I will be _correspondent_ to command, And do my spiriting
gently.--TEMPEST.
[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION TO REBEL CIRCLES.]
The good fortune which in Memphis enabled me to learn so directly
the plans and aims of the Secession leaders, did not desert me in
New Orleans. For several years I had been personally acquainted with
the editor of the leading daily journal--an accomplished writer, and
an original Secessionist. Uncertain whether he knew positively my
political views, and fearing to arouse suspicion by seeming to avoid
him, I called on him the day after reaching the city.
He received me kindly, never surmising my errand; invited me into
the State convention, of which he was a member; asked me to frequent
his editorial rooms; and introduced me at the "Louisiana Democratic
Club," which had now ripened into a Secession club. Among prominent
Rebels belonging to it were John Slidell and Judah P. Benjamin, of
Jewish descent, whom Senator Wade of Ohio characterized so aptly as "an
Israelite with Egyptian principles."
Admission to that club was a final voucher for political soundness. The
plans of the conspirators could hardly have been discussed with more
freedom in the parlor of Jefferson Davis. Another friend introduced
me at the Merchants' Reading-room, where were the same sentiments and
the same frankness. The newspaper office also was a standing Secession
caucus.
[Sidenote: INTENSITY OF THE SECESSION FEELING.]
These associations gave me rare facilities for studying the aims
and animus of the leading Revolutionists. I was not compelled to ask
questions, so constantly was information poured into my ears. I used
no further deceit than to acquiesce quietly in the opinions everywhere
heard. While I talked New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, my companions
talked Secession; and told me more, every day, of its secret workings,
than as a mere stranger I could have learned in a month. Socially,
they were genial and agreeable. Their hatred of New England, which
they seemed to consider "the cruel cause of all our woes," was very
intense. They were also wont to denounce _The Tribune_, and sometimes
its unknown Southern correspondents, with peculiar bitterness. At first
their maledictions fell with startling and unpleasant force upon my
ears, though I always concurred. But in time I learned to hear them
not only with serenity, but with a certain quiet enjoyment of the
ludicrousness of the situation.
I had not a single acquaintance in the city, whom I knew to be a Union
man, or to whom I could talk without reserve. This was very irksome--at
times almost unbearable. How I longed to open my heart to somebody!
Recently as I had left the North, and strongly as I was anchored in
my own convictions, the pressure on every hand was so great, all
intelligence came so distorted through Rebel mediums, that at times I
was nearly swept from my moorings. I could fully understand how many
strong Union men had at last been drawn into the almost irresistible
tide. It was an inexpressible relief to read the northern newspapers at
the Democratic Club. There, even _The Tribune_ was on file. The club
was so far above suspicion that it might have patronized with impunity
the organ of William Lloyd Garrison or Frederick Douglass.
[Sidenote: REBEL NEWSPAPERS AND PRESIDENT LINCOLN.]
The vituperation which the southern journals heaped upon Abraham
Lincoln was something marvelous. The speeches of the newly elected
President on his way to Washington, were somewhat rugged and uncouth;
not equal to the reputation he won in the great senatorial canvass with
Douglas, where debate and opposition developed his peculiar powers and
stimulated his unrivaled logic. The Rebel papers drew daily contrasts
between the two Presidents, pronouncing Mr. Davis a gentleman, scholar,
statesman; and Mr. Lincoln a vulgarian, buffoon, demagogue. One of
their favorite epithets was "idiot;" another, "baboon;" just as the
Roman satirists, fifteen hundred years ago, were wont to ridicule the
great Julian as an ape and a hairy savage.
The times have changed. While I write some of the same journals, not
yet extinguished by the fortunes of war, denounce Jefferson Davis
with equal coarseness and bitterness, as an elegant, vacillating
sentimentalist; and mourn that he does not possess the rugged common
sense and indomitable perseverance displayed by Abraham Lincoln!
While keeping up appearances on the Mexican question, by frequent
inquiries about the semi-monthly steamers for Vera Cruz, I devoted
myself ostensibly to the curious features of the city. Odd enough it
sounded to hear persons say, "Let us go _up_ to the river;" but the
phrase is accurate. New Orleans is two feet lower than the Mississippi,
and protected against overflow by a dike or levee. The city is quite
narrow, and is drained into a great swamp in the rear. In front, new
deposits of soil are constantly and rapidly made. Four of the leading
business streets, nearest the levee, traverse what, a few years ago,
was the bed of the river. Anywhere, by digging two feet below the
surface, one comes to water.
