. He thoroughly appreciated, and
endeavored carefully to explain to me, how cleverly the few materials at
the disposal of the impoverished South had been utilized. The moat about
the forts was the deepest our officers had ever seen. Closely as my
husband studied the plan and formation, he said it would have added
greatly to his appreciation, had he then known, what he afterward
learned, that the Confederate engineer who planned this admirable
fortification was one of his classmates at West Point, of whom he was
very fond. In 1864 an immense expedition of our forces was sent up the
Red River, to capture Shreveport and open up the great cotton districts
of Texas. It was unsuccessful, and the retreat was rendered impossible
by low water, while much damage was done to our fleet by the very
Confederate forts we were now visiting. A dam was constructed near
Alexandria, and the squadron was saved from capture or annihilation by
this timely conception of a quick-witted Western man, Colonel Joseph
Bailey. The dam was visible from the walls of the forts, where we
climbed for a view.
As we resumed our ride to the steamer, the General, who was usually an
admirable pathfinder, proposed a new and shorter road; and liking
variety too much to wish to travel the same country twice over, all
gladly assented. Everything went very well for a time. We were absorbed
in talking, noting new scenes on the route, or, as was our custom when
riding off from the public highway, we sang some chorus; and thus
laughing, singing, joking, we galloped over the ground thoughtlessly
into the very midst of serious danger. Apparently, nothing before us
impeded our way. We knew very little of the nature of the soil in that
country, but had become somewhat accustomed to the bayous that either
start from the river or appear suddenly inland, quite disconnected from
any stream. On that day we dashed heedlessly to the bank of a wide bayou
that poured its waters into the Red River. Instead of thinking twice,
and taking the precaution to follow its course farther up into the
country, where the mud was dryer and the space to cross much narrower,
we determined not to delay, and prepared to go over. The most
venturesome dashed first on to this bit of dried slough, and though the
crust swayed and sunk under the horses' flying feet, it still seemed
caked hard enough to bear every weight. There were seams and fissures in
portions of the bayou, through which the moist mud oozed; but these were
not sufficient warning to impetuous people. Another and another sprang
over the undulating soil. Having reached the other side, they rode up
and down the opposite bank shouting to us where they thought it the
safest to cross, and of course interlarded their directions with
good-natured scoffing about hesitation, timidity, and so on. The
General, never second in anything when he could help it, remained behind
to fortify my sinking heart and urge me to undertake the crossing with
him. He reminded me how carefully Custis Lee had learned to follow and
to trust to him, and he would doubtless plant his hoofs in the very
tracks of his own horse. Another of our party tried to bolster up my
courage, assuring me that if the heavy one among us was safely on the
other bank, my light weight might be trusted. I dreaded making the party
wait until we had gone further up the bayou, and might have mustered up
the required pluck had I not met with trepidation on the part of my
horse. His fine, delicate ears told me, as plainly as if he could speak,
that I was asking a great deal of him. We had encountered quicksands
together in the bed of a Virginia stream, and both horse and rider were
recalling the fearful sensation when the animal's hindlegs sank, leaving
his body engulfed in the soil. With powerful struggles with his forefeet
and muscular shoulders, we plunged to the right and left, and found at
last firm soil on which to escape. With such a recollection still fresh,
as memory is sure to retain terrors like that, it was hardly a wonder
that we shrank from the next step. His trembling flanks shook as much as
the unsteady hand that held his bridle. He quivered from head to foot,
and held back. I urged, and patted his neck, while we both continued to
shiver on the brink. The General laughed at the two cowards we really
were, but still gave us time to get our courage up to the mark. The
officer remaining with us continued to encourage me with assurances that
there was "not an atom of danger," and finally, with a bound, shouting
out, "Look how well I shall go over!" sprang upon the vibrating crust.
In an instant, with a crack like a pistol, the thin layer of solid mud
broke, and down went the gay, handsomely caparisoned fellow, engulfed to
his waist in the foul black crust. There was at once a commotion. With
no ropes, it was hard to effect his release. His horse helped him most,
struggling frantically for the bank, while the officers, having flung
themselves off from their animals to rush to his rescue, brought poles
and tree branches, which the imbedded man was not slow to grasp and drag
himself from the perilous spot when only superhuman strength could
deliver him, as the mud of a bayou sucks under its surface with great
rapidity anything with which it comes in contact. As soon as the officer
was dragged safely on to firm earth, a shout went up that rent the air
with its merriment. Scarcely any one spoke while they labored to save
the man's life, but once he was out of peril, the rescuers felt their
hour had come. They called out to him, in tones of derision, the
vaunting air with which he said just before his engulfment, "Look at me;
see how I go over!" He was indeed a sorry sight, plastered from head to
foot with black mud. Frightened as I was--for the trembling had advanced
to shivering, and my chattering teeth and breathless voice were past my
control--I still felt that little internal tremor of laughter that
somehow pervades one who has a sense of the ludicrous in very dangerous
surroundings.
