WASHINGTON TO ST. LOUIS.
Though I had felt Washington to be disagreeable as a city, yet I was
almost sorry to leave it when the day of my departure came. I had
allowed myself a month for my sojourn in the capital, and I had
stayed a month to the day. Then came the trouble of packing up,
the necessity of calling on a long list of acquaintances one after
another, the feeling that bad as Washington might be, I might be
going to places that were worse, a conviction that I should get
beyond the reach of my letters, and a sort of affection which I had
acquired for my rooms. My landlord, being a coloured man, told me
that he was sorry I was going. Would I not remain? Would I come back
to him? Had I been comfortable? Only for so and so or so and so, he
would have done better for me. No white American citizen, occupying
the position of landlord, would have condescended to such comfortable
words. I knew the man did not in truth want me to stay, as a lady
and gentleman were waiting to go in the moment I went out; but I did
not the less value the assurance. One hungers and thirsts after such
civil words among American citizens of this class. The clerks and
managers at hotels, the officials at railway stations, the cashiers
at banks, the women in the shops;--ah! they are the worst of all. An
American woman who is bound by her position to serve you,--who is
paid in some shape to supply your wants, whether to sell you a bit of
soap or bring you a towel in your bedroom at an hotel,--is, I think,
of all human creatures, the most insolent. I certainly had a feeling
of regret at parting with my coloured friend,--and some regret also
as regards a few that were white.
As I drove down Pennsylvania Avenue, through the slush and mud, and
saw, perhaps for the last time, those wretchedly dirty horse sentries
who had refused to allow me to trot through the streets, I almost
wished that I could see more of them. How absurd they looked, with
a whole kit of rattletraps strapped on their horses' backs behind
them,--blankets, coats, canteens, coils of rope, and, always at the
top of everything else, a tin pot! No doubt these things are all
necessary to a mounted sentry, or they would not have been there; but
it always seemed as though the horse had been loaded gipsy-fashion,
in a manner that I may perhaps best describe as higgledy-piggledy,
and that there was a want of military precision in the packing. The
man would have looked more graceful, and the soldier more warlike,
had the pannikin been made to assume some rigidly fixed position
instead of dangling among the ropes. The drawn sabre, too, never
consorted well with the dirty outside woollen wrapper which generally
hung loose from the man's neck. Heaven knows, I did not begrudge him
his comforter in that cold weather, or even his long, uncombed shock
of hair; but I think he might have been made more spruce, and I am
sure that he could not have looked more uncomfortable. As I went,
however, I felt for him a sort of affection, and wished in my heart
of hearts that he might soon be enabled to return to some more
congenial employment.
I went out by the Capitol, and saw that also, as I then believed,
for the last time. With all its faults it is a great building, and,
though unfinished, is effective; its very size and pretension give it
a certain majesty. What will be the fate of that vast pile, and of
those other costly public edifices at Washington, should the South
succeed wholly in their present enterprise? If Virginia should ever
become a part of the southern republic, Washington cannot remain the
capital of the northern republic. In such case it would be almost
better to let Maryland go also, so that the future destiny of that
unfortunate city may not be a source of trouble, and a stumbling
block of opprobrium. Even if Virginia be saved, its position will be
most unfortunate.
I fancy that the railroads in those days must have been doing a very
prosperous business. From New York to Philadelphia, thence on to
Baltimore, and again to Washington, I had found the cars full; so
full that sundry passengers could not find seats. Now, on my return
to Baltimore, they were again crowded. The stations were all crowded.
Luggage-trains were going in and out as fast as the rails could carry
them. Among the passengers almost half were soldiers. I presume that
these were men going on furlough, or on special occasions; for the
regiments were of course not received by ordinary passenger trains.
About this time a return was called for by Congress of all the moneys
paid by the government, on account of the army, to the lines between
New York and Washington. Whether or no it was ever furnished I did
not hear; but it was openly stated that the colonels of regiments
received large gratuities from certain railway companies for the
regiments passing over their lines. Charges of a similar nature
were made against officers, contractors, quartermasters, paymasters,
generals, and cabinet ministers. I am not prepared to say that any
of these men had dirty hands. It was not for me to make inquiries on
such matters. But the continuance and universality of the accusations
were dreadful. When everybody is suspected of being dishonest,
dishonesty almost ceases to be regarded as disgraceful.
I will allude to a charge made against one member of the Cabinet,
because the circumstances of the case were all acknowledged and
proved. This gentleman employed his wife's brother-in-law to buy
ships, and the agent so employed pocketed about £20,000 by the
transaction in six months. The excuse made was that this profit was
in accordance with the usual practice of the ship-dealing trade, and
that it was paid by the owners who sold, and not by the Government
which bought. But in so vast an agency the ordinary rate of profit on
such business became an enormous sum; and the gentleman who made the
plea must surely have understood that that £20,000 was in fact paid
by the government. It is the purchaser, and not the seller, who in
fact pays all such fees. The question is this,--Should the government
have paid so vast a sum for one man's work for six months? And if
so, was it well that that sum should go into the pocket of a near
relative of the Minister whose special business it was to protect the
government?
American private soldiers are not pleasant fellow-travellers. They
are loud and noisy, and swear quite as much as the army could
possibly have sworn in Flanders. They are, moreover, very dirty; and
each man, with his long, thick great-coat, takes up more space than
is intended to be allotted to him. Of course I felt that if I chose
to travel in a country while it had such a piece of business on its
hands, I could not expect that everything should be found in exact
order. The matter for wonder, perhaps, was that the ordinary affairs
of life were so little disarranged, and that any travelling at all
was practicable. Nevertheless the fact remains that American private
soldiers are not agreeable fellow-travellers.
