I reckon this always, that a man is never undone until he be
hanged.--TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
I now began to entertain sentiments of profound gratitude toward the
young officer, at Mobile, who kept me from going to Fort Pickens.
Rejecting the tempting request of my Philadelphia companion to remain
one day in Montgomery, that he might introduce me to Jefferson Davis, I
continued my "Journey Due North."
[Sidenote: EFFECT OF CAPTURING FORT SUMTER.]
When we reached the cars, my baggage was missing. The omnibus agent,
who was originally a New Yorker, and probably thought it precarious for
a man desiring to reach Washington to be detained, even a few hours,
kindly induced the conductor to detain the train for five minutes while
we drove back to the Exchange Hotel and found the missing valise. The
event proved that delay would have been embarrassing, if not perilous.
A Georgian on the car-seat with me, while very careful not to let
others overhear his remarks, freely avowed Union sentiments, and
asserted that they were predominant among his neighbors. I longed to
respond earnestly and sincerely, but there was the possibility of a
trap, and I merely acquiesced.
The country was intoxicated by the capture of Sumter. A newspaper on
the train, several days old, in its regular Associated Press report,
contained the following:
[Sidenote: WASHINGTON TO BE CAPTURED.]
MONTGOMERY, Ala., Friday, _April 12, 1861_.
An immense crowd serenaded President Davis and Mr. Walker,
Secretary of War, at the Exchange Hotel to-night. The former
was not well, and did not appear. Secretary Walker, in a
few words of electrical eloquence, told the news from Fort
Sumter, declaring, in conclusion, that before many hours the
flag of the Confederacy would float over that fortress. No
man, he said, could tell where the war this day commenced
would end, but he would prophesy that the flag which here
streams to the breeze would float over the dome of the old
Capitol at Washington before the first of May. Let them test
Southern courage and resources, and it might float eventually
over Faneuil Hall itself.
An officer from General Bragg's camp informed me that all preparations
for capturing Fort Pickens were made, the United States sentinels on
duty upon a certain night being bribed; but that "Nemo's" intimation of
the intended attack frustrated it, a copy of his letter having found
its way into the post, and forewarned and forearmed the commander.
Everybody was looking anxiously for news from the North. The
predictions of certain New York papers, that the northern people would
inaugurate war at home if the Government attempted "coercion," were
received with entire credulity, and frequently quoted.
There was much admiration of Major Anderson's defense of Sumter; but
the opinion was general, that only a military sense of honor dictated
his conduct; that now, relieved from a soldier's responsibility, he
would resign and join the Rebels. "He is too brave a man to remain with
the Yankees," was the common remark. Far in the interior of Georgia, I
saw fragments of his flag-staff exhibited, and highly prized as relics.
We dined at the little hamlet of West Point, on the line between
Alabama and Georgia, and stopped for two evening hours at the bustling
city of Atlanta. Our stay was enlivened by a fresh conversation in
the car about northern spies and reporters, who were declared to be
infesting the country, and worthy of hanging wherever found.
[Sidenote: APPREHENSION ABOUT ARMING THE NEGROES.]
We spent the night in pursuit of sleep under difficulties, upon a rough
Georgia railway. The next morning, the scantiness of the disappearing
foliage indicated that we were going northward. In Augusta, we passed
through broad, pleasant shaded streets, and then crossed the Savannah
river into South Carolina. Companies of troops, bound for Charleston,
began to come on board the train, and were greeted with cheering at all
the stations. A young Carolinian, taking me for a southerner, remarked:
"The only thing we fear in this war is that the Yankees will arm our
slaves and turn them against us."
This was the first statement of the kind I heard. Persons had said many
times in my presence that they were perfectly sure of the slaves--who
would all fight for their masters. In the last article of faith they
proved as deluded as those sanguine northerners who believed that slave
insurrections would everywhere immediately result from hostilities.
At Lee's Station we met the morning train from Charleston. Within
two yards of my window, I saw a dark object disappear under the
cow-catcher; and a moment after, a woman, wringing her hands, shrieked:
"My God! My God! Mr. Lee killed!"
