Southern volunteers--Unpopularity of the press--Charleston--Fort
Sumter--Morris’ Island--Anti-union enthusiasm--Anecdote of
Colonel Wigfall--Interior view of the fort--North versus South.
There was a large crowd around the pier staring at the men in
uniform on the boat, which was filled with bales of goods,
commissariat stores, trusses of hay, and hampers, supplies for
the volunteer army on Morris’ Island. I was amused by the names
of the various corps, “Tigers,” “Lions,” “Scorpions,” “Palmetto
Eagles,” “Guards,” of Pickens, Sumter, Marion, and of various
other denominations, painted on the boxes. The original formation
of these volunteers is in companies, and they know nothing of
battalions or regiments. The tendency in volunteer outbursts is
sometimes to gratify the greatest vanity of the greatest number.
These companies do not muster more than fifty or sixty strong. Some
were “dandies,” and “swells,” and affected to look down on their
neighbours and comrades. Major Whiting told me there was difficulty
in getting them to obey orders at first, as each man had an idea
that he was as good an engineer as anybody else, “and a good deal
better, if it came to that.” It was easy to perceive it was the old
story of volunteer and regular in this little army.
As we got on deck, the major saw a number of rough,
long-haired-looking fellows in coarse gray tunics, with pewter
buttons and worsted braid lying on the hay-bales smoking their
cigars. “Gentlemen,” quoth he, very courteously, “You’ll oblige
me by not smoking over the hay. There’s powder below.” “I don’t
believe we’re going to burn the hay this time, kernel,” was
the reply, “and anyway, we’ll put it out afore it reaches the
’bustibles,” and they went on smoking. The major grumbled, and
worse, and drew off.
Among the passengers were some brethren of mine belonging to
the New York and local papers. I saw a short time afterwards a
description of the trip by one of these gentlemen, in which he
described it as an affair got up specially for himself, probably
in order to avenge himself on his military persecutors, for he had
complained to me the evening before, that the chief of General
Beauregard’s staff told him, to go to ----, when he applied at
head-quarters for some information. I found from the tone and looks
of my friends, that these literary gentlemen were received with
great disfavour, and Major Whiting, who is a bibliomaniac, and has
a very great liking for the best English writers, could not conceal
his repugnance and antipathy to my unfortunate confrères. “If I
had my way, I would fling them into the water; but the General has
given them orders to come on board. It is these fellows who have
brought all this trouble on our country.”
The traces of dislike of the freedom of the press, which I, to my
astonishment, discovered in the North, are broader and deeper in
the South, and they are not accompanied by the signs of dread of
its power which exist in New York, where men speak of the chiefs
of the most notorious journals very much as people in Italian
cities of past time might have talked of the most infamous bravo or
the chief of some band of assassins. Whiting comforted himself by
the reflection that they would soon have their fingers in a vice,
and then pulling out a ragged little sheet, turned suddenly on the
representative thereof, and proceeded to give the most unqualified
contradiction to most of the statements contained in “the full and
accurate particulars of the Bombardment and Fall of Fort Sumter,”
in the said journal, which the person in question listened to with
becoming meekness and contrition. “If I knew who wrote it,” said
the major, “I’d make him eat it.”
I was presented to many judges, colonels, and others of the mass of
society on board, and, “after compliments,” as the Orientals say,
I was generally asked, in the first place, what I thought of the
capture of Sumter, and in the second, what England would do when
the news reached the other side. Already the Carolinians regard the
Northern States as an alien and detested enemy, and entertain, or
profess, an immense affection for Great Britain.
When we had shipped all our passengers, nine-tenths of them in
uniform, and a larger proportion engaged in chewing, the whistle
blew, and the steamer sidled off from the quay into the yellowish
muddy water of the Ashley River, which is a creek from the sea,
with a streamlet running into the head waters some distance up.
The shore opposite Charleston is more than a mile distant, and is
low and sandy, covered here and there with patches of brilliant
vegetation, and long lines of trees. It is cut up with creeks,
which divide it into islands, so that passages out to sea exist
between some of them for light craft, though the navigation is
perplexed and difficult. The city lies on a spur or promontory
between the Ashley and the Cooper rivers, and the land behind it
is divided in the same manner by similar creeks, and is sandy
and light, bearing, nevertheless, very fine crops, and trees
of magnificent vegetation. The steeples, the domes of public
buildings, the rows of massive warehouses and cotton stores on the
wharfs, and the bright colours of the houses, render the appearance
of Charleston, as seen from the river front, rather imposing.
