Thus far into the bowels of the land Have we marched on
without impediment.--RICHARD III.
While I remained in Memphis, my friend, who was brought into familiar
contact with leading Secessionists, gave me much valuable information.
He insisted that they were in the minority, but carried the day because
they were noisy and aggressive, overawing the Loyalists, who staid
quietly at home. Before the recent city election, every one believed
the Secessionists in a large majority; but, when a Union meeting was
called, the people turned out surprisingly, and, as they saw the old
flag, gave cheer after cheer, "with tears in their voices." Many,
intimidated, staid away from the polls. The newspapers of the city,
with a single exception, were disloyal, but the Union ticket was
elected by a majority of more than three hundred.
[Sidenote: SECESSION AIMS AND GRIEVANCES.]
"Tell me exactly what the 'wrongs' and 'grievances' are, of which I
hear so much on every side."
"It is difficult to answer. The masses have been stirred into a vague,
bitter, 'soreheaded' feeling that the South is wronged; but the leaders
seldom descend to particulars. When they do, it is very ludicrous.
They urge the marvelous growth of the North; the abrogation of the
Missouri Compromise (done by southern votes!), and that Freedom has
always distanced Slavery in the territories. Secession is no new or
spontaneous uprising; every one of its leaders here has talked of it
and planned it for years. Individual ambition, and wild dreams of a
great southern empire, which shall include Mexico, Central America,
and Cuba, seem to be their leading incentives. But there is another,
stronger still. You can hardly imagine how bitterly they hate the
Democratic Idea--how they loathe the thought that the vote of any
laboring man, with a rusty coat and soiled hands, may neutralize that
of a wealthy, educated, slave-owning gentleman."
"Wonder why they gave it such a name of old renown,
This dreary, dingy, muddy, melancholy town."
[Sidenote: SPRING-TIME IN MEMPHIS.]
Thus Charles Mackay describes Memphis; but it impressed me as the
pleasantest city of the South. Though its population was only thirty
thousand, it had the air and promise of a great metropolis. The long
steamboat landing was so completely covered with cotton that drays and
carriages could hardly thread the few tortuous passages leading down
to the water's edge. Bales of the same great staple were piled up to
the ceiling in the roomy stores of the cotton factors; the hotels were
crowded, and spacious and elegant blocks were being erected.
A few days earlier, in Cleveland, I had seen the ground covered with
snow; but here I was in the midst of early summer. During the first
week of March, the heat was so oppressive that umbrellas and fans were
in general use upon the streets. The broad, shining leaves of the
magnolia, and the delicate foliage of the weeping willow, were nodding
adieu to winter; the air was sweet with cherry blossoms; with
----"Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath."
[Sidenote: CAPTAIN MCINTIRE, LATE OF THE ARMY.]
On the evening of March 3d I left Memphis. A thin-visaged,
sandy-haired, angular gentleman in spectacles, who occupied a car-seat
near me, though of northern birth, had resided in the Gulf States
for several years, as agent for an Albany manufactory of cotton-gins
and agricultural implements. A broad-shouldered, roughly dressed,
sun-browned young man, whose chin was hidden by a small forest of
beard, accepted the proffer of a cigar, took a seat beside us, and
introduced himself as Captain McIntire, of the United States Army, who
had just resigned his commission, on account of the pending troubles,
and was returning from the Texian frontier to his plantation in
Mississippi. He was the first bitter Secessionist I had met, and I
listened with attent ear to his complaints of northern aggression.
The Albanian was an advocate of Slavery and declared that, in the
event of separation, his lot was with the South, for better or for
worse; but he mildly urged that the Secession movement was hasty and
ill advised; hoped the difficulty might be settled by compromise,
and declared that, traveling through all the cotton States since Mr.
Lincoln's election, he had found, everywhere outside the great cities,
a strong love for the Union and a universal hope that the Republic
might continue indivisible. He was very "conservative;" had always
voted the Democratic ticket; was confident the northern people would
not willingly wrong their southern brethren; and insisted that not more
than twenty or thirty thousand persons in the State of New-York were,
in any just sense, Abolitionists.
Captain McIntire silently heard him through, and then remarked:
"You seem to be a gentleman; you may be sincere in your opinions;
but it won't do for you to express such sentiments in the State of
Mississippi. They will involve you in trouble and in danger!"
[Sidenote: AN AMUSING COLLOQUY.]
The New-Yorker was swift to explain that he was very "sound," favoring
no compromise which would not give the slaveholders all they asked.
