Camp Randolph--Cannon practice--Volunteers--“Dixie”--Forced
return from the South--Apathy of the North--General retrospect of
politics--Energy and earnestness of the South--Firearms--Position
of Great Britain towards the belligerents--Feeling towards the
Old Country.
_June 18th._ On looking out of my cabin window this morning I found
the steamer fast alongside a small wharf, above which rose, to the
height of 150 feet, at an angle of 45 degrees, the rugged bluff
already mentioned. The wharf was covered with commissariat stores and
ammunition. Three heavy guns, which some men were endeavouring to
sling to rude bullock-carts, in a manner defiant of all the laws of
gravitation, seemed likely to go slap into the water at every moment;
but of the many great strapping fellows who were lounging about, not
one gave a hand to the working party. A dusty track wound up the hill
to the brow, and there disappeared; and at the height of fifty feet
or so above the level of the river two earthworks had been rudely
erected in an ineffective position. The volunteers who were lounging
about the edge of the stream were dressed in different ways, and had
no uniform.
Already the heat of the sun compelled me to seek the shade; and a
number of the soldiers, labouring under the same infatuation as that
which induces little boys to disport themselves in the Thames at
Waterloo Bridge, under the notion that they are washing themselves,
were swimming about in a backwater of the great river, regardless of
cat-fish, mud, and fever.
General Pillow proceeded on shore after breakfast, and we mounted
the coarse cart-horse chargers which were in waiting at the jetty to
receive us. It is scarcely worth while to transcribe from my diary a
description of the works which I sent over at the time to England.
Certainly, a more extraordinary maze could not be conceived, even in
the dreams of a sick engineer--a number of mad beavers might possibly
construct such dams. They were so ingeniously made as to prevent the
troops engaged in their defence from resisting the enemy’s attacks,
or getting away from them when the assailants had got inside--most
difficult and troublesome to defend, and still more difficult for the
defenders to leave, the latter perhaps being their chief merit.
The General ordered some practice to be made with round shot down
the river. An old forty-two pound carronade was loaded with some
difficulty, and pointed at a tree about 1700 yards--which I was told,
however, was not less than 2500 yards--distant. The General and his
staff took their posts on the parapet to leeward, and I ventured to
say, “I think, General, the smoke will prevent your seeing the shot.”
To which the General replied, “No, sir,” in a tone which indicated,
“I beg you to understand I have been wounded in Mexico, and know all
about this kind of thing.” “Fire,” the string was pulled, and out
of the touch-hole popped a piece of metal with a little chirrup.
“Darn these friction tubes! I prefer the linstock and match,” quoth
one of the staff, _sotto voce_, “but General Pillow will have us use
friction tubes made at Memphis, that arn’t worth a cuss.” Tube No. 2,
however, did explode, but where the ball went no one could say, as
the smoke drifted right into our eyes.
The General then moved to the other side of the gun, which was fired
a third time, the shot falling short in good line, but without
any ricochet. Gun No. 3 was next fired. Off went the ball down
the river, but off went the gun, too, and with a frantic leap it
jumped, carriage and all, clean off the platform. Nor was it at all
wonderful, for the poor old-fashioned chamber cannonade had been
loaded with a charge and a solid shot heavy enough to make it burst
with indignation. Most of us felt relieved when the firing was over,
and, for my own part, I would much rather have been close to the
target than to the battery.
Slowly winding for some distance up the steep road in a blazing sun,
we proceeded through the tents which are scattered in small groups,
for health’s sake, fifteen and twenty together, on the wooded plateau
above the river. The tents are of the small ridge-pole pattern, six
men to each, many of whom, from their exposure to the sun, whilst
working in these trenches, and from the badness of the water, had
already been laid up with illness. As a proof of General Pillow’s
energy, it is only fair to say he is constructing, on the very summit
of the plateau, large cisterns, which will be filled with water from
the river by steam power.
The volunteers were mostly engaged at drill in distinct companies,
but by order of the General some 700 or 800 of them were formed into
line for inspection. Many of these men were in their shirt sleeves,
and the awkwardness with which they handled their arms showed that,
however good they might be as shots, they were bad hands at manual
platoon exercise; but such great strapping fellows, that, as I
walked down the ranks there were few whose shoulders were not above
the level of my head, excepting here and there a weedy old man or a
growing lad. They were armed with old pattern percussion muskets,
no two clad alike, many very badly shod, few with knapsacks, but
all provided with a tin water-flask and a blanket. These men have
been only five weeks enrolled, and were called out by the State of
Tennessee, in anticipation of the vote of secession.