It was my present intention to go due west across the country into
Missouri, skirting, as it were, the line of the war which had now
extended itself from the Atlantic across into Kansas. There were at
this time three main armies,--that of the Potomac, as the army of
Virginia was called, of which Maclellan held the command; that of
Kentucky, under General Buell, who was stationed at Louisville on
the Ohio; and the army on the Mississippi, which had been under
Fremont, and of which General Halleck now held the command. To these
were opposed the three rebel armies of Beauregard, in Virginia; of
Johnston, on the borders of Kentucky and Tennessee; and of Price, in
Missouri. There was also a fourth army in Kansas, west of Missouri,
under General Hunter; and while I was in Washington another general,
supposed by some to be the "coming man," was sent down to Kansas to
participate in General Hunter's command. This was General Jim Lane,
who resigned a seat in the Senate in order that he might undertake
this military duty. When he reached Kansas, having on his route made
sundry violent abolition speeches, and proclaimed his intention
of sweeping slavery out of the south-western States, he came to
loggerheads with his superior officer respecting their relative
positions.
On my arrival at Baltimore, I found the place knee-deep in mud and
slush and half-melted snow. It was then raining hard,--raining dirt,
not water, as it sometimes does. Worse weather for soldiers out in
tents could not be imagined,--nor for men who were not soldiers,
but who nevertheless were compelled to leave their houses. I only
remained at Baltimore one day, and then started again, leaving there
the greater part of my baggage. I had a vague hope,--a hope which
I hardly hoped to realize,--that I might be able to get through to
the South. At any rate I made myself ready for the chance by making
my travelling impediments as light as possible, and started from
Baltimore, prepared to endure all the discomfort which lightness
of baggage entails. My route lay over the Alleghanies by Pittsburg
and Cincinnati, and my first stopping-place was at Harrisburg, the
political capital of Pennsylvania. There is nothing special at
Harrisburg to arrest any traveller; but the local legislature of
the State was then sitting, and I was desirous of seeing the Senate
and Representatives of at any rate one State, during its period of
vitality.
In Pennsylvania the General Assembly, as the joint legislature is
called, sits every year, commencing their work early in January, and
continuing till it be finished. The usual period of sitting seems to
be about ten weeks. In the majority of States, the legislature only
sits every other year. In this State it sits every year, and the
representatives are elected annually. The senators are elected for
three years, a third of the body being chosen each year. The two
chambers were ugly, convenient rooms, arranged very much after the
fashion of the halls of Congress at Washington. Each member had his
own desk, and his own chair. They were placed in the shape of a
horse-shoe, facing the chairman, before whom sat three clerks. In
neither house did I hear any set speech. The voices of the Speaker
and of the clerks of the houses were heard more frequently than
those of the members; and the business seemed to be done in a dull,
serviceable, methodical manner, likely to be useful to the country,
and very uninteresting to the gentlemen engaged. Indeed at Washington
also, in Congress, it seemed to me that there was much less of set
speeches than in our House of Commons. With us there are certain
men whom it seems impossible to put down, and by whom the time of
Parliament is occupied from night to night, with advantage to no one
and with satisfaction to none but themselves. I do not think that the
evil prevails to the same extent in America, either in Congress or in
the State legislatures. As regards Washington, this good result may
be assisted by a salutary practice which, as I was assured, prevails
there. A member gets his speech printed at the Government cost, and
sends it down free by post to his constituents, without troubling
either the house with hearing it, or himself with speaking it. I
cannot but think that the practice might be copied with success on
our side of the water.
The appearance of the members of the legislature of Pennsylvania did
not impress me very favourably. I do not know why we should wish a
legislator to be neat in his dress, and comely, in some degree, in
his personal appearance. There is no good reason, perhaps, why they
should have cleaner shirts than their outside brethren, or have been
more particular in the use of soap and water, and brush and comb.
But I have an idea that if ever our own Parliament becomes dirty, it
will lose its prestige; and I cannot but think that the Parliament
of Pennsylvania would gain an accession of dignity by some slightly
increased devotion to the Graces. I saw in the two houses but one
gentleman, a senator, who looked like a Quaker; but even he was a
very untidy Quaker.
I paid my respects to the Governor, and found him briskly employed
in arranging the appointments of officers. All the regimental
appointments to the volunteer regiments,--and that is practically
to the whole body of the army,*--are made by the State in which the
regiments are mustered. When the affair commenced, the captains and
lieutenants were chosen by the men; but it was found that this would
not do. When the skeleton of a State militia only was required, such
an arrangement was popular and not essentially injurious; but now
that war had become a reality, and that volunteers were required to
obey discipline, some other mode of promotion was found necessary.
As far as I could understand, the appointments were in the hands of
the State Governor, who however was expected in the selection of
the superior officers to be guided by the expressed wishes of the
regiment, when no objection existed to such a choice. In the present
instance the Governor's course was very thorny. Certain unfinished
regiments were in the act of being amalgamated;--two perfect
regiments being made up from perhaps five imperfect regiments, and
so on. But though the privates had not been forthcoming to the full
number for each expected regiment, there had been no such dearth
of officers, and consequently the present operation consisted in
reducing their number.
*The army at this time consisted nominally of 660,000 men, of
whom only 20,000 were regulars.
