Newbern and Beaufort—Black and White.
Shortly after our arrival in the harbor, the military authorities had
provided a special train for us—that is to say, a train composed of a
wheezy little locomotive and an old mail agent’s car, with all the
windows smashed out and half the seats gone. By this means we were
enabled, an hour after our visit to Beaufort, to be whirling over the
military railroad from the little collection of Government warehouses on
the opposite side of the harbor, called Morehead City, to Newbern.
The whole way led through the exhausted turpentine forests of
North-eastern North Carolina, which the turpentine growers have for many
years been abandoning for the more productive forests of upper South
Carolina. Here and there were swamps which Yankee drainage would soon
convert into splendid corn land; and it is possible that Yankee skill
might make the exhausted pineries very profitable; but, for the present,
this country is not likely to present such inducements as to attract a
large Northern emigration.
The poorer people seem to be quietly living in their old places. Where
the paroled rebel soldiers have returned, they have sought their former
homes, and evince a very decided disposition to stay there. Throughout
this region there is, as we learned, comparatively little destitution.
The ocean is a near and never-failing resource; and from Newbern and
Beaufort (both of which have been in our possession during the greater
part of the war) supplies have gone through the lines by a sort of
insensible and invisible perspiration, which it would be unkind, to the
disinterested traders who follow in the wake of an army, to call
smuggling.
Passing the traces of the works thrown up at the point where Burnside
had his fight, we entered the remarkable city of log cabins, outside the
city limits, which now really forms the most interesting part of the
ancient town of Newbern. Before the war, it had between five and six
thousand inhabitants; now, these newly-built cabins on the outskirts,
alone, contain over ten thousand souls.[3] Yet, withal, there are few
old residents here. The city proper is, to a considerable extent,
deserted by its former inhabitants, and filled by Union refugees from
all parts of the State; while these squares of crowded cabins contain
solely Union refugees—of another color, but not less loyal.
Within a few days back, however, men, whose faces have not been seen in
Newbern for nearly four years, are beginning to appear again, with many
an anxious inquiry about property, which they think ought to have been
carefully preserved for them during their hostile absence. Sometimes
they have kept an aged mother, or an aunt, or a widowed sister, in the
property, to retain a claim upon it; and in these cases they seem to
find little difficulty in quietly resuming possession. But, in more
instances, they are forced to see others in an occupancy they can not
conveniently dispute, and to learn of fortunes made from the property
they abandoned.
The hotel keeper, for example, has returned. He finds here a Yankee,
who, seeing the house deserted when we occupied the city, and being told
by the officers that they wanted a hotel, determined to keep it. The
Yankee has paid no rent; he has been at no expense, and he has made a
sum reckoned at over a hundred thousand dollars, by his hotel keeping
and a little cotton planting which he was able to combine with it.
Naturally, he is in no haste to give up his rent-free establishment, and
the Rebel owner has the satisfaction of contemplating the Yankee in
possession, and calculating the profits which might have gone into his
own pockets but for the frantic determination, four years ago, never to
submit to the tyrannical rule of the Illinois gorilla. Returning
merchants find sutlers behind their counters, reckoning up gains such as
the old business men of Newbern never dreamed of; all branches of trade
are in the hands of Northern speculators, who followed the army; half
the residences are filled with army officers, or occupied by Government
civil officials, or used for negro schools, or rented out as “abandoned
property.”
Yankee enterprise even made money out of what had been thrown away long
before the war. In the distillation of turpentine a large residuum of
the resin used to be carted away as rubbish, not worth the cost of its
transportation to market. The mass thus thrown out from some of the
Newbern distilleries, had gradually been buried under a covering of sand
and dirt. A couple of Yankee adventurers, digging for something on the
bank of the river, happened to strike down upon this resin, quietly had
it mined and shipped to a Northern market. I am afraid to tell how many
thousands of dollars they are said to have made by the lucky discovery.
The negro quarter has been swelled to a size greater than that of almost
any city on the coast, by accessions from all parts of the State. They
came in entirely destitute. The Government furnished them rations, and
gave the men axes, with which they cut down the pine trees and erected
their own cabins, arranging them regularly in streets, and “policing”
them as carefully as a regiment of veteran soldiers would do. Every
effort was then made to give them work in the Quartermaster’s
Department, to keep them from being simply an expense to the Government;
but the close of the war necessarily cuts off this source of employment,
and the General commanding is now looking with no little uneasiness to
the disposition to be made of this great collection of negroes, for
scarcely a tithe of whom can the natural wants of the town itself supply
employment.
