Niagara--Impression of the Falls--Battle scenes in the
neighbourhood--A village of Indians--General Scott--Hostile
movements on both sides--The Hudson--Military school at West
Point--Return to New York--Altered appearance of the city--
Misery and suffering--Altered state of public opinion, as to
the Union and towards Great Britain.
At eight o’clock on the morning of the 27th I left Chicago for
Niagara, which was so temptingly near that I resolved to make a
detour by that route to New York. The line from the city which I took
skirts the southern extremity of Lake Michigan for many miles, and
leaving its borders at New Buffalo, traverses the southern portion of
the state of Michigan by Albion and Jackson to the town of Detroit,
or the outflow of Lake St. Clair into Lake Erie, a distance of
284 miles, which was accomplished in about twelve hours. The most
enthusiastic patriot could not affirm the country was interesting.
The names of the stations were certainly novel to a Britisher. Thus
we had Kalumet, Pokagon, Dowagiac, Kalamazoo, Ypsilanti, among the
more familiar titles of Chelsea, Marengo, Albion, and Parma.
It was dusk when we reached the steam ferry-boat at Detroit, which
took us across to Windsor; but through the dusk I could perceive the
Union Jack waving above the unimpressive little town which bears a
name so respected by British ears. The customs’ inspections seemed
very mild; and I was not much impressed by the representative of
the British crown, who, with a brass button on his coat and a very
husky voice, exercised his powers on behalf of Her Majesty at the
landing-place of Windsor. The officers of the railway company, who
received me as if I had been an old friend, and welcomed me as if I
had just got out of a battle-field. “Well, I do wonder them Yankees
have ever let you come out alive.” “May I ask why?” “Oh, because you
have not been praising them all round, sir. Why even the Northern
chaps get angry with a Britisher, as they call us, if he attempts to
say a word against those cursed niggers.”
It did not appear the Americans are quite so thin-skinned, for whilst
crossing in the steamer a passage of arms between the Captain, who
was a genuine John Bull, and a Michigander, in the style which is
called chaff or slang, diverted most of the auditors, although it was
very much to the disadvantage of the Union champion. The Michigan
man had threatened the Captain that Canada would be annexed as the
consequence of our infamous conduct. “Why, I tell you,” said the
Captain, “we’d just draw up the negro chaps from our barbers’ shops,
and tell them we’d send them to Illinois if they did not lick you;
and I believe every creature in Michigan, pigs and all, would run
before them into Pennsylvania. We know what you are up to, you
and them Maine chaps; but Lor’ bless you, sooner than take such a
lot, we’d give you ten dollars a head to make you stay in your own
country; and we know you would go to the next worst place before
your time for half the money. The very Bluenoses would secede if you
were permitted to come under the old flag.”
All night we travelled. A long day through a dreary, ill-settled,
pine-wooded, half-cleared country, swarming with mosquitoes and
biting flies, and famous for fevers. Just about daybreak the train
stopped.
“Now, then,” said an English voice; “now, then, who’s for Clifton
Hotel? All passengers leave cars for this side of the Falls.”
Consigning our baggage to the commissioner of the Clifton, my
companion, Mr. Ward, and myself resolved to walk along the banks of
the river to the hotel, which is some two miles and a half distant,
and set out whilst it was still so obscure that the outline of the
beautiful bridge which springs so lightly across the chasm, filled
with furious hurrying waters, hundreds of feet below, was visible
only as is the tracery of some cathedral arch through the dim light
of the cloister.
The road follows the course of the stream, which whirls and gurgles
in an Alpine torrent, many times magnified, in a deep gorge like that
of the Tête Noire. As the rude bellow of the steam-engine and the
rattle of the train proceeding on its journey were dying away, the
echoes seemed to swell into a sustained, reverberating, hollow sound
from the perpendicular banks of the St. Lawrence. We listened. “It is
the noise of the Falls,” said my companion; and as we walked on the
sound became louder, filling the air with a strange quavering note,
which played about a tremendous uniform bass note, and silencing
every other. Trees closed in the road on the river side, but when
we had walked a mile or so, the lovely light of morning spreading
with our steps, suddenly through an opening in the branches there
appeared, closing up the vista--white, flickering, indistinct, and
shroud-like--the Falls, rushing into a grave of black waters, and
uttering that tremendous cry which can never be forgotten.