The earth is peculiarly spongy and yielding. The unfinished Custom
House, built of granite from Quincy, Massachusetts, has sunk about
two feet since its commencement, in 1846. The same is true of other
heavy buildings. Cellars and wells being impossible in the watery
soil, refrigerators serve for the one, and cylindrical upright wooden
cisterns, standing aboveground, like towers, for the other.
[Sidenote: CEMETERIES ABOVE THE GROUND.]
In the cemeteries the tombs are called "ovens." They are all built
aboveground, of brick, stone, or stucco, closed up with mortar and
cement. Sometimes the walls crack open, revealing the secrets of the
charnel-house. Decaying coffins are visible within; and once I saw a
human skull protruding from the fissure of a tomb. Here, indeed,
"Imperial Cæsar, dead, and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away."
Despite this revolting feature, the Catholic cemeteries are especially
interesting. About the humblest of the monuments, artificial wreaths,
well-tended rose-beds, garlands of fresh flowers, changed daily, and
vases inserted in the walls, to catch water and attract the birds,
evince a tender, unforgetful attention to the resting-place of departed
friends. More than half the inscriptions are French or Spanish. Very
few make any allusion to a future life. One imposing column marks the
grave of Dominique You, the pirate, whose single virtue of patriotism,
exhibited under Jackson during the war of 1815, hardly justifies, upon
his monument, the magnificent eulogy of Bayard: "The hero of a hundred
battles,--a chevalier without fear and without reproach."
In New Orleans, grass growing upon the streets is no sign of
decadence. Stimulated by the rich, moist soil, it springs up in
profusion, not only in the smaller thoroughfares, but among the bricks
and paving-stones of the leading business avenues.
[Sidenote: THE FRENCH QUARTER OF NEW ORLEANS.]
Canal street is perhaps the finest promenade on the continent. It is
twice the width of Broadway, and in the middle has two lines of trees,
with a narrow lawn between them, extending its entire length. At night,
as the long parallel rows of gas-lights glimmer through the quivering
foliage, growing narrower and narrower in perspective till they unite
and blend into one, it is a striking spectacle--a gorgeous feast of
the lanterns. On the lower side of it is the "French Quarter," more
un-American even than the famous German portion of Cincinnati known
as "Over the Rhine." Here you may stroll for hours, "a straggler from
another civilization," hearing no word in your native tongue, seeing
no object to remove the impression of an ancient French city. The
dingy houses, "familiar with forgotten years," call up memories of old
Mexican towns. They are grim, dusky relics of antiquity, usually but
one story high, with steep projecting roofs, tiled or slated, wooden
shutters over the doors, and multitudinous eruptions of queer old
gables and dormer windows.
New Orleans is the most Parisian of American cities. Opera-houses,
theaters, and all other places of amusement are open on Sunday nights.
The great French market wears its crowning glory only on Sunday
mornings. Then the venders occupy not only several spacious buildings,
but adjacent streets and squares. Their wares seem boundless in
variety. Any thing you please--edible, drinkable, wearable, ornamental,
or serviceable--from Wenham ice to vernal flowers and tropical
fruits--from Indian moccasins to a silk dress-pattern--from ancient
Chinese books to the freshest morning papers--ask, and it shall be
given unto you.
[Sidenote: FRENCH MARKET ON SUNDAY MORNING.]
Sit down in a stall, over your tiny cup of excellent coffee, and you
are hobnobbing with the antipodes--your next neighbor may be from
Greenland's icy mountains, or India's coral strand. Get up to resume
your promenade, and you hear a dozen languages in as many steps; while
every nation, and tribe, and people--French, English, Irish, German,
Spanish, Creole, Chinese, African, Quadroon, Mulatto, American--jostles
you in good-humored confusion.
Some gigantic negresses, with gaudy kerchiefs, like turbans, about
their heads, are selling fruits, and sit erect as palm-trees. They look
like African or Indian princesses, a little annoyed at being separated
from their thrones and retinues, but none the less regal "for a' that."
At every turn little girls, with rich Creole complexions and brilliant
eyes, offer you aromatic bouquets of pinks, roses, verbenas, orange
and olive blossoms, and other flowers to you unknown, unless, being a
woman, you are a botanist by "gift of fortune," or, a man, that science
has "come by nature."
