AUTHOR MAKES A SHORT VISIT TO THE CONTINENT--RETURNS TO LONDON, AND
EMBARKS ON HIS RETURN TO THE CONFEDERATE STATES--LANDS AT BAGDAD, NEAR THE
MOUTH OF THE RIO GRANDE--JOURNEY THROUGH TEXAS--REACHES LOUISIANA, AND
CROSSES THE MISSISSIPPI; AND IN A FEW DAYS MORE IS AT HOME, AFTER AN
ABSENCE OF FOUR YEARS.
I considered my career upon the high seas closed by the loss of my ship,
and had so informed Commodore Barron, who was our Chief of Bureau in
Paris. We had a number of gallant Confederate naval officers, both in
England and France, eager and anxious to go afloat--more than could be
provided with ships--and it would have been ungenerous in me to accept
another command. Besides, my health was broken down to that degree, that I
required absolute quiet, for some months, before I should again be fit for
duty. I, therefore, threw off all care and responsibility, as soon as I
had wound up the affairs of the _Alabama_, and went up to enjoy the
hospitality of my friend Tremlett, at Belsize Park, in London. Here we
arranged for a visit, of a few weeks, to the continent, and especially to
the Swiss mountains, which was carried out in due time. One other
gentleman, an amiable and accomplished sister of my friend Tremlett, and
two other ladies, connections or friends of the family, accompanied us.
We were absent six weeks; landing at Ostend, passing hurriedly through
Belgium--not forgetting, however, to visit the battle-field of
Waterloo--stopping a few days at Spa, for the benefit of the waters, and
then passing on to the Rhine; up that beautiful and historic river to
Mayence, and thence to the Swiss lakes--drawing the first long breath at
Geneva, where we rested a few days. There, reader! I have given you my
European tour in a single paragraph; and as I am writing of the sea, and
of war, and not of the land, or of peace, this is all the space I can
appropriate to it. I must be permitted, however, to say of my friend
Tremlett, that I found him a veteran traveller, who knew how to smooth all
the difficulties of a journey; and of the ladies of our party, that their
cheerfulness, good-humor, and kind attention to me, did quite as much as
the Swiss mountain air toward the restoration of my health. I must be
permitted to make another remark in connection with this journey. I found
a number of exceedingly patriotic, young, able-bodied male Confederates,
of a suitable age for bearing arms, travelling, with or without their
papas and mammas, and boasting of the Confederacy! Most of these
carpet-knights had been in Europe during the whole war.
Returning to London, in the latter days of September, a few days in
advance of my travelling party, I made my preparations for returning to
the Confederate States; and on the 3d of October, 1864, embarked on board
the steamer _Tasmanian_, for Havana _via_ St. Thomas. My intention was to
pass into Texas, through the Mexican port of Matamoras. My journey, by
this route, would occupy a little longer time, and be attended, perhaps,
with some discomfort, but I should avoid the risk of the blockade, which
was considerable. The enemy having resorted, literally, to the starving
process, as being the only one which was likely to put an end to the war,
had begun to burn our towns, lay waste our corn-fields, run off our
negroes and cattle, and was now endeavoring to seal, hermetically, our
ports. He had purchased all kinds of steamers--captured blockade-runners
and others--which he had fitted out as ships of war, and he now had a
fleet little short of five hundred sail. Acting, as before stated, on the
principle of abandoning his commerce, he had concentrated all these before
the blockaded ports, in such swarms, that it was next to impossible for a
ship to run in or out, without his permission. I preferred not to fall
into the enemy's hands, without the benefit of a capitulation. The very
mention of my name had, as yet, some such effect upon the Yankee
Government as the shaking of a red flag has before the blood-shot eyes of
an infuriated bull. Mr. Seward gored, and pawed, and threw up the dust;
and, above all, bellowed, whenever the vision of the _Alabama_ flitted
across his brain; and the "sainted Abe" was, in foreign affairs, but his
man "Friday."
At St. Thomas we changed steamers, going on board the _Solent_--the
transfer of passengers occupying only a few hours. The _Solent_ ran down
for the coast of Porto Rico, where she landed some passengers; passed
thence to the north side of St. Domingo, thence into the Old Bahama
Channel, and landed us at Havana, in the last days of October. Here we
were compelled to wait, a few days, for a chance vessel to Matamoras,
there being no regular packets. This enforced delay was tedious enough,
though much alleviated by the companionship of a couple of agreeable
fellow-passengers, who had embarked with me at Southampton, and who, like
myself, were bound to Matamoras. One of these was Father Fischer, and the
other, Mr. H. N. Caldwell, a Southern merchant. Father Fischer was a
German by birth, but had emigrated in early youth to Mexico, where he had
become a priest. He was a remarkable man, of commanding personal
appearance, and a well-cultivated and vigorous intellect. He spoke half a
dozen modern languages,--the English among the rest, with great precision
and purity,--and both Caldwell and myself became much attached to him. He
afterward played a very important _role_ in the affairs of Mexico,
becoming Maximilian's confessor, and one of his most trusted counsellors.