I have heard many people say they were disappointed with the first
impression of Niagara. Let those who desire to see the water-leap in
all its grandeur, approach it as I did, and I cannot conceive what
their expectations are if they do not confess the sight exceeded
their highest ideal. I do not pretend to describe the sensations or
to endeavour to give the effect produced on me by the scene or by
the Falls, then or subsequently; but I must say words can do no more
than confuse the writer’s own ideas of the grandeur of the sight,
and mislead altogether those who read them. It is of no avail to
do laborious statistics, and tell us how many gallons rush over in
that down-flung ocean every second, or how wide it is, how high it
is, how deep the earth-piercing caverns beneath. For my own part, I
always feel the distance of the sun to be insignificant, when I read
it is so many hundreds of thousands of miles away, compared with the
feeling of utter inaccessibility to anything human which is caused by
it when its setting rays illuminate some purple ocean studded with
golden islands in dreamland.
Niagara is rolling its waters over the barrier. Larger and louder it
grows upon us.
“I hope the hotel is not full,” quoth my friend. I confess, for the
time, I forgot all about Niagara, and was perturbed concerning a
breakfastless ramble and a hunt after lodgings by the borders of the
great river.
But although Clifton Hotel was full enough, there was room for
us, too; and for two days a strange, weird-kind of life I led,
alternating between the roar of the cataract outside and the din
of politics within; for, be it known, that at the Canadian side
of the Falls many Americans of the Southern States, who would not
pollute their footsteps by contact with the soil of Yankee-land, were
sojourning, and that merchants and bankers of New York and other
Northern cities had selected it as their summer retreat, and, indeed,
with reason; for after excursions on both sides of the Falls, the
comparative seclusion of the settlements on the left bank appears to
me to render it infinitely preferable to the Rosherville gentism and
semi-rowdyism of the large American hotels and settlements on the
other side.
It was distressing to find that Niagara was surrounded by the
paraphernalia of a fixed fair. I had looked forward to a certain
degree of solitude. It appeared impossible that man could cockneyfy
such a magnificent display of force and grandeur in nature. But,
alas! it is haunted by what poor Albert Smith used to denominate
“harpies.” The hateful race of guides infest the precincts of the
hotels, waylay you in the lanes, and prowl about the unguarded
moments of reverie. There are miserable little peepshows and
photographers, bird stuffers, shell polishers, collectors of
crystals, and proprietors of natural curiosity shops.
There is, besides, a large village population. There is a
watering-side air about the people who walk along the road worse
than all their mills and factories working their water privileges
at both sides of the stream. At the American side there is a lanky,
pretentious town, with big hotels, shops of Indian curiosities,
and all the meagre forms of the bazaar life reduced to a minimum
of attractiveness which destroy the comfort of a traveller in
Switzerland. I had scarcely been an hour in the hotel before I was
asked to look at the Falls through a little piece of coloured glass.
Next I was solicited to purchase a collection of muddy photographs,
representing what I could look at with my own eyes for nothing.
Not finally by any means, I was assailed by a gentleman who was
particularly desirous of selling me an enormous pair of cow’s-horns
and a stuffed hawk. Small booths and peepshows corrupt the very
margin of the bank, and close by the remnant of the “Table Rock,”
a Jew (who, by-the-bye, deserves infinite credit for the zeal and
energy he has thrown into the collections for his museum), exhibits
bottled rattlesnakes, stuffed monkeys, Egyptian mummies, series of
coins, with a small living menagerie attached to the shop, in which
articles of Indian manufacture are exposed for sale. It was too bad
to be asked to admire such _lusus naturæ_ as double-headed calves and
dogs with three necks by the banks of Niagara.