I could get no exact details as to the supply of food, but from the
Quartermaster-General I heard that each man had from ¾ lb. to 1¼
lb. of meat, and a sufficiency of bread, sugar, coffee, and rice
daily; however, these military Olivers “asked for more.” Neither
whisky nor tobacco was served out to them, which to such heavy
consumers of both, must prove one source of dissatisfaction. The
officers were plain, farmerly planters, merchants, lawyers, and the
like--energetic, determined men, but utterly ignorant of the most
rudimentary parts of military science. It is this want of knowledge
on the part of the officer which renders it so difficult to arrive at
a tolerable condition of discipline among volunteers, as the privates
are quite well aware they know as much of soldiering as the great
majority of their officers.
Having gone down the lines of these motley companies, the General
addressed them in a harangue in which he expatiated on their
patriotism, on their courage, and the atrocity of the enemy, in an
odd farrago of military and political subjects. But the only matter
which appeared to interest them much was the announcement that they
would be released from work in another day or so, and that negroes
would be sent to perform all that was required. This announcement was
received with the words, “Bully for us!” and “That’s good.” And when
General Pillow wound up a florid peroration by assuring them, “When
the hour of danger comes I will be with you,” the effect was by no
means equal to his expectations. The men did not seem to care much
whether General Pillow was with them or not at that eventful moment;
and, indeed, all dusty as he was in his plain clothes he did not look
very imposing, or give one an idea that he would contribute much to
the means of resistance. However, one of the officers called out,
“Boys, three cheers for General Pillow.”
What they may do in the North I know not, but certainly the Southern
soldiers cannot cheer, and what passes muster for that jubilant sound
is a shrill ringing scream with a touch of the Indian war-whoop in
it. As these cries ended, a stentorian voice shouted out, “Who cares
for General Pillow?” No one answered; whence I inferred the General
would not be very popular until the niggers were actually at work in
the trenches.
We returned to the steamer, headed up stream and proceeded onwards
for more than an hour, to another landing, protected by a battery,
where we disembarked, the General being received by a guard dressed
in uniform, who turned out with some appearance of soldierly
smartness. On my remarking the difference to the General, he told me
the corps encamped at this point was composed of gentlemen planters,
and farmers. They had all clad themselves, and consisted of some of
the best families in the State of Tennessee.
As we walked down the gangway to the shore, the band on the upper
deck struck up, out of compliment to the English element in the
party, the unaccustomed strains of “God save the Queen;” and I am not
quite sure that the loyalty which induced me to stand in the sun,
with uncovered head, till the musicians were good enough to desist,
was appreciated. Certainly a gentleman, who asked me why I did so,
looked very incredulous, and said “That he could understand it if
it had been in a church; but that he would not broil his skull in
the sun, not if General Washington was standing just before him.”
The General gave orders to exercise the battery at this point, and a
working party was told off to firing drill. ’Twas fully six minutes
between the giving of the orders and the first gun being ready.
On the word “fire” being given, the gunner pulled the lanyard, but
the tube did not explode; a second tube was inserted, but a strong
jerk pulled it out without exploding; a third time one of the
General’s fuses was applied, which gave way to the pull, and was
broken in two; a fourth time was more successful--the gun exploded,
and the shot fell short and under the mark--in fact, nothing could
be worse than the artillery practice which I saw here, and a fleet
of vessels coming down the river might, in the present state of the
garrisons, escape unhurt.
There are no disparts, tangents, or elevating screws to the gun,
which are laid by eye and wooden chocks. I could see no shells in
the battery, but was told there were some in the magazine.
Altogether, though Randolph’s Point and Fort Pillow afford strong
positions, in the present state of the service, and equipment of
guns and works, gunboats could run past them without serious loss,
and, as the river falls, the fire of the batteries will be even less
effective.