From the mastheads of the few large vessels in harbour floated
the Confederate flag. Looking to our right, the same standard was
visible, waving on the low, white parapets of the earthworks which
had been engaged in reducing Sumter.
That much-talked-of fortress lay some two miles ahead of us now,
rising up out of the water near the middle of the passage out to
sea between James’ Island and Sullivan’s Island. It struck me at
first as being like one of the smaller forts off Cronstadt, but a
closer inspection very much diminished its importance; the material
is brick, not stone, and the size of the place is exaggerated
by the low back ground, and by contrast with the sea-line. The
land contracts on both sides opposite the fort, a projection of
Morris’ Island, called “Cumming’s point,” running out on the left.
There is a similar promontory from Sullivan’s Island, on which is
erected Fort Moultrie, on the right from the sea entrance. Castle
Pinckney, which stands on a small island at the exit of the Cooper
River, is a place of no importance, and it was too far from Sumter
to take any share in the bombardment: the same remarks apply to
Fort Johnson on James’ Island, on the right bank of the Ashley
River below Charleston. The works which did the mischief were the
batteries of sand on Morris’ Island, at Cumming’s Point, and Fort
Moultrie. The floating battery, covered with railroad-iron, lay a
long way off, and could not have contributed much to the result.
As we approached Morris’ Island, which is an accumulation of sand
covered with mounds of the same material, on which there is a
scanty vegetation alternating with salt-water marshes, we could
perceive a few tents in the distance among the sand-hills. The
sand-bag batteries, and an ugly black parapet, with guns peering
through port-holes as if from a ship’s side, lay before us. Around
them men were swarming like ants, and a crowd in uniform were
gathered on the beach to receive us as we landed from the boat of
the steamer, all eager for news, and provisions, and newspapers,
of which an immense flight immediately fell upon them. A guard
with bayonets crossed in a very odd sort of manner, prevented any
unauthorised persons from landing. They wore the universal coarse
gray jacket and trousers, with worsted braid and yellow facings,
uncouth caps, lead buttons stamped with the palmetto-tree. Their
unbronzed firelocks were covered with rust. The soldiers lounging
about were mostly tall, well-grown men, young and old, some with
the air of gentlemen; others coarse, long-haired fellows, without
any semblance of military bearing, but full of fight, and burning
with enthusiasm, not unaided, in some instances, by coarser
stimulus.
The day was exceedingly warm and unpleasant, the hot wind blew the
fine white sand into our faces, and wafted it in minute clouds
inside eyelids, nostrils, and clothing; but it was necessary to
visit the batteries, so on we trudged into one and out of another,
walked up parapets, examined profiles, looked along guns, and
did everything that could be required of us. The result of the
examination was to establish in my mind the conviction, that if
the commander of Sumter had been allowed to open his guns on the
island, the first time he saw an indication of throwing up a
battery against him, he could have saved his fort. Moultrie, in
its original state, on the opposite side, could have been readily
demolished by Sumter. The design of the works was better than
their execution--the sand-bags were rotten, the sand not properly
revetted or banked up, and the traverses imperfectly constructed.
The barbette guns of the fort looked into many of the embrasures,
and commanded them.
The whole of the island was full of life and excitement.
Officers were galloping about as if on a field-day or in action.
Commissariat carts were toiling to and fro between the beach
and the camps, and sounds of laughter and revelling came from
the tents. These were pitched without order, and were of all
shapes, hues, and sizes, many being disfigured by rude charcoal
drawings outside, and inscriptions such as “The Live Tigers,”
“Rattlesnake’s-hole,” “Yankee Smashers,” &c. The vicinity of the
camps was in an intolerable state, and on calling the attention of
the medical officer who was with me, to the danger arising from
such a condition of things, he said with a sigh, “I know it all.
But we can do nothing. Remember they’re all volunteers, and do
just as they please.”
In every tent was hospitality, and a hearty welcome to all comers.
Cases of champagne and claret, French pâtés, and the like, were
piled outside the canvas walls, when there was no room for them
inside. In the middle of these excited gatherings I felt like a
man in the full possession of his senses coming in late to a wine
party. “Won’t you drink with me, sir, to the--(something awful)--of
Lincoln and all Yankees?” “No! if you’ll be good enough to excuse
me.” “Well, I think you’re the only Englishman who won’t.” Our
Carolinians are very fine fellows, but a little given to the
Bobadil style--hectoring after a cavalier fashion, which they
fondly believe to be theirs by hereditary right. They assume that
the British crown rests on a cotton bale, as the Lord Chancellor
sits on a pack of wool.