Lying on the track was a shapeless, gory mass, which only the clothing
showed to be the remains of a human being. The station-keeper,
attempting to cross the road just in advance of the train, was struck
down and run over. His little son was standing beside him at the very
moment, and two of his daughters looking on from the door of his
residence, a few yards away. In the first bewilderment of terror, they
now stood wildly beating their foreheads, and gasping for breath. In
strange contrast with this scene, a martial band was discoursing lively
music, and people were loudly cheering the soldiers. Buoyant Life and
grim Death stood side by side and walked hand in hand.
Our train plunged into deep pine woods, and wended through large
plantations, whose cool frame houses were shaded by palmetto-trees. The
negro men and women, who stood in the fields persuading themselves that
they were working, handled their hoes with indescribable awkwardness. A
sketch of their exact positions would look ridiculously unnatural. They
were in striking contrast with the zeal and activity of the northern
laborer, who moves under the stimulus of freedom.
[Sidenote: LOOKING AT THE CAPTURED FORTRESS.]
In the afternoon, we passed through the Magnolia Cemetery, and in view
of the State Arsenal, with the palmetto flag waving over it. The Mills'
House, in Charleston, was crowded with guests and citizens, half of
them in uniform. After I registered my name, a brawny fellow, with
a "plug-ugly" countenance, looked over my shoulder at the book, and
then regarded me with a long, impudent, scrutinizing stare, which I
endeavored to return with interest. In a few seconds his eyes dropped,
and he went back to his seat.
I strolled down the narrow streets, with their antiquated houses, to
the pleasant Battery, where several columbiads, with pyramidal piles of
solid shot between them, pointed at Fort Sumter. Down the harbor, among
a few snow-white sails, stood the already historic fortress. The line
of broken roof, visible above the walls, was torn and ragged from Rebel
shots. At the distance of two miles, it was impossible, with the naked
eye, to identify the two flags above it. A bystander told me that they
were the colors of South Carolina and of the Confederacy.
The devices of treason flaunting in the breeze where the Stars and
Stripes, after being insulted for months, were so lately lowered in
dishonor, were not a pleasant spectacle, and I turned slowly and sadly
back to the hotel. In its reading-room, among the four or five papers
on file, was a copy of _The Tribune_, whose familiar face was like the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
[Sidenote: A SHORT STAY IN CHARLESTON.]
The city reeled with excitement. In the evening martial music and
huzzas came floating up to my window from a meeting at the Charleston
Hotel, where the young Virginian Hotspur, Roger A. Pryor, was one of
the prominent speakers. Publicly and privately, the Charlestonians were
boasting over their late Cadmean victory. They had not heard from the
North.
I hoped to remain several days, but the public frenzy had grown so
uncontrollable, that every stranger was subjected to espionage. One
could hardly pick up a newspaper without seeing, or stand ten minutes
in a public place without hearing, of the arrest of some northerner,
charged with being a spy. While the lines of retreat were yet open, it
was judicious to flee from the wrath to come.
Designing to stop for a while in North Carolina, whose Rip Van Winkle
sleep seemed proof against any possible convulsion, I took the midnight
train northward. A number of Baltimoreans on board were returning
home, after assisting at the capture of Sumter. They were voluble and
boisterous Rebels, declaring in good set terms that Maryland would
shortly be revolutionized, Governor Hicks and Henry Winter Davis
hanged, and President Lincoln driven out of Washington. They averred
with great vehemence and iteration that the Yankees were all cowards,
and could easily be "whipped out;" but when one, whose denunciations
had been peculiarly bitter, was asked:
[Sidenote: THE COUNTRY ON FIRE.]
"Are you going home through Washington?"
"Not I," was the reply. "Old Abe might have us nabbed!"
We were soon on the clayey soil of the Old North State, which, to the
eye, closely resembles those regions of Ohio near Lake Erie. Hour after
hour, we rode through the deep forests of tall pines, from which the
bark had been stripped for making rosin and turpentine.
My anticipations of quiet proved altogether delusive. President
Lincoln's Proclamation, calling for seventy-five thousand soldiers,
had just arrived by telegraph, and the country was on fire. It was the
first flush of excitement here, and the feeling was more intense and
demonstrative than in those States which had become accustomed to the
Revolution. Forts were being seized, negroes and white men impressed
to labor upon them, military companies forming, clergymen taking up
the musket, and women encouraging the determination to fight the
"Abolitionists." All Union sentiment was awed into utter silence.