Upon Jackson Square, a delicious bit of verdure fronting the river,
gloom antique public buildings, which were the seat of government in
the days of the old Spanish _régime_. Near them stands the equally
ancient cathedral, richly decorated within, where devout Catholics
still worship. Its great congregations are mosaics of all hues and
nationalities, mingling for the moment in the democratic equality of
the Roman Church.
Attending service in the cathedral one Sunday morning, I found the
aisles crowded with volunteers who, on the eve of departure for
the debatable ground of Fort Pickens, had assembled to witness the
consecration of their Secession flag, a ceremonial conducted with great
pomp and solemnity by the French priests.
In the First Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Dr. Palmer, a divine of
talent and local reputation, might be heard advocating the extremest
Rebel views. The southerners had formerly been very bitter in their
denunciation of political preaching; but now the pulpit, as usual, made
obeisance to the pews, and the pews beamed encouragement on the pulpit.
[Sidenote: PRESSING COTTON BY MACHINERY.]
If I may go abruptly from church to cotton--and they were not far apart
in New Orleans--a visit to one of the great cotton-presses was worthy
of note. It is a low building, occupying an entire square, with a
hollow court in the center. It was filled with heaped-up cotton-bales,
which overran their limits and covered the adjacent sidewalks. Negroes
stood all day at the doors receiving and discharging cotton. The bales
are compressed by heavy machinery, driven by steam, that they may
occupy the least space in shipping. They are first condensed on the
plantations by screw-presses; the cotton is compact upon arrival here;
but this great iron machine, which embraces the bales in a hug of two
hundred tons, diminishes them one-third more. The laborers are negroes
and Frenchmen, who chant a strange, mournful refrain in time with their
movements.
The ropes of a bale are cut; it is thrown under the press; the great
iron jaws of the monster close convulsively, rolling it under the
tongue as a sweet morsel. The ropes are tightened and again tied,
the cover stitched up, and the bale rolled out to make room for
another--all in about fifty seconds. It weighs five hundred pounds, but
the workmen seize it on all sides with their iron hooks, and toss it
about like a schoolboy's ball. The superintendent informed me that they
pressed, during the previous winter, more than forty thousand bales.
[Sidenote: THE BARRACKS.--THE NEW ORLEANS LEVEE.]
The Rebels, with their early _penchant_ for capturing empty forts and
full treasuries, had seized the United States Branch Mint, containing
three hundred thousand dollars, and the National barracks, garrisoned
at the time by a single sergeant. Visiting, with a party of gentlemen,
the historic Jackson battle-ground, four miles below the city, I
obtained a glimpse of the tall, gloomy Mint, and spent an hour in the
long, low, white, deep-balconied barracks beside the river.
The Lone Star flag of Louisiana was flying from the staff. A hundred
and twenty freshly enlisted men of the State troops composed the
garrison. Three of the officers, recent seceders from the Federal army,
invited us into their quarters, to discuss political affairs over
their Bourbon and cigars. As all present assumed to be sanguine and
uncompromising Rebels, the conversation was one-sided and uninteresting.
We drove down the river-bank along the almost endless rows of ships
and steamboats. The commerce of New Orleans, was more imposing than
that of any other American city except New York. It seemed to warrant
the picture painted by the unrivaled orator, Prentiss, of the future
years, "when this Crescent City shall have filled her golden horn." The
long landing was now covered with western produce, cotton, and sugar,
and fenced with the masts of hundreds of vessels. Some displayed the
three-striped and seven-starred flag of the "Southern Confederacy,"
many the ensigns of foreign nations, and a few the Stars and Stripes.
We were soon among the old houses of the Creoles.[3]
[3] Creole means "native;" but its New Orleans application is only to
persons of French or Spanish descent.
These anomalous people--a very large element of the
population--properly belong to a past age or another land, and find
themselves sadly at variance with America in the nineteenth century.
They seldom improve or sell their property; permit the old fences and
palings to remain around their antique houses; are content to live
upon small incomes, and rarely enter the modern districts. It is even
asserted that old men among them have spent their whole lives in New
Orleans without ever going above Canal street! Many have visited Paris,
but are profoundly ignorant of Washington, New York, Philadelphia, and
other northern cities. They are devout Catholics, sudden and quick in
quarrel, and duelling continues one of their favorite recreations.
