“STATE PRIDE.”
Leaving Washington by steamer again, early on the morning of the twelfth
of September, a breezy sail of three hours down the Potomac brought us
to Acquia Creek.
The creek was still there, debouching broad and placid into the river,
for, luckily, destroying armies cannot consume the everlasting streams.
The forests, which densely covered all that region before the war, had
been cut away. Not a building of any kind was to be seen; and only the
blackened ruins of half-burnt wharves, extending out into the river,
remained to indicate that here had been an important depot of supplies.
Taking the cars near an extemporized landing, we traversed a country of
shaggy hills, completely clad in thick undergrowths which had sprung up
where the ancient forests stood. At the end of two hours’ slow travel,
through a tract almost exclusively of this character, we arrived at a
hiatus in the railroad. The bridge over the Rappahannock not having been
rebuilt since the war, it was necessary to cross to Fredericksburg by
another conveyance than the cars. A long line of coaches was in waiting
for the train. I climbed the topmost seat of the foremost coach, which
was soon leading the rumbling, dusty procession over the hills toward
the city.
From a barren summit we obtained a view of Fredericksburg, pleasantly
situated on the farther bank of the river, with the high ridge behind it
which Burnside endeavored in vain to take. We crossed the brick-colored
Rappahannock (not a lovely stream to look upon) by a pontoon bridge, and
ascending the opposite shore, rode through the half-ruined city.
Fredericksburg had not yet begun to recover from the effects of
Burnside’s shells. Scarcely a house in the burnt portions had been
rebuilt. Many houses were entirely destroyed, and only the solitary
chimney-stacks remained. Of others, you saw no vestige but broken brick
walls, and foundations overgrown with Jamestown-weeds, sumachs, and
thistles. Farther up from the river the town had been less badly used;
but we passed even there many a dwelling with a broken chimney, and with
great awkward holes in walls and roofs. Some were windowless and
deserted; but others had been patched up and rendered inhabitable again.
High over the city soar the church-spires, which, standing between two
artillery fires on the day of the battle, received the ironical
compliments of both. The zinc sheathing of one of these steeples is well
riddled and ripped, and the tipsy vane leans at an angle of forty-five
degrees from its original perpendicular.
Sitting next me on the stage-top was a vivacious young expressman, who
was in the battle, and who volunteered to give me some account of it. No
doubt his description was beautifully clear, but as he spoke only of
“our army,” without calling it by name, it was long before I could
decide which army was meant. Sometimes it seemed to be one, then it was
more likely the other; so that, before his account of its movements was
ended, my mind was in a delightful state of confusion. A certain
delicacy on my part, which was quite superfluous, had prevented me from
asking him plainly at first on which side he was fighting. At last, by
inference and indirection, I got at the fact;—“our army” was the Rebel
army.
“I am a son of Virginia!” he told me afterwards, his whole manner
expressing a proud satisfaction. “I was opposed to secession at first,
but afterwards I went into it with my whole heart and soul. Do you want
to know what carried me in? State pride, sir! nothing else in the world.
I’d give more for Virginia than for all the rest of the Union put
together; and I was bound to go with my State.”
This was spoken with emphasis, and a certain rapture, as a lover might
speak of his mistress. I think I never before realized so fully what
“State pride” was. In New England and the West, you find very little of
it. However deep it may lie in the hearts of the people, it is not their
habit to rant about it. You never hear a Vermonter or an Indianian
exclaim, “I believe my State is worth all the rest of the Union!” with
excited countenance, lip curved, and eye in fine frenzy rolling. Their
patriotism is too large and inclusive to be stopped by narrow State
boundaries. Besides, in communities where equality prevails there is
little of that peculiar pride which the existence of caste engenders.
Accustomed to look down upon slaves and poor whites, the aristocratic
classes soon learn to believe that they are the people, and that wisdom
will die with them.
In the case of Virginians, I think that the mere name of the State has
also something to do with their pride in her. To hear one of them
enunciate the euphonious syllables when asked to what portion of the
Union he belongs, is wonderfully edifying; it is as good as eating a
peach. “_V-i-r-g-i-n-i-a_,” he tells you, dwelling with rich intonations
on the luscious vowels and consonants,—in his mind doubtless the
choicest in the alphabet; and he seems proudly conscious, as he utters
them, of having spoken a charm which enwraps him in an atmosphere of
romance. Thenceforth he is unapproachable on that verdurous ground, the
envy and despair of all who are so unfortunate as to have been born
elsewhere. Thus a rich word surrounds itself with rich associations. But
suppose a different name: instead of Virginia, Stubland, for example. It
might indeed be the best State of all, yet, believe me, _Stubland_ would
have in all its borders no soil fertile enough to grow the fine plant of
State pride.