Nothing can be much uglier than the State House at Harrisburg, but
it commands a magnificent view of one of the valleys into which the
Alleghany mountains is broken. Harrisburg is immediately under the
range, probably at its finest point, and the railway running west
from the town to Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and Chicago passes right
over the chain. The line has been magnificently engineered, and the
scenery is very grand. I went over the Alleghanies in mid-winter when
they were covered with snow, but even when so seen they were very
fine. The view down the valley from Altoona, a point near the summit,
must in summer be excessively lovely. I stopped at Altoona one night
with the object of getting about among the hills, and making the best
of the winter view; but I found it impossible to walk. The snow had
become frozen and was like glass. I could not progress a mile in any
way. With infinite labour I climbed to the top of one little hill,
and when there became aware that the descent would be very much more
difficult. I did get down, but should not choose to describe the
manner in which I accomplished the descent.
In running down the mountains to Pittsburg an accident occurred which
in any other country would have thrown the engine off the line, and
have reduced the carriages behind the engine to a heap of ruins. But
here it had no other effect than that of delaying us for three or
four hours. The tire of one of the heavy driving wheels flew off, and
in the shock the body of the wheel itself was broken, one spoke and a
portion of the circumference of the wheel was carried away, and the
steam-chamber was ripped open. Nevertheless the train was pulled up,
neither the engine nor any of the carriages got off the line, and
the men in charge of the train seemed to think very lightly of the
matter. I was amused to see how little was made of the affair by
any of the passengers. In England a delay of three hours would in
itself produce a great amount of grumbling, or at least many signs
of discomfort and temporary unhappiness. But here no one said a word.
Some of the younger men got out and looked at the ruined wheel; but
most of the passengers kept their seats, chewed their tobacco, and
went to sleep. In all such matters an American is much more patient
than an Englishman. To sit quiet, without speech, and ruminate in
some contorted position of body comes to him by nature. On this
occasion I did not hear a word of complaint--nor yet a word of
surprise or thankfulness that the accident had been attended with no
serious result. "I have got a furlough for ten days," one soldier
said to me. "And I have missed every connection all through from
Washington here. I shall have just time to turn round and go back
when I get home." But he did not seem to be in any way dissatisfied.
He had not referred to his relatives when he spoke of "missing his
connections," but to his want of good fortune as regarded railway
travelling. He had reached Baltimore too late for the train on to
Harrisburg, and Harrisburg too late for the train on to Pittsburg.
Now he must again reach Pittsburg too late for his further journey.
But nevertheless he seemed to be well pleased with his position.
Pittsburg is the Merthyr-Tydvil of Pennsylvania,--or perhaps I should
better describe it as an amalgamation of Swansea, Merthyr-Tydvil, and
South Shields. It is without exception the blackest place which I
ever saw. The three English towns which I have named are very dirty,
but all their combined soot and grease and dinginess do not equal
that of Pittsburg. As regards scenery it is beautifully situated,
being at the foot of the Alleghany mountains, and at the juncture
of the two rivers Monongahela and Alleghany. Here, at the town,
they come together and form the river Ohio. Nothing can be more
picturesque than the site; for the spurs of the mountains come down
close round the town, and the rivers are broad and swift, and can
be seen for miles from heights which may be reached in a short walk.
Even the filth and wondrous blackness of the place are picturesque
when looked down upon from above. The tops of the churches are
visible, and some of the larger buildings may be partially traced
through the thick, brown, settled smoke. But the city itself is
buried in a dense cloud. The atmosphere was especially heavy when
I was there, and the effect was probably increased by the general
darkness of the weather. The Monongahela is crossed by a fine bridge,
and on the other side the ground rises at once, almost with the
rapidity of a precipice; so that a commanding view is obtained down
upon the town and the two rivers and the different bridges, from a
height immediately above them. I was never more in love with smoke
and dirt than when I stood here and watched the darkness of night
close in upon the floating soot which hovered over the housetops of
the city. I cannot say that I saw the sun set, for there was no sun.
I should say that the sun never shone at Pittsburg,--as foreigners
who visit London in November declare that the sun never shines there.
Walking along the river-side I counted thirty-two steamers, all
beached upon the shore with their bows towards the land,--large
boats, capable probably of carrying from one to two hundred
passengers each, and about 300 tons of merchandise. On inquiry I
found that many of these were not now at work. They were resting
idle, the trade down the Mississippi below St. Louis having been
cut off by the war. Many of them, however, were still running,
the passage down the river being open to Wheeling in Virginia, to
Portsmouth, Cincinnati and the whole of South Ohio, to Louisville
in Kentucky, and to Cairo in Illinois, where the Ohio joins the
Mississippi. The amount of traffic carried on by these boats while
the country was at peace within itself was very great, and conclusive
as to the increasing prosperity of the people. It seems that
everybody travels in America, and that nothing is thought of
distance. A young man will step into a car and sit beside you, with
that easy, careless air which is common to a railway passenger
in England who is passing from one station to the next; and on
conversing with him you will find that he is going seven or eight
hundred miles. He is supplied with fresh newspapers three or four
times a day as he passes by the towns at which they are published; he
eats a large assortment of gum-drops and apples, and is quite as much
at home as in his own house. On board the river boats it is the same
with him, with this exception, that when there he can get whisky when
he wants it. He knows nothing of the ennui of travelling, and never
seems to long for the end of his journey, as travellers do with us.
Should his boat come to grief upon the river, and lie by for a day or
a night, it does not in the least disconcert him. He seats himself
upon three chairs, takes a bite of tobacco, thrusts his hands into
his trousers pockets and revels in an elysium of his own.
I was told that the stockholders in these boats were in a bad way at
the present time. There were no dividends going. The same story was
repeated as to many and many an investment. Where the war created
business, as it had done on some of the main lines of railroad and
in some special towns, money was passing very freely; but away from
this, ruin seemed to have fallen on the enterprise of the country.