In one long tent there was a party of roystering young men,
opening claret, and mixing “cup” in large buckets; whilst others
were helping the servants to set out a table for a banquet
to one of their generals. Such heat, tobacco-smoke, clamour,
toasts, drinking, hand-shaking, vows of friendship! Many were the
excuses made for the more demonstrative of the Edonian youths by
their friends. “Tom is a little cut, sir; but he’s a splendid
fellow--he’s worth half-a-million of dollars.” This reference to
a money standard of value was not unusual or perhaps unnatural,
but it was made repeatedly; and I was told wonderful tales of
the riches of men who were lounging round, dressed as privates,
some of whom at that season, in years gone by, were looked for
at the watering places as the great lions of American fashion.
But Secession is the fashion here. Young ladies sing for it; old
ladies pray for it; young men are dying to fight for it; old men
are ready to demonstrate it. The founder of the school was St.
Calhoun. Here his pupils carry out their teaching in thunder and
fire. States’ Rights are displayed after its legitimate teaching,
and the Palmetto flag and the red bars of the Confederacy are its
exposition. The utter contempt and loathing for the venerated Stars
and Stripes, the abhorrence of the very words United States, the
intense hatred of the Yankee on the part of these people, cannot
be conceived by anyone who has not seen them. I am more satisfied
than ever that the Union can never be restored as it was, and that
it has gone to pieces, never to be put together again, in the old
shape, at all events by any power on earth.
After a long and tiresome promenade in the dust, heat, and fine
sand, through the tents, our party returned to the beach, where
we took boat, and pushed off for Fort Sumter. The Confederate
flag rose above the walls. On near approach the marks of the shot
against the _pain coupé_, and the embrasures near the salient were
visible enough; but the damage done to the hard brickwork was
trifling, except at the angles: the edges of the parapets were
ragged and pock-marked, and the quay-wall was rifted here and there
by shot; but no injury of a kind to render the work untenable could
be made out. The greatest damage inflicted was, no doubt, the
burning of the barracks, which were culpably erected inside the
fort, close to the flank wall facing Cumming’s Point.
As the boat touched the quay of the fort, a tall, powerful-looking
man came through the shattered gateway, and with uneven steps
strode over the rubbish towards a skiff which was waiting to
receive him, and into which he jumped and rowed off. Recognising
one of my companions as he passed our boat, he suddenly stood up,
and with a leap and a scramble tumbled in among us, to the imminent
danger of upsetting the party. Our new friend was dressed in the
blue frock-coat of a civilian, round which he had tied a red silk
sash--his waist-belt supported a straight sword, something like
those worn with Court dress. His muscular neck was surrounded
with a loosely-fastened silk handkerchief; and wild masses of
black hair, tinged with grey, fell from under a civilian’s hat
over his collar; his unstrapped trousers were gathered up high on
his legs, displaying ample boots, garnished with formidable brass
spurs. But his face was one not to be forgotten--a straight, broad
brow, from which the hair rose up like the vegetation on a river
bank, beetling black eyebrows--a mouth coarse and grim, yet full
of power, a square jaw--a thick argumentative nose--a new growth
of scrubby beard and moustache--these were relieved by eyes of
wonderful depth and light, such as I never saw before but in the
head of a wild beast. If you look some day when the sun is not too
bright into the eye of the Bengal tiger, in the Regent’s Park,
as the keeper is coming round, you will form some notion of the
expression I mean. It was flashing, fierce, yet calm--with a well
of fire burning behind and spouting through it, an eye pitiless in
anger, which now and then sought to conceal its expression beneath
half-closed lids, and then burst out with an angry glare, as if
disdaining concealment.
