"No; that is still another sect or division, though very ancient indeed.
We never held to the Halacha, and we laugh at the Mishna and Talmud and
all that. We do not believe or disbelieve in a God--Yahveh, or the older
Elohim. We hold that every man born knows enough to do what is right;
and that is religion enough. After death, if he has acted up to this, he
will be all right should there be a future of immortality; and if he
hasn't, he will be none the worse off for it. We are a very small sect.
We call ourselves the _Neu Reformirte_. We have a place of worship in
New York."
This was the first agnostic whom I had ever met. I thought of the woman
in Jerusalem who ran about with the torch to burn up heaven and the water
to extinguish hell-fire. Yes, the sect was very old. The Sadducees
never denied anything; they only inquired as to truth. Seek or _Sikh_!
I confess that Mr. Solomon somewhat weakened the effect of his grand free-
thought philosophy by telling me in full faith of a Rabbi in New York who
was so learned in the Cabala that by virtue of the sacred names he could
recover stolen goods. Whether, like Browning's sage, he also received
them, I did not learn. But _c'est tout comme chez nous autres_. The
same spirit which induces a man to break out of orthodox humdrumness,
induces him to love the marvellous, the forbidden, the odd, the wild, the
droll--even as I do. It is not a fair saying that "atheists are all
superstitious, which proves that a man must _believe_ in something." No;
it is the spirit of nature, of inquiry, of a desire for the new and to
penetrate the unknown; and under such influence a man may truly be an
atheist as regards what he cannot prove or reconcile with universal love
and mercy, and yet a full believer that magic and ghosts may possibly
exist among the infinite marvels and mysteries of nature. It is admitted
that a man may believe in God without being superstitious; it is much
truer that he may be "superstitious" (whatever that means) without
believing that there is an anthropomorphic _bon Dieu_. However this may
be, Mr. Solomon made me reflect often and deeply for many a long year,
until I arrived to the age of Darwin.
I also made at Cape May the acquaintance of a very remarkable man, whom I
was destined to often meet in other lands in after years. This was
Carrol (not as yet General) Tevis. We first met thus. The ladies wanted
seats out on the lawn, and there was not a chair to be had. He and I
were seeking in the hotel-office; all the clerks were absent, and all the
chairs removed; but there remained a solid iron sofa or settee, six feet
long, weighing about 600 pounds. Tevis was strong, and a great fencer;
there is a famous _botte_ which he invented, bearing his name; perhaps
Walter H. Pollock knows it. I gave the free-lance or _condottiero_ a
glance, and proposed to prig the iron sofa and lay waste the enemy. It
was a deed after his Dugald Dalgetty heart, and we carried it off and
seated the ladies.
In the autumn there was a vast Sanitary Fair for the benefit of the army
hospitals held in Philadelphia. I edited for it a daily newspaper called
_Our Daily Fare_, which often kept me at work for eighteen hours per
diem, and in doing which I was subjected to much needless annoyance and
mortification. At this Fair I saw Abraham Lincoln.
It was about this time that the remarkable oil fever, or mania for
speculating in oil-lands, broke out in the United States. Many persons
had grown rich during the war, and were ready to speculate. Its extent
among all classes was incredible. Perhaps the only parallel to it in
history was the Mississippi Bubble or the South Sea speculations, and
these did not collectively employ so much capital or call out so much
money as this petroleum mania. It had many strange social developments,
which I was destined to see in minute detail.
My first experience was not very pleasant. A publisher in New York asked
me to write him a humorous poem on the oil mania. It was to be large
enough to make a small volume. I did so, and in my opinion wrote a good
one. It cost me much time and trouble. When it was done, the publisher
_refused to take it_, saying that it was not what he wanted. So I lost
my labour or _oleum perdidi_.
I had two young friends named Colton, who had been in the war from the
beginning to the end, and experienced its changes to the utmost. Neither
was over twenty-one. William Colton, the elder, was a captain in the
regular cavalry, and the younger, Baldwin, was his orderly. It was a man
in the Captain's company, named Yost, who furnished the type of Hans
Breitmann as a soldier. The brothers told me that one day in a march in
Tennessee, not far from Murfreesboro', they had found petroleum in the
road, and thought it indicated the presence of oil-springs. I mentioned
this to Mr. Joseph Lea, a merchant of Philadelphia. He was the father of
Mrs. Anna Lea Merritt, who has since become a very distinguished artist,
well known in England, being the first lady painter from whom the British
Government ever bought a picture. Mr. Lea thought it might be worth some
expense to investigate this Tennessee oil. I volunteered to go, if my
expenses were paid, and it was agreed to. It is difficult at the present
day to give any reader a clear idea of the dangers and trouble which this
undertaking involved, and I was fully aware beforehand what they would
be. The place was on the border, in the most disorganised state of
society conceivable, and, in fact, completely swarming with guerillas or
brigands, _sans merci_, who simply killed and stripped everybody who fell
into their hands. All over our border or frontier there are innumerable
families who have kept up feuds to the death, or _vendettas_, in some
cases for more than a century; and now, in the absence of all civil law,
these were engaged in wreaking their old grudges without restraint, and
assuredly not sparing any stranger who came between them.
I had a friend in C. A. Dana, the Assistant-Secretary of War, and another
in Colonel Henry Olcott, since known as the theosophist. The latter had
just come from the country which I proposed to visit. I asked him to aid
me in getting military passes and introductions to officers in command.
He promised to do so, saying that he would not go through what I had
before me for all the oil in America. {274} And, indeed, one could not
take up a newspaper without finding full proof that Tennessee was at that
time an _inferno_ or No-man's Land of disorder.
I went to it with my eyes wide open. After so many years of work, I was
as poor as ever, and the seven years of harvest which I had prophesied
had come, and I was not gathering a single golden grain. My father
regarded me as a failure in life, or as a literary ne'er-do-weel,
destined never to achieve fortune or gain an _etat_, and he was quite
right. My war experience had made me reckless of life, and speculation
was firing every heart. I bought myself a pair of long, strong, overall
boots and blanket, borrowed a revolver, arranged money affairs with Mr.
Lea, who always acted with the greatest generosity, intelligence, and
kindness, packed my carpet-bag, and departed. It was midwinter, and I
was destined for a wintry region, or Venango County, where, until within
the past few months, there had been many more bears and deer than human
beings. For it was in Venango, Pennsylvania, that the oil-wells were
situated, and Mr. Lea judged it advisable that I should first visit them
and learn something of the method of working, the geology of the region,
and other practical matters.
My brother accompanied me to the station, and I left at about 8 p.m.
After a long, long, weary night and day, I arrived at an oil town, whose
name I now forget. By great good fortune I secured a room, and by still
greater luck I got acquainted the next morning at breakfast with three or
four genial and gentlemanly men, all "speculators" like myself, who had
come to spy into the plumpness and oiliness of the land. We hired a
sleigh and went forth on an excursion among the oil-wells. It was in
some respects the most remarkable day I ever spent anywhere.
For here was oil, oil, oil everywhere, in fountains flowing at the rate
of a dollar a second (it brought 70 cents a gallon), derricks or
scaffoldings at every turn over wells, men making fortunes in an hour,
and beggars riding on blooded horses. I myself saw a man in a blue
carter's blouse, carrying a black snake-whip, and since breakfast, for
selling a friend's farm, he had received 1250,000 as commission (_i.e._,
50,000 pounds). When we stopped to dine at a tavern, there stood behind
us during all the meal many country-fellows, all trying to sell
oil-lands; every one had a great bargain at from thirty or forty thousand
dollars downwards. The lowest in the lot was a boy of seventeen or
eighteen, a loutish-looking youth, who looked as if his vocation had been
peddling apples and lozenges. He had only a small estate to dispose of
for $15,000 (3,000 pounds), but he was very small fry indeed. My
companions met with many friends; all had within a few days or hours made
or lost incredible sums by gambling in oil-lands, borrowing recklessly,
and failing as recklessly. Companies were formed here on the spot as
easily as men get up a game of cards, and of this within a few days I
witnessed many instances. Two men would meet. "Got any land over?"