While the train was stopping at Wilmington, a telegram, announcing that
Virginia had passed a Secession ordinance, was received with yells
of applause. Sitting alone at one end of the car, I observed three
fellow-passengers, with whom I had formed a traveling acquaintance,
conferring earnestly. Their frequent glances toward me indicated
the subject of the conversation. As I had said nothing to define my
political position, I resolved to set myself right at once, should they
put me to the test. One of them approached me, and remarked:
"We just have news that Virginia has seceded."
I replied, with considerable emphasis: "Good! That will give us all the
border States."
Apparently satisfied, he returned to his friends, and they said no
more to me upon the all-absorbing question.
[Sidenote: SUBMITTING TO REBEL SCRUTINY.]
A fragment of conversation which occurred near me, will illustrate the
general tone of remark. A young man observed to a gentleman beside him:
"We shall have possession of Washington before the first of June."
"Do you think so? Lincoln is going to call out an army of one hundred
and fifty thousand men."
"Oh, well, we can whip them out any morning before breakfast. Throw
three or four shells among those blue-bellied Yankees and they will
scatter like a flock of sheep!"
Up to this day I had earnestly hoped that a bloody conflict between
the two sections might be averted; but these remarks were so
frequent--the opinion that northerners were unmitigated cowards seemed
so universal,[8] that I began to look with a great deal of complacency
upon the prospect which the South enjoyed of testing this faith. It was
time to ascertain, once for all, whether these gentlemen of the cotton
and the canebrake were indeed a superior race, destined to wield the
scepter, or whether their pretensions were mere arrogance and swagger.
[8] Of course the folly was not all on one side. Few northerners, up
to the attack on Sumter, thought the Rebels would do any thing but
threaten. And long after this error was exploded, our ablest journals
were fond of contrasting the resources of the two sections, and
demonstrating therefrom, with mathematical precision, that the war
could not last long; that the superiority of the North in men and money
would make the subjugation of the South a short and easy task. But they
did not commit the egregious blunder of imputing cowardice to any class
of native-born Americans.
It seemed impossible for the southern mind to comprehend that he
who never blusters, or flourishes the bowie-knife, who will endure a
great deal before fighting, who would rather suffer a wrong than do
a wrong, is, when roused, the most dangerous of adversaries--a fact
so universal, that it has given us the proverb, "Beware the fury of a
patient man."
[Sidenote: THE NORTH HEARD FROM.]
New York papers, issued after receiving intelligence of the fall of
Sumter, now reached us, and both in their news and editorial columns
indicated how suddenly that event had aroused the whole North. The
voice of every journal was for war. _The Herald_, which one morning
spoke bitterly against coercion, received a visit during the day from
several thousand tumultuous citizens, who left it the alternative of
running up the American flag or having its office torn down. By the
presence of the police, and the intercession of leading Union men,
its property was saved from destruction. In next morning's paper
appeared one of its periodical and constitutional somersaults. Its four
editorial articles all cried "War to the knife!"
The Rebels were greatly surprised, half appalled, and doubly
exasperated at the unexpected change of all the northern papers which
they had counted friendly to them; but they also shouted "War!" even
louder than before.
At Goldsboro, where we stopped for supper, a small slab of marble,
standing upon the mantel in the hotel office, had these words upon it:
"Sacred to the memory of A. Lincoln, who died of a broken
neck, at Newburn, April 16, 1861."
[Sidenote: AN INEBRIATED PATRIOT.]
Before the train started again, a young patriot, whose articulation was
impeded by whisky, passed through it, asking:
"S'thr any ---- Yankee onth'strain? F'thr's a ---- Union man
board these cars, Ic'nwhip him by ---. H'rahfr Jeff. Davis
nth'southrncnfdrcy!" He afterward amused himself by firing his revolver
from the car door. At the next station he stepped out upon the
platform, and repeated:
"H'rah fr Jeff. Davis n'th'Southrn Confdrcy!" Another patriot among the
bystanders at the station promptly responded:
"Good. Hurra for Jeff. Davis!"
"Yre th'man fr me," responded our passenger; "Come 'n' takeadrink. All
fr Jeff. Davis here, ain't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Thatsallrightth'n. But what d'you elect that ---- Abolitionist, Murphy,
t'th' Leg'slature for?"
"_I'm_ Murphy," replied the patriot, who had been standing in the
group, but now sprang forward belligerently. "Who calls _me_ an
Abolitionist?"