On returning to the boats the band struck up “The Marseillaise” and
“Dixie’s Land.” There are two explanations of the word Dixie--one
is that it is the general term for the Slave States, which are, of
course, south of Mason and Dixon’s line; another, that a planter
named Dixie, died long ago, to the intense grief of his animated
property. Whether they were ill-treated after he died, and thus had
reason to regret his loss, or that they had merely a longing in the
abstract after Heaven, no fact known to me can determine; but certain
it is that they long much after Dixie, in the land to which his
spirit was supposed by them to have departed, and console themselves
in their sorrow by clamorous wishes to follow their master, where
probably the revered spirit would be much surprised to find himself
in their company. The song is the work of the negro melodists of New
York.
In the afternoon we returned to Memphis. Here I was obliged to cut
short my Southern tour, though I would willingly have stayed, to have
seen the most remarkable social and political changes the world has
probably ever witnessed. The necessity of my position obliged me to
return northwards--unless I could write, there was no use in my being
on the spot at all. By this time the Federal fleets have succeeded
in closing the ports, if not effectually, so far as to render the
carriage of letters precarious, and the route must be at best devious
and uncertain.
Mr. Jefferson Davis was, I was assured, prepared to give me every
facility at Richmond to enable me to know and to see all that was
most interesting in the military and political action of the New
Confederacy; but of what use could this knowledge be if I could not
communicate it to the journal I served?
I had left the North when it was suffering from a political
paralysis, and was in a state of coma in which it appeared conscious
of the coming convulsion but unable to avert it. The sole sign of
life in the body corporate was some feeble twitching of the limbs at
Washington, when the district militia were called out, whilst Mr.
Seward descanted on the merits of the Inaugural, and believed that
the anger of the South was a short madness, which would be cured by a
mild application of philosophical essays.
The politicians, who were urging in the most forcible manner the
complete vindication of the rights of the Union, were engaged, when I
left them arguing, that the Union had no rights at all as opposed to
those of the States. Men who had heard with nods of approval of the
ordinance of secession passed by State after State were now shrieking
out, “Slay the traitors!”
The printed rags which had been deriding the President as the great
“rail splitter,” and his Cabinet as a collection of ignoble fanatics,
were now heading the popular rush, and calling out to the country
to support Mr. Lincoln and his Ministry, and were menacing with war
the foreign States which dared to stand neutral in the quarrel. The
declaration of Lord John Russell that the Southern Confederacy
should have limited belligerent rights had at first created a thrill
of exultation in the South, because the politicians believed that in
this concession was contained the principle of recognition; while
it had stung to fury the people of the North, to whom it seemed the
first warning of the coming disunion.
Much, therefore, as I desired to go to Richmond, where I was urged
to repair by many considerations, and by the earnest appeals of
those around me, I felt it would be impossible, notwithstanding the
interest attached to the proceedings there, to perform my duties in
a place cut off from all communication with the outer world; and so
I decided to proceed to Chicago, and thence to Washington, where the
Federals had assembled a large army, with the purpose of marching
upon Richmond, in obedience to the cry of nearly every journal of
influence in the Northern cities.
My resolution was mainly formed in consequence of the intelligence
which was communicated to me at Memphis, and I told General Pillow
that I would continue my journey to Cairo, in order to get within the
Federal lines. As the river was blockaded, the only means of doing so
was to proceed by rail to Columbus, and thence to take a steamer to
the Federal position; and so, whilst the General was continuing his
inspection, I rode to the telegraph office, in one of the camps, to
order my luggage to be prepared for departure as soon as I arrived,
and thence went on board the steamer, where I sat down in the cabin
to write my last despatch from Dixie.
So far I had certainly no reason to agree with Mr. Seward in
thinking this rebellion was the result of a localised energetic
action on the part of a fierce minority in the seceding States, and
that there was in each a large, if inert, mass opposed to secession,
which would rally round the Stars and Stripes the instant they were
displayed in their sight. On the contrary, I met everywhere with
but one feeling, with exceptions which proved its unanimity and its
force. To a man the people went with their States, and had but one
battle cry, “States’ rights, and death to those who make war against
them!”
Day after day I had seen this feeling intensified by the accounts
which came from the North of a fixed determination to maintain the
war; and day after day, I am bound to add, the impression on my mind
was strengthened that “States’ rights” meant protection to slavery,
extension of slave territory, and free-trade in slave produce with
the outer world; nor was it any argument against the conclusion that
the popular passion gave vent to the most vehement outcries against
Yankees, abolitionists, German mercenaries, and modern invasion.
I was fully satisfied in my mind also that the population of the
South, who had taken up arms, were so convinced of the righteousness
of their cause, and so competent to vindicate it, that they would
fight with the utmost energy and valour in its defence and successful
establishment.