(_i.e._, not "stocked"). "Yes, first-rate; geologer's certificate; can
you put it on the market?" "That's my business. I've floated forty oil
stocks already, terms half profits." So it would be floated forthwith.
Gambling by _millions_ was in the air everywhere; low common men held
sometimes _thirty companies_, all their own, in one pocket, to be
presently sprung in New York or elsewhere. And in contrast to it was the
utterly bleak wretchedness and poverty of every house, and the miserable
shanties, and all around and afar the dismal, dark, pine forests covered
with snow.
I heard that day of a man who got a living by spiritually intuiting oil.
"Something told him," some Socratic demon or inner impulse, that there
was "ile" here or there, deep under the earth. To pilot to this "ile" of
beauty he was paid high fees. One of my new friends avowed his intention
of at once employing this oil-seer as over-seer.
We came to some stupendous tanks and to a well which, as one of my
friends said enviously and longingly, was running three thousand dollars
a day in clear greenbacks. Its history was remarkable. For a very long
time an engineer had been here, employed by a company in boring, but bore
he never so wisely, he could get nothing. At last the company, tired of
the expenditure and no returns, wrote to him ordering him to cease all
further work on the next Saturday. But the engineer had become
"possessed" with the idea that he _must_ succeed, and so, unheeding
orders, he bored away all alone the next day. About sunset some one
going by heard a loud screaming and hurrahing. Hastening up, he found
the engineer almost delirious with joy, dancing like a lunatic round a
fountain of oil, which was "as thick as a flour-barrel, and rising to the
height of a hundred feet." It was speedily plugged and made available.
All of this occurred only a very few days before I saw it.
That night I stopped at a newly-erected tavern, and, as no bed was to be
had, made up my mind to sleep in my blanket on the muddy floor,
surrounded by a crowd of noisy speculators, waggoners, and the like. I
tell this tale vilely, for I omitted to say that I did the same thing the
first night when I entered the oil-country, got a bed on the second, and
that this was the third. But even here I made the acquaintance of a nice
Scotchman, who found out another very nice man who had a house near by,
and who, albeit not accustomed to receive guests, said he would give us
two one bed, which he did. However, the covering was not abundant, and
I, for all my blanket, was a-cold. In the morning I found a full supply
of blankets hanging over the foot-board, but we had retired without a
light, and had not noticed them. Our breakfast being rather poor, our
host, with an apology, brought in a great cold mince-pie three inches
thick, which is just the thing which I love best of all earthly food.
That he apologised for it indicated a very high degree of culture indeed
in rural America, and, in fact, I found that he was a well-read and
modest man.
It was, I think, at a place called Plummer that I made the acquaintance
of two brothers named B---, who seemed to vibrate on the summit of
fortune as two golden balls might on the top of the oil-fountain to which
I referred. One spoke casually of having at that instant a charter for a
bank in one pocket, and one for a railroad in the other. They bought and
sold any and all kinds of oil-land in any quantity, without giving it a
thought. While I was in their office, one man exhibited a very handsome
revolver. "How much did it cost?" asked B. "Fifty dollars" (10 pounds).
"I wish," replied B., "that when you go to Philadelphia you'd get me a
dozen of them for presents." A man came to the window and called for
him. "What do you want?" "Here are the two horses I spoke about
yesterday." Hardly heeding him, and talking to others, B. went to the
window, cast a casual glance at the steeds, and said, "What was it you
said that you wanted for them?" "Three thousand dollars." "All right!
go and put 'em in the stable, and come here and get the money."
From Plummer I had to go ten miles to Oil City. If I had only known it,
one of my very new friends, who was very kind indeed to a stranger, would
have driven me over in his sleigh. But I did not know it, and so paid a
very rough countryman ten dollars (2 pounds) to take me over on a
_jumper_. This is the roughest form of a sledge, consisting of two
saplings with the ends turned up, fastened by cross-pieces. The snow on
the road was two feet deep, and the thermometer at zero. But the driver
had two good horses, and made good time. I found it very difficult
indeed to hold on to the vehicle and also to keep my carpet-bag.
Meanwhile my driver entertained me with an account of a great misfortune
which had just befallen him. It was as follows:--
"Before this here oil-fever came along I had a little farm that cost me
$150, and off that, an' workin' at carpentrin', I got a _mighty_ slim
livin'. I used to keep all my main savin's to pay taxes, and often had
to save up the cents to get a prospective drink of whisky. Well, last
week I sold my farm for forty thousand dollars, and dern my skin ef the
feller that bought it didn't go and sell it yesterday for a hundred and
fifty thousand! Just like my derned bad luck!"
"See here, my friend," I said; "I have travelled pretty far in my time,
but I never saw a country in which a man with forty thousand dollars was
not considered rich."
"He may be rich anywhere else with it," replied the _nouveau riche_
contemptuously, "but it wouldn't do more than buy him a glass of whisky
here in Plummer."
Having learned what I could of oil-boring, I went to Cincinnati, and then
to Nashville by rail. It may give the reader some idea of what kind of a
country and life I was coming into when I tell him that the train which
preceded mine had been stopped by the guerillas, who took from it fifty
Federal soldiers and shot them dead, stripping the other passengers; and
that the one which came after had a hundred and fifty bullets fired into
it, but had not been stopped. We passed by Mammoth Cave, but at full
speed, for it was held by the brigands. All of which things were duly
chronicled in the Northern newspapers, and read by all at home.
I got to Nashville. It had very recently been taken by the Federal
forces under General Thomas, who had put it under charge of General
Whipple, who was, in fact, the ruling or administrative man of the
Southwest just then. I went to the hotel. Everything was dismal and
dirty--nothing but soldiers and officers, with all the marks of the field
and of warfare visible on them--citizens invisible--everything
proclaiming a city camp in time of war--sixty thousand men in a city of
twenty thousand, more or less. I got a room. It was so cold that night
that the ice froze two inches thick in my pitcher in my room.
I expected to find the brothers Colton in Nashville. I went to the
proper military authority, and was informed that their regiment was down
at the front in Alabama, as was also the officer who had the authority to
give them leave of absence. I was also informed that my only chance was
to go to Alabama, or, in fact, into the field itself, as a civilian! This
was a dreary prospect. However, I made up my mind to it, and was walking
along the street in a very sombre state of mind, for I was going to a
country like that described in "Sir Grey Stele"--
"Whiche is called the Land of Doubte."
And doubtful indeed, and very dismal and cold and old, did everything
seem on that winter afternoon as I, utterly alone, went my way. What I
wanted most of all things on earth was a companion. With my brother I
would have gone down to the front and to face all chances as if it were
to a picnic.
When ill-fortune intends to make a spring, she draws back. But good
fortune, God bless her! does just the same. Therefore _si fortuna
tonat_, _caveto mergi_--if fortune frowns, do not for that despond. Just
as I was passing a very respectable-looking mansion, I saw a sign over
its office-door bearing the words: "Captain Joseph R. Paxton, Mustering-
in and Disbursing Officer."