Meanwhile, a taciturn but edified listener, I pondered upon the German
proverb, that "speech is silver, while silence is golden." Something
gave me a dim suspicion that our violent fire-eater was not of southern
birth; and, after being plied industriously with indirect questions, he
was reluctantly forced to acknowledge himself a native of the State of
New Jersey. Soon after, at a little station, Captain McIntire, late of
the Army of the United States, bade us adieu.
At Grand Junction, after I had assumed a recumbent position in
the sleeping-car, two young women in a neighboring seat fell into
conversation with a gentleman near them, when a droll colloquy ensued.
Learning that he was a New Orleans merchant, one of them asked:--
"Do you know Mr. Powers, of New Orleans?"
"Powers--Powers," said the merchant; "what does he do?"
"Gambles," was the cool response.
"Bless me, no! What do you know about a gambler?"
"He is my husband," replied the woman, with ingenuous promptness.
"Your husband a gambler!" ejaculated the gentleman, with horror in
every tone.
"Yes, sir," reiterated the undaunted female; "and gamblers are the best
men in the world."
"I didn't know they ever married. I should like to see a gambler's
wife."
"Well, sir, take a mighty good look, and you can see one now."
The merchant opened the curtains into their compartment, and
scrutinized the speaker--a young, rosy, and rather comely woman, with
blue eyes and brown hair, quietly and tastefully dressed.
"I should like to know your husband, madam."
"Well, sir; if you've got plenty of money, he will be glad to make
_your_ acquaintance."
"Does he ever go home?"
"Lord bless you, yes! He always comes home at one o'clock in the
morning, after he gets through dealing faro. He has not missed a single
night since we were married--going on five years. We own a farm in this
vicinity, and if business continues good with him next year we shall
retire to it, and never live in the city again."
All the following day I journeyed through deep forests of heavy
drooping foliage, with pendent tufts of gray Spanish moss. The
beautiful Cherokee rose everywhere trailed its long arms of vivid
green; all the woods were decked with the yellow flowers of the
sassafras and the white blossoms of the dogwood and the wild plum.
Our road stretched out in long perspective through great Louisiana
everglades, where the grass was four feet in hight and the water ten or
twelve inches deep.
[Sidenote: FEELING TOWARD PRESIDENT LINCOLN.]
It was the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. One of our passengers
remarked:
"I hope to God he will be killed before he has time to take the oath!"
Another said:
"I have wagered a new hat that neither he nor Hamlin will ever live to
be inaugurated."
[Sidenote: WHAT A MISSISSIPPI SLAVEHOLDER THOUGHT.]
An old Mississippian, a working man, though the owner of a dozen
slaves, assured me earnestly that the people did not desire war; but
the North had cheated them in every compromise, and they were bound to
regain their rights, even if they had to fight for them.
"We of the South," said he, "are the most independent people in the
universe. We raise every thing we need; but the world can not do
without cotton. If we have war, it will cause terrible suffering in the
North. I pity the ignorant people of the manufacturing districts there,
who have been deluded by the politicians; for they will be forced to
endure many hardships, and perhaps starvation. After Southern trade is
withdrawn, manufactures stopped, operatives starving, grass growing in
the streets of New York, and crowds marching up Broadway crying 'Bread
or Blood!' northern fanatics will see, too late, the results of their
folly."
This was the uniform talk of Secessionists. That Cotton was not
merely King, but absolute despot; that they could coerce the North
by refusing to buy goods, and coerce the whole world by refusing to
sell cotton, was their profound belief. This was always a favorite
southern theory. Bancroft relates that as early as 1661, the colony of
Virginia, suffering under commercial oppression, urged North Carolina
and Maryland to join her for a year in refusing to raise tobacco, that
they might compel Great Britain to grant certain desired privileges.
Now the Rebels had no suspicion whatever that there was reciprocity
in trade; that they needed to sell their great staple just as much as
the world needed to buy it; that the South bought goods in New York
simply because it was the cheapest and best market; that, were all the
cotton-producing States instantly sunk in the ocean, in less than five
years the world would obtain their staple, or some adequate substitute,
from other sources, and forget they ever existed.
[Sidenote: WISCONSIN FREEMEN VS. SOUTHERN SLAVES.]
"I spent six weeks last summer," said another planter, "in Wisconsin.
