MISSOURI.
Missouri is a slave State lying to the west of the Mississippi and to
the north of Arkansas. It forms a portion of the territory ceded by
France to the United States in 1803. Indeed, it is difficult to say
how large a portion of the continent of North America is supposed to
be included in that territory. It contains the States of Louisiana,
Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas, as also the present Indian territory;
but it also is said to have contained all the land lying back from
them to the Rocky Mountains, Utah, Nebraska, and Dacotah, and forms
no doubt the widest dominion ever ceded by one nationality to
another.
Missouri lies exactly north of the old Missouri compromise line,
that is, 36 30 north. When the Missouri compromise was made it was
arranged that Missouri should be a slave State, but that no other
State north of the 36 30 line should ever become slave soil. Kentucky
and Virginia, as also of course Maryland and Delaware, four of the
old slave States, were already north of that line; but the compromise
was intended to prevent the advance of slavery in the north-west. The
compromise has been since annulled, on the ground, I believe, that
Congress had not constitutionally the power to declare that any soil
should be free, or that any should be slave soil. That is a question
to be decided by the States themselves, as each individual State may
please. So the compromise was repealed. But slavery has not on that
account advanced. The battle has been fought in Kansas, and after a
long and terrible struggle, Kansas has come out of the fight as a
free State. Kansas is in the same parallel of latitude as Virginia,
and stretches west as far as the Rocky Mountains.
When the census of the population of Missouri was taken in 1860, the
slaves amounted to 10 per cent. of the whole number. In the Gulf
States the slave population is about 45 per cent. of the whole. In
the three border States of Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland, the
slaves amount to 30 per cent. of the whole population. From these
figures it will be seen that Missouri, which is comparatively a new
slave State, has not gone a-head with slavery as the old slave States
have done, although from its position and climate, lying as far south
as Virginia, it might seem to have had the same reasons for doing so.
I think there is every reason to believe that slavery will die out in
Missouri. The institution is not popular with the people generally;
and as white labour becomes abundant,--and before the war it was
becoming abundant,--men recognize the fact that the white man's
labour is the more profitable. The heat in this State, in midsummer,
is very great, especially in the valleys of the rivers. At St. Louis,
on the Mississippi, it reaches commonly to 90 degrees, and very
frequently goes above that. The nights moreover are nearly as hot as
the days; but this great heat does not last for any very long period,
and it seems that white men are able to work throughout the year. If
correspondingly severe weather in winter affords any compensation to
the white man for what of heat he endures during the summer, I can
testify that such compensation is to be found in Missouri. When I was
there we were afflicted with a combination of snow, sleet, frost, and
wind, with a mixture of ice and mud, that makes me regard Missouri as
the most inclement land into which I ever penetrated.
St. Louis, on the Mississippi, is the great town of Missouri, and is
considered by the Missourians to be the star of the West. It is not
to be beaten in population, wealth, or natural advantages by any
other city so far west; but it has not increased with such rapidity
as Chicago, which is considerably to the north of it on Lake
Michigan. Of the great western cities I regard Chicago as the most
remarkable, seeing that St. Louis was a large town before Chicago had
been founded.
The population of St. Louis is 170,000. Of this number only 2000 are
slaves. I was told that a large proportion of the slaves of Missouri
are employed near the Missouri river in breaking hemp. The growth of
hemp is very profitably carried on in that valley, and the labour
attached to it is one which white men do not like to encounter.
Slaves are not generally employed in St. Louis for domestic service,
as is done almost universally in the towns of Kentucky. This work
is chiefly in the hands of Irish and Germans. Considerably above
one-third of the population of the whole city is made up of these two
nationalities. So much is confessed; but if I were to form an opinion
from the language I heard in the streets of the town, I should say
that nearly every man was either an Irishman or a German.
St. Louis has none of the aspects of a slave city. I cannot say that
I found it an attractive place, but then I did not visit it at an
attractive time. The war had disturbed everything, given a special
colour of its own to men's thoughts and words, and destroyed all
interest except that which might proceed from itself. The town is
well built, with good shops, straight streets, never-ending rows of
excellent houses, and every sign of commercial wealth and domestic
comfort,--of commercial wealth and domestic comfort in the past, for
there was no present appearance either of comfort or of wealth. The
new hotel here was to be bigger than all the hotels of all other
towns. It is built, and is an enormous pile, and would be handsome
but for a terribly ambitious Grecian doorway. It is built, as far
as the walls and roof are concerned, but in all other respects is
unfinished. I was told that the shares of the original stockholders
were now worth nothing. A shareholder, who so told me, seemed to
regard this as the ordinary course of business.