Joseph R. Paxton was a very intimate friend of mine in Philadelphia. He
was still a young man, and one of the most remarkable whom I have ever
known. He was a great scholar. He was more familiar with all the
_rariora_, _curiosa_, and singular marvels of literature than any body I
ever knew except Octave Delepierre, with whose works he first made me
acquainted. He had translated Ik Marvel's "Reveries of a Bachelor" into
French, and had been accepted by a Paris publisher. He had been a
lawyer, an agent for a railroad, and had long edited in Philadelphia a
curious journal entitled _Bizarre_, and written a work on gems. His
whole soul, however, was in the French literature of the eighteenth
century, and he always had a library which would make a collector's mouth
water. Had he lived in London or Paris, he would have made a great
reputation. And he was kind-hearted, genial, and generous to a fault. He
had always some unfortunate friend living on him, some Bohemian of
literature under a cloud.
I entered the office and found him, and great was his amazement! "_Que
diable_, _mon ami_, _faistu ici dans cette galere_?" was his greeting. I
explained the circumstances in detail. He at once exclaimed, "Come and
live here with me. General Whipple is my brother-in-law, and he will be
here in a few days and live with us. He'll make it all right." "Here,
Jim!" he cried to a great six-foot man of colour--"run round to the hotel
and bring this gentleman's luggage!"
There I remained for a very eventful month. Paxton had entered with the
conquerors, and had just seized on the house. I may indeed say that _we_
seized on it, as regards any right--I being accepted as hail-fellow-well-
met, and as a bird of the same feather. In it was a piano and a very
good old-fashioned library. It was like Paxton to loot a library. He
had had his pick of the best houses, and took this one, "niggers
included," for the servants, by some odd freak, preferred freedom with
Paxton to slavery with their late owner. This gentleman was a Methodist
clergyman, and Paxton found among his papers proofs that he had been
concerned in a plot to burn Cincinnati by means of a gang of secret
incendiaries.
Whenever the blacks realised the fact that a Northern man was a
_gentleman_--they all have marvellous instincts for this, and a respect
for one beyond belief--they took to him with a love like that of bees for
a barrel of syrup. I have experienced this so often, and in many cases
so touchingly, that I cannot refrain from recording it. Among others who
thus took to me was the giant Jim, who was unto Paxton and me as the
captive of our bow and spear, albeit an emancipated contraband. When the
Southerners defied General Butler to touch their slaves, because they
were their "property" by law, the General replied by "confiscating" the
property by what Germans call _Faustrecht_ (or fist-right) as "contraband
of war."
This Jim, the general waiter and butler, was a character, shrewd, clever,
and full of dry humour. When I was alone in the drawing-room of an
evening, he would pile up a great wood-fire, and, as I sat in an
arm-chair, would sit or recline on the floor by the blaze and tell me
stories of his slave life, such as this:--
"My ole missus she always say to me, 'Jim, don' you ever have anything to
do with dem Yankees. Dey're all pore miserable wile wretches. Dey lib
in poverty an' nastiness and don' know nothin'.' I says to her, 'It's
mighty quare, missus. I can't understan' it. Whar do all dem books come
from? Master gits em from de Norf. Who makes all our boots an' clothes
and sends us tea an' everythin'? Dey can't all be so pore an' ignoran'
ef dey writes our books an' makes everythin' we git.' 'Jim,' she says,
'you're a fool, an' don' understan' nothin'.' 'Wery good, missus,' says
I, but I thinked it over. All we do is to raise cotton, an' dey make it
into cloff, which we hav'n't de sense to do."
I believe that I give this word for word. And Jim, as I found, was a
leading mind among the blacks.
I had a letter of introduction from Mr. Lea to Horace Harrison, who was
the State Attorney for Tennessee. At this time his power was very great,
for he had in his hands the disposition of all the estates of all the
rebels in Tennessee. He was the type of a Southwestern gentleman. He
reminded me very much of my old Princeton friends, and when I was in his
office smoking a pipe, I felt as if I were in college again. I liked him
very much. One morning I called, and after some deliberation he said,
"You are a lawyer, are you not?" I replied that I had studied law under
Judge Cadwallader.
"Then I should like to consult with you as a lawyer. I have a very
difficult case to deal with. There is a law declaring that all property
belonging to rebels shall be seized and held for one year. Now, here is
a man whose estate I have held for six months, who has come in and
declared his allegiance, and asks for his lands. And I believe that
before long, unless he comes in now, they will be almost ruined. What
shall I do?"
"It appears to me," I replied, "that if the disposal of these lands is in
your hands, you must be supposed to exert some will and discretion. _Stat
pro ratione voluntas_ is a good axiom here. We are not at all _in statu
quo ante bellum_--in fact, the war is not at an end, nor decided. Your
duty is to act for the good of the country, and not simply to _skin_ the
enemy like a bushwhacker, but to pacify the people. _Victor volentes per
populos dat jura_--laws should always be mildly interpreted. In your
case, considering the very critical condition of the country, I should in
equity give the man his property, and take his oath of allegiance. Severe
measures are not advisable--_quod est violentum_, _non est durabile_."
This is, I believe, pretty accurately what I said. That evening, as I
was sitting with General Whipple, he amazed me by addressing me exactly
as Mr. Harrison had done in the morning.
"I say, Leland, you're a lawyer, and I want your advice. There are six
warehouses here, and I want them badly for military stores. But Horace
Harrison says that I can't have them, because he holds them for the
United States. What am I to do?"
"General Whipple," I replied, "is this town under military occupation in
time of war, or is it not?"
"Most decidedly it is."
"So I should think from the way your patrols bother me. And if such is
the case, all things must yield to military wants. Where we have no
legal principles or courts to decide, we must fall back on legal axioms.
And here the law is clear and explicit, for it says, _Inter arma leges
silent_--the laws are suspended in warfare."
"A magnificent saying!" exclaimed the General admiringly. "Ah! you ought
to be in the Supreme Court." And seizing a pen he wrote to the State
Attorney:--
"SIR: This town, being but recently captured from the enemies of the
United States, is, of course, under military occupation, which renders
absolutely necessary for military purpose many temporary seizures and
uses, such as that of the six warehouses referred to in our late
correspondence. As regards legal precedent and principle, I need not
remind one of your learning that--(I say, Leland, how do you spell
that Latin?--_I-n-t-e-r_--yes, I've got it)--_Inter arma silent
leges_."
I am afraid that Horace Harrison, when he got that letter, suspected that
I had been acting as counsel for both sides. However, as I took no fee,
my conscience was at rest. I think that I was of great use to General
Whipple at that time, and, as he said one day, an unofficial secretary.
Great and serious matters passed through our hands (for the General and
Harrison were taking the lead in virtually reforming the whole frontier
or debatable land), and these grand affairs were often hurried through
"like hot cakes." My slender legal attainments were several times in
requisition on occasions when the head of the Supreme Court would have
been a more appropriate referee. I discovered, however, that there was
really a department of law in which I might have done good work.
Questions of very serious importance were often discussed and disposed of
among us three with very great economy of time and trouble. And here I
may say--"excuse the idle word"--that I wonder that I never in all my
life fell into even the most trifling diplomatic or civil position, when,
in the opinion of certain eminent friends, I possess several
qualifications for such a calling--that is, quickness in mastering the
legal bearings of a question, a knowledge of languages and countries,
readiness in drawing up papers, and an insatiable love of labour, which
latter I have not found to be _always_ possessed by the accomplished
gentlemen whom our country employs abroad.
I may here narrate a curious incident which touched and gratified me.