"Beg y'r padon sr. Reck'n you ain't the man. But who _is_ that
Abolitionist you 'lected here? 's name's Brown, 'sn't it? Yes, that's
it. ---- Brown; y'ought t'hang _him_!"
Just then the whistle shrieked and the train moved on, amid shouts of
laughter.
At six o'clock next morning, we reached Richmond. Here, also, I had
hoped to stop, but the caldron was seething too hotly. Rebel flags were
everywhere flying, the newspapers all exulted over the passage of the
Secession ordinance, and some of them warned northerners and Union men
to leave the country forthwith. The tone of conversation, too, was very
bitter. The farther I went, the intenser the frenzy; and, beginning to
wonder whether there was any safe haven south of Philadelphia or New
York, I continued northward without a moment's unnecessary delay.
The railway accommodations grew better in exact ratio to our approach
to Mason and Dixon's line, and northern physiognomies were numerous
on the train. At Ashland, a few miles north of Richmond, the first
palatable meal since leaving the Alabama River was set before us. All
the intervening distance, to the epicurean eye, stretched out in a
dreary perspective of bacon and corn bread.
[Sidenote: THE OLD DOMINION IN A FRENZY.]
Half the passengers were soldiers. Every village bristled with
bayonets. At Fredericksburgh, one of the polished F. F. V.'s on
the platform presented his face at our window, and asked what the
unmentionable-to-ears-polite all these people were going north for? As
the passengers maintained an "heroic reticence," he exploded a fresh
oath, and went to the next car to pursue his investigations.
A citizen of Richmond, who occupied the seat with me, satisfied that I
was sound on the Secession question, assured me that it had been very
difficult to get the ordinance through the Convention; that trouble
was anticipated from Union men in Western Virginia; that business in
Richmond was utterly suspended, New York exchange commanding a premium
of fifteen per cent.
"We are fearful," he added, "of difficulty with our free negroes. There
are several thousand in Richmond, many of whom are intelligent, and
some wealthy. They show signs of turbulence, and we are perfecting an
organization to hold them in check. I sent the money to New York this
morning for a quantity of Sharp's rifles, ordering them to be forwarded
in dry-goods boxes, that they might not excite suspicion."
He added, that Ben McCulloch was in Virginia, and had perfected a
plan by which, at the head of Rebel troops, he was about to capture
Washington. As we progressed northward, the noisy Secession element
grew small by degrees, and beautifully less. At Acquia Creek, we left
the cars and took a steamer up the Potomac.
[Sidenote: THE OLD FLAG ONCE MORE.]
A quiet gentleman, who had come on board at Richmond, impressed
me, through that mysterious freemasonry which exists among
journalists--indeed, between members of all professions--as a
representative of the Fourth Estate. In reply to inquiries, he informed
me that he had been reporting the Virginia Convention for _The Richmond
Enquirer_, but, being a New Yorker, had concluded, like Jerry Blossom,
he wanted "to go home." He described the Convention, which at first
had an emphatic majority for the Government; but in time, one Union
man after another was dragooned into the ranks, until a bare Secession
majority was obtained.
The ordinance explicitly provided that it should not take effect until
submitted to the popular vote; but the State authorities immediately
assumed that it would be ratified. Senator Mason wrote a public letter,
warning all Union men to leave the State; and before the time for
voting arrived, the Secessionists succeeded in inaugurating a bloody
conflict upon the soil, and bringing in armies from the Gulf States. It
was then ratified by a large majority.
We steamed up the Potomac, passed the quiet tomb at Mount Vernon, which
was soon to hear the clangor of contending armies, and early in the
afternoon came in sight of Washington. There, at last, thank God! was
the old Starry Banner, flying in triumph over the Capitol, the White
House, the departments, and hundreds of dwellings. Albeit unused to the
melting mood, my heart was full, and my eyelids quivered as I saw it.
Until that hour, I never knew how I loved the old flag!
Walking down Pennsylvania avenue, I encountered troops of old friends,
and constantly wondered that I had been able to spend ten weeks in the
South, without meeting more than two or three familiar acquaintances.
[Sidenote: AN HOUR WITH PRESIDENT LINCOLN.]
A body-guard for the President, made up entirely of citizens of Kansas,
armed with Sharp's rifles, was on duty every night at the White House.