This was none other than Louis T. Wigfall, Colonel (then of his
own creation) in the Confederate army, and Senator from Texas in
the United States--a good type of the men whom the institutions
of the country produce or throw off--a remarkable man, noted for
his ready, natural eloquence; his exceeding ability as a quick,
bitter debater; the acerbity of his taunts; and his readiness
for personal encounter. To the last he stood in his place in the
Senate at Washington, when nearly every other Southern man had
seceded, lashing with a venomous and instant tongue, and covering
with insults, ridicule, and abuse, such men as Mr. Chandler, of
Michigan, and other Republicans: never missing a sitting of the
House, and seeking out adversaries in the bar-rooms or the gambling
tables. The other day, when the fire against Sumter was at its
height, and the fort, in flames, was reduced almost to silence, a
small boat put off from the shore, and steered through the shot and
the splashing waters right for the walls. It bore the colonel and
a negro oarsman. Holding up a white handkerchief on the end of his
sword, Wigfall landed on the quay, clambered through an embrasure,
and presented himself before the astonished Federals with a
proposal to surrender, quite unauthorised, and “on his own hook,”
which led to the final capitulation of Major Anderson.
I am sorry to say, our distinguished friend had just been paying
his respects _sans bornes_ to Bacchus or Bourbon, for he was
decidedly unsteady in his gait and thick in speech; but his head
was quite clear, and he was determined I should know all about his
exploit. Major Whiting desired to show me round the work, but he
had no chance. “Here is where I got in,” quoth Colonel Wigfall.
“I found a Yankee standing here by the traverse, out of the way of
our shot. He was pretty well scared when he saw me, but I told him
not to be alarmed, but to take me to the officers. There they were,
huddled up in that corner behind the brickwork, for our shells
were tumbling into the yard, and bursting like,”--&c. (The Colonel
used strong illustrations and strange expletives in narrative.)
Major Whiting shook his military head, and said something uncivil
to me, in private, in reference to volunteer colonels and the
like, which gave him relief; whilst the martial Senator--I forgot
to say that he has the name, particularly in the North, of having
killed more than half-a-dozen men in duels--(I had an escape of
being another)--conducted me through the casemates with uneven
steps, stopping at every traverse to expatiate on some phase of his
personal experiences, with his sword dangling between his legs, and
spurs involved in rubbish and soldiers’ blankets.
In my letter I described the real extent of the damage inflicted,
and the state of the fort as I found it. At first the batteries
thrown up by the Carolinians were so poor, that the United States’
officers in the fort were mightily amused at them, and anticipated
easy work in enfilading, ricocheting, and battering them to pieces,
if they ever dared to open fire. One morning, however, Capt.
Foster, to whom really belongs the credit of putting Sumter into
a tolerable condition of defence with the most limited means, was
unpleasantly surprised by seeing through his glass a new work in
the best possible situation for attacking the place, growing up
under the strenuous labours of a band of negroes. “I knew at once,”
he said, “the rascals had got an engineer at last.” In fact, the
Carolinians were actually talking of an escalade when the officers
of the regular army, who had “seceded,” came down and took the
direction of affairs, which otherwise might have had very different
results.
There was a working party of Volunteers clearing away the rubbish
in the place. It was evident they were not accustomed to labour.
And on asking why negroes were not employed, I was informed: “The
niggers would blow us all up, they’re so stupid; and the State
would have to pay the owners for any of them who were killed and
injured.” “In one respect, then, white men are not so valuable as
negroes?” “Yes, sir,--that’s a fact.”
Very few shell craters were visible in the terre-plein; the
military mischief, such as it was, showed most conspicuously on
the parapet platforms, over which shells had been burst as heavily
as could be, to prevent the manning of the barbette guns. A very
small affair, indeed, that shelling of Fort Sumter. And yet who
can tell what may arise from it? “Well, sir,” exclaimed one of
my companions, “I thank God for it, if it’s only because we are
beginning to have a history for Europe. The universal Yankee nation
swallowed us up.”
Never did men plunge into unknown depth of peril and trouble more
recklessly than these Carolinians. They fling themselves against
the grim, black future, as the cavaliers under Rupert may have
rushed against the grim, black Ironsides. Will they carry the image
farther? Well! The exploration of Sumter was finished at last, not
till we had visited the officers of the garrison, who lived in
a windowless, shattered room, reached by a crumbling staircase,
and who produced whiskey and crackers, many pleasant stories and
boundless welcome. One young fellow grumbled about pay. He said:
“I have not received a cent, since I came to Charleston for this
business.” But Major Whiting, some days afterwards, told me he
had not got a dollar on account of his pay, though on leaving
the United States’ army he had abandoned nearly all his means of
subsistence. These gentlemen were quite satisfied it would all be
right eventually; and no one questioned the power or inclination of
the Government, which had just been inaugurated under such strange
auspices, to perpetuate its principles and reward its servants.