Men were not broken-hearted, nor were they even melancholy; but they
were simply ruined. That is nothing in the States, so long as the
ruined man has the means left to him of supplying his daily wants
till he can start himself again in life. It is almost the normal
condition of the American man in business; and therefore I am
inclined to think that when this war is over, and things begin to
settle themselves into new grooves, commerce will recover herself
more quickly there than she would do among any other people. It is so
common a thing to hear of an enterprise that has never paid a dollar
of interest on the original outlay,--of hotels, canals, railroads,
banks, blocks of houses, &c., that never paid even in the happy days
of peace,--that one is tempted to disregard the absence of dividends,
and to believe that such a trifling accident will not act as any
check on future speculation. In no country has pecuniary ruin been
so common as in the States; but then in no country is pecuniary ruin
so little ruinous. "We are a recuperative people," a west-country
gentleman once said to me. I doubted the propriety of his word, but
I acknowledged the truth of his assertion.
Pittsburg and Alleghany, which latter is a town similar in its nature
to Pittsburg on the other side of the river of the same name, regard
themselves as places apart; but they are in effect one and the same
city. They live under the same blanket of soot, which is woven by the
joint efforts of the two places. Their united population is 135,000,
of which Alleghany owns about 50,000. The industry of the towns is of
that sort which arises from a union of coal and iron in the vicinity.
The Pennsylvanian coalfields are the most prolific in the Union;
and Pittsburg is therefore great, exactly as Merthyr-Tydvil and
Birmingham are great. But the foundry-work at Pittsburg is more
nearly allied to the heavy, rough works of the Welsh coal metropolis
than to the finish and polish of Birmingham.
"Why cannot you consume your own smoke?" I asked a gentleman there.
"Fuel is so cheap that it would not pay," he answered. His idea of
the advantage of consuming smoke was confined to the question of its
paying as a simple operation in itself. The consequent cleanliness
and improvement in the atmosphere had not entered into his
calculations. Any such result might be a fortuitous benefit, but was
not of sufficient importance to make any effort in that direction
expedient on its own account. "Coal was burned," he said, "in the
foundries at something less than two dollars a ton; while that was
the case, it could not answer the purpose of any iron-founder to put
up an apparatus for the consumption of smoke." I did not pursue the
argument any further, as I perceived that we were looking at the
matter from two different points of view.
Everything in the hotel was black; not black to the eye, for the eye
teaches itself to discriminate colours even when loaded with dirt,
but black to the touch. On coming out of a tub of water my foot took
an impress from the carpet exactly as it would have done had I trod
barefooted on a path laid with soot. I thought that I was turning
negro upwards, till I put my wet hand upon the carpet, and found that
the result was the same. And yet the carpet was green to the eye,--a
dull, dingy green, but still green. "You shouldn't damp your feet,"
a man said to me, to whom I mentioned the catastrophe. Certainly
Pittsburg is the dirtiest place I ever saw, but it is, as I said
before, very picturesque in its dirt when looked at from above the
blanket.
From Pittsburg I went on by train to Cincinnati, and was soon in the
State of Ohio. I confess that I have never felt any great regard for
Pennsylvania. It has always had in my estimation a low character for
commercial honesty, and a certain flavour of pretentious hypocrisy.
This probably has been much owing to the acerbity and pungency of
Sydney Smith's witty denunciations against the drab-coloured State.
It is noted for repudiation of its own debts, and for sharpness in
exaction of its own bargains. It has been always smart in banking. It
has given Buchanan as a President to the country, and Cameron as a
Secretary at War to the Government! When the battle of Bull's Run was
to be fought, Pennsylvanian soldiers were the men who, on that day,
threw down their arms because the three months' term for which they
had been enlisted was then expired! Pennsylvania does not in my mind
stand on a par with Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Illinois,
or Virginia. We are apt to connect the name of Benjamin Franklin
with Pennsylvania, but Franklin was a Boston man. Nevertheless,
Pennsylvania is rich and prosperous. Indeed it bears all those marks
which Quakers generally leave behind them.
I had some little personal feeling in visiting Cincinnati, because my
mother had lived there for some time, and had there been concerned in
a commercial enterprise, by which no one, I believe, made any great
sum of money. Between thirty and forty years ago she built a bazaar
in Cincinnati, which I was assured by the present owner of the house,
was at the time of its erection considered to be the great building
of the town. It has been sadly eclipsed now, and by no means rears
its head proudly among the great blocks around it. It had become
a "Physico-medical Institute" when I was there, and was under
the dominion of a quack doctor on one side, and of a college of
rights-of-women female medical professors on the other. "I believe,
sir, no man or woman ever yet made a dollar in that building; and as
for rent, I don't even expect it." Such was the account given of the
unfortunate bazaar by the present proprietor.
Cincinnati has long been known as a great town,--conspicuous among
all towns for the number of hogs which are there killed, salted, and
packed. It is the great hog metropolis of the western States; but
Cincinnati has not grown with the rapidity of other towns. It has
now 170,000 inhabitants, but then it got an early start. St. Louis,
which is west of it again, near the confluence of the Missouri and
Mississippi, has gone ahead of it. Cincinnati stands on the Ohio
river, separated by a ferry from Kentucky, which is a slave State.