It contained two United States Senators, three members and ex-members
of Congress, the Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court, and several
editors and other prominent citizens of that patriotic young State.
With two friends, I spent an hour at the White House. The President,
though overwhelmed with business, received us kindly, and economized
time by taking a cup of tea while conversing with us, and inquiring
very minutely about affairs in the seceding States.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,"
though the crown be only the chaplet of a Republic.
This man had filled the measure of American ambition, but the
remembered brightness of his face was in strange contrast with the
weary, haggard look it now wore, and his blushing honors seemed pallid
and ashen. There was the same honest, kindly tone--the same fund of
humorous anecdote--the same genuineness; but the old, free, lingering
laugh was gone.
"Mr. Douglas," remarked the President, "spent three hours with me
this afternoon. For several days he has been too unwell for business,
and has devoted his time to studying war-matters, until he understands
the military position better, perhaps, than any one of the Cabinet.
By the way," continued Mr. Lincoln, with his peculiar twinkle of the
eye, "the conversation turned upon the rendition of slaves. 'You know,'
said Douglas, 'that I am entirely sound on the Fugitive Slave Law. I
am for enforcing it in all cases within its true intent and meaning;
but, after examining it carefully, I have concluded that a negro
insurrection is a case to which it does not apply.'"
[Sidenote: PANIC IN WASHINGTON.]
I had not come north a moment too early. The train which brought me
from Richmond to Acquia Creek was the last which the Rebel authorities
permitted to pass without interruption, and the steamer, on reaching
Washington, was seized by our own Government, and made no more regular
trips. Before I had been an hour in the Capital, the telegraph wires
were cut, and railway tracks in Maryland torn up. Intelligence of
the murderous attack of a Baltimore mob on the Sixth Massachusetts
regiment, _en route_ for Washington, startled the town from its
propriety.
Chaos had come again. Washington was the seat of an intense panic. An
attack from the Rebels was hourly expected, and hundreds of families
fled from the city in terror. During the next two days, twenty-five
hundred well-officered, resolute men could undoubtedly have captured
the city. The air was filled with extravagant and startling rumors.
From Virginia, Union refugees were hourly arriving, often after narrow
escapes from the frenzied populace.
Massachusetts soldiers, who had safely run the Baltimore gantlet of
death, were quartered in the United States Senate Chamber. They had
mustered with characteristic promptness. At 5 o'clock one evening,
a telegram reached Boston asking for troops for the defense of the
imperiled Capital. At 9 o'clock the next morning, the first company,
having come twenty-five miles from the country, stacked arms in
Faneuil Hall. At 5 o'clock that night the Sixth Regiment, with full
ranks, started for Washington. They were fine-looking fellows, but
greatly embittered by their Baltimore experience. In a very quiet,
undemonstrative way, they manifested an earnest desire for immediate
and active service.
[Sidenote: "CAME OUT TO FIGHT!"]
The bewilderment and terror which had so long rested like a nightmare
on the National authorities--which for months had left almost every
leading Republican statesman timid and undecided--was at last over.
The echoes of the Charleston guns broke the spell! The masses had been
heard from! Then, as at later periods of the war, the popular instinct
was clearer and truer than all the wisdom of the politicians.
During the three days I spent in Washington, the city was virtually
blockaded, receiving neither mails, telegrams, nor re-enforcements.
Martial law, though not declared, was sadly needed. Most of the
Secessionists had left, but enough remained to serve as spies for the
Virginia Revolutionists.
I left for New York, by an evening train crowded with fleeing
families. Most of them went west from the Relay House, deterred from
passing through Baltimore by the reign of terror which the Rebels had
inaugurated. The most zealous Union papers advocated Secession as
their only means of personal and pecuniary safety. The State and city
authorities, though professedly loyal, bowed helpless before the storm.
Governor Sprague, with his Rhode Island volunteers, had started for
Washington. Mayor Brown telegraphed him, requesting that they should
not come through Baltimore, as it would exasperate the people.
"The Rhode Island regiment," was Sprague's epigrammatic response,
"came out to fight, and may just as well fight in Maryland as in
Virginia." It passed unmolested!
[Sidenote: BALTIMORE UNDER REBEL RULE.]