[Sidenote: VISIT TO THE JACKSON BATTLE-GROUND.]
We stopped at the old Spanish house--deeply embowered in
trees--occupied as head-quarters by General Jackson, and saw the upper
window from which, glass in hand, he witnessed the approach of the
enemy. The dwelling is inhabited, and bears marks of the cannon-balls
fired to dislodge him. Like his city quarters--a plain brick edifice,
at one hundred and six, Royal-street, New Orleans--it is unchanged in
appearance since that historic Eighth of January.
A few hundred yards from the river, we reached the battle-ground
where, in 1815, four thousand motley, undisciplined, half-armed
recruits defeated twelve thousand veterans--the Americans losing
but five men, the British seven hundred. This enormous disparity is
explained by the sheltered position of one party behind a breastwork,
and the terrible exposure of the other in its march, by solid columns,
of half a mile over an open field, without protection of hillock or
tree. A horrible field, whence the Great Reaper gathered a bloody
harvest!
[Sidenote: INCIDENTS OF THE BATTLE.]
The swamp here is a mile from the river. Jackson dug a canal between
them, throwing up the earth on one side for a breastwork, and turning
a stream of water from the Mississippi through the trench. The British
had an extravagant fear of the swamp, and believed that, attempting
to penetrate it, they would be ingulfed in treacherous depths. So
they marched up, with unflinching Saxon courage, in the teeth of
that terrible fire from the Americans, ranged four deep, behind the
fortification; and the affair became a massacre rather than a battle.
The spongy soil of the breastwork (the tradition that bales of cotton
were used is a fiction) absorbed the balls without any damage. It first
proved what has since been abundantly demonstrated in the Crimean
war, and the American Rebellion--the superiority of earthworks over
brick and stone. The most solid masonry will be broken and battered
down sooner or later, but shells and solid shot can do little harm to
earthworks.
Jackson's army was a reproduction of Falstaff's ragamuffins. It was
made up of Kentucky backwoodsmen, New Orleans clergymen, lawyers,
merchants and clerks; pirates and ruffians just released from the
calaboose to aid in the defense; many negroes, free and slave, with
a liberal infusion of nondescript city vagabonds, noticeable chiefly
for their tatters, and seeming, from their "looped and windowed
raggedness," to hang out perpetual flags of truce to the enemy.
Judah Trouro, a leading merchant, while carrying ammunition, was
struck in the rear by a cannon-ball, which cut and bore away a large
slice of his body; but, in spite of the awkward loss, he lived many
years, to leave an enviable memory for philanthropy and public spirit.
Parton tells of a young American who, during the battle, stooped
forward to light a cigar; and when he recovered his position saw that
a man exactly behind him was blown to pieces, and his brains scattered
over the parapet, by an exploding shell.
[Sidenote: A PECULIAR FREE NEGRO POPULATION.]
More than half of Jackson's command was composed of negroes, who were
principally employed with the spade, but several battalions of them
were armed, and in the presence of the whole army received the thanks
of General Jackson for their gallantry. On each anniversary the negro
survivors of the battle always turned out in large numbers--so large,
indeed, as to excite the suspicion that they were not genuine.
The free colored population, at the time of my visit, was a very
peculiar feature of New Orleans. Its members were chiefly of San
Domingo origin; held themselves altogether aloof from the other
blacks, owned numerous slaves, and were the most rigorous of masters.
Frequently their daughters were educated in Paris, married whites, and
in some cases the traces of their negro origin were almost entirely
obliterated. This, however, is not peculiar to that class. It is very
unusual anywhere in the South to find persons of pure African lineage.
A tinge of white blood is almost always detected.
Our company had an invaluable cicerone in the person of Judge
Alexander Walker, author of "Jackson and New Orleans," the most clear
and entertaining work upon the battle, its causes and results, yet
contributed to American history. He had toiled unweariedly through
all the official records, and often visited the ground with men who
participated in the engagement. He pointed out positions, indicated
the spot where Packenham fell, and drew largely upon his rich fund of
anecdote, tradition, and biography.
A plain, unfinished shaft of Missouri limestone, upon a rough brick
foundation, now marks the battle-field. It was commenced by a
legislative appropriation; but the fund became exhausted and the work
ceased. The level cotton plantation, ditched for draining, now shows
no evidence of the conflict, except the still traceable line of the
old canal, with detached pools of stagnant water in a fringe of reeds,
willows, and live oaks.