The great glory of the town is the "levée," as it is called, or the
long river beach up to which the steamers are brought with their bows
to the shore. It is an esplanade looking on to the river, not built
with quays or wharves, as would be the case with us, but with a
sloping bank running down to the water. In the good days of peace a
hundred vessels were to be seen here, each with its double funnels.
The line of them seemed to be never ending even when I was there, but
then a very large proportion of them were lying idle. They resemble
huge wooden houses, apparently of frail architecture, floating upon
the water. Each has its double row of balconies running round it, and
the lower or ground floor is open throughout. The upper stories are
propped and supported on ugly sticks and ricketty-looking beams; so
that the first appearance does not convey any great idea of security
to a stranger. They are always painted white and the paint is
always very dirty. When they begin to move, they moan and groan in
melancholy tones which are subversive of all comfort; and as they
continue on their courses they puff and bluster, and are for ever
threatening to burst and shatter themselves to pieces. There they lie
in a continuous line nearly a mile in length along the levée of St.
Louis, dirty, dingy, and now, alas, mute. They have ceased to groan
and puff, and if this war be continued for six months longer, will
become rotten and useless as they lie.
They boast at St. Louis that they command 46,000 miles of navigable
river water, counting the great rivers up and down from that place.
These rivers are chiefly the Mississippi, the Missouri and Ohio which
fall into the Mississippi near St. Louis, the Platte and Kansas
rivers--tributaries of the Missouri, the Illinois, and the Wisconsin.
All these are open to steamers, and all of them traverse regions rich
in corn, in coal, in metals, or in timber. These ready-made highways
of the world centre, as it were, at St. Louis, and make it the depôt
of the carrying trade of all that vast country. Minnesota is 1500
miles above New Orleans, but the wheat of Minnesota can be brought
down the whole distance without change of the vessel in which it is
first deposited. It would seem to be impossible that a country so
blessed should not become rich. It must be remembered that these
rivers flow through lands that have never yet been surpassed in
natural fertility. Of all countries in the world one would say that
the States of America should have been the last to curse themselves
with a war; but now the curse has fallen upon them with a double
vengeance. It would seem that they could never be great in war: their
very institutions forbid it; their enormous distances forbid it; the
price of labour forbids it; and it is forbidden also by the career of
industry and expansion which has been given to them. But the curse of
fighting has come upon them, and they are showing themselves to be
as eager in the works of war as they have shown themselves capable
in the works of peace. Men and angels must weep as they behold the
things that are being done, as they watch the ruin that has come and
is still coming, as they look on commerce killed and agriculture
suspended. No sight so sad has come upon the earth in our days.
They were a great people; feeding the world, adding daily to the
mechanical appliances of mankind, increasing in population beyond all
measures of such increase hitherto known, and extending education
as fast as they extended their numbers. Poverty had as yet found no
place among them, and hunger was an evil of which they had read, but
were themselves ignorant. Each man among their crowds had a right
to be proud of his manhood. To read and write,--I am speaking here
of the North,--was as common as to eat and drink. To work was no
disgrace, and the wages of work were plentiful. To live without work
was the lot of none. What blessing above these blessings was needed
to make a people great and happy? And now a stranger visiting them
would declare that they are wallowing in a very slough of despond.
The only trade open is the trade of war. The axe of the woodsman is
at rest; the plough is idle; the artificer has closed his shop. The
roar of the foundry is still heard because cannon are needed, and
the river of molten iron comes out as an implement of death. The
stone-cutter's hammer and the mason's trowel are never heard. The
gold of the country is hiding itself as though it had returned to its
mother-earth, and the infancy of a paper currency has been commenced.
Sick soldiers, who have never seen a battlefield, are dying by
hundreds in the squalid dirt of their unaccustomed camps. Men and
women talk of war, and of war only. Newspapers full of the war
are alone read. A contract for war stores,--too often a dishonest
contract,--is the one path open for commercial enterprise. The
young man must go to the war or he is disgraced. The war swallows
everything, and as yet has failed to produce even such bitter fruits
as victory or glory. Must it not be said that a curse has fallen upon
the land?