When all the slaves in Nashville were set free by the entrance of our
troops, the poor souls, to manifest their joy, seized a church (nobody
opposing), and for three weeks held heavy worship for twenty-four hours
per diem. _But not a white soul was allowed to enter_--the real and
deeply-concealed reason being that Voodoo rites (which gained great
headway during the war) formed a part of their devotion. However, I was
informed that an exception would be made in my case, and that I was free
to enter. And why? Had Jim surmised, by that marvellous intuition of
character which blacks possess, that I had in me "the mystery"? Now, to-
day I hold and possess the black stone of the Voodoo, the possession of
which of itself makes me a grand-master and initiate or adept, and such
an invitation would seem as natural as one to a five-o'clock tea
elsewhere; but I was not known to any one in Nashville as a "cunjerer,"
and the incident strikes me as very curious.
Apropos of marvels, many of the blacks can produce in their throats by
some strange process sounds, and even airs, resembling those of the
harmonicon, or musical box, one or the other or both. One evening in
Nashville, in a lonely place, I heard exquisite music, which I thought
must be that of a superior hand-organ from afar. But, to my amazement, I
could discover none; there were only two black boys in the street. Alexis
Paxton, the son of my host, explained to me that what I heard was
unquestionably music made by those ebony flutes of boys, and that there
were some wonderful performers in the city. I have listened to the same
music at a public exhibition. I greatly wonder that I have never heard
of this kind of music in Europe or the East. It is distinctly
_instrumental_, not vocal in its tones. It has the obvious
recommendation of economy, since by means of it a young lady could be
performer and pianoforte all in one, which was indeed the beginning of
the invention in Syrinx, who was made into a pan-pipe, which as a piano
became the great musical curse (according to Heine) of modern times, and
by which, as I conjecture, the fair Miss Reed or Syrinx revenges herself
on male humanity. By the way, the best singer of "_Che faro senza
Euridice_" whom I ever heard was a Miss Reed, a sister of Mrs. Paran
Stevens.
I had a very pleasant time with Paxton, and I know right well that I was
no burden on him, but a welcome friend. _Au reste_, there was plenty of
room in the house, and abundant army stores to be had for asking, and one
or two rare acquaintances. One of these was a Southern officer, now a
general, who had come over to our side and fought, as the saying was,
with a rope round his neck. He was terribly hated by the rebels, which
hate he returned with red-hot double compound interest--for a renegade is
worse than ten Turks. He was the very type of a grim, calm old Border
moss-trooper. He lived in his boots, and never had an ounce of luggage.
One evening General Whipple (always humane and cultivated, though as firm
as an iron bar) said to him before me, "I really don't know what to do
with many of my rebel prisoners. They dress themselves in Federal
uniforms for want of other clothes; they take them from the dead on the
battlefield, and try to pass themselves off for Federals. It is very
troublesome."
"No trouble to me," replied the other.
"And how do you do with them?"
"Shoot them as _spies_. Why, only last week I got four dozen of them,
and in less than four minutes I had them all laid out stiff in the road."
The reader need not imagine that the general here romanced or
exaggerated. At that very moment the massacres and murders which were
going on within three miles of us were beyond belief. The bands of
_guerillas_ or bushwhackers which swept the country murdered in cold
blood all who fell into their hands, and the Confederate soldiers often
did the same. There resulted, of course, a deadly hatred on both sides,
and the most unscrupulous retaliation.
I could fill a book with the very interesting observations which I made
in Nashville. And here I call attention to a very strange coincidence
which this recalls. During the previous year I had often expressed a
great desire to be in some State during its transition from Confederacy
to Unionism, that I might witness the remarkable social and political
paradoxes and events which would result, and I had often specified
Tennessee as the one above all others which I should prefer to visit for
this purpose. And I had about as much idea that I should go to the moon
as there. But prayers are strangely granted at strange hours--_plus
impetravi quam fuissem ausus_--and I was placed in the very centre of the
wheel. This very remarkable fulfilment of a wish, and many like it,
though due to mere chance, naturally made an impression on me, for no
matter how strong our eyesight may be, or our sense of truth, we are all
dazed when coming out of darkness into light, and all the world is in
that condition now. No matter how completely we exchange the gloom of
supernaturalism for the sunlight of science, phantoms still seem to flit
before our eyes, and, what is more bewildering still, we do not as yet
know but what these phantoms may be physical facts. Perhaps the Voodoo
stone _may_ have the power to awaken the faith which may move the vital
or nervous force, which may act on hidden subtler forms of electricity
and matter, atoms and molecules. Ah! we have a great deal to learn!
Through General Whipple's kind aid the brothers Colton were at once
brought up from the front. With them and Captain Paxton we went to
Murfreesboro, and at once called on the general in command, whose name I
have forgotten. He struck me as a grim, brave old commander, every inch
a soldier. While we conversed with him a sergeant entered, a man who
looked as if he lived in the saddle, and briefly reported that a gang of
guerillas were assembled at a certain place some miles away--I forget how
far, but the distance was traversed in an incredibly short time. The
general issued orders for a hundred cavalry to go at once and "get" them.
They "got" them, killing many, and the next morning, on looking from my
window, I saw the victors ride into the courtyard, many of them with
their captives tied neck and heels, like bags of corn, over the cruppers
of the horses. A nice night's ride they must have had! But the choice
was between death and being cruppered, and they preferred the latter to
coming a cropper. Strange that the less a man has to live for the more
he clings to life.
The general thought that if he gave us a corporal and four men, and if we
were well armed, that we _might_ go out on the Bole Jack road and return
unharmed, "unless we met with any of the great gangs of bushwhackers."
But he evidently thought, as did General Whipple, who did not heed a
trifle by any means, that we were going into the lion's jaws. So the
next morning, _equo iter ingredi_, I rode forth. I had some time before
been appointed aide-de-camp to Governor Pollock, of Pennsylvania, with
the rank of colonel, and had now two captains and a corporal with his
guard. It was a rather small regiment.
We heard grim stories that morning as to what had taken place all around
us within almost a few hours. Three Federal pickets had been
treacherously shot while on guard the night before; the troops had
surprised a gang of bushwhackers holding a ball, and firing through the
windows, dropped ten of them dead while dancing; two men had been
murdered by --- --- and his gang. This was a noted guerilla, who was
said to have gone south with the Confederate army, but who was more
generally believed to have remained in hiding, and to have committed most
of the worst outrages and murders of late.
At the first house where we stopped in the woods there lay a wounded man,
one of the victims of the dance the night before. The inmates were
silent, but not rude to us. I offered a man whisky, but he replied, "I
don't use it." We rode on. Once there was an alarm of "bushwhackers." I
should have forgotten it but for the memory of the look of Baldwin
Colton's eyes, the delighted earnestness of a man or of a wild creature
going to fight. He and his brother had hunted and fought guerillas a
hundred times, perhaps much oftener, for it was a regular daily service
at the front. Once during a retreat, Baldwin (eighteen or nineteen years
of age) fell out of rank so often to engage in hand-to-hand sword
conflicts with rebel cavalrymen, that his brother detached four to take
him prisoner and keep him safe. Daring spirits among our soldiers often
became very fond of this kind of duelling, in which the rebs were not a
whit behind them, and two of the infantry on either side would, under
cover of the bushes, aim and pop away at one another perhaps for hours,
like two red Indians.