Some have rented a large rice plantation in the vicinity—contrary to the
currently-received theory that no human being, white or black, will work
on rice grounds except when driven to it—and they are doing exceedingly
well. Others could go further into the interior and do the same, if they
were sure of protection; but till some understanding with the planters
is reached, and the _status_ of the Rebel planters themselves is
defined, this is almost impracticable. Something, however, must be done
to disperse this unwholesome gathering at Newbern, or the tumor, thus
neglected, may do serious injury.
* * * * *
A dispatch from General Sherman (on his way north from Savannah, and
forced by bad weather to put in at Beaufort) had reached Newbern, while
we were there, expressing a very earnest desire to see Chief Justice
Chase; and on the return of the party, General Sherman’s vessel was
lying at the wharf, opposite the railroad terminus, awaiting us. Nervous
and restless as ever, the General looked changed (and improved) since
the old campaigns in the South-west. He was boiling over with pride at
the performances of his army through the winter, and all the more
indignant, by consequence, at the insults and injustice he imagined
himself to have received, in consequence of his arrangement with
Johnston. “I fancied the country wanted peace,” he exclaimed. “If they
don’t, let them raise more soldiers.”
The General complained, and, doubtless, with some truth, if not justice,
that the Government had never distinctly explained to him what policy it
desired to have pursued. “I asked Mr. Lincoln explicitly, when I went up
to City Point, whether he wanted me to capture Jeff. Davis, or let him
escape, and in reply he told me a story.”
That “story” may now have a historical value, and I give it, therefore,
as General Sherman said Mr. Lincoln told it—only premising that it was a
favorite story with Mr. Lincoln, which he told many times, and in
illustration of many points of public policy.
“I’ll tell you, General,” Mr. Lincoln was said to have begun, “I’ll tell
you what I think about taking Jeff. Davis. Out in Sangamon county there
was an old temperance lecturer, who was very strict in the doctrine and
practice of total abstinence. One day, after a long ride in the hot sun,
he stopped at the house of a friend, who proposed making him a lemonade.
As the mild beverage was being mixed, the friend insinuatingly asked if
he wouldn’t like just the least drop of something stronger, to brace up
his nerves after the exhausting heat and exercise. ‘No,’ replied the
lecturer, ‘I couldn’t think of it; I am opposed to it on principle.
But,’ he added, with a longing glance at the black bottle that stood
conveniently at hand, ‘if you could manage to put in a drop
_unbeknownst_ to me, I guess it wouldn’t hurt me much!’ Now, General,”
Mr. Lincoln concluded, “I’m bound to oppose the escape of Jeff. Davis;
but if you could manage to let him slip out unbeknownst-like, I guess it
wouldn’t hurt me much!”
“And that,” exclaimed General Sherman, “is all I could get out of the
Government as to what its policy was, concerning the Rebel leaders, till
Stanton assailed me for Davis’ escape!”
* * * * *
A heavy gale blew on the coast all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and
neither General Sherman’s Captain nor our own thought it wise to venture
out. Meanwhile, delegations of the Beaufort people came off in little
sail-boats to visit the “Wyanda,” bring us flowers and strawberries, and
talk politics. Since their last demonstrations, a few days ago, they had
toned down their ideas a good deal; and the amount of their talk,
stripped of its circumlocution and hesitation, was simply this: that
they were very anxious to re-organize, and would submit to anything the
Government might require to that end. They said less against negro
suffrage than before—frankly said it would be very obnoxious to the
prejudices of nearly the whole population, but added, that if the
Government insisted on it, they would co-operate with the negroes in
reorganization. “But the poor, shiftless creatures will never be able to
support themselves in freedom. We’ll have half of them in poor-houses
before a year!”[4] Nothing could overcome this rooted idea, that the
negro was worthless, except under the lash. These people really believe
that, in submitting to the emancipation of the slaves, they have
virtually saddled themselves with an equal number of idle paupers.
Naturally, they believe that to add a requirement that these paupers
must share the management of public affairs with them is piling a very
Pelion upon the Ossa of their misfortunes.