And yet I still hope that it may ultimately be for good. Through
water and fire must a nation be cleansed of its faults. It has been
so with all nations, though the phases of their trials have been
different. It did not seem to be well with us in Cromwell's early
days; nor was it well with us afterwards in those disgraceful years
of the later Stuarts. We know how France was bathed in blood in her
effort to rid herself of her painted sepulchre of an ancient throne;
how Germany was made desolate, in order that Prussia might become a
nation. Ireland was poor and wretched, till her famine came. Men said
it was a curse, but that curse has been her greatest blessing. And so
will it be here in the West. I could not but weep in spirit as I saw
the wretchedness around me,--the squalid misery of the soldiers, the
inefficiency of their officers, the bickerings of their rulers, the
noise and threats, the dirt and ruin, the terrible dishonesty of
those who were trusted! These are things which made a man wish that
he were anywhere but there. But I do believe that God is still over
all, and that everything is working for good. These things are the
fire and water through which this nation must pass. The course of
this people had been too straight, and their ways had been too
pleasant. That which to others had been ever difficult had been made
easy for them. Bread and meat had come to them as things of course,
and they hardly remembered to be thankful. "We ourselves have done
it," they declared aloud. "We are not as other men. We are gods upon
the earth. Whose arm shall be long enough to stay us, or whose bolt
shall be strong enough to strike us?"
Now they are stricken sore, and the bolt is from their own bow. Their
own hands have raised the barrier that has stayed them. They have
stumbled in their running, and are lying hurt upon the ground; while
they who have heard their boastings turn upon them with ridicule, and
laugh at them in their discomforture. They are rolling in the mire,
and cannot take the hand of any man to help them. Though the hand
of the bystander may be stretched to them, his face is scornful and
his voice full of reproaches. Who has not known that hour of misery
when in the sullenness of the heart all help has been refused, and
misfortune has been made welcome to do her worst? So is it now with
those once United States. The man who can see without inward tears
the self-inflicted wounds of that American people can hardly have
within his bosom the tenderness of an Englishman's heart.
But the strong runner will rise again to his feet, even though he
be stunned by his fall. He will rise again, and will have learned
something by his sorrow. His anger will pass away, and he will again
brace himself for his work. What great race has ever been won by any
man, or by any nation, without some such fall during its course? Have
we not all declared that some check to that career was necessary?
Men in their pursuit of intelligence had forgotten to be honest; in
struggling for greatness they had discarded purity. The nation has
been great, but the statesmen of the nation have been little. Men
have hardly been ambitious to govern, but they have coveted the wages
of governors. Corruption has crept into high places,--into places
that should have been high,--till of all holes and corners in the
land they have become the lowest. No public man has been trusted for
ordinary honesty. It is not by foreign voices, by English newspapers
or in French pamphlets, that the corruption of American politicians
has been exposed, but by American voices and by the American press.
It is to be heard on every side. Ministers of the cabinet, senators,
representatives, State legislatures, officers of the army, officials
of the navy, contractors of every grade,--all who are presumed to
touch, or to have the power of touching public money, are thus
accused. For years it has been so. The word politician has stunk
in men's nostrils. When I first visited New York, some three years
since, I was warned not to know a man, because he was a "politician."
We in England define a man of a certain class as a black-leg. How has
it come about that in American ears the word politician has come to
bear a similar signification?
The material growth of the States has been so quick, that the
political growth has not been able to keep pace with it. In commerce,
in education, in all municipal arrangements, in mechanical skill, and
also in professional ability, the country has stalked on with amazing
rapidity; but in the art of governing, in all political management
and detail, it has made no advance. The merchants of our country and
of that country have for many years met on terms of perfect equality,
but it has never been so with their statesmen and our statesmen, with
their diplomatists and our diplomatists. Lombard Street and Wall
Street can do business with each other on equal footing, but it is
not so between Downing Street and the State-office at Washington. The
science of statesmanship has yet to be learned in the States,--and
certainly the highest lesson of that science, which teaches that
honesty is the best policy.
I trust that the war will have left such a lesson behind it. If it
do so, let the cost in money be what it may, that money will not
have been wasted. If the American people can learn the necessity
of employing their best men for their highest work,--if they
can recognize these honest men and trust them when they are so
recognized,--then they may become as great in politics as they have
become great in commerce and in social institutions.
St. Louis, and indeed the whole State of Missouri, was at the time of
my visit under martial law. General Halleck was in command, holding
his head-quarters at St. Louis, and carrying out, at any rate as
far as the city was concerned, what orders he chose to issue. I
am disposed to think that, situated as Missouri then was, martial
law was the best law. No other law could have had force in a town
surrounded by soldiers, and in which half of the inhabitants were
loyal to the existing Government, and half of them were in favour of
rebellion. The necessity for such power is terrible, and the power
itself in the hands of one man must be full of danger; but even that
is better than anarchy. I will not accuse General Halleck of abusing
his power, seeing that it is hard to determine what is the abuse of
such power and what its proper use. When we were at St. Louis a tax
was being gathered of £100 a head from certain men presumed to be
secessionists, and as the money was not of course very readily paid,
the furniture of these suspected secessionists was being sold by
auction. No doubt such a measure was by them regarded as a great
abuse. One gentleman informed me that, in addition to this, certain
houses of his had been taken by the Government at a fixed rent, and
that the payment of the rent was now refused unless he would take
the oath of allegiance. He no doubt thought that an abuse of power!
