board the steamer General Quitman, up the Mississippi. These long yellow
rivers are very fine for patriots to talk about, for poets to write
about, for buffalo fish to live in, and for steamers to navigate when
there are no snags, but I confess the father of waters is extremely
tiresome. Even the good cheer and comfort of the General Quitman could
not reconcile me to the eternal beating of steam drums, blowing of
whistles, bumping at landings, and the general oppression of levees,
clearings and plantations, which marked the course of the river, and I
was not sorry next morning when Vicksburgh came in sight, on the left
bank of the giant stream--a city on a hill, not very large, be-steepled,
be-cupolaed, large-hoteled. Here lives a man who has been the pioneer of
hotels in the West, and who has now established himself in a big
caravansery, which he rules in a curious fashion. M’Makin has, he tells
us, been rendered famous by Sir Charles Lyell. The large dining-room--a
stall _à manger_, as a friend of mine called it--is filled with small
tables, covered with party-colored cloths. At the end is a long deal
table, heavy with dishes of meat and vegetables, presided over by
negresses and gentlemen of uncertain hue. In the centre of the room
stood my host, shouting out at the top of his voice the names of the
joints, and recommending his guests to particular dishes, very much as
the chronicler tells us was the wont of the taverners in old London.
Many little negroes ran about in attendance, driven hither and thither
by the commands of their white Soulouque--white-teethed, pensive-eyed,
but sad as memory. “Are you happy here?” asked I of one of them who
stood by my chair. He looked uneasy and frightened. “Why don’t you
answer?” “I’se afeared to tell dat to massa.” “Why, your master is kind
to you?” “Berry good man, sir, when he not angry wid me!” And the little
fellow’s eyes filled with tears at some recollection which pained him. I
asked no more. Vicksburgh is secessionist. There were hundreds of
soldiers in the streets, many in the hotel, and my host said some
hundreds of Irish had gone off to the wars, to fight for the good cause.
If Mr. O’Connell were alive, he would surely be pained to see the course
taken by so many of his countrymen on this question. After dinner I was
invited to attend a meeting of some of the citizens, at the railway
station, where the time passed very agreeably till four o’clock, when
the train started for Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, and after a
passage of two hours, through a poor, clay country, seared with
water-courses and gullies, with scanty crops of Indian corn and very
backward cotton, we were deposited in that city. It must be called a
city. It is the state capital, but otherwise there is no reason why, in
strict nomenclature, it should be designated by any such title. It is
in the usual style of the “cities” which spring up in the course of a
few years amid the stumps of half-cleared fields in the
wilderness--wooden houses, stores kept by Germans, French, Irish,
Italians; a large hotel swarming with people, with a noisy billiard-room
and a noisier bar, the arena and the cause of “difficulties;” wooden
houses, with portentous and pretentious white porticoes, and pillars of
all the Grecian orders; a cupola or two, and two or three steeples, too
large for the feeble bodies beneath--hydrocephalic architecture; a
state-house, looking well in the distance, ragged, dirty, and mean
within; groups of idlers in front of the “Exchange,” where the business
transacted consists in a barter between money, or credit, and “drinks”
of various stimulants; a secluded telegraph-office round a corner; a
forward newspaper-office in the street, and a population of negroes,
shuffling through the thick dust which forms the streets. I called on
Mr. Pettus, the governor of the state of Mississippi, according to
invitation, and found him in the state-house, in a very poor room, with
broken windows and ragged carpets, and dilapidated furniture. He is a
grim, silent man, tobacco-ruminant, abrupt-speeched, firmly believing
that the state of society in which he exists, wherein there are monthly
foul murders perpetrated at the very seat of government, is the most
free and civilized in the world. He is easy of access to all, and men
sauntered in and out of his office just as they would walk into a
public-house. Once on a time, indeed, the governor was a deer-hunter, in
the forest, and lived far away from the haunts of men, and he is proud
of the fact. He is a strenuous seceder, and has done high-handed things
in his way--simple apparently, honest probably, fierce certainly--and he
lives, while he is governor, on his salary of four thousand dollars a
year, in the house provided for him by the state. There was not much to