As I said before, I am not going to essay the impossible or to
describe the Falls. On the English side there are, independently of
other attractions, some scenes of recent historic interest, for close
to Niagara are Lundy’s Lane and Chippewa. There are few persons in
England aware of the exceedingly severe fighting which characterised
the contests between the Americans and the English and Canadian
troops during the campaign of 1814. At Chippewa, for example,
Major-General Riall, who, with 2000 men, one howitzer, and two
24-pounders, attacked a force of Americans of a similar strength,
was repulsed with a loss of 500 killed and wounded; and on the
morning of the 25th of July the action of Lundy’s Lane, between four
brigades of Americans and seven field-pieces, and 3100 men of the
British and seven field-pieces, took place, in which the Americans
were worsted, and retired with a loss of 854 men and two guns, whilst
the British lost 878. On the 14th of August following Sir Gordon
Drummond was repulsed with a loss of 905 men out of his small force
in an attack on Fort Erie; and on the 17th of September an American
sortie from the place was defeated with a loss of 510 killed and
wounded, the British having lost 609. In effect the American campaign
was unsuccessful; but their failures were redeemed by their successes
on Lake Champlain, and in the affair of Plattsburgh.
There was more hard fighting than strategy in these battles, and
their results were not, on the whole, creditable to the military
skill of either party. They were sanguinary in proportion to the
number of troops engaged, but they were very petty skirmishes
considered in the light of contests between two great nations for the
purpose of obtaining specific results. As England was engaged in a
great war in Europe, was far removed from the scene of operations,
was destitute of steam-power, whilst America was fighting, as it
were, on her own soil, close at hand, with a full opportunity of
putting forth all her strength, the complete defeat of the American
invasion of Canada was more honourable to our arms than the successes
which the Americans achieved in resisting aggressive demonstrations.
In the great hotel of Clifton we had every day a little war of our
own, for there were----but why should I mention names? Has not
government its bastiles? There were in effect men, and women too, who
regarded the people of the Northern States and the government they
had selected very much as the men of ’98 looked upon the government
and people of England; but withal these strong Southerners were not
very favourable to a country which they regarded as the natural ally
of the abolitionists, simply because it had resolved to be neutral.
On the Canadian side these rebels were secure. British authority was
embodied in a respectable old Scottish gentleman, whose duty it was
to prevent smuggling across the boiling waters of the St. Lawrence,
and who performed it with zeal and diligence worthy of a higher post.
There was indeed a withered triumphal arch which stood over the spot
where the young Prince of our royal house had passed on his way to
the Table Rock, but beyond these signs and tokens there was nothing
to distinguish the American from the British side, except the greater
size and activity of the settlements upon the right bank. There is
no power in nature, according to great engineers, which cannot be
forced to succumb to the influence of money. The American papers
actually announce that “Niagara is to be sold;” the proprietors of
the land upon their side of the water have resolved to sell their
water privileges! A capitalist could render the islands the most
beautifully attractive places in the world.
Life at Niagara is like that at most watering-places, though it is
a desecration to apply such a term to the Falls, and there is no
bathing there, except that which is confined to the precincts of
the hotels and to the ingenious establishment on the American side,
which permits one to enjoy the full rush of the current in covered
rooms with sides pierced, to let it come through with undiminished
force and with perfect security to the bather. There are drives and
picnics, and mild excursions to obscure places in the neighbourhood,
where only the roar of the Falls gives an idea of their presence.
The rambles about the islands, and the views of the boiling rapids
above them, are delightful, but I am glad to hear from one of the
guides that the great excitement of seeing a man and boat carried
over occurs but rarely. Every year, however, hapless creatures
crossing from one shore to the other, by some error of judgment or
miscalculation of strength, or malign influence, are swept away into
the rapids, and then, notwithstanding the wonderful rescues effected
by the American blacksmith and unwonted kindnesses of fortune, there
is little chance of saving body corporate or incorporate from the
headlong swoop to destruction.
Next to the purveyors of curiosities and hotel keepers, the Indians,
who live in a village at some distance from Niagara, reap the largest
profit from the crowds of visitors who repair annually to the Falls.
They are a harmless and by no means elevated race of semi-civilised
savages, whose energies are expended on whiskey, feather fans, bark
canoes, ornamental moccasins, and carved pipe stems. I had arranged
for an excursion to see them in their wigwams one morning, when the
news was brought to me that General Scott had ordered, or been forced
to order the advance of the Federal troops encamped in front of
Washington, under the command of M‘Dowell, against the Confederates,
commanded by Beauregard, who was described as occupying a most
formidable position, covered with entrenchments and batteries in
front of a ridge of hills, through which the railway passes to
Richmond.