But the worst abuse of such power comes not at first, but with long
usage.
Up to the time however at which I was at St. Louis, martial law had
chiefly been used in closing grog-shops and administering the oath of
allegiance to suspected secessionists. Something also had been done
in the way of raising money by selling the property of convicted
secessionists; and while I was there eight men were condemned to be
shot for destroying railway bridges. "But will they be shot?" I asked
of one of the officers. "Oh, yes. It will be done quietly, and no one
will know anything about it. We shall get used to that kind of thing
presently." And the inhabitants of Missouri were becoming used to
martial law. It is surprising how quickly a people can reconcile
themselves to altered circumstances, when the change comes upon them
without the necessity of any expressed opinion on their own part.
Personal freedom has been considered as necessary to the American
of the States as the air he breathes. Had any suggestion been made
to him of a suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus, of a
censorship of the press, or of martial law, the American would
have declared his willingness to die on the floor of the House of
Representatives, and have proclaimed with ten million voices his
inability to live under circumstances so subversive of his rights as
a man. And he would have thoroughly believed the truth of his own
assertions. Had a chance been given of an argument on the matter, of
stump speeches, and caucus meetings, these things could never have
been done. But as it is, Americans are, I think, rather proud of the
suspension of the habeas corpus. They point with gratification to the
uniformly loyal tone of the newspapers, remarking that any editor who
should dare to give even a secession squeak, would immediately find
himself shut up. And now nothing but good is spoken of martial law. I
thought it a nuisance when I was prevented by soldiers from trotting
my horse down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, but I was assured
by Americans that such restrictions were very serviceable in a
community. At St. Louis martial law was quite popular. Why should not
General Halleck be as well able to say what was good for the people
as any law or any lawyer? He had no interest in the injury of the
State, but every interest in its preservation. "But what," I asked,
"would be the effect were he to tell you to put out all your fires
at eight o'clock?" "If he were so to order, we should do it; but we
know that he will not." But who does know to what General Halleck or
other generals may come; or how soon a curfew-bell may be ringing in
American towns? The winning of liberty is long and tedious, but the
losing it is a downhill easy journey.
It was here, in St. Louis, that General Fremont had held his military
court. He was a great man here during those hundred days through
which his command lasted. He lived in a great house, had a bodyguard,
was inaccessible as a great man should be, and fared sumptuously
every day. He fortified the city,--or rather, he began to do so.
He constructed barracks here, and instituted military prisons. The
fortifications have been discontinued as useless, but the barracks
and the prisons remain. In the latter there were 1200 secessionist
soldiers who had been taken in the State of Missouri. "Why are they
not exchanged?" I asked. "Because they are not exactly soldiers,"
I was informed. "The secessionists do not acknowledge them." "Then
would it not be cheaper to let them go?" "No," said my informant;
"because in that case we should have to catch them again." And so the
1200 remain in their wretched prison,--thinned from week to week and
from day to day by prison disease and prison death.
I went out twice to Benton barracks, as the camp of wooden huts was
called, which General Fremont had erected near the fair-ground of the
city. This fair-ground, I was told, had been a pleasant place. It had
been constructed for the recreation of the city, and for the purpose
of periodical agricultural exhibitions. There is still in it a pretty
ornamented cottage, and in the little garden a solitary Cupid stood
dismayed by the dirt and ruin around him. In the fair-green are the
round buildings intended for show cattle and agricultural implements,
but now given up to cavalry horses and Parrott guns. But Benton
barracks are outside the fair-green. Here on an open space, some
half-mile in length, two long rows of wooden sheds have been built,
opposite to each other, and behind them are other sheds used for
stabling and cooking-places. Those in front are divided, not into
separate huts, but into chambers capable of containing nearly two
hundred men each. They were surrounded on the inside by great wooden
trays, in three tiers,--and on each tray four men were supposed to
sleep. I went into one or two while the crowd of soldiers was in
them, but found it inexpedient to stay there long. The stench of
those places was foul beyond description. Never in my life before had
I been in a place so horrid to the eyes and nose as Benton barracks.
The path along the front outside was deep in mud. The whole space
between the two rows of sheds was one field of mud, so slippery that
the foot could not stand. Inside and outside every spot was deep
in mud. The soldiers were mud-stained from foot to sole. These
volunteer soldiers are in their nature dirty, as must be all men
brought together in numerous bodies without special appliances for
cleanliness, or control and discipline as to their personal habits.