It is a hot-bed of Abolitionism. The working-classes are astonishingly
ignorant. They are honest and industrious, but they are not so
intelligent as the nig-roes of the South. They suppose, if war comes,
we shall have trouble with our slaves. That is utterly absurd. All my
nig-roes would fight for me."
A Mississippian, whom his companions addressed as "Judge," denounced
the Secession movement as a dream of noisy demagogues:
"Their whole policy has been one of precipitation. They declared: 'Let
us rush the State out of the Union while Buchanan is President, and
there will be no war.' From the outset, they have acted in defiance
of the sober will of the masses; they have not dared to submit one of
their acts to a popular vote!"
Another passenger, who concurred in these views, and intimated that he
was a Union man, still imputed the troubles mainly to agitation of the
Slavery question.
"The northern people," said he, "have been grossly deceived by their
politicians, newspapers, and books like 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' whose very
first chapter describes a slave imprisoned and nearly starved to death
in a cellar in New Orleans, when there is not a single cellar in the
whole city!"
Midnight found us at the St. Charles Hotel, a five-story edifice, with
granite basement and walls of stucco--that be-all and end-all of New
Orleans architecture. The house has an imposing Corinthian portico,
and in the hot season its stone floors and tall columns are cool and
inviting to the eye.
[Sidenote: HOSPITALITY OF A STRANGER.]
"You can not fail to like New Orleans," said a friend, before I left
the North. "Its people are much more genial and cordial to strangers
than ours." I took no letters of introduction, for introduction was
just the thing I did not want. But on the cars, before reaching the
city, I met a gentleman with whom I had a little conversation, and
exchanged the ordinary civilities of traveling. When we parted, he
handed me his card, saying:
"You are a stranger in New Orleans, and may desire some
information or assistance. Call and see me, and command me,
if I can be of service to you."
He proved to be the senior member of one of the heaviest wholesale
houses in the city. Accepting the invitation, I found him in his
counting-room, deeply engrossed in business; but he received me with
great kindness, and gave me information about the leading features of
the city which I wished to see. As I left, he promised to call on me,
adding: "Come in often. By the way, to-morrow is Sunday; why can't you
go home and take a quiet family dinner with me?"
I was curious to learn the social position of one who would invite
a stranger, totally without indorsement, into his home-circle. The
next day he called, and we took a two-story car of the Baronne street
railway. It leads through the Fourth or Lafayette District--more like
a garden than a city--containing the most delightful metropolitan
residences in America. Far back from the street, they are deeply
imbosomed in dense shrubbery and flowers. The tropical profusion of the
foliage retains dampness and is unwholesome, but very delicious to the
senses.
The houses are low--this latitude is unfavorable to climbing--and
constructed of stucco, cooler than wood, and less damp than stone. They
abound in verandas, balconies, and galleries, which give to New Orleans
a peculiarly mellow and elastic look, much more alluring than the cold,
naked architecture of northern cities.
[Sidenote: AN AGREEABLE FAMILY CIRCLE.]
My new friend lived in this district, as befits a merchant prince.
His spacious grounds were rich in hawthorns, magnolias, arbor-vitæs,
orange, olive, and fig trees, and sweet with the breath of
multitudinous flowers. Though it was only the tenth of March, myriads
of pinks and trailing roses were in full bloom; Japan plums hung ripe,
while brilliant oranges of the previous year still glowed upon the
trees. His ample residence, with its choice works of art, was quietly,
unostentatiously elegant. There was no mistaking it for one of those
gilt and gaudy palaces which seem to say: "Look at the state in which
Cr[oe]sus, my master, lives. Lo, the pictures and statues, the Brussels
and rosewood which his money has bought! Behold him clothed in purple
and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day!"
Three other guests were present, including a young officer of the
Louisiana troops stationed at Fort Pickens, and a lady whose husband
and brother held each a high commission in the Rebel forces of Texas.
All assumed to be Secessionists--as did nearly every person I met in
New Orleans upon first acquaintance--but displayed none of the usual
rancor and violence. In that well-poised, agreeable circle the evening
passed quickly, and at parting, the host begged me to frequent his
house. This was not distinctively southern hospitality, for he was born
and bred at the North. But in our eastern cities, from a business man
in his social position, it would appear a little surprising. Had he
been a Philadelphian or Bostonian, would not his friends have deemed
him a candidate for a lunatic asylum?
NEW ORLEANS, _March 6, 1861_.
Taking my customary stroll last evening, I sauntered into Canal
street, and suddenly found myself in a dense and expectant crowd.