The saloon in which I was sitting afforded abundant evidence of the
vigour with which the South are entering upon the contest. Men of
every variety and condition of life had taken up arms against the
cursed Yankee and the black Republican--there was not a man there
who would not have given his life for the rare pleasure of striking
Mr. Lincoln’s head off his shoulders, and yet to a cold European the
scene was almost ludicrous.
Along the covered deck lay tall Tennesseans, asleep, whose plumed
felt hats were generally the only indications of their martial
calling, for few indeed had any other signs of uniform, except
the rare volunteers, who wore stripes of red and yellow cloth on
their trousers, or leaden buttons, and discoloured worsted braid
and facings on their jackets. The afterpart of the saloon deck
was appropriated to General Pillow, his staff, and officers. The
approach to it was guarded by a sentry, a tall, good-looking young
fellow, in a grey flannel shirt, grey trousers, fastened with a belt
and a brass buckle, inscribed U.S., which came from some plundered
Federal arsenal, and a black wide-awake hat, decorated with a green
plume. His Enfield rifle lay beside him on the deck, and, with great
interest expressed on his face, he leant forward in his rocking-chair
to watch the varying features of a party squatted on the floor, who
were employed in the national game of “Euchre.” As he raised his
eyes to examine the condition of the cigar he was smoking, he caught
sight of me, and by the simple expedient of holding his leg across
my chest, and calling out, “Hallo! where are you going to?” brought
me to a standstill--whilst his captain, who was one of the happy
euchreists, exclaimed, “Now, Sam, you let nobody go in there.”
I was obliged to explain who I was, whereupon the sentry started to
his feet, and said, “Oh! indeed, you are Russell that’s been in that
war with the Rooshians. Well, I’m very much pleased to know you. I
shall be off sentry in a few minutes; I’ll just ask you to tell me
something about that fighting.” He held out his hand, and shook mine
warmly as he spoke. There was not the smallest intention to offend in
his manner; but, sitting down again, he nodded to the captain, and
said, “It’s all right; it’s Pillow’s friend--that’s Russell of the
London _Times_.” The game of euchre was continued--and indeed it had
been perhaps all night--for my last recollection on looking out of my
cabin was of a number of people playing cards on the floor and on the
tables all down the saloon, and of shouts of “Eu-kerr!” “Ten dollars,
you don’t!” “I’ll lay twenty on this!” and so on; and with breakfast
the sport seemed to be fully revived.
There would have been much more animation in the game, no doubt,
had the bar on board the Ingomar been opened; but the intelligent
gentleman who presided inside had been restricted by General Pillow
in his avocations; and when numerous thirsty souls from the camps
came on board, with dry tongues and husky voices, and asked for
“mint juleps,” “brandy smashes,” or “whisky cocktails,” he seemed
to take a saturnine pleasure by saying, “The General won’t allow no
spirit on board, but I can give you a nice drink of Pillow’s own iced
Mississippi water,” an announcement which generally caused infinite
disgust and some unhandsome wishes respecting the General’s future
happiness.
By and bye, a number of sick men were brought down on litters, and
placed here and there along the deck. As there was a considerable
misunderstanding between the civilian and military doctors, it
appeared to be understood that the best way of arranging it was not
to attend to the sick at all, and unfortunate men suffering from
fever and dysentery were left to roll and groan, and lie on their
stretchers, without a soul to help them. I had a medicine chest on
board, and I ventured to use the lessons of my experience in such
matters, administered my quinine, James’s Powder, calomel, and
opium, _secundum meam artem_, and nothing could be more grateful
than the poor fellows were for the smallest mark of attention.
“Stranger, remember, if I die,” gasped one great fellow, attenuated
to a skeleton by dysentery, “That I am Robert Tallon, of Tishimingo
county, and that I died for States’ rights; see, now, they put that
in the papers, won’t you? Robert Tallon died for States’ rights,” and
so he turned round on his blanket.
Presently the General came on board, and the Ingomar proceeded on
her way back to Memphis. General Clarke, to whom I mentioned the
great neglect from which the soldiers were suffering, told me he was
afraid the men had no medical attendance in camp. All the doctors, in
fact, wanted to fight, and as they were educated men, and generally
connected with respectable families, or had political influence in
the State, they aspired to be colonels at the very least, and to
wield the sword instead of the scalpel.