I have forgotten whether it was with extra whisky, coffee, or money that
we specially gratified our corporal and guard; but Baldwin, who was "one
of 'em," informed me that they enjoyed this little outing immensely, just
like a picnic, and had a good time. From which it may be inferred that
men's ideas of enjoyment are extremely relative. It could not have been
in the dodging of guerillas--to that they were accustomed; perhaps it was
the little extra ration, or the mystery of the excursion, for they were
much puzzled to know what I wanted, why I examined the road and rocks,
and all so strangely, and went into the very worst place in all the land
to do so. Baldwin Colton himself had been so knocked about during the
war, and so starved as a prisoner in Southern hands, that he looked back
on a sojourn in that _ergastulum_, Libby Prison, as rather an oasis in
his sad experiences. "It wasn't so bad a place as some, and there was
good company, and always _something to eat_." The optimist of Candide
was a Mallock in mourning compared to this.
That night we came to somebody's plantation. I forget his name, but he
was a Union man, probably a _very_ recent acquisition, but genial. He
had read the _Knickerbocker_, and knew my name well, and took good care
of us. In the morning I offered him ten dollars for our night's lodging,
which was, in the opinion of my two captains, stupendously liberal, as
soldiers never paid. Our host declined it like a Southern planter, on
the ground that he never sold his hospitality. So I put the money into
the hand of one of his pretty children as a present. But as we rode
forth we were called back, and reminded that we had forgotten to pay for
the _soldiers_! I gave another five-dollar greenback and rode away
disgusted. And at the gate a negro girl begged us to give her a "dalla"
(dollar) to buy a fish-line. It all came from my foolish offer to pay.
Gratitude is a sense of further benefits to be bestowed.
The place where the oil had been seen was near a conical rocky hill
called Grindstone Knob. We examined carefully and found no trace of it.
The geology of the country was unfavourable, much flint and conglomerate,
if I remember, and wanting in the signs of coal, shales, &c., and
"faults" or ravines. I may be quite wrong, but such was my opinion. No
one who lived thereabout had ever heard of "ile." Once I asked a rustic
if any kind of oil was found in the neighbourhood in springs. His reply
was, "What! _ile_ come up outer the ground like water! H---! I never
heard of sitch a thing." _There was no oil_.
At the foot of Grindstone Knob was a rather neat, small house, white,
with green blinds. We were somewhat astonished to learn from a negro
boy, who spoke the most astonishingly bad English, that this was the home
of Mas' --- ---. Yes, this was the den of the wolf himself, and I had no
doubt that he was not far off. There was a small cotton plantation round
about.
We entered, and were received by a good-looking, not unladylike, but
rather fierce-eyed young woman and her younger sister. It was Mrs. ---.
The two had been to a lady's seminary in Nashville, and played the piano
for us. I felt that we were in a strange situation, and now and then
walked to the window and looked out, listening all the time suspiciously
to every sound. It was easy enough for Mrs. ---, the brigand's wife, to
perceive from my untanned complexion that I had not been in the field,
and was manifestly no soldier. "_You_ look like an officer," she said to
Captain Colton, "and so does _that_ one, but what is _he_?" meaning me by
this last. We had dinner--roast kid--and when we departed I gave the
dame five dollars, having the feeling that I could not be indebted to
thieves for a dinner.
We had gone but a little distance when we saw two bushwhackers with guns,
and gave chase, but they disappeared in the bushes, much to the grief of
our men, who would have liked either to shoot them or to bring them in.
Then the corporal told us that while we were at dinner's "faithful
blacks" had informed his men that "Mas' had been at home ever since
Crismas"; that at eleven o'clock every night they assembled at the house
and thence went out marauding and murdering.
I paused, astonished and angry. It was almost certain that the
bushwhacker had been during dinner probably in the cellar under our feet.
The guerillas had great fear of our regular soldiers; two of the latter
were a match at any time for half-a-dozen of the former, as was proved
continually. Should I go back and hang --- up over his own door? I was
dying to do it, but we had before us a very long ride through the Cedar
Barrens, the sun was sinking in the west, and we had heard news which
made it extremely likely that a large band of guerillas would be in the
way.
That resolve to go actually saved our lives, for I heard the next day
that a hundred and fifty of these free murderers had gone on our road
just after us. This fact was at once transferred to the Northern
newspapers, that "on --- a hundred and fifty bushwhackers passed over the
Bole Jack road." Which was read by my wife and father, who knew that on
that very day I was on that road, to their great apprehension.
I never shall forget the dismal appearance of the Cedar Barrens. The
soil was nowhere more than two inches deep, and the trees which covered
it by millions had all died as soon as they attained a height of fifteen
or twenty feet. Swarms of ill-omened turkey-buzzards were the only
living creatures visible "like foul _lemures_ flitting in the gloom."
Riding over the battlefield the Coltons and Paxton pointed out many
things, for they had all been in it severely. At one place, Major
Rosengarten, a brother of my old Paris fellow-student, had had a sabre-
fight with a rebel, and they told me how Rosengarten's sword, being one
of the kind which was issued by contract in the earlier days of the war,
bent and broke like a piece of tin. Hearing a ringing sound Baldwin
jumped from his horse, picked up a steel ramrod and gave it to me for a
cane.
As we approached Murfreesboro' I met a genial, daring soldier, one Major
Hill, whom I had seen before. He had with him a hundred and fifty
cavalry. "Where are you going so late by night?" I said.
He replied, "I am after that infernal scoundrel, --- ---. My scouts have
found out pretty closely his range. I am going to divide my men into
tens and scatter them over the country and then close in."
"Major," I replied, "I will tell you just where to lay your hand at once,
heavy on him. Do you know Grindstone Knob and a white house with green
windows at its foot?"
"I do."
"Well, be there at exactly eleven to-night, and you'll get him. I have
been there and learned it from the niggers."
"Well, I declare that you are a good scout, Mr. Leland!" cried the Major
in amazement. "What can I do to thank you?"
"Well, Major Hill," I said, "I have one thing to request: that is, if you
get ---, don't parole him. _Shoot him at once_; he is a red-handed
murderer."
"I _will_ shoot him," said the Major, and rode forth into the night with
his men. But whether he ever got --- I never knew, though according to
the calculations of the Coltons, who were extremely experienced in such
matters, "Massa ---" had not more than one chance in a thousand to
escape, and Hill was notoriously a good guerilla-hunter and a man of his
word.
I believe that at the plantation our men had camped out. At
Murfreesboro' we returned them to the general, and I took the Coltons to
a hotel, which was so very rough that I apologised for it, while Baldwin
said it seemed to him to be luxurious beyond belief, and that it was the
first night for eighteen months in which he had slept in a bed. In the
morning I wanted a spur, having lost one of mine, and there was brought
to me a large boxful of all kinds of spurs to choose from, which had been
left in the house at one time or another during the war.
I did not remain long in Nashville after returning thither. I had
instructions to go to Louisville, Kentucky, and there consult with a
certain merchant as to certain lands. General Whipple accompanied me to
the "depot," which was for the time and place as much of an honour as if
Her Majesty were to come to see me off at Victoria Station. There was
many and many a magnate in those days and there, who would have given
thousands to have had his ear as Paxton and I had it.
One night we were in the side private box at the theatre in Nashville.
Couldock, whom I had known well many years before, was on the stage. The
General was keeping himself deeply in the shade to remain unseen. He
remarked to Paxton that he wanted a house for his family, who would soon
arrive, and could not find one, for they were all occupied. This one
remark shows the man. I wonder how long General Butler would have
hesitated to move anybody!
Captain Paxton knew everything and everybody. With a quick glance from
his keen dark eyes he exclaimed--
"I've got it! Do you see that fat man laughing so heartily in the pit?
He has a splendid house; it would just suit you; and he's a d---d old
rebel. I know enough about him to hang him three times over. He has"
(here followed a series of political iniquities). "_Voila votre
affaire_."