* * * * *
My room-mate, the Doctor, appointed me a “deacon for special
service”—even he had absorbed military ways of doing things from our
neighbors—and I arranged for his preaching in Beaufort, Sunday morning.
The people were more than glad to welcome him, and he had a big
congregation, with a sprinkling of black fringe around its edges, to
appreciate his really eloquent discourse; while the trees that nodded at
the pulpit windows shook out strains of music, which the best-trained
choristers could never execute, from the swelling throats of a whole
army of mocking-birds. An old Ironsides-looking man, who had occupied an
elder’s seat beside the pulpit, rose at the close, and said he little
expected to have ever seen a day like this. Everybody started forward,
anticipating a remonstrance against the strong Unionism and anti-slavery
of the Doctor’s sermon, but instead there came a sweeping and
enthusiastic indorsement of everything that had been said. He saw a
better day at hand, the old man said, and rejoiced in the brightness of
its coming. How many an old man, like him, may have been waiting through
all these weary years for the same glad day!
At other times there were fishing parties which caught no fish, though
General Sherman sent them over enough fine ocean trout to enable them to
make a splendid show on their return; and riding parties that got no
rides, but trudged through the sand on foot, to the great delectation of
the artist who sketched, _con amore_, the figures of gentlemen
struggling up a sandy hill, eyes and ears and mouth full, hands clapped
on hat to secure its tenure, and coat tails manifesting strong
tendencies to secede bodily, while in the distance, small and
indistinct, could be perceived the ambulance that couldn’t be made to
go, and underneath was written the touching inscription, “How Captain
Merryman and Mr. R. accepted Mrs. W.’s invitation, and took a ride on
the beach at Fort Macon.”
At last the gale subsided a little, and we got off. Another salute was
fired as we steamed out; the “Wayanda” returned a single shot in
acknowledgment, and all too soon we were among the breakers, pitching
and writhing, fore and aft, starboard and larboard, diagonally crosswise
and backward, up to the sky and down, till the waves poured over the
deck, and the masts seemed inclined to give the flags and streamers at
their tops a bath. But for some of us, at least, the seasickness was
gone. _Io Triumphe!_
-----
Footnote 3:
The census of 1860 gave the population of Newbern at, whites, 2,360;
blacks, 3,072; aggregate, 5,432. The Newbern people are now setting
forth, as a reason for inducing emigration, that the city is the
largest in the State, and has a population of between twenty and
thirty thousand. The increase is mainly made up of negroes.
Footnote 4:
And yet an official report, since published in the newspapers, shows
that out of three thousand whites in Beaufort last winter, between
twelve and fourteen hundred were applicants for the charity of
Government rations. Out of about an equal number of negroes, less than
four hundred were dependent on the Government! The secret of the
disparity was, that the negroes took work when they could get it; the
whites were “ladies and gentlemen,” and wouldn’t work.
A Richmond letter, of June 30th, in the Boston _Commonwealth_,
testifies to the same feeling among the Virginians. Describing the
charities of the Sanitary Commission, it says:
“The most fastidious, though not too dainty to beg, were yet
ludicrously exacting and impatient. They assumed, in many ways, the
air of condescending patrons. ‘Do you expect me to go into that dirty
crowd?’ ‘Haven’t you some private way by which I could enter?’ ‘I can
never carry that can of soup in the world!’ they whined. The sick must
suffer, unless a servant was at command to ‘tote’ a little box of
gelatine; and the family must wait till some alien hand could take
home the flour. The aristocratic sometimes begged for work. Mr.
Williams, of the Sanitary Commission, when asked by a mother to
furnish work for her daughters, said: ‘If they will serve as nurses to
the suffering men in your own army hospitals, I will secure pay for
them.’ ‘My daughters go into a hospital!’ exclaimed the insulted
mother. ‘They are ladies, sir!’ ‘Our Northern ladies would rather work
than beg,’ quietly remarked Mr. Williams. Another mother begged Mr.
Chase, of the Union Commission, to give her daughters ‘something to
do.’ ‘Anything by which they can earn something, for we have not a
penny in the world.’ ‘They shall help me measure flour,’ said Mr.
Chase. ‘My daughters are ladies, sir,’ replied the mother.”