Next to the medical department, the commissariat and transport were
most deficient; but by constant courts-martial, stoppages of pay, and
severe sentences, he hoped these evils would be eventually somewhat
mitigated. As one who had received a regular military education,
General Clarke was probably shocked by volunteer irregularities;
and in such matters as guard-mounting, reliefs, patrols, and
picket-duties, he declared they were enough to break one’s heart; but
I was astonished to hear from him that the Germans were by far the
worst of the five thousand troops under his command, of whom they
formed more than a fifth.
Whilst we were conversing, the captain of the steamer invited us to
come up into his cabin on the upper deck; and as railway conductors,
steamboat captains, bar-keepers, hotel-clerks, and telegraph officers
are among the natural aristocracy of the land, we could not disobey
the invitation, which led to the consumption of some of the captain’s
private stores, and many warm professions of political faith.
The captain told me it was rough work abroad sometimes with “sports”
and chaps of that kind; but “God bless you,” said he, “the river now
is not what it used to be a few years ago, when we’d have three or
four difficulties of an afternoon, and may-be now and then a regular
free fight all up and down the decks, that would last a couple of
hours, so that when we came to a town we would have to send for all
the doctors twenty miles round, and may-be some of them would die
in spite of that. It was the rowdies used to get these fights up;
but we’ve put them pretty well down. The citizens have hunted them
out, and they’s gone away west.” “Well, then, captain, one’s life
was not very safe on board sometimes.” “Safe! Lord bless you!” said
the captain; “if you did not meddle, just as safe as you are now, if
the boiler don’t collapse. You must, in course, know how to handle
your weepins, and be pretty spry in taking your own part.” “Ho, you
Bill!” to his coloured servant, “open that clothes-press.” “Now,
here,” he continued, “is how I travel; so that I am always easy in my
mind in case of trouble on board.” Putting his hand under the pillow
of the bed close beside him, he pulled out a formidable looking
double-barrelled pistol at half-cock, with the caps upon it. “That’s
as purty a pistol as Derringer ever made. I’ve got the brace of
them--here’s the other;” and with that he whipped out pistol No. 2,
in an equal state of forwardness, from a little shelf over his bed;
and then going over to the clothes-press, he said, “Here’s a real old
Kentuck, one of the old sort, as light on the trigger as gossamer,
and sure as deeth--Why, law bless me, a child would cut a turkey’s
head off with it at a hundred yards.” This was a huge lump of iron,
about five feet long, with a small hole bored down the centre, fitted
in a coarse German-fashioned stock. “But,” continued he, “this is my
main dependence; here is a regular beauty, a first-rate, with ball or
buckshot, or whatever you like--made in London; I gave two hundred
dollars for it; and it is so short and handy and straight shooting,
I’d just as soon part with my life as let it go to anybody” and,
with a glow of pride in his face, the captain handed round again a
very short double-barrelled gun, of some eleven or twelve bore, with
back action locks, and an audacious “Joseph Manton, London,” stamped
on the plate. The manner of the man was perfectly simple and _bonâ
fide_; very much as if Inspector Podger were revealing to a simpleton
the mode by which the London police managed refractory characters in
the station-house.
From such matters as these I was diverted by the more serious subject
of the attitude taken by England in this quarrel. The concession of
belligerent rights was, I found, misunderstood, and was considered
as an admission that the Southern States had established their
independence before they had done more than declare their intention
to fight for it.
It is not within my power to determine whether the North is as
unfair to Great Britain as the South; but I fear the history of the
people, and the tendency of their institutions, are adverse to any
hope of fair-play and justice to the old country. And yet it is the
only power in Europe for the good opinion of which they really seem
to care. Let any French, Austrian, or Russian journal write what
it pleases of the United States, it is received with indifferent
criticism or callous head-shaking. But let a London paper speak, and
the whole American press is delighted or furious.
The political sentiment quite overrides all other feelings; and it
is the only symptom statesmen should care about, as it guides the
policy of the country. If a man can put faith in the influence for
peace of common interests, of common origin, common intentions,
with the spectacle of this incipient war before his eyes, he must
be incapable of appreciating the consequences which follow from man
being an animal. A war between England and the United States would
be unnatural; but it would not be nearly so unnatural now as it was
when it was actually waged in 1776 between people who were barely
separated from each other by a single generation; or in 1812-14, when
the foreign immigration had done comparatively little to dilute the
Anglo-Saxon blood. The Norman of Hampshire and Sussex did not care
much for the ties of consanguinity and race when he followed his lord
in fee to ravage Guienne or Brittany.