After a time our party went down to the boats, in which we were
rowed to the steamer that lay waiting for us at Morris’ Island. The
original intention of the officers was to carry us over to Fort
Moultrie, on the opposite side of the Channel, and to examine it
and the floating iron battery; but it was too late to do so when we
got off, and the steamer only ran across and swept around homewards
by the other shore. Below, in the cabin, there was spread a lunch
or quasi dinner; and the party of Senators, past and present,
aides-de-camp, journalists, and flaneurs, were not indisposed to
join it. For me there was only one circumstance which marred the
pleasure of that agreeable reunion. Colonel and Senator Wigfall,
who had not sobered himself by drinking deeply, in the plenitude
of his exultation alluded to the assault on Senator Sumner as a
type of the manner in which the Southerners would deal with the
Northerners generally, and cited it as a good exemplification of
the fashion in which they would bear their “whipping.” Thence, by
a natural digression, he adverted to the inevitable consequences
of the magnificent outburst of Southern indignation against the
Yankees on all the nations of the world, and to the immediate
action of England in the matter as soon as the news came. Suddenly
reverting to Mr. Sumner, whose name he loaded with obloquy, he
spoke of Lord Lyons in terms so coarse, that, forgetting the
condition of the speaker, I resented the language applied to the
English Minister, in a very unmistakeable manner; and then rose
and left the cabin. In a moment I was followed on deck by Senator
Wigfall: his manner much calmer, his hair brushed back, his eye
sparkling. There was nothing left to be desired in his apologies,
which were repeated and energetic. We were joined by Mr. Manning,
Major Whiting, and Senator Chesnut, and others, to whom I expressed
my complete contentment with Mr. Wigfall’s explanations. And so we
returned to Charleston. The Colonel and Senator, however, did not
desist from his attentions to the good--or bad--things below. It
was a strange scene--these men, hot and red-handed in rebellion,
with their lives on the cast, trifling and jesting, and carousing
as if they had no care on earth--all excepting the gentlemen of the
local press, who were assiduous in note and food taking. It was
near nightfall before we set foot on the quay of Charleston. The
city was indicated by the blaze of lights, and by the continual
roll of drums, and the noisy music, and the yelling cheers which
rose above its streets. As I walked towards the hotel, the evening
drove of negroes, male and female, shuffling through the streets
in all haste, in order to escape the patrol and the last peal
of the curfew bell, swept by me; and as I passed the guardhouse
of the police, one of my friends pointed out the armed sentries
pacing up and down before the porch, and the gleam of arms in the
room inside. Further on, a squad of mounted horsemen, heavily
armed, turned up a bye-street, and with jingling spurs and sabres
disappeared in the dust and darkness. That is the horse patrol.
They scour the country around the city, and meet at certain places
during the night to see if the niggers are all quiet. Ah, Fuscus!
these are signs of trouble.
“Integer vitæ, scelerisque purus
Non eget Mauri jaculis neque arcu,
Nec venenatis gravidâ sagittis,
Fusce, pharetrâ.”
But Fuscus is going to his club; a kindly, pleasant, chatty,
card-playing, cocktail-consuming place. He nods proudly to an old
white-woolled negro steward or head-waiter--a slave--as a proof
which I cannot accept, with the curfew tolling in my ears, of the
excellencies of the domestic institution. The club was filled with
officers; one of them, Mr. Ransome Calhoun,[2] asked me what was
the object which most struck me at Morris’ Island; I tell him--as
was indeed the case--that it was a letter copying-machine, a case
of official stationery, and a box of Red Tape, lying on the beach,
just landed and ready to grow with the strength of the young
independence.
But listen! There is a great tumult, as of many voices coming up
the street, heralded by blasts of music. It is a speech-making from
the front of the hotel. Such an agitated, lively multitude! How
they cheer the pale, frantic man, limber and dark-haired, with
uplifted arms and clenched fists, who is perorating on the balcony!
“What did he say?” “Who is he?” “Why it’s he again!” “That’s Roger
Pryor--he says that if them Yankee trash don’t listen to reason,
and stand from under, we’ll march to the North and dictate the
terms of peace in Faneuil Hall! Yes, sir--and so we will, certa-i-n
su-re!” “No matter, for all that; we have shown we can whip the
Yankees whenever we meet them--at Washington or down here.” How
much I heard of all this to-day--how much more this evening! The
hotel as noisy as ever--more men in uniform arriving every few
minutes, and the hall and passages crowded with tall, good-looking
Carolinians.