"And how is it that he has kept his house?" asked the General.
"He sent the quartermaster a barrel of whisky, or something of that
sort."
The General looked thoughtfully at the fat man as the latter burst into a
fresh peal of laughter. I thought that if he had known what was being
said in our box that laugh would have died away.
I do not know whether the General took the house. I think he did. I
left for Louisville. There I saw the great merchant, who invited me to
his home to supper and consulted with me. His daughters were rebels and
would not speak to me. He had a great deal of property in Indiana, which
_might_ be oil-lands. If I would visit it and report on it, he would
send his partner with me to examine it. I consented to go.
This partner, Mr. W., was a young man of agreeable, easy manners. With
him I went to Indianapolis, and thence by "stages," waggons, or on
horseback through a very dismal country in gloomy winter into the
interior of the State. I can remember vast marshy fields with millions
of fiddler crabs scuttling over them, and more mud than I had ever seen
in my life. The village streets were six inches deep in soft mud up to
the doors and floors of the houses. At last we reached our journey's end
at a large log-house on a good farm.
I liked the good man of the house. He said to us, after a time, that at
first he thought we were a couple of stuck-up city fellows, but had found
to his joy that we were old-fashioned, sensible people. There was no
sugar at his supper-table, but he had three substitutes for
it--"tree-sweetnin', bee-sweetnin', and sorghum"--that is, maple sugar,
honey, and the molasses made from Chinese maize. Only at a mile's
distance there was a "sugar-camp," and we could see the fires and hear
the shouts of the people engaged night and day in making sugar from the
trees.
He told me that on the hills in sight a mysterious light often wandered.
During the Revolutionary war some one had buried a barrelful of silver
plate and money, and over it flitted the quivering silver flame, but no
one could ever find the spot.
The next day I examined the land. There was abundance of fossiliferous
limestone, rich in petrifactions of tertiary shells, also cartloads of
beautiful _geodes_ or round flint balls, which often rattled, and which,
when broken, were encrusted with white or purple amethystine crystals. I
decided that there were places where oil might be found, though there was
certainly no indication of it. I believe that my conjecture subsequently
proved to be true, and that Indiana has shown herself to be a wise virgin
not without oil.
On the afternoon of the next day, riding with my guide, I found that I
had left my blanket at a house miles behind. I offered the man a large
price to return and bring it, which he did. While waiting by the wood,
in a dismal drizzle, I saw a log cabin and went to it for shelter. Its
only inmate was a young woman, who, seeing me coming, hastily locked the
door and rushed into the neighbouring woods. When the guide returned I
expressed some astonishment at the flight; _he_ did not. With a very
grave expression he asked me, "Don't the gals in _your_ part of the
country allays break for the woods when they see _you_ a-coming?"
"Certainly not," I replied. To which he made answer, "Thank God, our
gals here hev got better morrils than yourn."
We returned to St. Louis. There I was shown the immensely long tomb of
Porter the Kentucky giant. This man was nine feet in height! I had seen
him alive long before in Philadelphia. I made several interesting
acquaintances in St. Louis, the Athens of the West. But I must hurry on.
I went to Cincinnati, where I found orders to wait for Mr. Lea. A
syndicate had been formed in Providence, Rhode Island, which had
purchased a great property in Cannelton, West Virginia. This consisted
of a mountain in which there was an immense deposit of cannel coal.
Cannelton was very near the town of Charleston, which is at the junction
of the Kanawha (a tributary of the Ohio) and Elk rivers.
I waited a week at the hotel in Cincinnati for Mr. Lea. It was a weary
week, for I had no acquaintances and made none. Never in my life before
did I see so many Sardines, or Philistines of the dullest stamp as at
that hotel. But at last Mr. Lea came with a party of ladies and
gentlemen. A small steamboat was secured, and we went up the Ohio. The
voyage was agreeable and not without some incidents. There was a freshet
in the river, and one night, taking a short cut over a cornfield, the
steamboat stuck fast--like Eve--in an apple-tree.
One day one of the party asked me what was the greatest aggregate deposit
of coal known in England. I could not answer. A few hours after we
stopped at a town in Kentucky. There I discovered by chance some old
Patent Office reports, and among them all the statistics describing the
coal mines in England. When we returned to the boat I told my informant
that the largest deposit in England was just half that of Cannelton, and
added many details. Mr. Lea was amazed at my knowledge. I told him that
I deserved no credit, for I had picked it up by chance. "Yes," he
replied, "and how was it that you _chanced_ to read that book? None of
us did. Such chances come to inquiring minds."
It also chanced that this whole country abounded in signs of petroleum.
It was found floating on springs. The company possessed rights of
royalty on thousands of acres on Elk River, which was as yet in the
debatable land, harassed by rebels. These claims, however, were "run
out," and needed to be renewed by signatures from the residents. They
were in the hands of David Goshorn, who kept the only "tavern" or hotel
in Charleston, and he asked $5,000 for his rights. There was another
party in the field after them.
I verily believe that David Goshorn sold the right to me because he
played the fiddle and I the guitar, and because he did not like the
rival, who was a Yankee, while I was a congenial companion. Many a
journey had we together, and as I appreciated him as a marked character
of odd oppositions, we got on admirably.
In Cannelton I went down into a coal mine and risked my life strangely in
ascending a railway. The hill is 1,500 feet in height, and on its face
is a railway which ascends at an angle of 15 degrees, perhaps the
steepest in America. I ascended in it, and soon observed that of the two
strands of the iron cable which drew it one was broken. The very next
week the other broke, and two men were killed by an awful death, they and
the car falling a thousand feet to the rocks below.
The next week we returned to Cincinnati, and thence to Philadelphia. On
my way from New York to Providence I became acquainted in the train with
a modest, gentlemanly man, who told me he was a great-grandson or
descendant of Thomson who wrote the "Seasons." I thought him both great
and grand in an incident which soon occurred. A burly, bull-necked
fellow in the car was attacked with an epileptic fit. He roared, kicked,
screamed like a wildcat; and among fifty men in the vehicle, I venture to
say that only Thomson and I, in a lesser degree, showed any plain common
sense. I darted at the epileptic, grappled with him, held him down by
what might be called brutal kindness, for I held his head down, while I
sat on his arm and throttled him _sans merci_--I avow it--and tore off in
haste his neckcloth (his neck was frightfully swelled), while Thomson
brought cold water from the "cooler," with which we bathed his face
freely, and chafed his pulse and forehead. Little by little he
recovered. The other passengers, as usual, did nothing, and a little old
naval officer, who had been fifty years in service (as Thomson told me),
simply kicked and screamed convulsively, "Take him away! take him away!"
The epileptic was George Christy, the original founder of the Christy
Minstrels. I can never think of this scene without exclaiming, "_Vive_
Thomson!" for he was the only man among us who displayed quiet
self-possession and _savoir faire_. As for me, my "old Injun" was up,
and I had "sailed in" for a fight by mere impulse. _Vive_ Thomson! _Bon
sang ne peut mentir_.
I went to Providence, where I was empowered to return to Cannelton to pay
Goshorn $5,000, and renew the leases on Elk River. I should have to
travel post to anticipate the Yankee. It was not concealed from me that
even if I succeeded, I had before me a very dangerous and difficult task.
But after what I had already gone through with I was ready for anything.
I was really developing rapidly a wild, reckless spirit--the "Injun" was
coming out of me. My old life and self had vanished like dreams. Only
now and then, in the forests or by torrents, did something like poetry
revisit me; _literature_ was dead in me. Only once did I, in a railway
train, compose the "Maiden mit nodings on." I bore it in my memory for
years before I wrote it out.