The general result of my intercourse with Americans is to produce
the notion that they consider Great Britain in a state of corruption
and decay, and eagerly seek to exalt France at her expense. Their
language is the sole link between England and the United States, and
it only binds the England of 1770 to the American of 1860.
There is scarcely an American on either side of Mason and Dixon’s
line who does not religiously believe that the colonies, alone and
single-handed, encountered the whole undivided force of Great Britain
in the revolution, and defeated it. I mean, of course, the vast mass
of the people; and I do not think there is an orator or a writer who
would venture to tell them the truth on the subject. Again, they
firmly believe that their petty frigate engagements established
as complete a naval ascendancy over Great Britain as the latter
obtained by her great encounters with the fleets of France and Spain.
Their reverses, defeats, and headlong routs in the first war, their
reverses in the second, are covered over by a huge Buncombe plaster,
made up of Bunker’s Hill, Plattsburg, Baltimore, and New Orleans.
Their delusions are increased and solidified by the extraordinary
text-books of so-called history, and by the feasts, and festivals,
and celebrations of their every-day political life, in all of which
we pass through imaginary Caudine Forks; and they entertain towards
the old country at best very much the feeling which a high-spirited
young man would feel towards the guardian who, when he had come of
age, and was free from all control, sought to restrain the passions
of his early life.
Now I could not refuse to believe that in New Orleans, Montgomery,
Mobile, Jackson, and Memphis there is a reckless and violent
condition of society, unfavourable to civilisation, and but little
hopeful for the future. The most absolute and despotic rule,
under which a man’s life and property are safe, is better than the
largest measure of democratic freedom, which deprives the freeman
of any security for either. The state of legal protection for the
most serious interests of man, considered as a civilised and social
creature, which prevails in America, could not be tolerated for
an instant, and would generate a revolution in the worst governed
country in Europe. I would much sooner, as the accidental victim of
a generally disorganized police, be plundered by a chance diligence
robber in Mexico, or have a fair fight with a Greek Klepht, suffer
from Italian banditti, or be garroted by a London ticket-of-leave
man, than be bowie-knifed or revolvered in consequence of a political
or personal difference with a man, who is certain not in the least
degree to suffer from an accidental success in his argument.
On our return to the hotel I dined with the General and his staff
at the public table, where there was a large assemblage of military
men, Southern ladies, their families, and contractors. This latter
race has risen up as if by magic, to meet the wants of the new
Confederacy; and it is significant to measure the amount of the
dependence on Northern manufacturers by the advertisements in the
Southern journals, indicating the creation of new branches of
workmanship, mechanical science, and manufacturing skill.
Hitherto they have been dependent on the North for the very
necessaries of their industrial life. These States were so intent
on gathering in money for their produce, expending it luxuriously,
and paying it out for Northern labour, that they found themselves
suddenly in the condition of a child brought up by hand, whose nurse
and mother have left it on the steps of the poor-house. But they have
certainly essayed to remedy the evil and are endeavouring to make
steam-engines, gunpowder, lamps, clothes, boots, railway carriages,
steel springs, glass, and all the smaller articles for which even
Southern households find a necessity.
The peculiar character of this contest develops itself in a manner
almost incomprehensible to a stranger who has been accustomed to
regard the United States as a nation. Here is General Pillow, for
example, in the State of Tennessee, commanding the forces of the
State, which, in effect, belongs to the Southern Confederacy; but he
tells me that he cannot venture to move across a certain geographical
line, dividing Tennessee from Kentucky, because the State of
Kentucky, in the exercise of its sovereign powers and rights, which
the Southern States are bound specially to respect, in virtue of
their championship of States’ rights, has, like the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland, declared it will be neutral in the
struggle; and Beriah Magoffin, Governor of the aforesaid State, has
warned off Federal and Confederate troops from his territory.
General Pillow is particularly indignant with the cowardice of the
well-known Secessionists of Kentucky; but I think he is rather more
annoyed by the accumulation of Federal troops at Cairo, and their
recent expedition to Columbus on the Kentucky shore, a little below
them, where they seized a Confederate flag.