I had certainly made a very narrow escape, for it would have been doubly
hard to extricate me. The riding habits in those days were very long,
and loaded so with lead to keep them down in high winds--and, I may add,
in furious riding--that it was about all I could do to lift my skirt
when I put it on.
I held my horse with a snaffle, to get good, smooth going out of him,
and my wrists became pretty strong; but in that slough I would have
found them of little avail, I fear. There remained no opposition to
seeking a narrower part of the bayou, above where I had made such an
escape, and there was still another good result of this severe lesson
after that: when we came to such ominous-looking soil, Custis Lee and
his mistress were allowed all the shivering on the brink that their
cowardice produced, while the party scattered to investigate the sort
of foundation we were likely to find, before we attempted to plunge over
a Louisiana quagmire.
The bayous were a strange feature of that country. Often without inlet
or outlet, a strip of water appeared, black and sluggish, filled with
logs, snags, masses of underbrush and leaves. The banks, covered with
weeds, noisome plants and rank tangled vegetation, seemed the dankest,
darkest, most weird and mournful spots imaginable, a fit home for ghouls
and bogies. There could be no more appropriate place for a sensational
novelist to locate a murder. After a time I became accustomed to these
frequently occurring water-ways, but it took me a good while to enjoy
going fishing on them. The men were glad to vary their days by dropping
a line in that vile water, and I could not escape their urging to go,
though I was excused from fishing.
On one occasion we went down the river on a steamer, the sailors
dragging the small boats over the strip of land between the river and
the bayou, and all went fishing or hunting. This excursion was one that
I am likely to remember forever. The officers, intent on their fishing,
were rowed slowly through the thick water, while I was wondering to
myself if there could be, anywhere, such a wild jungle of vines and moss
as hung from the trees and entangled itself in the mass of weeds and
water-plants below. We followed little indentations of the stream, and
the boat was rowed into small bays and near dark pools, where the fish
are known to stay, and finally we floated. The very limbs of the trees
and the gnarled trunks took on human shape, while the drooping moss
swayed as if it might be the drapery of a lamia, evolved out of the
noisome vapors and floating above us. These fears and imaginings, which
would have been put to flight by the assurances of the General, had he
not been so intent on his line, proved to be not wholly spectres of the
imagination. A mass of logs in front of us seemed to move. They did
move, and the alligator, that looked so like a tree-trunk, established
his identity by separating himself from the floating timber and making
off. It was my scream, for the officers themselves did not enjoy the
proximity of the beast, that caused the instant use of the oars and a
quick retreat.
I went fishing after that, of course; I couldn't get out of it; indeed I
was supported through my tremors by a pleasure to which a woman cannot
be indifferent--that of being wanted on all sorts of excursions. But
logs in the water never looked like logs after that; to my distended
vision they appeared to writhe with the slow contortions of loathsome
animals.
A soldier captured a baby-alligator one day, and the General, thinking
to quiet my terror of them by letting me see the reptile "close to," as
the children say, took me down to camp, where the delighted soldier told
me how he had caught it, holding on to the tail, which is its weapon.
The animal was all head and tail; there seemed to be no intermediate
anatomy. He flung the latter member at a hat in so vicious and violent a
way, that I believed instantly the story, which I had first received
with doubt, of his rapping over a puppy and swallowing him before rescue
could come. This pet was in a long tank of water the owner had built,
and it gave the soldiers much amusement.
The General was greatly interested in alligator-hunting. It was said
that the scales were as thick as a china plate, except on the head, and
he began to believe so when he found his balls glancing off the
impenetrable hide as if from the side of an ironclad. I suppose it was
very exciting, after the officers had yelped and barked like a dog, to
see the great monster decoyed from some dark retreat by the sound of his
favorite tidbit. The wary game came slowly down the bayou, under fire of
the kneeling huntsmen concealed in the underbrush, and was soon
despatched. For myself, I should have preferred, had I been consulted, a
post of observation in the top of some tree, instead of the boat in
which I was being rowed.