I arrived in Philadelphia. The next morning I was to rise early and fly
westward. No time to lose. Before I rose, my sister knocked at the door
and told us the awful news that President Lincoln had been murdered!
As I went to the station I saw men weeping in the streets, and everybody
in great grief, conversing with strangers, as if all had lost a common
relation. Everywhere utter misery! I arrived in Pittsburg. It was
raining, and the black pall of smoke which always clothes the town was
denser than ever, and the long black streamers which hung everywhere as
mourning made the whole place unutterably ghastly. In the trains nothing
but the murder was spoken of. There was a young man who had been in the
theatre and witnessed the murder, which he described graphically and
evidently truthfully.
I reached Cincinnati, and as soon as possible hurried on board the
steamboat. We went along to Charleston, and it will hardly be believed
that I very nearly missed the whole object of my journey by falling
asleep. We had but one more very short distance to go, when, overcome by
fatigue, I dropped into a nap. Fortunately I was awakened by the last
ringing of the bell, and, seizing my carpet-bag, ran ashore just as the
plank was to be withdrawn.
I went directly to Goshorn's hotel. He was a stout, burly man, shrewd in
his way, good-natured, but not without temper and impulses. He looked
keenly after business, played the fiddle, and performed a few tricks of
legerdemain. He had a ladylike wife, and both were very kind to me,
especially after they came to know me pretty well. The lady had a nice,
easy horse, which ere long was lent me freely whenever I wanted to ride.
One day it was missing. The master grieved. They had named it after me
in compliment. "Goshorn," I said, "in future I shall call _you Horse-
gone_." But he was not pleased with the name. However, it was recovered
by a miracle, for the amount of horse-stealing which went on about us
then was fabulous.
After a few days Goshorn and I prepared to go up Elk River, to renew the
leases of oil and coal lands. Now I must premise that at all times the
man who was engaged in "ile" bore a charmed life, and was venerated by
both Union men and rebels. _He_ could pass the lines and go anywhere. At
one time, when not a spy could be got into or out of Richmond to serve
us, Goshorn seriously proposed to me to go with him into the city! I had
a neighbour named Fassit, an uncle of Theodore. He had oil-wells in
Virginia, and when the war begun work on them was stopped. This dismayed
the natives. One morning there came to Mr. Fassit a letter imploring him
to return: "Come back, o come agin and bore us some more wels. We wil
protec you like a son. We dont make war on _Ile_." And I, being thus
respected, went and came from the Foeman's Land, and joined in the
dreadful rebel-ry and returned unharmed, leading a charmed if _not_
particularly charming life all winter and the spring, to the great
amazement and bewilderment of many, as will appear in the sequence.
The upper part of Elk River was in the debatable land, or rather still in
Slave-ownia or rebeldom, where a Union man's life was worth about a
chinquapin. In fact, one day there was a small battle between me and
home--with divers wounds and deaths. This going and coming of mine,
among and with rebels, got me into a droll misunderstanding some time
after. But I think that the real cause lay less in oil than in the
simple truth that these frank, half-wild fellows _liked_ me. One said to
me one day, "You're onlike all the Northern men who come here, and we all
like you. What's the reason?" I explained it that he had only met with
Yankees, and that as Pennsylvania lay next to Virginia, of course we must
be more alike as neighbours. But the cause lay in the _liking_ which I
have for Indians, gypsies, and all such folk.
Goshorn began by buying a dug-out poplar canoe sixty-four feet in length,
and stocking it with provisions. "Money won't be of much use," he said;
"what we want chiefly is whisky and blue beads for presents." He hired
two men who had been in the Confederate army, but who had absented
themselves since the proceedings had become uninteresting. These men
took to me with a devotion which ended by becoming literally
superstitious. I am quite sure that, while naturally intelligent,
anything like a mind stored with varied knowledge was something _utterly_
unknown to them. And as I, day by day, let fall unthinkingly this or
that scrap of experience or of knowledge, they began to regard me as a
miracle. One day one of them, Sam Fox, said to me meaningly, that I
liked curious things, and that he knew a nest where he could get me a
young _raven_. The raven is to an Indian conjuror what a black cat is to
a witch, and I suppose that Sam thought I must be lonely without a
familiar. Which recalls one of the most extraordinary experiences of all
my life.
During my return down the river, it was in a freshet, and we went
headlong. This is to the very last degree dangerous, unless the boatmen
know every rock and point, for the dugout canoe goes over at a touch, and
there is no life to be saved in the rapids. Now we were flying like a
swallow, and could not stop. There was one narrow shoot, or pass, just
in the middle of the river, where there was exactly room to an inch for a
canoe to pass, but to do this it was necessary to have moonlight enough
to see the King Rock, which rose in the stream close by the passage, and
at the critical instant to "fend off" with the hand and prevent the canoe
from driving full on the rock. A terrible storm was coming up, thunder
was growling afar, and clouds fast gathering in the sky.
The men had heard me talking the day before as to how storms were formed
in circles, and it had deeply impressed them. When Goshorn asked them
what we had better do, they said, "Leave it all to Mr. Leland; he knows
everything." I looked at the moon and saw that the clouds were not
driving dead against it, but _around_ while closing in, and I know not by
what strange inspiration I added, "You will have just time to clear King
Rock!"
It was still far away. I laid down my paddle and drew my blanket round
me, and smoked to the storm, and sang incantations to myself. It was a
fearful trial, actually risking death, but I felt no fear--only a dull
confidence in fate. Closer grew the clouds--darker the sky--when during
the very last second of light King Rock came in sight. Goshorn was ready
with his bull-like strength and gave the push; and just as we shot clear
into the channel it became dark as pitch, and the rain came down in a
torrent. Goshorn pitched his hat high into the air--_aux moulins_--and
hurrahed and cried in exulting joy.
"Now, Mr. Leland, sing us that German song you're always so jolly
with--_lodle yodle tol de rol de rol_!"
From that hour I was _Kchee-Bo-o-in_ or Grand Pow-wow to Sam Fox and his
friends. He believed in me, even as I believe in myself when such mad
"spells" come over me. One day he proved his confidence. It was bright
and sunshiny, and we were paddling along when we saw a "summer duck"
swimming perhaps fifty yards ahead. Sam was sitting in the bow exactly
between me and the duck. "Fire at it with your revolver!" cried Sam.
"It is too far away," I replied, "and you are right in the way."
Sam bent over sideways, glaring at me with his one strange eye. It was
just about as close a shot as was William Tell's at the apple. But I
knew that reputation for nerve depended on it, so I fired. As the duck
rose it dropped a feather.
"I knew you'd hit!" cried Sam triumphantly. And so I had, but I should
not like to try that shot again.
Reflex action of the brain and secondary automatism! It must be
so--Haeckel, thou reasonest well. But when the "old Injun" and my High-
Dutch ancestor are upon me, I reason not at all, and then I see visions
and dream dreams, and it always comes true, without the _least_
self-deception or delusion.
It is a marvellous thing that in these canoes, which tip over so easily,
men will pass over mill-dams ten or twelve feet high, as I myself have
done many a time, without upsetting. The manner of it is this. The
canoe is a log hollowed out. This is allowed to pass over till it dips
like a seesaw, or falls into the stream below. It is a dangerous,
reckless act, but generally succeeds. One day Sam Fox undertook to shoot
our dug-out over a fall. So he paddled hard, and ran the canoe headlong
to edge, he being in the bow. But it stuck halfway, and there was my
Samuel, ere he knew it, high in the air, paddling in the atmosphere, into
which thirty feet of canoe was raised.