He was imprisoned for a time, after the fall of the Empire, but was
finally released, and has since made his way to Europe, with important
papers belonging to the late unfortunate monarch, and will no doubt give
us a history of the important episode in Mexican affairs in which he took
part.
No other vessel offering, we were compelled to embark in a small Yankee
schooner, still redolent of codfish, though wearing the English flag, to
which she had recently been transferred. This little craft carried us
safely across the Gulf of Mexico, after a passage of a week, and landed us
at a sea-shore village, at the mouth of the Rio Grande, rejoicing in the
dreamy eastern name of Bagdad. So unique was this little village, that I
might have fancied it, as its name imported, really under the rule of
Caliphs, but for certain signs of the Yankee which met my eye. The
ubiquity of this people is marvellous. They scent their prey with the
unerring instinct of the carrion-bird. I had encountered them all over the
world, chasing the omnipotent dollar, notwithstanding the gigantic war
they were carrying on at home; and here was this little village of Bagdad,
on the Texan border, as full of them as an ant-hill is of ants; and the
human ants were quite as busy as their insect prototypes. Numerous
shanties had been constructed on the sands, out of unplaned boards. Some
of these shanties were hotels, some billiard-saloons, and others
grog-shops. The beach was piled with cotton bales going out, and goods
coming in. The stores were numerous, and crowded with wares. Teamsters
cracked their whips in the streets, and horsemen, booted and spurred,
galloped hither and thither. The whole panorama looked like some magic
scene, which might have been improvised in a night. The population was as
heterogeneous as the dwellings. Whites, blacks, mulattos, and Indians were
all mixed. But prominent above all stood the Yankee. The shanties were
his, and the goods were his. He kept the hotels, marked the billiards, and
sold the grog.
Pretty soon a coach drove up to the door of the _hotel_ at which we were
stopping, to take us to Matamoras, a distance of thirty miles. Here was
the Yankee again. The coach had been built in Troy, New York. The horses
were all northern horses--tall, strong, and gaunt, none of your Mexican
mustangs. The Jehu was Yankee, a tall fellow, with fisherman's boots, and
fancy top-hamper. The dried-up little Mexicans who attended to the horses,
harnessing and unharnessing them, on the road, at the different relay
stations, evidently stood in great awe of him. He took us into Matamoras
"_on time_," and at the end of his journey, cracked his whip, and drew up
his team at the hotel-door, with a flourish that would have done honor to
Mr. Samuel Weller, senior, himself.
As great a revolution had taken place in Matamoras as at Bagdad. The
heretofore quaint old Spanish town presented the very picture of a busy
commercial mart. House-rent was at an enormous figure; the streets, as
well as the stores, were piled with bales and boxes of merchandise, and
every one you met seemed to be running somewhere, intent on business. Ox
and mule teams from the Texan side of the river, were busy hauling the
precious staple of the Southern States, which put all this commerce in
motion, to Bagdad, for shipment; and anchored off that mushroom village, I
had counted, as I landed, no less than sixty sail of ships--nearly all of
them foreign. Fortunately for all this busy throng, Maximilian reigned
supreme in Mexico, and his Lieutenant in Matamoras, General Mejia, gave
security and protection to person and property, at the same time that he
raised considerable revenue by the imposition of moderate taxes.
Colonel Ford, the commandant at Brownsville, on the opposite side of the
river, came over to see me, and toward nightfall I returned with him to
that place. We crossed the river in a skiff managed by a Mexican, and as
my foot touched, for the first time in four years, the soil of my native
South, I experienced, in their full force, the lines of the poet:--
"Where shall that _land_, that _spot of earth_ be found?
Art thou a man?--a patriot?--look around;
Oh! thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land _thy_ country, and that spot _thy_ home!"