The New York papers represent the Federal army to be of some grand
indefinite strength, varying from 60,000 to 120,000 men, full of
fight, admirably equipped, well disciplined, and provided with an
overwhelming force of artillery. General Scott, I am very well
assured, did not feel such confidence in the result of an invasion of
Virginia, that he would hurry raw levies and a rabble of regiments to
undertake a most arduous military operation.
The day I was introduced to the General he was seated at a table
in the unpretending room which served as his boudoir in the still
humbler house where he held his head-quarters. On the table before
him were some plans and maps of the harbour defences of the Southern
ports. I inferred he was about to organise a force for the occupation
of positions along the coast. But when I mentioned my impression to
one of his officers, he said, “Oh, no, the General advised that long
ago; but he is now convinced we are too late. All he can hope, now,
is to be allowed time to prepare a force for the field, but there are
hopes that some compromise will yet take place.”
The probabilities of this compromise have vanished: few entertain
them now. They have been hanging Secessionists in Illinois, and
the court-house itself has been made the scene of Lynch law murder
in Ogle county. Petitions, prepared by citizens of New York to
the President, for a general convention to consider a compromise,
have been seized. The Confederates have raised batteries along the
Virginian shore of the Potomac. General Banks, at Baltimore, has
deposed the police authorities “_proprio motu_,” in spite of the
protest of the board. Engagements have occurred between the Federal
steamers and the Confederate batteries on the Potomac. On all points,
wherever the Federal pickets have advanced in Virginia, they have
encountered opposition and have been obliged to halt or to retire.
* * * * *
As I stood on the verandah this morning, looking for the last time
on the Falls, which were covered with a grey mist, that rose from
the river and towered unto the sky in columns which were lost in the
clouds, a voice beside me said, “Mr. Russell, that is something like
the present condition of our country, mists and darkness obscure
it now, but we know the great waters are rushing behind, and will
flow till eternity.” The speaker was an earnest, thoughtful man, but
the country of which he spoke was the land of the South. “And do
you think,” said I, “when the mists clear away the Falls will be as
full and as grand as before?” “Well,” he replied, “they are great as
it is, though a rock divides them; we have merely thrown our rock
into the waters,--they will meet all the same in the pool below.” A
coloured boy, who has waited on me at the hotel, hearing I was going
away, entreated me to take him on any terms, which were, I found, an
advance of nine dollars, and twenty dollars a month, and, as I heard
a good account of him from the landlord, I installed the young man
into my service. In the evening I left Niagara on my way to New York.
_July 2nd._--At early dawn this morning, looking out of the sleeping
car, I saw through the mist a broad, placid river on the right,
and on the left high wooded banks running sharply into the stream,
against the base of which the rails were laid. West Point, which is
celebrated for its picturesque scenery, as much as for its military
school, could not be seen through the fog, and I regretted time did
not allow me to stop and pay a visit to the academy. I was obliged to
content myself with the handiwork of some of the ex-pupils. The only
camaraderie I have witnessed in America exists among the West Point
men. It is to Americans what our great public schools are to young
Englishmen. To take a high place at West Point is to be a first-class
man, or wrangler. The academy turns out a kind of military
aristocracy, and I have heard complaints that the Irish and Germans
are almost completely excluded, because the nominations to West Point
are obtained by political influence; and the foreign element, though
powerful at the ballot box, has no enduring strength. The Murphies
and Schmidts seldom succeed in shoving their sons into the American
institution. North and South, I have observed, the old pupils refer
everything military to West Point. “I was with Beauregard at West
Point. He was three above me.” Or, “M‘Dowell and I were in the
same class.” An officer is measured by what he did there, and if
professional jealousies date from the state of common pupilage, so
do lasting friendships. I heard Beauregard, Lawton, Hardee, Bragg,
and others, speak of M‘Dowell, Lyon, M‘Clellan, and other men of the
academy, as their names turned up in the Northern papers, evidently
judging of them by the old school standard. The number of men who
have been educated there greatly exceeds the modest requirements of
the army. But there is likelihood of their being all in full work
very soon.
