Mississippi Tavern Talks on National Politics—Scenes in the Interior.
From Selma to Mobile the best route is by the way of Meridian,
Mississippi. Meridian boasts numerous hotels. Lusty porters, clad in
Nature’s black and Rebellion’s gray, lustily chant their respective
praises. “If a gemmen wants a gemmen’s accommodation he goes to de
Henrie House.” “’Ere ye are for de Snagsby House; only place in town for
a gemmen.” “All de gemmen in town go to de Jones House.” I went, at a
venture, to the Snagsby. I am therefore well prepared to recommend any
of the others to subsequent travelers. They cannot fare any worse, and
they have a chance that inheres in all things sublunary, of possible
improvement.
What I saw of Meridian was this: A frame one-story shanty, labeled,
“Liquors for sale;” two straight railway tracks in the midst of a wide
expanse of mud; a crowd of yelling negro porters; half-a-dozen houses
that may have been used for storing cotton and whisky; the hotels
aforesaid; some disconsolate looking negro huts; and a few shabby
residences that differed only from the huts in the extent to which the
disconsolate appearance was made possible with them by the larger scale
of their construction. There may have been other things in Meridian last
November, but, if so, they were buried in the mud.
But I forget the Snagsby House. There being neither carriage, nor
omnibus, nor dray, one was forced to wade through the mud, amid the
encouragements of the porter who “toted de trunk,” and the anathemas of
the half-dozen whose offers to “tote” it had been disregarded. Emerging
thus from the mud, one looked upon the Snagsby as really inviting. Such
is the power of circumstances.
There were four rooms. One of them was the ladies’ reception room and
parlor. It had only four beds. The others had each two or three
bedsteads, and about eight beds spread on the bare floor. In each was a
smoky wood fire. In the passage way was the office, where you paid your
three dollars for supper, lodging, and breakfast, in advance. And to the
rear, in a separate building, was the negro kitchen, in which, to do the
house justice, were served the best meals I have found in the country
towns of these States. It may be interesting to know what a Mississippi
hotel, in the interior, is like; the above is a faithful statement.
* * * * *
Adversity breaks down reserve. We were all in the Snagsby House
together. And so we became social. There was no candle in the room. It
has been observed that this increases sociability.
“You’re from Washington, I see from the register. Is there much change
there in the last five years?”
I mentioned a few of the more prominent improvements the Yankees had
wrought.
“What do they think there of Joe Johnston’s great Express Company?
Surely the Government won’t interfere with it?”
“Possibly not. Indeed, I fancy neither the Government nor the public
think very much about it. But I have heard express men suggest that
General Johnston was not accustomed to close financial calculations, and
not likely, therefore, to make the best manager for a struggling
enterprise.”
“They were fools, then, who hadn’t sense enough to understand General
Johnston. He’s the ablest man in the country, and everybody but a
blockhead knows it.”
I looked around in some little surprise. The tone indicated that the
speaker did not mean to be personally rude, though the language
certainly grazed the border of politeness. In the dim firelight I made
out a soldierly-looking personage with an empty coat sleeve. When he
went to the window, a moment later, some one whispered, “That’s General
Loring, a classmate of Joe Johnston’s, and one of his Division
Generals.”
The conversation that followed soon disclosed Major A. D. Banks, an
officer of Joe Johnston’s staff, (at one time Postmaster of the House at
Washington, and at another, for a short period, editor of the Cincinnati
Enquirer,) as another member of a group that was filled out by a
Government cotton agent and half-a-dozen Rebel planters.
The first important question with all these Southern gentlemen was,
“Will the Southern members get in?”
“Possibly, during the winter,” I replied, “on the reception by the
Government of adequate guarantees for the future, but certainly not at
the organization.”
“Why not at the organization?”
“Because, Mr. McPherson, the Clerk of the House, construes the law
governing his action in making up the roll so as to preclude him from
inserting their names.”
“But the tremendous pressure we can bring to bear,” suggested an old
Washington stager, “can give him new ideas as to the possible
construction of the law.”
“Pressure is not likely to affect an honest man in a conscientious
interpretation of an explicit law.”
“Well, a bigger office might?” “I tell you,” continued the same speaker,
“the whole question turns on what Mr. Johnson wants to do. I have reason
to believe that he means to side with us. If he does, he can buy up
Congress. There’s no use in you Yankees talking. Johnson can force
through Congress anything he wants.”