Meanwhile, the legal business and renewal of the leases and the payment
of money was performed accurately and punctually. Talk about _manna_ in
the wilderness! _money_ in the wilderness came to the poor souls
impoverished by the war as a thousandfold nicer. But over and above
that, half a pound of coffee or a drink of whisky would cause a thrill of
delight. One day, stopping at a logger's camp, I gave a decent-looking
man a tin cup full of whisky. The first thing he did was to put it to
the mouth of a toddling two-year-old child and it took a good pull. I
remonstrated with him for it, when he replied, "Well, you see, sir, we
get it so seldom, that whisky is a kind o' _delicacy_ with us."
Sometimes the log huts were twenty miles apart. In such isolation there
is no rivalry of ostentation, and men care only to _live_. One day we
came to a log house. The occupant had several hundred acres of very good
land, and only a half acre under cultivation. He was absent at a county
court for amusement. All that I could see in the cabin was a rude seat,
an iron pot and spoon, and a squirrel-gun. There were two cavities or
holes in the bare earth floor, in which the old man and his wife slept,
each wrapped in a blanket. Even our boatman said that such carelessness
was unusual. But all were ignorant of a thousand refinements of life of
which the poorest English peasant _knows_ something, yet every one of
these people had an independence or pride far above all poverty.
One night we stopped at the house of a man who was said to possess
$150,000 (30,000 pounds) worth of land. The house was well enough. His
two bare-legged daughters, girls of seventeen or eighteen, lounged about
smoking pipes. I gave one a cigar. She replied, "I don't keer if I do
try it. I've allays wanted to know what a cigar smokes like." But she
didn't like it. Apropos of girls, I may say that there is a _far_ higher
standard of morals among these people than among the ignorant elsewhere.
It was indeed a wild country. One day Goshorn showed me a hill, and a
hunter had told him that when standing on it one summer afternoon he had
seen in a marshy place the very unusual spectacle of forty bears, all
wallowing together in the mud and playing at once. Also the marks of a
bear's claws on a tree. Game was plenty in this region. All the time
that I stayed with Goshorn we had every day at his well-furnished table
bear's meat, venison, or other game, fish, ham, chickens, &c.
There was a great deal of very beautiful scenery on Elk River, and some
of its "incidents" were marvellously strange. The hard sandstone rocks
had worn into shapes resembling castles and houses, incredibly like
buildings made by man. One day I saw and copied a vast square rock
through which ran to the light a perfect Gothic archway sixty feet high,
with a long wall like the side of a castle, and an immense square tower.
There are the most natural-looking houses and Schlosser imaginable rising
all alone in the forest. Very often the summits of the hills were
crowned with round towers. On the Ohio River there is a group of these
shaped like segments of a truncated cone, and "corniced" with another
piece reversed, like this:
{Round tower: p304.jpg}
These are called "Devil's Tea-tables." I drew them several times, but
could never give them the appearance of being _natural_ objects. It is
very extraordinary how Nature seems to have mocked man in advance in
these structures. In Fingal's Cave there is an absolutely original style
of architecture.
The last house which we came to was the best. In it dwelt a gentlemanly
elderly man with two ladylike daughters. His son, who was dressed in
"store clothes," had been a delegate to the Wheeling Convention. But the
war had borne hard on them, and for a long time _everything_ which they
used or wore had been made by their own hands. They had a home-made loom
and spinning-wheel--I saw several such looms on the river; they raised
their own cotton and wool and maple sugar, and were in all important
details utterly self-sustaining and independent. And they did not live
rudely at all, but like ladies and gentlemen, as really intelligent
people always can when they are _free_. The father had, not long before,
standing in his own door, shot a deer as it looked over the garden gate
at him. Goshorn, observing that I attached some value to the horns (a
new idea to him), secured them for himself.
A day or two after, while descending the river, we stopped to see an old
hunter who lived on the bank. He was a very shrewd, quaint old boy,
"good for a novel." He examined Goshorn's spectacles with so much
interest, that I suspect it was really the first time in his life that he
ever fully ascertained the "true inwardness and utilitarianism" of such
objects. He expressed great admiration, and said that if he had them he
could get twice as many deer as he did. I promised to send him a pair. I
begged from him deer-horns, which he gave me very willingly, expressing
wonder that I wanted such rubbish, and at my delight. And seeing that my
companion had a pair, he said scornfully:
"Dave Goshorn, what do _you_ know about such things? What's set _you_ to
gittin' deer's horns? Give 'em to this here young gentleman, who
understands such things that we don't, and who wants 'em fur some good
reason."
I will do Goshorn the justice to say that he gave them to me for a
parting present. My room at his house was quite devoid of all
decoration, but by arranging on the walls crossed canoe-paddles, great
bunches of the picturesque locust-thorn, often nearly a foot in length,
and the deer's horns, I made it look rather more human. But this
arrangement utterly bewildered the natives, especially the maids, who
naively asked me why I hung them old bones and thorns up in my room. As
this thorn is much used by the blacks in Voodoo, I suppose that it was
all explained by being set down to my "conjurin'."
The maid who attended to my room was a very nice, good girl, but one who
could not have been understood in England. I found that she gathered up
and treasured many utterly worthless trifling bits of pen-drawing which I
threw away. She explained that where she came from on Coal River,
anything like a picture was a great curiosity; also that her friends
believed that all the pictures in books, newspapers, &c., were drawn by
hand. I explained to her how they were made. When _I_ left I offered
her two dollars. She hesitated, and then said, "Mr. Leland, there have
been many, many gentlemen here who have offered me money, but I never
took a cent from any man till _now_. And I _will_ take this from you to
buy something that I can remember you by, for you have always treated me
kindly and like a lady." In rural America such girls are really lady-
helps, and not "servants," albeit those who know how to get on with them
find them the very best servants in the world; but they must be treated
as _friends_.
I went up Elk River several times on horse or in canoe to renew leases or
to lease new land, &c. The company sent on a very clever and intelligent
rather young man named Sandford, who had been a railroad superintendent,
to help me. I liked him very much. We had a third, a young Virginian,
named Finnal. At or near Cannelton I selected a spot where we put up a
steam-engine, and began to bore for oil. It was very near the famous gas-
well which once belonged to General Washington. This well gave forth
every week the equivalent of _one hundred and fifty_ tons of coal. It
was utilised in a factory. After I sunk our shaft it gave out; but I do
not believe that we stopped it, for no gas came into our well. Finnal
was the superintendent of the well. One day he nearly sat down--_nudo
podice_--on an immense rattlesnake. He had a little cottage and a fine
horse. He kept the latter in a stable and painted the door _white_, so
that when waking in the night he could see if any horse-thief had opened
it. Many efforts were made to rob him of it.
At this time Lee's army was disbanded, and fully one-half came straggling
in squads up the valley to Charleston to be paroled. David Goshorn's
hotel was simply crammed with Confederate officers, who slept anywhere.
With these I easily became friends; they seemed like Princeton Southern
college mates. Now I have to narrate a strange story. One evening when
I was sitting and smoking on the portico with some of these _bons
compagnons_ I said to one--
"People say that your men never once during the war got within sight of
Harrisburg or of a Northern city. But I believe they did. One day when
I was on guard I saw five men scout on the bank in full sight of it. But
nobody agreed with me."
The officer laughed silently, and cried aloud to a friend with a broken
arm in a sling, who lay within a room on a bed, "Come out here, L---.
Here is something which will interest you more than anything you ever
heard before."