“I believe,” said I, “there is but one State as proud as Virginia, and
that is the fiery little State of South Carolina.”
“I have less respect for South Carolina,” said he, “than for any other
State in the Union. South Carolina troops were the worst troops in the
Confederate army. It was South Carolina’s self-conceit and bluster that
caused the war.”
(So, State pride in another State than Virginia was only
“self-conceit.”)
[Illustration: TAKING THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE.]
“Yes,” said I, “South Carolina began the war; but Virginia carried it
on. If Virginia had thrown the weight of her very great power in the
Union against secession, resort to arms would never have been necessary.
She held a position which she has forfeited forever, because she was not
true to it. By seceding she lost wealth, influence, slavery, and the
blood of her bravest sons; and what has she gained? I wonder, sir, how
your State pride can hold out so well.”
“Virginia,” he replied, with another gleam, his eyes doing the fine
frenzy again, “Virginia made the gallantest fight that ever was; and I
am prouder of her to-day than I ever was in my life!”
“But you are glad she is back in the Union again?”
“To tell the truth, I am. I think more of the Union, too, than I ever
did before. It was a square, stand-up fight; we got beaten, and I
suppose it is all for the best. The very hottest Secessionists are now
the first to come back and offer support to the government.” He tapped a
little tin trunk he carried. “I have fifty pardons here, which I am
carrying from Washington to Richmond, for men who, a year ago, you would
have said would drown themselves sooner than take the oath of allegiance
to the United States. It was a rich sight to see these very men crowding
to take the oath. It was a bitter pill to some, and they made wry faces
at it; but the rest were glad enough to get back into the old Union. It
was like going home.”
“What astonishes me,” said I, “after all the Southern people’s violent
talk about the last ditch,—about carrying on an endless guerrilla
warfare after their armies were broken up, and fighting in swamps and
mountains till the last man was exterminated,—what astonishes me is,
that they take so sensible a view of their situation, and accept it so
frankly; and that you, a Rebel, and I, a Yankee, are sitting on this
stage talking over the bloody business so good-naturedly!”
“Well, it is astonishing, when you think of it! Southern men and
Northern men ride together in the trains, and stop at the same hotels,
as if we were all one people,—as indeed we are: one nation now,” he
added, “as we never were before, and never could have been without the
war.”
I got down at the hotel, washed and brushed away the dust of travel, and
went out to the dining-room. There the first thing that met my eye was a
pair of large wooden fans, covered with damask cloth which afforded an
ample flap to each, suspended over the table, and set in motion by means
of a rope dropped from a pulley by the door. At the end of the rope was
a shining negro-boy about ten years old, pulling as if it were the rope
of a fire-bell, and the whole town were in flames. The fans swayed to
and fro, a fine breeze blew all up and down the table, and not a fly was
to be seen. I noticed before long, however, that the little darkey’s
industry was of an intermittent sort; for at times he would cease
pulling altogether, until the landlady passed that way, when he would
seem to hear the cries of fire again, and once more fall to ringing his
silent alarm-bell in the most violent manner.
The landlady was the manager of the house; and I naturally took her to
be a widow until her husband was pointed out to me,—a mere tavern
lounger, of no account any way. It is quite common to find Virginia
hotels kept in this manner. The wife does the work; the husband takes
his ease in his inn. The business goes in her name;—he is the sleeping
partner.
After dinner I went out to view the town. As I stood looking at the
empty walls of the gutted court-house, a sturdy old man approached. He
stopped to answer my questions, and pointing at the havoc made by
shells, exclaimed,—
“You see the result of the vanity of Virginia!”
“Are you a Virginian!”
“I am; but that is no reason why I should be blind to the faults of my
State. It was the vanity of Virginia, and nothing else, that caused all
our trouble.”
(Here was another name for “State pride.”)
“You were not very much in favor of secession, I take it?”
“In favor of it!” he exclaimed, kindling. “Didn’t they have me in jail
here nine weeks because I would not vote for it? If I hadn’t been an old
man, they would have hung me. Ah, I told them how it would be, from the
first; but they wouldn’t believe me. Now they see! Look at this ruined
city! Look at the farms and plantations laid waste! Look at the complete
paralysis of business; the rich reduced to poverty; the men and boys
with one arm, one leg, or one hand; the tens of thousands of graves; the
broken families;—it is all the result of vanity! vanity!”
He showed me the road to the Heights, and we parted on the corner.