say on either side. I can answer for one. Next day being Sunday, I
remained at rest in the house of a friend listening to local
stories--not _couleur de rose_, but of a deeper tint--blood-red;--how
such a man shot another, and was afterward stabbed by a third; how this
fellow and his friends hunted down, in broad day, and murdered one
obnoxious to them--tale after tale, such as I have heard through the
South and seen daily narratives of in the papers. Aceldama! No security
for life! Property is quite safe. Its proprietor is in imminent danger,
were it only from stray bullets, when he turns a corner. The “bar,” the
“drink,” the savage practice of walking about with pistol and
poniard--ungovernable passions, ungoverned because there is no law to
punish the deeds to which they lead--these are the causes of acts which
would not be tolerated in the worst days of Corsican _vendette_, and
which must be put down, or the countries in which they are unpunished
will become as barbarous as jungles of wild beasts. In the evening I
started, by railroad, for the city of Memphis, in Mississippi. There was
a sleeping-car on the train, but the flying-bug and the creature less
volatile, more pungent and persistent, which bears its name, murdered
sleep; and when Monday morning came, I was glad to arise and get into
one of the carriages, although it was full of noisy soldiers, bound to
the camp at Corinth, in the state of Mississippi, who had been drinking
whiskey all night, and were now screaming for water and howling like
demons. At Holly Springs, where a rude breakfast awaited us, the
warriors got out on the top of the carriages and performed a war-dance
to the music of their band, which was highly creditable to the
carriage-maker’s workmanship. Along the road, at all the settlements and
clearings, the white people cheered, and the women waved white things,
and secession flags floated. There is no doubt of the state of feeling
in this part of the country; and yet it does not look much worth
fighting for--an arid soil, dry water-courses, clay ravines, light
crops. Perhaps it will be better a month hence, and negroes may make it
pay. There were many in the fields, and it struck me they looked better
than those who work in gangs on the larger and richer plantations. Among
our passengers were gentlemen from Texas, going to Richmond to offer
service to Mr. Davis. They declared the feeling in their state was
almost without exception in favor of secession. It is astonishing how
positive all these people are that England is in absolute dependence on
cotton for her national existence. They are at once savage and childish.
If England does not recognize the Southern Confederacy pretty quick,
they will pass a resolution not to let her have any cotton, except, &c.
Suppose England does ever recognize a Confederation based on the
principles of the South, what guarantee is there that in her absolute
dependence, if it exists, similar coercive steps may not be taken
against her? “Oh! we shall be friends, you know;” and so on.
On the train before us there had just passed on a company armed with
large bowie-knives and rifled pistols, who called themselves the
“Tooth-pick Company.” They carried a coffin along with them, on which
was a plate with “ABE LINCOLN” inscribed on it, and they amused
themselves with the childish conceit of telling the people as they went
along that “they were bound” to bring his body back in it. At Grand
Junction station the troops got out and were mustered preparatory to
their transfer to a train for Richmond, in Virginia. The first company,
about seventy strong, consisted exclusively of Irish, who were armed
with rifles without bayonets. The second consisted of five-sixths Irish,
armed mostly with muskets; the third were of Americans, who were well
uniformed, but had no arms with them. The fourth, clad in green, were
nearly all Irish; they wore all sorts of clothing, and had no
pretensions to be regarded as disciplined soldiers. I am led to believe
that the great number of Irish who have enlisted for service indicates a
total suspension of all the works on which they are ordinarily engaged
in the South. They were not very orderly. “Fix bayonets,” elicited a
wonderful amount of controversy in the ranks. “Whar are yer dhrivin to?”
“Sullivan, don’t ye hear we’re to fix beenits?” “Ayse the sthrap of my
baynit, sarjent, jewel!” “If ye prod me wid that agin, I’ll let dayloite
into ye,” &c. Officer reading muster--“No. 23, James Phelan.” No reply.
Voice from the ranks--“Faith, Phelan’s gone; shure he wint at the last
dipôt.” Old men and boys were mixed together, but the mass of the rank
and file were strong, full-grown men. In one of the carriages were some
women dressed as _vivandieres_, minus the coquette air and the trousers
and boots of these ladies. They looked sad, sorry, dirty and foolish.