But the dirt of the men in the Benton barracks surpassed any dirt
that I had hitherto seen. Nor could it have been otherwise with them.
They were surrounded by a sea of mud, and the foul hovels in which
they were made to sleep and live were fetid with stench and reeking
with filth. I had at this time been joined by another Englishman,
and we went through this place together. When we inquired as to the
health of the men, we heard the saddest tales,--of three hundred men
gone out of one regiment, of whole companies that had perished, of
hospitals crowded with fevered patients. Measles had been the great
scourge of the soldiers here,--as it had also been in the army of the
Potomac. I shall not soon forget my visits to Benton barracks. It may
be that our own soldiers were as badly treated in the Crimea; or that
French soldiers were treated worse on their march into Russia. It
may be that dirt, and wretchedness, disease and listless idleness,
a descent from manhood to habits lower than those of the beasts,
are necessary in warfare. I have sometimes thought that it is so;
but I am no military critic and will not say. This I say,--that the
degradation of men to the state in which I saw the American soldiers
in Benton barracks, is disgraceful to humanity.
General Halleck was at this time commanding in Missouri, and was
himself stationed at St. Louis; but his active measures against the
rebels were going on to the right and to the left. On the left shore
of the Mississippi, at Cairo, in Illinois, a fleet of gun-boats was
being prepared to go down the river, and on the right an army was
advancing against Springfield, in the south-western district of
Missouri, with the object of dislodging Price, the rebel guerilla
leader there, and, if possible, of catching him. Price had been the
opponent of poor General Lyon who was killed at Wilson's Creek, near
Springfield, and of General Fremont, who during his hundred days
had failed to drive him out of the State. This duty had now been
intrusted to General Curtis, who had for some time been holding his
head-quarters at Rolla, halfway between St. Louis and Springfield.
Fremont had built a fort at Rolla, and it had become a military
station. Over 10,000 men had been there at one time, and now General
Curtis was to advance from Rolla against Price with something
above that number of men. Many of them, however, had already gone
on, and others were daily being sent up from St. Louis. Under
these circumstances my friend and I, fortified with a letter of
introduction to General Curtis, resolved to go and see the army at
Rolla.
On our way down by the railway we encountered a young German officer,
an aide-de-camp of the Federals, and under his auspices we saw Rolla
to advantage. Our companions in the railway were chiefly soldiers
and teamsters. The car was crowded and filled with tobacco smoke,
apple peel, and foul air. In these cars during the winter there
is always a large lighted stove, a stove that might cook all the
dinners for a French hotel, and no window is ever opened. Among our
fellow-travellers there was here and there a west-country Missouri
farmer going down, under the protection of the advancing army,
to look after the remains of his chattels,--wild, dark, uncouth,
savage-looking men. One such hero I specially remember, as to whom
the only natural remark would be that one would not like to meet him
alone on a dark night. He was burly and big, unwashed and rough,
with a black beard, shorn some two months since. He had sharp, angry
eyes, and sat silent, picking his teeth with a bowie knife. I met him
afterwards at the Rolla hotel, and found that he was a gentleman of
property near Springfield. He was mild and meek as a sucking dove,
asked my advice as to the state of his affairs, and merely guessed
that things had been pretty rough with him. Things had been pretty
rough with him. The rebels had come upon his land. House, fences,
stock, and crop were all gone. His homestead had been made a ruin,
and his farm had been turned into a wilderness. Everything was gone.
He had carried his wife and children off to Illinois, and had now
returned, hoping that he might get on in the wake of the army till
he could see the debris of his property. But even he did not seem
disturbed. He did not bemoan himself or curse his fate. "Things were
pretty rough," he said; and that was all that he did say.
It was dark when we got into Rolla. Everything had been covered with
snow, and everywhere the snow was frozen. We had heard that there
was an hotel, and that possibly we might get a bedroom there. We
were first taken to a wooden building, which we were told was the
head-quarters of the army, and in one room we found a colonel with
a lot of soldiers loafing about, and in another a provost-marshal
attended by a newspaper correspondent. We were received with open
arms, and a suggestion was at once made that we were no doubt
picking up news for European newspapers. "Air you a son of the Mrs.
Trollope?" said the correspondent. "Then, sir, you are an accession
to Rolla." Upon which I was made to sit down, and invited to "loaf
about" at the head-quarters as long as I might remain at Rolla.
Shortly, however, there came on a violent discussion about waggons.