Ohio itself is a free-soil State. When the time comes for arranging
the line of division, if such time shall ever come, it will be very
hard to say where northern feeling ends and where southern wishes
commence. Newport and Covington, which are in Kentucky, are suburbs
of Cincinnati; and yet in these places slavery is rife. The domestic
servants are mostly slaves, though it is essential that those so kept
should be known as slaves who will not run away. It is understood
that a slave who escapes into Ohio will not be caught and given up by
the intervention of the Ohio police; and from Covington or Newport
any slave can escape into Ohio with ease. But when that division
takes place, no river like the Ohio can form the boundary between
the divided nations. Such rivers are the highways, round which in
this country people have clustered themselves. A river here is not
a natural barrier, but a connecting street. It would be as well to
make a railway a division, or the centre line of a city a national
boundary. Kentucky and Ohio States are joined together by the Ohio
river, with Cincinnati on one side and Louisville on the other; and
I do not think that man's act can upset these ties of nature. But
between Kentucky and Tennessee there is no such bond of union. There
a mathematical line has been simply drawn, a continuation of that
line which divides Virginia from North Carolina, to which two latter
States Kentucky and Tennessee belonged when the thirteen original
States first formed themselves into a union. But that mathematical
line has offered no peculiar advantages to population. No great towns
cluster there, and no strong social interests would be dissevered
should Kentucky throw in her lot with the North, and Tennessee with
the South; but Kentucky owns a quarter of a million of slaves, and
those slaves must either be emancipated or removed before such a
junction can be firmly settled.
The great business of Cincinnati is hog-killing now, as it used to
be in the old days of which I have so often heard. It seems to be an
established fact, that in this portion of the world the porcine genus
are all hogs. One never hears of a pig. With us a trade in hogs and
pigs is subject to some little contumely. There is a feeling, which
has perhaps never been expressed in words, but which certainly
exists, that these animals are not so honourable in their bearings
as sheep and oxen. It is a prejudice which by no means exists in
Cincinnati. There hog killing and salting and packing are very
honourable, and the great men in the trade are the merchant princes
of the city. I went to see the performance, feeling it to be a duty
to inspect everywhere that which I found to be of most importance;
but I will not describe it. There were a crowd of men operating,
and I was told that the point of honour was to "put through" a hog
a minute. It must be understood that the animal enters upon the
ceremony alive, and comes out in that cleanly, disembowelled guise in
which it may sometimes be seen hanging up previous to the operation
of the pork-butcher's knife. To one special man was appointed a
performance which seemed to be specially disagreeable, so that he
appeared despicable in my eyes; but when on inquiry I learned that he
earned five dollars, or a pound sterling, a day, my judgment as to
his position was reversed. And after all what matters the ugly nature
of such an occupation when a man is used to it?
Cincinnati is like all other American towns, with second, third, and
fourth streets, seventh, eighth, and ninth streets, and so on. Then
the cross-streets are named chiefly from trees. Chesnut, walnut,
locust, &c. I do not know whence has come this fancy for naming
streets after trees in the States, but it is very general. The
town is well built, with good fronts to many of the houses, with
large shops and larger stores;--of course also with an enormous
hotel, which has never paid anything like a proper dividend to the
speculator who built it. It is always the same story. But these towns
shame our provincial towns by their breadth and grandeur. I am afraid
that speculators with us are trammelled by an "ignorant impatience of
ruin." I should not myself like to live in Cincinnati or in any of
these towns. They are slow, dingy, and uninteresting; but they all
possess an air of substantial, civic dignity. It must however be
remembered that the Americans live much more in towns than we do.
All with us that are rich and aristocratic and luxurious live in the
country, frequenting the metropolis for only a portion of the year.
But all that are rich and aristocratic and luxurious in the States
live in the towns. Our provincial towns are not generally chosen as
the residences of our higher classes.
Cincinnati has 170,000 inhabitants, and there are 14,000 children
at the free schools,--which is about one in twelve of the whole
population. This number gives the average of scholars throughout
the year ended 30th June, 1861. But there are other schools in
Cincinnati,--parish schools and private schools, and it is stated to
me that there were in all 32,000 children attending school in the
city throughout the year. The education at the State schools is very
good. Thirty-four teachers are employed, at an average salary of £92
each, ranging from £260 to £60 per annum. It is in this matter of
education that the cities of the free States of America have done so
much for the civilization and welfare of their population. This fact
cannot be repeated in their praise too often. Those who have the
management of affairs, who are at the top of the tree, are desirous
of giving to all an opportunity of raising themselves in the scale of
human beings. I dislike universal suffrage; I dislike vote by ballot;
I dislike above all things the tyranny of democracy. But I do like
the political feeling--for it is a political feeling--which induces
every educated American to lend a hand to the education of his
fellow-citizens. It shows, if nothing else does so, a germ of truth
in that doctrine of equality. It is a doctrine to be forgiven when
he who preaches it is in truth striving to raise others to his own
level;--though utterly unpardonable when the preacher would pull down
others to his level.
Leaving Cincinnati I again entered a slave State, namely, Kentucky.
When the war broke out Kentucky took upon itself to say that it would
be neutral, as if neutrality in such a position could by any means
have been possible! Neutrality on the borders of secession, on
the battle-field of the coming contest, was of course impossible.
Tennessee, to the south, had joined the South by a regular secession
ordinance. Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana to the north were of course
true to the Union. Under these circumstances it became necessary that
Kentucky should choose her side. With the exception of the little
State of Delaware, in which from her position secesssion would have
been impossible, Kentucky was, I think, less inclined to rebellion,
more desirous of standing by the North, than any other of the slave
States. She did all she could, however, to put off the evil day of so
evil a choice. Abolition within her borders was held to be abominable
as strongly as it was so held in Georgia. She had no sympathy and
could have none with the teachings and preachings of Massachusetts.