A negro patriarch, with silvery hair, and legs infirm of purpose,
hobbled up, to exhibit some balls collected on the ground. The bullets,
which were flattened, he assured us, had "hit somebody." No doubt they
were spurious; but we purchased a few buckshots and fragments of shell
from the ancient Ethiop, and rode back to the city along avenues lined
with flowers and shrubbery. Here grew the palm--the characteristic tree
of the South. It is neither graceful nor beautiful; but looks like an
inverted umbrella upon a long, slender staff. Ordinary pictures very
faithfully represent it.
[Sidenote: ALL ABOUT A "BLACK REPUBLICAN FLAG."]
NEW ORLEANS, _March 11, 1861_.
We are a good deal exercised, just now, about a new grievance. The
papers charged, a day or two since, that the ship Adelaide Bell, from
New Hampshire, had flung defiant to the breeze a Black Republican flag,
and that her captain vowed he would shoot anybody attempting to cut it
down. As one of the journals remarked, "his audacity was outrageous."
_En passant_, do you know what a Black Republican flag is? I have never
encountered that mythical entity in my travels; but 'tis a fearful
thing to think of--is it not?
The reporter of _The Crescent_, with charming ingenuousness, describes
it as "so much like the flag of the late United States, that few would
notice the difference." In fact, he adds, it _is_ the old Stars and
Stripes, with a red stripe instead of a white one immediately below
the union. Of course, we are greatly incensed. It is flat burglary,
you know, to love the Star Spangled Banner itself; and as for a Black
Republican flag--why, that is most tolerable and not to be endured.
Captain Robertson, the "audacious," has been compelled, publicly,
to deny the imputation. He asserts that, in the simplicity of his
heart, he has been using it for years as a United States flag. But the
newspapers adhere stoutly to the charge; so the presumption is that the
captain is playing some infernal Yankee trick. Who shall deliver us
from the body of this Black Republican flag?
If it were possible, I would like to see the "Southern Confederacy"
work out its own destiny; to see how Slavery would flourish, isolated
from free States; how the securities of a government, founded on the
right of any of its members to break it up at pleasure, would stand
in the markets of the world; how the principle of Democracy would
sustain itself in a confederation whose corner-stones are aristocracy,
oligarchy, despotism. This is the government which, in the language of
one of its admirers, shall be "stronger than the bonds of Orion, and
benigner than the sweet influences of the Pleiades."
[Sidenote: VICE-PRESIDENT HAMLIN A MULATTO.]
A few days since, I was in a circle of southern ladies, when one of
them remarked:
"I am glad Lincoln has not been killed."
"Why so?" asked another.
"Because, if he had been, Hamlin would become President, and it would
be a shame to have a mulatto at the head of the Government."
A little discussion which followed developed that every lady present,
except one, believed Mr. Hamlin a mulatto. Yet the company was
comparatively intelligent, and all its members live in a flourishing
commercial metropolis. You may infer something of the knowledge of
the North in rural districts, enlightened only by weekly visits from
Secession newspapers!
We are enjoying that soft air "which comes caressingly to the brow, and
produces in the lungs a luxurious delight." I notice, on the streets,
more than one premonition of summer, in the form of linen coats. The
yards and cemeteries, smiling with myriads of roses and pinks, are
carpeted with velvet grass; the morning air is redolent of orange and
clover blossoms, and nosegays abound, sweet with the breath of the
tropics.
[Sidenote: NORTHERNERS LIVING IN THE SOUTH.]
_March 15._
Men of northern nativity are numerous throughout the Gulf States.
Many are leading merchants of the cities, and a few, planters in the
interior. Some have gone north to stay until the storm is over. A
part of those who remain out-Herod the native fire-eaters in zeal for
Secession. Their violence is suspicious; it oversteps the modesty
of nature. I was recently in a mixed company, where one person was
conspicuously bitter upon the border slave States, denouncing them as
"playing second fiddle to the Abolitionists," and "traitors to southern
rights."
"Who is he?" I asked of a southern gentleman beside me.
"He?" was the indignant reply; "why, he is a northerner, ---- him!
He is talking all this for effect. What does he care about our
rights? He don't own slaves, and wasn't raised in the South; if it
were fashionable, he would be an Abolitionist. I'd as soon trust a
nigger-stealer as such a man!"