There were no hotels at Brownsville, but I was comfortably lodged for the
night, with Colonel Beldon, the Collector of the port. The next morning I
breakfasted with a large party at a neighboring restaurant, who had
assembled thither to welcome me back to my native land; and when the
breakfast was over, a coach and four, which was to take me on my way to
Shreveport, in Louisiana, drew up at the door. An escort of cavalry had
been provided, to accompany me as far as King's Ranch, a point at which
the road approaches the coast, and where it was supposed that some of the
enemy's gunboats might attempt to ambuscade me. I found, upon entering the
coach, in which I was to be the only traveller, that my friends had
provided for my journey in true Texan style; my outfit being a stout pair
of gray blankets, which were to form my bed on the prairies for the next
hundred miles, as we should have to travel that distance before we reached
the shelter of a roof; a box containing a dozen bottles of excellent
brandy, and cigars at discretion! As the driver cracked his whip, to put
his mustangs in motion, and my escort clattered on ahead of me, the crowd
who had gathered in the street to see me depart, launched me upon the
prairie, with three hearty cheers, such as only Texan throats can give.
It so happened, that my _major-domo_ for the journey, Sergeant ----, was
the same who had conducted my friend, Colonel Freemantle, over this route,
some two years before. I found him the same invaluable travelling
companion. His lunch-baskets were always well filled, he knew everybody
along the road, was unsurpassed at roasting a venison steak before a
camp-fire on a forked stick, and made a capital cup of coffee. I missed
the Judge, whom Freemantle so humorously describes, but I found a good
many judges on the road, who might sit for his portrait. And now, for want
of space, I must treat this journey as I did my European tour, give it to
the reader in a paragraph. We were fourteen days on the road; passing
through San Patricio on the Nueces, Gonzales on the Guadalupe, Houston,
Hempstead, Navasota, Huntsville, Rusk, Henderson, and Marshall, arriving
on the 27th of November at Shreveport. I was received, everywhere, with
enthusiasm by the warm-hearted, brave Texans, the hotels being all thrown
open to me, free of expense, and salutes of artillery greeting my entrance
into the towns. I was frequently compelled to make short speeches to the
people, merely that they might hear, as they said, "how the pirate
talked;" and, I fear, I drank a good many more mint-juleps than were good
for me. At table I was always seated on the right hand of the "landlady,"
and I was frequently importuned by a bevy of blooming lasses, to tell them
"how I did the Yankees." Glorious Texas! what if thou art a little too
much given to the Bowie-knife and revolver, and what if grass-widows are
somewhat frequent in some of thy localities, thou art all right at heart!
Liberty burns with a pure flame on thy prairies, and the day will yet come
when thou wilt be free. Thy fate, thus far, has been a hard one. In a
single generation thou hast changed thy political condition four times.
When I first knew thee, thou wast a Mexican province. You then became an
independent State. In an evil hour you were beguiled into accepting the
fatal embrace of the Yankee. Learning your mistake, ere long, you united
your fortunes with those of the Confederate States, in the hope again to
be free. You did what it was in the power of mortals to do, but the Fates
were adverse, and you have again been dragged down into worse than Mexican
bondage. Bide thy time! Thou art rapidly filling up with population. Thou
wilt soon become an empire in thyself, and the day is not far distant,
when thou mayest again strike for freedom!
At Shreveport, I was hospitably entertained at the mansion of Colonel
Williamson, serving on the staff of the commanding general of the
Trans-Mississippi Department, Kirby Smith. The Mayor and a deputation of
the Councils waited on me, and tendered me a public dinner, but I
declined. I remained with Colonel Williamson a couple of days, and the
reader may imagine how agreeable this relaxation, in comfortable quarters,
was to me, after a journey of fourteen consecutive days and nights, in a
stage-coach, through a rough, and comparatively wild country. Governor
Allen was making Shreveport the temporary seat of government of Louisiana,
and I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance, and dining with him, in
company with General Smith and his staff. The Governor was not only a
genial, delightful companion, but a gallant soldier, who had rendered good
service to the Confederacy at the head of his regiment. He had been
terribly wounded, and was still hobbling about on crutches. He seemed to
be the idol of the people of his State. He was as charitable and
kind-hearted as brave, and the needy soldier, or soldier's wife, never
left his presence without the aid they came to seek.
My object in taking Shreveport in my route, instead of striking for the
Red River, some distance below, was to meet my son, Major O. J. Semmes,
who, I had been informed at Brownsville, was serving in this part of
Louisiana. In the beginning of the war he withdrew from West Point, where
he was within a year of graduating, and offered his sword to his
State--Alabama. I had not seen him since. He was now a major of artillery,
commanding a battalion in General Buckner's army, stationed at Alexandria.