But she did not wish to belong to a Confederacy of which the northern
States were to be the declared enemy, and be the border State of the
South under such circumstances. She did all she could for personal
neutrality. She made that effort for general reconciliation of which
I have spoken as the Crittenden compromise. But compromises and
reconciliation were not as yet possible, and therefore it was
necessary that she should choose her part. Her Governor declared
for secession; and at first also her legislature was inclined to
follow the Governor. But no overt act of secession by the State
was committed, and at last it was decided that Kentucky should be
declared to be loyal. It was in fact divided. Those on the southern
border joined the secessionists, whereas the greater portion of the
State, containing Frankfort the capital and the would-be secessionist
Governor who lived there, joined the North. Men in fact became
unionists or secessionists, not by their own conviction, but through
the necessity of their positions; and Kentucky, through the necessity
of her position, became one of the scenes of civil war.
I must confess that the difficulty of the position of the whole
country seems to me to have been under-estimated in England. In
common life it is not easy to arrange the circumstances of a divorce
between man and wife, all whose belongings and associations have for
many years been in common. Their children, their money, their house,
their friends, their secrets, have been joint property and have
formed bonds of union. But yet such quarrels may arise, such mutual
antipathy, such acerbity and even ill-usage, that all who know them
admit that a separation is needed. So it is here in the States.
Free-soil and slave-soil could, while both were young and unused to
power, go on together,--not without many jars and unhappy bickerings;
but they did go on together. But now they must part; and how shall
the parting be made? With which side shall go this child, and who
shall remain in possession of that pleasant homestead? Putting
secession aside, there were in the United States two distinct
political doctrines, of which the extremes were opposed to each other
as pole is opposed to pole. We have no such variance of creed, no
such radical difference as to the essential rules of life between
parties in our country. We have no such cause for personal rancour
in our Parliament as has existed for some years past in both Houses
of Congress. These two extreme parties were the slave-owners of the
South and the abolitionists of the North and West. Fifty years ago
the former regarded the institution of slavery as a necessity of
their position,--generally as an evil necessity,--and generally also
as a custom to be removed in the course of years. Gradually they have
learned to look upon slavery as good in itself, and to believe that
it has been the source of their wealth and the strength of their
position. They have declared it to be a blessing inalienable,--that
should remain among them for ever,--as an inheritance not to be
touched, and not to be spoken of with hard words. Fifty years ago
the abolitionists of the North differed only in opinion from the
slave-owners of the South in hoping for a speedier end to this stain
upon the nation; and in thinking that some action should be taken
towards the final emancipation of the bondsmen. But they also have
progressed; and as the southern masters have called the institution
blessed, they have called it accursed. Their numbers have increased,
and with their numbers their power and their violence. In this way
two parties have been formed who could not look on each other without
hatred. An intermediate doctrine has been held by men who were nearer
in their sympathies to the slave-owners than to the abolitionists;
but who were not disposed to justify slavery as a thing apart. These
men have been aware that slavery has existed in accordance with the
constitution of their country, and have been willing to attach the
stain which accompanies the institution to the individual State
which entertains it, and not to the national Government, by which
the question has been constitutionally ignored. The men who have
participated in the Government have naturally been inclined towards
the middle doctrine; but as the two extremes have retreated further
from each other, the power of this middle-class of politicians has
decreased. Mr. Lincoln, though he does not now declare himself an
abolitionist, was elected by the abolitionists; and when, as a
consequence of that election, secession was threatened, no step which
he could have taken would have satisfied the South which had opposed
him, and been at the same time true to the North which had chosen
him. But it was possible that his Government might save Maryland,
Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. As Radicals in England become
simple Whigs when they are admitted into public offices, so did Mr.
Lincoln with his government become anti-abolitionist when he entered
on his functions. Had he combated secession with emancipation of
the slaves, no slave State would or could have held by the Union.
Abolition for a lecturer may be a telling subject. It is easy to
bring down rounds of applause by tales of the wrongs of bondage. But
to men in office, abolition was too stern a reality. It signified
servile insurrection, absolute ruin to all southern slave-owners, and
the absolute enmity of every slave State.
But that task of steering between the two has been very difficult. I
fear that the task of so steering with success is almost impossible.
In England it is thought that Mr. Lincoln might have maintained the
Union by compromising matters with the South,--or if not so, that he
might have maintained peace by yielding to the South. But no such
power was in his hands. While we were blaming him for opposition to
all southern terms, his own friends in the North were saying that
all principle and truth was abandoned for the sake of such States as
Kentucky and Missouri. "Virginia is gone; Maryland cannot go. And
slavery is endured and the new virtue of Washington is made to tamper
with the evil one, in order that a show of loyalty may be preserved
in one or two States which after all are not truly loyal!" That is
the accusation made against the government by the abolitionists; and
that made by us on the other side is the reverse. I believe that
Mr. Lincoln had no alternative but to fight, and that he was right
also not to fight with abolition as his battle-cry. That he may be
forced by his own friends into that cry, is, I fear, still possible.
Kentucky at any rate did not secede in bulk. She still sent her
senators to Congress, and allowed herself to be reckoned among
the stars in the American firmament. But she could not escape the
presence of the war. Did she remain loyal or did she secede, that was
equally her fate.
The day before I entered Kentucky a battle was fought in that State,
which gave to the northern arms their first actual victory. It was at
a place called Mill Spring, near Somerset, towards the south of the
State. General Zollicoffer, with a Confederate army, numbering, it
was supposed, some eight thousand men, had advanced upon a smaller
Federal force, commanded by General Thomas, and had been himself
killed, while his army was cut to pieces and dispersed; the cannon
of the Confederates were taken, and their camp seized and destroyed.