“But why do you think him on your side? How long has it been since, in
the Senate, he was denouncing you all as traitors?”
“We think him on our side because of what he has done, and what we know
him to be. Last spring, you can form no conception of the utter, abject
humiliation of the Southern people. We were all prostrate, helpless, and
abased to the dust, but out of this abject condition Mr. Johnson has
partly lifted us. He has made us feel that we have some standing ground,
some chance still to battle for our rights; and for this, there has now
sprung up throughout the whole South a warm feeling of regard and
gratitude. Johnson knows this. He knows that if he continues in this
way, he will be able in 1868 to count on the South as a unit for his
re-election. There would be no thought of contest—he would be nominated
by acclamation. Now, he is a man of strong will and boundless ambition.
Of course he wants to be re-elected. He doesn’t want to quit the stage
as an accidental President. And he knows perfectly well that, with the
South as a unit at his back, his enormous patronage will enable him to
carry New York and Pennsylvania, and defy the whole Black Republican
pack. Those States will be enough to elect him. A blind man could see
the game, and Andy Johnson has got plenty of nerve to play it.”
Such are almost the very words in which were thus frankly revealed the
hopes of the Southern politicians. Later in the evening and next
morning, as my Yankee proclivities began to attract more attention, my
Rebel acquaintances grew more cautious and reticent. “How do you all
feel toward Sherman, who ravaged your country so mercilessly?” I asked
one of them. “The truth is, sir, the Southern people have been so
soundly thrashed that just now they’ve got d——d few opinions of any kind.
All we want now is to get back to civil government and the making of our
own laws!”
What struck me most, however, in the conversation of all these gentlemen
was the utter scorn with which they treated any professions of
principle. “A first foreign mission would give McPherson new ideas of
his duty as clerk.” “Don’t tell me Southern members won’t get in if
Johnson decides that he wants them in. Things have changed mightily if
he can’t buy up enough Congressmen to carry his ends.” “It’s as sure as
fate, that the Democratic party will carry the next Presidential
election. You say it died, in the late New York struggle, for want of
principles? Nonsense. It can soon get together all the principles it
wants to win on. Remember its old stagers have been hungry eight years,
while the Black Republicans have been feeding at the public crib?”
Their old prejudices against Northern public men seemed unchanged by the
war. Sumner they spoke of with loathing. Chandler was a beast and a
blackguard in a breath. Seward had the ability but not the courage to be
a first-class devil.[58] Chase was the greatest of Yankee public men,
and had subjugated the South by keeping up the Yankee finances, but, d——n
him, he would some day get his reward, for taking a side he knew to be
wrong, in order to gratify his ambition. Yet in the midst of all this
talk, that called up so vividly the Southern politician of five years
ago, there was one notable change. You could talk abolition as safely in
that Mississippi country-tavern as in Faneuil Hall. Since entering the
cotton States I had not seen, on the whole trip, an indication of the
slightest desire to interfere with free speech. Off the lines of travel,
in remote quarters where neither railroads nor good wagon-roads
penetrate, I heard that the case was different; but in all the
out-of-the-way places I reached, I felt just as safe as in Washington
and just as free to express my opinions.
But I saw cause for thankfulness, more than once, that I was not a
Government cotton agent. On the road between Selma and Meridian, near
Demopolis, it was necessary to embark, for a short trip, on a steamboat
on the Tombigbee River. In the cabin, I entered, a violent altercation
was raging. A short, portly old planter, florid-faced and
white-bearded—the impersonation of the fine old Southern gentleman, who
could finish half-a-dozen bottles of claret at a sitting, and had been
doing it, any time, for the last dozen years—was berating a
black-bearded, trim-built and very resolute Yankee. The oaths were
fearfully blasphemous, but the substance of the old man’s complaint was
that he had delivered up to the agent a quantity of cotton which he had
originally subscribed to the Rebel cotton loan, and that, as he had
subsequently learned, he was entitled, by such voluntary surrender, to
one-fourth of the value of the cotton; which sum he accused the agent of
unjustly withholding. “But I’ll follow you, sah,” he vociferated,
shaking his fist in the very face of the agent. “I’ll follow you to
General Wood’s, aye, and to Andy Johnson! I’ll follow you, sah, to hell
and Illinois, but you shan’t swindle _me_, sah.”