We found Baltimore in a frenzy. The whole city seemed under arms. The
Union men were utterly silenced, and many had fled. The only person I
heard express undisguised loyalty was a young lady from Boston, and
only her sex protected her. Several persons had been arrested as spies
during the day, including two supposed correspondents of New York
papers.
Baltimore, for the time, was worse than any thing I had seen in
Charleston, New Orleans, or Mobile. Through the evening Barnum's hotel
was filled with soldiers. Stepping into the office to make arrangements
for going to Philadelphia, I encountered an old acquaintance from
Cincinnati, now commanding a Baltimore company under arms:
"If Lincoln persists in attempting to send troops through Maryland,"
said he, "we are bound to have his head!"
Another Baltimorean came up and began to question me, but my
acquaintance promptly vouched for me as "a true southern man," and I
escaped annoyance. The same belief was expressed here which prevailed
throughout the whole South, that northern men were cowards; and persons
actually alluded to the attack upon the unarmed Massachusetts troops as
an act of bravery.
Leaving Baltimore, I took a carriage for the nearest northern railway
point. The roads were crowded with families leaving the city, and
infested by Rebel scouts and patrols. Union citizens were helpless. One
of them said to us:
"For God's sake, beg the Administration and the North not to let us be
crushed out!"
We hoped to take the Philadelphia cars, twenty-six miles out, but a
detachment of Baltimore soldiers that very morning had passed up the
railroad, destroying every bridge; smoke was still rising from their
ruins. We were compelled to press on and on, until, in the evening,
after a ride of forty-six miles, we reached York, Pennsylvania.
[Sidenote: THE NORTH FULLY AROUSED.]
Here, at last, we could breathe freely. But both railroads being
monopolized by troops, we were compelled, wearily, to drive on to the
village of Columbia, on the Susquehanna river. There we began to see
that the North, as well as the South, was under martial rule. Armed
sentinels peremptorily ordered us to halt.
On identifying the driver, and learning my business, they allowed us to
proceed. At the bridge, the person in charge declined to open the gate:
"I guess you can't cross to-night, sir," said he.
I replied by "guessing" that we could; but he continued:
"Our orders are positive, to let no one pass who is not personally
known to us."
He soon became convinced that I was not an emissary of the enemy; and
the sentinels escorted us across the bridge, a mile and a quarter in
length. We proceeded undisturbed to Lancaster, arriving there at two
o'clock, after a carriage-ride of seventy miles. Thence to New York,
communication was undisturbed.
The cold-blooded North was fully aroused. Rebel sympathizers found
themselves utterly swept away by a Niagara of public indignation. In
Pennsylvania, in New York, in New England, I heard only the sentiment
that talking must be ended, and acting begun; that, cost what it might,
in money and blood, all must unite to crush the gigantic Treason which
was closing its fangs upon the throat of the Republic.
[Sidenote: UPRISING OF THE WHOLE PEOPLE.]
The people seemed much more radical than the President. In all public
places, threats were heard that, if the Administration faltered,
it must be overturned, and a dictatorship established. Against the
Monumental City, feeling was peculiarly bitter. All said:
"If National troops can not march unmolested through Baltimore, that
city has stood long enough! Not one stone shall be left upon another."
I had witnessed a good deal of earnestness and enthusiasm in the South,
but nothing at all approaching this wonderful uprising of the whole
people. All seemed imbued with the sentiment of those official papers
issued before Napoleon was First Consul, beginning, "In the name of the
French Republic, _one and indivisible_."
It was worth a lifetime to see it--to find down through all
the _débris_ of money-seeking, and all the strata of politics,
this underlying, primary formation of loyalty--this unfaltering
determination to vindicate the right of the majority, the only basis of
republican government.
The storm-cloud had burst; the Irrepressible Conflict was upon us.
Where would it end? What forecast or augury could tell? Revolutions
ride rough-shod over all probabilities; and who has mastered the logic
of civil war?
Here ended a personal experience, sometimes full of discomfort, but
always full of interest. It enabled me afterward to look at Secession
from the stand-point of those who inaugurated it; to comprehend Rebel
acts and utterances, which had otherwise been to me a sealed book. It
convinced me, too, of the thorough earnestness of the Revolutionists.
My published prediction, that we should have a seven years' war unless
the country used its utmost vigor and resources, seemed to excite a
mild suspicion of lunacy among my personal acquaintances.