Their rout was complete; but in this instance again the advancing
party had been beaten, as had, I believe, been the case in all the
actions hitherto fought throughout the war. Here, however, had been
an actual victory, and it was not surprising that in Kentucky loyal
men should rejoice greatly, and begin to hope that the Confederates
would be beaten out of the State. Unfortunately, however, General
Zollicoffer's army had only been an offshoot from the main rebel army
in Kentucky. Buell, commanding the Federal troops at Louisville, and
Sydney Johnston, the Confederate General, at Bowling Green, as yet
remained opposite to each other, and the work was still to be done.
I visited the little towns of Lexington and Frankfort, in Kentucky.
At the former I found in the hotel to which I went seventy-five
teamsters belonging to the army. They were hanging about the great
hall when I entered, and clustering round the stove in the middle
of the chamber;--a dirty, rough, quaint set of men, clothed in a
wonderful variety of garbs, but not disorderly or loud. The landlord
apologized for their presence, alleging that other accommodation
could not be found for them in the town. He received, he said, a
dollar a day for feeding them, and for supplying them with a place in
which they could lie down. It did not pay him,--but what could he do?
Such an apology from an American landlord was in itself a surprising
fact. Such high functionaries are, as a rule, men inclined to tell
a traveller that if he does not like the guests among whom he finds
himself, he may go elsewhere. But this landlord had as yet filled the
place for not more than two or three weeks, and was unused to the
dignity of his position. While I was at supper, the seventy-five
teamsters were summoned into the common eating-room by a loud gong,
and sat down to their meal at the public table. They were very dirty;
I doubt whether I ever saw dirtier men; but they were orderly and
well-behaved, and but for their extreme dirt might have passed as the
ordinary occupants of a well-filled hotel in the West. Such men, in
the States, are less clumsy with their knives and forks, less astray
in an unused position, more intelligent in adapting themselves to a
new life than are Englishmen of the same rank. It is always the same
story. With us there is no level of society. Men stand on a long
staircase, but the crowd congregates near the bottom, and the lower
steps are very broad. In America men stand upon a common platform,
but the platform is raised above the ground, though it does not
approach in height the top of our staircase. If we take the average
altitude in the two countries, we shall find that the American heads
are the more elevated of the two. I conceived rather an affection for
those dirty teamsters; they answered me civilly when I spoke to them,
and sat in quietness, smoking their pipes, with a dull and dirty, but
orderly demeanour.
The country about Lexington is called the Blue Grass Region, and
boasts itself as of peculiar fecundity in the matter of pasturage.
Why the grass is called blue, and or in what way or at what period
it becomes blue, I did not learn; but the country is very lovely and
very fertile. Between Lexington and Frankfort a large stock farm,
extending over three thousand acres, is kept by a gentleman, who
is very well known as a breeder of horses, cattle, and sheep. He
has spent much money on it, and is making for himself a Kentucky
elysium. He was kind enough to entertain me for a while, and showed
me something of country life in Kentucky. A farm in that part of the
State depends, and must depend, chiefly on slave-labour. The slaves
are a material part of the estate, and as they are regarded by the
law as real property--being actually adstricti glebæ--an inheritor
of land has no alternative but to keep them. A gentleman in Kentucky
does not sell his slaves. To do so is considered to be low and
mean, and is opposed to the aristocratic traditions of the country.
A man who does so willingly, puts himself beyond the pale of
good-fellowship with his neighbours. A sale of slaves is regarded
as a sign almost of bankruptcy. If a man cannot pay his debts, his
creditors can step in and sell his slaves; but he does not himself
make the sale. When a man owns more slaves than he needs, he hires
them out by the year; and when he requires more than he owns, he
takes them on hire by the year. Care is taken in such hirings not to
remove a married man away from his home. The price paid for a negro's
labour at the time of my visit was about a hundred dollars, or twenty
pounds, for the year; but this price was then extremely low in
consequence of the war disturbances. The usual price had been about
fifty or sixty per cent. above this. The man who takes the negro on
hire feeds him, clothes him, provides him with a bed, and supplies
him with medical attendance. I went into some of their cottages on
the estate which I visited, and was not in the least surprised to
find them preferable in size, furniture, and all material comforts
to the dwellings of most of our own agricultural labourers. Any
comparison between the material comfort of a Kentucky slave and an
English ditcher and delver would be preposterous. The Kentucky slave
never wants for clothing fitted to the weather. He eats meat twice
a day, and has three good meals; he knows no limit but his own
appetite; his work is light; he has many varieties of amusement;
he has instant medical assistance at all periods of necessity for
himself, his wife, and his children. Of course he pays no rent, fears
no baker, and knows no hunger. I would not have it supposed that
I conceive slavery with all these comforts to be equal to freedom
without them; nor do I conceive that the negro can be made equal to
the white man. But in discussing the condition of the negro, it is
necessary that we should understand what are the advantages of which
abolition would deprive him, and in what condition he has been placed
by the daily receipt of such advantages. If a negro slave wants new
shoes, he asks for them, and receives them, with the undoubting
simplicity of a child. Such a state of things has its picturesquely
patriarchal side; but what would be the state of such a man if he
were emancipated to-morrow?
The natural beauty of the place which I was visiting was very great.