“You’ll follow me to Mobile, sir, if you want to; that’s where I live,
and you’ll never have any trouble in finding me.”
The agent stood, trim, compact, cool as an icicle, evidently ready for
anything, and watching the fiery planter, as a pugilist might watch for
the instant to strike. The stout old man, tremulous and hoarse with
passion, blustered up and shook his fist in angry gesticulation, but the
agent never moved a muscle. One grew proud of him, and even the Southern
crowd, forming a ring about, evidently respected his bearing. Two or
three friends bustled up to the old planter, twined their arms about his
neck, and finally coaxed him out of the throng. The agent then turned on
his heel and walked away. “Is he a gentleman, or is he a Yankee?” I
heard one of the passengers inquire. “He is a scoundrel, of course,”
said another, “for he’s a Government cotton agent, and I wish the old
man had shot him, as his fellow was shot, the other day, at Montgomery.”
I subsequently learned that, only a few weeks ago, a son of the
white-bearded old planter had shot a Northern soldier in some brawl at
the polls. Life is cheap here, and the Northern papers report that the
demand for pistols from the South is brisk!
The little quarrel with the cotton agent being over, the planters on
board fell to discussing the labor question, as we slowly steamed down
the Tombigbee. “You’re all going crazy,” said a top-booted personage,
who turned out to be a Rebel mail contractor that had recently
transferred his allegiance to Governor Dennison. “You’re crazier even
than I thought you. First you lost your slaves, and now you propose to
give away your plantations! Give them away, I say,” he continued
dogmatically. “Lands that are worth sixty and eighty dollars an acre,
you’re selling for ten and twelve. Why, you can rent them for half of
that.”
“But what’s the use of lands when you can’t work them?”
“We’ve got to change our whole system of labor,” said another planter.
“Let the Yankees take the niggers, since they’re so fond of them. Why, I
was talking, down to Selma, the other day, with Jim Branson, up from
Haynesville. We figured up, I don’t know how many millions of coolies
there are in China, that you can bring over for a song. It will take
three of ’em to do the work of two niggers; but they’ll live on next to
nothing and clothe themselves, and you’ve only got to pay ’em four
dollars a month. That’s our game now. And if it comes to voting, I
reckon we can manage that pretty well!”
But they all agreed that, unless the Yankees raised it, there would be
no cotton crop grown in these States next year.
Dinner was announced, on the boat, and we all went in, belligerent
cotton agent and cotton-planter among the friendliest. There were on the
table water, soggy corn-bread, raw onions, sweet-potatoes, and beans,
and that was absolutely all. The bill was a dollar. “At them licks a man
must be made o’ money, to stand it long.” Thus said a plethoric planter.
Between Selma and Demopolis we passed through the garden lands of
Alabama. A little cotton could still be seen, standing in the fields.
Fine houses appeared occasionally along the road. The fences were
standing, cornstalks showed the extent of last year’s cultivation, and
not many traces of war were perceptible in the face of the country.
After we returned to the cars, beyond the Tombigbee, the appearance of
the country was somewhat changed. The cane-brake and prairie were
exchanged for pine barrens, and we had passed the most desirable cotton
lands.
A Georgian, emigrating to Texas, with his whole family, had seats in our
car. One of the children grew noisy. “General,” said the father,
reprovingly, “General, if you don’t behave yourself I won’t call you
General Beauregard any longer. I’ll call you some Yankee name.”
Cigars were freely smoked, it being taken for granted that the ladies
had no objections. Pistols and Bowie-knives were shown, and one had a
comparison of views as to the proper mode of using these weapons to the
best advantage.
It was in a county not very far from here, that sundry wise resolutions
were adopted, as,
“WHEREAS, We have for four years most bravely and gallantly
contended for our rights with the United States; and,
“WHEREAS, We have been overpowered by numbers,
“_Resolved_, That we will, for the present, submit to the
Constitution of the United States, and all laws in accordance with
the same.”
Somewhat similar seemed the view of all of our passengers who had
anything to say. “Mighty ha’d on po’ Confeds. We’re the unde’dogs in the
fight. We’re subjugated. I wouldn’t fight no mo’ for the stars and bars
than for an old dish-rag.” “Nor for the stars and stripes nuther,”
exclaimed his companion, and the sentiment elicited general approval.
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Footnote 58:
Four months later they were speaking of him as “our great Conservative
Minister of State.”