At about nine a.m., the train reached New York, and in driving to
the house of Mr. Duncan, who accompanied me from Niagara, the first
thing which struck me was the changed aspect of the streets. Instead
of peaceful citizens, men in military uniforms thronged the pathways,
and such multitudes of United States’ flags floated from the windows
and roofs of the houses as to convey the impression that it was a
great holiday festival. The appearance of New York when I first saw
it was very different. For one day, indeed, after my arrival, there
were men in uniform to be seen in the streets, but they disappeared
after St. Patrick had been duly honoured, and it was very rarely I
ever saw a man in soldier’s clothes during the rest of my stay. Now,
fully a third of the people carried arms, and were dressed in some
kind of martial garb.
The walls are covered with placards from military companies offering
inducements to recruits. An outburst of military tailors has taken
place in the streets; shops are devoted to militia equipments;
rifles, pistols, swords, plumes, long boots, saddle, bridle, camp
beds, canteens, tents, knapsacks, have usurped the place of the
ordinary articles of traffic. Pictures and engravings--bad, and very
bad--of the “battles” of Big Bethel and Vienna, full of furious
charges, smoke and dismembered bodies, have driven the French
prints out of the windows. Innumerable “General Scotts” glower at
you from every turn, making the General look wiser than he or any
man ever was. Ellsworths in almost equal proportion, Grebles and
Winthrops--the Union martyrs--and Tompkins, the temporary hero of
Fairfax court-house.
The “flag of our country” is represented in a coloured engraving, the
original of which was not destitute of poetical feeling, as an angry
blue sky through which meteors fly streaked by the winds, whilst
between the red stripes the stars just shine out from the heavens,
the flag-staff being typified by a forest tree bending to the
force of the blast. The Americans like this idea--to my mind it is
significant of bloodshed and disaster. And why not! What would become
of all these pseudo-Zouaves who have come out like an eruption over
the States, and are in no respect, not even in their baggy breeches,
like their great originals, if this war were not to go on? I thought
I had had enough of Zouaves in New Orleans, but _dîs aliter visum_.
They are overrunning society, and the streets here, and the dress
which becomes the broad-chested, stumpy, short-legged Celt, who seems
specially intended for it, is singularly unbecoming to the tall and
slightly-built American. Songs “On to glory,” “Our country,” new
versions of “Hail Columbia,” which certainly cannot be considered by
even American complacency a “happy land” when its inhabitants are
preparing to cut each other’s throats; of the “star-spangled banner,”
are displayed in booksellers’ and music-shop windows, and patriotic
sentences emblazoned on flags float from many houses. The ridiculous
habit of dressing up children and young people up to ten and twelve
years of age as Zouaves and vivandières has been caught up by the
old people, and Mars would die with laughter if he saw some of the
abdominous, be-spectacled light infantry men who are hobbling along
the pavement.
There has been indeed a change in New York: externally it is most
remarkable, but I cannot at all admit that the abuse with which I
was assailed for describing the indifference which prevailed on
my arrival was in the least degree justified. I was desirous of
learning how far the tone of conversation “in the city” had altered,
and soon after breakfast I went down Broadway to Pine Street and
Wall Street. The street in all its length was almost draped with
flags--the warlike character of the shops was intensified. In front
of one shop window there was a large crowd gazing with interest at
some object which I at last succeeded in feasting my eyes upon. A
grey cap with a tinsel badge in front, and the cloth stained with
blood was displayed, with the words, “Cap of Secession officer killed
in action.” On my way I observed another crowd of women, some with
children in their arms standing in front of a large house and gazing
up earnestly and angrily at the windows. I found they were wives,
mothers, and sisters, and daughters of volunteers who had gone off
and left them destitute.
The misery thus caused has been so great that the citizens of New
York have raised a fund to provide food, clothes, and a little
money--a poor relief, in fact, for them, and it was plain they were
much needed, though some of the applicants did not seem to belong to
a class accustomed to seek aid from the public. This already! But
Wall Street and Pine Street are bent on battle. And so this day, hot
from the South and impressed with the firm resolve of the people, and
finding that the North has been lashing itself into fury, I sit down
and write to England, on my return from the city. “At present dismiss
entirely the idea, no matter how it may originate, that there will
be, or can be, peace, compromise, union, or secession, till war has
determined the issue.”