Several cheers being given upon my arrival, I naturally inferred that
it was an ovation to _The Tribune_ correspondent; but native modesty,
and a desire to blush unseen, restrained me from any oral public
acknowledgment.
[Sidenote: TRIBUNE LETTERS.--GENERAL TWIGGS.]
Just then, an obliging by-stander corrected my misapprehension by
assuring me that the demonstration was to welcome home General Daniel
E. Twiggs--the gallant hero, you know, who, stationed in Texas to
protect the Government property, recently betrayed it all into the
hands of the Rebels, to "prevent bloodshed." His friends wince at the
order striking his name from the army rolls as a coward and a traitor,
and the universal execration heaped upon his treachery even in the
border slave States.
They did their best to give him a flattering reception. The great
thoroughfare was decked in its holiday attire. Flags were flying, and
up and down, as far as the eye could reach, the balconies were crowded
with spectators, and the arms of long files of soldiers glittered in
the evening sunlight. One company bore a tattered and stained banner,
which went through the Mexican war. Another carried richly ornamented
colors, presented by the ladies of this city. There were Pelican flags,
and Lone Star flags, and devices unlike any thing in the heavens above,
the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth; but nowhere could I
see the old National banner. It was well; on such occasion the Stars
and Stripes would be sadly out of place.
[Sidenote: BRAXTON BRAGG.--MR. LINCOLN'S INAUGURAL.]
After a welcoming speech, pronouncing him "not only the soldier of
courage, but the patriot of fidelity and honor," and his own response,
declaring that _here_, at least, he would "never be branded as a
coward and traitor," the ex-general rode through some of the principal
streets in an open barouche, bareheaded, bowing to the spectators. He
is a venerable-looking man, apparently of seventy. His large head is
bald upon the top; but from the sides a few thin snow-white locks,
utterly oblivious of the virtues of "the Twiggs Hair Dye,"[2] streamed
in the breeze. He was accompanied in the carriage by General Braxton
Bragg--the "Little-more-grape-Captain-Bragg" of Mexican war memory. By
the way, persons who ought to know declare that General Taylor never
used the expression, his actual language being: "Captain Bragg, give
them----!"
[2] In Mexico, General Twiggs, while applying some preparation to a
wound in his head, found it restoring his hair to its natural color.
An enterprising nostrum-vender at once placed in market and advertised
largely something which he styled the "Twiggs Hair Dye." Dr. Holmes
makes the incident a target for one of his Parthian arrows:--
"How many a youthful head we've seen put on its silver crown!
What sudden changes back again, to youth's empurpled brown!
But how to tell what's old or young--the tap-root from the sprigs,
Since Florida revealed her fount to Ponce de Leon Twiggs?"
President Lincoln's Inaugural, looked for with intense interest, has
just arrived. All the papers denounce it bitterly. _The Delta_, which
has advocated Secession these ten years, makes it a signal for the
war-whoop:--
"War is a great calamity; but, with all its horrors, it is
a blessing to the deep, dark, and damning infamy of such
a submission, such surrenders, as the southern people are
now called upon to make to a foreign invader. He who would
counsel such--he who would seek to dampen, discourage, or
restrain the ardor and determination of the people to resist
all such pretensions, is a traitor, who should be driven
beyond our borders."
"Foreign invader," is supposed to mean the President of our common
country! The "submission" denounced so terribly would be simply the
giving up of the Government property lately stolen by the Rebels, and
the paying of the usual duties on imports!
_March 8._
[Sidenote: LOUISIANA CONVENTION.]
The State convention which lately voted Louisiana out of the Union,
sits daily in Lyceum Hall. The building fronts Lafayette Square--one
of the admirable little parks which are the pride of New Orleans. Upon
the first floor is the largest public library in the city, though it
contains less than ten thousand volumes.
In the large hall above are the assembled delegates. Ex-Governor
Mouton, their president, a portly old gentleman, of the heavy-father
order, sits upon the platform. Below him, at a long desk, Mr. Wheat,
the florid clerk, is reading a report in a voice like a cracked bugle.
Behind the president is a life-size portrait of Washington; at his
right, a likeness of Jefferson Davis, with thin, beardless face, and
sad, hollow eyes. There is also a painting of the members, and a copy
of the Secession ordinance, with lithographed _fac similes_ of their
signatures. The delegates, you perceive, have made all the preliminary
arrangements for being immortalized. Physically, they are fine-looking
men, with broad shoulders, deep chests, well-proportioned limbs, and
stature decidedly above the northern standard.