THE RETURN
The time of waiting had been an anxious one. The Meahers realized
the risk. There had always been some, but during the absence of the
_Clotilde_ great agitation had become rife throughout the country,
and one of the things the Government had at last undertaken to do was
to wipe out at once and forever the illegal traffic in slaves. The
destination and purpose of the _Clotilde_ had been noised about, and
Meaher realized that officials were watching his movements. Aside from
the _Clotilde’s_ capture, he had little to fear, for every vestige of
the conservatism which had so long held in restraint the abolitionism
of the North and the temper of the South had disappeared; the two
sections had drifted so far apart as to be virtually two countries;
war clouds were looming large upon the horizon and differences had
gone so far there could be no reconciliation. Garrison’s voice was
ringing through the North characterizing Southerners as “thieves and
robbers, men-stealers, and women-whippers” and calling loudly, “how
can two walk together, except they agree? The slaveholder with his
hands dripping in blood--will I make a compact with him? The man who
plunders cradles--will I say to him ‘Brother, let us walk together in
unity?’ The man who to gratify his lust or his anger, scourges women
with the lash till the soil is red with blood--will I say to him, ‘Give
me your hand; let us form a glorious union?’” Charges which were as
a scourge to Southerners; goaded and angered, many began to talk of
reopening the slave traffic. The question was agitated in Congress--a
number of papers advocating it, not all of which were of the South.
The New York _Day Book_, May 17, 1859, came out strongly for it. “Of
course no one can suppose we doubt the right of bringing negroes from
Africa if they are needed. It is simply a question of expediency, and
there can be no doubt our laws making it piracy must be blotted out
of the Statute Books. They are not only ridiculous, but utterly and
wholly contemptible,” etc. From the point of view of a large class
of Southerners these arguments were not fallacious. Yet they were
retrogressive and their revival put the South out of harmony with
ethical and intellectual progress, and defeated the hopes of those of
larger vision. Early in 1859 the Mobile papers lent their support to
the question. Mobilians, like all of the South, were tried to their
utmost, and Meaher knew if all due secrecy was observed, he had little
to fear from them.
Captain Foster reached Mobile on a Sunday morning in August (1859)
with the secret that the _Clotilde_ lay behind the islands in
Mississippi Sound. Arrangements had long been made that a tug should
lie in readiness to go at a moment’s notice down Mobile Bay to tow
the _Clotilde_ and her cargo to safety. When the news came, the tug’s
pilot was attending service at St. John’s Church. Captain Jim Meaher
and James Dennison--a negro slave--hurried to the church. Dennison
remained outside while Meaher went in to call the pilot. The three
hastened down to the wharf, and were soon aboard the tug _Billy Jones_,
steaming rapidly down the bay. Late afternoon found them nearing
the _Clotilde_, but they waited for the darkness. The most dangerous
part of the adventure was still ahead--the trip up Mobile Bay. At
the mouth the marshes and islands offered protection; if they could
once reach the delta of the Mobile River, with its desolate stretches
of marsh, its deep rivers and intricate bayous, safety was almost
assured. But the bay lay smilingly open between two long arms of land.
Her wonderful beauty under the gorgeous August sunset was lost upon
the watchers; they prayed for the light to fade and for mysterious
night with its enshrouding darkness. At last as if loath to die, the
color was gone; sea and sky melted together into almost impenetrable
grayness. They ceased their vigils and fell to a quick activity; lines
were thrown, the _Clotilde_ made fast, and the trip up the bay was
begun. Her wooded shores had echoed the voices of many peoples and the
sounds from many craft, but never any more epoch-making--those from
the last slave ship--the voyage nearing its finish which ended forever
among Anglo-Saxon people the darkest blot upon their civilization.
The chugging sound of the tug’s machinery filled the Tarkars with
terrified wonder; at last they concluded that it was the swarming of
bees.
Time was precious and the darkness doubly so; much was still to be done
before day with its light should come. These hours might mean life or
death. The trip up the bay was safely made. The tug avoided the Mobile
River channel, slipped behind the light-house on Battery Gladden,
into Spanish River. This lay in the midst of the marsh and with its
circuitous windings was not more than ten miles long. As the _Clotilde_
passed opposite Mobile the clock in the old Spanish tower struck
eleven, and the watchman’s voice floated over the city and across the
marshes, “Eleven o’clock and all’s well.”
The _Clotilde_ was taken directly to Twelve-Mile Island--a lonely,
weird place by night. There the _R. B. Tainey_[21] waited; lights were
smothered, and in the darkness quickly and quietly the _Clotilde’s_
cargo of one hundred and sixteen negroes was transferred to the
steamboat, taken up the Alabama River to John Dabney’s plantation below
Mount Vernon and not far from the shadow of the fort, where they were
landed before noon of the next day.
[Illustration: Drawn by Emma Roche.
Kazoola.]
At Twelve-Mile Island the crew of Northern sailors again mutinied.
Captain Foster, with a six shooter in each hand, went among them,
discharged them, and ordered them to “hit the grit and never be seen in
Southern waters again.” They were placed aboard the tug. Meaher bought
tickets and saw that they boarded a train for the North. The _Clotilde_
was scuttled and fired, Captain Foster himself placed seven cords of
light wood upon her. Her hull still lies in the marsh at the mouth of
Bayou Corne and may be seen at low tide. Foster afterwards regretted
her destruction as she was worth more than the ten Africans given him
by the Meahers as his booty.