[Sidenote: A TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENT ON TRIAL.]
I was the last member of _The Tribune_ staff to leave the South. By
rare good fortune, all its correspondents escaped personal harm, while
representatives of several other New York journals were waited upon by
vigilance committees, driven out, and in some cases imprisoned. It was
a favorite jest, that _The Tribune_ was the only northern paper whose
_attachés_ were allowed in the South.
Its South Carolinian correspondence had a peculiar history. Immediately
after the Presidential election, Mr. Charles D. Brigham went to
Charleston as its representative. With the exception of two or three
weeks, he remained there from November until February, writing almost
daily letters. The Charlestonians were excited and indignant, and
arrested in all five or six persons whom they unjustly suspected.
Finally, about the middle of February, Mr. Brigham was one day
taken into custody, and brought before Governor Pickens and his
cabinet counselors, among whom Ex-Governor McGrath was the principal
inquisitor. At this time the Southern Confederacy existed only in
embryo, and South Carolina claimed to be an independent republic.
The correspondent, who had great coolness and self-control, and knew
a good deal of human nature, maintained a serene exterior despite
the awkwardness of his position. After a rigid catechisation, he was
relieved to find that the tribunal did not surmise his real character,
but suspected him of being a spy of the Government.
His trial took place at the executive head-quarters, opposite the
Charleston Hotel, and lasted from nine o'clock in the morning until
nine at night. During the afternoon, the city being disturbed by one
of its daily reports that a Federal fleet had appeared off the bar, he
was turned over to Mr. Alexander H. Brown, a leading criminal lawyer,
famous for his skill in examining witnesses. Mr. Brown questioned,
re-questioned, and cross-questioned the vagrant scribe, but was
completely baffled by him. He finally said:
"Mr. Brigham, while I think you are all right, this is a peculiar
emergency, and you must see that, under the circumstances, it will be
necessary for you to leave the South at once."
[Sidenote: HE IS WARNED TO DEPART.]
The "sweet sorrow" of parting gladdened his journalistic heart; but, at
the bidding of prudence, he replied:
"I hope not, sir. It is very hard for one who, as you are bound to
admit, after the most rigid scrutiny, has done nothing improper, who
has deported himself as a gentleman should, who sympathizes with you as
far as a stranger can, to be driven out in this way."
The attorney replied, with that quiet significance which such remarks
possessed:
"I am sorry, sir, that it is not a question for argument."
The lucky journalist, while whispering he would ne'er consent,
consented. Whereupon the lawyer, who seemed to have some qualms of
conscience, invited him to join in a bottle of wine, and when they had
become a little convivial, suddenly asked:
"By the way, do you know who is writing the letters from here to _The
Tribune_?"
"Why, no," was the answer. "I haven't seen a copy of that paper for six
months; but I supposed there was no such person, as I had read in your
journals that the letters were purely fictitious."
"There _is_ such a man," replied Brown; "and thus far, though we have
arrested four or five persons, supposing that we had found him, he
completely baffles us. Now, when you get home to New York, can't you
ascertain who he is, and let us know?"
[Sidenote: TRIBUNE REPRESENTATIVES IN CHARLESTON.]
Mr. Brigham, knowing exactly what tone to adopt with the "Chivalry,"
replied:
"Of course, sir, I would not act as a spy for you or anybody else.
However, such things have a kind of publicity; are talked of in saloons
and on street-corners. If I can learn in that way who _The Tribune_
correspondent is, I shall deem it my duty to advise you."
The lawyer listened with credulity to this whisper of hope, though
a well-known Rebel detective, named Shoubac--a swarthy, greasy,
uncomfortable fellow, with a Jewish countenance--did not. He remarked
to the late prisoner:
"You haven't fooled _me_, if you have Brown."
But Mr. Brigham was allowed to depart in peace for New York.
_The Tribune_ afterward had in Charleston five or six different
correspondents, usually keeping two there at a time for emergencies.
Often they did not know each other personally; and there was no
communication between them. When one was arrested, there was always
another in reserve to continue the correspondence. Mr. Brigham, who
remained in the home editorial rooms, retouched the letters just enough
to stamp them as the work of one hand, and the baffled authorities went
hopelessly up and down to cast out the evil spirit which troubled their
peace, and whose unsuspected name was legion.
II.
THE FIELD.