There was great want of water along the line, and the dust and heat were
very great and disagreeable. When they have to march many of the men
will break down, owing to bad shoes and the weight of clothes and trash
of various kinds they sling on their shoulders. They moved off amid much
whooping, and our journey was continued through a country in which the
railroad engineer had made the opening for miles at a time. When a
clearing was reached, however, there were signs that the soil was not
without richness, and all the wheat ready cut and in sheaf. The
passengers said it was fine and early, and that it averaged from forty
to sixty bushels to the acre (more than it looked). Very little ground
here is under cotton. It was past one o’clock on Monday when the train
reached Memphis, in Tennessee, which is situated on a high bluff
overhanging the Mississippi. Here is one of the strategic positions of
the Confederates. It is now occupied by a force of the Tennesseeans,
which is commanded by Major-General Pillow, whom I found quartered in
Gayoso House, a large hotel, named after one of the old Spanish rulers
here, and as he was starting to inspect his batteries and the camp at
Randolph, sixty odd miles higher up the river, I could not resist his
pressing invitations, tired as I was, to accompany him and his staff on
board the Ingomar to see what they were really like. First we visited
the bluff, on the edge of which is constructed a breastwork of cotton
bales, which no infantry could get at, and which would offer no
resistance to vertical, and but little to horizontal fire. It is placed
so close to the edge of the bluff at various places that shell and shot
would knock away the bank from under it. The river runs below deep and
strong, and across the roads or watercourses leading to it are feeble
barricades of plank, which a howitzer could shiver to pieces in a few
rounds. Higher up the bank, on a commanding plateau, there is a
breastwork and parapet, within which are six guns, and the general
informed me he intended to mount thirteen guns at this part of the
river, which would certainly prove very formidable to such steamers as
they have on these waters, if any attempt were made to move down from
Cairo. In the course of the day I was introduced to exactly seventeen
colonels and one captain. My happiness was further increased by an
introduction to a youth of some twenty-three years of age, with tender
feet, if I may judge from prunella slippers, dressed in a green cutaway,
jean pants, and a tremendous sombrero with a plume of ostrich feathers,
and gold tassels looped at the side, who had the air and look of an
apothecary’s errand boy. This was “General” Maggles (let us say), of
Arkansas. Freighted deeply with the brave, the Ingomar started for her
voyage, and we came alongside the bank at Chickasaw Bluffs too late to
visit the camp, as it was near midnight before we arrived. I forgot to
say that a large number of steamers were lying at Memphis, which had
been seized by General Pillow, and he has forbidden all traffic in boats
to Cairo. Passengers must go round by rail to Columbus.
_June 18._--I have just returned from a visit to the works and batteries
at the intrenched camp at Randolph’s Point, sixty miles above Memphis,
by which it is intended to destroy any flotilla coming down the river
from Cairo, and to oppose any force coming by land to cover its flank
and clear the left bank of the Mississippi. The Ingomar is lying under
the rugged bank, or bluff, about 150 feet high, which recedes in rugged
tumuli and watercourses filled with brushwood from the margin of the
river, some half-mile up and down the stream at this point, and
Brigadier-General Pillow is still riding round his well-beloved
earthworks and his quaint battalions, while I, anxious to make the most
of my time now that I am fairly on the run for my base of operations,
have come on board, and am now writing in the cabin, a long-roofed room,
with berths on each side, which runs from stem to stern of the American
boats over the main deck. This saloon presents a curious scene. Over the
bow, at one side, there is an office for the sale of tickets, now
destitute of business, for the Ingomar belongs to the State of
Tennessee; at the other side is a bar where thirsty souls, who have
hastened on board from the camp for a julep, a smash, or a cocktail,
learn with disgust that the only article to be had is fine Mississippi
water with ice in it. Lying on the deck in all attitudes are numbers of
men asleep, whose plumed felt hats are the only indications that they
are soldiers, except in the rare case of those who have rude uniforms,
and buttons, and stripes of colored cloth on the legs of their
pantaloons. A sentry is sitting on a chair smoking a cigar. He is on
guard over the after part of the deck, called the ladies’ saloon, and
sacred to the general and his staff and attendants. He is a tall,
good-looking young fellow, in a gray flannel shirt, a black wide-awake,
gray trousers, fastened on a belt on which is a brass buckle inscribed
“U. S.” His rifle is an Enfield, and the bayonet sheath is fastened to