Thither I now directed my course. The river being too low for boating, I
was forced to make another land journey. The General kindly put an
ambulance at my disposal, and my host, with the forethought of a soldier,
packed me a basket of provisions. My friend and travelling companion,
viz., the Jehu, who was to drive me, was an original. He was from Ohio,
and had served throughout the war as a private soldier in the Confederate
army. He had been in a good many fights and skirmishes, and was full of
anecdote. If he had an antipathy in the world, it was against the Yankee,
and nothing gave him half so much pleasure, as to "fight his battles o'er
again." As I had a journey of four or five days before me--the distance
being 140 miles over execrable roads--the fellow was invaluable to me. We
passed through several of the localities where General Banks had been so
shamefully beaten by General Dick Taylor,--at Mansfield, Pleasant Hill,
and Monett's Ferry. The fields were still strewn with the carcasses of
animals; a few, unmarked hillocks, here and there, showed where soldiers
had been buried; and the rent and torn timber marked the course of the
cannon-balls that had carried death to either side. The Vandals, in their
retreat, had revenged themselves on the peaceful inhabitants, and every
few miles the charred remains of a dwelling told where some family had
been unhoused, and turned into the fields by the torch.
At Alexandria, I was kindly invited by General Buckner to become his guest
during my stay, and he sent a courier at once to inform my son, who was
encamped a few miles below the town, of my arrival. The latter came to see
me the same afternoon. I remained in the hospitable quarters of the
General a week before the necessary arrangements could be made for my
crossing the Mississippi. The enemy being in full possession of this river
by means of his gunboats, it was a matter of some little management to
cross in safety. The trans-Mississippi mails to Richmond had been sent
over, however, quite regularly, under the personal superintendence of a
young officer, detailed for the purpose, and the General was kind enough
to arrange for my crossing with this gentleman. The news of my passing
through Texas had reached the enemy at New Orleans, as we learned by his
newspapers, and great vigilance had been enjoined on his gunboats to
intercept me, if possible. Our arrangements being completed, I left
Alexandria on the 10th of December, accompanied by my son, who had
obtained a short leave of absence for the purpose of visiting his home,
and reached the little village of Evergreen the next day. Arrived at this
point, we were joined by our companions of the mail service, and on the
13th we crossed both the Red and Mississippi Rivers in safety.
The journey through the swamps, leading to these rivers, was unique. We
performed it on horseback, pursuing mere bridle-paths and cattle-tracks,
in single file, like so many Indians. Our way sometimes led us through a
forest of gigantic trees, almost entirely devoid of under-growth, and
resembling very much, though after a wild fashion, the park scenery of
England. At other times we would plunge into a dense, tangled brake, where
the interlaced grape and other vines threatened every moment, to drag us
from our saddles. The whole was a drowned country, and impassable during
the season of rains. It was now low water, and as we rode along, the
high-water marks on the trees were visible, many feet above our heads.
From this description of the country, the reader will see how impossible
it was for artillery or cavalry, or even infantry, to operate on the banks
of these rivers, during a greater part of the year. Except at a few
points, the enemy's gunboats were almost as secure from attack as they
would have been, on the high seas. Occasionally, we had to swim a deep
bayou, whose waters looked as black as those of the Stygian Lake; but if
the bayou was wide, as well as deep, we more frequently dismounted,
stripped our horses, and surrounding them, and shouting at them, made them
take the water in a drove, and swim over by themselves. We then crossed in
skiffs, which the mail-men had provided for the purpose, and caught and
resaddled our horses for a fresh mount.
We reached the bank of the Mississippi just before dark. There were two of
the enemy's gunboats anchored in the river, at a distance of about three
miles apart. As remarked in another place, the enemy had converted every
sort of a water craft, into a ship of war, and now had them in such
number, that he was enabled to police the river in its entire length,
without the necessity of his boats being out of sight of each other's
smoke. The officers of these river craft were mostly volunteers from the
merchant service, whose commissions would expire with the war, and a
greater set of predatory rascals was, perhaps, never before collected in
the history of any government. They robbed the plantations, and
demoralized them by trade, at the same time. Our people were hard pressed
for the necessaries of life, and a constant traffic was being carried on
with them, by these armed river steamers, miscalled ships of war.
It would not do, of course, for us to attempt the passage of the river,
until after dark; and so we held ourselves under cover of the forest,
until the proper moment, and then embarked in a small skiff, sending back
the greater part of our escort. Our boat was scarcely able to float the
numbers that were packed into her. Her gunwales were no more than six
inches above the water's edge. Fortunately for us, however, the night was
still, and the river smooth, and we pulled over without accident. As we
shot within the shadows of the opposite bank, our conductor, before
landing, gave a shrill whistle to ascertain whether all was right. The
proper response came directly, from those who were to meet us, and in a
moment more, we leaped on shore among friends. We found spare horses
awaiting us, and my son and myself slept that night under the hospitable
roof of Colonel Rose. The next morning the colonel sent us to Woodville,
in his carriage, and in four or five days more, we were in Mobile, and I
was at home again, after an absence of four years!