A general had come in and wanted all the colonel's waggons, but the
colonel swore that he had none, declared how bitterly he was impeded
with sick men, and became indignant and reproachful. It was Brutus
and Cassius again; and as we felt ourselves in the way, and anxious
moreover to ascertain what might be the nature of the Rolla hotel, we
took up our heavy portmanteaux--for they were heavy--and with a guide
to show us the way, started off through the dark and over the hill up
to our inn. I shall never forget that walk. It was up hill and down
hill, with an occasional half-frozen stream across it. My friend
was impeded with an enormous cloak lined with fur, which in itself
was a burden for a coalheaver. Our guide, who was a clerk out of
the colonel's office, carried an umbrella and a small dressing-bag,
but we ourselves manfully shouldered our portmanteaux. Sydney Smith
declared that an Englishman only wasted his time in training himself
for gymnastic aptitudes, seeing that for a shilling he could always
hire a porter. Had Sydney Smith ever been at Rolla he would have
written differently. I could tell at great length how I fell on my
face in the icy snow, how my friend stuck in the frozen mud when
he essayed to jump the stream, and how our guide walked on easily
in advance, encouraging us with his voice from a distance. Why is
it that a stout Englishman bordering on fifty finds himself in
such a predicament as that? No Frenchman, no Italian, no German,
would so place himself, unless under the stress of insurmountable
circumstances. No American would do so under any circumstances. As I
slipped about on the ice and groaned with that terrible fardle on my
back, burdened with a dozen shirts, and a suit of dress clothes, and
three pair of boots, and four or five thick volumes, and a set of
maps, and a box of cigars, and a washing-tub, I confessed to myself
that I was a fool. What was I doing in such a galley as that? Why had
I brought all that useless lumber down to Rolla? Why had I come to
Rolla, with no certain hope even of shelter for a night? But we did
reach the hotel; we did get a room between us with two bedsteads.
And, pondering over the matter in my mind, since that evening, I have
been inclined to think that the stout Englishman is in the right of
it. No American of my age and weight will ever go through what I went
through then; but I am not sure that he does not in his accustomed
career go through worse things even than that. However, if I go to
Rolla again during the war, I will at any rate leave the books behind
me.
What a night we spent in that inn! They who know America will be
aware that in all hotels there is a free admixture of different
classes. The traveller in Europe may sit down to dinner with his
tailor and shoemaker; but if so, his tailor and shoemaker have
dressed themselves as he dresses, and are prepared to carry
themselves according to a certain standard, which in exterior does
not differ from his own. In the large Eastern cities of the States,
such as Boston, New York, and Washington, a similar practice of life
is gradually becoming prevalent. There are various hotels for various
classes, and the ordinary traveller does not find himself at the same
table with a butcher fresh from the shambles. But in the West there
are no distinctions whatever. "A man's a man for a' that" in the
West, let the "a' that" comprise what it may of coarse attire and
unsophisticated manners. One soon gets used to it. In that inn
at Rolla was a public room, heated in the middle by a stove, and
round that we soon found ourselves seated in a company of soldiers,
farmers, labourers, and teamsters. But there was among them a
general;--not a fighting, or would-be fighting general of the present
time, but one of the old-fashioned local generals,--men who held,
or had once held, some fabulous generalship in the State militia.
There we sat, cheek by jowl with our new friends, till nearly twelve
o'clock, talking politics and discussing the war. The General was
a stanch Unionist, having, according to his own showing, suffered
dreadful things from secessionist persecutors since the rebellion
commenced. As a matter of course everybody present was for the Union.
In such a place one rarely encounters any difference of opinion.
The General was very eager about the war, advocating the immediate
abolition of slavery, not as a means of improving the condition
of the southern slaves, but on the ground that it would ruin the
southern masters. We all sat by, edging in a word now and then, but
the General was the talker of the evening. He was very wrathy, and
swore at every other word. "It was pretty well time," he said, "to
crush out this rebellion, and by ---- it must and should be crushed
out; General Jim Lane was the man to do it, and by ---- General Jim
Lane would do it!" and so on. In all such conversations the time for
action has always just come, and also the expected man. But the time
passes by as other weeks and months have passed before it, and the
new General is found to be no more successful than his brethren. Our
friend was very angry against England. "When we've polished off these
accursed rebels, I guess we'll take a turn at you. You had your turn
when you made us give up Mason and Slidell, and we'll have our turn
by-and-by." But in spite of his dislike to our nation he invited us
warmly to come and see him at his home on the Missouri river. It
was, according to his showing, a new Eden,--a Paradise upon earth.
He seemed to think that we might perhaps desire to buy a location,
and explained to us how readily we could make our fortunes. But he
admitted in the course of his eulogiums that it would be as much as
his life was worth for him to ride out five miles from his own house.