the belt by a thong of leather. That youthful patriot is intent on the
ups and downs of fortune as exemplified in the pleasing game of euchre,
or euker, which is exercising the faculties of several of his comrades,
who, in their shirt sleeves, are employing the finest faculties of their
nature in that national institution; but he is not indifferent to his
duties, and he forbids your correspondent’s entrance until he has
explained what he wants and who he is--and the second is more easy to do
than the first. The sentry tells his captain, who is an euchreist, that
“It’s all right,” and resumes his seat and his cigar, and the work goes
bravely on. Indeed, it went on last night at the same table, which is
within a few yards of the general’s chair. And now that I have got a
scrap of paper and a moment of quiet, let me say what I have to say of
this position, and of what I saw--pleasant things they would be to the
national general up at Cairo if he could hear them in time, unless he is
as little prepared as his antagonist. On looking out of my cabin this
morning, I saw the high and rugged bluff of which I have spoken, on the
left bank of the river. A few ridge-poled tents, pitched under the shade
of some trees, on a small spur of the slope, was the only indication
immediately visible of a martial character. But a close inspection in
front enabled me to detect two earthworks, mounted with guns, on the
side of the bank, considerably higher than the river, and three heavy
guns, possibly 42-pounders, lay in the dust close to the landing-place,
with very rude carriages and bullock-poles to carry them to the
batteries. A few men, ten or twelve in number, were digging at an
encampment on the face of the slope. Others were lounging about the
beach, and others, under the same infatuation as that which makes little
boys disport in the Thames under the notion that they are washing
themselves, were bathing in the Mississippi. A dusty track wound up to
the brow of the bluff, and there disappeared. Some carts toiled up and
down between the boat and the crest of the hill. We went on shore. There
was no ostentation of any kind about the reception of the general and
his staff. A few horses were waiting impatiently in the sun, for flies
will have their way, and heavy men are not so unbearable as small
mosquitos. With a cloud of colonels--one late United States man, who was
readily distinguishable by his air from the volunteers--the general
proceeded to visit his batteries and his men. The first work inspected
was a plain parapet of earth, placed some fifty feet above the river,
and protected very slightly by two small flanking parapets. Six guns,
32-pounders, and howitzers of an old pattern were mounted _en barbette_,
without any traverses whatever. The carriages rested on rough platforms,
and the wheels ran on a traversing semicircle of planks, as the iron
rails were not yet ready. The gunners, a plain looking body of men, very
like railway laborers and mechanics, without uniform, were engaged at
drill. It was neither quick nor good work--about equal to the average of
a squad after a couple of days’ exercise; but the men worked earnestly,
and I have no doubt, if the nationalists give them time, they will prove
artillerymen in the end. The general ordered practice to be made with
round shot. After some delay, a kind of hybrid ship’s carronade was
loaded. The target was a tree, about 2,500 yards distant I was told. It
appeared to me about 1,700 yards off. Every one was desirous of seeing
the shot; but we were at the wrong side for the wind, and I ventured to
say so. However, the general thought and said otherwise. The word
“Fire!” was given. Alas! the friction-tube would not explode. It was one
of a new sort, which the Tennesseeans are trying their ’prentice hand
at. A second answered better. The gun went off, but where the ball went
to no one could say, as the smoke came into our eyes. The party moved to
windward, and, after another fuse had missed, the gun was again
discharged at some five degrees elevation, and the shot fell in good
line, 200 yards short of the target, and did not ricochet. Gun No. 2 was
then discharged, and off went the ball at no particular mark, down the
river; but if it did go off, so did the gun also, for it gave a frantic
leap and jumped with the carriage off the platform; nor was this
wonderful, for it was an old-fashioned chambered carronade or howitzer,
which had been loaded with a full charge, and solid shot enough to make
it burst with indignation. Turning from this battery, we visited another
nearer the water, with four guns (22-pounders), which were well placed
to sweep the channel with greater chance of ricochet; and higher up on
the bank, toward a high peak commanding the Mississippi, here about 700
yards broad, and a small confluent which runs into it, was another
battery of two guns, with a very great command, but only fit for shell,
as the fire must be plunging. All these batteries were very ill
constructed, and in only one was the magazine under decent cover. In
the first it was in rear of the battery, up the hill behind it. The
parapets were of sand or soft earth, unprovided with merlons. The last