As long as there was a chance that the struggle might not take place,
the merchants of New York were silent, fearful of offending their
Southern friends and connections, but inflicting infinite damage on
their own government and misleading both sides. Their sentiments,
sympathies, and business bound them with the South; and, indeed, till
“the glorious uprising” the South believed New York was with them,
as might be credited from the tone of some organs in the press, and
I remember hearing it said by Southerners in Washington, that it was
very likely New York would go out of the Union! When the merchants,
however, saw that the South was determined to quit the Union, they
resolved to avert the permanent loss of the great profits derived
from their connection with the South by some present sacrifices. They
rushed to the platforms--the battle-cry was sounded from almost very
pulpit--flag raisings took place in every square, like the planting
of the tree of liberty in France in 1848, and the oath was taken to
trample Secession under foot, and to quench the fire of the Southern
heart for ever.
The change in manner, in tone, in argument, is most remarkable. I met
men to-day who last March argued coolly and philosophically about
the right of Secession. They are now furious at the idea of such
wickedness--furious with England, because she does not deny their
own famous doctrine of the sacred right of insurrection. “We must
maintain our glorious Union, sir.” “We must have a country.” “We
cannot allow two nations to grow up on this Continent, sir.” “We
must possess the entire control of the Mississippi.” These “musts,”
and “can’ts,” and “won’ts,” are the angry utterances of a spirited
people who have had their will so long that they at last believe
it is omnipotent. Assuredly, they will not have it over the South
without a tremendous and long-sustained contest, in which they must
put forth every exertion, and use all the resources and superior
means they so abundantly possess.
It is absurd to assert, as do the New York people, to give some
semblance of reason to their sudden outburst, that it was caused
by the insult to the flag at Sumter. Why, the flag had been fired
on long before Sumter was attacked by the Charleston batteries! It
had been torn down from United States’ arsenals and forts all over
the South; and but for the accident which placed Major Anderson in
a position from which he could not retire, there would have been no
bombardment of the fort, and it would, when evacuated, have shared
the fate of all the other Federal works on the Southern coast. Some
of the gentlemen who are now so patriotic and Unionistic, were
last March prepared to maintain that if the President attempted
to re-inforce Sumter or Pickens, he would be responsible for the
destruction of the Union. Many journals in New York and out of it
held the same doctrine.
One word to these gentlemen. I am pretty well satisfied that if they
had always spoke, written, and acted as they do now, the people of
Charleston would not have attacked Sumter so readily. The abrupt
outburst of the North and the demonstration at New York filled the
South, first with astonishment, and then with something like fear,
which was rapidly fanned into anger by the press and the politicians,
as well as by the pride inherent in slaveholders.
I wonder what Mr. Seward will say when I get back to Washington.
Before I left, he was of opinion--at all events, he stated--that all
the States would come back, at the rate of one a month. The nature of
the process was not stated; but we are told there are 250,000 Federal
troops now under arms, prepared to try a new one.
Combined with the feeling of animosity to the rebels, there is, I
perceive, a good deal of ill-feeling towards Great Britain. The
Southern papers are so angry with us for the Order in Council
closing British ports against privateers and their prizes, that they
advise Mr. Rust and Mr. Yancey to leave Europe. We are in evil case
between North and South. I met a reverend doctor, who is most bitter
in his expressions towards us; and I dare say, Bishop and General
Leonidas Polk, down South, would not be much better disposed. The
clergy are active on both sides; and their flocks approve of their
holy violence. One journal tells with much gusto of a blasphemous
chaplain, a remarkably good rifle shot, who went into one of the
skirmishes lately, and killed a number of rebels--the joke being
in the fact, that each time he fired and brought down his man, he
exclaimed, piously, “May Heaven have mercy on your soul!” One Father
Mooney, who performed the novel act for a clergyman of “christening”
a big gun at Washington the other day, wound up the speech he made
on the occasion, by declaring “the echo of its voice would be _sweet
music_, inviting the children of Columbia to share the comforts of
his father’s home.” Can impiety and folly, and bad taste, go further?