In the meantime the teamsters greased their boots, the soldiers
snored, those who were wet took off their shoes and stockings,
hanging them to dry round the stove, and the western farmers chewed
tobacco in silence and ruminated. At such a house all the guests go
in to their meals together. A gong is sounded on a sudden, close
behind your ears; accustomed as you may probably be to the sound you
jump up from your chair in the agony of the crash, and by the time
that you have collected your thoughts the whole crowd is off in a
general stampede into the eating room. You may as well join them; if
you hesitate as to feeding with so rough a lot of men, you will have
to sit down afterwards with the women and children of the family, and
your lot will then be worse. Among such classes in the western States
the men are always better than the women. The men are dirty and
civil, the women are dirty and uncivil.
On the following day we visited the camp, going out in an ambulance
and returning on horseback. We were accompanied by the General's
aide-de-camp, and also, to our great gratification, by the General's
daughter. There had been a hard frost for some nights, but though
the cold was very great there was always heat enough in the middle
of the day to turn the surface of the ground into glutinous mud;
consequently we had all the roughness induced by frost, but none of
the usually attendant cleanliness. Indeed, it seemed that in these
parts nothing was so dirty as frost. The mud stuck like paste and
encompassed everything. We heard that morning that from sixty to
seventy baggage-waggons had "broken through," as they called it, and
stuck fast near a river in their endeavour to make their way on to
Lebanon. We encountered two generals of brigade, General Siegel, a
German, and General Ashboth, an Hungarian, both of whom were waiting
till the weather should allow them to advance. They were extremely
courteous, and warmly invited us to go on with them to Lebanon and
Springfield, promising to us such accommodation as they might be able
to obtain for themselves. I was much tempted to accept the offer; but
I found that day after day might pass before any forward movement
was commenced, and that it might be weeks before Springfield or even
Lebanon could be reached. It was my wish, moreover, to see what I
could of the people, rather than to scrutinize the ways of the army.
We dined at the tent of General Ashboth, and afterwards rode his
horses through the camp back to Rolla. I was greatly taken with this
Hungarian gentleman. He was a tall, thin, gaunt man of fifty, a
pure-blooded Magyar as I was told, who had come from his own country
with Kossuth to America. His camp circumstances were not very
luxurious, nor was his table very richly spread; but he received us
with the ease and courtesy of a gentleman. He showed us his sword,
his rifle, his pistols, his chargers, and daguerreotype of a friend
he had loved in his own country. They were all the treasures that he
carried with him,--over and above a chess-board and a set of chessmen
which sorely tempted me to accompany him in his march.
In my next chapter, which will, I trust, be very short, I purport to
say a few words as to what I saw of the American army, and therefore
I will not now describe the regiments which we visited. The tents
were all encompassed by snow, and the ground on which they stood was
a bed of mud; but yet the soldiers out here were not so wretchedly
forlorn, or apparently so miserably uncomfortable, as those at Benton
barracks. I did not encounter that horrid sickly stench, nor were
the men so pale and wobegone. On the following day we returned to St.
Louis, bringing back with us our friend the German aide-de-camp. I
stayed two days longer in that city, and then I thought that I had
seen enough of Missouri;--enough of Missouri at any rate under the
present circumstances of frost and secession. As regards the people
of the West, I must say that they were not such as I expected to
find them. With the Northerns we are all more or less intimately
acquainted. Those Americans whom we meet in our own country, or on
the Continent, are generally from the North, or if not so they have
that type of American manners which has become familiar to us. They
are talkative, intelligent, inclined to be social, though frequently
not sympathetically social with ourselves; somewhat _soi-disant_,
but almost invariably companionable. As the traveller goes southward
into Maryland and Washington, the type is not altered to any great
extent. The hard intelligence of the Yankee gives place gradually
to the softer, and perhaps more polished manner of the Southern. But
the change thus experienced is not so great as is that between the
American of the western and the American of the Atlantic States.
In the West I found the men gloomy and silent,--I might almost say
sullen. A dozen of them will sit for hours round a stove, speechless.
They chew tobacco and ruminate. They are not offended if you speak to
them, but they are not pleased. They answer with monosyllables, or,
if it be practicable, with a gesture of the head. They care nothing
for the graces,--or shall I say, for the decencies of life? They are
essentially a dirty people. Dirt, untidiness, and noise, seem in
nowise to afflict them. Things are constantly done before your eyes,
which should be done and might be done behind your back. No doubt we
daily come into the closest contact with matters which, if we saw
all that appertains to them, would cause us to shake and shudder. In
other countries we do not see all this, but in the western States we
do. I have eaten in Bedouin tents, and have been ministered to by
Turks and Arabs. I have sojourned in the hotels of old Spain and of
Spanish America. I have lived in Connaught, and have taken up my
quarters with monks of different nations. I have, as it were, been
educated to dirt, and taken out my degree in outward abominations.