had a few sand-bags between the guns. Riding up a steep road, we came to
the camps of the men on the wooded and undulating plateau over the
river, which is broken by watercourses into ravines covered with
brushwood and forest trees. For five weeks the Tennessee troops under
General Pillow, who is at the head of the forces of the state, have been
working at a series of curious intrenchments, which are supposed to
represent an intrenched camp, and which look like an assemblage of mud
beaver-dams. In a word, they are so complicated that they would prove
exceedingly troublesome to the troops engaged in their defence, and it
would require very steady, experienced regulars to man them so as to
give proper support to each other. The maze of breastworks, of flanking
parapets, of parapets for field-pieces, is overdone. Several of them
might prove useful to an attacking force. In some places the wood was
cut down in front so as to form a formidable natural abattis; but
generally here, as in the batteries below, timber and brushwood were
left uncut, up to easy musket-shot of the works, so as to screen an
advance of riflemen, and to expose the defending force to considerable
annoyance. In small camps of fifteen or twenty tents each the Tennessee
troops were scattered, for health’s sake, over the plateau, and on the
level ground a few companies were engaged at drill. The men were dressed
and looked like laboring people--small farmers, mechanics, with some
small, undersized lads. The majority were in their shirt sleeves, and
the awkwardness with which they handled their arms showed that, however
good they might be as shots, they were by no means proficients in manual
exercise. Indeed, they could not be, as they have been only five weeks
in the service of the state, called out in anticipation of the secession
vote, and since then they have been employed by General Pillow on his
fortifications. They have complained more than once of their hard work,
particularly when it was accompanied by hard fare, and one end of
General Pillow’s visit was to inform them that they would soon be
relieved from their labors by negroes and hired laborers. Their tents,
small ridge-poles, are very bad, but suited, perhaps, to the transport.
Each contains six men. I could get no accurate account of their rations
even from the quartermaster-general, and commissary-general there was
none present; but I was told that they had “a sufficiency--from ¾lb. to
1¼ lb. of meat, of bread, of sugar, coffee and rice daily.” Neither
spirits nor tobacco is served out to these terrible chewers and not
unaccomplished drinkers. Their pay “will be” the same as in the United
States army or the Confederate States army--probably paid in the
circulating medium of the latter. Seven or eight hundred men were formed
into line for inspection. There were few of the soldiers in any kind of
uniform, and such uniforms as I saw were in very bad taste, and
consisted of gaudy facings and stripes on very strange garments. They
were armed with old-pattern percussion muskets, and their ammunition
pouches were of diverse sorts. Shoes often bad, knapsacks scarce,
head-pieces of every kind of shape--badges worked on the front or sides,
tinsel in much request. Every man had a tin water-flask and a blanket.
The general addressed the men, who were in line two deep (many of them
unmistakable Irishmen), and said what generals usually say on such
occasions--compliments for the past, encouragement for the future. “When
the hour of danger comes I will be with you.” They did not seem to care
much whether he was or not; and, indeed, General Pillow, in a round hat,
dusty black frock-coat, and ordinary “unstriped” trousers, did not look
like one who could give any great material accession to the physical
means of resistance, although he is a very energetic man. The
major-general, in fact, is an attorney-at-law, or has been so, and was
partner with Mr. Polk, who, probably from some of the reasons which
determine the actions of partners to each other, sent Mr. Pillow to the
Mexican war, where he nearly lost him, owing to severe wounds received
in action. The general has made his intrenchments as if he were framing
an indictment. There is not a flaw for the enemy to get through, but he
has bound up his own men in inexorable lines also. At one of the works a
proof of the freedom of “citizen soldiery” was afforded in a little
hilarity on the part of one of the privates. The men had lined the
parapet, and had listened to the pleasant assurances of their commander
that they would knock off the shovel and hoe very soon, and be replaced
by the eternal gentlemen of color. “Three cheers for General Pillow”
were called for, and were responded to by the whooping and screeching
sounds that pass muster in this part of the world for cheers. As they
ended a stentorian voice shouted out, “Who cares for General Pillow?”
and, as no one answered, it might be unfairly inferred that gallant
officer was not the object of the favor or solicitude of his troops;
probably a temporary unpopularity connected with hard work found
expression in the daring question.