The trees were fine and well-scattered over the large, park-like
pastures, and the ground was broken on every side into hills. There
was perhaps too much timber, but my friend seemed to think that that
fault would find a natural remedy only too quickly. "I do not like to
cut down trees if I can help it," he said. After that I need not say
that my host was quite as much an Englishman as an American. To the
purely American farmer a tree is simply an enemy to be trodden under
foot, and buried underground, or reduced to ashes and thrown to the
winds with what most economical despatch may be possible. If water
had been added to the landscape here it would have been perfect,
regarding it as ordinary English park-scenery. But the little rivers
at this place have a dirty trick of burying themselves under the
ground. They go down suddenly into holes, disappearing from the upper
air, and then come up again at the distance of perhaps half a mile.
Unfortunately their periods of seclusion are more prolonged than
those of their upper-air distance. There were three or four such
ascents and descents about the place.
My host was a breeder of race-horses, and had imported sires from
England; of sheep also, and had imported famous rams; of cattle too,
and was great in bulls. He was very loud in praise of Kentucky and
its attractions, if only this war could be brought to an end. But I
could not obtain from him an assurance that the speculation in which
he was engaged had been profitable. Ornamental farming in England
is a very pretty amusement for a wealthy man, but I fancy,--without
intending any slight on Mr. Mechi,--that the amusement is expensive.
I believe that the same thing may be said of it in a slave State.
Frankfort is the capital of Kentucky, and is as quietly dull a little
town as I ever entered. It is on the river Kentucky, and as the
grounds about it on every side rise in wooded hills, it is a very
pretty place. In January it was very pretty, but in summer it must
be lovely. I was taken up to the cemetery there by a path along the
river, and am inclined to say that it is the sweetest resting-place
for the dead that I have ever visited. Daniel Boone lies there.
He was the first white man who settled in Kentucky; or rather,
perhaps, the first who entered Kentucky with a view to a white man's
settlement. Such frontier men as was Daniel Boone never remained long
contented with the spots they opened. As soon as he had left his mark
in that territory he went again further west over the big rivers into
Missouri, and there he died. But the men of Kentucky are proud of
Daniel Boone, and so they have buried him in the loveliest spot they
could select, immediately over the river. Frankfort is worth a visit,
if only that this grave and graveyard may be seen. The legislature of
the State was not sitting when I was there, and the grass was growing
in the streets.
Louisville is the commercial city of the State, and stands on the
Ohio. It is another great town, like all the others, built with high
stores, and great houses and stone-faced blocks. I have no doubt that
all the building speculations have been failures, and that the men
engaged in them were all ruined. But there, as the result of their
labour, stands a fair great city on the southern banks of the Ohio.
Here General Buell held his head-quarters, but his army lay at a
distance. On my return from the West I visited one of the camps of
this army, and will speak of it as I speak of my backward journey. I
had already at this time begun to conceive an opinion that the armies
in Kentucky and in Missouri would do at any rate as much for the
northern cause as that of the Potomac, of which so much more had been
heard in England.
While I was at Louisville the Ohio was flooded. It had begun to rise
when I was at Cincinnati, and since then had gone on increasing
hourly, rising inch by inch up into the towns upon its bank. I
visited two suburbs of Louisville, both of which were submerged, as
to the streets and ground-floors of the houses. At Shipping Port,
one of these suburbs, I saw the women and children clustering in the
up-stairs room, while the men were going about in punts and wherries,
collecting drift wood from the river for their winter's firing. In
some places bedding and furniture had been brought over to the high
ground, and the women were sitting, guarding their little property.
That village, amidst the waters, was a sad sight to see; but I heard
no complaints. There was no tearing of hair and no gnashing of teeth;
no bitter tears or moans of sorrow. The men who were not at work
in the boats stood loafing about in clusters, looking at the still
rising river; but each seemed to be personally indifferent to the
matter. When the house of an American is carried down the river, he
builds himself another;--as he would get himself a new coat when his
old coat became unserviceable. But he never laments or moans for such
a loss. Surely there is no other people so passive under personal
misfortune!
Going from Louisville up to St. Louis, I crossed the Ohio river and
passed through parts of Indiana and of Illinois, and striking the
Mississippi opposite St. Louis, crossed that river also, and then
entered the State of Missouri. The Ohio was, as I have said, flooded,
and we went over it at night. The boat had been moored at some
unaccustomed place. There was no light. The road was deep in mud up
to the axle-tree, and was crowded with waggons and carts, which in
the darkness of the night seemed to have stuck there. But the man
drove his four horses through it all, and into the ferry-boat, over
its side. There were three or four such omnibuses, and as many
waggons, as to each of which I predicted in my own mind some fatal
catastrophe. But they were all driven on to the boat in the dark,
the horses mixing in through each other in a chaos which would have
altogether incapacitated any English coachman. And then the vessel
laboured across the flood, going sideways, and hardly keeping her
own against the stream. But we did get over, and were all driven
out again, up to the railway station in safety. On reaching the
Mississippi about the middle of the next day, we found it frozen
over, or rather covered from side to side with blocks of ice which
had forced its way down the river, so that the steam ferry could not
reach its proper landing. I do not think that we in England would
have attempted the feat of carrying over horses and carriages under
stress of such circumstances. But it was done here. Huge plankings
were laid down over the ice, and omnibuses and waggons were driven
on. In getting out again, these vehicles, each with four horses, had
to be twisted about, and driven in and across the vessel, and turned
in spaces to look at which would have broken the heart of an English
coachman. And then with a spring they were driven up a bank as steep
as a ladder! Ah me! under what mistaken illusions have I not laboured
all the days of my youth, in supposing that no man could drive four
horses well but an English stage-coachman? I have seen performances
in America,--and in Italy and France also, but above all in
America,--which would have made the hair of any English professional
driver stand on end.
And in this way I entered St. Louis.