But my education had not reached a point which would enable me to
live at my ease in the western States. A man or woman who can do that
may be said to have graduated in the highest honours, and to have
become absolutely invulnerable, either through the sense of touch,
or by the eye, or by the nose. Indifference to appearances is there
a matter of pride. A foul shirt is a flag of triumph. A craving for
soap and water is as the wail of the weak and the confession of
cowardice. This indifference is carried into all their affairs, or
rather this manifestation of indifference. A few pages back, I spoke
of a man whose furniture had been sold to pay a heavy tax raised
on him specially as a secessionist; the same man had also been
refused the payment of rent due to him by the Government, unless he
would take a false oath. I may presume that he was ruined in his
circumstances by the strong hand of the northern army. But he seemed
in nowise to be unhappy about his ruin. He spoke with some scorn of
the martial law in Missouri, but I felt that it was esteemed a small
matter by him that his furniture was seized and sold. No men love
money with more eager love than these western men, but they bear
the loss of it as an Indian bears his torture at the stake. They
are energetic in trade, speculating deeply whenever speculation is
possible; but nevertheless they are slow in motion, loving to loaf
about. They are slow in speech, preferring to sit in silence, with
the tobacco between their teeth. They drink, but are seldom drunk
to the eye; they begin at it early in the morning, and take it in a
solemn, sullen, ugly manner, standing always at a bar; swallowing
their spirits, and saying nothing as they swallow it. They drink
often, and to great excess; but they carry it off without noise,
sitting down and ruminating over it with the everlasting cud within
their jaws. I believe that a stranger might go into the West, and
passing from hotel to hotel through a dozen of them, might sit
for hours at each in the large everlasting public hall, and never
have a word addressed to him. No stranger should travel in the
western States, or indeed in any of the States, without letters of
introduction. It is the custom of the country, and they are easily
procured. Without them everything is barren; for men do not travel in
the States of America as they do in Europe, to see scenery and visit
the marvels of old cities which are open to all the world. The social
and political life of the Americans must constitute the interest
of the traveller, and to these he can hardly make his way without
introductions.
I cannot part with the West without saying in its favour that there
is a certain manliness about its men, which gives them a dignity
of their own. It is shown in that very indifference of which I
have spoken. Whatever turns up the man is still there,--still
unsophisticated and still unbroken. It has seemed to me that no
race of men requires less outward assistance than these pioneers of
civilization. They rarely amuse themselves. Food, newspapers, and
brandy-smashes suffice for life; and while these last, whatever
may occur, the man is still there in his manhood. The fury of the
mob does not shake him, nor the stern countenance of his present
martial tyrant. Alas! I cannot stick to my text by calling him a
just man. Intelligence, energy, and endurance are his virtues. Dirt,
dishonesty, and morning drinks are his vices.
All native American women are intelligent. It seems to be their
birthright. In the eastern cities they have, in their upper classes,
superadded womanly grace to this intelligence, and consequently
they are charming as companions. They are beautiful also, and, as
I believe, lack nothing that a lover can desire in his love. But I
cannot fancy myself much in love with a western lady, or rather with
a lady in the West. They are as sharp as nails, but then they are
also as hard. They know, doubtless, all that they ought to know, but
then they know so much more than they ought to know. They are tyrants
to their parents, and never practise the virtue of obedience till
they have half-grown-up daughters of their own. They have faith in
the destiny of their country, if in nothing else; but they believe
that that destiny is to be worked out by the spirit and talent of the
young women. I confess that for me Eve would have had no charms had
she not recognized Adam as her lord. I can forgive her in that she
tempted him to eat the apple. Had she come from the West country she
would have ordered him to make his meal, and then I could not have
forgiven her.
St. Louis should be, and still will be, a town of great wealth. To no
city can have been given more means of riches. I have spoken of the
enormous mileage of water-communication of which she is the centre.
The country around her produces Indian corn, wheat, grasses, hemp,
and tobacco. Coal is dug even within the boundaries of the city, and
iron-mines are worked at a distance from it of a hundred miles. The
iron is so pure, that it is broken off in solid blocks, almost free
from alloy; and as the metal stands up on the earth's surface in the
guise almost of a gigantic metal pillar, instead of lying low within
its bowels, it is worked at a cheap rate, and with great certainty.
Nevertheless, at the present moment, the iron-works of Pilot Knob, as
the place is called, do not pay. As far as I could learn, nothing did
pay, except government contracts.